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Search found 48 results on 2 pages for 'ashes999'.

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• The right way to add images to Monogame/Windows

  - by ashes999

  I'm starting out with MonoGame. For now, I'm only targeting Windows (desktop -- not Windows 8 specifically). I've used a couple of XNA products in the past (raw XNA, FlatRedBall, SilverSprite), so I may have a misunderstanding about how I should add images to my content. How do I add images to my project? Currently, I created a new Monogame project, added a folder called "Content," and added images under there; the only caveat is that I need to set the Copy to Output Directory action to one of the Copy ones. It seems strange, because my "raw" XNA project just last week had a Content project in it (XNA Framework Content Pipeline, according to VS2010), which compiled my images to XNB (I think). It seems like Monogame doesn't use the same content pipeline, but I'm not sure. Edit: My question is not about "how do I get the XNA content pipeline to work with Monogame." My question is "why would I want to use the XNA content pipeline in Monogame?" Because there are (at least) two solutions (that I see today): Add the images to the Monogame project and set the Copy to Output Directory options to copy. Add a XNA content pipeline project and add my images to that instead; reference it from my MOnogame project. Which solution should I use, and why? I currently have a working version with the first option.

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• Free vs. Paid: Picking a Financial Model

  - by ashes999

  I finally embarked upon my first "paid" game. What this means is that I will incorporate some sort of monetization strategy in my game. This may mean making the app pay-to-download, making it "freemium" with paid content, or something else. Having never done something like this, I'm at a complete loss as to how to figure out what I should do. I know a couple of models (pay to download, freemium, etc.) and I can brainstorm some ideas. But how do I figure out what strategy to use? Perhaps there's some body of research on this? (I recall reading that MMOs popular in Korea use a model where cosmetic changes only are pay-to-buy; everything else is free).

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• Advantages of Steam Greenlight

  - by ashes999

  Let's assume that I can pick a fairly decent game, build it, and finish it with sufficient chrome plating; let's also assume that I can market it myself to some extent, through my own website. What exactly are the advantages of going through Steam Greenlight? Assuming I can actually get through the process and reach sufficient critical mass to be "Greenlight." Can I really expect a lot more marketing (and sales) if I succeed?

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• Balancing Player vs. Monsters: Level-Up Curves

  - by ashes999

  I've written a fair number of games that have RPG-like "levelling up," where the player gains experience for killing monsters/enemies, and eventually, reaches a new level, where their stats increase. How do you find a balance between player growth, monster strength, and difficulty? The extreme ends of this spectrum are: Player levels up really fast and blows away monsters without much effort Monsters are incredibly strong and even at low levels, are very difficult to beat I've also tried a strange situation of making enemies relative to players, i.e. an enemy will always be at 50% or 100% or 150% of player stats (thus requiring the player to use other techniques instead of brute strength to succeeed). But where's the balance, and how do you find it? Edit: For example, I am expecting to hear things like: Balance high instead of balance low (200 HP and 20 str is easier to balance than 20 HP and 2 str) Look at easiest vs. hardest monsters, and see what you have in terms of a range

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• Can Google Translate's audio files be used in a game?

  - by ashes999

  For my game, I need text-to-speech. Since it's Android, I decided to settle for MP3s, since the range of words spoken is few. For my prototype, I'm using Google Translate to generate the audio since it has awesome pronounciation across multiple languages. But can I use it in production? What if I sell my game for $1 on the app store? All I can find on SE is that the API may be LGPL, and that the licensing page mentions the API is only available for academic research -- nothing more. My usage is a bit different; I'm actually capturing the audio bits and using those instead. I'm curious to know the license for this; I can't find anything with my Google-fu.

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• What is the most serious limitation of Unity?

