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Creating a retro-style palette swapping effect in OpenGL

- by Zack The Human

I'm working on a Megaman-like game where I need to change the color of certain pixels at runtime. For reference: in Megaman when you change your selected weapon then main character's palette changes to reflect the selected weapon. Not all of the sprite's colors change, only certain ones do. This kind of effect was common and quite easy to do on the NES since the programmer had access to the palette and the logical mapping between pixels and palette indices. On modern hardware, though, this is a bit more challenging because the concept of palettes is not the same. All of my textures are 32-bit and do not use palettes. There are two ways I know of to achieve the effect I want, but I'm curious if there are better ways to achieve this effect easily. The two options I know of are: Use a shader and write some GLSL to perform the "palette swapping" behavior. If shaders are not available (say, because the graphics card doesn't support them) then it is possible to clone the "original" textures and generate different versions with the color changes pre-applied. Ideally I would like to use a shader since it seems straightforward and requires little additional work opposed to the duplicated-texture method. I worry that duplicating textures just to change a color in them is wasting VRAM -- should I not worry about that?

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How important is Programming for a Level Designer?

- by WryGrin

I'm currently attending school in a Level Design program, and I was wondering how important programming really is in being a Level Designer? I'm apparently incapable of learning programming (despite my best efforts), and tend to do very well in all other courses 3D modelling, story/character design, narrative and dialogue writing, environmental and conceptual design etc. I'm wondering if my strengths in the other areas are enough (with practice) to let me become a Level Designer, or I'm wasting my time if I can't program? I really want to be a Designer, but I just can't seem to wrap my head around the "language" of programming in general (Java kicks my teeth in even with tutoring and additional work on my own).

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Organising levels / rooms in a MUD-style text based world

- by Polynomial

I'm thinking of writing a small text-based adventure game, but I'm not particularly sure how I should design the world from a technical standpoint. My first thought is to do it in XML, designed something like the following. Apologies for the huge pile of XML, but I felt it important to fully explain what I'm doing. <level> <start>  <room>Kitchen</room> <inventory></inventory> </start> <rooms> <room> <name>Kitchen</name> <description>A small kitchen that looks like it hasn't been used in a while. It has a table in the middle, and there are some cupboards. There is a door to the north, which leads to the garden.</description>  <objects> <object>Cupboards</object> <object>Knife</object> <object>Batteries</object> </objects> </room> <room> <name>Garden</name> <description>The garden is wild and full of prickly bushes. To the north there is a path, which leads into the trees. To the south there is a house.</description> <objects> </objects> </room> <room> <name>Woods</name> <description>The woods are quite dark, with little light bleeding in from the garden. It is eerily quiet.</description> <objects> <object>Trees01</object> </objects> </room> </rooms> <doors>  <door> <type>door</type> <direction>N</direction> <from>Kitchen</from> <to>Garden</to> </door> <door> <type>path</type> <direction>N</direction> <from>Garden</type> <to>Woods</type> </door> </doors> <variables>  <variable name="cupboard_open">0</variable> </variables> <objects>  <object> <name>Trees01</name> <displayName>Trees</displayName> <actions>  <action> <command>EXAMINE</command> <message>The trees are tall and thick. There aren't any low branches, so it'd be difficult to climb them.</message> </action> </actions> </object> <object> <name>Cupboards</name> <displayName>Cupboards</displayName> <actions> <action>  <requirements>  <require operation="equal" value="1">cupboard_open</require> </requirements> <command>EXAMINE</command>  <failMessage>The cupboard is closed.</failMessage> <message>The cupboard contains some batteires.</message> </action> <action> <requirements> <require operation="equal" value="0">cupboard_open</require> </requirements> <command>OPEN</command> <failMessage>The cupboard is already open.</failMessage> <message>You open the cupboard. It contains some batteries.</message>  <assigns> <assign operation="set" value="1">cupboard_open</assign> </assigns> </action> <action> <requirements> <require operation="equal" value="1">cupboard_open</require> </requirements> <command>CLOSE</command> <failMessage>The cupboard is already closed.</failMessage> <message>You closed the cupboard./message> <assigns> <assign operation="set" value="0">cupboard_open</assign> </assigns> </action> </actions> </object> <object> <name>Batteries</name> <displayName>Batteries</displayName>  <inventory>1</inventory> <actions> <action> <requirements> <require operation="equal" value="1">cupboard_open</require> </requirements> <command>GET</command>  <message>You picked up the batteries.</message> </action> </actions> </object> </objects> </level> Obviously there'd need to be more to it than this. Interaction with people and enemies as well as death and completion are necessary additions. Since the XML is quite difficult to work with, I'd probably create some sort of world editor. I'd like to know if this method has any downfalls, and if there's a "better" or more standard way of doing it.

