Simple DirecMedia Layer

Rmi Dewitte

Alexandru Poenaru

Department of Computer Science

Helsinki University of Technology

November 30th, 2006

Rmi Dewitte, Alexandru Poenaru (HUT)

Simple DirecMedia Layer

November 30th, 2006

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Outline

Introducing SDL

SDL in Action

Developping with SDL

Conclusion

Rmi Dewitte, Alexandru Poenaru (HUT)

Simple DirecMedia Layer

November 30th, 2006

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Introducing SDL

Outline

Introducing SDL
SDL in a Nutshell
Current Status
Community

SDL in Action

Developping with SDL

Conclusion

Rmi Dewitte, Alexandru Poenaru (HUT)

Simple DirecMedia Layer

November 30th, 2006

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Introducing SDL

SDL in a Nutshell

SDL in a Nutshell
Overview
cross-platform multimedia library
developped by Loki Entertainment Software
low level access to many peripherals
a layer between an application and the underlying system
licensed under LGPL
started in 1998
Claimed objectives
save you development time
increase the reliability of your final product
ease portability and versatility
Rmi Dewitte, Alexandru Poenaru (HUT)

Simple DirecMedia Layer

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Introducing SDL

Current Status

Current Status

Version
SDL 1.2 stable version
SDL 1.3 dev version to support
SDL 2.0 on indefinite hold
Supported Languages
written in C, used with C++ natively
bindings for C#, Eiffel, Erlang, Haskell, Java, Lisp, Perl, PHP,
Python, Ruby, Smalltalk, etc

Rmi Dewitte, Alexandru Poenaru (HUT)

Simple DirecMedia Layer

November 30th, 2006

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Introducing SDL

Community

Community

Take benefits from

the SDL mailing list
600 emails per month
highly responsive
archives are an enormous resource full of information

add-ons for SDL

steady flow of new projects and improvement of the code

Rmi Dewitte, Alexandru Poenaru (HUT)

Simple DirecMedia Layer

November 30th, 2006

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SDL in Action

Outline

Introducing SDL

SDL in Action
SDL, a widespread library
Demo

Developping with SDL

Conclusion

Rmi Dewitte, Alexandru Poenaru (HUT)

Simple DirecMedia Layer

November 30th, 2006

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SDL in Action

SDL, a widespread library

SDL, a widespread library

Application examples
games such as Unreal Tournament, Call to Power.

various multimedia and scientific applications

Statistics
more than 700 projects based on SDL on sourceforge.net
over 100 add-on libraries
Rmi Dewitte, Alexandru Poenaru (HUT)

Simple DirecMedia Layer

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SDL in Action

Demo

Demo

Lets play the famous TuxRacer.

Rmi Dewitte, Alexandru Poenaru (HUT)

Simple DirecMedia Layer

November 30th, 2006

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Developping with SDL

Outline
1

Introducing SDL

SDL in Action

Developping with SDL

Graphics
Sound
Network
Event based input
Threads
Set up and shut down
Time and timers

Conclusion

Rmi Dewitte, Alexandru Poenaru (HUT)

Simple DirecMedia Layer

November 30th, 2006

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Developping with SDL

Graphics

Graphics

Two choices
get at the raw pixels
use OpenGL to do hardware accelerated 2D and 3D graphics
For you SDL ...
takes care of setting the video modes
gets access to the frame buffer
initializes OpenGL

Rmi Dewitte, Alexandru Poenaru (HUT)

Simple DirecMedia Layer

November 30th, 2006

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Developping with SDL

Graphics

Graphics
Code Sample
SDL_Surface screen = SDL_SetVideoMode ( 6 4 0 , 480 , 16 , SDL_SWSURFACE) ;
void ShowBMP( char f i l e , SDL_Surface screen , i n t x , i n t y )
{
SDL_Surface image ;
SDL_Rect d e s t ;
/ Load t h e BMP f i l e i n t o a s u r f a c e /
image = SDL_LoadBMP ( f i l e ) ;
/ B l i t onto t h e screen s u r f a c e .
The s u r f a c e s should n o t be l o c k e d a t t h i s p o i n t .
/
dest . x = x ; dest . y = y ;
d e s t . w = image>w; d e s t . h = image>h ;
S D L _ B l i t S u r f a c e ( image , NULL , screen , &d e s t ) ;
/ Update t h e changed p o r t i o n o f t h e screen /
SDL_UpdateRects ( screen , 1 , &d e s t ) ;
}

Rmi Dewitte, Alexandru Poenaru (HUT)

Simple DirecMedia Layer

November 30th, 2006

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Developping with SDL

Sound

Sound

Sound support
query the capabilities of the sound card with a simple (minimal)
API
produce low latency sound on any device
high level sound libraries
add-ons provided for more powerful controls

Rmi Dewitte, Alexandru Poenaru (HUT)

