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• VS 2010 SP1 (Beta) and IIS Express

  - by ScottGu

  Last month we released the VS 2010 Service Pack 1 (SP1) Beta.  You can learn more about the VS 2010 SP1 Beta from Jason Zander’s two blog posts about it, and from Scott Hanselman’s blog post that covers some of the new capabilities enabled with it.  You can download and install the VS 2010 SP1 Beta here. IIS Express Earlier this summer I blogged about IIS Express.  IIS Express is a free version of IIS 7.5 that is optimized for developer scenarios.  We think it combines the ease of use of the ASP.NET Web Server (aka Cassini) currently built-into VS today with the full power of IIS.  Specifically: It’s lightweight and easy to install (less than 5Mb download and a quick install) It does not require an administrator account to run/debug applications from Visual Studio It enables a full web-server feature set – including SSL, URL Rewrite, and other IIS 7.x modules It supports and enables the same extensibility model and web.config file settings that IIS 7.x support It can be installed side-by-side with the full IIS web server as well as the ASP.NET Development Server (they do not conflict at all) It works on Windows XP and higher operating systems – giving you a full IIS 7.x developer feature-set on all Windows OS platforms IIS Express (like the ASP.NET Development Server) can be quickly launched to run a site from a directory on disk.  It does not require any registration/configuration steps. This makes it really easy to launch and run for development scenarios. Visual Studio 2010 SP1 adds support for IIS Express – and you can start to take advantage of this starting with last month’s VS 2010 SP1 Beta release. Downloading and Installing IIS Express IIS Express isn’t included as part of the VS 2010 SP1 Beta.  Instead it is a separate ~4MB download which you can download and install using this link (it uses WebPI to install it).  Once IIS Express is installed, VS 2010 SP1 will enable some additional IIS Express commands and dialog options that allow you to easily use it. Enabling IIS Express for Existing Projects Visual Studio today defaults to using the built-in ASP.NET Development Server (aka Cassini) when running ASP.NET Projects: Converting your existing projects to use IIS Express is really easy.  You can do this by opening up the project properties dialog of an existing project, and then by clicking the “web” tab within it and selecting the “Use IIS Express” checkbox. Or even simpler, just right-click on your existing project, and select the “Use IIS Express…” menu command: And now when you run or debug your project you’ll see that IIS Express now starts up and runs automatically as your web-server: You can optionally right-click on the IIS Express icon within your system tray to see/browse all of sites and applications running on it: Note that if you ever want to revert back to using the ASP.NET Development Server you can do this by right-clicking the project again and then select the “Use Visual Studio Development Server” option (or go into the project properties, click the web tab, and uncheck IIS Express).  This will revert back to the ASP.NET Development Server the next time you run the project. IIS Express Properties Visual Studio 2010 SP1 exposes several new IIS Express configuration options that you couldn’t previously set with the ASP.NET Development Server.  Some of these are exposed via the property grid of your project (select the project node in the solution explorer and then change them via the property window): For example, enabling something like SSL support (which is not possible with the ASP.NET Development Server) can now be done simply by changing the “SSL Enabled” property to “True”: Once this is done IIS Express will expose both an HTTP and HTTPS endpoint for the project that we can use: SSL Self Signed Certs IIS Express ships with a self-signed SSL cert that it installs as part of setup – which removes the need for you to install your own certificate to use SSL during development.  Once you change the above drop-down to enable SSL, you’ll be able to browse to your site with the appropriate https:// URL prefix and it will connect via SSL. One caveat with self-signed certificates, though, is that browsers (like IE) will go out of their way to warn you that they aren’t to be trusted: You can mark the certificate as trusted to avoid seeing dialogs like this – or just keep the certificate un-trusted and press the “continue” button when the browser warns you not to trust your local web server. Additional IIS Settings IIS Express uses its own per-user ApplicationHost.config file to configure default server behavior.  Because it is per-user, it can be configured by developers who do not have admin credentials – unlike the full IIS.  You can customize all IIS features and settings via it if you want ultimate server customization (for example: to use your own certificates for SSL instead of self-signed ones). We recommend storing all app specific settings for IIS and ASP.NET within the web.config file which is part of your project – since that makes deploying apps easier (since the settings can be copied with the application content).  IIS (since IIS 7) no longer uses the metabase, and instead uses the same web.config configuration files that ASP.NET has always supported – which makes xcopy/ftp based deployment much easier. Making IIS Express your Default Web Server Above we looked at how we can convert existing sites that use the ASP.NET Developer Web Server to instead use IIS Express.  You can configure Visual Studio to use IIS Express as the default web server for all new projects by clicking the Tools->Options menu  command and opening up the Projects and Solutions->Web Projects node with the Options dialog: Clicking the “Use IIS Express for new file-based web site and projects” checkbox will cause Visual Studio to use it for all new web site and projects. Summary We think IIS Express makes it even easier to build, run and test web applications.  It works with all versions of ASP.NET and supports all ASP.NET application types (including obviously both ASP.NET Web Forms and ASP.NET MVC applications).  Because IIS Express is based on the IIS 7.5 codebase, you have a full web-server feature-set that you can use.  This means you can build and run your applications just like they’ll work on a real production web-server.  In addition to supporting ASP.NET, IIS Express also supports Classic ASP and other file-types and extensions supported by IIS – which also makes it ideal for sites that combine a variety of different technologies. Best of all – you do not need to change any code to take advantage of it.  As you can see above, updating existing Visual Studio web projects to use it is trivial.  You can begin to take advantage of IIS Express today using the VS 2010 SP1 Beta. Hope this helps, Scott

