Advanced 2D Engine / book

[a_insomniac]

There is some good information in Johnathan's other book (Beginning Game Programming) regarding that topic which is also the prequel to AD2D. .

For a second book that builds heavily on the topics of Advanced 2D...that's already out 

[J. Harbour]

Advanced2D is a pretty good engine in the sense that you can do almost any kind of 2D game you want with it, by using it as a starting point and building upon it (for anything not already built in--like tile scrolling with tile collision). I can't think of anything more that I'd do with it in the realm of 2D. Any future work will be entirely in 3D. This semester I'm using this in my game engine course and will post any updates to the engine here in December.

[Swift]

Well I just borrowed beginning game programming. Thanks for the suggestion it has some good information in it. I really like your writing style Johnathan keep up the great work. 

[J. Harbour]

Great! Glad it helped.

[doomtoo]

How soon until your 3d books come out/writing starts? I'd be looking forward to reading it- as long as it's straight C++/directX - hardest part in finding books was something that was no longer relevant/ managed DX, ect. Hate when you can't find out what environment the book is programming in, or the book got rave reviews, but everything is unable to be used becuase it was based off something that doesn't exist 2yrs later. Hows this semester going for you?

[J. Harbour]

The fall semester is going well! My game engine course has a very low enrollment but we're doing some interesting things and just starting to learn shaders. I don't have any more books planned until late next year at the earliest. And even if I had signed on to a project already, it would be an utter failure because I'm totally sponged out right now. I will be spending all of my time for the next year on Starflight - The Lost Colony. I had hesitated to continue with this IP, because it's been two years in the works already. But we have some really good assets in this game that are retail quality, and it's a shame to let them live solely in a freeware PC game. When we finish with this version next month, we'll be porting it to a new system. Many of the old team have already signed on, and I'll be bringing on UAT student interns to help with it. I spoke with the IP owner about it, and he feels that we could have marketed the PC game, but he's in favor of a new version on a more compelling platform.

I agree about managed directx being annoying, especially since Microsoft dropped support for it. The family of "DirectX" is in a strange transitional state right now, with some legacy stuff being dropped (i.e. DirectMusic) and some new libs being added (i.e. XACT, XInput). I feel that Microsoft will solve the Direct3D problem by dropping support for 9.0c very soon--which means deprecating Windows XP in favor of Vista. Have you seen the new TV ads for Vista? Microsoft is trying to convince ppl that Vista is innovative. I see that as a sign that XP will be abandoned soon--probably by this time next year. Microsoft can't afford to release a new version of Windows (in 2010) when so many legacy XP users still haven't jumped onto the Vista bandwagon (for many reasons).

Just watch...sometime in the next 6-12 months you'll begin to see people in the media and gamer culture talk down to XP users, saying they need to get with the program, stop being so obsolete and lame... mark my words. Microsoft will convince the world that XP is a dinosaur that needs to be put to rest. Microsoft's first (failed) attempt to force upgrade was with Direct3D 10. Game studios still must build for 9.0c or lose a huge number of customers who do not have Vista. A killing blow would be to negotiate with NVidia to cut XP support from future drivers, citing compatibility problems with the latest shader engine or something. Microsoft attempted to do this with Office 2007, and the outcry was so severe that they had to release a compatibility pack for Office XP/2003 to open those stupid .???x files. (What is it with the "X" obsession anyway?). The simple fact of the matter is, Office 2003 is such a phenomenal piece of software that nothing can be improved on it. Nothing. It is absolutely brilliant. I recall being stunned when it first came out. The same might be said of XP. So how does a software giant with 50,000 salaried programmers convince users to buy new software with negligible improvements in functionality? How do you improve on "insanely great"? First, you stop selling the older product and abandon the legacy file formats. If that doesn't work, you release a new operating system that doesn't like the older software. Of course, Microsoft is the only company in the world in the position of being able to do this. Being aware of this fascist crap and not tolerating it will keep Ballmer from getting away with it. If you can honestly look at Microsoft objectively, from an outside point of view, you will see that it engages in a cyclic, incestuous process where it's products continue to prop each other up in leap-frog fashion, continually forcing users to stay on board with each new product or get left behind. Don't you guys see how WE, the consumers, can demand an end to it? Start writing magazine and web editors, tell them you're fed up with the monopoly in the software industry and want change. Cite specific examples of abuses and identify the companies you DO support.