  - by ashes999

  Having read this heated question about Unity vs. UDK vs. ID something, I'm curious to know: what the repeatedly-hit, most crippling limitation(s) of Unity? In order to keep this question non-subjective, again, I'm talking about the top repeated offender(s) of Unity are. This is something that, as a Unity user, you really wish someone had told you about before you started using it. I have heard from someone that Unity does not deal well with version control, since it generates a lot of binary files (which are un-diffable). This, to me, is not really crippling as I work alone. Thoughts?

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• Getting Started with Component Architecture: DI?

  - by ashes999

  I just moved away from MVC towards something more component-architecture-like. I have no concept of messages yet (it's rough prototype code), objects just get internal properties and values of other classes for now. That issue aside, it seems like this is turning into an aspect-oriented-programming challenge. I've noticed that all entities with, for example, a position component will have similar properties (get/set X/Y/Z, rotation, velocity). Is it a common practice, and/or good idea, to push these behind an interface and use dependency injection to inject a generic class (eg. PositionComponent) which already has all the boiler-plate code? (I'm sure the answer will affect the model I use for message/passing)

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• Options for 2D Web/iPhone/Android, with Test Framework

  - by ashes999

  I would like to make a 2D game with one codebase that runs on iPhone, Android, and web (any flavour of web -- HTML5, Flash, Silverlight, etc.) What are my options? I should be able to write my code once, and run it anywhere. I also absolutely need the ability to write unit tests (or write a unit-testing framework) -- I cannot make sizable games without testing. Unity is good, but unity is 3d; even with hacks, the graphical assets will still be 3d. I'm after 2d, not 3d. (If you need a Mac or separate licensing for the Mac part, that's okay.)

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• Multiply mode in SpriteBatch

  - by ashes999

  I have a "lighting" texture (black background with white or colours for lights) that I want to draw as a multiplcation operation. SpriteBatch.Begin can specify BlendState.Additive, but there's no BlendState.Multiplicative. I also tried the solution in this answer, but it didn't work -- even when I (incorrectly?) changed the code to work with XNA 4 style ColorDestinationBlend, I ended up with the final solution being inverted (black area where the light is, everything else is visible). I initially thought of a shader, but I couldn't get shaders to work with MonoGame, so I'm falling back to SpriteBatch.

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• Dell PSU Compatibility: Dell Inspiron 530 (Desktop)

  - by ashes999

  I have an Inspiron 530 with a stock PSU. I need to upgrade it to meet my video card's needs (AMD HD6770), which demands at least 450W, to potentially fix BSODs with the latest version of the drivers (so claims AMD support). Now, I've heard conflicting reports about whether Dell uses special/proprietary PSUs. (Examples for aye and nay to special PSUs.) How exactly can I determine if a PSU is compatible with my PC, before buying it? I assume I will not be able to return it if it doesn't fit, or makes my computer explode in a fireball of doom.

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• Shut Out of XP - No Admin Password or CDR

  - by ashes999

  I inherited an old WinXP/Linux dual-boot machine from the stoneage. Because it has Linux, the regular boot process is replaced with the Fedora boot loader; I cannot, therefore, press F8 strategically to tell my PC to boot from CD. Even if I could, it's a moot point; the CDR doesn't seem to recognize any CDs. To make things worse, there's no option to network boot. The original user is probably long gone; I don't know the password for any of the Administrator group users. I can login using my corp account, but that's unprivileged on this machine. Since I'm not an admin, I can't do crazy things, like looking at boot.ini. Or deleting files. I only have 500MB free on my C drive. I'm pretty sure I can't boot from a USB, since I didn't see any settings for this in my BIOS. How can I get admin access for my user? Edit: Things I've tried: Boot from CD (CD not recognized) Launch CD from XP (CD not recognized) Install Daemon Tools Lite so I can install from an ISO -- don't have admin privileges XP password recovery tool -- requires admin privileges Adding an admin user -- no access to Control Panel Users since I'm not an admin Logging in as both the admin users on the system (trying some standard passwords) Using Fedora to chntpw (the Fedora version installed is ancient -- 2.7)

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• SQL Server Installer Closes Silently Without Errors

