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  • Is an Adnroid-based Phone a Suitable MP3 Player for Music Streamed over the Internet?

    - by James McFarland
    I am considering getting an HTC phone running Android from Verizon Wireless when I next upgrade my phone. I also have an online account with a music vendor, where I have rights to listen to my collection, but not download the MP3s. Further, I have an unlimited data plan and Wi-Fi, so I have full access to bandwidth volume without any concerns. I am especially interested in mounting my phone in a car kit, and streaming my online music to my car's sound system while driving. If you are experienced in this scenario, or have tried this scenario - Is is reasonable to expect my HTC Android phone to provide me with streaming music via my cell data plan anywhere I get cell service?

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  • How to display downloaded youtube annotations ( not captions) on offline video player?

    - by kowalsk
    i need to display the annotations for some of my downloaded youtube videos. It's also important to make them closeable. Making them clickable would also be nice. What i found out so far: From what i understand there there is a vlc plugin/extension that could also render the annotations but i'm having a hard time finding it. Mplayer might also be an option but i'd have to convert the xml files to .bmp and then use a bmov filter to play them. Any suggestions welcome. Edit: to further clarify i would like to display/overlay annotations from a youtube xml file (i'm willing to go through a conversion step if i have to) pretty much the same way i can display subtitles from a srt or sub file. Edit2: I'm open to using other players too ( if vlc is not a feasible option for what i want)

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  • How best to embed multiple Flash Player instances using swfobject via a usercontrol?

    - by panamack
    I have a ListView on a Page within a MasterPage and some very ugly ugly autogenerated IDs. Such as..."ctl00_workbenchPlaceHolder_ListView1_ctrl1_LibItem2One" Using swfobject.embedSWF(...) requires me to hand over the id of a div on my page that can be replaced with object/embed markup depending on the browser context. My aim is to show the user a collection of video's they have uploaded to their website so they can review them and change some related data if desired. Hence the ListView which is populated via a SQLDataSource which currently provides a number of URLs pointing to .flv files. But it ain't gonna work if I put a <div id="replaceme"></div>' in my user control because I may then have more than one id="replaceme" and poor swfobject won't like it. So my evil solution is to put an <asp:Literal> in my usercontrol and build the script, function name and div tag id as a string. ApplyVideoConfiguration is called if the library object retreived from the database is a video and switches to the relevant View of a MultiView control. protected void ApplyVideoConfiguration() { MultiViewLibItem.ActiveViewIndex = 3; string functionName = "MakeFlashFor_" + this.ClientID; string divId = "fp" + this.ClientID; VideoScriptLiteral.Text = "<script type=\"text/javascript\">" + "Sys.Application.add_load(" + functionName + ");" + "function " + functionName + "(){" + "swfobject.embedSWF('PanamaVideoThumbnail.swf', '" + divId + "', '140', '127', '10');" + "};" + "</script>" + "<div id=\"" + divId + "\" ></div>" ; } I was wondering, just how bad a solution is this, I'm really completely inexperienced when it comes to best practices but my instincts are telling me this is bad, although it does succeed in the aim of embedding some Flash Player instances. Can anyone help me make it beautiful?

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  • Why does Silverlight player mislead user by leading him to think he can "choose whether to download

    - by Edward Tanguay
    I have a silverlight application which users can install out-of-browser. When the right-click and look at the update panel, it is set to "check for updates and let me choose whether to download and install them: However, with the following code, my application detects and downloads a new version automatically, and the new version is available upon the next start of the application without any user interaction: App.xaml.cs: private void Application_Startup(object sender, StartupEventArgs e) { this.RootVisual = new BaseApp(); if (Application.Current.IsRunningOutOfBrowser) { Application.Current.CheckAndDownloadUpdateAsync(); Application.Current.CheckAndDownloadUpdateCompleted += new CheckAndDownloadUpdateCompletedEventHandler(Current_CheckAndDownloadUpdateCompleted); } } void Current_CheckAndDownloadUpdateCompleted(object sender, CheckAndDownloadUpdateCompletedEventArgs e) { if (e.UpdateAvailable) { //an new version has been downloaded and silverlight version is the same //so user just has to restart application } else if (e.Error != null && e.Error is PlatformNotSupportedException) { //a new version is available but the silverlight version has changed //so user has to go to new website and install the appropriate silverlight version } else { //no update is available } } This happens to be what I want for this particular application, however: Isn't this misleading to the user since the Silverlight player leads him to believe that he will be able to "choose whether to download and install updates" when in fact, updates are being downloaded and installed without his knowing?

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  • Flash Player, security: If a URL starts with "http://" will the SWF always be loaded into REMOTE san

    - by Pavel
    Seems to be a question for a Flash security guru. Suppose we are loading an external SWF movie with MovieClipLoader.loadMovie(url:String) Is it safe to assume that if url starts with "http://", the movie will be loaded in REMOTE sandbox? We need to tell local SWFs from remote ones to close a security hole. If you need the context read on. We have developed a Projector, written in C++ embedding Flash Player ActiveX. Our Flash application runs inside the Projector. Soon we want to give our users a way to create plugins for the application. The plugins are obviously will be SWF movies. The case I'm afraid of is the following. A bad person creates a malicious evil.swf pretending it to be nice plugin for our app. In case evil.swf is loaded from the local file system it is granted an access to the whole MovieClip tree and Projector API, opening C++ file access operations. On the other hand if evil.swf is loaded from the internet, remotely, it will be locked in REMOTE sandbox by Flash security model. Because of this, we need a reliable way to tell local SWF from remote one before loading it. And we must not make a mistake. So again, is it safe to assume that if url begins with "http://", the clip will be loaded inside REMOTE sandbox?

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  • How can I synchronize a text with audio/sound in XNA/XACT?

    - by Omkar
    Hello Geeks, I wanted to display the text while sound is playing at background. In short if there is sound/audio for "What is this", I want to display the text "What is this" in text box synchronously. Is this possible with XNA/XACT? and can I use this in standard C# based WPF or Silverlight applications? Appreciating your help.