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LWJGL Determining whether or not a polygon is on-screen.

- by Brandon oubiub

Not sure whether this is an LWJGL or math question. I want to check whether a shape is on-screen, so that I don't have to render it if it isn't. First of all, is there any simple way to do this that I am overlooking? Like some method or something that I haven't found? I'm going to assume there isn't. I tried using my trigonometry skills, but it is hard to do this because of how glRotate also distorts the image a little for perspective and realism. Or, is there any way to easily determine if a ray starting from the camera, and going outward in a straight line intersects a shape? (I can probably do it with my math skillz, but is there an easier way?) By the way, I can easily determine the angle at which the camera is facing around the x and y axis. EDIT: Or, possibly, I could get the angles of a vector from the camera to the object, and compare those angles to my camera angles. But I have a feeling that the distorts from glRotate and glTranslate would be an issue. I'll try it though.

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Android-Libgdx-ProGuard: Usefulness without DexGuard? [on hold]

- by Rico Pablo Mince

So I'm developing a game for Android - using LibGDX - and noticed that the Android SDK (HDK, MDK, WhatTheHellEvarDK) has ProGuard built-in. Browsing the ProGuard page is like searching Google: you get that the idea is to sell some product (in this case, it's DexGuard). That leaves me wondering what features are left out of ProGuard that a game developer targeting Android should worry about. For instance, the ProGuard FAQs answer the question: "Does ProGuard encrypt string constants?" by saying: "No. String encryption in program code has to be perfectly reversible by definition, so it only improves the obfuscation level. It increases the footprint of the code. However, by popular demand, ProGuard's closed-source sibling for Android, DexGuard, does provide string encryption, along with more protection techniques against static and dynamic analysis." Alright. OK. But isn't "...improves the obfuscation level" EXACTLY what ProGuard is supposed to do? Are there better options that can be implemented at build-time in Eclipse using the Gradle options and Libgdx? In particular, the assets folder and res-specific folders will need some protection. The code itself doesn't cure cancer, but I'd prefer if nobody could copy/paste it with different game art and call it "IhAxEdUrGamE"....

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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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Resources for 2D rendering using OpenGL?

- by nightcracker

I noticed that there is quite some difference between 3D and 2D rendering using OpenGL, the techniques are different - pixel-perfect placing is a lot more desirable, among other things. Are there any good (complete) references on using OpenGL for rendering 2D graphics? There are quite a few "tutorials" around on the net that help you open a window, set up a half-decent environment and draw a sprite, but no real good information on rotation, blending, lightning, drawing order, using the z-buffer, particles, "complex" primitives (circles, stars, cross symbols), ensuring pixel-perfect rendering, instancing and many other staple 2D effects/techniques. Any books, great blogs, anything? Any particular awesome libraries to read?

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Rendering large and high poly meshes

- by Aurus

Consider an huge terrain that has a lot polygons, to render this terrain I thought of following techniques: Using height-map instead of raw meshes: Yes, but I want to create a lot of caves and stuff that simply wont work with height-maps. Using voxels: Yes, but I think that this would be to much since I don't even want to support changing terrain.. Split into multiple chunks and do some sort of LOD with the mesh: Yes, but how would I do that? Tessellation usually creates more detail not less. Precompute the same mesh in lower poly version (like Mudbox does) and depending on the distance it renders one of these meshes: Graphic memory is limited and uploading only the chunks won't solve that problem since the traffic would be too high. IMO the last one sounds really good, but imagine the following process: Upload and render the chunks depending on the current player position. [No problem] Player will walk straight forward Now we maybe have to change on of the low poly chunk with the high poly one So, Remove the low poly chunk and load the high poly chunk [Already to much traffic here, I think] I am not very experienced in graphic programming and maybe the upper process is totally okay but somehow I think it is too much. And how about the disk space it would require.. I think 3 kind of levels would be fine but isn't that also too much? (I am using OpenGL but I don't think that this is important)