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• HTML5 or Javascript game engine to develop a browser game

  - by Jack Duluoz

  I would like to start developing a MMO browser game, like Travian or Ogame, probably involving also a bit of more sophisticated graphical features such as players interacting in real time with a 2d map or something like that. My main doubt is what kind of development tools I should use: I've a good experience with PHP and MySQL for the server side and Javascript (and jQuery) regarding the client side. Coding everything from scratch would be of course really painful so I was wondering if I should use a javascript game engine or not. Are there (possibly free) game engine you would recommend? Are they good enough to develop a big game? Also, I saw a lot of HTML5 games popping up lately but I'm now sure if using HTML5 is a good idea or not. Would you recommend it? What are the pro and cons about using HTML5? If you'd recommend it, do you have any good links regarding game development with HTML5? (PS: I know that HTML5 and a Javascript engine are not mutually exclusive, I just didn't know how to formulate a proper title since English is not my main language. So, please, answer addressing HTML5 and a game engine pro and cons separately)

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• javascript fixed timestep gameloop with requestanimation frame

  - by coffeecup

  hello i just started to read through several articles, including http://gafferongames.com/game-physics/fix-your-timestep/ ...://gamedev.stackexchange.com/questions/1589/fixed-time-step-vs-variable-time-step/ ...//dewitters.koonsolo.com/gameloop.html ...://nokarma.org/2011/02/02/javascript-game-development-the-game-loop/index.html my understanding of this is that i need the currentTime and the timeStep size and integrate all states to the next state the time which is left is then passed into the render function to do interpolation i tried to implement glenn fiedlers "the final touch", whats troubling me is that each FrameTime is about 15 (ms) and the update loop runs at about 1500 fps which seems a little bit off? heres my code this.t = 0 this.dt = 0.01 this.currTime = new Date().getTime() this.accumulator = 0.0 this.animate() animate: function(){ var newTime = new Date().getTime() , frameTime = newTime - this.currTime , alpha if ( frameTime > 0.25 ) frameTime = 0.25 this.currTime = newTime this.accumulator += frameTime while (this.accumulator >= this.dt ) { this.prev_state = this.curr_state this.update(this.t,this.dt) this.t += this.dt this.accumulator -= this.dt } alpha = this.accumulator / this.dt this.render( this.t, this.dt, alpha) requestAnimationFrame( this.animate ) } also i would like to know, are there differences between glenn fiedlers implementation and the last solution presented here ? gameloop1 gameloop2 [ sorry couldnt post more than 2 links.. ] edit : i looked into it again and adjusted the values this.currTime = new Date().getTime() this.accumulator = 0 this.p_t = 0 this.p_step = 1000/100 this.animate() animate: function(){ var newTime = new Date().getTime() , frameTime = newTime - this.currTime , alpha if(frameTime > 25) frameTime = 25 this.currTime = newTime this.accumulator += frameTime while(this.accumulator >= this.p_step){ // prevstate = currState this.update() this.p_t+=this.p_step this.accumulator -= this.p_step } alpha = this.accumulator / this.p_step this.render(alpha) requestAnimationFrame( this.animate ) now i can set the physics update rate, render runs at 60 fps and physics update at 100 fps, maybe someone could confirm this because its the first time i'm playing around with game development :-)

