As you know, box2d wants its bodies sized in meters. "But hey my character is 200 pixels big, I'll make it 200 meters and use a 1:1 conversion" you can't. The box2d manual says that the physics simulation starts to go freaky with dynamic bodies bigger than a truck. So stick with real-size dimensions.
The key is to have 2 different stages with different viewports. In the following example I'll use a stage to represent the box2d world, which will be the "game stage" and will have a viewport of about 3x6 meters; then I'll use another stage on top of the other one, aka "GUI stage", which will be used to render the GUI and will have a viewport of 1024x600 pixels. This way you get a meter-sized game with pixel-exact GUI.
Game Screen - this class is our main game screen. It contains the GUI stage.
public class GameScreen implements Screen { // this is actually my tablet resolution in landscape mode. I'm using it for making the GUI pixel-exact. public static float SCREEN_WIDTH = 1024; public static float SCREEN_HEIGHT = 600; private GameWorld world; // contains the game world's bodies and actors. private GameRenderer renderer; // our custom game renderer. private Stage stage; // stage that holds the GUI. Pixel-exact size. private OrthographicCamera guiCam; // camera for the GUI. It's the stage default camera. @Override public final void show() { this.stage = new Stage(); // create the GUI stage this.stage.setViewport(SCREEN_WIDTH, SCREEN_HEIGHT, false);
// set the GUI stage viewport to the pixel size
world = new GameWorld(); renderer = new GameRenderer(world); // add GUI actors to stage, labels, meters, buttons etc. Label labelStatus = new Label("TOUCH TO START", Assets.skin); labelStatus.setPosition(GenericScreen.SCREEN_WIDTH/2-500, GenericScreen.SCREEN_HEIGHT/2); labelStatus.setWidth(1000); labelStatus.setAlignment(Align.center); labelStatus.setFontScale(2); stage.addActor(labelStatus); // add other GUI elements here } @Override public void render(float delta) { guiCam = (OrthographicCamera) stage.getCamera(); guiCam.position.set(SCREEN_WIDTH/2, SCREEN_HEIGHT/2, 0); Gdx.gl.glClear(GL10.GL_COLOR_BUFFER_BIT); Gdx.gl.glEnable(GL10.GL_TEXTURE_2D); guiCam.update(); world.update(delta); // update the box2d world stage.act(delta); // update GUI renderer.render(); // draw the box2d world stage.draw(); // draw the GUI } }
Game World - our container for the box2d world and other game elements. It also contains the game stage.
public class GameWorld {
// here we set up the actual viewport size of the game in meters.
public static float UNIT_WIDTH = GameScreen.SCREEN_WIDTH/160; // 6.4 meters width
public static float UNIT_HEIGHT = GameScreen.SCREEN_HEIGHT/160; // 3.75 meters height
public static final Vector2 GRAVITY = new Vector2(0, -9.8f);
public final Stage stage; // stage containing game actors (not GUI, but actual game elements)
public World box2dWorld; // box2d world
public Bob bob; // our playing character
public GameWorld() {
box2dWorld = new World(GRAVITY, true);
stage = new Stage(); // create the game stage
stage.setViewport(UNIT_WIDTH, UNIT_HEIGHT, false); // set the game stage viewport to the meters size
createWorld();
}
private void createWorld() {
// create box2d bodies and the respective actors here.
bob = new Bob(this);
stage.addActor(bob);
// add more game elements here
}
public void update(float delta) {
// perform game logic here
box2dWorld.step(delta, 3, 3); // update box2d world
stage.act(delta); // update game stage
}
}
Bob - our character. It extends Image which is a subclass of Actor, and contains a reference to the box2d body (in this case a circle). Its texture is resized to the game meter units, but it will be rendered using the game stage camera, so even if the texture is scaled to 0.8x0.8, it will be quite big since the viewport is 6x3 meters.
public class Bob extends Image {
public static final float RADIUS = 0.4f; // bob is a ball with 0.8m diameter
public final Body body; // bob's box2d body
public Bob(GameWorld world) {
// bob is an Image, so we load the graphics from the assetmanager
Texture tex = Assets.manager.get("characters.png", Texture.class);
this.setDrawable(new TextureRegionDrawable(new TextureRegion(tex, 0, 256, 128, 128)));
// generate bob's box2d body
CircleShape circle = new CircleShape();
circle.setRadius(RADIUS);
BodyDef bodyDef = new BodyDef();
bodyDef.type = BodyType.DynamicBody;
bodyDef.position.x = 2f;
bodyDef.position.y = 2f;
bodyDef.linearDamping = 0.1f;
bodyDef.angularDamping = 0.5f;
this.body = world.box2dWorld.createBody(bodyDef);
this.body.setUserData(ElementType.BOB);
Fixture fix = body.createFixture(circle, 50);
fix.setDensity(1);
fix.setFriction(1f);
fix.setRestitution(0.8f);
fix.setFilterData(filter);
circle.dispose();
// generate bob's actor
this.setPosition(body.getPosition().x-RADIUS, body.getPosition().y-RADIUS); // set the actor position at the box2d body position
this.setSize(RADIUS*2, RADIUS*2); // scale actor to body's size
this.setScaling(Scaling.stretch); // stretch the texture
this.setAlign(Align.center);
}
@Override
public void act(float delta) {
// here we override Actor's act() method to make the actor follow the box2d body
super.act(delta);
setOrigin(RADIUS, RADIUS);
setRotation(MathUtils.radiansToDegrees * body.getAngle());
setPosition(body.getPosition().x-RADIUS, body.getPosition().y-RADIUS);
}
}
Game Renderer - a custom renderer used to draw the game world. It just positions the camera each frame and draws the game stage. Very simple.
public class GameRenderer
{
GameWorld world;
OrthographicCamera camera;
Box2DDebugRenderer renderer;
public GameRenderer(GameWorld world)
{
this.world = world;
this.renderer = new Box2DDebugRenderer();
// we obtain a reference to the game stage camera. The camera is scaled to box2d meter units
this.camera = (OrthographicCamera) world.stage.getCamera();
// center the camera on bob (optional)
camera.position.x = world.bob.body.getPosition().x;
camera.position.y = world.bob.body.getPosition().y;
}
public void render()
{
// have the camera follow bob
camera.position.x = world.bob.body.getPosition().x;
camera.position.y = world.bob.body.getPosition().y;
Gdx.gl.glClear(GL10.GL_COLOR_BUFFER_BIT);
// box2d debug renderering (optional)
camera.update();
renderer.render(world.box2dWorld, camera.combined);
// game stage rendering
world.stage.draw();
}
}