Well I’ve been off and reading all about the DarkGSK development environment for Visual C++ 2008. So far I’ve gone through the first four tutorials which cover the basics of the DarkGDK API. It’s amazing how with just a few lines of code you can have a pretty nifty 3D program up and running. I can already tell that the most time spent in game development is the creation of textures and maps, which I’ll go off and learn how to do eventually. Luckily Microsoft and the DarkGDK developers provide some starter textures, maps and 3D objects to help anyone get going which is great if you just starting off.

Here is a video of end result from the code in the tutorial. I added mouse hooks (two lines of code!) so that I could pan with the mouse as I walk around my terrain map. This was all compiled in Visual Studio C++ 2008 Express which can be downloaded for free from Microsoft.

Continue reading to see the code!

Code

This is the code that makes up the program in the video. The video shows the end result.

// Dark GDK - The Game Creators - www.thegamecreators.com

// include the Dark GDK header
#include "DarkGDK.h"

void DarkGDK ( void )
{
    // entry point for the application

    // switch on sync rate and set to a maximum of 60 fps
    dbSyncOn ( );
    dbSyncRate ( 60 );

    // we are going to use a skybox in this demo and it will
    // be scaled up to quite a large size, this will initially
    // result in it being outside of the cameras default range
    // therefore it will not be drawn, to adjust this we simply
    // increase the cameras range
    dbSetCameraRange ( 1.0f, 30000.0f );

    // two textures are going to be used for the terrain, the first
    // will be the diffuse part and the second will be used to
    // create extra detail on the terrain
    dbLoadImage ( "texture.jpg", 1 );
    dbLoadImage ( "detail.jpg",  2 );

    // the first step in creating a terrain is to call the
    // function dbSetupTerrain, this will perform some internal
    // work that allows us to get started
    dbSetupTerrain ( );

    // now we can get started on making the terrain object
    dbMakeObjectTerrain ( 1 );

    // here we pass in a heightmap that will be used to create the terrain
    dbSetTerrainHeightMap ( 1, "map.bmp" );

    // now we set the scale, this will have the effect of making
    // the terrain large on the X and Z axis but quite small on the Y
    dbSetTerrainScale ( 1, 3.0f, 0.6f, 3.0f );

    // adjust the lighting for the terrain, this function takes the ID
    // number, then a direction for the light, then 3 colours for the light
    // and finally the scale, by using this function we can adjust the
    // overall colour of the terrain
    dbSetTerrainLight ( 1, 1.0f, -0.25f, 0.0f, 1.0f, 1.0f, 0.78f, 0.5f );

    // in this call we're telling the terrain that its diffuse texture
    // will come from image 1 and its detail texture will come from
    // image 2
    dbSetTerrainTexture ( 1, 1, 2 );

    // once we have set all properties of the terrain we can build it,
    // at this point it gets created and added into your world
    dbBuildTerrain ( 1 );

    // with the terrain in place we can now load a skybox
    dbLoadObject ( "skybox2.x", 2 );

    // we dont need it to respond to light so switch light off
    dbSetObjectLight ( 2, 0 );

    // make the skybox much larger
    dbScaleObject ( 2, 30000, 30000, 30000 );

    // position the camera
    dbPositionCamera ( 385, 23, 100 );

// camera variables
    float fCameraAngleX = 0.0f;
    float fCameraAngleY = 0.0f;

    // adjust texture properties of sky box
    dbSetObjectTexture ( 2, 3, 1 );

    // now onto our main loop
    while ( LoopGDK ( ) )
    {
        // let the user move the camera around with the arrow keys
        dbControlCameraUsingArrowKeys ( 0, 2.0f, 2.0f );

        // find the ground height of the terrain
        float fHeight = dbGetTerrainGroundHeight ( 1, dbCameraPositionX ( ), dbCameraPositionZ ( ) );

        fCameraAngleX = dbWrapValue ( fCameraAngleX + dbMouseMoveY ( ) * 0.4f );
        fCameraAngleY = dbWrapValue ( fCameraAngleY + dbMouseMoveX ( ) * 0.4f );

        // rotate camera
        dbXRotateCamera ( fCameraAngleX );
        dbYRotateCamera ( fCameraAngleY );

        // reposition the camera so it is directly above the ground
        dbPositionCamera ( dbCameraPositionX ( ), fHeight + 10.0f, dbCameraPositionZ ( ) );

        // update the terrain
        dbUpdateTerrain ( );

        // update the screen
        dbSync ( );
    }
}