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• Drawing particles as a smooth blob

  - by Nömmik

  I'm new to game/graphics development and I'm playing around with particles (in 2D). I want to draw particles close to each other as a blob, just as liquid/water. I do not want to draw big circles overlapping as the blob won't be smooth (and too big). I don't really know physics but I assume what I want is something looking similar to surface tension. I haven't been able to find anything on stackexchange or on Google (maybe I do not know the correct keywords?). So far I have found two possible solutions, but I am unable to find any concrete information about algorithms. One of them is to calculate the concave hull of particles I consider being a blob. I can calculate the blob by creating an equivalence class (on the relation "close to each other"). Strangely enough I haven't been able to find any algorithm explaining how to calculate the concave hull. Many posts (and among stackexchange) links to libraries or commercial products that do this (I need libraries to work in C#), but never any algorithm. Also this solution might have a problem with a circle of particles, which would not detect the empty space in the middle. While researching concave hull I stumbled upon something called alpha shapes. Which seems to be exactly what I want to do, however just as with concave hull I haven't found any source explaining how they actually work. I have found some presentation materials but not enough to go on. It's like a big secret everyone knows except me :-/ After calculating the concave hull or alpha shape I want to make it a Bézier curve to make it smooth and nice. Although I do find my approach a bit too complex, maybe I am trying to solve this the wrong way? If you can either suggest any other solution to my problem, or explain the pieces I am missing I would be very happy and grateful :-) Thanks.

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• How can story and gameplay be artfully merged?

  - by NauticalMile

  Let me give some context. Three of my friends and I have a pretty good game idea cooking. It's based off of a prototype I made that's evolving into a cool game mechanic. The mechanic itself is a toy that's fun on its own, but we haven't designed any puzzles around it yet. We have a design document going, and we are answering a lot of questions about what's in the game. It's become clear early on that everyone (including myself) likes the characters and the story a lot. Considering what our favorite games are, this is unsurprising. A story driven game makes sense to me. I like the emphasis that Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year-Door, Portal 2, and Tomb Raider place on story, and I imagine our game will have a similar feel (lots of dialogue, plot twists, lovable characters). However, one team member raised this point in the design doc: I am feeling like [fleshing out the story] is our biggest hurdle right now for making more design decisions - like more specific decisions about levels etc. Is this true? I am uncertain about working on the story extensively before gameplay, and my uneasiness was reinforced when I read this question about story vs. gameplay. What I want to say is: "Let's continue to work on the story, but also start brainstorming and prototyping abstract puzzles and combat sequences, and we'll creatively match them together later." Is this a reasonable approach? If so, how much of the development of these elements should be done independently? Should I try and create a whole bunch of puzzles while my other teammates focus on story and aesthetics? Then when we have a lot of story and game 'chunks' we can match them with eachother to build something meaningful. Or should we focus on iterating individual levels as distinct units where puzzles, story, etc... are designed together? Or maybe we need to put our excitement about the story on hold and just focus on gameplay. Is there another approach to design that we can take? Am I missing something crucial? I have discussed story and gameplay because they seem the most likely to be at odds with each other, but we also have to consider user interface, music, art direction, etc... Can we design these independently as well?

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• Regarding sprite design and resolution for tablets and phones

  - by Dimitris P.

  I am about to start working on a game for android devices, in my spare time, to get familiar with android development. I'm more interested in using the best practices possible than getting a quick result, and that is why I need some guidance regarding graphics. I think the game is going to be fully sprite based. Everything is going to be in .bmp form, or something similar, and my question is: Should I design the sprites in a small resolution (ie for phone screens) and scale them up to fit into larger screens (tablet screens), should I do it vice-versa or should I consider a completely different approach? Would designing a different set of sprites for each of the most used resolution settings be worth it or are there simpler solutions to the problem with fewer drawbacks than the ones I mentioned above? (If I follow the first approach, for example, the larger the screen the worse the graphics will get, since every pixel of the original drawing will cover several pixels on the screen). Is there a standard approach for dealing with this kind of problems? If you need me to be more detailed or more clear about something I mentioned (or forgot to) please don't hesitate to ask. Also, excuse me for any inaccurate use of the English language. Thank you in advance for your input.

