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  • Mapping a Vertex Buffer in DirectX11

    - by judeclarke
    I have a VertexBuffer that I am remapping on a per frame base for a bunch of quads that are constantly updated, sharing the same material\index buffer but have different width/heights. However, currently right now there is a really bad flicker on this geometry. Although it is flickering, the flicker looks correct. I know it is the vertex buffer mapping because if I recreate the entire VB then it will render fine. However, as an optimization I figured I would just remap it. Does anyone know what the problem is? The length (width, size) of the vertex buffer is always the same. One might think it is double buffering, however, it would not be double buffering because it only happens when I map/unmap the buffer, so that leads me to believe that I am setting some parameters wrong on the creation or mapping. I am using DirectX11, my initialization and remap code are: Initialization code D3D11_BUFFER_DESC bd; ZeroMemory( &bd, sizeof(bd) ); bd.Usage = D3D11_USAGE_DYNAMIC; bd.ByteWidth = vertCount * vertexTypeWidth; bd.BindFlags = D3D11_BIND_VERTEX_BUFFER; //bd.CPUAccessFlags = 0; bd.CPUAccessFlags = D3D11_CPU_ACCESS_WRITE; D3D11_SUBRESOURCE_DATA InitData; ZeroMemory( &InitData, sizeof(InitData) ); InitData.pSysMem = vertices; mVertexType = vertexType; HRESULT hResult = device->CreateBuffer( &bd, &InitData, &m_pVertexBuffer ); // This will be S_OK if(hResult != S_OK) return false; Remap code D3D11_MAPPED_SUBRESOURCE resource; HRESULT hResult = deviceContext->Map(m_pVertexBuffer, 0, D3D11_MAP_WRITE_DISCARD, 0, &resource); // This will be S_OK if(hResult != S_OK) return false; resource.pData = vertices; deviceContext->Unmap(m_pVertexBuffer, 0);

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  • Please guide this self-taught Web Developer.

    - by ChickenPuke
    One of the major regrets in life is that I didn't do something with my introversion. I didn't manage to get past the first year of college because of that. I have chosen the path where there are no video games and other time sinks, all I have is the internet to quench my thirst of learning the ins and outs of the field of Web Developing/Designing. Though currently, I'm taking a Web Design Associate course at one of the best Computer Arts and this is the last month of the class. Even though I'm still a sapling, I love this field so much. So basically, At school I'm learning web design while at home I'm teaching myself web-developing. First thing first, returning to college seems impossible at the moment because of some financial problems. I'm pretty comfortable with CSS and HTML and I'm into PHP/MySQL at the moment. Could you please provide me a web-development Curriculum to follow. And do I need to learn about the theories behind? And I think I'm still young(I'm 18 at the time of writing). Is it a good thing or bad thing for choosing this path? I'm glad with my decision but in all honesty, I'm worrying about my future and employment because I'm an undergrad, coming from a country where companies are degree b!tches, it saddens me so. Thank you. (My questions are the bold parts. )

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  • MVP Summit 2011 summary and thoughts: The &ldquo;I hope I don&rsquo;t cross a line and lose my MVP status&rdquo; post

