For the last few years I''ve delved into the world of low level graphics. I''ve written fading effects, bitmap animation, and my crowning achivement: a 3D texture mapping engine, all without the use of hardware acceleration or external kits. To me, pixels = memory to manipulate. When I started this, there was no standard for hardware acceleration for alternative OSs. Apple had not yet adopted OpenGL, and linux was something you couldn''t find at Best Buy. But now, all that is changed; it''s OpenGL or DirectX. My current project has been trimmed down to 2D animation, at the same time I would like to use OpenGL if only to learn the API. I''m concerned that if I did use OpenGL in this project, it would limit my audience to only those with working hardware acceleration. The game will use SDL and be available for Windows, Mac, and Linux. -Solstice deninet.com aeris.deninet.com "...I was given three choices, the earth, the stars, or..."

As a design consideration, I''m all for OpenGL as well. I''ve finally made up my mind that I''m not going to expressly write for M$. I''m actually going to concentrate on Linux first, but hopefully the design will be wrapped in good enough C++ classes that porting it to Windows won''t be too diffucult.

Why not code for M$? Because it already has enough games and I want to learn *nix better. First off, I''m not really a programmer anyway, more like a tinkerer. I''m not even good enough to be a modder, but if you show me the code, I''ll have a good enough grasp of what''s going on.

So OpenGL is what I''d like to do, and from the rough outlines I''ve seen of OpenGL 2.0, it looks pretty interesting. I wouldn''t worry about it being 2d or anything, I mean I''d like my game to be 3d, but I''m somewhat realistic Good luck in your endeavors

quote: Original post by Solstice


My current project has been trimmed down to 2D animation, at the same time I would like to use OpenGL if only to learn the API. I''m concerned that if I did use OpenGL in this project, it would limit my audience to only those with working hardware acceleration. The game will use SDL and be available for Windows, Mac, and Linux.

Don''t let that be a concern. Windows comes with openGL 1.1 in software by default, and you can also get the ''mesa'' library for linux and windows (don''t know about Mac, sorry) that does openGL in software rendering.

As long as you don''t use any extensions (or at least, you don''t _depend_ on any extensions) there is no reason your game will not run without a hardware T&L card.