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• Diablo 3 "freezes" periodically

  - by Shauna

  I'm running Diablo 3 (start edition, digital download) on the following: Ubuntu 12.04 64-bit (stock Unity, Gnome, etc; kernel version 3.2.0-29-generic) Wine version 1.5.11 (base, from Wine's PPA, game started with setarch i386 -3) Intel i7 920 CPU nVidia GTX260 with driver version 295.49 ("post-release updates" entry within the proprietary drivers tool), dual monitors 6GB RAM Every so often (and what appears to be at random), the game video will freeze up. I can still move the mouse, and it reacts to ctrl+alt+f2 to drop into text mode, but I can't get back to the desktop (which means I can check terminal to see what's going on after launching from terminal, especially since even in windowed mode, the secondary screen gets shut off by the game), and I can't continue to play the game. In order to get it running again, I have to restart lightdm, then relaunch the game (or, in a couple of rare cases, I had to restart the computer entirely, because running sudo service lightdmn [stop/start] doesn't appear to react). Turning down the video settings seems to have helped in some cases, but not all of them. Times it's frozen on me: The beginning of The Fallen Start quest part 6 - kill the Wretched Mother, right as you walk out of New Tristram and engage in the monsters on the northern path (repeatedly froze here until I adjusted the graphics down) Within the cinematic/event upon finding Deckard Cain While fighting the skeletons to protect Deckard Cain When about to enter Leoric's passage after Cain sends you back to where you found him That's as far as I've gotten through the game so far. Additionally, this doesn't happen on other games I play and seems to only occur with Diablo 3. Has anyone else run into this issue and know a possible cause or fix, or at least know where I can look (and what to look for) to figure out why this is happening?

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• Leveraging Code Across Platforms in Ever Bigger Games

  - by ashes999

  Summary: The same way that I continually build complex engines and libraries within a single platform and technology to allow me to build increasingly bigger and better games, how to continue this when development crosses into different platforms? If I switch platforms, how do I leverage past code and experiences? Games are hard to build. Big games are even harder to build. I've decided that to be able to make big games, I need to start building smaller games, and building up an asset base of code, assets (graphics, sounds), tools, and most importantly, game engines, so that I can eventually get there. One game at a time. Let me give an analogy. To build an MMO 3D RPG, I would approach this by building and releasing small games with increasingly more features. This could entail, for example: A simple 2D game A tile-based game A game with RPG elements (items, equipment, monsters, battle) A full-fledged RPG A 3D RPG The problem now is if I have to change platforms or tools, I don't know how to leverage past code-bases (and experience) to start with a mature product. Right now, I'm writing Silverlight (FlatRedBall) games. Let's say I stick with this for ten years, and then suddenly decide to write a PS6 game, which is in a different programming language entirely. Granted, I have ten years of game-development experience (and correspondingly ten years of professional software development experience from my day job) to back me up. But I would still like some way to transplant that 2D RPG engine into the new programming language, or else leverage it somehow. Is this even possible? What are my options?

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• DIY Halloween Decoration Uses Simple Silohuettes

  - by Jason Fitzpatrick

  While many of the Halloween decorating tricks we’ve shared over the years involve lots of wire, LEDs, and electronic guts, this one is thoroughly analog (and easy to put together). A simple set of silhouettes can cheaply and quickly transform the front of your house. Courtesy of Matt over at GeekDad, the transformation is easy to pull off. He explains: It’s really just about as simple as you could hope for. The materials needed are: black posterboard or black-painted cardboard; colored cellophane or tissue paper; and tape. The only tools needed are: measuring tape; some sort of drawing implement — chalk works really well; and scissors and/or X-Acto knife. And while you need some drawing talent, the scale is big enough and the need for precision little enough that you don’t need that much. For a more thorough rundown of the steps hit up the link below or hit up Google Images to find some monster silhouette inspiration. Window Monsters [Geek Dad] How Hackers Can Disguise Malicious Programs With Fake File Extensions Can Dust Actually Damage My Computer? What To Do If You Get a Virus on Your Computer

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• Strategies for avoiding SQL in your Controllers... or how many methods should I have in my Models?

  - by Keith Palmer

  So a situation I run into reasonably often is one where my models start to either: Grow into monsters with tons and tons of methods OR Allow you to pass pieces of SQL to them, so that they are flexible enough to not require a million different methods For example, say we have a "widget" model. We start with some basic methods: get($id) insert($record) update($id, $record) delete($id) getList() // get a list of Widgets That's all fine and dandy, but then we need some reporting: listCreatedBetween($start_date, $end_date) listPurchasedBetween($start_date, $end_date) listOfPending() And then the reporting starts to get complex: listPendingCreatedBetween($start_date, $end_date) listForCustomer($customer_id) listPendingCreatedBetweenForCustomer($customer_id, $start_date, $end_date) You can see where this is growing... eventually we have so many specific query requirements that I either need to implement tons and tons of methods, or some sort of "query" object that I can pass to a single -query(query $query) method... ... or just bite the bullet, and start doing something like this: list = MyModel-query(" start_date X AND end_date < Y AND pending = 1 AND customer_id = Z ") There's a certain appeal to just having one method like that instead of 50 million other more specific methods... but it feels "wrong" sometimes to stuff a pile of what's basically SQL into the controller. Is there a "right" way to handle situations like this? Does it seem acceptable to be stuffing queries like that into a generic -query() method? Are there better strategies?

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• Tuning WebServer Response -

  - by Vedran Wex Maricevic

  I have this sam e question on StackOverflow and I was advised to ask it here hoping for more information. Here is the question: I am in rather unfavorable situation. I have aspdotneststore front e-commerce application and search addon called VibeTrib. I dont have source code for both of those. Store that runs on StoreFront and VibeTrib has close to 250k products. Also we have lots of filters. I spoke to ViTrib reps, and they want extra money so they could optimize Queries that they use. Money they require is nto a big deal, but the problem is I dont trust them anymore. What we got is much different then wha is being advertised. To cut the long story short. I am runing the store on Amazon AWS now, and regardless of what DB (MsSQL 2012) server I set (I tried 32GB RAM monsters instances) it is slow. Ajax search uses Full Text search and it displays search keywords relatively fast, but once the search is performed ( to display all results) it is still slow.!!! There is something that I could to do accelerate the speed on my own end? I do have full control over EC2 Instance (Web server Server 2012 and IIS 8). Can I set IIS to step in for the search and cache some of it? I was hoping to cache at least some most common words. My best bet is IIS 8 :) Is there any help in my case? Thanks

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• C++ Database vs Reading Files

  - by Ohmages

  Ive been programing a C++ game/server for the past year. I have been using MYSQL for character logins, items, monsters, etc, etc. (im on windows). My question is, what are some of the databases that some big time developers use. IE. Battle.net, Diablo II, Diablo III, mythos, hellgate , etc, etc, etc. Do they have their own database they built? Or do they use an existing framework for logins, and character transfers. I do know that in diablo II, they use character files to to transfer characters into the game world. But what about the login into battle.net. Would it be wiser for me to stick with MYSQL, or is there something out there faster and more stable, or should I create a login type of system that looks through a file to see if you provided the correct password. Can't wait to get some replies. Thanks! PS. Currently the framework is much like battle.net, where you login into a lobby, create, and join games. The game server/lobby server are different servers too. So im just wondering about the lobby server for logins because I'm expecting several hundred thousand connections/logins.