    - by George Clingerman
    I've been wanting to write this post summarizing my thoughts about the MVP summit but have been dragging my feet since it's a very difficult one to write. However seeing Andy (http://forums.create.msdn.com/forums/t/77625.aspx) and Catalin (http://www.catalinzima.com/2011/03/mvp-summit-2011/) and Chris (http://geekswithblogs.net/cwilliams/archive/2011/03/07/144229.aspx) post about it has encouraged me to finally take the plunge. I'm going to have to write carefully though because I'm going to be dancing around a ton of NDA mine fields as well as having to walk the tight-rope of not sending the wrong message or having people read too much into what I'm saying. I want to note that most of what I'm about to say is just based on my observations, they're not thoughts that Microsoft has asked me to pass along and they're not things I heard Microsoft say. It's just me sharing what I think after going to the MVP summit. Let's start off with a short imaginary question and answer session.     Has the App Hub forums and XBLIG management been rather poor by Microsoft? Yes.     Do I think we're going to see changes to that overnight? No.     Will it continue to look bad from the outside? Somewhat. Confusing right? Well that's kind of how things are right now. Lots of confusion. XNA is doing AWESOME. Like, really, really awesome. As a result of that awesomeness, XNA is on three major platforms: Xbox 360, WP7 and PC. This means that internally Microsoft is really excited and invested in the technology. That's fantastic for XNA and really should show you the future the framework has. It's here to stay. So why are Xbox LIVE Indie Game developers feeling so much pain? The ironic thing is that pain is being caused by the success of XNA. When XNA was just a small thing, there was more freedom and more focus. It was just us and them. We were an only child. Now our family has grown and everyone has and wants some time with XNA. This gets XNA pulled in all directions and as it moves onto new platforms, it plays catch up trying to get those platforms up to speed to where Xbox LIVE Indie Games has grown. Forums, documentation, educational content. They all need to be there because Xbox LIVE Indie Games has all of that and more. Along with the catch up in features/documentation/awesomeness there's the catch up that the people on the team have to play. New platforms and new areas of development mean new players and those new guys don't have the history of being around from the beginning. This leads to a lack of understanding at times just how important some things are because they seem so small and insignificant (Rich Text defaulting for new forum profiles would be one things that jumps to mind). If you're not aware that the forums have become more than just a basic Q&A, if you're not aware that they're a central hub to a very active community, then you don't understand why that small change should be prioritized over something else. New people have to get caught up and figure out how to make a framework and central forum site work for everyone it's now serving. So yeah, a lot of our pain this last year has been simply that XNA is doing well and XBLIG is doing well so the focus was shifted to catch other things up. It hurts when a parent seems to not have any time for you and they're spending some much time with your new baby brother. Growing pains. All families and in our case our product family experience it to some degree. I think as WP7 matures we'll see the team figuring out how to give everyone the right amount of attention. While we're talking about some of our growing pains, it is also important to note (although not really an excuse) that the Xbox LIVE Arcade developers complain about many of the same things that we do. If you paid attention to talks and information coming out of GDC 2011, most of the the XBLA guys were saying things that sounded eerily similar to what the XBLIG developers are saying (Scott Nichols from GayGamer.net noticed http://twitter.com/#!/NaviFairyGG/status/43540379206811650). Does this mean we should just accept the status quo since we're being treated exactly the same? No way. However it DOES show that the way we're being treated is no indication of the stability and future of the platform, it's just Microsoft dropping the communication ball on two playing fields. We're not alone and we're not even being treated worse. Not great, but also in a weird way a very good sign. Now on to a few tidbits I think I CAN share from the summit (I'm really crossing my fingers I'm not stepping over some NDA line I shouldn't be). First, I discovered that the XBLIG user base is bigger than I personally had originally estimated. I won't give the exact numbers (although we did beg Microsoft to release some of these numbers so maybe someday?) but it was much larger than my original guestimates and I was pleasantly surprised. Maybe some of you guys had the right number when you were guessing, but I know that mine was much too low. And even MORE importantly the number of users/shoppers is growing at a steady pace as well. Our market is growing! That was fantastic news and really something that I had to share. On to the community manager discussion. It was mentioned. I was mentioned. I blushed. Nothing more to report there than the blush in my cheeks was a light crimson color. If I ever see a job description posted for that position I have a resume waiting in the wings. I can't deny that I think that would be my dream job... ...so after I finished blushing, the MVPs did make it very, very clear that the communication has to improve. Community manager or not the single biggest pain point with the Xbox LIVE Indie Game community has been a lack of communication. I have seen dramatic improvement in the team responding to MVPs and I'm even seeing more communication from them on the forums so I'm hoping that's a long term change. I really think they understood the issue, the problem remains how to open that communication channel in a way that was sustainable. I think they'll get it figured out and hopefully that's sooner rather than later. During the summit, you may have seen me tweeting about how I was "that guy" (http://twitter.com/#!/clingermangw/status/42740432471470081). You also may have noticed that Andy and Catalin both mentioned me in their summit write ups. I may have come on a bit strong while I was there...went a little out of character for myself. I've been agitated for a while with the way things have been and I've been listening to you guys and hearing you guys be agitated. I'm also watching some really awesome indie game developers looking elsewhere and leaving the platform. Some of them we might not have been able to keep even with changes, but others are only leaving because of perceptions and lack of communication from Microsoft. And that pisses me off. And I let Microsoft know that I was pissed off. You made your list and I took that list and verbalized it. I verbalized the hell out of it. [It was actually mentioned that I'm a lot nicer on the forums and in email than I am in person...I felt bad about that, but I couldn't stay silent]. Hopefully it did something guys, I really did try hard to get the message across. Along with my agitation, I also brought some pride. I mentioned several things in person to the team that I was particularly proud of. From people in the community that are doing an awesome job, to the re-launch of XboxIndies that was going on that week and even gamers like Steven Hurdle (http://writingsofmassdeduction.com/) who have purchased one XBLIG every day for over 100 days now. The community is freaking rocking it and I made sure to highlight that. So in conclusion, I'd just like to say hang in there (you know, like that picture of the cat). If you've been worried about investing in Xbox LIVE Indie Games because you think it's on shaky ground. It's not. Dream Build Play being about the Xbox 360 should have helped a little to point that out. The team is really scrambling around trying to figure things out and make improvements all around. There’s quite a few new gals and guys and it's going to take them time to catch up and there are a lot of constantly shifting priorities. We all have one toy, one team and we're fighting for time with it. It's also time for the community to continue spreading our wings and going out on our own more often. The Indie Game Winter Uprising was a fantastic example of that. We took things into our own hands and it got noticed and Microsoft got behind it. They do every time we stand up and do something (look at how many Microsoft employees tweeted, wrote about the re-launch of XboxIndies.com or the support I've gotten from them for my weekly XNA Notes). XNA is here to stay, it's time for us to stop being scared of that and figure out how to make our own games the successes they should be. There's definitely a list of things that need to be fixed, things that should be improved and I think we should definitely keep vocal about that with Microsoft. Keep it short, focused and prioritized. There's also a lot of things we can do ourselves while we're waiting on them to fix and change things. Lots of ways we can compensate for particular weaknesses in the channel. The kind of stuff that we can step up and do ourselves. Do it on our own, you know, the way Indies always do. And I'm really looking forward to watching us do just that.

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  • Objective-C As A First OOP Language?

    - by Daniel Scocco
    I am just finishing the second semester of my CS degree. So far I learned C, all the fundamental algorithms and data structures (e.g., searching, sorting, linked lists, heaps, hash tables, trees, graphs, etc). Next year we'll start with OOP, using either Java or C++. Recently I got some ideas for some iPhone apps and got itchy to start working on them. However I heard some bad things about Objectice-C in the past, so I am wondering if learning it as my first OOP language could be a problem. Not to mention that I think it will be hard to find books/online courses that teach basic OOP concepts using Objective-C to illustrate the concepts (as opposed to books using Java or C++, which are plenty), so this could be another problem. In summary: should I start learning Objective-C and OOP concepts right now by my own, or wait one more semester until I learn Java/C++ at university and then jump into Objective-C? Update: For those interested in getting started with OOP via Objective-C I just found some nice tutorials inside Apple's Developer Library - http://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#documentation/Cocoa/Conceptual/OOP_ObjC/Introduction/Introduction.html

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  • What popular "best practices" are not always best, and why?