I heard a rumor a while back that Microsoft may release it's next operating system for free. I wonder how true that rumor is, and what business model they're thinking about if so.

[draco]

I heard a rumor a while back that Microsoft may release it's next operating system for free. I wonder how true that rumor is, and what business model they're thinking about if so.

lmao...I cannot believe that will ever happen    Perhaps they will sell it for a cheaper price than they sold Vista or XP at...maybe..if were lucky!! 

Mind you saying that...from what I have heard and read, OS7 or Windows 7 whatever its called now has changed a lot from its original concept. It was going to have a completely new kernel and API's, but now its just going to be built from a stripped down Vista kernel...or so I was told anyway..how true it is I don't know,
 either way its supposed to be coming out in 2009...

[fireworking]

Well, I wish that would happen. Currently, only 20 percent of people are using vista compared to 60% on XP and I am programming in Directx 10!

[J. Harbour]

As far as I can tell, from talking with industry people at conferences and with others in academia, DirectX 10 is a complete flop. DirectX 11 is already in early testing.

[draco]

I think that the reason that DX10 didn't really catch on, was more to do with the restraints applied to it...ie Vista compatible only. When you think that Vista itself has been a bit of a flop, you can't really expect something that is specific to it to be any more successful. 

I think MS fell on their backside with that one, thinking that the shiny new graphics, bells and whistles of DX10 would lure people away from XP to Vista..never-mind..that is another story.

I do know of a couple of people in the industry who have started to support DX10 in their engines, but they still mainly use DX9.

Not only that, but as far as I know, well the last time I checked that is (And that was ages ago I admit), there wasn't even that many graphics cards that were DX10 compatible.

DX11 is supposed to be a lot better from what I have heard from people that have tried it,
and OpenGL 3.0 has cut back on lots of features that it was supposed to have, It is still an improvement over the last version, just not all it was cracked up to be is all..It was supposed to be competing with DX10..you never know, maybe they too will now update the API to correspond with DX11..? Well...you never know..people can wish, hope and dream .....can't they..?

[J. Harbour]

Well, you know, there's really no reason why you can't support 9 and 10... and 11 for that matter. They are all referenced in their own libs and headers.  Some studios are using simple preprocessor conditions to switch between them with a simple flag setting.

[J. Harbour]

This thread is now obsolete as far as future updates are concerned. Please see the Octane Engine threads for all future development around this book.

[dejaime]

Thank you for all the work!

With the book it's up to us, learning and maybe doing good things.

[divined]

I`ve been using this book to build a simple 2D top view space shooter. An issue that has come up is that I want to use some standard DirectX primitives during the rendering phase.

I`m a bit buffled about where I should be doing the rendering though. Should it be the game_render3D() function or in the game_render2D()??

[J. Harbour]

The gameplay functions like game_render3D() are just meant to help a beginner get started with Direct3D, and I would expect them to be replaced or modified for a serious game project. But, if you just need to create something like a cube or sphere and render it, that is possible with the Mesh class, or just create or load your own mesh and render it during game_render3D().

[divined]

Excellent book by the way professor Harbour!!

What I wanted is to display an energy bar displayed above sprites. An excellent place to add such functionality would be in the Sprite class (a derived class that is) itself. However, that class is tightly tied to 2D rendering and that is where my dilemma lies!!

Wish we had such instruction on game programming when I was studying IT at my University!!

[J. Harbour]

Well just get the X,Y position of the sprite and draw a bar at a relative location above the sprite.. you don't need to render it at the same time.