game developers here?

abarahc · 2010-08-03 19:19:06

I wonder if the community has game developers, and what are your work tools; D

would be nice also to know if anyone has done some work with this lib called allegro made to dev games on C

drcouzelis · 2010-08-03 19:33:16

Making video games is my hobby! I started making games in Linux about nine years ago. Since the beginning I've been using gcc and the Allegro Game Library.

I used SDL for one of the games, but ended up using Allegro again after that. I really like the library, and also think they have a great forum community. The website is http://www.allegro.cc/.

As for languages, mostly I use C, but I sometimes use Objective-C. (which is just C with classes)

I currently use the GIMP to make the graphics and seq24 to make the MIDI background music.

Did you have any other questions? Are you working on a game? Do you have an idea you want to work on?

...by the way, I use the term "game" very loosely. Most of the time they're more like "game demos". But the one I'm working on now is great! It's even kind of fun!

stqn · 2010-08-03 19:54:06

I've used Code::Blocks and the D programming language (v1) and SDL to write a small platform game recently.

In the past I've made another game in C using OpenGL and SDL.

For some reason most (commercial) cross platform games I've seen use SDL and not Allegro, but I haven't used Allegro so I can't compare.

As far as source control goes, I'm now using Mercurial and I like it. Before, I was using Subversion, which is good, but a bit more complicated/less powerful.

cesura · 2010-08-03 19:57:23

I have done things in PyGame before, but nothing huge. I want to be able to use C to make some 3D graphics, etc. Can allegro do this?

drcouzelis · 2010-08-03 20:04:40

itsbrad212 wrote:

I have done things in PyGame before, but nothing huge. I want to be able to use C to make some 3D graphics, etc. Can allegro do this?

Yes, but to what extent I don't know. I haven't done any 3D programming. I do know that the Allegro 3D / polygon functions use OpenGL.

The Allegro API is here. http://www.allegro.cc/manual/api/

ablepharus · 2010-08-03 20:13:11

I have some 3d graphics experiences with C/C++ and OpenGL, but i never came far enough to write a whole 3d game.

cesura · 2010-08-03 21:03:36

drcouzelis wrote:

itsbrad212 wrote:
I have done things in PyGame before, but nothing huge. I want to be able to use C to make some 3D graphics, etc. Can allegro do this?
Yes, but to what extent I don't know. I haven't done any 3D programming. I do know that the Allegro 3D / polygon functions use OpenGL.
The Allegro API is here. http://www.allegro.cc/manual/api/

Thanks, I'll have a look

lifeafter2am · 2010-08-03 21:11:54

I've written very simple things in the Blender Game Engine. I have seem some good stuff come out of there, though I don't know how it compares to the Allegro library.

Svenstaro · 2010-08-03 22:48:33

I'm a hobbyist games developer. Every few months, I host the Reddit Game Jam (again this month!) in which you have to create a game within 48h. I maintain a bunch game development related packages in AUR and community.

My generic tools of the trade are: Blender, Gimp, Inkscape, gvim
My C++ stack is: Ogre, OIS, SFML, cAudio, Bullet, CMake, g++, gdb, valgrind, sometimes QTCreator or Code::Blocks
My Python stack is: Python 2.6, Pygame, Gloss, PySFML, PyBox2D

I reuse where possible. I try to avoid reinventing the wheel as well as low-level stuff where possible so I can put my productivity into high-level game design as opposed to premature low-level optimization.

ablepharus · 2010-08-03 22:59:18

Reddit game Jam, mhh, sound really interesting!

sand_man · 2010-08-04 01:34:47

Back when I used Windows I used to play with SDL + code::blocks. I was a regular on the gamedev.net forums. Great forums btw. Lot's of very intelligent people there if you avoid the newbie forum.
The only coding I do now if boring stuff generally related to studying
No time for fun these days.

Reading some articles over at gamedev makes me want to setup an SDL+OpenGL environment again. Damn you OP! Now I'll never get my work done!

Last edited by sand_man (2010-08-04 02:07:17)

abarahc · 2010-08-04 10:26:52

I enjoyed reading all the answers xD!

I did not get the search, but I think that is acceptable constructive to ask you, with more experience, can make a fix on the topic creations in C / Allegro or even a page in the wiki?

I know this stuff refers more a forum for development, but may be valid as we can encourage the new and old developers to create games for linux:) (I can wait anymore to play diablo without wine)

stqn · 2010-08-04 12:29:22

I'm not sure what there would be to write about that isn't obvious or already available elsewhere.

