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• Should I share UI for objects that use common fields?

  - by wb

  I have a parent class that holds all of the fields that are common between all device types. From that, I have a few derived classes that each hold their unique fields. Say I have device type "Switch" and "Transformer". Both derived classes only have 2-3 of their own unique fields. When doing the UI design (windows forms) in this case. Should I create two separate forms for each device type or create a user control with all fields that are shared among all devices? Thank you.

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• Why does my game loop speed vary on different platforms with the same hardware?

  - by Sri Harsha Chilakapati

  I've got a serious issue with my game loop. This loop varies in time with the platform and with the same hardware. This is a list of FPS achieved: - Windows ======= 140 to 150 - Linux ======= 120 to 125 - Windows(WINE) ======= 125 to 135 And since my game loop is fixed timestep, the speed of the game is not stable. Here's my game loop. public final void run() { // Initialize the resources Map.initMap(); initResources(); // Start the timer GTimer.startTimer(); GTimer.refresh(); long elapsedTime = 0; // The game loop while (running) { // Update the game update(elapsedTime); if (state == GameState.GAME_PLAYING) { Map.updateObjects(elapsedTime); } // Show or hide the cursor if (Global.HIDE_CURSOR) { setCursor(GInput.INVISIBLE_CURSOR); } else { setCursor(Cursor.getDefaultCursor()); } // Repaint the game and sync repaint(); elapsedTime = GTimer.sync(); Toolkit.getDefaultToolkit().sync(); } } The timer package How could I improve it?

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• What do I need to Mod a Unreal Engine 3 game?

  - by RoadSideWarrior

  what I am looking for is some advise making a mod for a certain game and how I would go about making it. The game I am talking about is Blacklight: Retribution and what I wan't to know is; Is it possible? And if so, what programs will I need? It is an online only game so I was unsure how plausible a mod would be for it. Plus I have never made a video game before, but I do like the game and I wanted to do some things with it. Additionally, this will be my first time making anything video game related so I would appreciate any advise. To expand a bit, I plan to add something simple at first. A mod that would let you spectate another player in the first person. Then I plan do something a bit more complex where I want to make so the game optionally always records you playing (in short intervals most likely or you would run quickly out of memory). After all that is done I would add items, armor, weapons, and maybe make a map or not I am not sure but this in a shell what I hope to do. I don't know much about these things but I am reading anything I can get my hands on. So if this is overly ambitious or just plain out not a possibility any advise on what I should look to instead will be welcomed warmly. Thank you.

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• jBullet Collision/Physics not working correctly

