Linux Game Programming Book (was: Re: Re: French SDL

SDL Development
1

articles)
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=“iso-8859-1”

I was actually thinking about proposing an open-source type SDL game
programming book on this page. I was going to look through the game
programming books on my shelf to get basic game programming concepts
to draw up the outline (and add in OpenGL stuff, all my books are
old), and write a few of the introductory chapters. I could probably
co-author some of the early chapter stuff. The main difference from
what I had in mine and your outline below is that I would focus more
on techniques, structures, etc about general game programming and use
SDL to demonstrate the techniques. I figured it would be hard to
write a substantial book on a low-level graphics/sound library.

Phoenix Kokido
members.xoom.com/kokido
@Wes_Poole

Nicholas Vining wrote:

Newsgroups: loki.open-source.sdl

Yeah there are such great articles !!! Actually I’v heard about SDL with
those articles… but I still keep in mind that in a few months I wish Sam
should release a book about SDL !

I have constantly thought about going to O’Reilly and asking if they’d be
interested in having a book about Linux Game Programming up on their
shelves. That’d be cool. We could get somebody nifty, like Dave "Zoid"
Kirsch, Scott Draeker, or even our very own Sam Lantinga, to write the
foreword. :slight_smile:

Does anybody else think this is a good idea? If so, would they buy it? It
would PROBABLY cover (it roughly this order, and understand that this
would be pretty damn comprehensive!)

PART ONE: TWO DIMENSIONAL GRAPHICS
– Basic primer on programming under Linux – IDEs, what these Makefiles
are, etc.
– Introduction to using SDL and SDL surfaces
– GDB
– principles of two dimensional gaming, focusing largely on tile engines
– just for a change, there’d be some stuff on writing an RPG
– input handling with SDL
– image loading with SDL_Image
– event coordination

PART TWO: THREE DIMENSIONAL GRAPHICS

The entire chapter would be presented with the aim of writing a simple
Quake-like engine.

– OpenGL and SDL integration
– Mesa, Utah-GLX, and other key products
– About seven chapters worth of OpenGL programming information. This would
be highly cut down from the formal SGI guides because you don’t need to
know
about 80% of the extra crap that they include in there. Also included in
these seven chapters would be:
– the Multitexture_ARB extension
– lightmapping
– the Compiled Vertex Arrays extension
– how to optimize for Mesa (where are the strong points? where are the
weak points? where will it just plain not work?)

PART THREE: THINGS TO TRY, LIBRARIES TO USE

these things really all do deserve their own books, but they are essential
tools that I use quite a bit, so primers are VERY good things to have.

– Use of the sockets library
– SDL and CDROM code
– Sound with SDL_Mixer
– NASM
– integrating scripting with Guile
– Working with GTK+
– Richard Stallman’s Bastard Offspring: autoconf and automake

PART FOUR: PORTING SOFTWARE (or: correcting the big mistake)
– Porting two dimensional games from Windows to Linux and SDL
– Porting OpenGL code from Windows to Linux (short chapter! :-))
– Making Direct3D code work with Linux and OpenGL. (and it ain’t pretty…
right, Michael? :-))
– Making Macintosh Toolbox/Quickdraw/orwhateveritis (I don’t remember,
it’sDate: Mon, 28 Feb 2000 12:58:57 +0000
-----Original Message-----
From: Sylvain Hellegouarch <sylvain.hellegouarch at wanadoo.fr>
To: sdl at lokigames.com
Date: Sunday, February 27, 2000 4:44 PM
Subject: [SDL] Re: French SDL articles
been ages since I last dabbled in those arcane arts) games work with Linux
and SDL

Total running time: ~850 pages or so of my maniacal ranting, not including
CD-ROM with extra material. Also useful as a paperweight, for stopping
things from moving (like tanks), Would anybody actually buy this, or be
interested in co-authoring? (Approximate price, if I’m any judge of
horseflesh, would be $50.00 US)

Nicholas

Nicholas Vining “While you’re out there struggling
vining at pacificcoast.net with your computer, I’m naked,
icq: 20872003 clueless, and feeling good!”
- Ratbert

2

I think it could be a great idea, count with me…> ----- Original Message -----

From: kokido@postmark.net (Wes Poole)
To:
Sent: Monday, February 28, 2000 1:58 PM
Subject: Re: Linux Game Programming Book (was: Re: [SDL] Re: French SDL

articles)
Date: Mon, 28 Feb 2000 12:58:57 +0000
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=“iso-8859-1”

I was actually thinking about proposing an open-source type SDL game
programming book on this page. I was going to look through the game
programming books on my shelf to get basic game programming concepts
to draw up the outline (and add in OpenGL stuff, all my books are
old), and write a few of the introductory chapters. I could probably
co-author some of the early chapter stuff. The main difference from
what I had in mine and your outline below is that I would focus more
on techniques, structures, etc about general game programming and use
SDL to demonstrate the techniques. I figured it would be hard to
write a substantial book on a low-level graphics/sound library.

Phoenix Kokido
members.xoom.com/kokido
kokido at postmark.net

Nicholas Vining wrote:

-----Original Message-----
From: Sylvain Hellegouarch <sylvain.hellegouarch at wanadoo.fr>
Newsgroups: loki.open-source.sdl
To: sdl at lokigames.com
Date: Sunday, February 27, 2000 4:44 PM
Subject: [SDL] Re: French SDL articles

Yeah there are such great articles !!! Actually I’v heard about SDL
with

those articles… but I still keep in mind that in a few months I wish
Sam

should release a book about SDL !

