gdx2d is a simple to use 2d game and graphics framework. It is multi-platform (working on Windows, Linux and Android). It is Java based with the heavy-lifting done in native code (i.e. C/C++), for example for physics rendering. Here is an example of what the library is capable of:
The advantage of using gdx2d is that you can develop your code in Java on your standard desktop computer like any other Java application and then deploy the same code, with a single click, on an Android phone or tablet. Of course, you have to take into consideration the fact that some of your code is a bit different for Android (for instance, you do not have accelerometers on your PC).
The library itself is a wrapper around a very very nice library called libgdx which provides almost everything to the library.
It is multi-platform so that you can run your code on desktop computers (running either Windows, Linux or Mac) but also on mobile devices running Android. It is based on ´libgdx´ but provides a much simpler interface and multiple demo programs to get started.
Using the framework, the following code displays a shrinking/growing circle running smoothly:
package hevs.gdx2d.demos.simple;
import com.badlogic.gdx.graphics.Color;
import hevs.gdx2d.lib.GdxGraphics;
import hevs.gdx2d.lib.PortableApplication;
/**
* A very simple demonstration on how to display something animated with the library
* @author Pierre-André Mudry (mui)
*/
public class DemoSimpleAnimation extends PortableApplication {
int radius = 5, speed = 1;
public DemoSimpleAnimation(boolean onAndroid) {
super(onAndroid);
}
public void onInit() {
// Sets the window title
setTitle("Simple demo, mui 2013");
}
public void onGraphicRender(GdxGraphics g) {
// Clears the screen
g.clear();
g.drawFilledCircle(g.getScreenWidth()/2, g.getScreenHeight()/2, radius, Color.BLUE);
// Update the circle radius
if (radius >= 50|| radius <= 3)
speed *= -1;
radius += speed;
g.drawSchoolLogo();
}
public static void main(String[] args) {
/**
* Note that the constructor parameter is used to determine if running on Android or not.
* As we are in main there, it means we are on desktop computer.
*/
new DemoSimpleAnimation(false);
}
}
It was developped for the inf1 course taught at HES-SO Valais / Systems engineering by Pierre-André Mudry. The framework was written P.-A. Mudry & N. Chatton with the help of C. Métrailler.
The library consists of two Eclipse projects (one for Android, one for desktop) that can be imported easily. Once downloaded, an archive can be imported in Eclipse using File->Import->Existing project into workspace
. You can then either give the path of the archive or extract the data manually and then point to that directory.
gdx2d-desktop
This project contains the library as well as all the demo programs. All the demos can be run on PC or on Android. In order to run a demo, either use the DemoSelector
class which provides a simple way to choose which demo to run or run each demo individually.
gdx2d-android
This is the Android counterpart of the library. This project depends on the gdx2d-desktop project, which means that this other project must be available in Eclipse. In addition, most of the files that will be executed come from that project as well. As such, it mainly consists of a Java file GameActivity.java which determines which is the main program that will be launched on Android.
The content of this project itself is licensed under the Creative Commons CC BY-NC 4.0 license, and the underlying source code used to format and display that content is licensed under the Apache 2.0 license.