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• Game software design

  - by L. De Leo

  I have been working on a simple implementation of a card game in object oriented Python/HTML/Javascript and building on the top of Django. At this point the game is in its final stage of development but, while spotting a big issue about how I was keeping the application state (basically using a global variable), I reached the point that I'm stuck. The thing is that ignoring the design flaw, in a single-threaded environment such as under the Django development server, the game works perfectly. While I tried to design classes cleanly and keep methods short I now have in front of me an issue that has been keeping me busy for the last 2 days and that countless print statements and visual debugging hasn't helped me spot. The reason I think has to do with some side-effects of functions and to solve it I've been wondering if maybe refactoring the code entirely with static classes that keep no state and just passing the state around might be a good option to keep side-effects under control. Or maybe trying to program it in a functional programming style (although I'm not sure Python allows for a purely functional style). I feel that now there's already too many layers that the software (which I plan to make incredibly more complex by adding non trivial features) has already become unmanageable. How would you suggest I re-take control of my code-base that (despite being still only at < 1000 LOC) seems to have taken a life of its own?

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• Curing the Database-Application mismatch

  - by Phil Factor

  If an application requires access to a database, then you have to be able to deploy it so as to be version-compatible with the database, in phase. If you can deploy both together, then the application and database must normally be deployed at the same version in which they, together, passed integration and functional testing.  When a single database supports more than one application, then the problem gets more interesting. I’ll need to be more precise here. It is actually the application-interface definition of the database that needs to be in a compatible ‘version’.  Most databases that get into production have no separate application-interface; in other words they are ‘close-coupled’.  For this vast majority, the whole database is the application-interface, and applications are free to wander through the bowels of the database scot-free.  If you’ve spurned the perceived wisdom of application architects to have a defined application-interface within the database that is based on views and stored procedures, any version-mismatch will be as sensitive as a kitten.  A team that creates an application that makes direct access to base tables in a database will have to put a lot of energy into keeping Database and Application in sync, to say nothing of having to tackle issues such as security and audit. It is not the obvious route to development nirvana. I’ve been in countless tense meetings with application developers who initially bridle instinctively at the apparent restrictions of being ‘banned’ from the base tables or routines of a database.  There is no good technical reason for needing that sort of access that I’ve ever come across.  Everything that the application wants can be delivered via a set of views and procedures, and with far less pain for all concerned: This is the application-interface.  If more than zero developers are creating a database-driven application, then the project will benefit from the loose-coupling that an application interface brings. What is important here is that the database development role is separated from the application development role, even if it is the same developer performing both roles. The idea of an application-interface with a database is as old as I can remember. The big corporate or government databases generally supported several applications, and there was little option. When a new application wanted access to an existing corporate database, the developers, and myself as technical architect, would have to meet with hatchet-faced DBAs and production staff to work out an interface. Sure, they would talk up the effort involved for budgetary reasons, but it was routine work, because it decoupled the database from its supporting applications. We’d be given our own stored procedures. One of them, I still remember, had ninety-two parameters. All database access was encapsulated in one application-module. If you have a stable defined application-interface with the database (Yes, one for each application usually) you need to keep the external definitions of the components of this interface in version control, linked with the application source,  and carefully track and negotiate any changes between database developers and application developers.  Essentially, the application development team owns the interface definition, and the onus is on the Database developers to implement it and maintain it, in conformance.  Internally, the database can then make all sorts of changes and refactoring, as long as source control is maintained.  