  - by Kenneth Bray

  Below is the code for one of my objects in the game I am creating (yes although this is a cube, I am not making anything remotely like MineCraft), and my issue is I while the cube will display and is does follow the physics if the cube falls, it does not interact with any other objects in the game. If I was to have multiple cubes in screen at once they all just sit there, or shoot off in all directions never stopping. Anyway, I am new to jBullet, and any help would be appreciated. package Object; import static org.lwjgl.opengl.GL11.GL_QUADS; import static org.lwjgl.opengl.GL11.glBegin; import static org.lwjgl.opengl.GL11.glColor3f; import static org.lwjgl.opengl.GL11.glEnd; import static org.lwjgl.opengl.GL11.glPopMatrix; import static org.lwjgl.opengl.GL11.glPushMatrix; import static org.lwjgl.opengl.GL11.glVertex3f; import javax.vecmath.Matrix4f; import javax.vecmath.Quat4f; import javax.vecmath.Vector3f; import com.bulletphysics.collision.shapes.BoxShape; import com.bulletphysics.collision.shapes.CollisionShape; import com.bulletphysics.dynamics.RigidBody; import com.bulletphysics.dynamics.RigidBodyConstructionInfo; import com.bulletphysics.linearmath.DefaultMotionState; import com.bulletphysics.linearmath.Transform; public class Cube { // Cube size/shape variables private float size; boolean cubeCollidable; boolean cubeDestroyable; // Position variables - currently this defines the center of the cube private float posX; private float posY; private float posZ; // Rotation variables - should be between 0 and 359, might consider letting rotation go higher though I can't think of a purpose currently private float rotX; private float rotY; private float rotZ; //collision shape is a box shape CollisionShape fallShape; // setup the motion state for the ball DefaultMotionState fallMotionState; Vector3f fallInertia = new Vector3f(0, 1, 0); RigidBodyConstructionInfo fallRigidBodyCI; public RigidBody fallRigidBody; int mass = 1; // Constructor public Cube(float pX, float pY, float pZ, float pSize) { posX = pX; posY = pY; posZ = pZ; size = pSize; rotX = 0; rotY = 0; rotZ = 0; // define the physics based on the values passed in fallShape = new BoxShape(new Vector3f(size, size, size)); fallMotionState = new DefaultMotionState(new Transform(new Matrix4f(new Quat4f(0, 0, 0, 1), new Vector3f(0, 50, 0), 1f))); fallRigidBodyCI = new RigidBodyConstructionInfo(mass, fallMotionState, fallShape, fallInertia); fallRigidBody = new RigidBody(fallRigidBodyCI); } public void Update() { Transform trans = new Transform(); fallRigidBody.getMotionState().getWorldTransform(trans); posY = trans.origin.x; posX = trans.origin.y; posZ = trans.origin.z; } public void Draw() { fallShape.calculateLocalInertia(mass, fallInertia); // center point posX, posY, posZ float radius = size / 2; //top glPushMatrix(); glBegin(GL_QUADS); { glColor3f(1.0f,0.0f,0.0f); // red glVertex3f(posX + radius, posY + radius, posZ - radius); glVertex3f(posX - radius, posY + radius, posZ - radius); glVertex3f(posX - radius, posY + radius, posZ + radius); glVertex3f(posX + radius, posY + radius, posZ + radius); } glEnd(); glPopMatrix(); //bottom glPushMatrix(); glBegin(GL_QUADS); { glColor3f(1.0f,1.0f,0.0f); // ?? color glVertex3f(posX + radius, posY - radius, posZ + radius); glVertex3f(posX - radius, posY - radius, posZ + radius); glVertex3f(posX - radius, posY - radius, posZ - radius); glVertex3f(posX + radius, posY - radius, posZ - radius); } glEnd(); glPopMatrix(); //right side glPushMatrix(); glBegin(GL_QUADS); { glColor3f(1.0f,0.0f,1.0f); // ?? color glVertex3f(posX + radius, posY + radius, posZ + radius); glVertex3f(posX + radius, posY - radius, posZ + radius); glVertex3f(posX + radius, posY - radius, posZ - radius); glVertex3f(posX + radius, posY + radius, posZ - radius); } glEnd(); glPopMatrix(); //left side glPushMatrix(); glBegin(GL_QUADS); { glColor3f(0.0f,1.0f,1.0f); // ?? color glVertex3f(posX - radius, posY + radius, posZ - radius); glVertex3f(posX - radius, posY - radius, posZ - radius); glVertex3f(posX - radius, posY - radius, posZ + radius); glVertex3f(posX - radius, posY + radius, posZ + radius); } glEnd(); glPopMatrix(); //front side glPushMatrix(); glBegin(GL_QUADS); { glColor3f(0.0f,0.0f,1.0f); //blue glVertex3f(posX + radius, posY + radius, posZ + radius); glVertex3f(posX - radius, posY + radius, posZ + radius); glVertex3f(posX - radius, posY - radius, posZ + radius); glVertex3f(posX + radius, posY - radius, posZ + radius); } glEnd(); glPopMatrix(); //back side glPushMatrix(); glBegin(GL_QUADS); { glColor3f(0.0f,1.0f,0.0f); // green glVertex3f(posX + radius, posY - radius, posZ - radius); glVertex3f(posX - radius, posY - radius, posZ - radius); glVertex3f(posX - radius, posY + radius, posZ - radius); glVertex3f(posX + radius, posY + radius, posZ - radius); } glEnd(); glPopMatrix(); } }

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• Day 4 - Game Sprites In Action

