11 replies to this topic

[Hodgeka]

Hi,
I havea basic particle system written with OpenGL and glut using c++. I want to implement a basic GUI over it for real-time editing of variables that effect the particle system. How would you suggest doing this? (what libraries, etc)

[Chris_F]

You could have a look at Berkelium.

It's basically the Chromium browser as a library that renders to a texture. You could design all of your GUI using HTML. If you have experience with web programming, this may be advantageous.

[0x3a]

You can take a look at this opensource project -> http://boxesproject.sourceforge.net/
When I got stuck writing my own library I looked at this one.

[Hodgeka]

Thanks for the responses! I'll check out the boxes project. I don't know much about web design, so I'm not sure about berkelium. How viable is writing my own GUI? Are there common approaches to GUI with OpenGL?

[haegarr]

There is also AntTweakBar, a solution made especially for cases like this one.

[Hodgeka]

Wow, thanks Haegarr that is pretty much exactly what I was looking for! I'm still curious about common GUI solutions though. What would I want to do for an in-game UI?

[Hodgeka]

Many people have suggested cegui and qt to me. Do any of you have experience with these? What would you suggest?

[smasherprog]

Many people have suggested cegui and qt to me. Do any of you have experience with these? What would you suggest?

Both of those UI's are fine, but both are extremely bloated and quite involved in order to actually get running. AntTweakbar is extremely simple (literally 5 lines of code can get you started) and powerful as a value (number) editor. The down side to antweakbar is that its rendering is slow and it uses alot of CPU time. GWEN is a great UI because it is simple and contains alot of functionality, check it out at http://code.google.com/p/gwen/

[RobTheBloke]

Both of those UI's are fine, but both are extremely bloated and quite involved in order to actually get running.

I wouldn't describe Qt as bloated or particularly involved to get running, because well, it isn't. It could more accurately be described as having a bit more functionality than needed in this case....

[Chris_F]

I wouldn't describe Qt as bloated or particularly involved to get running, because well, it isn't. It could more accurately be described as having a bit more functionality than needed in this case....

Qt is an extensive application framework. It's comparable to something like .NET. If you are already using it, that's one thing, but to pick up a dependance that big just for one of it's features...

[carangil]

I've successfully mixed Qt GUI and OpenGL in the same app. It works pretty well, following this guide : http://doc.qt.nokia.com/qq/qq26-openglcanvas.html

However, I do give the warning that Qt really really wants to be the 'boss' of the app. That is, if you have a Qt app, and want to render GL, and mix Qt Widgets with GL, that works great. But if you have an existing GL program that opens a window and already does all that 'stuff', trying to integrate in Qt will be a big pain.

[Hodgeka]

Many people have suggested cegui and qt to me. Do any of you have experience with these? What would you suggest?

Both of those UI's are fine, but both are extremely bloated and quite involved in order to actually get running. AntTweakbar is extremely simple (literally 5 lines of code can get you started) and powerful as a value (number) editor. The down side to antweakbar is that its rendering is slow and it uses alot of CPU time. GWEN is a great UI because it is simple and contains alot of functionality, check it out at http://code.google.com/p/gwen/

Thanks for the suggestion! I got gwen up and running last night, and it seems like it will be able to do everything that I need as of now. =D