Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
Install Ant
To compile projects from the command line, you need to install Ant, which is a Java-based
build automation utility supported by the Android SDK.
Ant binaries, packed within a ZIP archive. In our case
apache-ant-
1.9.4-bin.zip
.
1.
Unzip Ant in the directory of your choice (for example,
C:\apache-
ant-1.9.4
).
2.
3.
Verify the Ant installation by typing the following command:
ant -version
If properly installed you will see something like this:
Apache Ant(TM) version 1.9.4 compiled on April 29 2014
We can proceed to create the AVD to run the platform you just installed.
Creating an Android Emulator
Before you can start building your apps, you must create an Android Virtual Device (AVD),
but you also need an SDK platform to run the AVD on. In this section you will learn how to
do the following:
Install the Android platform needed to test your apps
Create the Virtual Device (emulator) that will run the above platform
Tip
This step is optional; however, I encourage you to do it because it helps with testing on
multiple platforms. Nevertheless, if you have a real device such as a phone or tablet, you can skip
this section and jump to the “Configuring a Real Device” section.
For performance reasons, this is the best way to do it. AVDs are notoriously slow and lack many
advanced features such as a robust implementation of OpenGL. I work on a laptop and running an
OpenGL app in the emulator is painfully slow and full of missing API calls. I encourage you to test all
of your code on a real device.