    - by SnOrfus
    "Best practices" are everywhere in our industry. A Google search on "coding best practices" turns up nearly 1.5 million results. The idea seems to bring comfort to many; just follow the instructions, and everything will turn out fine. When I read about a best practice - for example, I just read through several in Clean Code recently - I get nervous. Does this mean that I should always use this practice? Are there conditions attached? Are there situations where it might not be a good practice? How can I know for sure until I've learned more about the problem? Several of the practices mentioned in Clean Code did not sit right with me, but I'm honestly not sure if that's because they're potentially bad, or if that's just my personal bias talking. I do know that many prominent people in the tech industry seem to think that there are no best practices, so at least my nagging doubts place me in good company. The number of best practices I've read about are simply too numerous to list here or ask individual questions about, so I would like to phrase this as a general question: Which coding practices that are popularly labeled as "best practices" can be sub-optimal or even harmful under certain circumstances? What are those circumstances and why do they make the practice a poor one? I would prefer to hear about specific examples and experiences.

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  • GWB | First Blogger Suggestion - More Customization To Skins

    - by Geekswithblogs Administrator
    The first suggested item (and only at this point) was a higher level of skin customization on Geekswithblogs.net. Currently we have over 10 skins to pick from and the ability to change the CSS for those skins. In the skins list, you will find one labeled Naked that doesn't add any formatting, but allows you to define what items look like and what gets displayed. I understand our skin approach is not good by any means and needs a dramatic update. Here is what we came up with in our conversation with the blogger. Better tools for editing CSS from the serverPreview of changes before publishingRetrievable CSS configurations for different custom themesBetter image upload for use of custom themesMore skins selectionUpdated current skins to fix formatting issues with newer browsers and Firefox/Opera/ChromeI would really like to gauge your feedback on these items to see what is important. I know one of my biggest complaints I get is customizable themes, but typically users don't know about the options so we have done a bad job of explaining what is possible and showing every user how to do so. We have a public tutorial system we once tried and wanted it to be member managed as well and the GWB staff contributing, but that went downhill at some point. Maybe it is time to kick that back into gear for the new bloggers we have added over the past couple of years.What do you think? What else is on your mind?

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  • How to design database for tests in online test application

    - by Kien Thanh
    I'm building an online test application, the purpose of app is, it can allow teacher create courses, topics of course, and questions (every question has mark), and they can create tests for students and students can do tests online. To create tests of any courses for students, first teacher need to create a test pattern for that course, test pattern actually is a general test includes the number of questions teacher want it has, then from that test pattern, teacher will generate number of tests corresponding with number of students will take tests of that course, and every test for student will has different number of questions, although the max mark of test in every test are the same. Example if teacher generate tests for two students, the max mark of test will be 20, like this: Student A take test with 20 questions, student B take test only has 10 questions, it means maybe every question in test of student A only has mark is 1, but questions in student B has mark is 2. So 20 = 10 x 2, sorry for my bad English but I don't know how to explain it better. I have designed tables for: - User (include students and teachers account) - Course - Topic - Question - Answer But I don't know how to define associations between user and test pattern, test, question. Currently I only can think these: Test pattern table: name, description, dateStart, dateFinish, numberOfMinutes, maxMarkOfTest Test table: test_pattern_id And when user (is Student) take tests, I think i will have one more table: Result: user_id, test_id, mark but I can't set up associations among test pattern and test and question. How to define associations?

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  • Speaker at developer conferences and user group meetings

    Catching up on a couple of sessions I did in the past. This article gives an overview of some of my activities. Mainly at the annual German Visual FoxPro Developer Conference also known as SQL-Server & ASP.NET Conference in Frankfurt. The below listed entries are excerpts from the original Conference Coverage documents you'll find on UniversalThread. German Visual FoxPro Developer Conference 2002 (1 session - Vendor session about Active FoxPro Pages 3.0) German Visual FoxPro Developer Conference 2003 (2.5 sessions - Visual FoxPro running on Linux) German Visual FoxPro Developer Conference 2004 (4 sessions - 2x Active FoxPro Pages, VFP on Linux, and VFP using additional databases) German Visual FoxPro Developer Conference 2005 (4 sessions - RegEx, XML, XSLT, and using free (as in beer) development tools) German Visual FoxPro Developer Conference 2006 (3 sessions - .NET interop via COM, writing own CLR host in VFP, and Active FoxPro Pages) Furthermore, I did a couple of (hopefully) interesting sessions at various user group meetings in Speyer and Stuttgart. A more comprehensive list is available under Presentations (in German language). And last but not least, back in May 2005 Microsoft Germany invited me to host a WebCast for MSDN on how to use 'Visual FoxPro mit Visual Studio 2005'. Unfortunately, I was too unexperienced and too nervous (first time ever), we experienced technical issues with the microphone, and the obviously low quality of recording demanded to replace it by a whole series on Visual FoxPro 9.0. The webcast covered the same topics I already described in other articles here on my blog. Despite the desaster I'd like to thank Ralf Westphal for his kind words afterwards - I really felt bad. Eventually, you might ask yourself why it stopped by the end of 2006... Well, new chapter in my life: Mauritius!

