Mastering Android NDK

Sergey Kosarevsky, Viktor Latypov

• Publisher: Packt Publishing
• Year: 2015
• eBook ISBN: 9781785288333
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Computer Science
• Subtopic: Programming Mobile Devices
• Index: Computer Science

Master the skills you need to develop portable, highly-functional Android applications using NDK

About This Book

• Develop portable games using Android NDK and debug them on your desktop
• Familiarise yourself with different popular C++ libraries on Android and use them in your games
• Write multi-threaded code with graphics, sound, networking, and resource storage

Who This Book Is For

If you want to leverage your C++ skills in mobile development and increase the performance of your Android applications, then this is the book for you. Knowledge of C or C++ is assumed, including pointer manipulation, multi-threading, object-oriented programming concepts, and the basics of C++11. It would be an added advantage if you know how to develop applications without any IDE.

What You Will Learn

What You Will Learn

• Explore popular C++ libraries and use them on Android
• Write portable, multithreaded native networking code
• Create portable audio framework using OpenAL
• Implement portable rendering framework using OpenGL ES 3
• Debug mobile applications on your desktop machine
• Access resources from APK archives
• Render text with FreeType

In Detail

Android NDK is used for multimedia applications that require direct access to system resources. NDK is also the key for portability, which in turn allows a reasonably comfortable development and debugging process using familiar tools such as GCC and Clang toolchains.

This is a hands-on guide to extending your game development skills with Android NDK. The book takes you through many clear, step-by-step example applications to help you further explore the features of Android NDK and some popular C++ libraries and boost your productivity by debugging the development process.

Through the course of this book, you will learn how to write portable multi-threaded native code, use HTTP networking in C++, play audio files, use OpenGL ES 3, and render high-quality text. Each chapter aims to take you one step closer to building your application. By the end of this book, you will be able to create an engaging, complete gaming application.

Style and approach

This book adopts a step-by-step approach and each chapter is based on the material from the previous ones. The book focuses on putting to your knowledge of C++ use while you develop Android applications of your own.

Mastering Android NDK

---

Table of Contents

Mastering Android NDK

Credits

About the Authors

About the Reviewers

www.PacktPub.com

Support files, eBooks, discount offers, and more

Why subscribe?