If the application interface passes all the comprehensive integration and functional tests for the particular version they were designed for, nothing is broken. Your performance-testing can ‘hang’ on the same interface, since databases are judged on the performance of the application, not an ‘internal’ database process. The database developers have responsibility for maintaining the application-interface, but not its definition,  as they refactor the database. This is easily tested on a daily basis since the tests are normally automated. In this setting, the deployment can proceed if the more stable application-interface, rather than the continuously-changing database, passes all tests for the version of the application. Normally, if all goes well, a database with a well-designed application interface can evolve gracefully without changing the external appearance of the interface, and this is confirmed by integration tests that check the interface, and which hopefully don’t need to be altered at all often.  If the application is rapidly changing its ‘domain model’  in the light of an increased understanding of the application domain, then it can change the interface definitions and the database developers need only implement the interface rather than refactor the underlying database.  The test team will also have to redo the functional and integration tests which are, of course ‘written to’ the definition.  The Database developers will find it easier if these tests are done before their re-wiring  job to implement the new interface. If, at the other extreme, an application receives no further development work but survives unchanged, the database can continue to change and develop to keep pace with the requirements of the other applications it supports, and needs only to take care that the application interface is never broken. Testing is easy since your automated scripts to test the interface do not need to change. The database developers will, of course, maintain their own source control for the database, and will be likely to maintain versions for all major releases. However, this will not need to be shared with the applications that the database servers. On the other hand, the definition of the application interfaces should be within the application source. Changes in it have to be subject to change-control procedures, as they will require a chain of tests. Once you allow, instead of an application-interface, an intimate relationship between application and database, we are in the realms of impedance mismatch, over and above the obvious security problems.  Part of this impedance problem is a difference in development practices. Whereas the application has to be regularly built and integrated, this isn’t necessarily the case with the database.  An RDBMS is inherently multi-user and self-integrating. If the developers work together on the database, then a subsequent integration of the database on a staging server doesn’t often bring nasty surprises. A separate database-integration process is only needed if the database is deliberately built in a way that mimics the application development process, but which hampers the normal database-development techniques.  This process is like demanding a official walking with a red flag in front of a motor car.  In order to closely coordinate databases with applications, entire databases have to be ‘versioned’, so that an application version can be matched with a database version to produce a working build without errors.  There is no natural process to ‘version’ databases.  Each development project will have to define a system for maintaining the version level. A curious paradox occurs in development when there is no formal application-interface. When the strains and cracks happen, the extra meetings, bureaucracy, and activity required to maintain accurate deployments looks to IT management like work. They see activity, and it looks good. Work means progress.  Management then smile on the design choices made. In IT, good design work doesn’t necessarily look good, and vice versa.

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• XNA extending the existing Content type

  - by Maarten

  We are doing a game in XNA that reacts to music. We need to do some offline processing of the music data and therefore we need a custom type containing the Song and some additional data: // Project AudioGameLibrary namespace AudioGameLibrary { public class GameTrack { public Song Song; public string Extra; } } We've added a Content Pipeline extension: // Project GameTrackProcessor namespace GameTrackProcessor { [ContentSerializerRuntimeType("AudioGameLibrary.GameTrack, AudioGameLibrary")] public class GameTrackContent { public SongContent SongContent; public string Extra; } [ContentProcessor(DisplayName = "GameTrack Processor")] public class GameTrackProcessor : ContentProcessor<AudioContent, GameTrackContent> { public GameTrackProcessor(){} public override GameTrackContent Process(AudioContent input, ContentProcessorContext context) { return new GameTrackContent() { SongContent = new SongProcessor().Process(input, context), Extra = "Some extra data" // Here we can do our processing on 'input' }; } } } Both the Library and the Pipeline extension are added to the Game Solution and references are also added. When trying to use this extension to load "gametrack.mp3" we run into problems however: // Project AudioGame protected override void LoadContent() { AudioGameLibrary.GameTrack gameTrack = Content.Load<AudioGameLibrary.GameTrack>("gametrack"); MediaPlayer.Play(gameTrack.Song); } The error message: Error loading "gametrack". File contains Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Media.Song but trying to load as AudioGameLibrary.GameTrack. AudioGame contains references to both AudioGameLibrary and GameTrackProcessor. Are we maybe missing other references?