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  • The Disloyalty Card

    - by David Dorf
    Let's take a break from technology for a second; please indulge me. (That's for you Erick.) A few months back, James Hoffmann reported that Gwilym Davies, the 2009 World Barista Champion, had implemented a rather unique idea for his cafe: the disloyalty card. His card lists eight nearby cafes in London that the cardholder must visit and try a coffee. After sampling all eight and collecting the required stamps, Gwilym provides a free coffee from his shop. His idea sends customers to his competitors. What does this say about Gwilym? First, it tells me he's confident in his abilities to make a mean cup of java. Second, it tells me he's truly passionate about his his trade. But was this a sound business endeavor? Obviously the risk is that one of his loyal customers might just find a better product at a competitor and not return. But the goal isn't really to strengthen his customer base -- its to strengthen the market, which will in turn provide more customers over the long run. This idea seems great for frequently purchased products like restaurants, bars, bakeries, music, and of course, cafes. Its probably not a good idea for high priced merchandise or infrequently purchased items like shoes, electronics, and housewares. Nevertheless, its a great example of thinking in reverse. Try this: Instead of telling your staff how you want customers treated, list out the ways you don't want customers treated. Why should you limit people's imagination and freedom to engage customers? Instead, give them guidelines to avoid the bad behavior, and leave them open to be creative with the positive behavior. Instead of asking the question, "how can we get more people in our stores?" try asking the inverse: "why aren't people visiting our stores?" Innovation doesn't only come from asking "why?" Often it comes from asking "why not?"

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  • /usr/lib/cups/backend/hp has failed with an HP LaserJet p3005

    - by edtechdev
    Ever since 10.04, I can't print to an HP laserjet p3005. I'm even using an entirely different computer now with a fresh install of 10.10. I've tried with and without the latest hplip. Recently, sometimes I can get it to print a few things, but eventually it always fails (usually when printing a pdf from the document viewer (also doesn't work with adobe pdf reader)). Sometimes it fails so bad the printer gives an error saying it needs to be turned off and on again. I can't seem to find a fix anywhere, I've googled all over the past year and tried every fix I could find. It does say that the /usr/lib/cups/backend/hp has failed. It also doesn't make a difference if I create the printer using hp-setup or ubuntu's own printing control panel. I delete and re-create the printer, no difference eventually. I use the default printer settings or custom settings, no difference. I can print perfectly find to a networked printer at home - an HP officejet 6310. It seems to be networked HP printers at work that I can't print to anymore (except occasionally right after re-installing the printer driver). What's the recommended way to install HP printer drivers and reset or clean out everything from before. Or where are the right logs to read or debug commands to do to find out what may be the real cause of the printing problems?

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  • What code smell best describes this code?

    - by Paul Stovell
    Suppose you have this code in a class: private DataContext _context; public Customer[] GetCustomers() { GetContext(); return _context.Customers.ToArray(); } public Order[] GetOrders() { GetContext(); return _context.Customers.ToArray(); } // For the sake of this example, a new DataContext is *required* // for every public method call private void GetContext() { if (_context != null) { _context.Dispose(); } _context = new DataContext(); } This code isn't thread-safe - if two calls to GetOrders/GetCustomers are made at the same time from different threads, they may end up using the same context, or the context could be disposed while being used. Even if this bug didn't exist, however, it still "smells" like bad code. A much better design would be for GetContext to always return a new instance of DataContext and to get rid of the private field, and to dispose of the instance when done. Changing from an inappropriate private field to a local variable feels like a better solution. I've looked over the code smell lists and can't find one that describes this. In the past I've thought of it as temporal coupling, but the Wikipedia description suggests that's not the term: Temporal coupling When two actions are bundled together into one module just because they happen to occur at the same time. This page discusses temporal coupling, but the example is the public API of a class, while my question is about the internal design. Does this smell have a name? Or is it simply "buggy code"?

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  • Pro BizTalk 2009

    - by Sean Feldman
    I have finished reading Pro BizTalk 2009 book from APress. This is a great book  if you’ve never dealt with BizTalk in the past and want to have a quick “on-ramp”. Although the book is very concerned about right way of building traditional BizTalk applications, it also dedicates a chapter to ESB Toolkit and does a good job in analyzing it. The fact that authors were concerned with subject such as coupling, hard-coding, automation, etc. makes it very interesting. One warning, if you are expecting to have a book that will guide you how to apply step by step examples, forget it. Nor this book does it, neither it’s possible due to multiple erratas found in it. I really was disappointed by the number of typos, inaccuracies, and technical mistakes. These kind of things turn readers away, especially when they had no experience with BT in the past. But this is the only bad thing about it. As for the rest – great content. Next week I am taking a deep dive course on BizTalk 2009. I really feel that this book has helped me a lot to get my feet wet. Next target will be ESB Tookit. To get to that, I will use what the book authors wrote “you have to understand how BizTalk as an engine works”.

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  • Little PM side post...

    - by edgaralgernon
    When adding new team memebers... off set the ramp up time by 1) having pre built machines ready and and easy method of getting the lastest tools, code base etc. I'm fortunate enough to be at a client that has a machine ready built and loaded when the dev arrives, all they have to do is grab the code. 2) have tasks broken down so that dependencies are as minimal as possible. In other words, to over come the mythical man month issue (as recently mentioned on slashdot) make sure the tasks you hand out have few dependencies on each other. That way the new dev is able to be productive fairly quickly. Here's our historical lead time... the bump in Jan is due to added work, by 2/18 we had added 4 new people over the last two weeks. And amazing the time starts coming down: Here's our averag work time: again time ramps up as we are adding more tasks, but then starts inching back down through out Feb and March. It's not that we beat the Mythical Man Month, and in fact I still believe the book and idea are highly relevant. But if you can break the tasks down and reduce the dependencies between the task then you can mitigate the effect. The tool used in this case is from AgileZen.com and some of the wild swings are due to inexperience with the system initially... but our average times as measured by the tool are matching real life. Also the tool appearst to measure in 24 hour days and 7 day weeks. so it isn't as bad as it looks. :-)