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  • How to stream audio from ASP.NET MVC controller when it's still encoding?

    - by kyrisu
    Background I have wave files on my server that I want to stream. Because of the size I want to encode them to mp3. I've tried to use FileStreamResult - but it doesn't work because as soon as program leaves the controller stream is closed and I get - "Cannot access a closed stream" FileContentResult - but it's not a stream and the user would need to wait for encoding to finish Question Is there a way to stream audio from the controller while it's still encoding?

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  • How do I do JavaScript Array Animation

    - by Henry
    I'm making a game but don't know how to do Array Animation with the png Array and game Surface that I made below. I'm trying to make it so that when the Right arrow key is pressed, the character animates as if it is walking to the right and when the Left arrow key is pressed it animates as if it is walking to the left (kind of like Mario). I put everything on a surface instead of the canvas. Everything is explained in the code below. I couldn't find help on this anywhere. I hope what I got below makes sense. I'm basically a beginner with JavaScript. I'll be back if more is needed: <!doctype html5> <html> <head></head> <script src="graphics.js"></script> <script src="object.js"></script> <body onkeydown ="keyDown(event)" onkeyup ="keyUp(event)" ></body> <script> //"Surface" is where I want to display my animation. It's like the HTML // canvas but it's not that. It's just the surface to where everything in the //game and the game itself will be displayed. var Surface = new Graphics(600, 400, "skyblue"); //here's the array that I want to use for animation var player = new Array("StandsRight.png", "WalksRight.png", "StandsLeft.png","WalksLeft.png" ); //Here is the X coordinate, Y coordinate, the beginning png for the animation, //and the object's name "player." I also turned the array into an object (but //I don't know if I was supposed to do that or not). var player = new Object(50, 100, 40, 115, "StandsRight.png","player"); //When doing animation I know that it requires a "loop", but I don't // know how to connect it so that it works with the arrays so that //it could animate. var loop = 0; //this actually puts "player" on screen. It makes player visible and //it is where I would like the animation to occur. Surface.drawObject(player); //this would be the key that makes "player" animation in the righward direction function keyDown(e) { if (e.keyCode == 39); } //this would be the key that makes "player" animation in the leftward direction function keyUp(e){ if (e.keyCode == 39); } //this is the Mainloop where the game will function MainLoop(); //the mainloop functionized function MainLoop(){ //this is how fast or slow I could want the entire game to go setTimeout(MainLoop, 10); } </script> </html> From here, are the "graphic.js" and the "object.js" files below. In this section is the graphics.js file. This graphics.js part below is linked to the: script src="graphics.js" html script section that I wrote above. Basically, below is a seperate file that I used for Graphics, and to run the code above, make this graphics.js code that I post below here, a separate filed called: graphics.js function Graphics(w,h,c) { document.body.innerHTML += "<table style='position:absolute;font- size:0;top:0;left:0;border-spacing:0;border- width:0;width:"+w+";height:"+h+";background-color:"+c+";' border=1><tr><td> </table>\n"; this.drawRectangle = function(x,y,w,h,c,n) { document.body.innerHTML += "<div style='position:absolute;font-size:0;left:" + x + ";top:" + y + ";width:" + w + ";height:" + h + ";background-color:" + c + ";' id='" + n + "'></div>\n"; } this.drawTexture = function(x,y,w,h,t,n) { document.body.innerHTML += "<img style='position:absolute;font-size:0;left:" + x + ";top:" + y + ";width:" + w + ";height:" + h + ";' id='" + n + "' src='" + t + "'> </img>\n"; } this.drawObject = function(o) { document.body.innerHTML += "<img style='position:absolute;font-size:0;left:" + o.X + ";top:" + o.Y + ";width:" + o.Width + ";height:" + o.Height + ";' id='" + o.Name + "' src='" + o.Sprite + "'></img>\n"; } this.moveGraphic = function(x,y,n) { document.getElementById(n).style.left = x; document.getElementById(n).style.top = y; } this.removeGraphic = function(n){ document.getElementById(n).parentNode.removeChild(document.getElementById(n)); } } Finally, is the object.js file linked to the script src="object.js"" in the html game file above the graphics.js part I just wrote. Basically, this is a separate file too, so thus, in order to run or test the html game code in the very first section I wrote, a person has to also make this code below a separate file called: object.js I hope this helps: function Object(x,y,w,h,t,n) { this.X = x; this.Y = y; this.Velocity_X = 0; this.Velocity_Y = 0; this.Previous_X = 0; this.Previous_Y = 0; this.Width = w; this.Height = h; this.Sprite = t; this.Name = n; this.Exists = true; } In all, this game is made based on a tutorial on youtube at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2kUzgFM4lY&feature=relmfu I'm just trying to learn how to add animations with it now. I hope the above helps. If not, let me know. Thanks

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  • Platformer Starter Kit - Collision Issues