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• In what programing language are the things i actualy care about writin? [closed]

  - by David

  To be more specific and less subjective: In what language are video games like Halo 3/COD 4/ mario cart written? Microsoft word for windows? for mac? The animation software used by big movie studios to make movies like toystory and monsters inc? The software that helps pilots control the F22 raptor? The software that watches the stock market? The software in the computer in my car? The software that makes the internet work? (this one is a bit vague, if more specificness is needed then google specifically) robots?

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• Best programming novel to take on holiday

  - by Ed Guiness

  I am about enjoy a two week break in Spain where I expect to have lots of time for relaxing and reading. I normally read a lot of non-fiction so I'm looking for novel suggestions. If there is another Cryptonomicon out there I'd love to hear about it! UPDATE: In the end I took four books including Quicksilver. Quicksilver was fantastic and I look forward to continuing the series. I was disappointed with Gen X (Coupland) and Pattern Recognition (Gibson). Upon arrival I also found The Monsters Of Gramercy Park (Leigh) which was enjoyable though sad. Thanks for all the recommendations, I'm sure to return to this list when I have more free time.

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• Resources such as libraries, engines and frameworks to make Javacript-based MMORTS? [closed]

  - by hhh

  I am looking for resources outlined to make a MMORTS with Javascript as the client-side, probably just a simple canvas for the frontend. The guy in the video here mentions that JavaScript is one of the most misunderstood language -- and I do believe that. I think one can make quite cool games with it in the future. So I am now proactively looking for resources and perhaps some ideas. My first idea contained Node.js, C and NetBSD/bozohttpd (or the-4-7-chars' *ix-thing with green-logo -thing, move the q here) but I acknowledge my beginner -style approach -- this issue is broad and not only for one person to make it all-the-time-improved project! So I think perfect for community to tinker. Some games and examples possibly easy to make into MMORTS BrowserQuest here under MPL 2.0 and its content licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0 (source here) [proprietary] LoU here and built with JS/Qooxdoo/c#/Windows-Server/ISS/etc, source. MY ANSWER BEGINS HERE TO BE MOVED BELOW, REQUIRING RE-OPENING. PLEASE, VOTE TO OPEN IT -- HELP US TO TINKER! My answer Generic Is there an MMO-related research body? Although about Android, certain things also appropriate with JS -game: Are there any 2D gaming libraries/frameworks/engines for Android? Why is it so hard to develop a MMO? Browser based MMO Architecture MMO architecture - Highly Scalable with Reporting capabilities What are the Elements of an MMO Game? Is this the right architecture for our MMORPG mobile game? Looking for architectures to develop massive multiplayer game server Information on seamless MMO server architecture Game-mechanics (search) Question sounding like about LoU: What are the different ways to balance an online multiplayer game where user spend different amounts of time online? Building an instance system What are the different ways to balance an online multiplayer game where user spend different amounts of time online? Hosting is it possible to make a MMO starting with scalable hosting? Should I keep login server apart from game server? MMO techniques, algorithms and resources for keeping bandwidth low? MMO Proxy Server Javascript and Client-based things What do I need to do a MMORTS in JavaScript with small amount of Developers? How to update the monsters in my MMO server using Node.js and Socket.IO Are there any good html 5 mmo design tutorials? Networking Loadbalancing Questions Something about TCP, routers, NAT, etc: How do I start writing an MMO game server? Who does the AI calculations in an MMO? They need someone more knowledgable to work with, a lot of cases where the same words mean different things. Data Structures What data structure should I use for a Diablo/WoW-style talent tree? Game Engine Need an engine for MMO mockup Helper sites http://www.gamedev.net/page/index.html

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• Bad Data is Really the Monster

  - by Dain C. Hansen

  Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";} Bad Data is really the monster – is an article written by Bikram Sinha who I borrowed the title and the inspiration for this blog. Sinha writes: “Bad or missing data makes application systems fail when they process order-level data. One of the key items in the supply-chain industry is the product (aka SKU). Therefore, it becomes the most important data element to tie up multiple merchandising processes including purchase order allocation, stock movement, shipping notifications, and inventory details… Bad data can cause huge operational failures and cost millions of dollars in terms of time, resources, and money to clean up and validate data across multiple participating systems. Yes bad data really is the monster, so what do we do about it? Close our eyes and hope it stays in the closet? We’ve tacked this problem for some years now at Oracle, and with our latest introduction of Oracle Enterprise Data Quality along with our integrated Oracle Master Data Management products provides a complete, best-in-class answer to the bad data monster. What’s unique about it? Oracle Enterprise Data Quality also combines powerful data profiling, cleansing, matching, and monitoring capabilities while offering unparalleled ease of use. What makes it unique is that it has dedicated capabilities to address the distinct challenges of both customer and product data quality – [different monsters have different needs of course!]. And the ability to profile data is just as important to identify and measure poor quality data and identify new rules and requirements. Included are semantic and pattern-based recognition to accurately parse and standardize data that is poorly structured. Finally all of the data quality components are integrated with Oracle Master Data Management, including Oracle Customer Hub and Oracle Product Hub, as well as Oracle Data Integrator Enterprise Edition and Oracle CRM. Want to learn more? On Tuesday Nov 15th, I invite you to listen to our webcast on Reduce ERP consolidation risks with Oracle Master Data Management I’ll be joined by our partner iGate Patni and be talking about one specific way to deal with the bad data monster specifically around ERP consolidation. Look forward to seeing you there!

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• Oracle at The Forrester Customer Intelligence and Marketing Leadership Forums

  - by Christie Flanagan

  The Forrester Customer Intelligence Forum and the Forrester Marketing Leadership Forums will soon be here.  This year’s events will be co-located on April 18-19 at the J.W. Marriott at the L.A. Live entertainment complex in downtown Los Angeles.  Last year’s Marketing Forum was quite memorable for me.  You see, while Forrester analysts and business marketers were busy mingling over at the Marriott, another marketing powerhouse was taking up residence a few feet away at The Staples Center.  That’s right folks. Lada Gaga was coming to town.  And, as I came to learn, it made perfect sense for Lady Gaga and her legions of fans to be sharing a small patch of downtown L.A. with marketing leaders from all over the world.  After all, whether you like Lady Gaga or not, what pop star in recent memory has done more to build herself into a brand and to create an engaging, social and interactive customer experience for her Little Monsters?  While Lady Gaga won’t be back in town for this year’s Forrester events, there are still plenty of compelling reasons to make the trip out to Los Angeles.   The theme for The Forrester Customer Intelligence and Marketing Leadership Forums this year is “From Cool To Critical: Creating Engagement In The Age Of The Customer” and will tackle the important questions about how marketers can survive and thrive in the age of the empowered customer: •    How can you assess consumer uptake of new innovations?•    How do you build deep customer knowledge to drive competitive advantage?•    How do you drive deep, personalized customer engagement?•    What is more valuable — eyeballs or engagement?•    How do business customers engage in new media types?•    How can you tie social data to corporate data?•    Who should lead the movement to customer obsession?•    How should you shift your planning and measurement approaches to accommodate more data and a higher signal-to-noise ratio?•    What role does technology play in customizing and synchronizing marketing efforts across channels?As a platinum sponsor of the event, there will be a numbers of ways to interact with Oracle while you’re attending the Forums.  Here are some of the highlights:Oracle Speaking SessionThursday, April 19, 9:15am – 9:55amMaximize Customer Engagement and Retention with Integrated Marketing & LoyaltyMelissa Boxer, Vice President, Oracle CRM Marketing & LoyaltyCustomers expect to interact with your company, brand and products in more ways than ever before.   New devices and channels, such as mobile, social and web, are creating radical shifts in the customer buying process and the ways your company can reach and communicate with existing and potential customers. While Marketing's objectives (attract, convert, retain) remain fundamentally the same, your approach and tools must adapt quickly to succeed in this more complex, cross-channel world. Hear how leading brands are using Oracle's integrated marketing and loyalty solutions to maximize customer engagement and retention through better planning, execution, and measurement of synchronized cross-channel marketing initiatives.Solution ShowcaseWednesday, April 1810:20am – 11:50am 12:30pm – 1:30pm2:55pm – 3:40pmThursday, April 199:55am – 10:40am12:00pm – 1:00pmSolution Showcase & Networking ReceptionWednesday, April 185:10pm – 6:20pmBe sure to follow the #webcenter hashtag for updates on these events.  And for a more considered perspective on what Lady Gaga can teach businesses about branding and customer experience, check out Denise Lee Yohn’s post, Lessons from Lady Gaga from the Brand as Business Bites blog.

