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by Antonio Maiorano |
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For Coders
This section contains tutorials, source code, and anything
else that can help you get into programming, and more specifically, game
programming. I know that when I was
a kid, every time I finished playing a game, I would read every name in the
credits (even those Japanese ones I could barely pronounce!) and dream
that someday my name would be there. When I turned 17, I finally started
getting into game coding, and since then, I've come a long way! Knowing
I'm surely not the only person with similar aspirations, I've put together
this section to help out some of my fellow dreamers! Enjoy. Quick Links to Sections Below:
Source Code &
Libraries
The Tetris Master GL -
Source Code
Guardian Soft DirectX
Library (gsdxlib)
Tutorial & Seminars
C++ Tutorials
Mode 13h Tutorial
Operating System Tutorials
Great Books & References
Useful Links |
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As you can see from the Games section, The
Tetris Master (TTM) is the piece of code that I have ported the most
often. By porting over the code, I was able to extract the core logic from
the system-specific logic, making it a very nice piece of code for
beginners to learn from.
DOWNLOAD: Click here to
download the Tetris Master GL source code.
Here's a quick overview of the classes in TTM to get you started:
| Class |
Description |
| TMBlock |
Represents a Tetris block, or piece. In classic
Tetris, there are 7 of these blocks, each made up of four squares. |
| TMBlockFactory |
Class that can return one of the 7 pre-defined classic
Tetris blocks, either by index, or randomly. |
| TMMap |
The map is the area in which the blocks are
manipulated by the player. The class contains a 2D matrix of size
20x10 to represent the map area, and has most of the functions that
are called in response to user input. |
| TMScreen |
The screen represents the entire screen, including the
TMMap instance, and potentially anything else that should be
displayed. In the original version, this class contained instances of
the "next window" class, the "score widow" class, and others. In this
simplified version, only the map instance is held. This class also
contains the DoIteration() function, which should be called once for
every iteration of the main game loop. |
| TMHighScore |
This fully functional class is not used in this
version, but is available anyway for future expansion. |
Actually, with the experience I have gained since I coded TTM, I have
often thought of improving the code by transforming it into a Tetris
framework. The framework would basically interface with a single class
containing pure virtual functions, called say TMClient, which would have
to be implemented for system-specific details. This way, porting the code
would be as simple as implementing different TMClients, one for each
platform. However, this flexibility would also introduce complexity in the
code, making it harder for beginner, or even experienced game programmers
to learn from it.
Back in 2000, I had just finished learning DirectX and I decided to
wrap it up into my own game library that I called simply "Guardian Soft
DirectX Library", or gsdxlib for short. As a wrapper for DirectX, the
primary purpose of the library was to hide the complexity of using DirectX
in a Windows environment. As many game programmers at the time, I was used
to the (relatively) easy life of coding games in DOS. When I decided to
make the move to Windows programming and use DirectX, I was hit with quite
a learning curve! So I decided to mask the complexity behind a
well-designed, consistent, and easy to use interface using C++. My goal
was to make it so easy to use that a DOS game coder could easily use the
library without knowing anything about DirectX and Windows programming.
Although the library is not completely finished, it is still very
much in a usable state. I don't intend to continue working on it much
since I have moved on to other projects; however, I may take special
requests to fix certain problems here or there.
DOWNLOAD: Click here to download the
Guardian Soft DirectX Library (includes sample)
HTML DOCS: Click here to view the
unfinished HTML documentation for the library
GFX UML DESIGN: Click
here to view the UML class diagram for the Graphics component of the
library
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While working at GSI as the main C++
programmer, I could see that many of my coworkers were interested in
learning C++ but did not know how to go about accomplishing this somewhat
daunting task. So I decided to teach C++ once a week on my own time, and
was very happy with the way it turned out. My tutorials consisted mainly
of PowerPoint slides and source code, which I have made available for
everyone. Keep in mind that the target audience are programmers who don't
know C++, but are familiar with common programming concepts, so the
tutorials move pretty quickly at the beginning.