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  • NINE Questions with Michelle Juett

    - by NINEQuestions
    Michelle Juett is one of the more interesting people I know, even though we’ve never met face to face. She’s part artist, part techie and all cool. We “met” via my good buddy George Clingerman and have plotting to take over the world, errr… I mean “collaborating” ever since. If you happen to live in the Seattle area, you can catch her and her work at Sakura Con on April 2-4, 2010 and various other gamer and art cons throughout the year. You can also find her on Twitter as @Shelldragon. Now that you know a little bit, I’ll let her tell you the rest of the story in these NINE Questions: 1. Where are you from? I was born in Clearwater, Florida. I like to tell people I'm from the Bermuda Triangle, it just makes explaining myself so much easier. My family moved to Washington when I was 5 and I've been in the Pacific Northwest ever since. We like to QQ about the rain but we really love the green trees and clean water. 2. What do you do? I fight evil by moonlight and win love by daylight.. or something like that.  I’ve been in quality assurance for games during the day since January 2008 and an artist for life. I currently work in QA for a really awesome game company in Bellevue.  At home, I work on personal digital art, making game assets as well as other random freelance projects as they pop up. 3. How did you get to where you are now? I'm still not where I want to be but I'm getting closer. The biggest piece of advice I can give is to work hard and never settle for the minimum required. I tend to overwork myself but I've never regretted it. You can want something really bad but if you aren't willing to work for it, then you can't expect it to just happen. I've always drawn and had an unhealthy love for video games that I was told I’d grow out of.  I knew I would not ‘grow out’ of games and that real adults make them and I could too. After I graduated, in searching for jobs, I discovered game testing. I figured this would be a good way to get my foot in the door and start networking. I’ve worked with consoles, websites and now, PC games.  I stuck with my journey, although it has been a rocky one, daylighting as a tester and moonlighting as an artist. I'm still on that journey but I wouldn't have it any other way. Test has given me a perspective that is difficult, if not impossible, to obtain any other way. It gives an unconditional respect for other hard working testers and an insight into creative problem solving. 4. So video game testing probably sounds WAY cooler than the reality. What's it like? What's a given day for you? Game testers don't get a lot of respect because of their stigmas and the fact most people don't actually know what we do.  People hear about the opening and closing disc trays all day. Many places do treat their testers like numbers. It all depends on where you work and how awesome your company is. I've had to deal with a lot of bad work situations to get to a really good one. QA exists to ensure the game is as flawless and enjoyable as it can be by the time it has to leave the nest and go out into the world. This includes everything obvious: “can I beat the level and save the princess?” to the more obscure: ‘What happens when I lose internet connection while trying to save right before falling into a pit to my death while holding the jump key then my cat pulls out my memory card and hides it in her litter box?” On the dev side, for developers, testers can be very scary people. Especially when the test team is not in house and you can’t see each other’s faces.  I've seen both sides. We don't mean to hurt your feelings. We really DO love you and want your game to be the best it can be! It can be some serious tough love. 5. You are also an accomplished artist. Got any major projects right now you'd like to talk about? LOL, I don't know if I’d say I'm an accomplished artist just yet. I’m still a long way from where I want to be. I figure that’s what makes you grow though: the desire to never stop improving. I like QA but I want to be a full time artist. I was lucky enough to register for a table at Sakura Con in the 11 second window that the tables sold out. As such, I’ll be selling my wares in the Artist Alley April 2-4th. Part of preparing for this is actually making the art to be sold there. Anime is a fun pass time but I don’t draw a whole lot of it so I’m making up for lost time. As I seem to enjoy burying myself in work, I’m an art lead for a secret project that’s so secret I might be killed tonight for even mentioning it. I also take on various freelance projects and do what I can to help out indie games. I discovered the XNA community a year and a half ago and developed a love for Indies when I was writing a weekly newsletter on XBLA news. I’m a little late to the party but I find myself in a unique position where I am an artist and also have technical skills in games. While not programmer myself, I have a lot of game sense and experience. I hope to make some awesome happen. Lastly, I have an ongoing web comic Shell’s Angels) that tends to get neglected when I get busy. I still love drawing comics and keep a little book with me to sketch down ideas as they pop into my head. I may pick it back up again as a larger project sometime in the future. 6. Can you talk about any of the other freelance projects you're doing or are you sworn to secrecy on those too? We wouldn't want a team of game developer ninjas to take you out or anything. All my projects are currently 2d. I have personal projects such as the ongoing comic as well as a graphic novel I've been picking at here and there. My main focus until April is Sakura Con, Sakura Con, Sakura Con.  I see it as a great way to get exposure and convention experience. I found out I love conventions a couple years ago and I want to get more involved in them. 7. As an artist, what is your weapon of choice? What do you use to get most of your stuff done? I am a Photoshop Hero and I have the hoodie to prove it. (http://www.pennyarcademerch.com/pah090011.html) I've dabbled in other paint programs but I always gravitate back to Photoshop. She is my one true love. I'd like to learn programs like Flash or Anime Studio when I get a bit more time because of their animation abilities. I've worked on frame by frame animation forever but I would love to learn 2d rigging. Still, nothing can compare to a simple sketchpad and a pencil. I always have one on me in case I come across or think of something interesting and can't get to a computer. If the Courier ever comes to exist it will be an ideal weapon for me. 8. You did some videos too, depicting the art creation process. What was the motivation behind those? The creative process is just as important as the final product, if not more so.  I've always loved watching speed paint videos and wanted to try it out myself. Turns out it's a lot of work and time but it's definitely fun to go back and rewatch them. Art isn't always the end result and is more often the process itself. 9. Got any interesting tattoos? Designed any for yourself or other people? Not yet, but not for lack of desire. I've toiled over what and where for years. Last year, I finally decided the back of my shoulders would be the place. Like anything permanent, I want it to have meaning. I thought of somehow incorporating games but I couldn't find something I felt would stand the test of time even with all the classic sprite games. I'm very picky so we'll see if I can get something solid decided. Come see me at Sakura Con April 2 -4!!!