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• What is the best Broadphase Interface for moving spheres?

  - by Molmasepic

  As of now I am working on optimizing the performance of the physics and collision, and as of now I am having some slowdowns on my other computers from my main. I have well over 3000 btSphereShape Rigidbodies and 2/3 of them do not move at all, but I am noticing(by the profile below) that collision is taking a bit of time to maneuver. Each sample counts as 0.01 seconds. % cumulative self self total time seconds seconds calls ms/call ms/call name 10.09 0.65 0.65 SphereTriangleDetector::collide(btVector3 const&, btVector3&, btVector3&, float&, float&, float) 7.61 1.14 0.49 btSphereTriangleCollisionAlgorithm::processCollision(btCollisionObject*, btCollisionObject*, btDispatcherInfo const&, btManifoldResult*) 5.59 1.50 0.36 btConvexTriangleCallback::processTriangle(btVector3*, int, int) 5.43 1.85 0.35 btQuantizedBvh::reportAabbOverlappingNodex(btNodeOverlapCallback*, btVector3 const&, btVector3 const&) const 4.97 2.17 0.32 btBvhTriangleMeshShape::processAllTriangles(btTriangleCallback*, btVector3 const&, btVector3 const&) const::MyNodeOverlapCallback::processNode(int, int) 4.19 2.44 0.27 btSequentialImpulseConstraintSolver::resolveSingleConstraintRowGeneric(btRigidBody&, btRigidBody&, btSolverConstraint const&) 4.04 2.70 0.26 btSequentialImpulseConstraintSolver::resolveSingleConstraintRowLowerLimit(btRigidBody&, btRigidBody&, btSolverConstraint const&) 3.73 2.94 0.24 Ogre::OctreeSceneManager::walkOctree(Ogre::OctreeCamera*, Ogre::RenderQueue*, Ogre::Octree*, Ogre::VisibleObjectsBoundsInfo*, bool, bool) 3.42 3.16 0.22 btTriangleShape::getVertex(int, btVector3&) const 2.48 3.32 0.16 Ogre::Frustum::isVisible(Ogre::AxisAlignedBox const&, Ogre::FrustumPlane*) const 2.33 3.47 0.15 1246357 0.00 0.00 Gorilla::Layer::setVisible(bool) 2.33 3.62 0.15 SphereTriangleDetector::getClosestPoints(btDiscreteCollisionDetectorInterface::ClosestPointInput const&, btDiscreteCollisionDetectorInterface::Result&, btIDebugDraw*, bool) 1.86 3.74 0.12 btCollisionDispatcher::findAlgorithm(btCollisionObject*, btCollisionObject*, btPersistentManifold*) 1.86 3.86 0.12 btSequentialImpulseConstraintSolver::setupContactConstraint(btSolverConstraint&, btCollisionObject*, btCollisionObject*, btManifoldPoint&, btContactSolverInfo const&, btVector3&, float&, float&, btVector3&, btVector3&) 1.71 3.97 0.11 btTriangleShape::getEdge(int, btVector3&, btVector3&) const 1.55 4.07 0.10 _Unwind_SjLj_Register 1.55 4.17 0.10 _Unwind_SjLj_Unregister 1.55 4.27 0.10 Ogre::D3D9HardwareVertexBuffer::updateBufferResources(char const*, Ogre::D3D9HardwareVertexBuffer::BufferResources*) 1.40 4.36 0.09 btManifoldResult::addContactPoint(btVector3 const&, btVector3 const&, float) 1.40 4.45 0.09 btSequentialImpulseConstraintSolver::setupFrictionConstraint(btSolverConstraint&, btVector3 const&, btRigidBody*, btRigidBody*, btManifoldPoint&, btVector3 const&, btVector3 const&, btCollisionObject*, btCollisionObject*, float, float, float) 1.24 4.53 0.08 btSequentialImpulseConstraintSolver::convertContact(btPersistentManifold*, btContactSolverInfo const&) 1.09 4.60 0.07 408760 0.00 0.00 Living::MapHide() 1.09 4.67 0.07 btSphereTriangleCollisionAlgorithm::~btSphereTriangleCollisionAlgorithm() 1.09 4.74 0.07 inflate_fast EDIT: Updated to show current Profile. I have only listed the functions using over 1% time from the many functions that are being used. Another thing is that each monster has a certain area that they stay in and are only active when a player is in said area. I was wondering if maybe there is a way to deactivate the non-active monsters from bullet(reactivating once in the area again) or maybe theres a different broadphase interface that I should use. The current BPI is btDbvtBroadphase. EDIT: Here is the Profile on the other computer(the top one is my main) Each sample counts as 0.01 seconds. % cumulative self self total time seconds seconds calls ms/call ms/call name 12.18 1.19 1.19 SphereTriangleDetector::collide(btVector3 const&, btVector3&, btVector3&, float&, float&, float) 6.76 1.85 0.66 btSphereTriangleCollisionAlgorithm::processCollision(btCollisionObject*, btCollisionObject*, btDispatcherInfo const&, btManifoldResult*) 5.83 2.42 0.57 btQuantizedBvh::reportAabbOverlappingNodex(btNodeOverlapCallback*, btVector3 const&, btVector3 const&) const 5.12 2.92 0.50 btConvexTriangleCallback::processTriangle(btVector3*, int, int) 4.61 3.37 0.45 btTriangleShape::getVertex(int, btVector3&) const 4.09 3.77 0.40 _Unwind_SjLj_Register 3.48 4.11 0.34 btBvhTriangleMeshShape::processAllTriangles(btTriangleCallback*, btVector3 const&, btVector3 const&) const::MyNodeOverlapCallback::processNode(int, int) 2.46 4.35 0.24 btSequentialImpulseConstraintSolver::resolveSingleConstraintRowLowerLimit(btRigidBody&, btRigidBody&, btSolverConstraint const&) 2.15 4.56 0.21 _Unwind_SjLj_Unregister 2.15 4.77 0.21 SphereTriangleDetector::getClosestPoints(btDiscreteCollisionDetectorInterface::ClosestPointInput const&, btDiscreteCollisionDetectorInterface::Result&, btIDebugDraw*, bool) 1.84 4.95 0.18 btTriangleShape::getEdge(int, btVector3&, btVector3&) const 1.64 5.11 0.16 btSequentialImpulseConstraintSolver::resolveSingleConstraintRowGeneric(btRigidBody&, btRigidBody&, btSolverConstraint const&) 1.54 5.26 0.15 btSequentialImpulseConstraintSolver::setupContactConstraint(btSolverConstraint&, btCollisionObject*, btCollisionObject*, btManifoldPoint&, btContactSolverInfo const&, btVector3&, float&, float&, btVector3&, btVector3&) 1.43 5.40 0.14 Ogre::D3D9HardwareVertexBuffer::updateBufferResources(char const*, Ogre::D3D9HardwareVertexBuffer::BufferResources*) 1.33 5.53 0.13 btManifoldResult::addContactPoint(btVector3 const&, btVector3 const&, float) 1.13 5.64 0.11 btRigidBody::predictIntegratedTransform(float, btTransform&) 1.13 5.75 0.11 btTriangleIndexVertexArray::getLockedReadOnlyVertexIndexBase(unsigned char const**, int&, PHY_ScalarType&, int&, unsigned char const**, int&, int&, PHY_ScalarType&, int) const 1.02 5.85 0.10 btSphereTriangleCollisionAlgorithm::CreateFunc::CreateCollisionAlgorithm(btCollisionAlgorithmConstructionInfo&, btCollisionObject*, btCollisionObject*) 1.02 5.95 0.10 btSphereTriangleCollisionAlgorithm::btSphereTriangleCollisionAlgorithm(btPersistentManifold*, btCollisionAlgorithmConstructionInfo const&, btCollisionObject*, btCollisionObject*, bool) Edited same as other Profile.