Free access for Packt account holders

Preface

What this book covers

What you need for this book

Who this book is for

Conventions

Reader feedback

Customer support

Downloading the example code

Errata

Piracy

Questions

1. Using Command-line Tools

Using Android command-line tools on Windows

Using Android command-line tools on OS X

Using Android command-line tools on Linux

Creating an Ant-based application template manually

Creating a Gradle-based application template manually

Embedding native code

Building and signing release Android applications

Organizing the cross-platform code

Using TeamCity continuous integration server with Android applications

Summary

2. Native Libraries

Dealing with precompiled static libraries

Dynamic linking on Windows platform

Curl

OpenSSL

FreeImage

Loading and saving images

FreeType

Theora

OpenAL

Linking the libraries to your application

Summary

3. Networking

Intrusive smart pointers

Portable multithreading primitives

Task queues

Message pumps and asynchronous callbacks

Asynchronous networking with libcurl

Android licensing in native applications

Flurry analytics

Summary

4. Organizing a Virtual Filesystem

Mount points

Mount points and streams

Accessing files on the host filesystems

In-memory files

Aliasing

Writing files

Accessing the archive files

Accessing application assets

Summary

5. Cross-platform Audio Streaming

Initialization and playback

Streaming sounds

Stringed musical instrument model

Decoding compressed audio

Decoding tracker music using the ModPlug library

Decoding MP3 files

Decoding OGG files

Summary

6. OpenGL ES 3.1 and Cross-platform Rendering

Linear algebra and transformations

Graphics initialization using SDL2

OpenGL API binding

Cross-platform OpenGL abstractions

Feeding the geometry data to OpenGL

Shader programs

Textures

Summary

7. Cross-platform UI and Input System

Rendering

Text rendering

Calculating glyph positions and string size in pixels

Decoding UTF-8

Glyphs rendering

Font initialization and caching

Integrating the text renderer into the canvas

Organizing the UI system

The base UI view

Events

Implementing UI classes

Using views in application

Summary

8. Writing a Rendering Engine

The scene graph

Lighting and shading

Lights and light nodes

Material system

Demo application and a rendering technique

Scene construction

User interaction with 3D scenes

Summary

9. Implementing Game Logic

Boids

Implementation of the flocking algorithms

Digression: helper routines

Collective behaviors

Rendering the swarm

Boids demonstration

The page-based user interface

Summary

10. Writing Asteroids Game

Creating an on-screen joystick

Implementing the particle system

Using particle systems in the game

Using particle systems inside a scene graph

Asteroids game

Summary

Index

Mastering Android NDK

Copyright © 2015 Packt Publishing

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles or reviews.

Every effort has been made in the preparation of this book to ensure the accuracy of the information presented. However, the information contained in this book is sold without warranty, either express or implied. Neither the authors nor Packt Publishing, and its dealers and distributors will be held liable for any damages caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly by this book.

Packt Publishing has endeavored to provide trademark information about all of the companies and products mentioned in this book by the appropriate use of capitals. However, Packt Publishing cannot guarantee the accuracy of this information.

First published: September 2015

Production reference: 1250915

Published by Packt Publishing Ltd.

Livery Place

35 Livery Street

Birmingham B3 2PB, UK.

ISBN 978-1-78528-833-3

www.packtpub.com

Credits

Authors

Sergey Kosarevsky

Viktor Latypov

Reviewers

Koji Hasegawa

Raimon Ràfols

Sebastian Roth

Ali Utku Selen

Commissioning Editor

Priya Singh

Acquisition Editor

Tushar Gupta

Content Development Editor

Neeshma Ramakrishnan

Technical Editor

Dhiraj Chandanshive

Copy Editors

Janbal Dharmaraj

Kevin McGowan

Project Coordinator

Shweta H Birwatkar

Proofreader

Safis Editing

Indexer

Hemangini Bari

Production Coordinator

Nitesh Thakur

Cover Work

Nitesh Thakur

About the Authors

Sergey Kosarevsky is a software engineer with experience in C++ and 3D graphics. He worked for mobile industry companies and was involved in mobile projects at SPB Software, Yandex, Layar and Blippar. He has more than 12 years of software development experience and more than 6 years of Android NDK experience. Sergey got his PhD in the field of mechanical engineering from St. Petersburg Institute of Machine-Building in Saint-Petersburg, Russia. In his spare time, Sergey maintains and develops an open source multiplatform gaming engine, the Linderdaum Engine (http://linderdaum.com).

I would like to thank my mother, Irina Kosarevskaya, and my grandma, Ludmila Sirotkina. Without their unconditional love and support, all of this could never have happened.

Viktor Latypov is a software engineer and mathematician with experience in compiler development, device drivers, robotics, and high-performance computing and with a personal interest in 3D graphics and mobile technology. Surrounded by computers for more than 20 years, he enjoys every bit of developing and designing software for anything with a CPU inside. Viktor holds a PhD in applied mathematics from Saint-Petersburg State University.

About the Reviewers

Koji Hasegawa is an iOS/Android app developer, living in Japan. He released various applications to the AppStore, such as "Den-Ace quiz, Minoru Kawasaki's tokusatsu movies world", and "Futsal rules and trivia".

In addition, he is also involved in community activities related to test automation. Koji has authored a few books on testing and test automation in Japanese.

He is an ISTQB Certification Tester and is also certified in Iaido (Japanese Sword Arts) and Kyudo (Japanese Archery).

Raimon Ràfols has been developing for mobile devices since 2004. He has experience in developing on several technologies specializing in the UI, build systems, and client-server communications. He is currently working as an engineering manager at AXA Group Solutions in Barcelona. In the past, he worked for Imagination Technologies near London and Service2Media in the Netherlands. In his spare time, he enjoys programming, photography, and giving talks on Android performance optimization and Android custom views at mobile conferences.

Ali Utku Selen is a system engineer at Sony Mobile Communications, working on flagship Android de...

Table of contents

• Mastering Android NDK