nair
February 16th, 2011, 05:11 AM
The following questions pertain strictly to the topics of the C/C++ languages and game development libraries.
What are some of the similarities and differences (or strengths and weaknesses) of the major developer libraries out there that could be used for game development (for both 2D and 3D games). Are libraries like GTK+ and Qt for simple, generic GUI development that would not generally be associated with game development? Are other libraries like SDL, OpenGL, Direct3D, and Allegro more robust and therefore recommended over GTK+/Qt for game development? Should some combination of these libraries be used for game development, depending on the complexity of the GUI?
I am asking these questions as a very novice programmer, relatively unfamiliar with C++ and completely ignorant as to how to make a GUI-based application from scratch. I am interested in making the simplest game possible, something along the lines of Pacman or Tetris or Tic-Tac-Toe--strictly for the purposes of learning how to program a game that has a GUI. I do not care what platform is used or that this game is cross-platform; I only care that I am writing this game in C++.
Regardless of my individual ambitions, however, for the purposes of this thread, I am mainly interested in comparing all of the libraries that could be used for a development task comparable to the one I seek to undertake.
What are some of the similarities and differences (or strengths and weaknesses) of the major developer libraries out there that could be used for game development (for both 2D and 3D games). Are libraries like GTK+ and Qt for simple, generic GUI development that would not generally be associated with game development? Are other libraries like SDL, OpenGL, Direct3D, and Allegro more robust and therefore recommended over GTK+/Qt for game development? Should some combination of these libraries be used for game development, depending on the complexity of the GUI?
I am asking these questions as a very novice programmer, relatively unfamiliar with C++ and completely ignorant as to how to make a GUI-based application from scratch. I am interested in making the simplest game possible, something along the lines of Pacman or Tetris or Tic-Tac-Toe--strictly for the purposes of learning how to program a game that has a GUI. I do not care what platform is used or that this game is cross-platform; I only care that I am writing this game in C++.
Regardless of my individual ambitions, however, for the purposes of this thread, I am mainly interested in comparing all of the libraries that could be used for a development task comparable to the one I seek to undertake.