A fast, easy to use, free, and community supported 2D game engine
hello,
riq told me to use this thread :)
If anyone is interested in reviewing this book, you can just email Shaveer Irani, shaveeri@packtpub.com with the subject "bookname- review request".
Also my guy from Packt also told me to host a giveaway contest (for those who just want to read the book and not write a review :)) Would anyone be interested? Details to follow.
@n8burba very cool book! I just downloaded the Kindle version. My only problem is you use a lot of OpenGL calls - I guess it's time for me to learn the basics of OpenGL :)
You can get the code on the packtpub website by going to the support page for this book and entering your email address. They immediately email you back a link to download a .zip file with all of the code.
@alexasha Thanks! If you've purchased the paperback or Kindle version and want the PDF version, send a screenshot of your book receipt to cocos2dcookbook@gmail.com and I'll send it to you.
@David994A I'm glad you like the book! The OpenGL calls are kind of all over the place in the Graphics chapter, but, not as much in the rest of the book. Advanced techniques unfortunately required a little monkeying around with OpenGL. I've wrapped up most of the complex stuff into classes, so, hopefully it should be easy to work with.
Just wanted to report back after having purchased the book, read several portions and installed all the demos (available free through the App Store actually, I only emailed my receipt a few hours ago)
One word: Essential
There are so many questions answered in this book that I have had floating around in my head, the time savings already dramatically outweighs the small cost of the book. I'd also say it is very appropriate for all proficiency levels Beginner to Advanced. If you are a beginner, however, you are likely going to need another book to get ramped up on iphone development and the basics of cocos2d.
I really think we need more books like this in the market with a wide breadth of topics targeted at all proficiency levels.
@n8burba - Is it too soon to ask when you will be writing/publishing part 2? :p
indy2005
Member
Hi,
I love the book.
I notice in CH_7 example, Grid Pathfinding, you can build a wall where the there is not quite a corner and the path goes through the corner...is there a way to avoid this at all>
https://dl-web.dropbox.com/get/Public/ch_07_pathfinding.jpg?w=27b4bab7
Also, you suggest using 1 pixel shapes and using setTextureRect to make large sprites you can colour...can you eplxain setTextureRect as I thought it just indexed into the underlying texture and so if it was a batch node, this would just be grabbing other sprites?
Regards
i
I was a little confused by the addition of the 1 pixel by 1 pixel texture myself as it seems to me it's not even needed.
I create sprites like this all the time:
CCSprite *fade = [CCSprite node];
[fade setTextureRect:CGRectMake(0, 0, wins.width, wins.height)];
fade.position = ccp(wins.width/2,wins.height/2);
[fade setColor:ccBLACK];@spadict I'm glad you liked the book so much. I simply wanted to put together the most useful set of recipes possible and it looks like it came out well according to reader feedback. As for part 2, well, I'm a busy grad student right now and I'd like to make a few games. Still, there is a number of things I'd like to research and add to this. In particular a few advanced recipes about physics heavy level editing, file management, more networking/multiplayer stuff, multiple viewports/split screen, tween animation, 2D inverse kinematics and Audiosurf-esque music analysis to name a few...
@indy2005 The pathfinding algorithm is merely a bunch of nodes and links. The "grid" is kind of a simplification of that, but, admittedly it can lead to confusion. In that recipe each grid node is linked to all 8 other nodes around it. You could change this to link the nodes non-diagonally only (4 links per node). This would solve that issue.
@Tone and @indy2005 The 1x1 pixel texture was an early technique I had gotten working and was therefore not as elegant or efficient as it should have been. I'll have to update the code with the solution you posted.
@n8burba Congratulations! It's a fascinating tour through the hidden nooks of cocos2d, OpenGL and the iOS SDK. Well done!
It does seem like the Kindle version has quite a few problems. The poor formatting of the source code has already been mentioned, but there are also what look like some ugly formatting mistakes: see the 'Mipmapping' heading at location 523/page 10 for an example. Worst of all, it seems that some text is missing completely. The end of the section on Lua scripting (location 4810/page 392) just ends with:
Local functions also support returning multiple
So, while it's great that you're offering the PDF to buyers of the Kindle version (I'll send you an email shortly with my receipt), you'll need to look into at least fixing the omitted text in the Kindle version (and I'd recommend that someone really needs to check over the formatting, too). It'd be a shame to let a few problems mar such a great book (again, well done!).
FYI, the forum for the book website is now up here: http://cocos2dcookbook.com/forum. There you can ask questions about the book, the code or anything else.
I also plan to start collecting a list of code snippets in this section: http://cocos2dcookbook.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=7.
Hello,
I'm holding a giveaway contest for this book (am giving away 3-4 copies) over on this thread: http://www.cocos2d-iphone.org/forum/topic/28099?replies=12#post-139195
Just check it out, if you haven't bought the book :)
@araker I'm glad you like it! I definitely got inspiration from a number of different places.
@purplelilgirl Thanks for hosting the giveaway!
@pabloruiz55 Thanks! I'm glad you like it. I was happy to feature a few Packt books in the recipes and yours was definitely the first one I had to have on there. :)
@slycrel Awesome! I'm glad you like that recipe. It might be my favorite recipe in the whole book. I can't wait to put it into an AI-heavy 2D shooter of some sort.
In the book there is a section on the CCEase classes. I actually never used them and I have been playing with them and now I am incorporating them into some of the actions I am currently using and it looks so sharp. I can not say enough great things about this book. The problem I see is how are you going to top it or come out with something as high quality in the future. You have set the bar high for yourself. I am already hungry for your next book!
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