Beginning C Through Game Programming 2nd Ed Pdf Download ((EXCLUSIVE))
With this improved and extended 2nd edition, we will start with the very basics of programming, such as variables, loops, and conditions and you will become more skillful with each game as you move through the key C++ topics, such as OOP (Object-Orientated Programming), C++ pointers, and an introduction to the Standard Template Library. While building these games, you will also learn exciting game programming concepts like particle effects, directional sound (spatialization), OpenGL programmable Shaders, spawning thousands of objects, and more.
Beginning C Through Game Programming 2nd Ed Pdf Download
This book approaches learning C++ from the unique and fun perspective of games. Written for the beginning game developer or programmer, the book assumes no previous programming experience and each new skill and concept is taught using simple language and step-by-step instructions.
What is it that sets games apart from other forms of entertainment, keeping players coming back for more? Interactivity. The ability to control the outcome. Programming is an integral part of that interactivity, and C++ is a vital skill in programming for games.
It will provide you with the core skills you need to begin programming with C++ specifically as it relates to games. You'll reinforce each new skill by creating small games along the way, and you'll put these skills to the test with one ambitious game project at the end. By the time you finish, you'll have a solid foundation in the programming language of the professionals!
Currently, he teaches game programming in the Game Production Department of the Los Angeles Film School. Mike has also taught game programming to students through UCLA Extension and The Digital Media Academy at Stanford.
This book brings the benefits of reusable design patterns to the world of game programming. It bridges from the ivory tower world of software architecture to the in-the-trenches reality of hardcore game programming.
This book has everything you need to create your first game in C++. Starts at square one, introducing the tools of the trade and all the basic concepts for getting started programming with C++, the language that powers most current commercial games.
Designed for game programmers interested in developing mobile phone applications, it takes you through the fundamentals of the BREW API, including graphics, sound, and input, and brings it all together with a complete example of a working game.
Pong was one of the first video games to be made, and you can find out about its history here: It is an excellent example of how the basics of game object animation and dynamic collision detection work. We will build this simple retro game to explore the concept of classes and object-oriented programming. The player will use the bat at the bottom of the screen and hit the ball back to the top of the screen:
The final game will be a Space Invaders clone. In some ways, the game itself is not what is important about this project. The project will be used to learn about game programming patterns. As will become abundantly clear as this book progresses, our code keeps getting longer and more complicated. Each project will introduce one or more techniques for coping with this, but the complexity and length of our code will keep coming back to challenge us, despite these techniques.
In addition, C++ is well established at the same time as being extremely up to date. C++ is an object-oriented programming (OOP) language, which means we can write and organize our code using well-tested conventions that make our games efficient and manageable. The benefits as well as the necessity of this will reveal themselves as we progress through this book.
SFML is the Simple Fast Media Library. It is not the only C++ library for games and multimedia. It is possible to make an argument to use other libraries, but SFML seems to come through for me every time. Firstly, it is written using object-oriented C++. The benefits of object-oriented C++ are numerous, and you will experience them as you progress through this book.
To start creating a game, we need to install Visual Studio 2019. Installing Visual Studio can be almost as simple as downloading a file and clicking a few buttons. I will walk you through the installation process a step at a time.
This short tutorial will guide you through downloading the SFML files that allow us to include the functionality contained in the library in our projects. In addition, we will see how we can use the SFML DLL files that will enable our compiled object code to run alongside SFML. To set up SFML, follow these steps:
The main files that we will be including throughout this book are the SFML header files that give us access to all the cool game-coding features. We will also use #include to access the C++ Standard Library header files. These header files give us access to core features of the C++ language itself.
We already know that OOP stands for object-oriented programming. OOP is a programming paradigm, that is, a way of coding. OOP is generally accepted throughout the world of programming, in almost every language, as the best, if not the only, professional way to write code.
