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02.02 - Game Development Tools

Teej · 2004-04-22T16:00:51

Game Development Tools If you want to write games, you’re going to need more than NOTEPAD . In this article I quickly run through some of the tools you should have at your disposal, and mention some other considerations as well. The Operating System What is the target platform for our games? Although Linux is gaining popularity by leaps and bounds of late, we’re still going with the most popular of platforms, Windows. Of course, Windows comes in many flavors, and those we’re interested in are 95/98/ME/NT/2K. Luckily for us, software on these operating systems is compatible… …but not 100%. If you’re not aware of DirectX technology, don’t worry about it for now – all you need to know for the time being is that we’re going to be using DirectX components in our games, and one of these aforementioned operating systems doesn’t adequately support DirectX (at the version we’re going to be using). I’m referring to Windows NT, which is too bad because it has always been the choice for software developers. While it is true that there is a version of DirectX on Windows NT, it’s outdated – we would have to restrict ourselves to using it, and we wouldn’t be learning new technology, so it’s a concession we’re going to make. That leaves us with Windows 95/98/ME/2K. Hey, what about plain ol’ DOS? For years, DOS was the gaming platform, even when Windows was in wide use. The problem with the Windows of old was that it didn’t allow direct access to the hardware, and therefore games written for it were too slow to be considered. In DOS, you had direct control, and in Windows you had the GDI (Graphics Device Interface), which wasn’t designed for high-speed graphics applications. Of course, this was eventually remedied with technologies such as DirectX, which allowed games the conduit to the hardware that’s needed for speed. There’s one other important thing to note about using Windows as our gaming platform, and that’s compatibility. Windows provides an abstraction to the hardware in the form of drivers, which implement a consistent interface to the hardware’s capabilities. This allows us to utilize the video card, sound card and other devices without even knowing what vendor they’re from. In DOS, we’d have an insurmountable problem on our hands – all hardware is not created equal. Bottom-line: write your game in Windows and it’s going to work on a wide variety of systems and configurations. The C Compiler It probably won’t come as a surprise to you that I use Microsoft Visual C++ for all of my C/C++ programming -- it’s easily the most popular compiler out there. What about the others compilers out there? At first, you’d think that any C compiler would be fine, but there is a caveat: our code will be considered C++, and utilizes COM components. Sure, we’ll be coding in C, but we’re also using DirectX in our programs, and that requires a C++ compiler. Microsoft provides DirectX libraries for use with their own compiler (MSVC) and for Borland, so it would seem that there are your options in a nutshell. I’ve heard of people using other compilers successfully, but you’ll have to inquire in this forum about which compilers can get the job done. Graphics-Editing Software Since you’re in Windows, you already have at least one graphics-editing package – the infamous [b]PAINT . Right off the top of my head I can think of a couple of reasons why that won’t cut it, one being it’s lack of palette editing support, and another it’s total lack of features. Perhaps we can get some feedback from others in the forum on what they use – some will be rather interested in Freeware/Shareware applications. Personally, I use JASC’s PaintShop Pro . I’ve never had need for anything else when it comes to bitmaps. Sound Editing Software This may not be an important consideration for you right away, but there comes a time when you’re faced with the prospect of creating and editing your own audio clips. For the time being, I’ll just mention a few of the more popular types of audio software and let this aspect of game development slide until we have occasion to make it an issue. Sonic Foundry’s SoundForge is a sound-processing tool that let’s you manipulate almost any type of audio file, and is considered the ‘cream of the crop’ by many. Of course, you could use darned-near anything to record a sound, but if you need to do anything to it (other than copy it) you’ll need a sound-processing package such as this – there’s an amazing amount of features at your disposal. MIDI soundtracks can be created with a tool such as Twelve Tone System’s Cakewalk Pro Audio software. Steinburg’s Cubase is a similar title that comes to mind. Check out their websites for more information. Feel free to reply to this topic with your questions, comments or suggestions.

Hands-On Interactive Game Development Workshops

Started by Teej April 09, 2001 12:09 AM

58 comments, last by Teej 19 years, 12 months ago

Young and impatient

122

July 17, 2002 08:56 AM

Yeah its me again. I got a good compiler, ummm Dev-c++ or something similar to that and i typed in a few codes and it popped up with an error message. Will some pleeez tell me what i did wrong.
Code:
#include <iostream>
#include <stdlib.h>

int main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
int first=1;
int second=5;
int third=3;
int sum=(first+second)*third;
printf("%d ",sum);
system("PAUSE");
return 0;

}
Error messages:
2 C:\DEV-C_~1\2
unable to run program file.

The Compiler log says this:
Executing make...
make.exe -f "C:\DOCUME~1\TOMCOL~1\MYDOCU~1\jeff''s\images\DEV-C_~1\Makefile.win" all
Execution terminated

Please can someone help me.

Only the eyes of a true player will see what realy beholds the game. Only the eyes of a true player may see the pixels and nothing else. Only the eyes of the true player can see the game, feel the game, be the game. I am a true player. Are you?

Only the eyes of a true player will see what realy beholds the game. Only the eyes of a true player may see the pixels and nothing else. Only the eyes of the true player can see the game, feel the game, be the game. I am a true player. Are you?

Dralion

122

December 05, 2002 10:28 AM

Anyone here have any luck using Audacity for sound editing. I have it anyhow, and want to know if it would serve the purpose

You''ve never seen anyone like me, and you''ll never see anyone like me again!

liquidAir

314

March 26, 2003 03:58 AM

Level editors? anyone?

Antinormal (My Blog)

Anonymous

April 02, 2003 06:29 PM

Theres a little tool that everyone here has underestimated. Early SNES developers didn''t have paintshop or anything, do without further hesitation, I present to you the greatest 2D game sprite creator in HISTORY! PAINT! AAAHAHAHA HAHA HAAA!
Okay, okay, enough of that. Here is some of my work, all in paint.

http://www.eminentpixel.com/files/N1.gif

Anonymous

June 17, 2003 06:52 PM

www.clickteam.com

for anywhere from $30 to $300 you can buy completly GUI based game development programs that need no real programming!

Sumo

122

September 07, 2003 08:31 PM

I''m using Painter Classic for graphics. Its a natural media ''simulator''. Its definitely my favorite. For 2D graphics creation its king!! For audio I use SoundForge and Cakewalk. I''m not too good with audio so I can only do basic editing. No composing for me!!

Anonymous

September 07, 2003 08:44 PM

Or you could stop being a cheapskate and just buy Visual Studio. Install Intel''s compiler and you have the best dev environment you can get.

Anonymous

November 22, 2003 01:40 PM

Something I recently made with a commercial game development software. http://home.ripway.com/2003-6/12352/Matrix.zip

Shift: jump
Control: hold for slow mo
Z: shoot
Up while jumping: fly

Squirell

196

January 14, 2004 10:26 PM

i got the free trial of Jasc Paint Shop with my computer and its still working after like 8 months of use... strange

Anonymous

April 22, 2004 04:00 PM

I am needing a 3d game platform to build my game!!

ground, fog... etc but i need something professional!!

not darkbasic or any other things like that!!

I work on 3d s max and photoshop and i wanna make a game
like gothic 2

please help!

02.02 - Game Development Tools

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02.02 - Game Development Tools

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