  - by dapostolov

  Yesterday I drew an image on the screen. Most exciting, but ... I spent more time blogging about it then actual coding. So this next little while I'm going to streamline my game and research and simply post key notes. Quick notes on the last session: The most important thing I wanted to point out were the following methods:           spriteBatch.Begin(SpriteBlendMode.AlphaBlend);           spriteBatch.Draw(sprite, position, Color.White);           spriteBatch.End(); The spriteBatch object is used to draw Textures and a 2D texture is called a Sprite A texture is generally an image, which is called an Asset in XNA The Draw Method in the Game1.cs is looped (until exit) and utilises the spriteBatch object to draw a Scene To begin drawing a Scene you call the Begin Method. To end a Scene you call the End Method. And to place an image on the Scene you call the Draw method. The most simple implementation of the draw method is:           spriteBatch.Draw(sprite, position, Color.White); 1) sprite - the 2D texture you loaded to draw 2) position - the 2d vector, a set of x & y coordinates 3) Color.White - the tint to apply to the texture, in this case, white light = nothing, nada, no tint. Game Sprites In Action! Today, I played around with Draw methods to get comfortable with their "quirks". The following is an example of the above draw method, but with more parameters available for us to use. Let's investigate!             spriteBatch.Draw(sprite, position2, null, Color.White, MathHelper.ToRadians(45.0f), new Vector2(sprite.Width / 2, sprite.Height / 2), 1.0F, SpriteEffects.None, 0.0F); The parameters (in order): 1) sprite  the texture to display 2) position2 the position on the screen / scene this can also be a rectangle 3) null the portion of the image to display within an image null = display full image this is generally used for animation strips / grids (more on this below) 4) Color.White Texture tinting White = no tint 5) MathHelper.ToRadians(45.0f) rotation of the object, in this case 45 degrees rotates from the set plotting point. 6) new Vector(0,0) the plotting point in this case the top left corner the image will rotate from the top left of the texture in the code above, the point is set to the middle of the image. 7) 1.0f Image scaling (1x) 8) SpriteEffects.None you can flip the image horizontally or vertically 9) 0.0f The z index of the image. 0 = closer, 1 behind? And playing around with different combinations I was able to come up with the following whacky display:   Checking off Yesterdays Intention List: learn game development terminology (in progress) - We learned sprite, scene, texture, and asset. how to place and position (rotate) a static image on the screen (completed) - The thing to note was, it's was in radians and I found a cool helper method to convert degrees into radians. Also, the image rotates from it's specified point. how to layer static images on the screen (completed) - I couldn't seem to get the zIndex working, but one things for sure, the order you draw the image in also determines how it is rendered on the screen. understand image scaling (in progress) - I'm not sure I have this fully covered, but for the most part plug a number in the scaling field and the image grows / shrinks accordingly. can we reuse images? (completed) - yes, I loaded one image and plotted the bugger all over the screen. understand how framerate is handled in XNA (in progress) - I hacked together some code to display the framerate each second. A framerate of 60 appears to be the standard. Interesting to note, the GameTime object does provide you with some cool timing capabilities, such as...is the game running slow? Need to investigate this down the road. how to display text , basic shapes, and colors on the screen (in progress) - i got text rendered on the screen, and i understand containing rectangles. However, I didn't display "shapes" & "colors" how to interact with an image (collision of user input?) (todo) how to animate an image and understand basic animation techniques (in progress) - I was able to create a stripe animation of numbers ranging from 1 - 4, each block was 40 x 40 pixles for a total stripe size of 160 x 40. Using the portion (source Rectangle) parameter, i limited this display to each section at varying intervals. It was interesting to note my first implementation animated at rocket speed. I then tried to create a smoother animation by limiting the redraw capacity, which seemed to work. I guess a little more research will have to be put into this for animating characters / scenes. how to detect colliding images or screen edges (todo) - but the rectangle object can detect collisions I believe. how to manipulate the image, lets say colors, stretching (in progress) - I haven't figured out how to modify a specific color to be another color, but the tinting parameter definately could be used. As for stretching, use the rectangle object as the positioning and the image will stretch to fit! how to focus on a segment of an image...like only displaying a frame on a film reel (completed) - as per basic animation techniques what's the best way to manage images (compression, storage, location, prevent artwork theft, etc.) (todo) Tomorrows Intention Tomorrow I am going to take a stab at rendering a game menu and from there I'm going to investigate how I can improve upon the code and techniques. Intention List: Render a menu, fancy or not Show the mouse cursor Hook up click event A basic animation of somesort Investigate image / menu techniques D.

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• C# Lack of Static Inheritance - What Should I Do?

  - by yellowblood

  Alright, so as you probably know, static inheritance is impossible in C#. I understand that, however I'm stuck with the development of my program. I will try to make it as simple as possible. Lets say our code needs to manage objects that are presenting aircrafts in some airport. The requirements are as follows: There are members and methods that are shared for all aircrafts There are many types of aircrafts, each type may have its own extra methods and members. There can be many instances for each aircraft type. Every aircraft type must have a friendly name for this type, and more details about this type. For example a class named F16 will have a static member FriendlyName with the value of "Lockheed Martin F-16 Fighting Falcon". Other programmers should be able to add more aircrafts, although they must be enforced to create the same static details about the types of the aircrafts. In some GUI, there should be a way to let the user see the list of available types (with the details such as FriendlyName) and add or remove instances of the aircrafts, saved, lets say, to some XML file. So, basically, if I could enforce inherited classes to implement static members and methods, I would enforce the aircraft types to have static members such as FriendlyName. Sadly I cannot do that. So, what would be the best design for this scenario?

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• How do you keep your business rules DRY?