    - by Cyral
    I'm having trouble with my game that is based off the XNA Platformer starter kit. My game uses smaller tiles (16x16) then the original (32x40) which I'm thinking may be having an effect on collision (Being it needs to be more precise). Standing on the edge of a tile and jumping causes the player to move off the the tile when he lands. And 80% of the time, when the player lands, he goes flying though SOLID tiles in a diagonal fashion. This is very annoying as it is almost impossible to test other features, when spawning and jumping will result in the player landing in another part of the level or falling off the edge completely. The code is as follows: /// <summary> /// Updates the player's velocity and position based on input, gravity, etc. /// </summary> public void ApplyPhysics(GameTime gameTime) { float elapsed = (float)gameTime.ElapsedGameTime.TotalSeconds; Vector2 previousPosition = Position; // Base velocity is a combination of horizontal movement control and // acceleration downward due to gravity. velocity.X += movement * MoveAcceleration * elapsed; velocity.Y = MathHelper.Clamp(velocity.Y + GravityAcceleration * elapsed, -MaxFallSpeed, MaxFallSpeed); velocity.Y = DoJump(velocity.Y, gameTime); // Apply pseudo-drag horizontally. if (IsOnGround) velocity.X *= GroundDragFactor; else velocity.X *= AirDragFactor; // Prevent the player from running faster than his top speed. velocity.X = MathHelper.Clamp(velocity.X, -MaxMoveSpeed, MaxMoveSpeed); // Apply velocity. Position += velocity * elapsed; Position = new Vector2((float)Math.Round(Position.X), (float)Math.Round(Position.Y)); // If the player is now colliding with the level, separate them. HandleCollisions(); // If the collision stopped us from moving, reset the velocity to zero. if (Position.X == previousPosition.X) velocity.X = 0; if (Position.Y == previousPosition.Y) velocity.Y = 0; } /// <summary> /// Detects and resolves all collisions between the player and his neighboring /// tiles. When a collision is detected, the player is pushed away along one /// axis to prevent overlapping. There is some special logic for the Y axis to /// handle platforms which behave differently depending on direction of movement. /// </summary> private void HandleCollisions() { // Get the player's bounding rectangle and find neighboring tiles. Rectangle bounds = BoundingRectangle; int leftTile = (int)Math.Floor((float)bounds.Left / Tile.Width); int rightTile = (int)Math.Ceiling(((float)bounds.Right / Tile.Width)) - 1; int topTile = (int)Math.Floor((float)bounds.Top / Tile.Height); int bottomTile = (int)Math.Ceiling(((float)bounds.Bottom / Tile.Height)) - 1; // Reset flag to search for ground collision. isOnGround = false; // For each potentially colliding tile, for (int y = topTile; y <= bottomTile; ++y) { for (int x = leftTile; x <= rightTile; ++x) { // If this tile is collidable, ItemCollision collision = Level.GetCollision(x, y); if (collision != ItemCollision.Passable) { // Determine collision depth (with direction) and magnitude. Rectangle tileBounds = Level.GetBounds(x, y); Vector2 depth = RectangleExtensions.GetIntersectionDepth(bounds, tileBounds); if (depth != Vector2.Zero) { float absDepthX = Math.Abs(depth.X); float absDepthY = Math.Abs(depth.Y); // Resolve the collision along the shallow axis. if (absDepthY < absDepthX || collision == ItemCollision.Platform) { // If we crossed the top of a tile, we are on the ground. if (previousBottom <= tileBounds.Top) isOnGround = true; // Ignore platforms, unless we are on the ground. if (collision == ItemCollision.Impassable || IsOnGround) { // Resolve the collision along the Y axis. Position = new Vector2(Position.X, Position.Y + depth.Y); // Perform further collisions with the new bounds. bounds = BoundingRectangle; } } else if (collision == ItemCollision.Impassable) // Ignore platforms. { // Resolve the collision along the X axis. Position = new Vector2(Position.X + depth.X, Position.Y); // Perform further collisions with the new bounds. bounds = BoundingRectangle; } } } } } // Save the new bounds bottom. previousBottom = bounds.Bottom; } It also tends to jitter a little bit sometimes, I'm solved some of this with some fixes I found here on stackexchange, But Ive only seen one other case of the flying though blocks problem. This question seems to have a similar problem in the video, but mine is more crazy. Again this is a very annoying bug! Any help would be greatly appreciated! EDIT: Speed stuff // Constants for controling horizontal movement private const float MoveAcceleration = 13000.0f; private const float MaxMoveSpeed = 1750.0f; private const float GroundDragFactor = 0.48f; private const float AirDragFactor = 0.58f; // Constants for controlling vertical movement private const float MaxJumpTime = 0.35f; private const float JumpLaunchVelocity = -3500.0f; private const float GravityAcceleration = 3400.0f; private const float MaxFallSpeed = 550.0f; private const float JumpControlPower = 0.14f;

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  • Determining the angle to fire a shot when target and shooter moves, and bullet moves with shooter velocity added in