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• More Quick Interview Tips

  - by Ajarn Mark Caldwell

  In the last couple of years I have conducted a lot of interviews for application and database developers for my company, and I can tell you that the little things can mean a lot.  Here are a few quick tips to help you make a good first impression. A year ago I gave you my #1 interview tip: Do some basic research!  And a year later, I am still stunned by how few technical people do the most basic of research.  I can only guess that it is because it is so engrained in our psyche that technical competence is everything (see How to Manage Technical Employees for more on this idea) that we forget or ignore the importance of soft skills and the art of the interview.  Or maybe it is because we have heard the stories of the uber-geek who has zero personal skills but still makes a fortune working for Microsoft.  Well, here’s another quick tip:  You’re probably not as good as he is; and a large number of companies actually run small to medium sized teams and can’t really afford to have the social outcast in the group.  In a small team, everyone has to get along well, and that’s an important part of what I’m evaluating during the interview process. My #2 tip is to act alive!  I typically conduct screening interviews by phone before I bring someone in for an in-person.  I don’t care how laid-back you are or if you have a “quiet personality”, when we are talking, ACT like you are happy I called and you are interested in getting the job.  If you sound like you are bored-to-death and that you would be perfectly happy to never work again, I am perfectly happy to help you attain that goal, and I’ll move on to the next candidate. And closely related to #2, perhaps we’ll call it #2.1 is this tip:  When I call you on the phone for the interview, don’t answer your phone by just saying, “Hello”.  You know that the odds are about 999-to-1 that it is me calling for the interview because we have specifically arranged this time slot for the call.  And you can see on the caller ID that it is not one of your buddies calling, so identify yourself.  Don’t make me question whether I dialed the right number.  Answer your phone with a, “Hello, this is ___<your full name preferred, but at least your first name>___.”.  And when I say, “Hi, <your name>, this is Mark from <my company>” it would be really nice to hear you say, “Hi, Mark, I have been expecting your call.”  This sets the perfect tone for our conversation.  I know I have the right person; you are professional enough and interested enough in the job or contract to remember your appointments; and now we can move on to a little intro segment and get on with the reason for our call. As crazy as it sounds, I’ve actually had phone interviews that went like this: <Ring…> You:  “Hello?” Me:  “Hi, this is Mark from _______” You:  “Yeah?” Me:  “Is this <your name>?” You:  “Yeah.” Me:  “I had this time in my calendar for us to talk…were you expecting my call?” You:  “Oh, yeah, sure…” I used to be nice and would try to go ahead with the interview even after this bad start, thinking I was giving the candidate the benefit of the doubt…a second chance…but more often than not it was a struggle and 10 minutes into what was supposed to be a 45-minute call, I’m looking for a way to hang up without being rude myself.  It never worked out.  I never brought that person in for an in-person interview, much less offered them the job or contract.  Who knows, maybe they were some sort of wunderkind that we missed out on.  What I know is that they would never fit in with the rest of the team, and around here that is absolutely critical. So, in conclusion… Act alive!  Identify yourself!  And do at least the very basic of research.

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• Come meet our Interns in Dublin

  - by klaudia.drulis

  Oracle Worldwide Product Translation Group (WPTG) provides solutions for all Oracle product and Content translation requirements. WPTG is a global organisation with its headquarters in Ireland and employees in Oracle offices worldwide. WPTG offer expertise in fields such as process engineering, tools development, linguistic quality, terminology, global product release, financial and vendor management. WPTG provides translation solution for over 40 languages including Asia Pacific, European, American and Middle Eastern languages. WPTG first introduced an intern program over 10 years ago and it has become a key component of our teams structure. The majority of Interns are sourced from a Computer Science related course, these Interns joining the engineering team. Others are sourced from Business courses and work within the Business / Project management area. The intern program allows us to maintain ties with current course curriculum and brings fresh energy and perspective into our Organisation. Four of the full time staff working in Dublin today joined us originally as Interns and subsequently were offered permanent positions. Come Meet some of our 2010 Interns, Come and see what Darragh, Anthony, Caoimhe, James and Artemij thought about working within the WPTG at Oracle: Darragh “Oracle has been a fun, challenging work placement for me. From day one I was treated as a full member of staff, this was both comforting and a little bit scary. The responsibilities stack up but I found I was able to keep on top of everything and even make improvements to how we handle a few things thanks to a great team and a very supportive manager. There’s a very positive atmosphere in work that’s really conducive to getting a lot of work done. Ideas seem to be the central hub in my line of business so all of my ideas and innovations were greeted with enthusiasm. Oracle has given me a fantastic opportunity and I urge you to grab it with both hands, you’ll find that you’re with a set of like minded people from all works of life that make work both interesting and fun. Even when the pressure is on you know that you can always get help and advice from someone nearby. My last word of advice is don’t be afraid to stick your neck out, everyone here is willing to learn, try something new and innovate, your voice will be heard and who knows, you could end up having a large impact on Oracle and your career.” Anthony “I had a great experience working with Oracle, from day one I was treated like a full member of staff with responsibilities of my own. I found that the more I put into the work the more I got out from the experience. Volunteering and being willing to face challenges have made this a more exciting placement. I am given a lot of leeway to do my own projects and so I’ve found that I am really enjoying my time here.” Caoimhe “I am currently spending my year of placement within the Release Management Team in the WPTG. My main role is to handle the finance process of all translation projects under 100k which includes creating workspecs and PO's, sending out kits, dealing with vendor queries and handling the invoicing and payment part. I am really enjoying my time here at Oracle, everyone is very open and friendly and willing to help you out with any questions you may have. I would definitely be interested in returning to Oracle after I graduate!” James “I am currently on a 12 month placement with Oracle, working as part of the Worldwide Product Translation Group in the Business Management. The Business Management team provides a global view on WPTG’s vendor and business strategy and is an interface into WPTG for new business. The business management team work together to support the external translation partner network. My role is to support the Business Management team and also to work on various projects when the need arises. This involves working with translation vendors and working with other Oracle employees worldwide. I am really enjoying my time working for Oracle, at times it can be challenging bit also very rewarding. I would recommend any student wanting to undertake a placement year to apply to Oracle, I made some great friends and I will never forget my time in Dublin.” Artemij “From working within Oracle, I have truly understood what "career path" is, and what opportunities a large corporation like Oracle can offer. Without any illusions, the work itself is exciting, sometimes challenging, tests your ability to handle pressure, to make decisions and take responsibility, to learn quickly and cooperate efficiently in order to solve a problem. I have learned a lot about myself. What I am good at, where and what I can do better. My placement at Oracle has allowed me to get a clearer picture of what I want, and which door I am going to open after college. If you have any questions related to this article feel free to contact  [email protected].  You can find our job opportunities via http://campus.oracle.com