  - by Mario

  I periodically ponder how to best design an application whose every business rule exists in just a single location. (While I know there is no proverbial “best way” and that designs are situational, people must have a leaning toward one practice or another.) I work for a shop where they prefer to house as much of the business rules as possible in the database. This requires developers in many cases to perform identical front-end validations to avoid sending data to the database that will result in an exception—not very DRY. It grates me anytime I find myself duplicating any kind of logic—even lowly validation logic. I am a single-point-of-truth purist to an anal degree. On the other end of the spectrum, I know of shops that create dumb databases (the Rails community leans in this direction) and handle all of the business logic in a separate tier (in Rails the models would house “most” of this). Note the word “most” which implies that some business logic does end up spilling into other places (in Rails it might spill over into the controllers). In way, a clean separation of concerns where all business logic exists in a single core location is a Utopian fantasy that’s hard to uphold (n-tiered architecture or not). Furthermore, is see the “Database as a fortress” and would agree that it should be built on constraints that cause it to reject bad data. As such, I hold principles that cause a degree of angst as I attempt to balance them. How do you balance the database-as-a-fortress view with the desire to have a single-point-of-truth?

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• AntFarm anti-pattern -- strategies to avoid, antidotes to help heal from

  - by alchemical

  I'm working on a 10 page web site with a database back-end. There are 500+ objects in use, trying to implement the MVP pattern in ASP.Net. I'm tracing the code-execution from a single-page, my finger has been on F-11 in Visual Studio for about 40 minutes, there seems to be no end, possibly 1000+ method calls for one web page! If it was just 50 objects that would be one thing, however, code execution snakes through all these objects just like millions of ants frantically woring in their giant dirt mound house, riddled with object tunnels. Hence, a new anti-pattern is born : AntFarm. AntFarm is also known as "OO-Madnes", "OO-Fever", OO-ADD, or simply design-pattern junkie. This is not the first time I've seen this, nor my associates at other companies. It seems that this style is being actively propogated, or in any case is a misunderstanding of the numerous OO/DP gospels going around... I'd like to introduce an anti-pattern to the anti-pattern: GST or "Get Stuff Done" AKA "Get Sh** done" AKA GRD (GetRDone). This pattern focused on just what it says, getting stuff done, in a simple way. I may try to outline it more in a later post, or please share your ideas on this antidote pattern. Anyway, I'm in the midst of a great example of AntFarm anti-pattern as I write (as a bonus, there is no documentation or comments). Please share you thoughts on how this anti-pattern has become so prevelant, how we can avoid it, and how can one undo or deal with this pattern in a live system one must work with!

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• Pros and cons of making database IDs consistent and "readable"

  - by gmale

  Question Is it a good rule of thumb for database IDs to be "meaningless?" Conversely, are there significant benefits from having IDs structured in a way where they can be recognized at a glance? What are the pros and cons? Background I just had a debate with my coworkers about the consistency of the IDs in our database. We have a data-driven application that leverages spring so that we rarely ever have to change code. That means, if there's a problem, a data change is usually the solution. My argument was that by making IDs consistent and readable, we save ourselves significant time and headaches, long term. Once the IDs are set, they don't have to change often and if done right, future changes won't be difficult. My coworkers position was that IDs should never matter. Encoding information into the ID violates DB design policies and keeping them orderly requires extra work that, "we don't have time for." I can't find anything online to support either position. So I'm turning to all the gurus here at SA! Example Imagine this simplified list of database records representing food in a grocery store, the first set represents data that has meaning encoded in the IDs, while the second does not: ID's with meaning: Type 1 Fruit 2 Veggie Product 101 Apple 102 Banana 103 Orange 201 Lettuce 202 Onion 203 Carrot Location 41 Aisle four top shelf 42 Aisle four bottom shelf 51 Aisle five top shelf 52 Aisle five bottom shelf ProductLocation 10141 Apple on aisle four top shelf 10241 Banana on aisle four top shelf //just by reading the ids, it's easy to recongnize that these are both Fruit on Aisle 4 ID's without meaning: Type 1 Fruit 2 Veggie Product 1 Apple 2 Banana 3 Orange 4 Lettuce 5 Onion 6 Carrot Location 1 Aisle four top shelf 2 Aisle four bottom shelf 3 Aisle five top shelf 4 Aisle five bottom shelf ProductLocation 1 Apple on aisle four top shelf 2 Banana on aisle four top shelf //given the IDs, it's harder to see that these are both fruit on aisle 4 Summary What are the pros and cons of keeping IDs readable and consistent? Which approach do you generally prefer and why? Is there an accepted industry best-practice?