    - by Azaral
    I saw this question: Predicting enemy position in order to have an object lead its target and followed the link in the answer to stack overflow. In the stack overflow page I used the 2nd answer, the one that is a large mathematical derivation. My situation is a little different though. My first question though is will the answer provided in the stack overflow page even work to begin with, assuming the original circumstances of moving target and stationary shooter. My situation is a little different than that situation. My target moves, the shooter moves, and the bullets from the shooter start off with the velocities in x and y added to the bullets' x and y velocities. If you are sliding to the right, the bullets will remain in front of you as you move so as long as your velocity remains constant. What I'm trying to do is to get the enemy to be able to determine where they need to shoot in order to hit the player. Unless the player and enemy is stationary, the velocity from the ship adding to the velocity of the bullets will cause a miss. I'd rather like to prevent that. I used the formula in the stack overflow answer and did what I thought were the appropriate adjustments. I've been banging at this for the last four hours and I just can't make it click. It is probably something really simple and boneheaded that I am missing (that seems to be a lot of my problems lately). Here is the solution presented from the stack overflow answer: It boils down to solving a quadratic equation of the form: a * sqr(x) + b * x + c == 0 Note that by sqr I mean square, as opposed to square root. Use the following values: a := sqr(target.velocityX) + sqr(target.velocityY) - sqr(projectile_speed) b := 2 * (target.velocityX * (target.startX - cannon.X) + target.velocityY * (target.startY - cannon.Y)) c := sqr(target.startX - cannon.X) + sqr(target.startY - cannon.Y) Now we can look at the discriminant to determine if we have a possible solution. disc := sqr(b) - 4 * a * c If the discriminant is less than 0, forget about hitting your target -- your projectile can never get there in time. Otherwise, look at two candidate solutions: t1 := (-b + sqrt(disc)) / (2 * a) t2 := (-b - sqrt(disc)) / (2 * a) Note that if disc == 0 then t1 and t2 are equal. If there are no other considerations such as intervening obstacles, simply choose the smaller positive value. (Negative t values would require firing backward in time to use!) Substitute the chosen t value back into the target's position equations to get the coordinates of the leading point you should be aiming at: aim.X := t * target.velocityX + target.startX aim.Y := t * target.velocityY + target.startY Here is my code, after being corrected by Sam Hocevar (thank you again for your help!). It still doesn't work. For some reason it never enters the section of code inside the if(disc = 0) (obviously because it is always less than zero but...). However, if I plug the numbers from my game log on the enemy and player positions and velocities it outputs a valid firing solution. I have looked at the code side by side a couple of times now and I can't find any differences. There has got to be something simple I'm missing here. If someone else could look at this code and determine what is going on here I'd appreciate it. I know it's not going through that section because if it were, shouldShoot would become true and the enemy would be blasting away at the player. This section calls the function in question, CalculateShootHeading() if(shouldMove) { UseEngines(); } x += xVelocity; y += yVelocity; CalculateShootHeading(); if(shouldShoot) { ShootWeapons(); } UpdateWeapons(); This is CalculateShootHeading(). This is inside the enemy class so x and y are the enemy's x and y and the same with velocity. One output from my game log gives Player X = 2108, Player Y = -180.956, Player X velocity = 10.9949, Player Y Velocity = -6.26017, Enemy X = 1988.31, Enemy Y = -339.051, Enemy X velocity = 1.81666, Enemy Y velocity = -9.67762, 0 enemy projectiles. The output from the console tester is Bullet position = 2210.49, -239.313 and Player Position = 2210.49, -239.313. This doesn't make any sense. The only thing that could be different is the code or the input into my function in the game and I've checked that and I don't think that it is wrong as it's updated before this and never changed. float const bulletSpeed = 30.f; float const dx = playerX - x; float const dy = playerY - y; float const vx = playerXVelocity - xVelocity; float const vy = playerYVelocity - yVelocity; float const a = vx * vx + vy * vy - bulletSpeed * bulletSpeed; float const b = 2.f * (vx * dx + vy * dy); float const c = dx * dx + dy * dy; float const disc = b * b - 4.f * a * c; shouldShoot = false; if (disc >= 0.f) { float t0 = (-b - std::sqrt(disc)) / (2.f * a); float t1 = (-b + std::sqrt(disc)) / (2.f * a); if (t0 < 0.f || (t1 < t0 && t1 >= 0.f)) { t0 = t1; } if (t0 >= 0.f) { float shootx = vx + dx / t0; float shooty = vy + dy / t0; heading = std::atan2(shooty, shootx) * RAD2DEGREE; } shouldShoot = true; }

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  • PHP Combo Box AJAX Refresh

    - by bhs
    I have a PHP page that currently has 4 years of team positions in columns on the page. The client wants to select the players in positions and have first, second and thrid choices. Currently the page shows 4 columns with sets of combos for each position. Each combo has a full set of players in it and the user chooses the player he wants from the combos. On submit the player positions are stored in the database. However, the client now wants to change the page so that when he selects a player in a year and position then the player is removed from the combo and can no longer be selected for that year. I've used a bit of AJAX but was wondering if anyone had any thoughts/suggestions. The page is currently quite slow so they want it speeded up as well. The page layout is currently like this POISTION YEAR1 YEAR2 YEAR3 YEAR4 1 COMBOC1 COMBOC1 COMBOC1 COMBOC1 COMBOC2 COMBOC2 COMBOC2 COMBOC2 COMBOC3 COMBOC3 COMBOC3 COMBOC3 2 same as above COMBOC1, 2 and 3 all currently have the same players - when a player is selected it needs to be removed for all combos below it. I was thinking of starting by changing the page design and having text boxes for the players and a single player select under each year like this: POISTION YEAR1 YEAR2 YEAR3 YEAR4 1 <PLAYER><POSITION><CHOICE> ... [TEXT BOX CHOICE1] [TEXT BOX CHOICE2] [TEXT BOX CHOICE3] 2 ... Then I only have 1 combo box for each year to worry about - I do however have the same problem of refreshing the combo box and removing the player that has been selected, and I'd prefer to do it withough a page submit. Sorry for the long posting - cheers

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  • MYSQL - SImple database design

    - by sequelDesigner
    Hello guys, I would like to develop a system, where user will get the data dynamically(what I mean dynamic is, without reloading pages, using AJAX.. but well, it does not matter much). My situation is like this. I have this table, I called it "player", in this player table, I will store the player information like, player name, level, experience etc. Each player can have different clothes, start from tops(shirts), bottoms, shoes, and hairstyle, and each player can have more than 1 tops, bottoms, shoes etc. What I am hesitated or not very sure about is, how do you normally store the data? My current design is like this: Player Table =========================================================================================== id | name | (others player's info) | wearing | tops | bottoms =========================================================================================== 1 | player1 | | top=1;bottom=2;shoes=5;hair=8 | 1,2,3| 7,2,3 Tops Table ===================== id | name | etc... ===================== 1 | t-shirt | ... I am not sure if this design is good. If you are the database designer, how would you design the database? Or how you will store them? Please advise. Thanks

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  • convert decrypted .vobs to .avi with ffmpeg on ubuntu

    - by Arcath
    I have a .vob file that has bee ripped from a dvd, when I watch the .vob its very good quality video and 5.1 english audio but when I use ffmpeg it has rubbish video and mono french audio. That was using this command: ffmpeg -i /samba/ripping/vobs/12161840#2.vob -f avi /samba/ripping/avis/test.avi I've tried a few different variations on that but it never comes back with anything good just bigger files with bad video and incorrect sound. I know the videos good and the correct audio streams exist so how do I select a 5.1 track and get good video? ffmpeg gives the .vob details as: Input #0, mpeg, from '/samba/ripping/vobs/12161840#2.vob': Duration: 00:42:05.56, start: 0.287267, bitrate: 5738 kb/s Stream #0.0[0x1e0]: Video: mpeg2video, yuv420p, 720x576 [PAR 64:45 DAR 16:9], 8436 kb/s, 25 fps, 25 tbr, 90k tbn, 50 tbc Stream #0.1[0x80]: Audio: ac3, 48000 Hz, 5.1, s16, 384 kb/s Stream #0.2[0x81]: Audio: ac3, 48000 Hz, 5.1, s16, 384 kb/s Stream #0.3[0x82]: Audio: ac3, 48000 Hz, mono, s16, 192 kb/s Output #0, avi, to '/samba/ripping/avis/test.avi': Metadata: ISFT : Lavf52.64.2 Stream #0.0: Video: mpeg4, yuv420p, 720x576 [PAR 64:45 DAR 16:9], q=2-31, 200 kb/s, 25 tbn, 25 tbc Stream #0.1: Audio: mp2, 48000 Hz, mono, s16, 64 kb/s Stream mapping: Stream #0.0 -> #0.0 Stream #0.3 -> #0.1

