Hi community!
I about to start text rendering implementation.
I am going to use it for:
1. Rendering current player’s health, ammo count, …
2. In near future - debug information.
3. In the FAR future – text dialogs, some buttons, settings dialog.
I found 3 ways how it might be accomplished:
1. Create bitmap with Direct2D and draw it on backbuffer.
Pros: no 3rd party dependency.
Cons: ?Performance?
2. Using 3rd party lib.
Pros: no need to create layout management
Cons1: Extra dependency with (probably) lower quality than Microsoft’s D2D.
Cons2: Big concern about performance
Concern: No idea about licensing, and how it might hit me later.
3. Full implementation via sprites composition.
Pros: Probably faster that D2D
Cons1: Entire layout management
Cons2: Have no artist, so I should create sprites by myself.
Also I am not aware what is the best practice in the industry.
What would you recommend?