pouët.net

About a couple decades back I wrote a graphics/game programming tutorial (https://solhsa.com/gp/index.html based on SDL 1.2. It used to be a major driver of traffic to my site, so one or two of you may have come across it.

Time has passed and because of the old SDL (and old compiler suites) the tutorial has been more or less obsolete.

I've started to revamp it - not completely rewrite, as it still uses much of the old material (as basics don't really change). I'm basing it on SDL3, so it should be relevant for a while again. Well, as relevant as plotting pixels goes.

As of this writing the first 10 chapters are here: solhsa.com/gp2/index.html

I'm pondering about which direction to go from there, and one option would be to implement a bunch of old effects (like 2d metaballs, interference, fake raster effects and such), or I could just go the same route as the old tutorial and build the ball game step by step (and maybe even finish it this time).

Thoughts?

Also, if someone does drag themselves through the tutorial, feedback and inevitable bug reports are welcome.

Im all for oldschool effects. I liked the Hornet code docs/tuts i the past. It might bring some old memories. However, if you decide to do any games, please make it demoscene-related, else I don't see the point. There are many gamedev sites out there. Unless the tuts were for a 8- or 16-bit platform ofc you could do it. But kudos for the revamping. I might read it one day..

It's all low-level, no-engine, "hand made" stuff. And the old tutorial already went through building the game so it's not a huge amount of work (just need to adapt to SDL3).

I'm tending towards doing a bit of both, i.e, add more chapters with effects, as well as converting the game chapters afterwards.

(Even if the tutorial doesn't have much of a mainstream audience these days)

Nice idea, I love such tutorials! Maybe add some screenshots of the effects too!

i guess game making is much better covered in other tutorials outside the scene as well, so, focusing on oldskool demo effects and explaining the tricks involved might be more interesting for us... but if you want to get a lot of hits like last time, focus on the game :P

"alright alright, I focus on effects, not games but please don't hit me again, maali!"

Well done! I've included a link to your site in the Hugi Code blog.

Well, it's not exactly a "demoscene" tutorial, but a "graphics programming" one..



I'm planning to emscripten them actually, which is slightly better than screenshots =)

Very nice intiative regardless what path you chose :) /clap

well, you're asking on a demoscene website, not flipcode, hence i expressed the preference for demo effects ;)

Touché.

definitely needs shots as a placeholder before the emscripten-mafied version is ready :-)

thinking of going into some SDL3 so this could be perfect for me