The fundamental objective, with which Minecraft Education was created, is to allow total freedom of exploration and creation (Klimovà et al. 2021, Carbonell-Carrera et al. 2021). Unless they are selected in the main menu modes, the game is emptied of goals (Peters et al. 2021, Pietarinen et al. 2018). This is one of the reasons why when the first version was released, no guide was published (Sajben et al. 2020). The game software reproduces many different landscapes (realities) where it is possible to play in single or multiplayer mode (Vesin et al. 2021, Wouters et al. 2013). The realities of Minecraft are based on cubic logic, which means that the smallest element in Minecraft is made up of a cube (or block) of a different material. Complex structures can be made by delivering multiple blocks into space. Players are free to move, make buildings and objects, freely choosing the type of material and in some contexts using chemistry to make them. From this brief introduction it is clear how the player is faced with the resolution of mathematical and geometry problems in the choice of the shape of the construction. Minecraft offers the possibility of playing through keyboard and mouse, through programming (available languages are MakeCode, python and JavaScript) or through both. Within the Digital Education Lab the following levels of player are distinguished on the basis of the skills possessed:
Beginner Programmers: the player can choose the quantity of blocks, the type of block and the position through the visual programming of MakeCode. In this case, the player can view the construction steps through a robot, Agent, to which the commands are given and which carries them out progressively.
Digital education through game-learning overturns the educational paradigm of traditional teaching which first involves the transmission of theoretical knowledge and then its practical use. The Digital Education Lab thinks that, to facilitate the understanding of abstract concepts, it is important to concretize knowledge through practical experience. In this case it occurs through the playful component which, in addition to favoring a greater degree of attention, allows concentration to be kept high for a longer period of time (Zhang et al. 2021). Furthermore, students are led to autonomously elaborate an abstraction process that leads to the conceptual generalization of knowledge, as reported by the results of the tests that are administered at the end of the course. At the end of the educational path, students are given a test, built to evaluate the skills acquired. Therefore, the research on learning and the development of cognitive and scientific skills presented in this paper is based on two main questions:
The tool used to analyze these aspects is a post-course test, built with a targeted articulation and consult the research topics introduced. At the beginning of the courses, no pre-course tests were administered as the students of the age group considered (8-10 years) have limited computer experience that does not require the use of programming. The starting level appears almost homogeneous. However, it is not excluded that, in future elaborations of this study, they will be able to benefit from pre-course tests appropriately constructed in accordance with the final test.
Recent studies show that game-learning is able to rapidly develop numerous cognitive aspects. The work conducted by the group (Zhang et al. 2021) has shown that action games are able to speed up the development of perception and working memory, compared to those which do not use them. Teaching through play and technological tools have shown they know how to emphasize the creative and cognitive abilities of children, especially between the ages of 7 and 12 (Kangas 2010). Furthermore, the playful aspect favors collaboration between students who identify a common learning and investigation objective (Light & Fawns 2003). Digital games are becoming an emerging tool for education, as reported by Tobias et al. (2015), as they can better capture attention and transfer cognitive skills implicitly. Therefore, these can be used for tasks even outside the game. The results collected in this work confirm the previous studies. Children, especially younger (8-11 years), acquire a deep understanding of the knowledge offered through play. The acquired abilities consist also in transforming practical activity lived through the digital experience into a theoretical aspect. Students have shown they are able to conceptualize their experiences, generalize them and reuse personally developed laws depending on the situation. We can therefore speak of learning by transfer: the knowledge acquired through game-learning develops memory and logical abilities that can be decontextualized and reused later. The results are even more positive if we consider that complex topics ranging from programming to mathematics and geometry are dealt with in just 12 hours of lessons. This learning speed is certainly linked to the playful dimension, which favors attention and socialization, but we believe that it is largely due to the possibility of making abstract knowledge concrete, thanks to the possibility of experiencing the situations studied in the digital world. Despite the great results also found through final tests, this study is still limited in comparison with other educational methods that do not involve the use of technology or the playful component. The Digital Education Lab considers their combination as winning in terms of learning, however future quantative studies of comparison with the results achieved through traditional educational methods, will have to be carried out. In this way it will be possible to have wider results, the superposition of which will provide more precise information about the learning parameters of interest such as learning speed, solidity of the information acquired and the ability to decontextualize.