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• Sprite Animation using cocos2dx 2.0.2

  - by Lalit Chattar

  I am new in game development and learning coco2dx framework. I am trying to implement sprite animation using coco2dx. i tried many demo they all are same. But when i tried i got access violation error in my code. CCSpriteFrameCache::sharedSpriteFrameCache()->addSpriteFramesWithFile("AnimBear.plist"); CCSpriteBatchNode *spreetsheet = CCSpriteBatchNode::create("AnimBear.png"); this->addChild(spreetsheet); CCArray *bearArray = new CCArray(); for(int i = 1; i <= 8; i++) { char name[32] = {0}; sprintf(name, "bear%d.png",i); bearArray->addObject(CCSpriteFrameCache::sharedSpriteFrameCache()->spriteFrameByName(name)); } CCAnimation *walkAnim = CCAnimation::animationWithSpriteFrames(bearArray, 0.1f); CCSize size = CCDirector::sharedDirector()->getWinSize(); CCSprite *bear = CCSprite::spriteWithSpriteFrameName("bear1.png"); bear->setPosition(ccp(size.width/2, size.height/2)); CCAction *walkAction = CCRepeatForever::actionWithAction(CCAnimate::actionWithAnimation(walkAnim)); bear->runAction(walkAction); spreetsheet->addChild(bear); error is coming in first line while we passing plist refrence. Plese help me. I a using Visual Basic 2010 and put both files in Resource folder (png and plist).

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• Does Unity have existing support for Timelines?

  - by Raven Dreamer

  I am planning the development of a game in Unity3D, and trying to come to terms with what the engine has already provided, and what I must code myself. The game itself is going to be a rhythm game, which means synching audio and graphical events so that they always play when they're supposed to. What I'm looking to avoid is a potential scenario of lag where either the audio or the graphics starts to progress faster than the other. When we discussed this type of coordinating system in my game design class back at university, my professor called this type of design a "Timeline" class. The idea being that you can instantiate one or more of these to progress at different rates, schedule things to happen in the future, and synch up periodic events. However, calling this a "Timeline" class seems to have been limited to my professor himself, as googling for whether a certain API features "Timeline" functionality has been a fruitless endeavor. Is there some more common name for this kind of functionality? Does Unity have any pre-existing methods to coordinate the scheduling of events like this, or is this the kind of thing that needs to be built onto the engine? And if it does, I'd appreciate being pointed towards some tutorials!

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• Help to organize game cycle in Java

  - by ASIO22

  I'm pretty new here (as though to a game development). So here's my question. I'm trying to organize a really simple game cycle in my public static main() as follows: Scanner sc = new Scanner(System.in); //Running the game cycle boolean flag=true; while (flag) { int action; System.out.println("Type your action please:"); System.out.println("0: Exit app"); try { action = sc.nextInt(); switch (action) { case 0: flag=false; break; case 1: break; } } catch (InputMismatchException ex) { System.out.println(ex.getClass() + "\n" + "Please type a correct input\n"); //action = sc.nextInt(); continue; } What's wrong with this cycle: I want to catch an exception when user types text instead of number, show a message, warning user, and the continue game cycle, read user input etc. But instead of that, when users types wrong data, it goes into a eternal cycle without even prompting user. What I did wrong?

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• Alternatives to Component Based Architecture?

  - by Ben Lakey

  Usually when I develop a game I will use an architecture like what you see below. What other architectures are popular for simple game development? I'm concerned about having a narrow view of what exists out there for architectures beyond this. Is this an example of component-based architecture? Or is this something else? What would that look like? What alternatives exist? public abstract class ComponentBase { protected final Collection<ComponentBase> subComponents = new LinkedList<ComponentBase>(); private boolean enableInput; private boolean isVisible; protected ComponentBase(boolean enableInput, boolean isVisible) { this.enableInput = enableInput; this.isVisible = isVisible; } public void render(Graphics2D graphics) { for(ComponentBase gameComponent : this.subComponents) { if(gameComponent.isVisible()) { gameComponent.render(graphics); } } } public void input(InputData input) { for(ComponentBase gameComponent : this.subComponents) { if(gameComponent.inputIsEnabled()) { gameComponent.input(input); } } } ... getters/setters ... public void update(long elapsedTimeMillis) { for(ComponentBase gameComponent : this.subComponents) { gameComponent.update(elapsedTimeMillis); } } }

