Book Image

SFML Game Development By Example

By : Raimondas Pupius
Book Image

SFML Game Development By Example

By: Raimondas Pupius

Overview of this book

Simple and Fast Multimedia Library (SFML) is a simple interface comprising five modules, namely, the audio, graphics, network, system, and window modules, which help to develop cross-platform media applications. By utilizing the SFML library, you are provided with the ability to craft games quickly and easily, without going through an extensive learning curve. This effectively serves as a confidence booster, as well as a way to delve into the game development process itself, before having to worry about more advanced topics such as “rendering pipelines” or “shaders.” With just an investment of moderate C++ knowledge, this book will guide you all the way through the journey of game development. The book starts by building a clone of the classical snake game where you will learn how to open a window and render a basic sprite, write well-structured code to implement the design of the game, and use the AABB bounding box collision concept. The next game is a simple platformer with enemies, obstacles and a few different stages. Here, we will be creating states that will provide custom application flow and explore the most common yet often overlooked design patterns used in game development. Last but not the least, we will create a small RPG game where we will be using common game design patterns, multiple GUI. elements, advanced graphical features, and sounds and music features. We will also be implementing networking features that will allow other players to join and play together. By the end of the book, you will be an expert in using the SFML library to its full potential.
Table of Contents (21 chapters)
SFML Game Development By Example
Credits
About the Author
About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Index

Fixed time-step


In some cases, the code for time management that we've written doesn't really apply correctly. Let's say we only want to call certain methods at a fixed rate of 60 times per second. It could be a physics system that requires updating only a certain amount of times, or it can be useful if the game is grid-based. Whatever the case is, when an update rate is really important, a fixed time-step is your friend. Unlike the variable time-step, where the next update and draw happens as soon as the previous one is done, the fixed time-step approach will ensure that certain game logic is only happening at a provided rate. It's fairly simple to implement a fixed time-step. First, we must make sure that instead of overwriting the elapsed time value of the previous iteration, we add to it like so:

void Game::RestartClock(){
    m_elapsed += m_clock.restart();
}

The basic expression for calculating the amount of time for an individual update throughout a 1 second interval is illustrated...