  - by ashes999

  When I run the SQL Server 2008 R2 Express installer (32-bit or 64-bit), nothing happens. It will get to the screen where it asks me to accept the terms of license and send anonymous feedback; I check off both boxes and click Next, and it automatically starts installing the Support Files. And then the window disappears. I tried looking through the log files, but didn't see any errors. I've tried: x64 SQL Server R2 express x86 SQL Server R2 express X64 SQL Server R2 (full) X64 SQL Server Management Studio Of these, only management studio installed correctly; the two express editions failed silently, and the full version gave me different errors. I also tried running in Administrator mode (despite being logged in as an administrator user), but again, no difference.

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• Windows XP Blue-Screens And Reboots Instantly On Boot-Up

  - by ashes999

  My computer was running perfectly until yesterday; my internet suddenly died. Being wireless, I decided to reboot; now the computer doesn't boot. It shows the "Starting Windows" screen (safe mode loads several drivers), then it suddenly blue-screens and immediately reboots (I cannot read the blue-screen contents at all). I've tried safe-mode (with and without networking); no dice. I booted another HD with another XP install and ran scandisk on my HDs; no bad sectors, and even with auto-repair, it didn't fix the problem. Now what? What are my options to fix the broken XP install? I'm thinking: 1) Remove wireless card 2) Run XP install CD and repair installation 3) ???

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• Windows Software to Save Arbitrary Application State

  - by ashes999

  VM software does a great job of saving state when you "turn it off," allowing instant and immediate return to that previous state. Is there some application for Windows that allows me to do the same thing, for any arbitrary software? It would allow me to save/restore state, possibly via a shell command or button that it appends to every window. Edit: For clarity, there are two types of apps: those that save their own states, and those that save others' states. Those that save their own state are like Chrome, which on load, reloads the windows you had open last time. That's not what I'm asking about; I'm asking for an app that can save the state of other apps, kind of like VM software does; but for any app. (A trivial test would be load notepad++, type a bunch of stuff, and save-state; on reset-state, you should be able to multi-level undo a lot of what you wrote, as if you never shut down the application.)

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• Windows Software to Save Arbitrary Application State

  - by ashes999

  VM software does a great job of saving state when you "turn it off," allowing instant and immediate return to that previous state. Is there some application for Windows that allows me to do the same thing, for any arbitrary software? It would allow me to save/restore state, possibly via a shell command or button that it appends to every window. Edit: For clarity, there are two types of apps: those that save their own states, and those that save others' states. Those that save their own state are like Chrome, which on load, reloads the windows you had open last time. That's not what I'm asking about; I'm asking for an app that can save the state of other apps, kind of like VM software does; but for any app. (A trivial test would be load notepad++, type a bunch of stuff, and save-state; on reset-state, you should be able to multi-level undo a lot of what you wrote, as if you never shut down the application.)

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• Intranet machines refuse to talk anymore

  - by ashes999

  I have two machines on the local intranet. They used to be able to talk to each other (ping, share files, etc.). Both are not successfully connected to the internet. The problem machine (lets call it test machine) can't talk to my main machine. The test machine can ping other machines on the intranet (at least one of my coworkers), but not mine. Odd. When I try to ping it from my machine, by machine name, I get Destination host unreachable. Both machines are on the intranet, with the network configured as Work Both machines have Windows Firewall disabled temporarily Both machines can talk to the internet (Google, SO, etc.) Neither machine can ping the other I need help resolving this. What I really want to achieve, is to remote into the test machine from my main machine, like I used to be able to do a few weeks ago. Some notes: Tried arp -a on both machines. I don't see the other machine's IP listed. Both machines have stable IPs; neither seems to have an IP conflict The configuration under ipconfig /all on my main machine mathces my coworker's machine. The test machine can ping his machine, but not my machine. The target machine times out trying to ping the main machine; the main machine gives me Destination host unreachable. I have rebooted both machines (several times) to no avail I have /release and /renewed both machines several times

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• Snapshot/Save GPU Drivers

  - by ashes999

  Since I'm running XP/32-bit, my GPU drivers are quite fragile. I've spent several hours trying to back up and restore from old versions, on at least two separate occasions. Writing down the device drivers is not enough. In the short term, I would like to somehow save, zip, backup, snapshot, or something so that if I need to reinstall my OS in the short-term, I have a reliable way to get the drivers. ATI's website doesn't have the install kit anymore, and I don't have it saved; I googled, but didn't find the exact same version. How can I backup/save my drivers so that I can reinstall them later?

