Android OpenGL ES and 2D

Question

Well, here\'s my request. I don\'t know OpenGL already, and I\'m not willing to learn it, I want to learn OpenGL ES directly since I\'m targeting my development to android, howe

Answer 1

I was in a similar situation.
The way I started with openGL with start by looking at the very basic GLSurfaceView samples/demos.

Start, by setting up your app activity, and set up the basic canvas.

Take a loot at the replica island source code file: GameRenderer.java for how to setup your canvas with the proper GL flags for 2D (sprite) rendering. You should really take a look at SpriteMethodTest by the same author of replica island: http://code.google.com/p/apps-for-android/source/browse/trunk/SpriteMethodTest

See this question where I posted my own code: Using OpenGL to replace Canvas - Android

After you have your canvas set up, you start by calling something like: gl.glClear(GL10.GL_COLOR_BUFFER_BIT);

After that you're ready to render a sprite. First, you'll need to load the sprite into a texture: http://qdevarena.blogspot.com/2009/02/how-to-load-texture-in-android-opengl.html

However, this is the tutorial that really helped me out with loading sprites: http://tkcodesharing.blogspot.com/2008/05/working-with-textures-in-androids.html

This is how I do it, I have a class named Texture.java:

public class Texture
{
    /*Begin public declarations*/
    public float x = 0;
    public float y = 0;
    public float z = 0;
    public float width = 0;
    public float height = 0;
    /*Begin Private Declarations*/
    private GL10 gl;
    public int[] texture;    //holds the texture in integer form
    private int texture_name;
    private int[] mCropWorkspace;
    private final BitmapFactory.Options sBitmapOptions;


/*Begin Methods*/
public Texture( GL10 gl_obj )
{
    gl = gl_obj;
    texture = new int[1];
    mCropWorkspace = new int[4];
    sBitmapOptions = new BitmapFactory.Options();
    sBitmapOptions.inPreferredConfig = Bitmap.Config.RGB_565;
    //Log.d(TAG, "Initializing Texture Object");
}    
public int get_texture_name( )
{
    return texture_name;
}

/*Loads the resource to memory*/
public boolean Load( Bitmap bitmap ) //rename this to glLoad and don't have it as an initializer parameter
{
    /*many thanks to sprite method test if this works*/
    if ( gl == null )
    {
        Log.e(TAG, "Failed to load resource.  Context/GL is NULL");
        return false;
    }
    int error;

    int textureName = -1;
    gl.glGenTextures(1, texture, 0);
    textureName = texture[0];

    //Log.d(TAG, "Generated texture: " + textureName);
    gl.glBindTexture(GL10.GL_TEXTURE_2D, textureName);
    gl.glTexParameterf(GL10.GL_TEXTURE_2D, GL10.GL_TEXTURE_MIN_FILTER, GL10.GL_NEAREST);
    gl.glTexParameterf(GL10.GL_TEXTURE_2D, GL10.GL_TEXTURE_MAG_FILTER, GL10.GL_LINEAR);
    gl.glTexParameterf(GL10.GL_TEXTURE_2D, GL10.GL_TEXTURE_WRAP_S, GL10.GL_CLAMP_TO_EDGE);
    gl.glTexParameterf(GL10.GL_TEXTURE_2D, GL10.GL_TEXTURE_WRAP_T, GL10.GL_CLAMP_TO_EDGE);
    gl.glTexEnvf(GL10.GL_TEXTURE_ENV, GL10.GL_TEXTURE_ENV_MODE, GL10.GL_REPLACE);

    GLUtils.texImage2D(GL10.GL_TEXTURE_2D, 0, bitmap, 0);

    mCropWorkspace[0] = 0;
    mCropWorkspace[1] = bitmap.getHeight();
    mCropWorkspace[2] = bitmap.getWidth();
    mCropWorkspace[3] = -bitmap.getHeight();

    ((GL11) gl).glTexParameteriv(GL10.GL_TEXTURE_2D, 
            GL11Ext.GL_TEXTURE_CROP_RECT_OES, mCropWorkspace, 0);

    error = gl.glGetError();
    if (error != GL10.GL_NO_ERROR)
    { 
        Log.e(TAG, "GL Texture Load Error: " + error);

    }
    //Log.d(TAG, "Loaded texture: " + textureName);
    return true;
 }
}

Then in my onDrawFrame() method I simply do:

Texture texture = ...
gl.glBindTexture(GL10.GL_TEXTURE_2D, texture.texture[0]);
((GL11Ext) gl).glDrawTexfOES((float)(draw_x + 0.5), (float)(draw_y + 0.5), 0, tile_width, tile_height);

That should get you going with drawing 2D sprites on an openGL canvas. I've noticed that there is really no straightforward tutorial on this. Hopefully in the future I will post one in my dev blog: http://developingthedream.blogspot.com/