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  • Unity - Mecanim & Rigidbody on Third Person Controller - Gravity bug?

    - by Celtc
    I'm working on a third person controller which uses physX to interact with the other objects (using the Rigidbody component) and Mecanim to animate the character. All the animations used are baked to Y, and the movement on this axis is controlled by the gravity applied by the rigidbody component. The configuration of the falling animation: And the character components configuration: Since the falling animation doesn't have root motion on XZ, I move the character on XZ by code. Like this: // On the Ground if (IsGrounded()) { GroundedMovementMgm(); // Stores the velocity velocityPreFalling = rigidbody.velocity; } // Mid-Air else { // Continue the pre falling velocity rigidbody.velocity = new Vector3(velocityPreFalling.x, rigidbody.velocity.y, velocityPreFalling.z); } The problem is that when the chracter starts falling and hit against a wall in mid air, it gets stuck to the wall. Here are some pics which explains the problems: Hope someone can help me. Thanks and sory for my bad english! PD.: I was asked for the IsGrounded() function, so I'm adding it: void OnCollisionEnter(Collision collision) { if (!grounded) TrackGrounded(collision); } void OnCollisionStay(Collision collision) { TrackGrounded(collision); } void OnCollisionExit() { grounded = false; } public bool IsGrounded() { return grounded; } private void TrackGrounded(Collision collision) { var maxHeight = capCollider.bounds.min.y + capCollider.radius * .9f; foreach (var contact in collision.contacts) { if (contact.point.y < maxHeight && Vector3.Angle(contact.normal, Vector3.up) < maxSlopeAngle) { grounded = true; break; } } } I'll also add a LINK to download the project if someone wants it.

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  • Implementing fog of war in opengl es 2.0 game

    - by joxnas
    Hi game development community, this is my first question here! ;) I'm developing a tactics/strategy real time android game and I've been wondering for some time what's the best way to implement an efficient and somewhat nice looking fog of war to incorporate in it. My experience with OpenGL or Android is not vast by any means, but I think it is sufficient for what I'm asking here. So far I have thought in some solutions: Draw white circles to a dark background, corresponding to the units visibility, then render to a texture, and then drawing a quad with that texture with blend mode set to multiply. Will this approach be efficient? Will it take too much memory? (I don't know how to render to texture and then use the texture. Is it too messy?) Have a grid object with a vertex shader which has an array of uniforms having the coordinates of all units, and another array which has their visibility range. The number of units will very probably never be bigger then 100. The vertex shader needs to test for each considered vertex, if there is some unit which can see it. In order to do this it, will have to loop the array with the coordinates and do some calculations based on distance. The efficiency of this is inversely proportional to the looks of it. A more dense grid will result in a more beautiful fog of war... but will require a greater amount of vertexes to be checked. Is it possible to find a nice compromise or is this a bad solution from the start? Which solution is the best? Are there better alternatives? Which ones? Thank you for your time.

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  • What are the best ways to cope with «one of those days»? [closed]

    - by Júlio Santos
    I work in a fast-paced startup and am absolutely in love with what I do. Still, I wake up to a bad mood as often as the next guy. I find that forcing myself to play out my day as usual doesn't help — in fact, it only makes it worse, possibly ruining my productivity for the rest of the week. There are several ways I can cope with this, for instance: dropping the current task for the day and getting that awesome but low-priority feature in place; doing some pending research for future development (i.e. digging up ruby gems); spending the day reading and educating myself; just taking the day off. The first three items are productive in themselves, and taking the day off recharges my coding mana for the rest of the week. Being a young developer, I'm pretty sure there's a multitude of alternatives that I haven't come across yet. How can programmers cope with off days? Edit: I am looking for answers related specifically to this profession. I therefore believe that coping with off days in our field is fundamentally different that doing so in other areas. Programmers (especially in a start-up) are a unique breed in this context in the sense that they tend to have a multitude of tasks at hand on any given moment, so they can easily switch between these without wreaking too much havoc. Programmers also tend to work based on clear, concise objectives — provided they are well managed either by themselves or a third party — and hence have a great deal of flexibility when it comes to managing their time. Finally, our line of work creates the opportunity — necessity, if you will — to fit a plethora of tasks not directly related to the current one, such as research and staying on top of new releases and software updates.

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  • What's wrong with cplusplus.com?