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Performance issues with visibility detection and object transparency

- by maul

I'm working on a 3d game that has a view similar to classic isometric games (diablo, etc.). One of the things I'm trying to implement is the effect of turning walls transparent when the player walks behind them. By itself this is not a huge issue, but I'm having trouble determining which walls should be transparent exactly. I can't use a circle or square mask. There are a lot of cases where the wall piece at the same (relative) position has different visibility depending on the surrounding area. With the help of a friend I came up with this algorithm: Create a grid around the player that contains a lot of "visibility points" (my game is semi tile-based so I create one point for every tile on the grid) - the size of the square's side is close to the radius where I make objects transparent. I found 6x6 to be a good value, so that's 36 visibility points total. For every visibility point on the grid, check if that point is in the player's line of sight. For every visibility point that is in the LOS, cast a ray from the camera to that point and mark all objects the ray hits as transparent. This algorithm works - not perfectly, but only requires some tuning - however this is very slow. As you can see, it requries 36 ray casts minimum, but most of the time 60-70 depending on the position. That's simply too much for the CPU. Is there a better way to do this? I'm using Unity 3D but I'm not looking for an engine-specific solution.

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Pitch camera around model

- by ChocoMan

Currently, my camera rotates with my model's Y-Axis (yaw) perfectly. What I'm having trouble with is rotating the X-Axis (pitch) along with it. I've tried the same method for cameraYaw() in the form of cameraPitch(), while adjusting the axis to Vector.Right, but the camera wouldn't pitch at all in accordance to the Y-Axes of the controller. Is there a way similar to this to get the same effect for pitching the camera around the model? // Rotates model on its own Y-axis public void modelRotMovement(GamePadState pController) { Yaw = pController.ThumbSticks.Right.X * MathHelper.ToRadians(speedAngleMAX); AddRotation = Quaternion.CreateFromYawPitchRoll(Yaw, 0, 0); ModelLoad.MRotation *= AddRotation; MOrientation = Matrix.CreateFromQuaternion(ModelLoad.MRotation); } // Orbit (yaw) Camera around model public void cameraYaw(Vector3 axis, float yaw, float pitch) { Pitch = pController.ThumbSticks.Right.Y * MathHelper.ToRadians(speedAngleMAX); ModelLoad.CameraPos = Vector3.Transform(ModelLoad.CameraPos - ModelLoad.camTarget, Matrix.CreateFromAxisAngle(axis, yaw)) + ModelLoad.camTarget; } public void updateCamera() { cameraYaw(Vector3.Up, Yaw); }

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Velocity control of the player, why doesn't this work?

- by Dominic Grenier

I have the following code inside a while True loop: if abs(playerx) < MAXSPEED: if moveLeft: playerx -= 1 if moveRight: playerx += 1 if abs(playery) < MAXSPEED: if moveDown: playery += 1 if moveUp: playery -= 1 if moveLeft == False and abs(playerx) > 0: playerx += 1 if moveRight == False and abs(playerx) > 0: playerx -= 1 if moveUp == False and abs(playery) > 0: playery += 1 if moveDown == False and abs(playery) > 0: playery -= 1 player.x += playerx player.y += playery if player.left < 0 or player.right > 1000: player.x -= playerx if player.top < 0 or player.bottom > 600: player.y -= playery The intended result is that while an arrow key is pressed, playerx or playery increments by one at every iteration until it reaches MAXSPEED and stays at MAXSPEED. And that when the player stops pressing that arrow key, his speed decreases until it reaches 0. To me, this code explicitly says that... But what actually happens is that playerx or playery keeps incrementing regardless of MAXSPEED and continues moving even after the player stops pressing the arrow key. I keep rereading but I'm completely baffled by this weird behavior. Any insights? Thanks.

