Book Image

Procedural Content Generation for C++ Game Development

By : Dale Green
Book Image

Procedural Content Generation for C++ Game Development

By: Dale Green

Overview of this book

Procedural generation is a growing trend in game development. It allows developers to create games that are bigger and more dynamic, giving the games a higher level of replayability. Procedural generation isn’t just one technique, it’s a collection of techniques and approaches that are used together to create dynamic systems and objects. C++ is the industry-standard programming language to write computer games. It’s at the heart of most engines, and is incredibly powerful. SFML is an easy-to-use, cross-platform, and open-source multimedia library. Access to computer hardware is broken into succinct modules, making it a great choice if you want to develop cross-platform games with ease. Using C++ and SFML technologies, this book will guide you through the techniques and approaches used to generate content procedurally within game development. Throughout the course of this book, we’ll look at examples of these technologies, starting with setting up a roguelike project using the C++ template. We’ll then move on to using RNG with C++ data types and randomly scattering objects within a game map. We will create simple console examples to implement in a real game by creating unique and randomised game items, dynamic sprites, and effects, and procedurally generating game events. Then we will walk you through generating random game maps. At the end, we will have a retrospective look at the project. By the end of the book, not only will you have a solid understanding of procedural generation, but you’ll also have a working roguelike game that you will have extended using the examples provided.
Table of Contents (19 chapters)
Procedural Content Generation for C++ Game Development
Credits
About the Author
Acknowledgment
About the Reviewer
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Index

Setting Boolean values randomly


Perhaps the simplest of all data types is the humble bool. With only two states, true and false, it shouldn't be too hard to set randomly! When represented as integers, the two states have the following properties:

  • False = 0 or lower

  • True = 1 or higher

Given this, to randomly assign a bool we simply need to generate either the number 0 or 1.

Generating a number between 0 and 1

In Chapter 1, An Introduction to Procedural Generation, we covered the generation of random numbers within a specific range. Well we're now going to put that to use. Using the std::rand() function we will generate a number between 0 and 1:

std::rand() % 2;

Tip

Remember, std::rand() generates a number between 0 and RAND_MAX function. We then calculate the remainder of that result divided by 2. This leaves just the range 0 and 1.

A bool does not have to be set with the true or false keyword. You can assign an integer to a bool and its state will be determined by the integer's value using the rule...