    - by Kerrek SB
    This is perhaps not a perfectly suitable forum for this question, but let me give it a shot, at the risk of being moved away. There are several references for the C++ standard library, including the invaluable ISO standard, MSDN, IBM, cppreference, and cplusplus. Personally, when writing C++ I need a reference that has quick random access, short load times and usage examples, and I've been finding cplusplus.com pretty useful. However, I've been hearing negative opinions about that website frequently here on SO, so I would like to get specific: What are the errors, misconceptions or bad pieces of advice given by cplusplus.com? What are the risks of using it to make coding decisions? Let me add this point: I want to be able to answer questions here on SO with accurate quotes of the standard, and thus I would like to post immediately-usable links, and cplusplus.com would have been my choice site were it not for this issue. Update: There have been many great responses, and I have seriously changed my view on cplusplus.com. I'd like to list a few choice results here; feel free to suggest more (and keep posting answers). As of June 29, 2011: Incorrect description of some algorithms (e.g. remove). Information about the behaviour of functions is sometimes incorrect (atoi), fails to mention special cases (strncpy), or omits vital information (iterator invalidation). Examples contain deprecated code (#include style). Inexact terminology is doing a disservice to learners and the general community ("STL", "compiler" vs "toolchain"). Incorrect and misleading description of the typeid keyword.

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  • C#.NET vs VB.NET, Which language is better?

    Features I cannot say any language good or bad as long as it's compiler can produce MSIL can run under .NET CLR. If someone says C# has more futures, you can understand that those new features are of C# compiler but not .NET, because if C# has a specific future then CLR cannot understand them. So the new features of C# will have to convert to the code understood by CLR eventually. that means the new features are developed for C# compiler basically to facilitates the developer to write their code in better way. so that means no difference in feature list between C# and VB.NET if you think in CLR perspective. Ease of writing Code I feel writing code in C# is easy, because my background is C and C++, Java, syntaxes very are similar. I assume most developers feel the same. Readability But some people say VB.NET code most readable for the members who are from non technical background, because keywords are generally in English rather special charectors. No of Projects in Market I assume 80 percent of market uses C# in their .NET development. for example in my company many projects are there .nET and all are using C#. Productivity & Experience though the feature list is same, generally developers wants to write code in their familiar languages. because it increase the productivity. Hope this helps to choose the language which suits for you. span.fullpost {display:none;}

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  • SQL SERVER – 2008 – Missing Index Script – Download

    - by pinaldave
    Download Missing Index Script with Unused Index Script Performance Tuning is quite interesting and Index plays a vital role in it. A proper index can improve the performance and a bad index can hamper the performance. Here is the script from my script bank which I use to identify missing indexes on any database. Please note, if you should not create all the missing indexes this script suggest. This is just for guidance. You should not create more than 5-10 indexes per table. Additionally, this script sometime does not give accurate information so use your common sense. Any way, the scripts is good starting point. You should pay attention to Avg_Estimated_Impact when you are going to create index. The index creation script is also provided in the last column. Download Missing Index Script with Unused Index Script -- Missing Index Script -- Original Author: Pinal Dave (C) 2011 SELECT TOP 25 dm_mid.database_id AS DatabaseID, dm_migs.avg_user_impact*(dm_migs.user_seeks+dm_migs.user_scans) Avg_Estimated_Impact, dm_migs.last_user_seek AS Last_User_Seek, OBJECT_NAME(dm_mid.OBJECT_ID,dm_mid.database_id) AS [TableName], 'CREATE INDEX [IX_' + OBJECT_NAME(dm_mid.OBJECT_ID,dm_mid.database_id) + '_' + REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(ISNULL(dm_mid.equality_columns,''),', ','_'),'[',''),']','') + CASE WHEN dm_mid.equality_columns IS NOT NULL AND dm_mid.inequality_columns IS NOT NULL THEN '_' ELSE '' END + REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(ISNULL(dm_mid.inequality_columns,''),', ','_'),'[',''),']','') + ']' + ' ON ' + dm_mid.statement + ' (' + ISNULL (dm_mid.equality_columns,'') + CASE WHEN dm_mid.equality_columns IS NOT NULL AND dm_mid.inequality_columns IS NOT NULL THEN ',' ELSE '' END + ISNULL (dm_mid.inequality_columns, '') + ')' + ISNULL (' INCLUDE (' + dm_mid.included_columns + ')', '') AS Create_Statement FROM sys.dm_db_missing_index_groups dm_mig INNER JOIN sys.dm_db_missing_index_group_stats dm_migs ON dm_migs.group_handle = dm_mig.index_group_handle INNER JOIN sys.dm_db_missing_index_details dm_mid ON dm_mig.index_handle = dm_mid.index_handle WHERE dm_mid.database_ID = DB_ID() ORDER BY Avg_Estimated_Impact DESC GO Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: Pinal Dave, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Download, SQL Index, SQL Query, SQL Scripts, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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  • TFS Build Server not finding 'Microsoft.Expression.Interactions&rsquo;

    - by Chris Skardon
    We’ve been trying to get the build server to pick up the Microsoft.Expression.Interactions.dll needed so we can use things like the ExtendedVisualStateManager and the DataStateBehavior. Adding the DataStateBehavior in Blend adds the reference to the project, so it all compiles fine on the local machine. Checking in the code into a CI server throws up some ugliness: d:\Builds\6\Source\MyFile.xaml (290): The tag 'DataStateBehavior' does not exist in XML namespace 'http://schemas.microsoft.com/expression/2010/interactions'. Errr, it should do…?? The reference is there, so… ahhhhh! A quick check of the properties and we’re using the dll from the c:\program files (x86)\ location, no wonder the build server can’t find it – let’s add the dll into our (ever expanding) ‘lib’ folder, reference that version, and check that bad boy in… No. Still No. Still get the same error. What the??? The reference is still pointing to the program files location?? Ok, so let’s modify the csproj file using the wonderful notepad, changing the reference from <Reference Include="Microsoft.Expression.Interactions, /* loadsa shizzle here */ /> to <Reference Include="Microsoft.Expression.Interactions">     <HintPath>..\Lib\Microsoft.Expression.Interactions.dll</HintPath> </Reference> Check that in, aaaand… Success!!! The reason for this (from what I can gather from here) is that we’re using the Productivity Power Tools, and they try to be clever about referencing dlls, and changed what we’d asked (i.e. for the local version) to use the original program files location.. Editing the file in notepad (sweet sweet notepad) gets around this issue… Irritating, took a while to figure this out… Meh :)

