C/C++: 2D animation library

Question

I need to write an application that (among the other things) renders 2D animated images, let's suppose it's a videogame.

Figured out that videogame-like images can have a quite complex structure that depends very little on the program logic, mostly on the image itself:

• It can have several animations (one for each state the object to draw can be on)

• To pass from a state to another there could be an acyclic animation too.

• Each animation can be made of several frames, each of which has got a duration.

And also the way to store images on the disk can be complex:

• The above properties of the image, of its states and of its frames should be stored on a data file bound to the image, not hardcoded in the program source.

• The different frames could be put all together in the same image file, or on different layers of an image file, or on different image files.

• Background pixels could be indicated via a separated bitmask or using a specific color.

And I guess actual videogames will need a lot more parameters which I don't (don't know, another bitmask to identify pixels to be replaced with team color or whatever).

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This makes me think there must be already a library that does all of this. But half an hour on google didn't help me.

Is there any opensource 2D animation library for C++ or C?

Otherwise, if I need to write one, can you link any 2D animation library for other languages (or also closed source ones)? I'll be happy to give a loop to their API and to the way they work.

Answer 1

SDL is excellent for games. Check out http://www.sdltutorials.com/sdl-animation/