Elysian Shadows

MrDeathNote wrote:

superLED wrote:

N64vSNES wrote:If you want to get into game programming then I would say look into doing some graphics. SDL and Allegro is pretty easy to pick up but then if like me and you want hardware acceleration then I suggest SFML as it uses OpenGL, its Object Oriented (SDL and Allegro is written in C) and its still a lot easier to pick up than learning OpenGL itself.

Although I still recommend getting another book that does start at "Hello World" because its very easy to miss some of the basics. I have read through books before and then read them again to find bits I've missed or didn't fully understand.

You forgot to point out that SDL can use OpenGL as well. Using OpenGL to render graphic and such, and SDL to handle keyboard/mouse input, music, threads.

Being from Ireland I feel obliged to tell you that you spelt Guinness wrong in your sig Also you guys seem to be acting as though c is dead and buried. It's still a VERY commonly used language, it's pretty much the standard for embedded devices. If someone tried to take my c compiler i'd staple their ears to their nipples.

Just so you don't get the wrong impression. I used C to begin with, its still very widely used and a lot of console programmers DC, PSP etc all use C.

Ginto8 wrote:

Sam034 wrote:first... Mr.DeathNote, I am a fan of your new series.

I have been doing a ton of research and basically concluded to.

Become more familiar with STL (going to get: The C++ Standard Library: A Tutorial and Reference and Effective STL)

After that I am going to learn SDL and try to learn OpenGL.

I originally wanted to try SFML like you guys suggested, but I felt like that was the easy way out. If SFML is just so I can get my foot in the door with graphics and other stuff, but I won't use it later once I learn SDL/Open GL and others.., I rather not learn it at all.

I actually sort of have to agree with you. SFML is amazingly useful and very easy, but if you want to learn the most, SDL is probably better because it does fewer things for you, and OpenGL is always beneficial. However, this is just how I perceive things, not necessarily how they are. Learning SFML may actually be a better starting point, I don't know. But don't discount SFML as being "too easy." It's a very powerful library that does a lot of very good things, and it is well worth learning at some point.

I would say it's better to start off with; it's easy, it does hardware acceleration, it has rotation, scale etc built in (something which SDL lacks natively), basically the SFML library is A LOT grander and has native functionality that SDL doesn't have. (However, I'm going to be careful about talking about this, since SDL 1.3 is releasing and apparently has (What I've heard) hardware acceleration and scale / rotational functionality built-in.)

Anyways, I would just suggest you start off easy with something that works with you, and doesn't work against you. What I mean by this is that you have to write a lot of functions and do a lot of stuff by yourself by using SDL, while SFML is more user-friendly at first. If you like a bit more of a challenge, learn SDL first, dive into it, it's honestly not that hard... after all, SDL == Simple DirectMedia Layer. I doubt you'll have any problems learning it.