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• Trying to parse OpenCV YAML ouput with yaml-cpp

  - by Kenn Sebesta

  I've got a series of OpenCv generated YAML files and would like to parse them with yaml-cpp I'm doing okay on simple stuff, but the matrix representation is proving difficult. # Center of table tableCenter: !!opencv-matrix rows: 1 cols: 2 dt: f data: [ 240, 240] This should map into the vector 240 240 with type float. My code looks like: #include "yaml.h" #include <fstream> #include <string> struct Matrix { int x; }; void operator >> (const YAML::Node& node, Matrix& matrix) { unsigned rows; node["rows"] >> rows; } int main() { std::ifstream fin("monsters.yaml"); YAML::Parser parser(fin); YAML::Node doc; Matrix m; doc["tableCenter"] >> m; return 0; } But I get terminate called after throwing an instance of 'YAML::BadDereference' what(): yaml-cpp: error at line 0, column 0: bad dereference Abort trap I searched around for some documentation for yaml-cpp, but there doesn't seem to be any, aside from a short introductory example on parsing and emitting. Unfortunately, neither of these two help in this particular circumstance. As I understand, the !! indicate that this is a user-defined type, but I don't see with yaml-cpp how to parse that.

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• Vector of pointers to base class, odd behaviour calling virtual functions

  - by Ink-Jet

  I have the following code #include <iostream> #include <vector> class Entity { public: virtual void func() = 0; }; class Monster : public Entity { public: void func(); }; void Monster::func() { std::cout << "I AM A MONSTER" << std::endl; } class Buddha : public Entity { public: void func(); }; void Buddha::func() { std::cout << "OHMM" << std::endl; } int main() { const int num = 5; // How many of each to make std::vector<Entity*> t; for(int i = 0; i < num; i++) { Monster m; Entity * e; e = &m; t.push_back(e); } for(int i = 0; i < num; i++) { Buddha b; Entity * e; e = &b; t.push_back(e); } for(int i = 0; i < t.size(); i++) { t[i]->func(); } return 0; } However, when I run it, instead of each class printing out its own message, they all print the "Buddha" message. I want each object to print its own message: Monsters print the monster message, Buddhas print the Buddha message. What have I done wrong?

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• Open source gravatar-like implementations?

  - by Tauren

  I'm already using gravatar icons for the users of my web service. However, I'm finding several problems with this approach: Only a small percentage of the users take the time to set up a gravatar profile. My users are not tech-savvy, but would be likely to add a dedicated photo to my site. Users of my service are encouraged to use images that depict them in proper uniform for the industry my service relates to. They wouldn't want that same picture to be used for personal purposes throughout the internet. They would not take the time or effort to manage a separate email address and gravatar account just to have an "in-uniform" profile photo for my service. Before I implement my own profile image feature, I was wondering if there are any open-source solutions that I could leverage with similar features to gravatar. Specifically: The ability to display any size thumbnail (up to 512px would be fine) Takes care of caching different sized thumbnails Has support for something like identicons, preferably pluggable with different style algorithms (monsters, etc.), even better if I can customize these Ability to fall-back to gravatar if no photo found Does anything like this exist? I haven't found it yet if it does.

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• Modelling deterministic and nondeterministic data separately

  - by Superstringcheese

  I'm working with the Microsoft ADO.NET Entity Framework for a game project. Following the advice of other posters on SO, I'm considering modelling deterministic and nondeterministic data separately. The idea for this came from a discussion on multiplayer games, but it seemed to make sense in a single-player scenario as well. Deterministic (things that aren't going to change during gameplay) Attributes (Strength, Agility, etc.) and their descriptions Skills and their descriptions and requirements Races, Factions, Equipment, etc. Base Attribute/Skill/Equipment loadouts for monsters Nondeterministic (things that will change a lot during gameplay) Beings' current AttributeModifers (Potion of Might = +10 Strength), current health and mana, etc. Player inventory, cash, experience, level Player quests states Player FactionRelationships ...and so on. My deterministic model would serve as a set of constants. My nondeterministic model would provide my on-the-fly operable data and would be serialized to a savegame file to maintain game state between play sessions. The data store will be an embedded SQL Compact database. So I might want to create relations between my Attributes table (deterministic model) and my BeingAttributeModifiers table (nondeterministic model), but how do I set that up across models? Det model/db Nondet model/db ____________ ________________________ |Attributes | |PlayerAttributeModifiers| |------------| |------------------------| |Id | |Id | |Name | |AttributeId | |Description | |SourceId | ------------ |Value | ------------------------ Should I use two separate models (edmx) that transact with a single database containing both deterministic-type and nondeterministic-type tables? Or should/can I use two separate databases in one model? Or two models each with their own database? With distinct models/dbs it seems like this will get really complicated and I'll end up fighting EF a lot, rolling my own transaction code, and generally losing out on a lot of the advantages of the framework. I know these are vague questions, I'm just looking for a sanity check before I forge ahead any further.

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• Animate screen while loading textures

  - by Omega

  My RPG-like game has random battles. When the player enters a random battle, it is necessary for my game to load the textures used within that battle (animated monsters, animations, etc). The textures are quite a lot, and rather big (the battles are very graphical intensive). Such process consumes significant time. And while it is loading, the whole screen freezes. The game's map freezes, and the wait time is significant - I personally find it annoying. I can't afford to preload the textures because, after doing some math, I realized: If I preload all the textures at the beginning of the game, the application will definitely crash. If I preload the textures that are used in a specific map when the player enters the map, the application is very likely to crash as well. I can only afford to load the textures when I need them, and dispose of them as soon as the battle ends. I'd prefer to not use a "loading screen" image because it affects my game's design and concept. I want to avoid this approach. If I could do some kind of animation while loading the textures, it would be great, which leads to my question: is that possible? What kind of animation, you ask? Well, how about... you remember when Final Fantasy used to distort the screen while apparently loading the textures? Something like that. But well, distorting is quite a time-consuming process as well, so maybe just a cool frame-by-frame animation or something. While writing this, I realized that I could make small pauses between textures (there are multiple textures), and during such pauses, I update the screen to represent the animation's state. However, this is very unlikely to happen, because each texture is 2048x2048, so the animation would be refreshed at a rather laggy (and annoying) rate. I'd prefer to avoid this as well.

