README.md

Simple OpenGL Engine

A rendering engine which uses OpelGL

How To Use

The first thing required is a window in which to draw. This can be created by creating a GameWindow instance. The GameWindow constructor takes the following arguments:

• A Window Title.
• A function reference to the update function that takes a single int, which is the delta time between frames.
• A window width.
• A window height. Window width and height are optional parameters, if left blank or 0 they will be retrieved from the engines config file.

// dt is the delta time between frames that the engine passes to the update function on each call
void Update(double dt){}

int main()
{
    GameWindow window = new GameWindow("Window Title", Update);
}

The engine has a structure of objects that decide where and what is rendered on the screen. At the root is the GameWindow class. A GameWindow manages a single Game instance. A Game has a collection of Scenes. Only one Scene can be active at a time. The active Scene can be selected by calling game.SetActiveScene("[name/id of the scene]") where game is the Game instance retrieved from the GameWindow instance. Each Scene has a collection of GameObjects, LightSources and a main CameraComponent which is used for rendring the scene. Each GameObject has an Update(double deltaTime) function which is called each frame with the time that has elapsed between the last frame and the current one. This way each object can have it's own behaviour. A GameObject also has a collection of Components which specify further behaviour of a GameObject such as a MeshComponent that makes it visible in the scene or a TransformComponent which manages the position of the object in world space.

The GameWindow constructor will create a new Game instance. This instance can be retrieved by calling window.GetGame(). New scenes can be added to the game using game.AddScene("[name/id of the new scene]"). Next thing required is a camera that defines how the scene is rendered. A camera can be created by instantiating a CameraComponent which can be done by using either the PerspectiveCamera() constructor or the OrthographicCamera() constructor. A CameraComponent needs at least a width, a height, a far value and a near value. Or if it's a perspective camera, it also needs an fov as the first argument. Additionally, a TransformComponent can be passed as the first parameter to give it a position in world space. If the TransformComponent is ommited, one with default values of 0 will be created automatically. The created camera can then be set as default in the scene by calling scene.SetCamera(camera).

After adding a camera, objects with a MeshComponent are needed in order to see anything on the screen. Once a GameObject has been created, A MeshComponent can be added by first instantiating one by passing a path to a .obj file in the constructor, after which is can be added to the object by calling the AddComponent(mesh) function in which mesh is a reference to the created MeshComponent.

The created object and it's components can be added to a Scene using AddGameoObject(object) in which object is a reference to the GameObject instance.

A simple application that renders one object should look something like this:

void Update(double dt){}

int main(int argc, char* argv[])
{
	using namespace engine;
    // Create window and get the Game instance
	GameWindow* window = new GameWindow("TestWindow", Update);
	Game* game = window->GetGame();

    // Add scene to game
	Scene* mainScene = game->AddScene("Mainscene");
	int width = 0, height = 0;

    // Make sure window is initialized
	while (!window->m_init){	
		Sleep(1);
	}

    // Get window size since none was given in constructor
	window->GetWindowSize(&width, &height);

    // Add a new camera to the scene
	Camera* camera = CameraComponent::PerspectiveCamera(new TransformComponent(glm::vec3(.0f, 0.f, .0f)), 70.0f, static_cast<float>(width), static_cast<float>(height), 200.0f, 0.1f);
	mainScene->SetCamera(camera);

    // Add a gameobject with mesh to the scene
	GameObject* obj = new GameObject(new TransformComponent(glm::vec3(3.0f, 0.0f, 0.0f)));
	auto mesh = new MeshComponent("[Path to .obj file]");
	obj->AddComponent(mesh);

    // Add object to scene
	mainScene->AddGameObject(obj);

    // Add a directional light
	mainScene->AddDirectionalLight(DirectionalLight(
		glm::vec3(.5f, -1.f, 0.7f),
		glm::vec3(.6f, .6f, .6f),
		glm::vec3(1.f, 1.f, 1.f)
	));
    
	std::cin.get();
}