SDK / OpenGL beginner help

[Kotik]

I am 9 months into my 3 year education in programming and this year for my project I decided to make a 2D multiplayer game in C (the only language I have learnt thus far). My goals are to learn and create the graphical interface with SDK and/or openGL. The target platform is Linux (Ubuntu).

The reason I am posting this is because I am an absolute beginner and have no experience whatsoever in game programming. I would like to ask for help regarding any good books (preferably pdfs) for game programming using SDK / OpenGL in c. Most of the material online is targetted towards windows, iOS or andriod platforms. Linux doesnt seem to be very popular when it comes to games :P.

Also, after googling about SDK for an hour or so I have come across almost a dozen different SDK variants (Qt SDK, Pebble SDK etc). What are these different SDKs? How do I choose which one I wanna work with? I'm finding this quite confusing. Please help me out here

Any help is very much appreciated. Thanks in advance.

[manasij7479]

If your goal is to learn, concentrate on OpenGL.
Here is a link that might be helpful.
Learning Modern 3D Graphics Programming

If you want to make a game quickly as possible, use something like Ogre3D and focus more on the artwork.

I'll be happy to give you some of my code to use as an example if you have trouble setting your environment up.

[phantomotap]

the only language I have learnt thus far

O_O

Anyway... you may want to avoid the link manasij7479 posted if you aren't used to using build tools.

The tutorials themselves aren't bad if you can deal with the oddity of the framework code.

Soma

[manasij7479]

I had to develop my own framework to avoid that!!

[jim_0]

A SDK is a software development kit, it's a general term for a software package that generally includes the headers, compiled libraries, samples and documentation and maybe even the full source code.

You might want to look into allegro, it's about the easiest graphics library there is and support Linux also.

[Kotik]

Thanks for all the answers. That link was very useful manasij.

I managed to install SDL and have been able to comile and run a few "very" basic examples. However I am running into compiler errors whenever I use SDL_SetVideoMode(). It's fourth argument is a flag and these flags are not being understood by the compiler (at least thats my best guess). Take this code for example:

 /* Includes */#include <SDL2/SDL.h>


/* Globals */
SDL_Surface *demo_screen;


/* Main */
int main(int argn,char **argv)
{
    SDL_Event ev;
    int active;
    /* Initialize SDL */
    if(SDL_Init(SDL_INIT_VIDEO) != 0)
        fprintf(stderr,"Could not initialize SDL: %s\n",SDL_GetError());
    /* Open main window */
    demo_screen = SDL_SetVideoMode(320,240,0,SDL_HWSURFACE|SDL_DOUBLEBUF);
    if(!demo_screen)
        fprintf(stderr,"Could not set video mode: %s\n",SDL_GetError());
    /* Main loop */
    active = 1;
    while(active)
    {
        /* Handle events */
        while(SDL_PollEvent(&ev))
        {
            if(ev.type == SDL_QUIT)
                active = 0; /* End */
        }
    }
    /* Exit */
    SDL_Quit();
    return 0;
}

Im getting an error at line 16.

Trying_SDL.c: In function ‘main’:
Trying_SDL.c:16: error: ‘SDL_HWSURFACE’ undeclared (first use in this function)
Trying_SDL.c:16: error: (Each undeclared identifier is reported only once
Trying_SDL.c:16: error: for each function it appears in.)
Trying_SDL.c:16: error: ‘SDL_DOUBLEBUF’ undeclared (first use in this function)

Everything else works except for "all" the flags for SDL_SetVideoMode(). What could be the cause of this? All SDL programs that do not use this function seems to be working perfectly.

Edit: Im compiling with gcc, with -lSDL2

Any help appreciated.

[Matticus]

Check here for possible solutions -> SDL :: View topic - What happened to SDL_SetVideoMode() in SDL2

[Kotik]

Thanks Matticus, that solves the mystery. Cheers.