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• Pattern for UI configuration

  - by TERACytE

  I have a Win32 C++ program that validates user input and updates the UI with status information and options. Currently it is written like this: void ShowError() { SetIcon(kError); SetMessageString("There was an error"); HideButton(kButton1); HideButton(kButton2); ShowButton(kButton3); } void ShowSuccess() { SetIcon(kError); std::String statusText (GetStatusText()); SetMessageString(statusText); HideButton(kButton1); HideButton(kButton2); ShowButton(kButton3); } // plus several more methods to update the UI using similar mechanisms I do not likes this because it duplicates code and causes me to update several methods if something changes in the UI. I am wondering if there is a design pattern or best practice to remove the duplication and make the functionality easier to understand and update. I could consolidate the code inside a config function and pass in flags to enable/disable UI items, but I am not convinced this is the best approach. Any suggestions and ideas?

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• Using an ORM with a database that has no defined relationships?

  - by Ahmad

  Consider a database(MSSQL 2005) that consists of 100+ tables which have primary keys defined to a certain degree. There are 'relationships' between tables, however these are not enforced with foreign key constraints. Consider the following simplified example of typical types of tables I am dealing with. The are clear relations between the User and City and Province tables. However, they key issues is the inconsistent data types in the tables and naming conventions. User: UserRowId [int] PK Name [varchar(50)] CityId [smallint] ProvinceRowId [bigint] City: CityRowId [bigint] PK CityDescription [varchar(100)] Province: ProvinceId [int] PK ProvinceDesc [varchar(50)] I am considering a rewrite of the application (in ASP.net MVC) that uses this data source as is similar in design to MVC storefront. However I am going through a proof of concept phase and this is one of the stumbling blocks I have come across. What are my options in terms of ORM choice that can be easily used and why? Should I even be considering an ORM? (The reason I ask this is that most explanations and tutorials all work with relatively cleanly designed existing databases, or newly created ones when compared to mine. I am thus having a very hard time trying to find a way forward with this problem) There is a huge amount of existing SQL queries, would a datamappper(eg IBatis.net) be more suitable since we could easily modify them to work and reuse the investment already made? I have found this question on SO which indicates to me that an ORM can be used - however I get the impression that this a question of mapping? Note: at the moment, the object model is not clearly defined as it was non-existent. The existing system pretty much did almost everything in SQL or consisted of overly complicated, and numerous queries to complete fucntionality. I am pretty much a noob and have zero experience around ORMs and MVC - so this an awesome learning curve I am on.

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• When is factory method better than simple factory and vice versa?

  - by Bruce

  Hi all Working my way through the Head First Design Patterns book. I believe I understand the simple factory and the factory method, but I'm having trouble seeing what advantages factory method brings over simple factory. If an object A uses a simple factory to create its B objects, then clients can create it like this: A a = new A(new BFactory()); whereas if an object uses a factory method, a client can create it like this: A a = new ConcreteA(); // ConcreteA contains a method for instantiating the same Bs that the BFactory above creates, with the method hardwired into the subclass of A, ConcreteA. So in the case of the simple factory, clients compose A with a B factory, whereas with the factory method, the client chooses the appropriate subclass for the types of B it wants. There really doesn't seem to be much to choose between them. Either you have to choose which BFactory you want to compose A with, or you have to choose the right subclass of A to give you the Bs. Under what circumstances is one better than the other? Thanks all!

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• Why does C# not provide the C++ style 'friend' keyword?

  - by Ash

  The C++ friend keyword allows a class A to designate class B as it's friend. This allows Class B to access the private/protected members of class A. I've never read anything as to why this was left out of C# (and VB.NET). Most answers to this earlier StackOverflow question seem to be saying it is a useful part of C++ and there are good reasons to use it. In my experience I'd have to agree. Another question seems to me to be really asking how to do something similar to friend in a C# application. While the answers generally revolve around nested classes, it doesn't seem quite as elegant as using the friend keyword. The original Design Patterns book uses the friend keyword regularly throughout its examples. So in summary, why is friend missing from C#, and what is the "best practice" way (or ways) of simulating it in C#? (By the way, the "internal" keyword is not the same thing, it allows ALL classes within the entire assembly to access internal members, friend allows you to give access to a class to just one other class.)

