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

Understanding component-based architecture


Component-based architecture, also known as component-based design and modular programming, is an approach to software design that aims to break down behavior into succinct, reusable components. We already do this to a certain extent with object-orientated design, but component-based architecture takes this further. For example, if an object such as a sprite or a 3D model needs a certain behavior, it will be defined through a component that the object will own, as opposed to being inherited from a base class.

Problems with a traditional inheritance-based approach

Before we get into the pros and cons of a component-based approach, let's look at the problems that a traditional inheritance-based approach brings. It's these problems that we'll aim to fix.

Convoluted inheritance structures

Let's suppose that we have a simple player object that requires a 3D model and to be effected by our game physics. Let's look at an inheritance structure that may be needed...