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Homemaking a 2d soft body physics engine

- by Griffin

hey so I've decided to Code my own 2D soft-body physics engine in C++ since apparently none exist and I'm starting only with a general idea/understanding on how physics work and could be simulated: by giving points and connections between points properties such as elasticity, density, mass, shape retention, friction, stickiness, etc. What I want is a starting point: resources and helpful examples/sites that could give me the specifics needed to actually make this such as equations and required physics knowledge. It would be great if anyone out there also would give me their attempts or ideas. finally I was wondering if it was possible to... use the source code of an existing 3D engine such as Bullet and transform it to be 2D based? use the source code of a 2D Rigid body physics engine such as box2d as a starting point?

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How to position a sprite in a 2D animation skeleton?

- by Paul Manta

Given two joints that define a bone, I would like to know how to decide where, between those two joints, I should draw the sprite. This should be a fairly simple thing to solve, but there is one thing that I am not sure about. After I've determined the rotation of the sprite (which is the absolute angle the joints form with the x-axis), I also need to determine the origin point from where I need to start drawing the transformed image. So how should I position the sprite between the two joints? Should I make the center of the image be the midpoint between the two joints, or should I make one the of the joints be the origin? Do these things matter that much (could the wrong positioning make the sprite move oddly during the animation)?

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Strange if-else branching behavior in a fragment shader

- by Winged

In my fragment shader I have passed an uniform int uLightType variable, which indicates what type of light is in usage right now. The problem is that if-else branching does not work correctly - the fragment shader performs instructions in every if statement block. if (uLightType == 1) { // Spotlight light type vec3 depthTextureCoord = vDepthPosition.xyz / vDepthPosition.w; shadowDepth = unpack(texture2D(uDepthMapSampler, depthTextureCoord.xy)); } else if (uLightType == 2) { // Omni-directional light type shadowDepth = unpack(textureCube(uDepthCubemapSampler, -lightVec)); } In the case when uLightType equals 1, unless I comment out the content of the second if block, it assigns an another value to shadowDepth. Also while uLightType equals 1, when I remove the second 'if' block and change == to != like in the sample code below, nothing happens (which means that uLightType really equals 1). if (uLightType != 1) { // Spotlight light type vec3 depthTextureCoord = vDepthPosition.xyz / vDepthPosition.w; shadowDepth = unpack(texture2D(uDepthMapSampler, depthTextureCoord.xy)); } Also, when I manually create an int variable (which is not an uniform) like this: var lightType = 1; and replace uLightType with it in the if-else branch, everything works fine, so I guess it have something to do with the fact that uLightType is the uniform.

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Problems implementing a screen space shadow ray tracing shader