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• DDD: Enum like entities

  - by Chris

  Hi all, I have the following DB model: **Person table** ID | Name | StateId ------------------------------ 1 Joe 1 2 Peter 1 3 John 2 **State table** ID | Desc ------------------------------ 1 Working 2 Vacation and domain model would be (simplified): public class Person { public int Id { get; } public string Name { get; set; } public State State { get; set; } } public class State { private int id; public string Name { get; set; } } The state might be used in the domain logic e.g.: if(person.State == State.Working) // some logic So from my understanding, the State acts like a value object which is used for domain logic checks. But it also needs to be present in the DB model to represent a clean ERM. So state might be extended to: public class State { private int id; public string Name { get; set; } public static State New {get {return new State([hardCodedIdHere?], [hardCodeNameHere?]);}} } But using this approach the name of the state would be hardcoded into the domain. Do you know what I mean? Is there a standard approach for such a thing? From my point of view what I am trying to do is using an object (which is persisted from the ERM design perspective) as a sort of value object within my domain. What do you think? Question update: Probably my question wasn't clear enough. What I need to know is, how I would use an entity (like the State example) that is stored in a database within my domain logic. To avoid things like: if(person.State.Id == State.Working.Id) // some logic or if(person.State.Id == WORKING_ID) // some logic

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• Edge Detection on Screen

  - by user2056745

  I have a edge collision problem with a simple game that i am developing. Its about throwing a coin across the screen. I am using the code below to detect edge collisions so i can make the coin bounce from the edges of the screen. Everything works as i want except one case. When the coin hits left edge and goes to right edge the system doesnt detect the collision. The rest cases are working perfectly, like hitting the right edge first and then the left edge. Can someone suggest a solution for it? public void onMove(float dx, float dy) { coinX += dx; coinY += dy; if (coinX > rightBorder) { coinX = ((rightBorder - coinX) / 3) + rightBorder; } if (coinX < leftBorder) { coinX = -(coinX) / 3; } if (coinY > bottomBorder) { coinY = ((bottomBorder - coinY) / 3) + bottomBorder; } invalidate(); }

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• Recommended main loop style

  - by Frootmig-H

  I've just begun attempting an FPS with JMonkeyEngine, but I'm currently stuck as to the best way to implement the main loop - especially with regards to non-instantaneous user actions. By that, I mean things like reloading a weapon. The user starts the action, and it continues for a while with an animation and some sound, and when it completes, game state updates. (I should mention that it's not technically a loop, it's an update method, called as often as possible. Is that different? Me no understand terminology). So, far I've considered : Animation driven Player presses reload Start reload animation If user stars another action, abort animation, start new action. When the animation_complete event is received (JMonkeyEngine provides this), update ammo counters. Event driven Player presses reload Start reload animation Queue up a out-of-thread method to be called at time t + (duration of reload animation) If user starts another action, cancel both animation and queued method. When queued method executes, update ammo. This avoids relying on the animation event (JMonkeyEngine has a particular quirk), but brings in the possibility of thread problems. 'Blocking' (not sure of the correct term) Player presses reload Start reloading animation reloading = true reloadedStartTime = now while (reloading && ((now - reloadingStartTime) < reloadingDuration)) { If user starts another action, break and cancel reloading. } Update ammo counters reloading = false My main concern is that actions can interrupt each other. Reloading can be interrupted by firing, or by dropping or changing weapon, crouching can be interrupted by running, etc. What's the recommended way to handle this? What are the advantages and disadvantages of each method? I'm leaning towards event-driven, even though it requires more care; failing that, blocking.

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• How to slow down a sprite that updates every frame?

  - by xiaohouzi79

  I am going through a Allegro 5 tutorial which has a game loop. There is also a variable "active" which determines if a key is being held down. Thus if the left key is being held down active is on and it begins looping through the row on the sprite sheet that corresponds to moving left. The problem is that this logic is checked everytime the loop is performed thus at approximately 60 fps the three images that are used to do the left walking animation cycle round super fast which means my character looks like it is in a rush. Total beginner question: so what is the correct way to slow down the transition between sprites so that the walking looks like it is done at a moderate pace. Here is the code used to transition across the sprite between the three different phases of the person walking: if (active) { sourceX += al_get_bitmap_width(player) / 3; } else { sourceX = 32; } if (sourceX >= al_get_bitmap_width(player)) { sourceX = 0; } I can kind of guess what it should be in plain English: update sourceX only every certain part of a second but I can't think of how to put this into code.

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• VBO and shaders confusion, what's their connection?