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• Feedback on "market manipulation", a peripheral game mechanic for a satirical MMO

  - by BerndBrot

  This question asks for feedback on a specific game-mechanic. Since there is not one right feedback on a game mechanic, I tried to provide enough context and guidelines to still make it possible for users to rate answers and to accept an answer as the best answer (following these criteria from Writer.SE's meta website). Please comment if you have any suggestions on how I could improve the question in that regard. So, let's begin with the game itself and some of its elements which are relevant for this question. Context I'm working on a satirical, text-based multiplayer adventure and role-playing game set in modern-day London. The game resolves around the concept of sin and features a myriad of (venomous) allusions to all the things that go wrong in this world. Players can choose between character classes like bullshit artist (consultant), bankster, lawyer, mobster, celebrity, politician, etc. In order to complete the game, the player has to live so sinfully with regard to any of the seven deadly sins that a demon is willing to offer them a contract of sponsorship. On their quest to live a sinful live, characters explore more and more locations of modern-day London (on a GoogleMap), fight "monsters" like insurance sales agents or Jehovah's Witnesses, and complete quests, like building a PowerPoint presentation out of marketing buzz words or keeping up a number of substance abuse effects in order to progress on the gluttony path. Battles are turn based with both combatants having a deck of cards, with which they try to make their enemy give in to temptations of all sorts. Tempted enemies sometimes become contacts (an item drop mechanic), which can be exploited for various benefits, depending on their area of influence (finance, underworld, bureaucracy, etc.), level of influence, and kind of sway that the player has over them (bribed, seduced, threatened, etc.) Once a contract has been exploited, the player loses that contact. Most actions require turns. Turns are limited, but refill each day. Criteria A number of peripheral game mechanics are supposed to represent real world abuses and mischief in a humorous way integrate real world data and events to strengthen the feeling of relevance of the game's humor with regard to real world problems add fun ways of interacting with other players add ways for players to express themselves through game-play Market manipulation is one such peripheral game mechanic and should fulfill all of these goals. Market manipulation This is my initial design of the mechanic: Players can enter the London Stock Exchange (LSE) (without paying a turn) LSE displays the stock prices of a number of companies in industries like weapons or tobacco as well as some derivatives based on wheat and corn. The stock prices are calculated based on the actual stock prices of these companies and derivatives (in real time) any market manipulations that were conducted by the players any market corrections of the system Players can buy and sell shares with cash, a resource in the game, at current in-game market value (without paying a turn). Players can manipulate the market, i.e. let the price of a share either rise or fall, by some amount, over a certain period of time. Manipulating the market requires 1 turn A contact in the financial sector (see above). The higher the level of influence of the contact, the stronger the effect of the manipulation on the stock price, and/or the shorter it takes for the manipulation to manifest itself. Market manipulation also adds a crime to the player's record. (There are a multitude of ways to take care of that, but it is still another "cost" of market manipulations.) The system continuously corrects market manipulations by letting the in-game prices converge towards their real world counterparts at a rate of 2% of the difference between the two per hour. Because of this market correction mechanism, pushing up prices (and screwing down prices) becomes increasingly difficult the higher (lower) the price already is. Whenever food prices reach a certain level, in-game stories are posted about hunger catastrophes happening somewhere far, far away (maybe with links to real world news stories). Whenever a player sells a certain number of shares with a sufficiently high margin, they are mentioned in that day's in-game financial news. Since the number of stock options is very limited, players will inevitably collide in their efforts to manipulate the market in their favor. Hopefully, it will also be a fun side-arena for guilds and covenants to fight each other. Question(s) What do you think of this mechanism given the criteria for peripheral game mechanics that I specified for my game? Do you have any ideas how the mechanic could be improved with regard to these criteria (or otherwise)? Could it be improved to allow for more expressive game-play, or involve an allusion to some other real world madness (like short selling, leveraging, or some other banking magic)? Are there any game-theoretic problems with this mechanic, like maybe certain dominant individual strategies that, collectively, lead to every player profiting and thus eliminating the idea of market manipulation PVP? Also, if you like (or dislike) this question, feel free to participate in the discussion on GDSE meta: "Should we be more lax with regard to SE's question/answer format to make game design questions possible?"

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• Amanda Todd&ndash;What Parents Can Learn From Her Story

  - by D'Arcy Lussier

  Amanda Todd was a bullied teenager who committed suicide this week. Her story has become headline news due in part to her You Tube video she posted telling her story:   The story is heartbreaking for so many reasons, but I wanted to talk about what we as parents can learn from this. Being the dad to two girls, one that’s 10, I’m very aware of the dangers that the internet holds. When I saw her story, one thing jumped out at me – unmonitored internet access at an early age. My daughter (then 9) came home from a friends place once and asked if she could be in a YouTube video with her friend. Apparently this friend was allowed to do whatever she wanted on the internet, including posting goofy videos. This set off warning bells and we ensured our daughter realized the dangers and that she was not to ever post videos of herself. In looking at Amanda’s story, the access to unmonitored internet time along with just being a young girl and being flattered by an online predator were the key events that ultimately led to her suicide. Yes, the reaction of her classmates and “friends” was horrible as well, I’m not diluting that. But our youth don’t fully understand yet that what they do on the internet today will follow them potentially forever. And the people they meet online aren’t necessarily who they claim to be. So what can we as parents learn from Amanda’s story? Parents Shouldn’t Feel Bad About Being Internet Police Our job as parents is in part to protect our kids and keep them safe, even if they don’t like our measures. This includes monitoring, supervising, and restricting their internet activities. In our house we have a family computer in the living room that the kids can watch videos and surf the web. It’s in plain view of everyone, so you can’t hide what you’re looking at. If our daughter goes to a friend’s place, we ask about what they did and what they played. If the computer comes up, we ask about what they did on it. Luckily our daughter is very up front and honest in telling us things, so we have very open discussions. Parents Need to Be Honest About the Dangers of the Internet I’m sure every generation says that “kids grow up so fast these days”, but in our case the internet really does push our kids to be exposed to things they otherwise wouldn’t experience. One wrong word in a Google search, a click of a link in a spam email, or just general curiosity can expose a child to things they aren’t ready for or should never be exposed to (and I’m not just talking about adult material – have you seen some of the graphic pictures from war zones posted on news sites recently?). Our stance as parents has been to be open about discussing the dangers with our kids before they encounter any content – be proactive instead of reactionary. Part of this is alerting them to the monsters that lurk on the internet as well. As kids explore the world wide web, they’re eventually going to encounter some chat room or some Facebook friend invite or other personal connection with someone. More than ever kids need to be educated on the dangers of engaging with people online and sharing personal information. You can think of it as an evolved discussion that our parents had with us about using the phone: “Don’t say ‘I’m home alone’, don’t say when mom or dad get home, don’t tell them any information, etc.” Parents Need to Talk Self Worth at Home Katie makes the point better than I ever could (one bad word towards the end): Our children need to understand their value beyond what the latest issue of TigerBeat says, or the media who continues flaunting physical attributes over intelligence and character, or a society that puts focus on status and wealth. They also have to realize that just because someone pays you a compliment, that doesn’t mean you should ignore personal boundaries and limits. What does this have to do with the internet? Well, in days past if you wanted to be social you had to go out somewhere. Now you can video chat with any number of people from the comfort of wherever your laptop happens to be – and not just text but full HD video with sound! While innocent children head online in the hopes of meeting cool people, predators with bad intentions are heading online too. As much as we try to monitor their online activity and be honest about the dangers of the internet, the human side of our kids isn’t something we can control. But we can try to influence them to see themselves as not needing to search out the acceptance of complete strangers online. Way easier said than done, but ensuring self-worth is something discussed, encouraged, and celebrated is a step in the right direction. Parental Wake Up Call This post is not a critique of Amanda’s parents. The reality is that cyber bullying/abuse is happening every day, and there are millions of parents that have no clue its happening to their children. Amanda’s story is a wake up call that our children’s online activities may be putting them in danger. My heart goes out to the parents of this girl. As a father of daughters, I can’t imagine what I would do if I found my daughter having to hide in a ditch to avoid a mob or call 911 to report my daughter had attempted suicide by drinking bleach or deal with a child turning to drugs/alcohol/cutting to cope. It would be horrendous if we as parents didn’t re-evaluate our family internet policies in light of this event. And in the end, Amanda’s video was meant to bring attention to her plight and encourage others going through the same thing. We may not be kids, but we can still honour her memory by helping safeguard our children.