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• Content Query Web Part and the Yes/No Field

  - by Bil Simser

  The Content Query Web Part (CQWP) is a pretty powerful beast. It allows you to do multiple site queries and aggregate the results. This is great for rolling up content and doing some summary type reporting. Here’s a trick to remember about Yes/No fields and using the CQWP. If you’re building a news style site and want to aggregate say all the announcements that people tag a certain way, up onto the home page this might be a solution. First we need to allow a way for users of all our sites to mark an announcement for inclusion on our Intranet Home Page. We’ll do this by just modifying the Announcement Content type and adding a Yes/No field to it. There are alternate ways of doing this like building a new Announcement type or stapling a feature to all sites to add our column but this is pretty low impact and only affects our current site collection so let’s go with it for now, okay? You can berate me in the comments about the proper way I should have done this part. Go to the Site Settings for the Site Collection and click on Site Content Types under the Galleries. This takes you to the gallery for this site and all subsites. Scroll down until you see the List Content Types and click on Announcements. Now we’re modifying the Announcement content type which affects all those announcement lists that are created by default if you’re building sites using the Team Site template (or creating a new Announcements list on any site for that matter). Click on Add from new site column under the Column list. This will allow us to create a new Yes/No field that users will see in Announcement items. This field will allow the user to flag the announcement for inclusion on the home page. Feel free to modify the fields as you see fit for your environment, this is just an example. Now that we’ve added the column to our Announcements Content type we can go into any site that has an announcement list, modify that announcement and flag it to be included on our home page. See the new Featured column? That was the result of modifying our Announcements Content Type on this site collection. Now we can move onto the dirty part, displaying it in a CQWP on the home page. And here is where the fun begins (and the head scratching should end). On our home page we want to drop a Content Query Web Part and aggregate any Announcement that’s been flagged as Featured by the users (we could also add the filter to handle Expires so we don’t show old content so go ahead and do that if you want). First add a CQWP to the page then modify the settings for the web part. In the first section, Query, we want the List Type to be set to Announcements and the Content type to be Announcement so set your options like this: Click Apply and you’ll see the results display all Announcements from any site in the site collection. I have five team sites created each with a unique announcement added to them. Now comes the filtering. We don’t want to include every announcement, only ones users flag using that Featured column we added. At first blush you might scroll down to the Additional Filters part of the Query options and set the Featured column to be equal to Yes: This seems correct doesn’t it? After all, the column is a Yes/No column and looking at an announcement in the site, it displays the field as Yes or No: However after applying the filter you get this result: (I have the announcements from Team Site 1 and Team Site 4 flagged as Featured) Huh? It’s BACKWARDS! Let’s confirm that. Go back in and change the Additional Filters section from Yes to No and hit Apply and you get this: Wait a minute? Shouldn’t I see Team Site 1 and 4 if the logic is backwards? Why am I seeing the same thing as before. What gives… For whatever reason, unknown to me, a Yes/No field (even though it displays as such) really uses 1 and 0 behind the scenes. Yeah, someone was stuck on using integer values for booleans when they wrote SharePoint (probably after a long night of white boarding ways to mess with developers heads) and came up with this. The solution is pretty simple but not very discoverable. Set the filter to include your flagged items like so: And it will filter the items marked as Featured correctly giving you this result: This kind of solution could also be extended and enhanced. Here are a few suggestions and ideas: Modify the ItemStyle.xsl file to add a new style for this aggregation which would include the first few paragraphs of the body (or perhaps add another field to the Content type called Excerpt or Summary and display that instead) Add an Image column to the Announcement Content type to include a Picture field and display it in the summary Add a Category choice field (Employee News, Current Events, Headlines, etc.) and add multiple CQWPs to the home page filtering each one on a different category I know some may find this topic old and dusty but I didn’t see a lot out there specifically on filtering the Yes/No fields and the whole 1/0 trick was a little wonky, so I figured a few pictures would help walk through overcoming yet another SharePoint weirdness. With a little work and some creative juices you can easily us the power of aggregation and the CQWP to build a news site from content on your team sites.

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• Two free SQL Server events I'll be presenting at in UK. Come and say hi!

  - by Mladen Prajdic

  SQLBits: April 7th - April 9th 2011 in Brighton, UK Free community event on Saturday (April 9th) with a paid conference day on Friday (April 8th) and a Pre Conference day full of day long seminars (April 7th). It'll be a huge event with over 800 attendees and over 20 MVPs. I'll be presenting on Saturday April 9th.     SQL in the City: July 15th 2011 in London, UK One day of free SQL Server training sponsored by Redgate. Other MVP's that'll be presenting there are Steve Jones (website|twitter), Brad McGehee (blog|twitter) and Grant Fritchey (blog|twitter)   At both conferences I'll be presenting about database testing. In the sessions I'll cover a few things from my book The Red Gate Guide to SQL Server Team based Development like what do we need for testing, how to go about it, what are some of the obstacles we have to overcome, etc… If you're around there come and say Hi!

