Quick question
I mean it depends on what you want to do, but for what I think of as a tile map editor, i.e. 2D in a window with scroll bars and tool palettes, I think DirectX would get in your way more than anything else. Use DirectX if you need hardware acceleration otherwise it's the wrong tool. Personally I'd use the GDI but I understand that GDI programming is a pain if you haven't done it a lot before. Isn't there GDI+ nowadays? -- I've never touched it, but maybe use that.
Author
I read somewhere that gdi doesn't support formats like png.
EDIT:
the new GDI+ does support pngs. I might go with this.
EDIT:
the new GDI+ does support pngs. I might go with this.
Quote:the new GDI+ does support pngs. I might go with this.
Yeah, regular GDI definitely doesn't have built-in support for anything besides BMP files via LoadImage(). GDI+ will probably work. Also, you could use SDL maybe?
[Edited by - jwezorek on April 1, 2010 6:56:01 PM]
You might think about using the same graphics API (and code even!) to render for the editor as you do for the game.
The reason being, if they are different, it might look a certain way in the editor but a completely different way in game.
The more the editor is like the in game experience, the less of a pain it will be to use the editor.
The unreal engine for example does this
Also, if you are using C++, i recomend using wxWidgets for your UI code, it's very simple to use, it's open sourced and it's very nice.
Unlike some other UI libraries, it gives you native looking UI too, which means when you run it in windows, it looks like a regular windows app (cause it is).
But the same is true when you run it on other platforms, it looks like you would expect an application to look on that platform.
And funny enough, unreal engine uses wxWidgets for it's UI too :P
(not tryin to push unreal hehe...)
The reason being, if they are different, it might look a certain way in the editor but a completely different way in game.
The more the editor is like the in game experience, the less of a pain it will be to use the editor.
The unreal engine for example does this
Also, if you are using C++, i recomend using wxWidgets for your UI code, it's very simple to use, it's open sourced and it's very nice.
Unlike some other UI libraries, it gives you native looking UI too, which means when you run it in windows, it looks like a regular windows app (cause it is).
But the same is true when you run it on other platforms, it looks like you would expect an application to look on that platform.
And funny enough, unreal engine uses wxWidgets for it's UI too :P
(not tryin to push unreal hehe...)
Have you looked into using Direct2D? I haven't used it much before but I think it is the current Microsoft technology for 2d games.
Author
If thats the case, I will use DirectX. I don't really need wxWidgets (too lazy too learn it).
This topic is closed to new replies.
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