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Back to Hands-On Interactive Game Development

02.02 - Game Development Tools

Teej · 2004-04-22T16:00:51

Game Development Tools If you want to write games, you’re going to need more than NOTEPAD . In this article I quickly run through some of the tools you should have at your disposal, and mention some other considerations as well. The Operating System What is the target platform for our games? Although Linux is gaining popularity by leaps and bounds of late, we’re still going with the most popular of platforms, Windows. Of course, Windows comes in many flavors, and those we’re interested in are 95/98/ME/NT/2K. Luckily for us, software on these operating systems is compatible… …but not 100%. If you’re not aware of DirectX technology, don’t worry about it for now – all you need to know for the time being is that we’re going to be using DirectX components in our games, and one of these aforementioned operating systems doesn’t adequately support DirectX (at the version we’re going to be using). I’m referring to Windows NT, which is too bad because it has always been the choice for software developers. While it is true that there is a version of DirectX on Windows NT, it’s outdated – we would have to restrict ourselves to using it, and we wouldn’t be learning new technology, so it’s a concession we’re going to make. That leaves us with Windows 95/98/ME/2K. Hey, what about plain ol’ DOS? For years, DOS was the gaming platform, even when Windows was in wide use. The problem with the Windows of old was that it didn’t allow direct access to the hardware, and therefore games written for it were too slow to be considered. In DOS, you had direct control, and in Windows you had the GDI (Graphics Device Interface), which wasn’t designed for high-speed graphics applications. Of course, this was eventually remedied with technologies such as DirectX, which allowed games the conduit to the hardware that’s needed for speed. There’s one other important thing to note about using Windows as our gaming platform, and that’s compatibility. Windows provides an abstraction to the hardware in the form of drivers, which implement a consistent interface to the hardware’s capabilities. This allows us to utilize the video card, sound card and other devices without even knowing what vendor they’re from. In DOS, we’d have an insurmountable problem on our hands – all hardware is not created equal. Bottom-line: write your game in Windows and it’s going to work on a wide variety of systems and configurations. The C Compiler It probably won’t come as a surprise to you that I use Microsoft Visual C++ for all of my C/C++ programming -- it’s easily the most popular compiler out there. What about the others compilers out there? At first, you’d think that any C compiler would be fine, but there is a caveat: our code will be considered C++, and utilizes COM components. Sure, we’ll be coding in C, but we’re also using DirectX in our programs, and that requires a C++ compiler. Microsoft provides DirectX libraries for use with their own compiler (MSVC) and for Borland, so it would seem that there are your options in a nutshell. I’ve heard of people using other compilers successfully, but you’ll have to inquire in this forum about which compilers can get the job done. Graphics-Editing Software Since you’re in Windows, you already have at least one graphics-editing package – the infamous [b]PAINT . Right off the top of my head I can think of a couple of reasons why that won’t cut it, one being it’s lack of palette editing support, and another it’s total lack of features. Perhaps we can get some feedback from others in the forum on what they use – some will be rather interested in Freeware/Shareware applications. Personally, I use JASC’s PaintShop Pro . I’ve never had need for anything else when it comes to bitmaps. Sound Editing Software This may not be an important consideration for you right away, but there comes a time when you’re faced with the prospect of creating and editing your own audio clips. For the time being, I’ll just mention a few of the more popular types of audio software and let this aspect of game development slide until we have occasion to make it an issue. Sonic Foundry’s SoundForge is a sound-processing tool that let’s you manipulate almost any type of audio file, and is considered the ‘cream of the crop’ by many. Of course, you could use darned-near anything to record a sound, but if you need to do anything to it (other than copy it) you’ll need a sound-processing package such as this – there’s an amazing amount of features at your disposal. MIDI soundtracks can be created with a tool such as Twelve Tone System’s Cakewalk Pro Audio software. Steinburg’s Cubase is a similar title that comes to mind. Check out their websites for more information. Feel free to reply to this topic with your questions, comments or suggestions.