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• Strategy pattern and "action" classes explosion

  - by devoured elysium

  Is it bad policy to have lots of "work" classes(such as Strategy classes), that only do one thing? Let's assume I want to make a Monster class. Instead of just defining everything I want about the monster in one class, I will try to identify what are its main features, so I can define them in interfaces. That will allow to: Seal the class if I want. Later, other users can just create a new class and still have polymorphism by means of the interfaces I've defined. I don't have to worry how people (or myself) might want to change/add features to the base class in the future. All classes inherit from Object and they implement inheritance through interfaces, not from mother classes. Reuse the strategies I'm using with this monster for other members of my game world. Con: This model is rigid. Sometimes we would like to define something that is not easily achieved by just trying to put together this "building blocks". public class AlienMonster : IWalk, IRun, ISwim, IGrowl { IWalkStrategy _walkStrategy; IRunStrategy _runStrategy; ISwimStrategy _swimStrategy; IGrowlStrategy _growlStrategy; public Monster() { _walkStrategy = new FourFootWalkStrategy(); ...etc } public void Walk() { _walkStrategy.Walk(); } ...etc } My idea would be next to make a series of different Strategies that could be used by different monsters. On the other side, some of them could also be used for totally different purposes (i.e., I could have a tank that also "swims"). The only problem I see with this approach is that it could lead to a explosion of pure "method" classes, i.e., Strategy classes that have as only purpose make this or that other action. In the other hand, this kind of "modularity" would allow for high reuse of stratagies, sometimes even in totally different contexts. What is your opinion on this matter? Is this a valid reasoning? Is this over-engineering? Also, assuming we'd make the proper adjustments to the example I gave above, would it be better to define IWalk as: interface IWalk { void Walk(); } or interface IWalk { IWalkStrategy WalkStrategy { get; set; } //or something that ressembles this } being that doing this I wouldn't need to define the methods on Monster itself, I'd just have public getters for IWalkStrategy (this seems to go against the idea that you should encapsulate everything as much as you can!) Why? Thanks

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• A shortest path problem with superheroes and intergalactic journeys

  - by Dman

  You are a super-hero in the year 2222 and you are faced with this great challenge: starting from your home planet Ilop you must try to reach Acinhet or else your planet will be destroyed by evil green little monsters. To do this you are given a map of the universe: there are N planets and M inter-planetary connections ( bidirectional ) that bind these planets. Each connection requires a certain time and a certain amount of fuel in order for you to cover the connection from one planet to another. The total time spent going from one planet to another is obtained by multiplying the time past to cover each connection between all the planets you go through. There are some "key planets", that allow you to refuel if you arrive on those certain "key planets". A "key planet" is the planet with the property that if it disappears the road between at least two planets would be lost.(In the example posted below with the input/output files such a "key planet" is 2 because without it the road to 7 would be lost) When you start your mission you are given the possibility of choosing between K ships each with its own maximum fuel capacity. The goal is to find the SHORTEST TIME CONSUMING path but also choose the ship with the minimum fuel capacity that can cover that shortest path(this means that if more ships can cover the shortest path you choose the one with the minimum fuel capacity). Because the minimum time can be a rather large number (over long long int) you are asked to provide only the last 6 digits of the number. For a better understanding of the task, here is an example of input/output files: INPUT: mission.in 7 8 6 1 4 6 5 9 8 7 10 1 2 7 8 1 4 14 9 1 5 3 1 2 3 1 2 2 7 7 1 3 4 2 2 4 6 4 1 5 6 3 7 On the first line (in order): N M K On the second line :the number for the starting planet and the finishing planet On the third line :K numbers that represent the capacities of the ships you can choose from Then you have M lines, all of them have the same structure: Xi Yi Ti Fi-which means that there is a connection between Xi and Yi and you can cover the distance from Xi to Yi in Ti time and with a Fi fuel consumption. OUTPUT:mission.out 000014 8 1 2 3 4 On the first line:the minimum time and fuel consumption; On the second line :the path Restrictions: 2 = N = 1 000 1 = M = 30 000 1 = K = 10 000 Any suggestions or ideas of how this problem might be solved would be most welcomed.

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• Python - 2 Questions: Editing a variable in a function and changing the order of if else statements

  - by Eric

  First of all, I should explain what I'm trying to do first. I'm creating a dungeon crawler-like game, and I'm trying to program the movement of computer characters/monsters in the map. The map is basically a Cartesian coordinate grid. The locations of characters are represented by tuples of the x and y values, (x,y). The game works by turns, and in a turn a character can only move up, down, left or right 1 space. I'm creating a very simple movement system where the character will simply make decisions to move on a turn by turn basis. Essentially a 'forgetful' movement system. A basic flow chart of what I'm intending to do: Find direction towards destination Make a priority list of movements to be done using the direction eg.('r','u','d','l') means it would try to move right first, then up, then down, then left. Try each of the possibilities following the priority order. If the first movement fails (blocked by obstacle etc.), then it would successively try the movements until the first one that is successful, then it would stop. At step 3, the way I'm trying to do it is like this: def move(direction,location): try: -snip- # Tries to move, raises the exception Movementerror if cannot move in the direction return 1 # Indicates movement successful except Movementerror: return 0 # Indicates movement unsuccessful (thus character has not moved yet) prioritylist = ('r','u','d','l') if move('r',location): pass elif move('u',location): pass elif move('d',location): pass elif move('l',location): pass else: pass In the if/else block, the program would try the first movement on the priority on the priority list. At the move function, the character would try to move. If the character is not blocked and does move, it returns 1, leading to the pass where it would stop. If the character is blocked, it returns 0, then it tries the next movement. However, this results in 2 problems: How do I edit a variable passed into a function inside the function itself, while returning if the edit is successful? I have been told that you can't edit a variable inside a function as it won't really change the value of the variable, it just makes the variable inside the function refer to something else while the original variable remain unchanged. So, the solution is to return the value and then assign the variable to the returned value. However, I want it to return another value indicating if this edit is successful, so I want to edit this variable inside the function itself. How do I do so? How do I change the order of the if/else statements to follow the order of the priority list? It needs to be able to change during runtime as the priority list can change resulting in a different order of movement to try.

