Tile engines

Hello, I have been searching for a tutorial on tile engines in C/C++, but I cannot seem to find any. Does anyone know where I can find one? Or at least the concept of writing one? I am using Borland C++ 5.02. Thanks!

What are you using as a graphics lib? Often an appropriate tile engine tutorial will be available for specific graphics library.

using the built in graphics library that comes with borland ( <graphics.h> and graphics.lib) As you can see, I am trying to keep it simple. I did think of Allegro as an alternative...

Might try some Borland sites and user groups for tile engines then. If you do go with Allegro, there are a myriad of those things as well. www.allegro.cc is a good place to start the search - there really is a wealth of info in and around it, but sometimes it can be a bit tedious to find it.

I appreciate it. I was going to modify the Doom source code, but then i decided to do a tile engine... but since i got a link to an allegro installer, Ill probably use it to compile the Doom source. So, i guess its back to writing that socket code for Doom!

I need a link to some Allegro tile-based engine tutorials. I got one, but when I put it into the game, the game goes below 1 FPS!

Here is my engine code, the reason it is so slow is probably because of the switch statement.

Code:

---

void draw_map()
{
 int right=0;
 int down=0;
 int drawpointx=0;
 int drawpointy=0;
 while (right!=25 && down!=18)
  {
 switch (cell[right][down])
  {
    case 0:
        tilebuffer=load_bitmap("castlefloor.bmp",default_palette);
        break;
    case 1:
        tilebuffer=load_bitmap("castlewall.bmp",default_palette);
        break;
  }
  blit(tilebuffer,grid,0,0,drawpointx,drawpointy,tilebuffer->w,tilebuffer->h);
  right++;
  drawpointx+=16;
  if (right==25)
  {
  down++;
  right=0;
  drawpointy+=16;
  drawpointx=0;
  }

  }
 blit(grid,screen,0,0,0,0,SCREEN_W,SCREEN_H);
}

---

If anyone knows a faster way to do this plz tell me. I know making another function to draw one tile could speed it up, and using pointers in a weird way would speed it up, but how?

The problem isn't with the switch statement, it is with this:
tilebuffer=load_bitmap("castlefloor.bmp",default_p alette);

You do this for each tile and every time is access the hard drive to load the bmp. Hard drive access takes nanodays and could definietly knock you down to 1 FPS. Best to load both tiles into memory:

PHP Code:

---

BITMAP *Tiles[2];
...
Tile[0]=load_bitmap("castlefloor.bmp",default_palette);
Tile[1]=load_bitmap("castlewall.bmp",default_palette);
...

void draw_map()
{
 int right=0;
 int down=0;
 int drawpointx=0;
 int drawpointy=0;
 while (right!=25 && down!=18)
   {
   if (cell[right][down]) // Castle wall.
        blit(Tile[1],grid,0,0,drawpointx,drawpointy,tilebuffer->w,tilebuffer->h);

  else  // Castle floor.
        blit(Tile[0],grid,0,0,drawpointx,drawpointy,tilebuffer->w,tilebuffer->h);

   right++;
   drawpointx+=16;
   if (right==25)
   {
   down++;
   right=0;
   drawpointy+=16;
   drawpointx=0;
   }

   }
 blit(grid,screen,0,0,0,0,SCREEN_W,SCREEN_H);
} 


---

Hope that makes sense. :)

-Justin

P.S. Stray_Bullet, good luck on Doom. Just remember that a project like that will take lots o patience. ;) Have fun.

I didn't relize that accessing the HD was so slow. I had a tile engine before, and the reason it was so slow is it had like 3 switch statements and like four if's! That was the same week I just learned how to plot pixels on the mode13h screen, so it was good for what my knowledge was back then. I bet there is a way to speed this up with pointers, but I'll have to come up with that later.

thx, man.