Re: [AD] Allegro and OpenGL

[Jason Winnebeck <gillius@xxxxxxxxxx>]

I think Allegro 5 should be redesigned to be able to use DirectDraw or 
OpenGL (or Direct3D if someone wanted to program it).  I don't use 
Allegro anymore because it's just not modern enough.  I would use OpenGL 
or Direct3D to do 2D graphics now.

I'm not sure it should be added to Allegro 4, and definitely not if no 
new API support is added.  It works well as an add-on.  I think Allegro 
5 should be designed such that the graphics are done similar to the old 
Allegro versions, but in such a way that is very condusive to hardware 
acceleration.  Allegro should be almost as easy to use, but should use 
hardware acceleration under the hood.  Direct access should be 
discouraged (or allowed only with the use of the old drivers).  So for 
example when you make bitmaps it really makes textures, and when you 
blit you really draw a quad, and when you rotate etc etc.  And we could 
introduce a 2D transformation system similar to that of OpenGL (I 
believe GDI+ has it too) where you have transformation matrices.  So 
instead of rotate_sprite, you would call al_rotate then blit.  Instead 
of stretch_blit, you would call al_Scale then blit.  For the new drivers 
(OpenGL), it would really draw triangles and textures, for the old 
drivers, it would call the old-style rotate_sprite and such.

For most of the operations in Allegro, rotation, scaling, transparency, 
these are all supported very well in OpenGL/Direct3D.

That might be a little too hardcore though.  It might pull Allegro away 
from what makes Allegro have its own use (in other words, if we make it 
integrated, there may be no reason to use Allegro over OpenGL, or it 
might be so limited as to be useless).

Jason Winnebeck (Gillius)

Eric Botcazou wrote:

> Now to the question that has been taboo for the past years: should we merge 
> AllegroGL in Allegro 4.2?