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  • techniques for an AI for a highly cramped turn-based tactics game

    - by Adam M.
    I'm trying to write an AI for a tactics game in the vein of Final Fantasy Tactics or Vandal Hearts. I can't change the game rules in any way, only upgrade the AI. I have experience programming AI for classic board games (basically minimax and its variants), but I think the branching factor is too great for the approach to be reasonable here. I'll describe the game and some current AI flaws that I'd like to fix. I'd like to hear ideas for applicable techniques. I'm a decent enough programmer, so I only need the ideas, not an implementation (though that's always appreciated). I'd rather not expend effort chasing (too many) dead ends, so although speculation and brainstorming are good and probably helpful, I'd prefer to hear from somebody with actual experience solving this kind of problem. For those who know it, the game is the land battle mini-game in Sid Meier's Pirates! (2004) and you can skim/skip the next two paragraphs. For those who don't, here's briefly how it works. The battle is turn-based and takes place on a 16x16 grid. There are three terrain types: clear (no hindrance), forest (hinders movement, ranged attacks, and sight), and rock (impassible, but does not hinder attacks or sight). The map is randomly generated with roughly equal amounts of each type of terrain. Because there are many rock and forest tiles, movement is typically very cramped. This is tactically important. The terrain is not flat; higher terrain gives minor bonuses. The terrain is known to both sides. The player is always the attacker and the AI is always the defender, so it's perfectly valid for the AI to set up a defensive position and just wait. The player wins by killing all defenders or by getting a unit to the city gates (a tile on the other side of the map). There are very few units on each side, usually 4-8. Because of this, it's crucial not to take damage without gaining some advantage from it. Units can take multiple actions per turn. All units on one side move before any units on the other side. Order of execution is important, and interleaving of actions between units is often useful. Units have melee and ranged attacks. Melee attacks vary widely in strength; ranged attacks have the same strength but vary in range. The main challenges I face are these: Lots of useful move combinations start with a "useless" move that gains no immediate advantage, or even loses advantage, in order to set up a powerful flank attack in the future. And, since the player units are stronger and have longer range, the AI pretty much always has to take some losses before they can start to gain kills. The AI must be able to look ahead to distinguish between sacrificial actions that provide a future benefit and those that don't. Because the terrain is so cramped, most of the tactics come down to achieving good positioning with multiple units that work together to defend an area. For instance, two defenders can often dominate a narrow pass by positioning themselves so an enemy unit attempting to pass must expose itself to a flank attack. But one defender in the same pass would be useless, and three units can defend a slightly larger pass. Etc. The AI should be able to figure out where the player must go to reach the city gates and how to best position its few units to cover the approaches, shifting, splitting, or combining them appropriately as the player moves. Because flank attacks are extremely deadly (and engineering flank attacks is key to the player strategy), the AI should be competent at moving its units so that they cover each other's flanks unless the sacrifice of a unit would give a substantial benefit. They should also be able to force flank attacks on players, for instance by threatening a unit from two different directions such that responding to one threat exposes the flank to the other. The AI should attack if possible, but sometimes there are no good ways to approach the player's position. In that case, the AI should be able to recognize this and set up a defensive position of its own. But the AI shouldn't be vulnerable to a trivial exploit where the player repeatedly opens and closes a hole in his defense and shoots at the AI as it approaches and retreats. That is, the AI should ideally be able to recognize that the player is capable of establishing a solid defense of an area, even if the defense is not currently in place. (I suppose if a good unit allocation algorithm existed, as needed for the second bullet point, the AI could run it on the player units to see where they could defend.) Because it's important to choose a good order of action and interleave actions between units, it's not as simple as just finding the best move for each unit in turn. All of these can be accomplished with a minimax search in theory, but the search space is too large, so specialized techniques are needed. I thought about techniques such as influence mapping, but I don't see how to use the technique to great effect. I thought about assigning goals to the units. This can help them work together in some limited way, and the problem of "how do I accomplish this goal?" is easier to solve than "how do I win this battle?", but assigning good goals is a hard problem in itself, because it requires knowing whether the goal is achievable and whether it's a good use of resources. So, does anyone have specific ideas for techniques that can help cleverize this AI? Update: I found a related question on Stackoverflow: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3133273/ai-for-a-final-fantasy-tactics-like-game The selected answer gives a decent approach to choosing between alternative actions, but it doesn't seem to have much ability to look into the future and discern beneficial sacrifices from wasteful ones. It also focuses on a single unit at a time and it's not clear how it could be extended to support cooperation between units in defending or attacking.

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  • Need some help on how to replay the last game of a java maze game