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  • Samba Server Make Multiple User Permissions Profiles

    - by Scriptonaut
    I have a Samba file server running, and I was wondering how I could make multiple user accounts that have different permissions. For example, at the moment I have a user, smbusr, but when I ssh to the share, I can read, write, execute, and even navigate out of the samba directory and do stuff on the actual computer. This is bad because I want to be able to give out my IP so friends/family can use the server, but I don't want them to be able to do just anything. I want to lock the user in the samba share directory(and all the sub directories). Eventually I would like several profiles such as (smbusr_R, smbusr_RW, smbguest_R, smbguest_RW). I also have a second question related to this, is SSH the best method to connect from other unix machines? What about VPN? Or simply mounting like this: mount -t ext3 -o user=username //ipaddr/share /mnt/mountpoint Is that mounting command above the same thing as a vpn? This is really confusing me. Thanks for the help guys, let me know if you need to see any files, or need anymore information.

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  • What happens to C# 4 optional parameters when compiling against 3.5?

    - by Bertrand Le Roy
    Here’s a method declaration that uses optional parameters: public Path Copy( Path destination, bool overwrite = false, bool recursive = false) Something you may not know is that Visual Studio 2010 will let you compile this against .NET 3.5, with no error or warning. You may be wondering (as I was) how it does that. Well, it takes the easy and rather obvious way of not trying to be too smart and just ignores the optional parameters. So if you’re compiling against 3.5 from Visual Studio 2010, the above code is equivalent to: public Path Copy( Path destination, bool overwrite, bool recursive) The parameters are not optional (no such thing in C# 3), and no overload gets magically created for you. If you’re building a library that is going to have both 3.5 and 4.0 versions, and you want 3.5 users to have reasonable overloads of your methods, you’ll have to provide those yourself, which means that providing a version with optional parameters for the benefit of 4.0 users is not going to provide that much value, except for the ability to provide named parameters out of order. I guess that’s not so bad… Providing all of the following overloads will compile against both 3.5 and 4.0: public Path Copy(Path destination)public Path Copy(Path destination, bool overwrite)public Path Copy( Path destination, bool overwrite = false, bool recursive = false)

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  • Etch a Circuit Board using a Simple Homemade Mixture

    - by ETC
    If you’ve been dabbling in DIY electronics projects but you’re not so excited about keeping strong acids around to etch your circuit boards, this simple DIY recipe uses common household chemicals in lieu of strong acid. Electronics hobbyist Stephen Hobley wanted to see if he could create an etching solution that wasn’t as dangerous and noxious smelling at traditional muriatic acid solutions. By combining regular white vinegar, hydrogen peroxide, and table salt, he created a homemade etching solution from ingredients safe enough to store in your pantry. The only downside to his recipe is that, compared to traditional etching solutions, the process takes a little bit longer so you’ll have to leave your board in the solution longer. Not a bad trade off for the ability to skip using any oops-I-burned-my-skin-off acids. Check out the process in the video below: Hit up the link below for more information and and interesting explanation of the chemical process (he talks about not quite understanding it in the video but two chemists write in and give him the full run down). DIY Etching Solution [Stephen Hobley via Make] Latest Features How-To Geek ETC Macs Don’t Make You Creative! So Why Do Artists Really Love Apple? MacX DVD Ripper Pro is Free for How-To Geek Readers (Time Limited!) HTG Explains: What’s a Solid State Drive and What Do I Need to Know? How to Get Amazing Color from Photos in Photoshop, GIMP, and Paint.NET Learn To Adjust Contrast Like a Pro in Photoshop, GIMP, and Paint.NET Have You Ever Wondered How Your Operating System Got Its Name? Etch a Circuit Board using a Simple Homemade Mixture Sync Blocker Stops iTunes from Automatically Syncing The Journey to the Mystical Forest [Wallpaper] Trace Your Browser’s Roots on the Browser Family Tree [Infographic] Save Files Directly from Your Browser to the Cloud in Chrome and Iron The Steve Jobs Chronicles – Charlie and the Apple Factory [Video]

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  • SQL SERVER – Reduce the Virtual Log Files (VLFs) from LDF file

    - by pinaldave
    Earlier, I wrote a quite note on SQL SERVER – Detect Virtual Log Files (VLF) in LDF. Because of this I got responses suggesting too many VLFs are bad for log file. This prompts to a simple question: “How many is ‘too many’ VLFs?” I suggest that you go and read an article written by Kimberly over here. I am sure that you are going to have a clear understanding of what a good number for your VLFs is from that article. If you have lots of VLFs, you can reduce them right away using the following method: (I am just attempting to write a working script over here.) USE AdventureWorks GO BACKUP LOG AdventureWorks TO DISK='d:\adtlog.bak' GO -- Get Logical file name of the log file sp_helpfile GO DBCC SHRINKFILE(AdventureWorks_Log,TRUNCATEONLY) GO ALTER DATABASE AdventureWorks MODIFY FILE (NAME = AdventureWorks_Log,SIZE = 1GB) GO DBCC LOGINFO GO Again, here I have assumed that your initial log size is 1 GB, but in reality you should select the number based on your own ideal size of the log file. If your log file grows to 10 GB every day, you may want to put the value as 10 GB. For accuracy, read what Kimberly’s original article says over here. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: Pinal Dave, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Scripts, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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