You already have a C compiler (well, if you installed base-devel, which is recommended in the installation guide I think.) Installing Allegro is probably not very complicated, it's just a library like thousands other libraries... (« sudo pacman -S allegro »)

Once these two things are installed, you need a C book and Allegro's documentation, and that's it... Is that not? There are also plenty of game programming tutorials/sites.

Zeist · 2010-08-04 12:45:15

One of my degrees is in game development. Mostly worked on developing on Windows though.

I live in Vim and I use Bullet, valgrind, gdb, openal, ogre, rice... and too many more things to mention.

It's been a while since I've really had the time to work on any game development though. Last time I did any serious attempt at really making something was working on an Android game complete with making my own 3D models for things... but I got uninterested in it when it mostly worked.

Last edited by Zeist (2010-08-04 12:49:11)

drcouzelis · 2010-08-04 12:47:20

stqn wrote:

Once these two things are installed, you need a C book and Allegro's documentation, and that's it... Is that not?

Yeah, that's pretty much it. Allegro also comes with great examples that anyone can modify to start making a new game.

There is a bit to learn about game programming in general. For example, some new game programmers make the mistake of thinking, "I need my game to draw graphics to the screen and update the AI at the same time. How do I create a thread?" (Answer: DO NOT USE THREADS!) But, as mentioned, there are many tutorials on this subject.

In regards to having more free and open source games, I don't understand why there isn't a website that is just for creators of video game media, such as sprites and music, where people routinely contribute original game media with a CC license that allows other people to easily modify the work of others. It would be, like, the "SourceForge" of video game media. Does such a site exist and I don't know about it?

stqn · 2010-08-04 13:41:34

drcouzelis wrote:

"I need my game to draw graphics to the screen and update the AI at the same time. How do I create a thread?" (Answer: DO NOT USE THREADS!)

That's funny because that's exactly what I did in my OpenGL/SDL game . It was a board game and since the computer could take a long time to "think", I had to put the AI in a thread.

I don't understand why there isn't a website that is just for creators of video game media, such as sprites and music (...)

I stumbled on OpenGameArt.org the other day, which is almost exactly what you're describing. However I fail to see how that could be useful to do anything else than crappy games... Ok, that's a bit strong, but... A game starts with an idea, then a concept, then a design, *then* you make the graphics you need for it. The problem with OpenGameArt as I see it, is that all the graphics are in different styles, so either you use them all and your game will be ugly, or you use only one set of graphics and you'll be pretty limited in what you can do with it (not to mention that your game will probably look a lot like at least one other game.)

... However this site could be useful to link artists with programmers/designers, if the artists who submit stuff are willing to work on a specific project.

drcouzelis · 2010-08-04 14:18:17

stqn wrote:

It was a board game and since the computer could take a long time to "think", I had to put the AI in a thread.

Thank you for reminding me that there is no one-true-way to do anything in programming.

stqn wrote:

I stumbled on OpenGameArt.org the other day, which is almost exactly what you're describing.

Thank you for the link! I will spend some time checking it out.

Bushman · 2010-08-05 01:05:07

I currently use Pygame (though I'm thinking about Pyglet); unfortunately, I don't have the requisite knowledge of C/C++ (I got totally lost when I came around to pointers) to use straight-up SDL, Allegro, or OpenGL. I still can't quite understand how anyone could code a semi-complex game using regular old C, without the OOP extensions of ObjC and C++.

Last edited by Bushman (2010-08-05 01:05:33)

drcouzelis · 2010-08-05 14:05:31

Bushman wrote:

I currently use Pygame (though I'm thinking about Pyglet); unfortunately, I don't have the requisite knowledge of C/C++ (I got totally lost when I came around to pointers) to use straight-up SDL, Allegro, or OpenGL.

I plan on using Python for my projects in the future, which probably means I'll end up using Pygame too. I usually make a video game to learn a language, but I'm getting to the point where I want to use the easiest language that I can for a given project.

Bushman wrote:

I still can't quite understand how anyone could code a semi-complex game using regular old C, without the OOP extensions of ObjC and C++.

I learned from my most recent experience that if I don't have a good design then it doesn't really matter which language or programming paradigm I use, it will still be really painful to work on.

I recently began redesigning and rewriting my game in C. I'm actually using some OOP design. Sometimes I worry that I'll never finish making a game if I keep doing things like that. But then I remember that my hobby isn't finishing a game, it's making a game.

Bushman · 2010-08-08 21:39:34

drcouzelis wrote:

Bushman wrote:
I still can't quite understand how anyone could code a semi-complex game using regular old C, without the OOP extensions of ObjC and C++.
I learned from my most recent experience that if I don't have a good design then it doesn't really matter which language or programming paradigm I use, it will still be really painful to work on.