    - by Marty
    Hello, I am working on creating a Java maze game for a project. The maze is displayed on the console as standard output not in an applet. I have created most of hte code I need, however I am stuck at one problem and that is I need a user to be able to replay the last game i.e redraw the maze with the users moves but without any input from the user. I am not sure on what course of action to take, i was thinking about copying each users move or the position of each move into another array, as you can see i have 2 variables which hold the position of the player, plyrX and plyrY do you think copying these values into a new array after each move would solve my problem and how would i go about this? I have updated my code, apologies about the textIO.java class not being present, not sure how to resolve that exept post a link to TextIO.java [TextIO.java][1] My code below is updated with a new array of type char to hold values from the original maze (read in from text file and displayed using unicode characters) and also to new variables c_plyrX and c_plyrY which I am thinking should hold the values of plyrX and plyrY and copy them into the new array. When I try to call the replayGame(); method from the menu the maze loads for a second then the console exits so im not sure what I am doing wrong Thanks public class MazeGame { //unicode characters that will define the maze walls, //pathways, and in game characters. final static char WALL = '\u2588'; //wall final static char PATH = '\u2591'; //pathway final static char PLAYER = '\u25EF'; //player final static char ENTRANCE = 'E'; //entrance final static char EXIT = '\u2716'; //exit //declaring member variables which will hold the maze co-ordinates //X = rows, Y = columns static int entX = 0; //entrance X co-ordinate static int entY = 1; //entrance y co-ordinate static int plyrX = 0; static int plyrY = 1; static int exitX = 24; //exit X co-ordinate static int exitY = 37; //exit Y co-ordinate //static member variables which hold maze values //used so values can be accessed from different methods static int rows; //rows variable static int cols; //columns variable static char[][] maze; //defines 2 dimensional array to hold the maze //variables that hold player movement values static char dir; //direction static int spaces; //amount of spaces user can travel //variable to hold amount of moves the user has taken; static int movesTaken = 0; //new array to hold player moves for replaying game static char[][] mazeCopy; static int c_plyrX; static int c_plyrY; /** userMenu method for displaying the user menu which will provide various options for * the user to choose such as play a maze game, get instructions, etc. */ public static void userMenu(){ TextIO.putln("Maze Game"); TextIO.putln("*********"); TextIO.putln("Choose an option."); TextIO.putln(""); TextIO.putln("1. Play the Maze Game."); TextIO.putln("2. View Instructions."); TextIO.putln("3. Replay the last game."); TextIO.putln("4. Exit the Maze Game."); TextIO.putln(""); int option; //variable for holding users option TextIO.put("Type your choice: "); option = TextIO.getlnInt(); //gets users option //switch statement for processing menu options switch(option){ case 1: playMazeGame(); case 2: instructions(); case 3: if (c_plyrX == plyrX && c_plyrY == plyrY)replayGame(); else { TextIO.putln("Option not available yet, you need to play a game first."); TextIO.putln(); userMenu(); } case 4: System.exit(0); //exits the user out of the console default: TextIO.put("Option must be 1, 2, 3 or 4"); } } //end of userMenu /**main method, will call the userMenu and get the users choice and call * the relevant method to execute the users choice. */ public static void main(String[]args){ userMenu(); //calls the userMenu method } //end of main method /**instructions method, displays instructions on how to play * the game to the user/ */ public static void instructions(){ TextIO.putln("To beat the Maze Game you have to move your character"); TextIO.putln("through the maze and reach the exit in as few moves as possible."); TextIO.putln(""); TextIO.putln("Your characer is displayed as a " + PLAYER); TextIO.putln("The maze exit is displayed as a " + EXIT); TextIO.putln("Reach the exit and you have won escaped the maze."); TextIO.putln("To control your character type the direction you want to go"); TextIO.putln("and how many spaces you want to move"); TextIO.putln("for example 'D3' will move your character"); TextIO.putln("down 3 spaces."); TextIO.putln("Remember you can't walk through walls!"); boolean insOption; //boolean variable TextIO.putln(""); TextIO.put("Do you want to play the Maze Game now? (Y or N) "); insOption = TextIO.getlnBoolean(); if (insOption == true)playMazeGame(); else userMenu(); } //end of instructions method /**playMazeGame method, calls the loadMaze method and the charMove method * to start playing the Maze Game. */ public static void playMazeGame(){ loadMaze(); plyrMoves(); } //end of playMazeGame method /**loadMaze method, loads the 39x25 maze from the MazeGame.txt text file * and inserts values from the text file into the maze array and * displays the maze on screen using the unicode block characters. * plyrX and plyrY variables are set at their staring co ordinates so that when * a game is completed and the user selects to play a new game * the player character will always be at position 01. */ public static void loadMaze(){ plyrX = 0; plyrY = 1; TextIO.readFile("MazeGame.txt"); //now reads from the external MazeGame.txt file rows = TextIO.getInt(); //gets the number of rows from text file to create X dimensions cols = TextIO.getlnInt(); //gets number of columns from text file to create Y dimensions maze = new char[rows][cols]; //creates maze array of base type char with specified dimnensions //loop to process the array and read in values from the text file. for (int i = 0; i<rows; i++){ for (int j = 0; j<cols; j++){ maze[i][j] = TextIO.getChar(); } TextIO.getln(); } //end for loop TextIO.readStandardInput(); //closes MazeGame.txt file and reads from //standard input. //loop to process the array values and display as unicode