  - by Jeffrey

  Considering OpenGL 2.1 VBOs and 1.20 GLSL shaders: When creating an entity like "Zombie", is it good to initialize just the VBO buffer with the data once and do N glDrawArrays() calls per each N zombies? Is there a more efficient way? (With a single call we cannot pass different uniforms to the shader to calculate an offset, see point 3) When dealing with logical object (player, tree, cube etc), should I always use the same shader or should I customize (or be able to customize) the shaders per each object? Considering an entity class, should I create and define the shader at object initialization? When having a movable object such as a human, is there any more powerful way to deal with its coordinates than to initialize its VBO object at 0,0 and define an uniform offset to pass to the shader to calculate its real position? Could you make an example of the Data Oriented Design on creating a generic zombie class? Is the following good? Zombielist class: class ZombieList { GLuint vbo; // generic zombie vertex model std::vector<color>; // object default color std::vector<texture>; // objects textures std::vector<vector3D>; // objects positions public: unsigned int create(); // return object id void move(unsigned int objId, vector3D offset); void rotate(unsigned int objId, float angle); void setColor(unsigned int objId, color c); void setPosition(unsigned int objId, color c); void setTexture(unsigned int, unsigned int); ... void update(Player*); // move towards player, attack if near } Example: Player p; Zombielist zl; unsigned int first = zl.create(); zl.setPosition(first, vector3D(50, 50)); zl.setTexture(first, texture("zombie1.png")); ... while (running) { // main loop ... zl.update(&p); zl.draw(); // draw every zombie }

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• Stuck at enemy movement

  - by Syed

  I am making a TD game in unity, Initially I made all of my enemy movements frame rate dependent say: I had a grid point1 at -22.65 and other at -21.1, diagrammatically: (-22.65) _________(-21.1)_______(-21.1+1.55) ...... so the distance on x axis between two points is 1.55, divided it by 25 jumps with each enemy jump of 0.062 of each frame. On reaching on next point of grid the enemy find again its path. All went fine until I have requirement of FastForward and Pause feature. I used timeScale property of unity but it wont work as they are frame dependent. I also tried double speed of enemy on clicking fast forward button at any time, it has some issues that enemy jumps are now less and it fails to reach on next grid point. Could someone suggest me solution to my problem. Do I need to change the enemy movement code to make it frame independent ?? I need the enemy to reach on the grid specific point I also need later to slow down any one enemy's speed when tower fires on it. Thnx

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• 2D/Isometric map algorithm

  - by Icarus Cocksson

  First of all, I don't have much experience on game development but I do have experience on development. I do know how to make a map, but I don't know if my solution is a normal or a hacky solution. I don't want to waste my time coding things, and realise they're utterly crap and lose my motivation. Let's imagine the following map. (2D - top view - A square) X: 0 to 500 Y: 0 to 500 My character currently stands at X:250,Y:400, somewhere near center of 100px above bottom and I can control him with my keyboard buttons. LEFT button does X--, UP button does Y-- etc. This one is kid's play. I'm asking this because I know there are some engines that automate this task. For example, games like Diablo 3 uses an engine. You can pretty much drag drop a rock to map, and it is automatically being placed here - making player unable to pass through/detect the collision. But what the engine exactly does in the background? Generates a map like mine, places a rock at the center, and checks it like: unmovableObjects = array('50,50'); //we placed a rock at 50,50 location if(Map.hasUnmovableObject(CurrentPlayerX, CurrentPlayerY)) { //unable to move } else { //able to move } My question is: Is this how 2D/Isometric maps are being generated or there is a different and more complex logic behind them?

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• Collision Resolution

  - by ultifinitus

  Hey all, I'm making a simple side-scrolling game, and I would appreciate some input! My collision detection system is a simple bounding box detection, so it's really easy to implement. However my collision resolution is ridiculous! Currently I have a little formula like this: if (colliding(firstObject,secondObject)) firstObject.resolve_collision(yAxisOffset); if (colliding(firstObject,secondObject)) firstObject.resolve_collision(xAxisOffset); where yAxisOffset is only set if the first object's previous y position was outside the second object's collision frame, respectively xAxisOffset as well. Now this is working great, in general. However there is a single problem. When I have a stack of objects and I push the first object against that stack, the first object get's "stuck," on the stack. What's I think is happening is the object's collision system checks and resolves for collisions based on creation time, so If I check one axis, then the other, the object will "sink" object directly along the checking axis. This sinking action causes the collision detection routine to think there's a gap between our position and the other object's position, and when I finally check the object that I've already sunk into, my object's position is resolved to it's original position... All this is great, and I'm sure if I bang my head against a wall long enough i'll come up with a working algorithm, but I'd rather not =). So what in the heck do you think I should do? How could I change my collision resolution system to fix this? Here's the program (temporary link, not sure how long it'll last) (notes: arrow keys to navigate, click to drop block, x to jump) I'd appreciate any help you can offer!