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• List<T>.RemoveAll Doesn't Exist in Silverlight?

  - by ashes999

  I'm working on a Silverlight 2/3 application. I would like to use List.RemoveAll (or maybe it's IList.RemoveAll?) and specify a predicate so that I can remove a bunch of elements from a list in one sweep. It seems like this function doesn't exist in Silverlight, though. Am I missing something here? Is there an alternative approach that's equally easy? Right now, I'm manually iterating over my elements in a foreach and keeping a second list (because you can't delete while iterating), and it's quite ... cumbersome.

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• Mirth is Not Picking Up Updated JAR File?

  - by ashes999

  I have some Mirth code (javascript) that's consuming one of my Java classes (let's call it SimpleClass). It seems that Mirth is not picking up my changes to my class. SimpleClass used to look something like this: public class Simpleclass { public SimpleClass(String one) { // do something with one } } Now it looks like: public class Simpleclass { public SimpleClass(String one, String two) { // store one and two } public void Execute() { // do something with one and two } } When I try and call SimpleClass with two strings, I get the error "Java constructor for SimpleClass with arguments string, string not found." When I try to run Execute, I get an error similar to "TypeError: method Execute not found." Perplexingly, I can still call SimpleClass("one string") to call the one-string constructor (which is now nowhere to be seen in the code). To get my code to work, I build a JAR file using ant, and deploy it to \\lib\custom. I have tried: Copying the new JAR and restarting Mirth while it's live Copying the new JAR after stopping Mirth, then starting Mirth Looking for other copies of my JAR or Mirth installations (there are none) Unzipping and reverse-engineering the JAR (it has the two-constructor code) Hashing the JAR (it matches what I'm building in ant) Restarting my computer (hey, you never know) I'm at a loss. I'm not sure why I'm not seeing the latest code. My channel has very simple Javascript: var sp = new Packages.com.hs.channel.scarborough.ScarboroughParser("one", "two"); I know it's not a configuration error of any kind, since this used to work (and does still work, albeit with the old code -- single-parameter constructor).

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• Differences Between Java and HTML5 -- Squeezed Background

  - by ashes999

  I noticed some (slightly disturbing) differences between the HTML5 and the Java versions of the playN showcase (source). (I just downloaded everything yesterday, so presumably I'm running the latest samples.) Specifically, two flaws I noticed in the HTML5 version: The text on the buttons is quite blurry (not anti-aliased, but actually blurry) compared to the Java version The background in the "Swirl" sample is restricted to one corner of the app; it doesn't cover the entire visible space the way it does in the Java version. Are these bugs, or the expected behaviour?

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• Creating an Application to Save Arbitrary Application State

  - by ashes999

  See this SuperUser question. To summarize, VM software lets you save state of arbitrary applications (by saving the whole VM image). Would it be possible to write some software for Windows that allows you to save and reload arbitrary application state? If so (and presumably so), what would it entail? I would be looking to implement this, if possible, in a high-level language like C#. I presume if I used something else, I would need to dump memory registers (or maybe dump the entire application memory block) to a file somewhere and load it back somewhere to refresh state. So how do I build this thing?

