Graphics for Beginners (Using SDL)

Jari Komppa writes "Looking at how learning programming these days is much harder than when I was starting, I decided to write a tutorial on how to make graphics at pixel level. The aim for the tutorial is to show that programming can actually be fun."

Comments

Also...

[eviltypeguy]

Another great tutorial is the book called:

http://www.nostarch.com/frameset.php?startat=plg

One of the few programming books I've purchased that I didn't feel like I got ripped off in purchasing.

Written by an Ex-Loki associated person John R. Hall

Re:Also...

[Krunch]

Here it is. However it seems down for now but you can still grab it from archive.org.

Re:Also...

[duckie13]

If you're looking for the actual text, I found it here:

http://www.tux.org/pub/tux/plg/

There are a couple of Ruby/SDL games...

[tcopeland]

...on RubyForge, including Magic Maze (which was inspired by Gauntlet) and Tadpoles.

SDL == DirectX without the MS millstone

[leonbrooks]

OpenGL == Direct3D, SDL fills in the rest.

It's an approximation, and there's some things which each set of software does markedly better than the other, but SDL+OpenGL is considerably easier to extend (e.g. the NET2 library mentioned above) so I'd expect to see it get better faster (cheaper :-).

The big advantages are:

• you're not tied to one platform, one manufacturer or a handful of languages; and

• You can find out exactly what each function and parameter does; and

• You can easily modify or extend anything (and no DMCA worries); and

• You don't have to give away any rights before you start using it.

These advantages are usually enough to handsomely compensate for any peripheral shortcomings (e.g. no force-feedback API, slightly smaller texturing envelope).