Hands-On Interactive Game Development Workshops

Started by Teej April 09, 2001 12:09 AM

58 comments, last by Teej 20 years, 3 months ago

adamakhtar

122

May 11, 2001 11:35 AM

at last! i now know im not the only one with problems with Dev C and pointing it to the DX. Could someone please explain as fully as possible what to do. Ive gone to compiler options to include the Locations of the Direct Headers and Libaries in the relevant fields. However it messes up! Im also stumped as to what the difference is between the option to include the path in the field which you have to check and the fields directly below. Someone mentioned adding trunks but im a newbie (Though not dumb)! Any help much appreciated.

What are other alternatives - maybe all the cheap guys searching for a compiler (like me) who cant afford Visual C should group together and decide on a shareware one to use. Not only would this make it easy to help each other out on compiler issues it should also help us to get on to the real issue of making games.

Laters
Aki

Dionysis

122

May 11, 2001 02:09 PM

adamakhtar,

Alot of programming books come with a free Introductory version of MSVC++. You won''t be able to release anything you make because of a nag screen that pops up everytime you run your program, but it''s perfectly fine to learn with. I got my copy with "Tricks Of The Windows Game Programming Gurus" by Andre LaMothe.

ManOCheese

122

May 11, 2001 06:03 PM

I can also recommend "Game programming starter kit 4.0", it''s very good. The game writing guide book is brilliant, some exellent advice from the greatest people in the games industry.

BiTMAP

122

May 27, 2001 12:50 AM

O well it seems to me that some ppls missed it. well as it''s true i don''t have any idea of a free editer compiler there is a one pakage deal. called Visual C++ it has a built in editor and compiler and debugger in one. i think it''s pretty good.

Who says it has to make sense?

Who says it has to make sense?

Rickmeister

182

May 31, 2001 07:49 PM

Hi.. quite new in this forum..

Anyway. There is a free IDE for Win95/98/2000 (should work on ME too). It''s called Quincy2000 and can be used with BCC55 (free) or the GCC compiler. It''s look/feel is close to MSVC++.

Just follow this link:

http://www.midifitz.com/alstevens/quincy.html

Will code anything for free beer!

superpig

1,826

June 05, 2001 03:54 PM

There was one I found a while back - LCC-Win32. I think it''s GNU license, and as far as I can remember it can build DX apps. not sure though.

Sound - anyone tried CoolEdit? (http://www.syntrillium.com/)

Superpig
- saving pigs from untimely fates

Richard "Superpig" Fine - saving pigs from untimely fates - Microsoft DirectX MVP 2006/2007/2008/2009
"Shaders are not meant to do everything. Of course you can try to use it for everything, but it's like playing football using cabbage." - MickeyMouse

Weatherman

122

June 05, 2001 04:43 PM

I know that Teej is in love with PaintShop Pro. However, it is quite expensive and, with each new version, it becomes more difficult to use.

If you are interested in a graphics program that is better than Microsoft Paint (but not as powerful as Paintshop Pro), try the FREEWARE program "ImageForge" from CursorArts. The URL is http://www.cursorarts.com/ca_imffw.html .

If you would like a more powerful program, try "ImageForgePro". It costs $28.95 (US) and is available from http://www.cursorarts.com/ca_imf.html . (You can get the trial version for a 20 day evaluation and then register online if you want to continue using it).

ImageForgePro will probably be good enough for most (if not all) of the projects that Teej is going to throw at us. But the main advantage is that it is a relatively powerful program that is very easy to use.

Fernie_the_aggravated

122

July 26, 2001 11:47 PM

If you can find the demo version of PaintShop Pro 3, the 30 day trial doesn''t ever take effect. I got to at least day 300 something before I caved in and bought 7. I still can''t believe they took the softening tool out of the later ones, though...

logic errors dont kill people, people kill people...

logic errors dont kill people, people kill people...

folleitor

122

July 27, 2001 05:27 PM

heheh i´m back, i finally got visual c++ 6.0 in an illegal way...i don´t have much money so...and i also have the directx runtimes and the sdk!!!!!! AT LAST READY TO START!!!!

Pd: good luck to those of you who are still in the search for the compiler...

seze8

122

August 16, 2001 08:29 PM

How did you get MSVC++ for free(illegally?)?

SEZ

-darkcoder8

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02.02 - Game Development Tools

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