I have constantly thought about going to O’Reilly and asking if they’d
be

interested in having a book about Linux Game Programming up on their
shelves. That’d be cool. We could get somebody nifty, like Dave "Zoid"
Kirsch, Scott Draeker, or even our very own Sam Lantinga, to write the
foreword. :slight_smile:

Does anybody else think this is a good idea? If so, would they buy it?
It

would PROBABLY cover (it roughly this order, and understand that this
would be pretty damn comprehensive!)

PART ONE: TWO DIMENSIONAL GRAPHICS
– Basic primer on programming under Linux – IDEs, what these Makefiles
are, etc.
– Introduction to using SDL and SDL surfaces
– GDB
– principles of two dimensional gaming, focusing largely on tile
engines

– just for a change, there’d be some stuff on writing an RPG
– input handling with SDL
– image loading with SDL_Image
– event coordination

PART TWO: THREE DIMENSIONAL GRAPHICS

The entire chapter would be presented with the aim of writing a simple
Quake-like engine.

– OpenGL and SDL integration
– Mesa, Utah-GLX, and other key products
– About seven chapters worth of OpenGL programming information. This
would

be highly cut down from the formal SGI guides because you don’t need to
know
about 80% of the extra crap that they include in there. Also included in
these seven chapters would be:
– the Multitexture_ARB extension
– lightmapping
– the Compiled Vertex Arrays extension
– how to optimize for Mesa (where are the strong points? where are
the

weak points? where will it just plain not work?)

PART THREE: THINGS TO TRY, LIBRARIES TO USE

these things really all do deserve their own books, but they are
essential

tools that I use quite a bit, so primers are VERY good things to have.

– Use of the sockets library
– SDL and CDROM code
– Sound with SDL_Mixer
– NASM
– integrating scripting with Guile
– Working with GTK+
– Richard Stallman’s Bastard Offspring: autoconf and automake

PART FOUR: PORTING SOFTWARE (or: correcting the big mistake)
– Porting two dimensional games from Windows to Linux and SDL
– Porting OpenGL code from Windows to Linux (short chapter! :-))
– Making Direct3D code work with Linux and OpenGL. (and it ain’t
pretty…

right, Michael? :-))
– Making Macintosh Toolbox/Quickdraw/orwhateveritis (I don’t remember,
it’s
been ages since I last dabbled in those arcane arts) games work with
Linux

and SDL

Total running time: ~850 pages or so of my maniacal ranting, not
including

CD-ROM with extra material. Also useful as a paperweight, for stopping
things from moving (like tanks), Would anybody actually buy this, or be
interested in co-authoring? (Approximate price, if I’m any judge of
horseflesh, would be $50.00 US)

Nicholas

Nicholas Vining “While you’re out there struggling
vining at pacificcoast.net with your computer, I’m naked,
icq: 20872003 clueless, and feeling good!”
- Ratbert

3

Free the documentation… :slight_smile:

Techniques is probably the most important, I agree with you there. Having
a reference implementation of the techniques is probably helpful too,
though. It would be nice to add well-documented sample code in many areas
of the book.–
Brian

I was actually thinking about proposing an open-source type SDL game
programming book on this page. I was going to look through the game
programming books on my shelf to get basic game programming concepts
to draw up the outline (and add in OpenGL stuff, all my books are
old), and write a few of the introductory chapters. I could probably
co-author some of the early chapter stuff. The main difference from
what I had in mine and your outline below is that I would focus more
on techniques, structures, etc about general game programming and use
SDL to demonstrate the techniques. I figured it would be hard to
write a substantial book on a low-level graphics/sound library.

4

articles)
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=“iso-8859-1”

Maybe a few books in a set would be better than one massive tome.
Seperated out to a 2D book that mentions that 3D is done with OpenGL
but does’nt actually touch it, and a 3D book mainly about OpenGL, but
mentions that it uses SDL. I personally feel that the first few
chapters should be setting up SDL with your particular OS (Linux,
Win32, BeOS, Mac, etc) and the rest just cover techniques that work
over every OS. A benefit to doing it that way is then it is’nt just a
Linux Game Programming Book, but Game Programming Techniques with SDL.
Well that’s how I was gonna do it anyway…

Phoenix Kokido
members.xoom.com/kokido
@Wes_Poole

Nicholas Vining wrote:Date: Mon, 28 Feb 2000 22:01:28 +0000

-----Original Message-----
From: Uriah Liggett <game_dev at hotmail.com>
To: sdl at lokigames.com
Date: Monday, February 28, 2000 10:30 AM
Subject: Re: Linux Game Programming Book (was: Re: [SDL] Re: French SDL
articles)

I’d buy it… Will it cover character animation in 3D??

Now THAT’s a topic and a half. Some of the mathematics behind it (bone
structure based animation) is complex, and probably deserves a chapter to
itself (splines are always good tools to have available). This does bring
up
a few questions:

  1. Where would people want the focus to be more on? 3D? 2D? Porting code?
  2. How much math can you stomach?

Nicholas

Nicholas Vining “While you’re out there struggling
vining at pacificcoast.net with your computer, I’m naked,
icq: 20872003 clueless, and feeling good!”
- Ratbert