Simple graphics in C# with default System.Drawing

Question

Hello all,

I would like to develop a simple point&click game in C# with the default drawing libraries...no openGL/SDL/Tao for this project.

Suffice to say, I am curious as to the best ways to draw clickable images in layers on a form.

Ideally, I would have

1) Environment layer (pathways, doors, etc)

2) Object layer (items)

3) Character layer (enemies)

Ideally, the layers beneath other layers would still be viewable, so I could still see the environment underneath an object (so whatever component I use to draw the object to the form needs to be transparent).

This game is going to be tile based...so I will be generating a 2D array of some sort of component and putting those onto the form. The question is, what component should I use? A friend has recommended to generate panels and drop those onto the form and use the background image property, but is there a better way?

I know that this is not the ideal way to develop...this is more of a prototype for myself. Later on I will probably move it to Tao if I get anywhere, but for now (ie, the next year or so), I would like to keep it extremely simple.

Answer 1

Tiles are simply logical chunks with which to organize your UI. You do not need to necessarily have tiles in the form of Panels to use the "tile" idea. Switching tiles can simply mean that your character has reached the right edge of tile A and you will therefore draw tile B and place the character on the left edge of that tile. So your memory structure should be a 2D array of logical tile objects that contain information about what to draw but not necessarily Panels, though that is an option, i don't recommend it.

Layers: You don't really need to worry about layers. All you have to do is draw in the correct sequence: Environment first, followed by objects and then characters. .Net and probably all frameworks paint back to front, which means that things drawn first may be entirely or partially obscured by objects drawn later. The "layering" happens automatically. If you just draw your objects within their own bounds then you do not need to worry about transparency. E.g. a 20x20 pixel character is drawn within a 20x20 pixel bound.

This is all assuming raw e.Graphics.Draw* and e.Graphics.Fill* calls in the Paint event handler of course. As with anything in software, there are 101 ways...