characters for (int i = 0; i<rows; i++){ for (int j = 0; j<cols; j++){ if (i == plyrX && j == plyrY){ plyrX = i; plyrY = j; TextIO.put(PLAYER); //puts the player character at player co-ords } else{ if (maze[i][j] == '0') TextIO.putf("%c",WALL); //puts wall block if (maze[i][j] == '1') TextIO.putf("%c",PATH); //puts path block if (maze[i][j] == '2') { entX = i; entY = j; TextIO.putf("%c",ENTRANCE); //puts entrance character } if (maze[i][j] == '3') { exitX = i; //holds value of exit exitY = j; //co-ordinates TextIO.putf("%c",EXIT); //puts exit character } } } TextIO.putln(); } //end for loop } //end of loadMaze method /**redrawMaze method, method for redrawing the maze after each move. * */ public static void redrawMaze(){ TextIO.readFile("MazeGame.txt"); //now reads from the external MazeGame.txt file rows = TextIO.getInt(); //gets the number of rows from text file to create X dimensions cols = TextIO.getlnInt(); //gets number of columns from text file to create Y dimensions maze = new char[rows][cols]; //creates maze array of base type char with specified dimnensions //loop to process the array and read in values from the text file. for (int i = 0; i<rows; i++){ for (int j = 0; j<cols; j++){ maze[i][j] = TextIO.getChar(); } TextIO.getln(); } //end for loop TextIO.readStandardInput(); //closes MazeGame.txt file and reads from //standard input. //loop to process the array values and display as unicode characters for (int i = 0; i<rows; i++){ for (int j = 0; j<cols; j++){ if (i == plyrX && j == plyrY){ plyrX = i; plyrY = j; TextIO.put(PLAYER); //puts the player character at player co-ords } else{ if (maze[i][j] == '0') TextIO.putf("%c",WALL); //puts wall block if (maze[i][j] == '1') TextIO.putf("%c",PATH); //puts path block if (maze[i][j] == '2') { entX = i; entY = j; TextIO.putf("%c",ENTRANCE); //puts entrance character } if (maze[i][j] == '3') { exitX = i; //holds value of exit exitY = j; //co-ordinates TextIO.putf("%c",EXIT); //puts exit character } } } TextIO.putln(); } //end for loop } //end redrawMaze method /**replay game method * */ public static void replayGame(){ c_plyrX = plyrX; c_plyrY = plyrY; TextIO.readFile("MazeGame.txt"); //now reads from the external MazeGame.txt file rows = TextIO.getInt(); //gets the number of rows from text file to create X dimensions cols = TextIO.getlnInt(); //gets number of columns from text file to create Y dimensions mazeCopy = new char[rows][cols]; //creates maze array of base type char with specified dimnensions //loop to process the array and read in values from the text file. for (int i = 0; i<rows; i++){ for (int j = 0; j<cols; j++){ mazeCopy[i][j] = TextIO.getChar(); } TextIO.getln(); } //end for loop TextIO.readStandardInput(); //closes MazeGame.txt file and reads from //standard input. //loop to process the array values and display as unicode characters for (int i = 0; i<rows; i++){ for (int j = 0; j<cols; j++){ if (i == c_plyrX && j == c_plyrY){ c_plyrX = i; c_plyrY = j; TextIO.put(PLAYER); //puts the player character at player co-ords } else{ if (mazeCopy[i][j] == '0') TextIO.putf("%c",WALL); //puts wall block if (mazeCopy[i][j] == '1') TextIO.putf("%c",PATH); //puts path block if (mazeCopy[i][j] == '2') { entX = i; entY = j; TextIO.putf("%c",ENTRANCE); //puts entrance character } if (mazeCopy[i][j] == '3') { exitX = i; //holds value of exit exitY = j; //co-ordinates TextIO.putf("%c",EXIT); //puts exit character } } } TextIO.putln(); } //end for loop } //end replayGame method /**plyrMoves method, method for moving the players character * around the maze. */ public static void plyrMoves(){ int nplyrX = plyrX; int nplyrY = plyrY; int pMoves; direction(); //UP if (dir == 'U' || dir == 'u'){ nplyrX = plyrX; nplyrY = plyrY; for(pMoves = 0; pMoves <= spaces; pMoves++){ if (maze[nplyrX][nplyrY] == '0'){ TextIO.putln("Invalid move, try again."); } else if (pMoves != spaces){ nplyrX =plyrX + 1; } else { plyrX = plyrX-spaces; c_plyrX = plyrX; movesTaken++; } } }//end UP if //DOWN if (dir == 'D' || dir == 'd'){ nplyrX = plyrX; nplyrY = plyrY; for (pMoves = 0; pMoves <= spaces; pMoves ++){ if (maze[nplyrX][nplyrY] == '0'){ TextIO.putln("Invalid move, try again"); } else if (pMoves != spaces){ nplyrX = plyrX+1; } else{ plyrX = plyrX+spaces; c_plyrX = plyrX; movesTaken++; } } } //end DOWN if //LEFT if (dir == 'L' || dir =='l'){ nplyrX = plyrX; nplyrY = plyrY; for (pMoves = 0; pMoves <= spaces; pMoves++){ if (maze[nplyrX][nplyrY] == '0'){ TextIO.putln("Invalid move, try again"); } else if (pMoves != spaces){ nplyrY = plyrY + 1; } else{ plyrY = plyrY-spaces; c_plyrY = plyrY; movesTaken++; } } } //end LEFT if //RIGHT if (dir == 'R' || dir == 'r'){ nplyrX = plyrX; nplyrY = plyrY; for (pMoves = 0; pMoves <= spaces; pMoves++){ if (maze[nplyrX][nplyrY] == '0'){ TextIO.putln("Invalid move, try again."); } else if (pMoves != spaces){ nplyrY += 1; } else{ plyrY = plyrY+spaces; c_plyrY = plyrY; movesTaken++; } } } //end RIGHT if //prints message if player escapes from the maze. if (maze[plyrX][plyrY] == '3'){ TextIO.putln("****Congratulations****"); TextIO.putln(); TextIO.putln("You have escaped from the maze."); TextIO.putln(); userMenu(); } else{ movesTaken++; redrawMaze(); plyrMoves(); } } //end of plyrMoves method /**direction, method * */ public static char direction(){ TextIO.putln("Enter the direction you wish to move in and the distance"); TextIO.putln("i.e D3 = move down 3 spaces"); TextIO.putln("U - Up, D - Down, L - Left, R - Right: "); dir = TextIO.getChar(); if (dir =='U' || dir == 'D' || dir == 'L' || dir == 'R' || dir == 'u' || dir == 'd' || dir == 'l' || dir == 'r'){ spacesMoved(); } else{ loadMaze(); TextIO.putln("Invalid direction!"); TextIO.put("Direction must be one of U, D, L or R"); direction(); } return dir; //returns the value of dir (direction) } //end direction method /**spaces method, gets the amount of spaces the user wants to move * */ public static int spacesMoved(){ TextIO.putln(" "); spaces = TextIO.getlnInt(); if (spaces <= 0){ loadMaze(); TextIO.put("Invalid amount of spaces, try again"); spacesMoved(); } return spaces; } //end spacesMoved method } //end of MazeGame class