The reason I don't understand how a semi-complex game could be written in a procedural-only language (such as C) is the same reason that I don't understand how C scales up at all, what with the lack of name-spaces - you have to carefully keep track of names for your variables, functions, and structs lest they collide, which is also why I don't understand how the developers of the many C libraries such as ncurses and GTK managed to somehow name their (non-prefixed, of course) functions without colliding with those of other people's libraries.

Maybe it's just the fact that Python was my first programming language and I am somehow "disabled" by not having experience with a "real" language...

PirateJonno · 2010-08-09 11:53:37

Bushman wrote:

I don't understand how the developers of the many C libraries such as ncurses and GTK managed to somehow name their (non-prefixed, of course) functions without colliding with those of other people's libraries.

gtk_class_name_function_name ()

obviously it's a bit more verbose but there aren't any collision issues I've ever come across

If you're using ncurses then... well presumably you're not using much else

Last edited by PirateJonno (2010-08-09 11:54:12)

stqn · 2010-08-10 15:03:51

Bushman wrote:

(...) I don't understand how C scales up at all, what with the lack of name-spaces - you have to carefully keep track of names for your variables, functions, and structs lest they collide (...)

If you're talking about private stuff, the « static » keyword is used to enable access from the current file only. The public stuff should obviously be prefixed...

Last edited by stqn (2010-08-10 15:05:01)

sctincman · 2010-08-10 17:14:28

abarahc wrote:

I wonder if the community has game developers, and what are your work tools; D
would be nice also to know if anyone has done some work with this lib called allegro made to dev games on C

I dabble in it every so often. Was using C with different libraries, mostly SDL, but my sporadic habits make C hard to pick back up after a while. Trying my hand at it once again using Python w/ Pyglet and it's going much much better :] I had tried pygame but am enjoying pyglet a lot more. If I actually get this project off the ground I may go back and recode performance critical parts in C, but for now python is much more fun.

Allegro was actually the first gaming/graphics library I used, and it was lots of fun; I had left it for SDL mostly because SDL was more versatile (which turns out to be a bad thing; I always got distracted in the details and lost interest in projects)

My animation skills are also not the best, and have been playing around with Synfig to cut down on the work.

I still can't quite understand how anyone could code a semi-complex game using regular old C, without the OOP extensions of ObjC and C++.

My C skills are too weak to say how, but I've read that good programs in C actually use OOP ideas in there programs. The Chipmunk physics library I think is a good example of that, a very nice and fast 2D physics library entirely in C[99]. Reading through the source code is a little complex, but the creator does some really neat pointer magic to make a very usable library.

stqn · 2010-09-02 21:04:12

Edit: removed because the post I was refering to has been removed.

Last edited by stqn (2010-09-11 10:12:57)

namegame · 2010-09-11 03:38:44

I've used C++ with SDL and PyGame. C++/SDL wasn't bad, but it didn't feel as cohesive to me as PyGame.

Arch Linux

#1 2010-08-03 19:19:06

game developers here?

#2 2010-08-03 19:33:16

Re: game developers here?

#3 2010-08-03 19:54:06

Re: game developers here?

#4 2010-08-03 19:57:23

Re: game developers here?

#5 2010-08-03 20:04:40

Re: game developers here?

#6 2010-08-03 20:13:11

Re: game developers here?

#7 2010-08-03 21:03:36

Re: game developers here?

#8 2010-08-03 21:11:54

Re: game developers here?

#9 2010-08-03 22:48:33

Re: game developers here?

#10 2010-08-03 22:59:18

Re: game developers here?

#11 2010-08-04 01:34:47

Re: game developers here?

#12 2010-08-04 10:26:52

Re: game developers here?

#13 2010-08-04 12:29:22

Re: game developers here?

#14 2010-08-04 12:45:15

Re: game developers here?

#15 2010-08-04 12:47:20

Re: game developers here?

#16 2010-08-04 13:41:34

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#17 2010-08-04 14:18:17

Re: game developers here?

#18 2010-08-05 01:05:07

Re: game developers here?

#19 2010-08-05 14:05:31

Re: game developers here?

#20 2010-08-08 21:39:34

Re: game developers here?

#21 2010-08-09 11:53:37

Re: game developers here?

#22 2010-08-10 15:03:51

Re: game developers here?

#23 2010-08-10 17:14:28

Re: game developers here?

#24 2010-09-02 21:04:12

Re: game developers here?

#25 2010-09-11 03:38:44

Re: game developers here?

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