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Friday, September 07, 2012

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Friday, September 07, 2012Popular ReleasesUmbraco CMS: Umbraco 4.9.0: Whats newThe media section has been overhauled to support HTML5 uploads, just drag and drop files in, even multiple files are supported on any HTML5 capable browser. The folder content overview is also much improved allowing you to filter it and perform common actions on your media items. The Rich Text Editor’s “Media” button now uses an embedder based on the open oEmbed standard (if you’re upgrading, enable the media button in the Rich Text Editor datatype settings and set TidyEditorConten...menu4web: menu4web 0.4.1 - javascript menu for web sites: This release is for those who believe that global variables are evil. menu4web has been wrapped into m4w singleton object. Added "Vertical Tabs" example which illustrates object notation.WinRT XAML Toolkit: WinRT XAML Toolkit - 1.2.1: WinRT XAML Toolkit based on the Windows 8 RTM SDK. Download the latest source from the SOURCE CODE page. For compiled version use NuGet. You can add it to your project in Visual Studio by going to View/Other Windows/Package Manager Console and entering: PM> Install-Package winrtxamltoolkit Features AsyncUI extensions Controls and control extensions Converters Debugging helpers Imaging IO helpers VisualTree helpers Samples Recent changes NOTE: Namespace changes DebugConsol...iPDC - Free Phasor Data Concentrator: iPDC-v1.3.1: iPDC suite version-1.3.1, Modifications and Bug Fixed (from v 1.3.0) New User Manual for iPDC-v1.3.1 available on websites. Bug resolved : PMU Simulator TCP connection error and hang connection for client (PDC). Now PMU Simulator (server) can communicate more than one PDCs (clients) over TCP and UDP parallely. PMU Simulator is now sending the exact data frames as mentioned in data rate by user. PMU Simulator data rate has been verified by iPDC database entries and PMU Connection Tes...Microsoft SQL Server Product Samples: Database: AdventureWorks OData Feed: The AdventureWorks OData service exposes resources based on specific SQL views. The SQL views are a limited subset of the AdventureWorks database that results in several consuming scenarios: CompanySales Documents ManufacturingInstructions ProductCatalog TerritorySalesDrilldown WorkOrderRouting How to install the sample You can consume the AdventureWorks OData feed from http://services.odata.org/AdventureWorksV3/AdventureWorks.svc. You can also consume the AdventureWorks OData fe...Desktop Google Reader: 1.4.6: Sorting feeds alphabetical is now optional (see preferences window)DotNetNuke® Community Edition CMS: 06.02.03: Major Highlights Fixed issue where mailto: links were not working when sending bulk email Fixed issue where uses did not see friendship relationships Problem is in 6.2, which does not show in the Versions Affected list above. Fixed the issue with cascade deletes in comments in CoreMessaging_Notification Fixed UI issue when using a date fields as a required profile property during user registration Fixed error when running the product in debug mode Fixed visibility issue when...Microsoft Ajax Minifier: Microsoft Ajax Minifier 4.65: Fixed null-reference error in the build task constructor.B INI Sharp Library: B INI Sharp Library v1.0.0.0 Final Realsed: The frist realsedActive Social Migrator: ActiveSocialMigrator 1.0.0 Beta: Beta release for the Active Social Migration tool.EntLib.com????????: ??????demo??-For SQL 2005-2008: EntLibShopping ???v3.0 - ??????demo??，?????SQL SERVER 2005/2008/2008 R2/2012 ??????。 ??（??）??????。 THANKS.Sistem LPK Pemkot Semarang: Panduan Penggunaan Sistem LPK: Panduan cara menggunakan Aplikasi Sistem LPK Bagian Pembangunan Kota SemarangActive Forums for DotNetNuke CMS: Active Forums 5.0.0 RC: RC release of Active Forums 5.0.Droid Explorer: Droid Explorer 0.8.8.7 Beta: Bug in the display icon for apk's, will fix with next release Added fallback icon if unable to get the image/icon from the Cloud Service Removed some stale plugins that were either out dated or incomplete. Added handler for *.ab files for restoring backups Added plugin to create device backups Backups stored in %USERPROFILE%\Android Backups\%DEVICE_ID%\ Added custom folder icon for the android backups directory better error handling for installing an apk bug fixes for the Runn...The Visual Guide for Building Team Foundation Server 2012 Environments: Version 1: --Nearforums - ASP.NET MVC forum engine: Nearforums v8.5: Version 8.5 of Nearforums, the ASP.NET MVC Forum Engine. New features include: Built-in search engine using Lucene.NET Flood control improvements Notifications improvements: sync option and mail body View Roadmap for more details webdeploy package sha1 checksum: 961aff884a9187b6e8a86d68913cdd31f8deaf83WiX Toolset: WiX Toolset v3.6: WiX Toolset v3.6 introduces the Burn bootstrapper/chaining engine and support for Visual Studio 2012 and .NET Framework 4.5. Other minor functionality includes: WixDependencyExtension supports dependency checking among MSI packages. WixFirewallExtension supports more features of Windows Firewall. WixTagExtension supports Software Id Tagging. WixUtilExtension now supports recursive directory deletion. Melt simplifies pure-WiX patching by extracting .msi package content and updating .w...Iveely Search Engine: Iveely Search Engine （0.2.0）: ????ISE?0.1.0??，?????，ISE?0.2.0?????????，???????，????????20???follow?ISE，????，??ISE??????????，??????????，?????????，?????????0.2.0??????，??????????。 Iveely Search Engine ?0.2.0?????????“??????????”，??????，?????????，???????，???????????????????，????、????????????。???0.1.0????????????： 1. ??“????” ??。??????????，?????????，???????????????????。??：????????，????????????，??????????????????。??????。 2. ??“????”??。?0.1.0??????，???????，???????????????，?????????????，????????，?0.2.0?，???????...GmailDefaultMaker: GmailDefaultMaker 3.0.0.2: Add QQ Mail BugfixSmart Data Access layer: Smart Data access Layer Ver 3: In this version support executing inline query is added. Check Documentation section for detail.New ProjectsAdding 2013 Jewish Holidays for Outlook2003: Instruction: Copy the outlook.hol file to your compuer where Outlook2003 is installed. Double click the file, choose "Israel" and continue. That's it Agilcont System: Sistema de contabilidad para empresas privadas de preferencia para cajas que trabajan con efectivo en soles, dolares y con el material oroARB (A Request Broker): The idea is something like a Request Broker, but with some additional functionality.BATTLE.NET - SDK: This SDK provides the ability to use the Battle.net (Blizzard) Services for all supported Games such Diablo 3, World of Warcraft. Container Terminal System: SummaryDeclarative UX Streaming Data Language for the Cloud: Bringing a better communication paradigm for media and data..Get User Profile Information from SharePoint UserProfile Service: Used SharePoint object model to get the user profile information from the User Profile Service.Guess The City & State Windows 8 Source Code: Source code for Guess The City & State in Malaysia Windows 8 AppJquery Tree: This project is to demonstrate tree basic functionality.MCEBuddy 2.x: Convert and Remove Commercials for your Windows Media CenterMvcDesign: MvcDesign engine implementation projectMy Task Manager: This is a task manager module for DotNetNuke. I am using it to get started developing modules.MyAppwithbranches: MyAppwithbranchesProjecte prova: rpyGEO: pyGEO is a python package capable of parsing microarray data files. It also has a primitive plotting function.Scarlet Road: Scarlet Road is a top-down shooter. It's you against an unending horde of monsters.simplecounter: A simple counter, cick and counter.SiteEmpires: ????????Soundcloud Loader: Simple Tool for downloading Tracks from Soundcloud.Windows Phone Samples: Windows Phone code samples.

