These tutorials focus mainly on OpenGL, Win32 programming and the ODE physics engine. OpenGL has moved on to great heights and I don't cover the newest features but cover all of the basic concepts you will need with working example programs.
Working with the Win32 API is a great way to get to the heart of Windows and is just as relevant today as ever before. Whereas ODE has been marginalized as hardware accelerated physics becomes more common.
Games and graphics utilities can be made quickly and easily using game engines like Unity so this and Linux development in general will be the focus of my next tutorials.
Released 01/10/2009
IVTracker allows you to search for almost any text within the thousands of texture files that come with the game. It should also be useful to modders that want to quickly find a particular building to edit within the hundreds of models (when the model editing utility becomes available) by simply searching for a sign on the building itself. You can get an idea of how time consuming this would be if done manually by looking at the data file here. I was very impressed by the quality and look of the city in GTAIV and believe this game will become one of the most modded games in history. My biggest disappointment with the game was the tone of the billboards and advertising around the city. Far from being amusing as was the case with San Andreas, they are grossly offensive and I believe the game content must have been authored by the accounting department.
I hope IVTracker will speed up the development of many new texture packs but to allow people to easily apply these textures to their game installation we still need another application that will take hundreds of textures and swap them into the image files at the click of a button rather than asking people to download very large image files or import hundreds of textures one at time.
DVD Disk Catalogue v1.0 is a free utility for cataloguing your DVDs, CDs or any disk drive. The program is only available for Windows but a Linux version is on the drawing board. It has been released with the full source code under the GNU General Public License. It was compiled using version 3.3.2 of Qt Designer from Trolltech.
Deluxe Video Catalogue is a free utility for cataloging your Videos and DVDs. Along with the title you can also add extended information about your videos and DVDs that makes for a handy reference when you need it. You can browse the catalogue using the list view or you can navigate the categories using the graphic interface displaying scanned images of your video covers.
The program comes in both Windows and Linux flavours and has been released with the full source code under the GNU General Public License. It was compiled using version 3.3.2 on Windows and 3.3.6 on Linux, thanks again to Trolltech for their GPL versions of their product.
Windows version with source code for Qt v3.3.2:
Download Deluxe Video Catalogue for Windows
Linux version with source code for Qt v3.3.6:
Windows version with source code for Qt v3.3.2:
Download ConspiracyWatch for Windows
Linux version with source code for Qt v3.3.6:
Download ConspiracyWatch for Linux
XML data files:
Main data file 1000 titles (also included in above downloads)
Additional data file 100 NEW titles sent in by ZT (most with links to Google Vids)
Released 21/07/2003
The FreeWorld Editor allows you to create and export world data to be used in your own programs, the data file format is intended to be easy to understand and load, consisting of only polygon and texturing information. The program is still under development and future versions will see an improved interface and many additional features. There is a tutorial included in the download or you can get to it by clicking on the link above.
Tutorials and Downloads:
View Full Information & Tutorial
Built on top of the OpenGL MDI demo, this editor allows you to create and save splines for use in other programs. I have used the spline data for setting camera paths but I'm sure it will be useful in other ways later. I apologize that the source code isn't commented very well and this is a habit of mine that I must correct.
Yet another MD2 viewer hits the streets. MD2Views uses the freely released model loading and rendering source by Nathan Lucas's OpenGL MD2 Model Viewer v.1.04 and I only take credit for extracting the source and making it a little easier to include in any OpenGL programs. About the only things it can do that differ from other MD2 viewers is show the model under different lighting conditions and allow you to select any weapon model to accompany the main model.
Designing a new world editor, data structure format and world renderer can take a bit of time, so for those who have just begun to program graphics using OpenGL/Win32 this program should help to alleviate the desire to have a complete world up and running yesterday. This program has been adapted from Alexey Goloshubin's Poly Engine source code, so full credit for the BSP loading and rendering goes to him and to the ID Software team for being kind enough to release the original source to the programming community. I only take credit for having been able to extract the necessary code from the heavily embedded source of the Poly Engine and making it easier to include it in your own programs.
For posterity I have listed my older programs here.
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