Book Image

SDL Game Development

By : Shaun Mitchell
5 (1)
Book Image

SDL Game Development

5 (1)
By: Shaun Mitchell

Overview of this book

SDL 2.0 is the latest release of the popular Simple DirectMedia Layer API, which is designed to make life easier for C++ developers, allowing you simple low-level access to various multiplatform audio, graphics, and input devices.SDL Game Development guides you through creating your first 2D game using SDL and C++. It takes a clear and practical approach to SDL game development, ensuring that the focus remains on creating awesome games.Starting with the installation and setup of SDL, you will quickly become familiar with useful SDL features, covering sprites, state management, and OOP, leading to a reusable framework that is extendable for your own games. SDL Game Development culminates in the development of two exciting action games that utilize the created framework along with tips to improve the framework.
Table of Contents (16 chapters)
SDL Game Development
Credits
About the Author
About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Index

What is a tile map?


If you have played a lot of 2D games then you will be very familiar with tile maps. We will start by looking at an example in the form of the following screenshot:

This 20 x 15 tile map was made using the following screenshot called a tileset.

As you can see, one huge advantage to a tile system like this is that you can create large maps from relatively small image files. Tile maps are essentially a multidimensional array of IDs that tell us which part of the tileset we want to draw at each location. It will help to look at the images again with their IDs in place as shown in the following screenshot:

Here is the tileset with its IDs in place as shown in the preceding screenshot.

To draw the map we loop through the number of columns and the number of rows, grab the correct tile using its ID, and draw it to the screen. Any tile with an ID of zero will not be drawn (a blank tile). This can be seen in the preceding screenshot.