- by Grieverheart

Here I previously asked for the possibility of ray tracing shadows in screen space in a deferred shader. Several problems were pointed out. One of the most important problem is that only visible objects can cast shadows and objects between the camera and the shadow caster can interfere. Still I thought it'd be a fun experiment. The idea is to calculate the view coordinates of pixels and cast a ray to the light. The ray is then traced pixel by pixel to the light and its depth is compared with the depth at the pixel. If a pixel is in front of the ray, a shadow is casted at the original pixel. At first I thought that I could use the DDA algorithm in 2D to calculate the distance 't' (in p = o + t d, where o origin, d direction) to the next pixel and use it in the 3D ray equation to find the ray's z coordinate at that pixel's position. For the 2D ray, I would use the projected and biased 3D ray direction and origin. The idea was that 't' would be the same in both 2D and 3D equations. Unfortunately, this is not the case since the projection matrix is 4D. Thus, some tweak needs to be done to make this work this way. I would like to ask if someone knows of a way to do what I described above, i.e. from a 2D ray in texture coordinate space to get the 3D ray in screen space. I did implement a simple version of the idea which you can see in the following video: video here Shadows may seem a bit pixelated, but that's mostly because of the size of the step in 't' I chose. And here is the shader: #version 330 core uniform sampler2D DepthMap; uniform vec2 projAB; uniform mat4 projectionMatrix; const vec3 light_p = vec3(-30.0, 30.0, -10.0); noperspective in vec2 pass_TexCoord; smooth in vec3 viewRay; layout(location = 0) out float out_AO; vec3 CalcPosition(void){ float depth = texture(DepthMap, pass_TexCoord).r; float linearDepth = projAB.y / (depth - projAB.x); vec3 ray = normalize(viewRay); ray = ray / ray.z; return linearDepth * ray; } void main(void){ vec3 origin = CalcPosition(); if(origin.z < -60) discard; vec2 pixOrigin = pass_TexCoord; //tex coords vec3 dir = normalize(light_p - origin); vec2 texel_size = vec2(1.0 / 600.0); float t = 0.1; ivec2 pixIndex = ivec2(pixOrigin / texel_size); out_AO = 1.0; while(true){ vec3 ray = origin + t * dir; vec4 temp = projectionMatrix * vec4(ray, 1.0); vec2 texCoord = (temp.xy / temp.w) * 0.5 + 0.5; ivec2 newIndex = ivec2(texCoord / texel_size); if(newIndex != pixIndex){ float depth = texture(DepthMap, texCoord).r; float linearDepth = projAB.y / (depth - projAB.x); if(linearDepth > ray.z + 0.1){ out_AO = 0.2; break; } pixIndex = newIndex; } t += 0.5; if(texCoord.x < 0 || texCoord.x > 1.0 || texCoord.y < 0 || texCoord.y > 1.0) break; } } As you can see, here I just increment 't' by some arbitrary factor, calculate the 3D ray and project it to get the pixel coordinates, which is not really optimal. Hopefully, I would like to optimize the code as much as possible and compare it with shadow mapping and how it scales with the number of lights. PS: Keep in mind that I reconstruct position from depth by interpolating rays through a full screen quad.

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Only draw visible objects to the camera in 2D

- by Deukalion

I have Map, each map has an array of Ground, each Ground consists of an array of VertexPositionTexture and a texture name reference so it renders a texture at these points (as a shape through triangulation). Now when I render my map I only want to get a list of all objects that are visible in the camera. (So I won't loop through more than I have to) Structs: public struct Map { public Ground[] Ground { get; set; } } public struct Ground { public int[] Indexes { get; set; } public VertexPositionNormalTexture[] Points { get; set; } public Vector3 TopLeft { get; set; } public Vector3 TopRight { get; set; } public Vector3 BottomLeft { get; set; } public Vector3 BottomRight { get; set; } } public struct RenderBoundaries<T> { public BoundingBox Box; public T Items; } when I load a map: foreach (Ground ground in CurrentMap.Ground) { Boundaries.Add(new RenderBoundaries<Ground>() { Box = BoundingBox.CreateFromPoints(new Vector3[] { ground.TopLeft, ground.TopRight, ground.BottomLeft, ground.BottomRight }), Items = ground }); } TopLeft, TopRight, BottomLeft, BottomRight are simply the locations of each corner that the shape make. A rectangle. When I try to loop through only the objects that are visible I do this in my Draw method: public int Draw(GraphicsDevice device, ICamera camera) { BoundingFrustum frustum = new BoundingFrustum(camera.View * camera.Projection); // Visible count int count = 0; EffectTexture.World = camera.World; EffectTexture.View = camera.View; EffectTexture.Projection = camera.Projection; foreach (EffectPass pass in EffectTexture.CurrentTechnique.Passes) { pass.Apply(); foreach (RenderBoundaries<Ground> render in Boundaries.Where(m => frustum.Contains(m.Box) != ContainmentType.Disjoint)) { // Draw ground count++; } } return count; } When I try adding just one ground, then moving the camera so the ground is out of frame it still returns 1 which means it still gets draw even though it's not within the camera's view. Am I doing something or wrong or can it be because of my Camera? Any ideas why it doesn't work?

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How to evaluate a user against optimal performance?

