Posted on August 26th, 2010 by Mark Szymczyk
Beginning iPhone Games Development
The title of the book ‘Beginning iPhone Games Development’ by Peter Bakhirev, PJ Cabrera, Ian Marsh, Scott Penberthy, Ben Britten Smith, and Eric Wing tells you what the book covers: iPhone game development. Four areas make up the core of the book.
- Quartz and Core Animation
- OpenGL ES
- Audio
- Networking
Several of the chapters use a tutorial approach that walks the reader through the creation of a game. In the course of the walkthrough, other game development topics like timing, game loops and collision detection are covered. But you’re not going to see entire chapters devoted to anything besides graphics, audio, and networking.
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Posted on May 30th, 2010 by Carlos Camacho
CEGUI is a free library (LGPL) providing windowing and widgets for graphics APIs / engines where such functionality is not natively available, or severely lacking.
The library is object orientated, written in C++, and targeted at games developers who should be spending their time creating great games, not building GUI sub-systems!
CEGUI is used as the GUI of choice in the Ogre3D project but supports Microsoft® DirectX® 8.1 and 9, OpenGL, and the Irrlicht engine natively. CEGUI was started by Paul Turner (“CrazyEddie”) about two years ago and is currently in it’s second major revision, “Mk2”. The project supports windows, linux and Mac OS X.
Posted on April 26th, 2010 by Justin Baldock
GLBasic – Basic for Gamers. Easy programming language, 3D OpenGL graphics engine, fast 2D graphics.
If you are searching for an easy to learn, fast to write, and flexible language for programming, then GLBasic is what you need.
GLBasic is so good because we actively develop it every day. Thus, we fix bugs quickly, implement new features on a daily basis. We are also enthusiastic developers, so we know what you need! Write a program once, then compile for Windows, Apple Mac OS X, iPhone, Linux, PocketPC (Smartphone and Windows Mobile) and GP2X/Wiz without changing the source code at all.
Features include:
- Complete 3D engine
- Supports GLSL – Shaders
- Real Time Shadows
- Dot3 Bump Mapping
- Works with all Common 3D Formats (3ds, md2, md3, ac3d, blender, x)
- Smooth 3D Animations
- Joystick and Joypad support with force feedback
GLBasic comes with a Windows IDE but games can be compiled for multi-platform. Windows, Linux, Mac OS X and a few others. Its appears to have a healthy community.
Related Links:
Posted on March 1st, 2010 by Carlos Camacho
The Franklin Group released Franklin 3D 1.0, a professional 3d game and simulation engine that integrates with Runrev 4, the cross platform software design system from Mirye Software and Runrev. Franklin 3D 1.0 for Runrev Pro can build cross-platform, hardware accelerated games for Mac OS X (with OpenGL). Franklin 3D includes over 400 methods, including support for display control, model loading and callbacks. It includes the engine plus a collection of example projects.
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Posted on February 21st, 2010 by Carlos Camacho
CRM32Pro is a free SDK written in C++ and built on top of SDL that facilitates the creation of cross-platform games. Begun in 2001, the SDL-based SDK is perfect for quickly creating games in 2D with the option to use OpenGL to develop games in 2D/3D. For Mac OS X, the SDK offers:
- Supports x86 versions: 10.3, 10.4, 10.5 and 10.6. Uses Quartz, X11 and OpenGL as video backends and coreaudio.
- Support GNU C/C++ 4.x versions.
As mentioned, CRM32Pro supports OpenGL to accelerate 2D blitting operations. Other notable features include scaled surfaces with smooth filter, GUI, optimized collision system between sprites and surfaces, and automatic smooth sprites movement (using interpolation). The included editor however seems to be Windows-only.
Related Links:
Posted on February 20th, 2010 by Justin Baldock
cocos2d for iPhone is a open source framework for building 2D games, demos, and other graphical/interactive applications. The latest update now supports iPad at the new native 1024×768 resolution. There is also a number of improvements to the camera as well as speed improvements to a number of components.
Related Links: Cocos2d for iPhone
Posted on July 18th, 2009 by Carlos Camacho
REAL Software is now shipping REALbasic and REAL Studio 2009 Release 3. This release boasts more than 100 improvements and 31 new features, including the addition of OpenGL support for 3D images and animation. REAL Software claimes that REALbasic should now be able to develop 3D applications 50% to 70% faster over those using traditional C-programming methods. The new OpenGLSurface control does require a knowledge of the OpenGL language. However, there are some open source projects that are implementing an RB3D-compatible API on top of the OpenGL for developers who currently use RB3D.
Related Links
Posted on July 2nd, 2009 by Alex Sikora
Clear Examples and Well-Choosen Images
Beginning iPhone Development advertises itself as “A complete course in iPhone and iPod touch programming” and I think it fulfills its promise. Dave Mark and Jeff LaMarche have plenty of experience and it shows in this book. There aren’t very many iPhone books out yet, as Apple continues to release updates to its SDK, but this is the best one of the group. The book is easy to understand and covers all the topics a beginning iPhone developer would need to know. From clear examples to well-chosen example images, this book covers iPhone development well.
The book’s teaching method is very well made for beginners. While those new to programming in general may have minor issues, it’s not designed to teach the beginner programmer, but anyone who is trying to learn iPhone development will have an easy time with this book. It covers user interface design, accelerometer programming, Quartz and OpenGL drawing – the chapters follow each other in a logical order.
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Posted on May 27th, 2009 by Carlos Camacho
Rosetta Stone, the company known for their foreign language learning software, is sponsoring a game programming contest. The Contest begins on July 17, 2009, and ends on July 19, 2009. All applications to participate in the Contest must be received by Rosetta Stone no later than 5pm (Eastern Time) on July 1, 2009. This event will be held at Rosetta Stone’s location in Harrisonburg, VA from July 17th – 19th, 2009. You must apply by July 1st to be considered for the competition. The prizes are:
- 1st Prize: Macbook Pro with 30 inch cinema display, three levels of Rosetta Stone Software and your game published on a Rosetta Stone webpage
- 2nd Prize: $500 and three levels of Rosetta Stone Software.
Gamers must be or have a team with at least one programmer with game development programming experience using either Flash, XNA, OpenGL, PyGame, etc. You will be asked to provide an example of past creations of any form or level in order to qualify. Teams may include up to four members. All team members must be 18 years of age or over to participate, or be accompanied by a parent or legal guardian at all times during their participation.
Related Links:
Posted on May 5th, 2009 by Justin Ficarrotta
Background Info
After growing up wanting only to make videogames, and making a few small games with Pascal and later Hypercard in grade school, I released my first game for the uDevGames contest in 2004, called Kill Dr. Coté. It won the award for Best Gameplay, was a fan favorite, went on to be published by Freeverse, and got me my first job in the industry as a programmer.
Since then, my output has been scarce. I quickly followed up with “Arachnoid: Predator of Worlds” in July 2005, but after that, working full time in the industry drained me and thwarted any progress on independent work. Several years passed, and during that time I first yearned for the energy to work on a project, and after that failed, I started to even doubt whether I would be capable of such a project and still keep myself fed. When I heard that uDevGames 2008 was starting, I figured it would be the best time to find out once and for all. While in 2004, my purpose was to prove my talent and ability to the world, this time around it would be to prove it to myself!
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