 | Lesson 1: The Basics -
history of C/C++, basic data types, arrays, strings, naming identifiers. |
| Lesson 2: Program Flow &
Pointers - code blocks, conditionals, loops, functions, parameters
by value and by reference, pointers, pointers and arrays. |
| Lesson 3: More Pointers! -
type casting, dynamic allocation (new/delete), memory leaks, dangling
pointers, pointer vs. reference parameters. |
| Lesson 4: Building Programs &
Intro to OOP - file organization (cpp, h), compiler vs. linker,
common linker errors, old C structures and related problems. |
| Lesson 5: Object-Oriented
Programming - classes, constructors & destructors, solving old C
struct problems. |
| Lesson 6: Static Data & Cloning
Objects - local static variables, global static variables, static
data members, cloning class objects, shallow vs. deep copying. |
| Lesson 7: Static Member
Functions & Function Overloading - static member functions, function
overloading, default parameters. |
| Lesson 8: Operator Overloading
- how to overload operators, abusing operator overloading, rules &
limitations, guidelines. |
| Lesson 9: Inheritance &
Polymorphism - lingo, inheritance, overriding functions,
polymorphism, virtual functions, virtual destructors, an actual example. |
| Lesson 10: Q&A on Inheritance
& Polymorphism - not useful on its own. |
| Lesson 11: Abstract Classes &
Templates - pure virtual functions, templates. |
Click here to download a zip
containing all the PowerPoint slides and source code.
Visual Studio Seminar
In our last year at Concordia University, my good friend, Paul Di
Marco, and I were talking about how although we had learned a lot of
Computer Science theory in our program, we had barely learned anything
practical, like how to use Visual Studio properly. Luckily, we were both
so hard-core that we picked it up on our own, but we knew that a lot of
our fellow students were going to graduate without even knowing how to use
the amazing Visual Studio debugger! So we decided to teach them. In our
last year, we presented our Visual Studio Seminar twice, thanks to the
help of Concordia Computer
Science Society, who were able to reserve a large computer room and
the equipment that we needed. Click below to read the PowerPoint
presentation for our seminar.
Visual Studio Seminar
This tutorial was written back in April 1999, when I was still
programming Zelda PC. Although Mode 13h is no longer used to program games
nowadays, graphic cards still fully support this mode, and it is a great
mode to learn 2D graphics programming. Unfortunately, I never got the
chance to finish the tutorial; however, even though it may be outdated, I
have every intention of finishing it because I believe it can still be
useful. Click below to read this tutorial.
Game Programming in DOS using
the C Language
In the Winter semester of 2002, my friend, Paul Di Marco, and I decided
to apply for Teacher's Assistant (TA) positions at
Concordia University, where we had
both graduated as Computer Scientists. We were both assigned to the same
teacher who taught the Operating Systems (OS) course, each of us with
separate sections to tutor. It turned out that both our tutorials were
back to back, so we decided to tag-team and join the tutorials into one to
make it more useful for the students. It turned out to be quite a success,
and soon we had students from other sections coming to our tutorials!
Although this may not seem game-programming related, I believe strongly
that to be a good game programmer, you must know as much as possible about
the low-level functionality of the platform you are coding for. Having
knowledge about threading, thread synchronization methods, CPU scheduling,
and more can greatly improve your design decisions when coding a game.
Note that the language of choice for this course was Java because it is
simpler than C++, so students could concentrate more on learning OS
techniques rather than battle with the subtleties of C++. Furthermore,
Java has some useful built-in features for multithreading.
| Tutorial 1: Introduction -
some good Java links. |
| Tutorial 2: Adventures in
Threading - thread scheduling, priorities, time-slices, programming
threads in Java, difference in Java implementations. |
| Tutorial 3: Sync or Sink!
- thread synchronization, semaphores. |
| Tutorial 4: Scheduling -
context switching, scheduling policies (first-come-first-server, shortest
job first, etc). |
| Tutorial 5: Even More
Synchronization! - alternatives to semaphores: and synchronization,
events, monitors, condition variables, reader-writer problem. |
| Tutorial 6: Monitor Review and
Deadlock - more on monitors, how to avoid deadlock. |
| Tutorial 7: Memory Management
- primary vs. secondary memory, memory manager, stack vs. heap memory,
process memory layout, memory allocation strategies (fixed vs. variable
partition), memory manager strategies (swapping vs. virtual memory). |
| Tutorial 8: Virtual Memory:
PAGING - static paging policies (fetch, replacement, placement) ,
demand paging algorithms (random, optimal, LRU, LFU, FIFO). |
| Tutorial 9: PA3 - tutorial
geared towards helping students with programming assignment 3. |
| Tutorial 10: Protection &
Security - policy and mechanism, authentication (external, user,
internal). |
| Tutorial 11: PA4 -
tutorial geared towards helping students with programming assignment 4. |
Click here to download a zip
containing all the PowerPoint slides and source code.
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One of the things I love the most is reading programming-related books.
I will rarely go anywhere without some good reading material on me! This
section lists some of the books I own that I have found to be useful in my
programming career.
Now before you go off and spend all your Christmas money on these
books, I recommend you take the time to learn C++ properly by either
taking a course, or reading a good book on the topic. My basic C++ books
are not that great, so I don't mention them here, but I know
Bjarne Stroustrup's
book The C++
Programming Language is a popular one. Also, you should definitely
read or take a course on data structures and algorithms so that you become
very comfortable with structures such as lists, trees, hash tables, etc.,
all of which are used extensively in the programming world.