Simple DirecMedia Layer

November 30th, 2006

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Developping with SDL

Sound

Sound
Code Sample
# i n c l u d e "SDL.h"
# i n c l u d e "SDL_audio.h"
SDL_AudioSpec f m t ;
/ Set 16 b i t s t e r e o audio a t 22Khz /
f m t . f r e q = 22050 ; f m t . f o r m a t = AUDIO_S16 ; f m t . channels = 2 ;
f m t . samples = 512 ; f m t . c a l l b a c k = mixaudio ; f m t . u s e r d a t a = NULL ;
/ Open t h e audio d e v i c e and s t a r t p l a y i n g sound ! /
SDL_OpenAudio(& fmt , NULL ) ;
SDL_PauseAudio ( 0 ) ;
i n t i n d e x ; U i n t 8 data ; U i n t 3 2 d l e n ;
SDL_AudioCVT c v t ; SDL_AudioSpec wave ;
/ Load t h e sound f i l e and c o n v e r t i t t o 16 b i t s t e r e o a t 22kHz /
SDL_LoadWAV ( f i l e , &wave , &data , &d l e n ) ;
SDL_BuildAudioCVT (& c v t , wave . format , wave . channels , wave . f r e q , AUDIO_S16 , 2 , 22050) ;
c v t . b u f = m a l l o c ( d l e n c v t . l e n _ m u l t ) ; memcpy ( c v t . buf , data , d l e n ) ; c v t . l e n = d l e n ;
SDL_ConvertAudio (& c v t ) ;
SDL_FreeWAV ( data ) ;
{ . . . } / / Get a f r e e sound s l o t a t sounds [ i n d e x ]
/ Put t h e sound data i n t h e s l o t ( i t s t a r t s p l a y i n g i m m e d i a t e l y ) /
SDL_LockAudio ( ) ;
sounds [ i n d e x ] . data = c v t . b u f ; sounds [ i n d e x ] . d l e n = c v t . l e n _ c v t ; sounds [ i n d e x ] . dpos = 0 ;
SDL_UnlockAudio ( ) ;
SDL_CloseAudio ( ) ;

Rmi Dewitte, Alexandru Poenaru (HUT)

Simple DirecMedia Layer

November 30th, 2006

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Developping with SDL

Network

Network

Charateristics
low level networking API
similar to the UNIX and Windows networking APIs
difference : use network features that are common across all the
supported operating systems.

Rmi Dewitte, Alexandru Poenaru (HUT)

Simple DirecMedia Layer

November 30th, 2006

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Developping with SDL

Event based input

Event based input

Charateristics
inputs from the keyboard, mouse, and joystick
event based model
same events no matter which OS is used
Code Sample
while ( SDL_PollEvent (& event ) ) {
switch ( event . t y p e ) {
case SDL_MOUSEMOTION:
...
case SDL_MOUSEBUTTONDOWN:
...
case SDL_QUIT :
exit (0) ;
}}

Rmi Dewitte, Alexandru Poenaru (HUT)

Simple DirecMedia Layer

November 30th, 2006

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Developping with SDL

Threads

Threads
Charateristics
simplified version of pthreads
mask the low level details
Code Sample
# i n c l u d e "SDL_thread.h"
i n t t h r e a d _ f u n c ( void unused ) {
SDL_mutexP ( l o c k ) ;
...
SDL_mutexV ( l o c k ) ;
...
SDL_Delay ( 1 0 0 ) ;
...
return ( 0 ) ;
}
SDL_mutex l o c k = SDL_CreateMutex ( ) ;
SDL_Thread t h r e a d = SDL_CreateThread ( t h r e a d _ f u n c , NULL ) ;
...
SDL_WaitThread ( thread , NULL ) ;
SDL_DestroyMutex ( l o c k ) ;

Rmi Dewitte, Alexandru Poenaru (HUT)

Simple DirecMedia Layer

November 30th, 2006

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Developping with SDL

Set up and shut down

Set up and shut down

Charateristics
simple way to find out what the hardware
only a couple of lines of code you can set it all up.
Code Sample
# i n c l u d e < s t d l i b . h>
# i n c l u d e "SDL.h"
main ( i n t argc , char argv [ ] )
{
i f ( S D L _ I n i t ( SDL_INIT_AUDIO | SDL_INIT_VIDEO ) < 0 ) {
f p r i n t f ( s t d e r r , "Unable to init SDL: %s\n" , SDL_GetError ( ) ) ;
exit (1) ;
}
a t e x i t ( SDL_Quit ) ;
}

Rmi Dewitte, Alexandru Poenaru (HUT)

Simple DirecMedia Layer

November 30th, 2006

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Developping with SDL

Time and timers

Time and timers

Charateristics
clean, simple, and reliable time and timer API
machine and OS independent.
no limitations in the number of timers

Rmi Dewitte, Alexandru Poenaru (HUT)

Simple DirecMedia Layer

November 30th, 2006

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Conclusion

Outline

Introducing SDL

SDL in Action

Developping with SDL

Conclusion

Rmi Dewitte, Alexandru Poenaru (HUT)

Simple DirecMedia Layer

November 30th, 2006

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Conclusion

Conclusion

What you should remember about SDL ?

very stable and scalable
cross platform and support in many languages
widely used and many user contributed libraries
permissive license
dynamic community
low level access
just a layer and the bindings could imply overhead

Rmi Dewitte, Alexandru Poenaru (HUT)

Simple DirecMedia Layer

November 30th, 2006

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Conclusion

References
I

SDL Homepage, http ://www.libsdl.org

Bob Pendleton. Why SDL ?, August 2002,

http ://gameprogrammer.com/sdl.html

Bob Pendleton, Game programming with the SDL, June 2003,

Linux Journal 110, Specialized Systems Consultants

Ernest Pazera, Focus on Sdl, Oct 2002, Course Technology

Erik Yuzwa, Game Programming in C++ Start to Finish, January

11, 2006, Charles River Media

John Hall, A Crash Course in SDL, 2001, Linux Journal 81es,

Specialized Systems Consultants

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