Book Image

SFML Game Development

By : Artur Moreira, Henrik Vogelius Hansson, Jan Haller, Henrik Valter Vogelius, SFML
Book Image

SFML Game Development

By: Artur Moreira, Henrik Vogelius Hansson, Jan Haller, Henrik Valter Vogelius, SFML

Overview of this book

Game development comprises the combination of many different aspects such as game logics, graphics, audio, user input, physics and much more. SFML is an Open Source C++ library designed to make game development more accessible, exposing multimedia components to the user through a simple, yet powerful interface. If you are a C++ programmer with a stack of ideas in your head and seeking a platform for implementation, your search ends here.Starting with nothing more than a blank screen, SFML Game Development will provide you with all the guidance you need to create your first fully featured 2D game using SFML 2.0. By the end, you'll have learned the basic principles of game development, including advanced topics such as how to network your game, how to utilize particle systems and much more.SFML Game Development starts with an overview of windows, graphics, and user inputs. After this brief introduction, you will start to get to grips with SFML by building up a world of different game objects, and implementing more and more gameplay features. Eventually, you'll be handling advanced visual effects, audio effects and network programming like an old pro. New concepts are discussed, while the code steadily develops.SFML Game Development will get you started with animations, particle effects and shaders. As well as these fundamental game aspects, we're also covering network programming to the extent where you'll be able to support the game running from two different machines. The most important part, the gameplay implementation with enemies and missiles, will make up the core of our top-scrolling airplane shoot' em-up game!You will learn everything you need in SFML Game Development in order to start with game development and come closer to creating your own game.

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SFML Game Development
Artur Moreira | Henrik Vogelius Hansson | Jan Haller | Henrik Valter Vogelius | SFML
Jun, 2013 | 296 pages
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Table of Contents (18 chapters)
SFML Game Development
SFML Game Development
Credits
Credits
Foreword
Foreword
About the Authors
About the Authors
About the Reviewers
About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Preface
Free Chapter
1
Making a Game Tick
Making a Game Tick
Introducing SFML
A few notes on C++
Developing the first game
Game loops and frames
Displaying sprites on the screen
Summary
2
Keeping Track of Your Textures – Resource Management
Keeping Track of Your Textures – Resource Management
Defining resources
Resources in SFML
A typical use case
An automated approach
Error handling
Generalizing the approach
Summary
3
Forge of the Gods – Shaping Our World
Forge of the Gods – Shaping Our World
Entities
Rendering the scene
Updating the scene
The view
Landscape rendering
Composing our world
Integrating the Game class
Summary
4
Command and Control – Input Handling
Command and Control – Input Handling
Polling events
Getting the input state in real time
Playing nice with your application neighborhood
A command-based communication system
Customizing key bindings
Summary
5
Diverting the Game Flow – State Stack
Diverting the Game Flow – State Stack
Defining a state
The state stack
The state context
Integrating the stack in the Application class
Navigating between states
The loading screen – sample
Summary
6
Waiting and Maintenance Area – Menus
Waiting and Maintenance Area – Menus
The GUI hierarchy, the Java way
Updating the menu
The promised key bindings
Summary
7
Warfare Unleashed – Implementing Gameplay
Warfare Unleashed – Implementing Gameplay
Equipping the entities
Creating enemies
Adding projectiles
Picking up some goodies
Collision detection and response
An interacting world
Victory and defeat
Summary
8
Every Pixel Counts – Adding Visual Effects
Every Pixel Counts – Adding Visual Effects
Defining texture atlases
Low-level rendering
Particle systems
Animated sprites
Post effects and shaders
Summary
9
Cranking Up the Bass – Music and Sound Effects
Cranking Up the Bass – Music and Sound Effects
Music themes
Sound effects
Sounds in 3D space
Summary
10
Company Atop the Clouds – Co-op Multiplayer
Company Atop the Clouds – Co-op Multiplayer
Playing multiplayer games
Interacting with sockets
Data transport
Network architectures
Creating the structure for multiplayer
Working with the Server
Taking a peek in the other end – the client
Latency
Cheating prevention
Summary
Index
Index

Foreword

I'm really honored to write the first words of this book, the very first one about SFML. When I started to write this library, in 2006, I couldn't imagine that it would become so much popular. Around 100,000 visitors per month, 100 new forum posts everyday... this is huge! And this is just the beginning; with the release of SFML 2.0, the library makes an important step forward. While SFML 1 is a constantly evolving (understand "unstable") API, SFML 2.0 is meant to be a robust, stable, and mature foundation for the future. And hopefully a solid base for more and more great games.

Increasing popularity also means more effort from the authors to provide complete and quality documentation. Sadly, this is often overlooked by developers.

Although I do my best to provide detailed tutorials for SFML, they are nothing more than an improved API documentation. Users often ask me where they can find a more complete guide to start programming games with SFML. And until today, I had nowhere to direct them to. But Artur, Henrik, and Jan did a great job to fill this hole. They have gathered their wisdom and experience into a unique book that covers the basics of game programming, as well as everything that SFML has to offer—from audio to network, through advanced graphics. What I really appreciate about this book is that it is written with the same philosophy that is behind SFML: good design, simplicity, and modern code.

I hope you will enjoy reading this book as much as I did and find what you're looking for; whether you're a beginner who wants to learn game programming with SFML, or a more experienced programmer who wants to improve his design and technical skills. And don't hesitate to come to the SFML forum if you have questions or comments. I, the authors of this book, and all the community will be glad to answer you.

Laurent Gomila

Author of SFML

Software Engineer, Tegesoft, France

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