Setting up AndEngine GLES2.0

I woke up that one day and decided that I should switch to AndEngine GLES2.0 , couldn’t find any tutorial on how to do that [well .. it’s not that hard to be honest].

As that I’m gonna use that, I thought that I should probably write a small tutorial on how to get that set up so my future tutorials  works[I haven’t abandoned this blog yet :P]

Requirements:

Before starting, I should mention that GLES2.0 supports android 2.2+ which means that you should have Android API for version 2.2 at least, you also need to have 4.0 installed too
GLES2.0 also requires that you test on an actual device, emulator can’t handle it [TOO MUCH POWER !!!]

[NOTE: according to wintermix from this comment , you can have the emulator run andEngine if you enable GPU [Acceleration ?] for the AVD with the latest version.. if you have any questions about that go bother him replying to that comment :P]

you also need to update the Android Development Tools [ADT] to the latest version, GLES2.0 needs revision 17 at least

Eclipse Git addon is required too [at least for this tutorial]
you can get EGit by adding this resource to your eclipse resources [you can do that by going to help->install new software->add then chose a name and paste the following link]
[NOTE: the method I just provided works on the version that I have, if you have a newer version it MIGHT be different .. and I still got no idea why the install new software is under help … but oh well ..]

http://download.eclipse.org/egit/updates

Getting GLES2.0:

In Eclipse, go to file->import->Git->Projects from Git -> URI
Then paste this link

https://github.com/nicolasgramlich/AndEngine.git

Then next and chose GLES2.0 [if you want GLES1.0 then get master], then chose a director where you wanna download the source code [mine is JiMMaR\git\AndEngine]  then go next
After downloading is done, you just chose to import it and it should appear on the package explorer

If you got errors [saying res is missing] right click on the AndEngine project and create a new folder and call it “res”

Right click on it again and chose properties -> android and chose Android 4.0 [it’s the only one that fixed the problem for me] and make sure that the “Is Library” is ticked then click Apply and then OK
Go to properties again -> Java Build path -> order and Export and tick everything in there, now you should have AndEngine GLES.20 ready to be used.

Using AndEngine GLES.20:

No more annoying jar files, we’ll be using the source code directly and whenever there is a new version you can just pull it and all your projects will be using the new version, but how do we use it ?

file -> new -> Android project ->chose android 2.2 [or higher] -> you know the rest

Right click on the project you just created and go to properties, go to Android and click on the add button down in the Library section and chose AndEngine then click ok
visit properties again , go to java build path and then Order and Export and make sure everything is ticked

create a new class and make it extends SimpleBaseGameActivity [yeah , they changed that]
if you’ve previously used GLES1.0 , you’ll see that some stuff are different .. but that doesn’t matter now let’s just create something that runs [if you downloaded master(GLES1.0) then this example won’t work, go back to my AndEngine Simple Android Game Tutorial and proceed with the first steps to make sure that AndEngine is installed properly.

just copy and paste this class that I created

public class TestActivity extends SimpleBaseGameActivity {

    static final int CAMERA_WIDTH = 800;
    static final int CAMERA_HEIGHT = 480;

    @Override
    public EngineOptions onCreateEngineOptions() {
        Camera mCamera = new Camera(0, 0, CAMERA_WIDTH, CAMERA_HEIGHT);
        return new EngineOptions(true, ScreenOrientation.LANDSCAPE_SENSOR,
            new RatioResolutionPolicy(CAMERA_WIDTH, CAMERA_HEIGHT), mCamera);
    }

    @Override
    protected void onCreateResources() {
        // TODO Auto-generated method stub
    }

    @Override
    protected Scene onCreateScene() {
        Scene scene = new Scene();
        scene.setBackground(new Background(0.09804f, 0.6274f, 0));
        return scene;
    }
}

This should get you a green background, congratulation you managed to use AndEngine GLES2.0.

There are some other changes made in the engine, so you won’t be able to use the old tutorial with this version of the engine without modification, I probably won’t update the tutorials but the next tutorial will be based on GLES2.0 so no worries.

PS: I know this tutorial was boring .. I wasn’t even in the mood to write anything , so yeah 😛

PPS: I did some parts of the tutorial relying on memory, if there is anything wrong or a missing step [probably there are :P] then drop a comment and inform me about that

UPDATE: If you are done with this and wanna start using AndEngine GLES2.0 , you can check my tutorial about creating a space invaders clone