- by Alex K

I have trouble coming up with a system of assigning a rating to player's performance. Well, technically there is is a trivial rating system, but I don't like it because it would mean assigning negative scores, which I think most players will be discouraged by. The problem is that I only know the ideal number of actions to get the desired result. The worst case is infinite number of actions, so there is no obvious scale. The trivial way I referred to above is to take score = (#optimal-moves - #players-moves), with ideal score being zero. However, psychologically people like big numbers. No one wants to win by getting a mark of 0. I wonder if there is a system that someone else has come up with before to solve this problem? Essentially I wish to score the players based on: How close they've come to the ideal solution. Different challenges will have different optimal number of actions, so the scoring system needs to take that into account, e.g. Challenge 1 - max 10 points, Challenge 2 - max 20 points. I don't mind giving the players negative scores if they've performed exceptionally badly, I just don't want all scores to be <=0

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Making game constants/tables available to game logic classes/routines in a modular manner

- by Extrakun

Suppose I have a game where there are several predefined constants and charts (a XP chart, cost of goods and so on). Those could be defined at runtime, or load from files at start-up. The question is how should those logic routines access the constants and charts? For example, I could try using global variables, but that cause all classes relying on the variables to be tightly coupled with them.

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Implementing a multilanguage AI contest platform

- by Alejandro Piad

This is a followup to this question. To sum: I'm implementing an AI contest site, where each user may submit several AI implementations for different games. Think about Google AI Challenge but instead of just having a big event once a year, I would like it more on a league fashion, with all virtual players playing with each other every some close period of time. I want to support as many programming languages as possible. I've seen that contest sites (like codeforces) ask you to submit a source code and interact through stdin and stdout. The first question is: what is the best way of supporting multiple languages? As I see it, I can either ask people to upload some binary/script, and interact either through stdin/*stdout*, or sockets, or the file system; or ask people to submit source code, and wrap it with whatever is necessary for the interaction. I would like to skip the need to compile the code by myself (in the server, I mean), but I am willing to do it if its the "best" choice. I need to comunicate virtual players with each other, or even better, with some intermediary arbiter. The second question is regarding security. If I'm going to be running user code in my server, I want to ensure strict security conditions, like no file system access, no networking, etc. Otherwise it would be a safe heaven for hackers. I will be implementing the engine/arbiter in .NET. I would like to support at least C#, C++, Java and Python for the user's implementations. I'm willing to write interfaces for each of these languages to simplify the user interaction with the system. Thanks in advance.

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How should an object that uses composition set its composed components?

- by Casey

After struggling with various problems and reading up on component-based systems and reading Bob Nystrom's excellent book "Game Programming Patterns" and in particular the chapter on Components I determined that this is a horrible idea: //Class intended to be inherited by all objects. Engine uses Objects exclusively. class Object : public IUpdatable, public IDrawable { public: Object(); Object(const Object& other); Object& operator=(const Object& rhs); virtual ~Object() =0; virtual void SetBody(const RigidBodyDef& body); virtual const RigidBody* GetBody() const; virtual RigidBody* GetBody(); //Inherited from IUpdatable virtual void Update(double deltaTime); //Inherited from IDrawable virtual void Draw(BITMAP* dest); protected: private: }; I'm attempting to refactor it into a more manageable system. Mr. Nystrom uses the constructor to set the individual components; CHANGING these components at run-time is impossible. It's intended to be derived and be used in derivative classes or factory methods where their constructors do not change at run-time. i.e. his Bjorne object is just a call to a factory method with a specific call to the GameObject constructor. Is this a good idea? Should the object have a default constructor and setters to facilitate run-time changes or no default constructor without setters and instead use a factory method? Given: class Object { public: //...See below for constructor implementation concerns. Object(const Object& other); Object& operator=(const Object& rhs); virtual ~Object() =0; //See below for Setter concerns IUpdatable* GetUpdater(); IDrawable* GetRenderer(); protected: IUpdatable* _updater; IDrawable* _renderer; private: }; Should the components be read-only and passed in to the constructor via: class Object { public: //No default constructor. Object(IUpdatable* updater, IDrawable* renderer); //...remainder is same as above... }; or Should a default constructor be provided and then the components can be set at run-time? class Object { public: Object(); //... SetUpdater(IUpdater* updater); SetRenderer(IDrawable* renderer); //...remainder is same as above... }; or both? class Object { public: Object(); Object(IUpdater* updater, IDrawable* renderer); //... SetUpdater(IUpdater* updater); SetRenderer(IDrawable* renderer); //...remainder is same as above... };