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• Smarphone Apps. music, licenses and fees .. nightmare

  - by mm24

  I have recently asked a question about music in games like Guitar Hero. I have found that that in Europe (at least) if I do want to use a track composed by a musician member of a royalty collecting society I need to pay a flat fee to the society and not only to the member. So a "one-to-one" agreement is not valid and the society can come up to me and ask me for money for each download. Even if for FREE! This is a fee sheet list of the UK agency: for fee, see "Permanent download services" It is about 1,200 GBP for less than 22,000 copies and they DON'T specify anything more and they said me on the phone that I need to wait and see how many downloads I get before knowing the price. This is kind of crazy as If I give away the App for free I will have to PAY 1,200 GBP!! I am shocked and I feel very bad. One agency suggested me to use a fake name of the artist, but in this way is not fair to my collaborators as what they hope is that the App gets lots of downloads and in this way that other people will get to know about them and hopefully commission them more work. The other solution is to work only with non registered musicians. The question here to you is.. has anyone found a legal way to do use music from registered authors in a game?

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• C# Cursor stuck on busy state

  - by Ben

  So I implemented a fixed time step loop for my C# game. All it does at the moment is make a square bounce around the screen. The problem I'm having is that when I execute the program, the window doesn't allow me to close the program and the cursor is stuck on the busy icon. I have to go into visual studio and stop the program manually. Here's the loop at the moment public void run() { int updates = 0; int frames = 0; double msPerTick = 1000.0 / 60.0; double threshhold = 0; long lastTime = getCurrentTime(); long lastTimer = getCurrentTime(); while (true) { long currTime = getCurrentTime(); threshhold += (currTime - lastTime) / msPerTick; lastTime = currTime; while (threshhold >= 1) { update(); updates++; threshhold -= 1; } this.Refresh(); frames++; if ((getCurrentTime() - lastTimer) >= 1000) { this.Text = updates + " updates and " + frames + " frames per second"; updates = 0; frames = 0; lastTimer += 1000; } } }

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• How to monetize and protect a engine's and its framework's copyrights and patents?

  - by Arthur Wulf White

  I created a game engine that handles: Rendering levels with 2d textured curved surfaces Collisions with curved surfaces Animationn paths on and navigation in 2d-sapce I have also made a framework for: Procedural organic level generation with round surfaces Level editing Light weight sprite design The engine and framework are written in AS3 and I am in the process of translating the code into HaXe to better support other platforms. I am also interested in adding Animated curved platforms More advanced level editing features Currently, I have a part time job and any time I spend on this engine is either taken out of my limited free time (I'm a student working to support myself through school) or out my time working at my job. I really believe this engine can make life much easier for people designing Tower Defence games, Shooters and and Platformers while also possibly improving their results. It could also support RTS, RPGs and racing games very well. It continains original algorithms that could be used for procedural generation of organic round and smooth levels. The algorithms I used are new and are not available in any other level editor I've seen. In order to constantly improve the Engine and have it tested thoroughly I think the best route is releasing it to the public. What are the best ways to benefit myself and others with my new framework? I want to have some lisence, allowing me to share the framework and still benefit from it. Any advice would be appreciated. This issue has been on my mind a lot this year. I am hoping to find a solution that will bring me some relief. I am thinking of designing three sample games, releasing them and starting a kickstarter, any advice and thoughts on the matter would be valuable. My goal is like Markus von Broady suggested, to get people involved in developing the engine and let people use it for games for either a symbolic fee or for free and charge for support. That or use some form of croud sourcing. Do I need to hire a lawyer to get some sort of legal document to protect my work?

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• What's a way to implement a flexible buff/debuff system?

  - by gkimsey

  Overview: Lots of games which RPG-like statistics allow for character "buffs", ranging from simple "Deal 25% extra damage" to more complicated things like "Deal 15 damage back to attackers when hit." The specifics of each type of buff aren't really relevant. I'm looking for a (presumably object-oriented) way to handle arbitrary buffs. Details: In my particular case, I have multiple characters in a turn-based battle environment, so I envisioned buffs being tied to events like "OnTurnStart", "OnReceiveDamage", etc. Perhaps each buff is a subclass of a main Buff abstract class, where only the relevant events are overloaded. Then each character could have a vector of buffs currently applied. Does this solution make sense? I can certainly see dozens of event types being necessary, it feels like making a new subclass for each buff is overkill, and it doesn't seem to allow for any buff "interactions". That is, if I wanted to implement a cap on damage boosts so that even if you had 10 different buffs which all give 25% extra damage, you only do 100% extra instead of 250% extra. And there's more complicated situations that ideally I could control. I'm sure everyone can come up with examples of how more sophisticated buffs can potentially interact with each other in a way that as a game developer I may not want. As a relatively inexperienced C++ programmer (I generally have used C in embedded systems), I feel like my solution is simplistic and probably doesn't take full advantage of the object-oriented language. Thoughts? Has anyone here designed a fairly robust buff system before?

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