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Started by Haxeleu January 25, 2011 12:24 AM

6 comments, last by Burnt_Fyr 13 years, 3 months ago

Haxeleu

100

Author

January 25, 2011 12:24 AM

Hello again

as I am a beginnner I could couple of questions. As a career I want to do games development, The book that I got is C++ for gaming beginners and I've finished the book., soI now know all of fundementals. But the thing is that I am doing the games in cmd looking like, though I want to start the game with good graphics, can someone explain what is the difference between opengl and directx, also if I want to make the graphic in directx, can I just code C++ in that program, is directx a compiter with more graphic features? please explain. Thanks

EndersGames

128

January 25, 2011 01:52 AM

Opengl and directx are addons for programming. They are called Application Programmable Interface or APIs. I prefer to use opengl as it is not propritory to microsoft.

So you can use opengl in c++. I first learned opengl with the opengl nehe tutorials. Google and check them out. Opengl will give you great functions for both 2d and 3d games.

One thing you should be aware of though, good graphics do not come from good programming, you need to make the images or models or get somebody who is good at it with you. But it is perfectly fine at first to use crappy graphics as placeholders to learn to use the new functions and build a game engine.

So go and make a tiled based rpg or something

wicked357

2,424

January 25, 2011 02:14 AM

I have a hard time believing you learned all the fundamentals from one book especially since we are talking about C++. I would suggest keep with console games, get more experience with C++, make a text-based RPG(s) and see how that fares for you. If you honestly want to jump into using graphics stick with 2D for now till you get the hang of it all. For this I suggest SFML which is a good graphics/audio/network library and easy to follow. As the last poster stated tile-based RPG(s) is a good way to start out. Create a tile-map and only allow the tiles within the viewport to draw once this is good practice for making games. If you make a text-based RPG you can easily transfer that work over to using graphics. Hopefully this helps you out, once you have a good idea on making games with graphics you can step up to 3D and check it out. Keep in mind 3D requires 3D assets and those aren't exactly easy to come by and you might be shelling out some money on some decent models to use.

Haxeleu

100

Author

January 25, 2011 02:05 PM

Well in Opengl can you input the c++ code plus the extra graphics that opengl provides? or I have do to that seperet? and how do I put the models inside the code? are there any links in c++ to do that?

zerothrillz

152

January 25, 2011 02:28 PM

Well in Opengl can you input the c++ code plus the extra graphics that opengl provides? or I have do to that seperet? and how do I put the models inside the code? are there any links in c++ to do that?

All that modern OpenGL does is provide an interface to the graphics card. It allows you to specify geometry, images and shader programs, store them in the host machines video memory and render primitive geometry.

Anything else, such as obtaining a window from the OS and loading a model or image from file and storing them, has to done by your own code or an add-on library of your choice.

It sounds like you should practice and have some fun with another API first.

symbiote

125

January 25, 2011 04:37 PM

Hello again as I am a beginnner I could couple of questions. As a career I want to do games development, The book that I got is C++ for gaming beginners and I've finished the book., soI now know all of fundementals. But the thing is that I am doing the games in cmd looking like, though I want to start the game with good graphics, can someone explain what is the difference between opengl and directx, also if I want to make the graphic in directx, can I just code C++ in that program, is directx a compiter with more graphic features? please explain. Thanks

directx and opengl are basicly a set of functions ( like all other libraries / APIs ). for opengl these functions are C functions that you can use to draw with hardware acceleration (directx probably has a C/C++ interface too). because they are C functions, you can call them directly from C++ after including their header files just like the standard library. you do need to setup your project to link to these libraries.

Haxeleu

100

Author

January 25, 2011 05:55 PM

So for opengl and directx is to make the game work on graphic card, but how do I put graphics models and a world ( ground, trees etc) on the c++ code, I downloaded blender to make models but how to I apply it to the C++ code?

Burnt_Fyr

1,668

January 25, 2011 06:27 PM

blender will allow you to create content. when you have something ready, you can export it as a .x file( directx9 mesh format) .3ds file, wavefront .obj, etc. These files can then be opened in directx and allow you to use them in your program.

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