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3D texture coordinates for a cube

- by Roshan

I want to use glTexImage3D with cube. what will be the texture coordinates for it? i am using GL_TEXTURE_3D as target. I tried with u v coordinates same as 2d texture coordinates with z component 0-depth for each face. But that goes wrong. How to apply each layer to each face of the cube with target= GL_TEXTURE_3D? Lets assume i have 8 layers of 2D images in my 3D texture. I want all 8 layers to apply on each of the cube and not 1 layer on 1 face of the cube.

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Making a 2D game with responsive resolution

- by alexandervrs

I am making a 2D game, however I wish for it to be resolution agnostic. My target resolution i.e. where things look as intended is 1600 x 900. My ideas are: Make the HUD stay fixed to the sides no matter what resolution, use different size for HUD graphics under a certain resolution and another under a certain large one. Use large HD PNG sprites/backgrounds which are a power of 2, so they scale nicely. No vectors. Use the player's native resolution. Scale the game area (not the HUD) to fit (resulting zooming in some and cropping the game area sides if necessary for widescreen, no stretch), but always fill the screen. Have a min and max resolution limit for small and very large displays where you will just change the resolution(?) or scale up/down to fit. What I am a bit confused though is what math formula I would use to scale the game area correctly based on the resolution no matter the aspect ratio, fully fit in a square screen and with some clip to the sides for widescreen. Pseudocode would help as well. :)

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How do you calculate UVW coordinates?

- by Jenko

I'm working on a 3d engine and I'm calculating UVT coordinates, where U and V represent pixels on the texture measured in 0-1, and T is: T = perspective / Z But I'm trying to use this perspective-correct triangle rasteriser, which requires a W, per vertex. How do I calculate the W for each vertex for the drawPerspectiveTexturedPolygon() function? Hint: The code comments refer to W as the "homogenous coordinate" ... does that mean anything?

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Monogame - Input secuence game (Scripting?)

- by user2662567

I'm starting to program my very first game, it's a clone of DDR/Stepmania done for research purposes and learning. I (at this early stage) get most of the UI/Music/input work that should be done, but what i still can't grasp is scripting, i've read about Lua and that you shouldn't use it with XNA/Monogame as C# is capable enough, but i cannot get the utility of it. Assuming the needs of my game, ¿What would be the ideal way to implement the input secuences it needs?, i thought of XML/Json, let's say Stage 1 <game> <level id="1"> <step id="1" key="up" time="00:00:01"/> <step id="2" key="left" time="00:00:02"/> </level> </game> Is that a correct implementation? or are there better ways with more benefits?

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Dynamic/Adaptive RLE

- by Lucius

So, I'm developing a 2D, tile based game and a map maker thingy - all in Java. The problem is that recently I've been having some memory issues when about 4 maps are loaded. Each one of these maps are composed of 128x128 tiles and have 4 layers (for details and stuff). I already spent a good amount of time searching for solutions and the best thing I found was run-length enconding (RLE). It seems easy enough to use with static data, but is there a way to use it with data that is constantly changing, without a big drop in performance? In my maps, supposing I'm compressing the columns, I would have 128 rows, each with some amount of data (hopefully less than it would be without RLE). Whenever I change a tile, that whole row would have to be checked and I'm affraid that would slow down too much the production (and I'm in a somewhat tight schedule). Well, worst case scenario I work on each map individually, and save them using RLE, but it would be really nice if I could avoind that. EDIT: What I'm currently using to store the data for the tiles is a 2D array of HashMaps that use the layer as key and store the id of the tile in that position - like this: private HashMap< Integer, Integer [][]

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