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• What web technology could I use which would support a decision tree?

  - by Rami Alhamad

  I am a big game development fan but I haven't done any commercial work in the past. I have been asked by a non-profit to look at developing a game similar to the award-winning www.playspent.org They want the following features: support 5 scenarios mobile isn't important but compatibility with older browsers would be a big bonus they want it to be visual and audible bonus is to have it easily modifiable support 4 languages I don't have much knowledge of Flash and would rather avoid using it as a solution. I started breaking down the problem into segments that I will need to examine, they are as follows: ability to read the game flow from a file that they can produce (xml, etc.) db design to store decision tree language challenge browser compatibility I am leaning towards an Google app engine/GWT solution but I am not sure what technology is best for this. I am really hoping to get your opinion/recommendation on my approach and on what technology is best. A special thanks (and beer if you live in Toronto) will be awarded to anyone who can help give me a ballpark estimate on how much such a game should go for. I know it's tough to estimate but any rough figure will help (how much would you charge for building something like playspent.org?) Thanks in advance

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• What would be the level of effort required to implement a screencapture command on a PS3 game?

  - by Sean Scott

  Looking to see what the level of effort is for implementing a screen capture command into PS3 game by a mid-level PS3 game developer. Bonus for a description of what is involved in the process... EDIT Not sure how to get back my question since it was the first but let me clarify some things. @Nate Bross, nope I am not the actor although i've fielded calls for him on occasion @coderanger my intent was to try and speak to other PS3 developers, however coming from a web development no one in my social circle close or extended develops on the PS3. Additionally i'm interested in hearing the effort required in terms of hours so that this information can be passed on to a client. A client who has a game on the PS3 using the unreal engine. Convo with devs sometimes go something like "can you implement feature a" which gets a response "this will take us 8 weeks and an army". Trying to be educated before the ask. I hope that helps If anyone here is a PS3 game dev and would like to respond off site so as not to break NDA that would be awesome. @Roger it would be from within the game, something that users can use. Something akin to the iphone screencap utility. No need to get fancier than that.

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• Part 1 - Load Testing In The Cloud

  - by Tarun Arora

  Azure is fascinating, but even more fascinating is the marriage of Azure and TFS! Introduction Recently a client I worked for had 2 major business critical applications being delivered, with very little time budgeted for Performance testing, we immediately hit a bottleneck when the performance testing phase started, the in house infrastructure team could not support the hardware requirements in the short notice. It was suggested that the performance testing be performed on one of the QA environments which was a fraction of the production environment. This didn’t seem right, the team decided to turn to the cloud. The team took advantage of the elasticity offered by Azure, starting with a single test agent which was provisioned and ready for use with in 30 minutes the team scaled up to 17 test agents to perform a very comprehensive performance testing cycle. Issues were identified and resolved but the highlight was that the cost of running the ‘test rig’ proved to be less than if hosted on premise by the infrastructure team. Thank you for taking the time out to read this blog post, in the series of posts, I’ll try and cover the start to end of everything you need to know to use Azure to build your Test Rig in the cloud. But Why Azure? I have my own Data Centre… If the environment is provisioned in your own datacentre, - No matter what level of service agreement you may have with your infrastructure team there will be down time when the environment is patched - How fast can you scale up or down the environments (keeping the enterprise processes in mind) Administration, Cost, Flexibility and Scalability are the areas you would want to think around when taking the decision between your own Data Centre and Azure! How is Microsoft's Public Cloud Offering different from Amazon’s Public Cloud Offering? Microsoft's offering of the Cloud is a hybrid of Platform as a Service (PaaS) and Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) which distinguishes Microsoft's offering from other providers such as Amazon (Amazon only offers IaaS). PaaS – Platform as a Service IaaS – Infrastructure as a Service Fills the needs of those who want to build and run custom applications as services. Similar to traditional hosting, where a business will use the hosted environment as a logical extension of the on-premises datacentre. A service provider offers a pre-configured, virtualized application server environment to which applications can be deployed by the development staff. Since the service providers manage the hardware (patching, upgrades and so forth), as well as application server uptime, the involvement of IT pros is minimized. On-demand scalability combined with hardware and application server management relieves developers from infrastructure concerns and allows them to focus on building applications. The servers (physical and virtual) are rented on an as-needed basis, and the IT professionals who manage the infrastructure have full control of the software configuration. This kind of flexibility increases the complexity of the IT environment, as customer IT professionals need to maintain the servers as though they are on-premises. The maintenance activities may include patching and upgrades of the OS and the application server, load balancing, failover clustering of database servers, backup and restoration, and any other activities that mitigate the risks of hardware and software failures.   The biggest advantage with PaaS is that you do not have to worry about maintaining the environment, you can focus all your time in solving the business problems with your solution rather than worrying about maintaining the environment. If you decide to use a VM Role on Azure, you are asking for IaaS, more on this later. A nice blog post here on the difference between Saas, PaaS and IaaS. Now that we are convinced why we should be turning to the cloud and why in specific Azure, let’s discuss about the Test Rig. The Load Test Rig – Topology Now the moment of truth, Of course a big part of getting value from cloud computing is identifying the most adequate workloads to take to the cloud, so I’ve decided to try to make a Load Testing rig where the Agents are running on Windows Azure.   I’ll talk you through the above Topology, - User: User kick starts the load test run from the developer workstation on premise. This passes the request to the Test Controller. - Test Controller: The Test Controller is on premise connected to the same domain as the developer workstation. As soon as the Test Controller receives the request it makes use of the Windows Azure Connect service to orchestrate the test responsibilities to all the Test Agents. The Windows Azure Connect endpoint software must be active on all Azure instances and on the Controller machine as well. This allows IP connectivity between them and, given that the firewall is properly configured, allows the Controller to send work loads to the agents. In parallel, the Controller will collect the performance data from the agents, using the traditional WMI mechanisms. - Test Agents: The Test Agents are on the Windows Azure Public Cloud, as soon as the test controller issues instructions to the test agents, the test agents start executing the load tests. The HTTP requests are issued against the web server on premise, the results are captured by the test agents. And finally the results are passed over to the controller. - Servers: The Web Server and DB Server are hosted on premise in the datacentre, this is usually the case with business critical applications, you probably want to manage them your self. Recap and What’s next? So, in the introduction in the series of blog posts on Load Testing in the cloud I highlighted why creating a test rig in the cloud is a good idea, what advantages does Windows Azure offer and the Test Rig topology that I will be using. I would also like to mention that i stumbled upon this [Video] on Azure in a nutshell, great watch if you are new to Windows Azure. In the next post I intend to start setting up the Load Test Environment and discuss pricing with respect to test agent machine types that will be used in the test rig. Hope you enjoyed this post, If you have any recommendations on things that I should consider or any questions or feedback, feel free to add to this blog post. Remember to subscribe to http://feeds.feedburner.com/TarunArora.  See you in Part II.   Share this post : CodeProject

