Table of Contents
Setting up a game project on the Mac
This is the third article in a series for Orx on Mac OS X.
The first article helped the user set up their Mac for development by downloading the Xcode Commandline Developer Tools which gives the user the GCC compiler, the git command, and a MacOSX SDK.
The second article guided the user how to compile the Orx library.
This article will teach how to create your own game project using the Orx tools and Orx library.
Creating a new game project with "init"
In the root of the orx project folder, you will see a script called init.sh.
This tool let's you create a project for the Mac in all available IDEs and compilers.
- Open a Terminal
- cd into the
~/Documents/orx/folder - Type:
./init.sh ~/Documents/MyGame
You will see output like:
[ 12:09:40 ] Initializing [ MyGame ] in [ /Documents/ ] [ 12:09:40 ] == Creating files: + MyGame/.editorconfig + MyGame/build/premake4.lua + MyGame/data/config/MyGame.ini + MyGame/data/config/MyGamed.ini + MyGame/data/config/MyGamep.ini + MyGame/data/config/CreationTemplate.ini + MyGame/data/config/SettingsTemplate.ini + MyGame/data/sound/appear.ogg + MyGame/data/texture/logo.png + MyGame/src/MyGame.cpp [ 12:09:40 ] Generating build files for [ mac ]: * gmake Building configurations... Running action 'gmake'... Generating mac/gmake/Makefile... Generating mac/gmake/MyGame.make... Done. * codelite Building configurations... Running action 'codelite'... Generating mac/codelite/MyGame.workspace... Generating mac/codelite/MyGame.project... Done. * codeblocks Building configurations... Running action 'codeblocks'... Generating mac/codeblocks/MyGame.workspace... Generating mac/codeblocks/MyGame.cbp... Done. * xcode4 Building configurations... Running action 'xcode4'... Generating mac/xcode4/MyGame.xcworkspace/contents.xcworkspacedata... Generating mac/xcode4/MyGame.xcodeproj/project.pbxproj... Done. [ 12:09:40 ] Init successful!
You can see that Solution Projects have been created for gmake, Codelite, Code::Blocks and Xcode.
Use Finder to take a look at the structure of your game folders:
Your project can be compiled and developed in any of these IDE's (or a text editor in the case of gmake). We'll use gmake because if you have been following the series with a clean Mac, gcc/make is what we have.
Compiling our game project with gmake
- cd into
~/Documents/MyGame/build/mac/gmake - type:
make
(the above is the same as typing the default of: make config=debuguniv64)
You'll see your game compile with:
==== Building orxLIB (debuguniv64) ==== Creating obj/x64/Debug/orxLIB orxPlugin_EmbeddedList.cpp orxAnim.c orxAnimPointer.c orxAnimSet.c ----- >8 snip ------ orxLinkList.c orxString.c orxTree.c Linking orxLIB ld: warning: directory not found for option '-L/usr/lib64' Running post-build commands cp -f ../../../lib/dynamic/liborx*.dylib ../../../bin ==== Building orx (debuguniv64) ==== Creating obj/x64/Debug/orx orxMain.c Linking orx ld: warning: directory not found for option '-L/usr/lib64' ==== Building Bounce (debuguniv64) ==== Creating obj/x64/Debug/Bounce orxBounce.c Linking Bounce ld: warning: directory not found for option '-L/usr/lib64'
You'll also notice the post-build step of:
Running post-build commands cp -f ../../../lib/dynamic/liborx*.dylib ../../../bin
This step is used to copy the dylib(s) into the game's bin folder. How is the compiler able to do this if our game project is in a completely different place to the Orx library project? The answer is: the location stored in the $ORX environment variable.
The variable is taken from your .bashrc and .profile files. The variable holds the location of the Orx Includes and Orx libraries (dylib) to link to.
Running our game project
Now to run our compiled program.
- cd
~/Documents/MyGame/bin - Type:
./MyGamed
You're all done! Congratulations on compiling the Orx library, and your very first Orx game project.
You might be interested to move onto the Beginner's Tutorial and create a platform game.
Troubleshooting
MacOS varies in it's treatment of environment variables, So depending on which MacOS version or Codelite version you have, you may need to perform some extra steps.
Environment Variable Problems
If when trying to compile you may get an error similar to the following:
cp: /Users/xxxx/Documents/orx/code/no/lib/dynamic/liborx*.dylib: No such file or directory make: *** [PostBuild] Error 1
or
/Users/xxxx/Documents/simplescroll/src/simplescroll.cpp:6:10: fatal error: 'orx.h' file not found
#include "orx.h"
^~~~~~~
This one is generally caused by the $ORX environment being set, however, the MacOS version or Codelite version not honouring the variable. In this case, you need to set the variable within Codelite.
To do this, go to: Settings / Environment Variables
Add the following line:
ORX=/Users/canberra-air/Documents/orx/code/
Debugging Problems
When trying to run the debugger you may get a dialog box saying:
Failed to locate gdb at ‘gdb’
Right click on your project. Then go to General / Debugger property (not the Debugger section), Switch from GCC Debugger to LLDB Debugger.