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  • Looking for programs on audio tape/cassette containing programs for Sinclair Z80 PC?

    - by DVK
    OK, so back before ice age, I recall having a Sinclair ZX80 PC (with TV as a display, and a cassette tape player as storage device). Obviously, the programs on cassette tapes made a very distinct sound (er... noise) when playing the tape... I was wondering if someone still had those tapes? The reason (and the reason this Q is programming related) is that IIRC different languages made somewhat different pitched noises, but I would like to run the tape and listen myself to confirm if that was really the case...

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  • Looking for programs on audio tape/cassette containing programs for Sinclair ZX80 PC?

    - by DVK
    OK, so back before ice age, I recall having a Sinclair ZX80 PC (with TV as a display, and a cassette tape player as storage device). Obviously, the programs on cassette tapes made a very distinct sound (er... noise) when playing the tape... I was wondering if someone still had those tapes? The reason (and the reason this Q is programming related) is that IIRC different languages made somewhat different pitched noises, but I would like to run the tape and listen myself to confirm if that was really the case...

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  • Linux application that bundles multiple incoming audio and video streams into one container file?

    - by StackedCrooked
    I've been assigned to implement a video on-demand service for a local university. Different aspects of the lectures (video, audio, screen cast, white board) will be recorded. During a lecture all these data streams arrive at one Linux server. This server should transcode and bundle all these streams into one container (Matroska) file. My options seem to be: Write a GStreamer application do something with FFMPEG do something with VLC ...? Has anyone done something similar in the past? Can you recommend something? Edit For those interested, here are a few of my findings: Matroska is not a good format for streaming (it's possible, but it's not its primary intent) For Flash streaming you can use MPEG4 If you want to combine different videos into one video where each subvideo occupies a rectangular portion of the total screen, then this GStreamer script is useful (I found it on this blog post). Desktop capture works fine with VLC

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  • VST plugin : using FFT on audio input buffer with arbitrary size, how ?

    - by Led
    I'm getting interested in programming a VST plugin, and I have a basic knowledge of audio dsp's and FFT's. I'd like to use VST.Net, and I'm wondering how to implement an FFT-based effect. The process-code looks like public override void Process(VstAudioBuffer[] inChannels, VstAudioBuffer[] outChannels) If I'm correct, normally the FFT would be applied on the input, some processing would be done on the FFT'd data, and then an inverse-FFT would create the processed soundbuffer. But since the FFT works on a specified buffersize that will most probably be different then the (arbitrary) amount of input/output-samples, how would you handle this ?

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  • Successfully concatenating multiple videos

    - by wiseguydigital
    My mission is to create videos out of old web slideshows. To start with I have jpegs and audio files that worked as Flash slideshows in an old system, structured such as this: Audio structure my_audio_1.mp3 (this file is a 3 second mp3 of silence) my_audio_2.mp3 my_audio_3.mp3 my_audio_4 etc... roughly 30 mp3s per slideshow Image structure my_image_1.jpg (this acts as the opening slide) my_image_2.jpg my_image_3.jpg my_image_4. etc... roughly 30 images per slideshow. As there are almost 100 slideshows that must be converted to video, I have created a web-based interface using PHP to automate the process, that sits on a local system and attempts to combine the files using shell_exec(). The process uses the following workflow: Loop through each slide and make an avi or mpeg. So for instance my_mini_video_2.avi would be a video that consists of my_image_2.jpg and has a soundtrack of my_audio_2.mp3. This slide would last the length of my_audio_2.mp3. Join / stitch / concat all of the mini videos to create the final video (Using a combination of cat and either mencoder or ffmpeg (I have also tried avimerge but to no avail). Transcode the new 'master' video to various formats such as flv etc. I thought this would be simple and have been close on many occasions but it still won't work. I can't get past stage 2 as I can't get a perfect 'master' video. I have now experimented with Mencoder, FFMpeg and seem to have been through every combination I can think of. The problem is that the audio and visuals never sync, no matter what I try. Also, I have even tried created audio-less mini videos, joining the MP3s into one long MP3 using both cat and mp3wrap and then assigning the new long MP3 as the audio track, but this always produces either a very short file or a badly slowed down file and makes the female voiceover sound like a male boxer!!! There appears to be no problems at all with the original files. Does anybody have any experience in producing a video successfully from the same kind of starting point? Or any ideas on what I may be doing wrong? As an example: If I create silent mini-videos, and stitch them together into 'temp-master.mpg' and then join the MP3s together into single MP3 called 'temp-master-audio.mp3', the audio file's duration is 09:10 and the video file's duration is 08:35. They should be the same and the audio will seem sloooow. I haven't posted code as I have written lots and lots of combinations.

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  • MPMoviePlayerController and status bar in iPad

    - by hgpc
    I want to show a MPMoviePlayerController in a view controller and let the user toggle full screen with the default controls. I'm using the following code in a bare-bones example: - (void)viewDidLoad { [super viewDidLoad]; self.player = [[MPMoviePlayerController alloc] init]; self.player.contentURL = theURL; self.player.view.frame = self.viewForMovie.bounds; self.player.view.autoresizingMask = UIViewAutoresizingFlexibleWidth | UIViewAutoresizingFlexibleHeight; [self.viewForMovie addSubview:player.view]; [self.player play]; } This works well until the user makes the video full screen, rotates the device and taps on the screen. The status bar is shown in the wrong position, as shown in the screenshot below. http://www.freeimagehosting.net/image.php?be371fe3e8.png What am I doing wrong?

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  • Making the domain-model of tic tac toe

    - by devoured elysium
    I am trying to make the domain model of a Tic Tac Toe game. I'll try then to go on through the various steps of the Unified Process and later implement it in some language (C# or Java). I'd like to have some feedback if I'm going on the right path: I've defined the game with two actors, Player O and Player X. I'm not sure about defining both a Tile and a Tile State. Maybe I should only define a Tile and have the 3 possible states specialize from it? I'm not sure what is best: to have both Player O and Player X be associations with Tic Tac Toe or have them inherit from Player that is associated with Tic Tac Toe. Following the design shown on the pic, in theory we could have a Tic Tac Toe concept with 2 Player O's, which wouldn't be correct. What is your opinion on this? Also, am I missing something in the diagram? Although I can't see any other actors for Tic Tac Toe, should I have any other? Thanks

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