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• How does a one-man developer do its games' sounds?

  - by Gustavo Maciel

  Before anything, that's not a "oh, where can I find resources?" question. Well, I've been curious about one thing in the indie games industry. For the development of the game, such tasks like game design, art, sketches, code programming and etc can be easily done by just one person. You can just take up a paper and pencil and you're a game designer. You can just take software like Photoshop or Paint and you're an artist, a scanner and you're a sketcher, a compiler and you're a programmer. For sound it's different. You may tell me: Well, follow the line, take a lot of instruments and record it. But all we know that things don't work this way. I can list up some changes for us: External noises are a big problem, sound effects can't be made with instruments, it can't sound like a recorded and clipped sound. Well I can imagine how they do this in large companies, with such big studios and etc. But to summarise, my question is: What's the best way for a one-man indie to do all its sound? Does he have to synthesize everything? Record and buy some crazy program for editing sounds?

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• Common way of animating 'motion' for walk cycle animations

  - by Ben Hymers

  I've just posted this at the Blender artists' forums before realising I would probably get a better response from a more game development-specific audience, so apologies for cross-posting! It's for the right reasons :) I'm a programmer trying to animate a character walking for a game project, using Ogre. I've made a very simple walk cycle in Blender and exported it to Ogre, and it plays just fine. By fine, I mean it works, but there's terrible foot sliding. This is because I just animated the walk in-place (at the origin) in Blender, and of course I don't know what "speed of walk" that corresponds to, so when I move the character in-game the motion doesn't necessarily match up with the movement of the feet in the animation. So my question is: what's the normal approach for this kind of thing? At work we use Maya, and the animators either animate a special 'moveTrans' node that represents the "position" of the character (or have the exporter generate it for them from the movement of the root node), then the game can read this to know how fast the animation moves the character. So in the Maya file, the character will walk forward for one cycle and this extra node will follow along with them by their feet. I've not seen anything like this in open-source land, and there's certainly no provision for that in the Ogre Exporter script. What do you chaps normally do for this?

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• Reusable skill class structure

  - by Martino Wullems

  Hello, Pretty new to the whole game development scene, but I have experience in other branches of programming. Anyway, I was wondering what methods are used to implement a skill structure. I imagine a skill in itself would a class. I'm using actionscript 3 for this project btw. public class Skill { public var power:int; public var delay:int; public var cooldown:int; public function Attack(user:Mob, target:Mob) { } } } Each skill would extend the Skill class and add it's own functionality. public class Tackle extends Skill { public function Tackle(user:Mob, target:Mob) { super(user, target); executeAttack(); } private function executeAttack():void { //multiply user.strength with power etc //play attack animation } } } This where I get stuck. How do I termine which mobs has which skills? And which skill will they later be able to retrieve (by reaching a certain level etc). How does the player actually execute the skill and how is it determine if it hits. It's all very new to me so I have no idea where to begin. Any links would also be appreciated. Thanks in advance.

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• The Road to New Orleans: IT Grand Prix

  - by Enrique Lima

  Four teams race for charity. They need your help. Four teams of MCPs are racing to TechEd in New Orleans on a quest to win $10,000 for the charity of their choice. But they can't win without your help--pick a team, join their pit crew, and earn them points toward victory! While they're on the ground, they need your help in the cloud--pick a team, join their virtual pit crew, and earn them points by meeting online challenges. Join us, be part of this amazing drive to raise awareness and help out by becoming part of the virtual pit crew. I am a pit crew member for the Gold Team.