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Title |
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Author(s) |
Brian W. Kernighan & Dennis M. Ritchie |
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Comments |
This is the classic book on C programming written by the
creators of the language itself. Although C++ is certainly the language
of choice nowadays, I believe that having solid knowledge of its
predecessor is extremely important towards understanding both the
unfortunate backwards-compatibility issues that were carried into C++
from C, and also to appreciate the improvements to the language. The
book explains and contains classic examples of every basic construct of
the language; however, be warned that it can be quite technical and
somewhat daunting to beginners. Definitely a great reference to have,
though. |
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Title |
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Author(s) |
Erich Gamma, Richard Helm, Ralph Johnson, and John
Vlissides (The Gang of Four) |
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Comments |
This is easily one of my favourite books. It's purpose
is to teach you how to solve specific problems that seem to
come up over and over in programming. In particular, it shows you
how to solve these common problems, or patterns, using
Object-Oriented techniques such as inheritance and polymorphism.
Definitely not a book for the faint of heart, though - I've had to read it over
many times to actually understand everything! - but it is certainly worth the effort. |
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Title |
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Author(s) |
Noel Llopis |
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Comments |
I started reading this book at a local bookstore and got
hooked almost immediately! After ravenously devouring three chapters, I
bought it and finished reading it within two weeks! This is an
excellent book for beginner to intermediate game programmers who are
very comfortable with C++, but have questions about which features of
the language should be used, and what design strategies to follow when
coding a game. When I bought it, I was in the middle of designing my
latest game library, and had many questions floating around in my head,
such as how efficient are C++ exceptions, the standard template library
(STL), and using dynamic memory allocation. The book answered all my
questions and gave me a lot more! A definite must-buy! |
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Title |
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Author(s) |
Richard S. Wright, Jr. and Michael Sweet |
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Comments |
I bought this book to learn OpenGL, one of the most
popular graphics libraries out there, and it was quite good. It starts
off with some basic 3D terminology and theory, but assures you that
there is no need for a deep understanding of linear algebra or advanced
calculus in order to use OpenGL (at least at a beginner to intermediate level). It
goes on to explain the most useful features of OpenGL, such as rendering
geometry, texturing, lighting, etc. My only complaint is that I found
the chapters written by Sweet were not as explanatory as those written
by Wright. However, I have used this book as a reference many times, and
do recommend it. |
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Title |
Inside DirectX
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Author(s) |
Bradley Bargen and Peter Donnelly |
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Comments |
Although rather dated, covering DirectX 5, this is an
excellent reference for DirectX. It does not cover Direct3D, though,
since that is a topic that easily requires its own book, but it covers
every other component, including DirectDraw, DirectSound, DirectInput,
DirectPlay, and DirectSetup. It is not exactly
a book that you can just read through; it is more of a reference, and the
best way to use it is to read it and play with the examples from the CD. |
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Windows 98 Programming from the Ground Up
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Author(s) |
Herbert Schildt |
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Comments |
This is the perfect book for those who don't know any
Windows programming and would love to get started. Schildt, in my
opinion, has one of the smoothest writing styles, and is not afraid to
include complete source code into the book, rather than give you small
snippets and force you to load up the CD for complete examples. This
makes it a great book to read on the bus every day! It covers all
the basics of Win32 programming, and after I finished reading it, it
literally took me one week to learn most of MFC, since it is basically
just a C++ wrapper to Win32. This book is not really a reference,
though, so if you are pretty comfortable with Win32, don't bother buying
it. |
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Title |
Teach Yourself Game Programming in 21 Days
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Author(s) |
André LaMothe |
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Comments |
This book holds a very special place in my heart because
it is the very first game-programming book I ever bought. I have fond
memories of lugging it around school everywhere, and reading it every
chance I got. Although it is quite old, covering game programming in DOS
graphics Mode 13h, it is still a great book to learn basics from. LaMothe is a well-known game programmer, and in this book, he covers
both the high-level design strategies to create your own game, which is
still useful even today, as well as the low-level programming techniques
used to achieve this goal. One of the most interesting sections explains
how ID Software was able to make games like Doom and Wolfenstein run so
smoothly on 386 machines. Remember, ID Software was born through its
first game,
Commander Keen, which was programmed entirely in Mode 13h, and look how far
they've come! |
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Title |
Physics for Game Programmers
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Author(s) |
David M. Bourg |
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Comments |
This is the book I am currently carrying with me all
over the place! I will be writing up my blurb as soon as I'm done! |
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