C++ and Graphics

[Ellie]

Hi,

I'm wondering how I'd go about creating a screen like the game.exe, basically a blank area that I can manipulate graphics in like RGSS does, in C++?

I'm learning the language but would like to apply it more to games, and I can't do that if I don't know the er... most basic essential of a game

 

[AmIMeYet]

Hm..
You might try GDI+ for your rendering.
Also take a look at that page's 'related topics', with links to DirectX and OpenGL.

For graphics in Ruby, I use Gosu, wich also has a C++ package.
It might be worth a try, but, as far as I remember, it's not that great at bitmap manipulation.. more just the loading and rendering.
Gosu uses OpenGL though, so in your case, if you really want to do everything yourself, you might want to go straight to OpenGL.

I never really focused on C++ before, so I'm not really an expert to tell you what the best package is.

 

[Tohsaka]

OpenGL is a hard language to learn- You'll want to use a different package- SDL, for example.

I use SDL myself, it's a relatively easy library, and you can access OpenGL functions from it.

http://www.libsdl.org/

Cross-platform too, available for Mac, Windows, Posix/Linux/Unix.

As for tutorials, I've found http://lazyfoo.net/SDL_tutorials/ to be helpful.

 

[candle]

You might also want to try Allegro. It is fairly powerful, and very flexible. Plus, it's free!

 

[DeM0nFiRe]

For the sake of learning, I recommend that you try out GDI or GDI+ because that will require you to setup the window and handle events yourself. If you actually plan to make a game with it, then do not use GDI or GDI+ as they are very slow. If you actually want to make a game, I recommend Irrlicht. Using Irrlicht is how I learned C++. Irrlicht is a bit complicated to learn as far as 2D graphics go, but it also supports 3D, and as far as 3D goes it is both easy to learn and faster than most engines/libraries.