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• Creating user UI using Flixel

  - by Jamie Read

  I am new to game development but familiar with programming languages. I have started using Flixel and have a working Breakout game with score and lives. What I am trying to do is add a Start Screen before actually loading the game. I have a create function that adds all the game elements to the stage: override public function create():void // all game elements { How can I add this pre-load Start Screen? I'm not sure if I have to add in the code to this create function or somewhere else and what code to actually add. Eventually I would also like to add saving, loading, options and upgrades too. So any advice with that would be great. Here is my main game.as: package { import org.flixel.*; public class Game extends FlxGame { private const resolution:FlxPoint = new FlxPoint(640, 480); private const zoom:uint = 2; private const fps:uint = 60; public function Game() { super(resolution.x / zoom, resolution.y / zoom, PlayState, zoom); FlxG.flashFramerate = fps; } } } Thanks.

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• Distributing an Android game with plugins via the market

  - by Peter Serwylo

  I'm new to Android development, and was wondering how the following could be achieved within the confines of the Android market as a distribution channel: One main application, which handles the main menu, networking, high scores, etc. Several games which can be launched from the main menu, which all work within the same eco system. The main application is not just a pseudo launcher for other games, these different games will share high scores and other achievements/preferences. In a traditional package management system such as apt, pacman or yum, this could be handled quite happily through dependencies. This does not appear to be possible via the Android market. The closest I've seen is when apps scan to check if the required app is installed, and if not, launches the market and asks the user to download the app. This sounds like a very messy solution. It also begs the question, would they download the game (plugin) first, which then downloads the main shell application? Or would they download the main shell application, and when they navigate to a menu item which says "Play game", then it scans for any installed games, and if none exist, redirects to the market? Also, I'm not even sure if it is possible to dig up the package from another application on the device, and start invoking classes from within (e.g. when you want to launch the game (plugin)) A final option is just to have a 3rd component which is a .jar that each game includes, which effectively contains the entire shell application. Then each game would appear to have the same menu, but it would become a nightmare as soon as you want to update the menu component and have to re-release each game. It would be especially worse if other people released games (plugins) based on the same framework and didn't update them. Is there any other options which I haven't thought of? Has anyone else solved this or seen a solution in any apps they've installed (doesn't have to be games)? cheers.

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• Custom inventory items based on inheritance

  - by Bogdan Marginean

  So, here's the scenario: I'm building an RPG. Like most of the other RPGs on the market, my game will feature an inventory and of course, inventory items. So far I've worked well with using a single class for all items, because I did not need anything else than character stat alteration on item usage (consumption). However, I'd like some items to have a more exotic effect. Think of something like when the user consumes a transformation potion, he automatically turns into a beast. In order to achieve this I've thought about declaring a new class that inherits from BaseItem for each item. Each descendant would override some methods (like void OnConsume()), to change the base behavior. This works fine, but when it comes to inventory management, I have some issues. The actual inventory will have to work with BaseItem components only (for obvious reasons, as it's an enumerable collection of objects of the same type); casting any descendant to the base class is possible, so no problems in adding items to the inventory. But how can I keep track of the descendant's type (class) for each item in the inventory? And how to perform the descendant's OnConsume from withint he inventory, for each item? Let me know if you can think of a better solution than mine, or if you can think of a solution to my problem only. Development is done in C#, inside Unity 3.5. Thanks!

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• Algorithm for dynamically calculating a level based on experience points?

  - by George

  One of the struggles I've always had in game development is deciding how to implement experience points attributed to gaining a level. There doesn't seem to be a pattern to gaining a level in many of the games I've played, so I assume they have a static dictionary table which contains experience points vs. the level. e.g. Experience Level 0 1 100 2 175 3 280 4 800 5 ...There isn't a rhyme or reason why 280 points is equal to level 4, it just is. I'm not sure how those levels are decided, but it certainly wouldn't be dynamic. I've also thought about the possibility of exponential levels, as not to have to keep a separate lookup table, e.g. Experience Level 0 1 100 2 200 3 400 4 800 5 1600 6 3200 7 6400 8 ...but that seems like it would grow out of control rather quickly, as towards the upper levels, the enemies in the game would have to provide a whopping amount of experience to level -- and that would be to difficult to control. Leveling would become an impossible task. Does anyone have any pointers, or methods they use to decide how to level a character based on experience? I want to be fair in leveling and I want to stay ahead of the players as not to worry about constantly adding new experience/level lookups.