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• Hibernate/Spring: getHibernateTemplate().save(...) Freezes/Hangs

  - by ashes999

  I'm using Hibernate and Spring with the DAO pattern (all Hibernate dependencies in a *DAO.java class). I have nine unit tests (JUnit) which create some business objects, save them, and perform operations on them; the objects are in a hash (so I'm reusing the same objects all the time). My JUnit setup method calls my DAO.deleteAllObjects() method which calls getSession().createSQLQuery("DELETE FROM <tablename>").executeUpdate() for my business object table (just one). One of my unit tests (#8/9) freezes. I presumed it was a database deadlock, because the Hibernate log file shows my delete statement last. However, debugging showed that it's simply HibernateTemplate.save(someObject) that's freezing. (Eclipse shows that it's freezing on HibernateTemplate.save(Object), line 694.) Also interesting to note is that running this test by itself (not in the suite of 9 tests) doesn't cause any problems. How on earth do I troubleshoot and fix this? Also, I'm using @Entity annotations, if that matters. Edit: I removed reuse of my business objects (use unique objects in every method) -- didn't make a difference (still freezes). Edit: This started trickling into other tests, too (can't run more than one test class without getting something freezing) Transaction configuration: <bean id="txManager" class="org.springframework.jdbc.datasource.DataSourceTransactionManager"> <property name="dataSource" ref="dataSource" /> </bean> <tx:advice id="txAdvice" transaction-manager="txManager"> <!-- the transactional semantics... --> <tx:attributes> <!-- all methods starting with 'get' are read-only --> <tx:method name="get*" read-only="true" /> <tx:method name="find*" read-only="true" /> <!-- other methods use the default transaction settings (see below) --> <tx:method name="*" /> </tx:attributes> </tx:advice> <!-- my bean which is exhibiting the hanging behavior --> <aop:config> <aop:pointcut id="beanNameHere" expression="execution(* com.blah.blah.IMyDAO.*(..))" /> <aop:advisor advice-ref="txAdvice" pointcut-ref="beanNameHere" /> </aop:config>

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• Will polishing my current project be a better learning experience than starting a new one?

  - by Alejandro Cámara

  I started programming many years ago. Now I'm trying to make games. I have read many recommendations to start cloning some well known games like galaga, tetris, arkanoid, etc. I have also read that I should go for the whole game (including menus, sound, score, etc.). Yesterday I finished the first complete version of my arkanoid clone. But it is far from over. I can still work on it for months (I program as a hobby in my free time) implementing a screen resolution switcher, remap of the control keys, power-ups falling from broken bricks, and a huge etc. But I do not want to be forever learning how to clone ONE game. I have the urge to get to the next clone in order to apply some design ideas I have come upon while developing this arkanoid clone (at the same time I am reading the GoF book and much source code from Ludum Dare 21 game contest). So the question is: Should I keep improving the arkanoid clone until it has all the features the original game had? or should I move to the next clone (there are almost infinite games to clone) and start mending the things I did wrong with the previous clone? This can be a very subjective question, so please restrain the answers to the most effective way to learn how to make my own games (not cloning someone ideas). Thank you! CLARIFICATION In order to clarify what I have implemented I make this list: Features implemented: Bouncing capabilities (the ball bounces on walls, on bricks, and on the bar). Sounds when bouncing on bricks and the bar, and when the player wins or loses. Basic title menu (new game and exit only). Also in-game menu and win/lose menus. Only three levels, but the map system is so easy I do not think it will teach me much (am I wrong?). Features not-implemented: Power-ups when breaking the bricks. Complex bricks (with more than one "hit point" and invincible). Better graphics (I am not really good at it). Programming polishing (use more intensively the design patterns). Here's a link to its (minimal) webpage: http://blog.acamara.es/piperine/ I kind of feel ashamed to show it, so please do not hit me too hard :-) My question was related to the not-implemented features. I wondered what was the fastest (optimal) path to learn. 1) implement the not-implemented features in this project which is getting big, or 2) make a new game which probably will teach me those lessons and new ones. ANSWER I choose @ashes999 answer because, in my case, I think I should polish more and try to "ship" the game. I think all the other answers are also important to bear in mind, so if you came here having the same question, before taking a rush decision read all the discussion. Thank you all!

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