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• Data-driven animation states

  - by user8363

  I'm trying to handle animations in a 2D game engine hobby project, without hard-coding them. Hard coding animation states seems like a common but very strange phenomenon, to me. A little background: I'm working with an entity system where components are bags of data and subsystems act upon them. I chose to use a polling system to update animation states. With animation states I mean: "walking_left", "running_left", "walking_right", "shooting", ... My idea to handle animations was to design it as a data driven model. Data could be stored in an xml file, a rdbms, ... And could be loaded at the start of a game / level/ ... This way you can easily edit animations and transitions without having to go change the code everywhere in your game. As an example I made an xml draft of the data definitions I had in mind. One very important piece of data would simply be the description of an animation. An animation would have a unique id (a descriptive name). It would hold a reference id to an image (the sprite sheet it uses, because different animations may use different sprite sheets). The frames per second to run the animation on. The "replay" here defines if an animation should be run once or infinitely. Then I defined a list of rectangles as frames. <animation id='WIZARD_WALK_LEFT'> <image id='WIZARD_WALKING' /> <fps>50</fps> <replay>true</replay> <frames> <rectangle> <x>0</x> <y>0</y> <width>45</width> <height>45</height> </rectangle> <rectangle> <x>45</x> <y>0</y> <width>45</width> <height>45</height> </rectangle> </frames> </animation> Animation data would be loaded and held in an animation resource pool and referenced by game entities that are using it. It would be treated as a resource like an image, a sound, a texture, ... The second piece of data to define would be a state machine to handle animation states and transitions. This defines each state a game entity can be in, which states it can transition to and what triggers that state change. This state machine would differ from entity to entity. Because a bird might have states "walking" and "flying" while a human would only have the state "walking". However it could be shared by different entities because multiple humans will probably have the same states (especially when you define some common NPCs like monsters, etc). Additionally an orc might have the same states as a human. Just to demonstrate that this state definition might be shared but only by a select group of game entities. <state id='IDLE'> <event trigger='LEFT_DOWN' goto='MOVING_LEFT' /> <event trigger='RIGHT_DOWN' goto='MOVING_RIGHT' /> </state> <state id='MOVING_LEFT'> <event trigger='LEFT_UP' goto='IDLE' /> <event trigger='RIGHT_DOWN' goto='MOVING_RIGHT' /> </state> <state id='MOVING_RIGHT'> <event trigger='RIGHT_UP' goto='IDLE' /> <event trigger='LEFT_DOWN' goto='MOVING_LEFT' /> </state> These states can be handled by a polling system. Each game tick it grabs the current state of a game entity and checks all triggers. If a condition is met it changes the entity's state to the "goto" state. The last part I was struggling with was how to bind animation data and animation states to an entity. The most logical approach seemed to me to add a pointer to the state machine data an entity uses and to define for each state in that machine what animation it uses. Here is an xml example how I would define the animation behavior and graphical representation of some common entities in a game, by addressing animation state and animation data id. Note that both "wizard" and "orc" have the same animation states but a different animation. Also, a different animation could mean a different sprite sheet, or even a different sequence of animations (an animation could be longer or shorter). <entity name="wizard"> <state id="IDLE" animation="WIZARD_IDLE" /> <state id="MOVING_LEFT" animation="WIZARD_WALK_LEFT" /> </entity> <entity name="orc"> <state id="IDLE" animation="ORC_IDLE" /> <state id="MOVING_LEFT" animation="ORC_WALK_LEFT" /> </entity> When the entity is being created it would add a list of states with state machine data and an animation data reference. In the future I would use the entity system to build whole entities by defining components in a similar xml format. -- This is what I have come up with after some research. However I had some trouble getting my head around it, so I was hoping op some feedback. Is there something here what doesn't make sense, or is there a better way to handle these things? I grasped the idea of iterating through frames but I'm having trouble to take it a step further and this is my attempt to do that.

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• Struct Method for Loops Problem

  - by Annalyne

  I have tried numerous times how to make a do-while loop using the float constructor for my code but it seems it does not work properly as I wanted. For summary, I am making a TBRPG in C++ and I encountered few problems. But before that, let me post my code. #include <iostream> #include <string> #include <ctime> #include <cstdlib> using namespace std; int char_level = 1; //the starting level of the character. string town; //town string town_name; //the name of the town the character is in. string charname; //holds the character's name upon the start of the game int gems = 0; //holds the value of the games the character has. const int MAX_ITEMS = 15; //max items the character can carry string inventory [MAX_ITEMS]; //the inventory of the character in game int itemnum = 0; //number of items that the character has. bool GameOver = false; //boolean intended for the game over scr. string monsterTroop [] = {"Slime", "Zombie", "Imp", "Sahaguin, Hounds, Vampire"}; //monster name float monsterTroopHealth [] = {5.0f, 10.0f, 15.0f, 20.0f, 25.0f}; // the health of the monsters int monLifeBox; //life carrier of the game's enemy troops int enemNumber; //enemy number //inventory[itemnum++] = "Sword"; class RPG_Game_Enemy { public: void enemyAppear () { srand(time(0)); enemNumber = 1+(rand()%3); if (enemNumber == 1) cout << monsterTroop[1]; //monster troop 1 else if (enemNumber == 2) cout << monsterTroop[2]; //monster troop 2 else if (enemNumber == 3) cout << monsterTroop[3]; //monster troop 3 else if (enemNumber == 4) cout << monsterTroop[4]; //monster troop 4 } void enemDefeat () { cout << "The foe has been defeated. You are victorious." << endl; } void enemyDies() { //if the enemy dies: //collapse declaration cout << "The foe vanished and you are victorious!" << endl; } }; class RPG_Scene_Battle { public: RPG_Scene_Battle(float ini_health) : health (ini_health){}; float getHealth() { return health; } void setHealth(float rpg_val){ health = rpg_val;}; private: float health; }; //---------------------------------------------------------------// // Conduct Damage for the Scene Battle's Damage //---------------------------------------------------------------// float conductDamage(RPG_Scene_Battle rpg_tr, float damage) { rpg_tr.setHealth(rpg_tr.getHealth() - damage); return rpg_tr.getHealth(); }; // ------------------------------------------------------------- // void RPG_Scene_DisplayItem () { cout << "Items: \n"; for (int i=0; i < itemnum; ++i) cout << inventory[i] <<endl; }; In this code I have so far, the problem I have is the battle scene. For example, the player battles a Ghost with 10 HP, when I use a do while loop to subtract the HP of the character and the enemy, it only deducts once in the do while. Some people said I should use a struct, but I have no idea how to make it. Is there a way someone can display a code how to implement it on my game? Edit: I made the do-while by far like this: do RPG_Scene_Battle (player, 20.0f); RPG_Scene_Battle (enemy, 10.0f); cout << "Battle starts!" <<endl; cout << "You used a blade skill and deducted 2 hit points to the enemy!" conductDamage (enemy, 2.0f); while (enemy!=0) also, I made something like this: #include <iostream> using namespace std; int gems = 0; class Entity { public: Entity(float startingHealth) : health(startingHealth){}; // initialize health float getHealth(){return health;} void setHealth(float value){ health = value;}; private: float health; }; float subtractHealthFrom(Entity& ent, float damage) { ent.setHealth(ent.getHealth() - damage); return ent.getHealth(); }; int main () { Entity character(10.0f); Entity enemy(10.0f); cout << "Hero Life: "; cout << subtractHealthFrom(character, 2.0f) <<endl; cout << "Monster Life: "; cout << subtractHealthFrom(enemy, 2.0f) <<endl; cout << "Hero Life: "; cout << subtractHealthFrom(character, 2.0f) <<endl; cout << "Monster Life: "; cout << subtractHealthFrom(enemy, 2.0f) <<endl; }; Struct method, they say, should solve this problem. How can I continously deduct hp from the enemy? Whenever I deduct something, it would return to its original value -_-

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