#Android ndk android studio tutorial code#

You may find that despite C’s cognitive overhead, some common code challenges like building vertex attribute arrays from game data become easier in C++ than higher level languages. In fact, the native activity I’ll be showing you provides an easy one-stop shop in which you can set up an OpenGL canvas and start gathering user input. If you want to make a game from scratch or port over an existing game, Android’s Native Development Kit (or NDK) and its supporting tooling are ready and waiting. When you also consider that C and C++ are near universal to every computing platform, and the relative wealth of C libraries to support games development, it may become reasonable to set off down the path of native development. Since games typically use custom rendering logic, often written in OpenGL or Vulkan, it’s expected that a game looks different from a standard Android application. Near and dear to my own heart is game development. For most applications, you’re better off with languages like Kotlin. Counter intuitively, you are in some ways writing a foreign application with only a subset of Android features available. Many core Android system features, such as the Android UI and Intent handling, are only exposed through Java interfaces.īy choosing to use C++, you are not being “more native” to Android than using a managed language such as Kotlin or Java. Applications written in these languages benefit from tooling embedded deep into the system’s underlying architecture. On Android, the OS and its supporting infrastructure are designed to support applications written in the Java or Kotlin programming languages. That is a discussion that literally fills up books. I will walk through the basic setup, and try to give you the tools you need to move forward.Īlthough my focus is on games, I will not be telling you how to write an OpenGL application or how to architect your own game engine. I would like to walk you through setting up a simple Android Native Activity. Getting started with C++ and Android Native Activities Introduction