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• The Enterprise is a Curmudgeon

  - by John K. Hines

  Working in an enterprise environment is a unique challenge.  There's a lot more to software development than developing software.  A project lead or Scrum Master has to manage personalities and intra-team politics, has to manage accomplishing the task at hand while creating the opportunities and a reputation for handling desirable future work, has to create a competent, happy team that actually delivers while being careful not to burn bridges or hurt feelings outside the team.  Which makes me feel surprised to read advice like: " The enterprise should figure out what is likely to work best for itself and try to use it." - Ken Schwaber, The Enterprise and Scrum. The enterprises I have experience with are fundamentally unable to be self-reflective.  It's like asking a Roman gladiator if he'd like to carve out a little space in the arena for some silent meditation.  I'm currently wondering how compatible Scrum is with the top-down hierarchy of life in a large organization.  Specifically, manufacturing-mindset, fixed-release, harmony-valuing large organizations.  Now I understand why Agile can be a better fit for companies without much organizational inertia. Recently I've talked with nearly two dozen software professionals and their managers about Scrum and Agile.  I've become convinced that a developer, team, organization, or enterprise can be Agile without using Scrum.  But I'm not sure about what process would be the best fit, in general, for an enterprise that wants to become Agile.  It's possible I should read more than just the introduction to Ken's book. I do feel prepared to answer some of the questions I had asked in a previous post: How can Agile practices (including but not limited to Scrum) be adopted in situations where the highest-placed managers in a company demand software within extremely aggressive deadlines? Answer: In a very limited capacity at the individual level.  The situation here is that the senior management of this company values any software release more than it values developer well-being, end-user experience, or software quality.  Only if the developing organization is given an immediate refactoring opportunity does this sort of development make sense to a person who values sustainable software.   How can Agile practices be adopted by teams that do not perform a continuous cycle of new development, such as those whose sole purpose is to reproduce and debug customer issues? Answer: It depends.  For Scrum in particular, I don't believe Scrum is meant to manage unpredictable work.  While you can easily adopt XP practices for bug fixing, the project-management aspects of Scrum require some predictability.  My question here was meant toward those who want to apply Scrum to non-development teams.  In some cases it works, in others it does not. How can a team measure if its development efforts are both Agile and employ sound engineering practices? Answer: I'm currently leaning toward measuring these independently.  The Agile Principles are a terrific way to measure if a software team is agile.  Sound engineering practices are those practices which help developers meet the principles.  I think Scrum is being mistakenly applied as an engineering practice when it is essentially a project management practice.  In my opinion, XP and Lean are examples of good engineering practices. How can Agile be explained in an accurate way that describes its benefits to sceptical developers and/or revenue-focused non-developers? Answer: Agile techniques will result in higher-quality, lower-cost software development.  This comes primarily from finding defects earlier in the development cycle.  If there are individual developers who do not want to collaborate, write unit tests, or refactor, then these are simply developers who are either working in an area where adding these techniques will not add value (i.e. they are an expert) or they are a developer who is satisfied with the status quo.  In the first case they should be left alone.  In the second case, the results of Agile should be demonstrated by other developers who are willing to receive recognition for their efforts.  It all comes down to individuals, doesn't it?  If you're working in an organization whose Agile adoption consists exclusively of Scrum, consider ways to form individual Agile teams to demonstrate its benefits.  These can even be virtual teams that span people across org-chart boundaries.  Once you can measure real value, whether it's Scrum, Lean, or something else, people will follow.  Even the curmudgeons.

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• Is ActionScript 3 used by Serious Indie Developers?

  - by Puedes

  This question is for dedicated independent game developers: My dream is to be a game developer. I am a senior in high school who has taken Computer Science for all four years. I have used Java the whole time, but last year I started using PHP and ActionScript 3 (with Flixel). I also used Game Maker for a brief period. I apologize for this, I wanted to get that out of the way and clarify the fact that I have experience of some kind with game development. I am stuck at the moment because I don't quite know what language to use to develop games at a professional level. I am seriously interested in becoming a dedicated game developer, but this issue is really bothering me. I would like to know what the best option would be for my case, based on your experiences. Any advice is appreciated. Things to consider: I am only interested in making 2D games (I am not worried about 3D support) It would be ideal to use something that can be ported to multiple platforms (so as not to run into this problem later) I can't seem to figure out what the industry likes to use So far, this is what I have: I can't decide if it would be wise to stick with ActionScript 3, or move to C++ I know Flash would be for browser games, but what if I want to make a downloadable game, like Plants Vs. Zombies or Super Crate Box? Would Flash be a smart choice for standalone games, or did they use something else? Thank you for reading this, as I would like to stop worrying about this and make some games! Also, I hope this wasn't all over the place :) tl;dr Should I move ahead with AS3 or use something else i.e. C++

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• Intermittent Copy/Paste Problem in RDP

  - by Tara Kizer

  If you use RDP to remotely connect to your servers, you've probably encountered a clipboard issue where copy/paste stops working.  A quick Google search on the problem indicates you can easily fix the problem by logging out/logging back in or killing/restarting rdpclip.exe on the remote server.  Here's an article which covers this topic. But what do you do when copy/paste is intermittent?  It works one second, stops working for 5-30 seconds, and then on its own starts working again.  This is what’s occurring in our new non-production environment.  The DBA team is setting up 16 new physical servers and 5 new virtual machines.  I haven’t found a server where this ISN’T happening.  This intermittent copy/paste issue is driving me crazy!

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