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• Debugging/Logging Techniques for End Users

  - by James Burgess

  I searched a bit, but didn't find anything particularly pertinent to my problem - so please do excuse me if I missed something! A few months back I inherited the source to a fairly-popular indie game project and have been working, along with another developer, on the code-base. We recently made our first release since taking over the development but we're a little stuck. A few users are experiencing slowdowns/lagging in the current version, as compared to the previous version, and we are not able to reproduce these issues in any of our various development environments (debug, release, different OSes, different machines, etc.). What I'd like to know is how can we go about implementing some form of logging/debugging mechanism into the game, that users can enable and send the reports to us for examination? We're not able to distribute debug binaries using the MSVS 2010 runtimes, due to the licensing - and wouldn't want to, for a variety of reasons. We'd really like to get to the bottom of this issue, even if just to find out it's nothing to do with our code base but everything to do with their system configuration. At the moment, we just have no leads - and the community isn't a very technically-savvy one, so we're unable to rely on 'expert' bug reports or investigations. I've seen the debug logging mechanism used in other applications and games for everything from logging simple errors to crash dumps. We're really at a loss at this stage as to how to address these issues, having been over every commit to the repository from the previous to the current version and not finding any real issues.

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• How to implement a birds eye view of 2D Grid Map using Android

  - by IM_Adan

  I'm a true beginner with using the android platform and I'm having difficulties on implementing a 2D grid system for a tower defense type game. Where I can place towers on a specific tile and enemies will be able to traverse through tiles etc. What I would like is a practical explanation of how I could tackle this. A step by step guide for dummies. This is what I believe are the necessary steps to take, I think I might be wrong but I hope someone could help me out. Calculate the Width and Height of the view I'm working with. Based on that, determine the number of tiles required and their dimensions, (Still not sure how I would do this) Create each tile as a Rectangle object and draw these rectangle on a canvas I would really be grateful if someone could steer me in the right direction on how to implement a 2D Grid Map using android. I hope the answer to this questions helps the TRUE beginners out there like me. I have looked at the following links below yet I still feel that I don't trully understand what's going on. For XNA: 2D Grid based game - how should I draw grid lines? How to Create a Grid for a 2D Game? Also a quick note: All my previous game development has been in Java, mostly using Java SE and Swing. I also have good understanding of the game development process, it is only android thats confusing me :S

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• multi user web game with scheduled processing?

  - by Rooq

  I have an idea for a game which I am in the process of designing, but I am struggling to establish if the way I plan to implement it is possible. The game is a text based sports management simulation. This will require players to take certain actions through a web browser which will interact with a database - adding/updating and selecting. Most of the code required to be executed at this point will be fairly straightforward. The main processing will take place by applications which are scheduled to run on the server at certain times. These apps will process transactions added by the players and also perform some automatic processing based on the game date. My plan was to use an SQL server database (at last count I require about 20 tables) and VB.net for all the coding (coming from a mainframe programming background this language is the simplist for me to get to grips with). I will also need a scheduling tool on the server. Can anyone tell me if what I am planning is feasible before I dive into the actual coding stage of my project?

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• Porting Ruby/NCruses Rogue-Like to .NET and FlatRedBall

  - by ashes999

  I created an awesome rogue-like game in Ruby. For the GUI, I used NCurses. Since I'm using FlatRedBall as my engine of choice for Silverlight game development, I want to port this game over. What is the best way to efficiently doing this, and what are the pitfalls I should expect? For example, Ruby is object-oriented, like C#, and I should be able to just convert (rewrite) classes one by one. However, I will run into issues like: NCurses API. I need to possibly create my own notions of a "Window", or else rewrite GUI code. It's one class, but it's BIG. Mix-Ins. These are essentially aspect-oriented development. There are a couple of solutions in .NET, like dynamic classes. What else? Also, I should mention that I want to create a C# application out of this. As much as possible, I'll dump reusable and helper code, algorithms, etc. into separate projects and generate reusable DLLs.

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• Alternatives to a leveling system

  - by Bane

  I'm currently designing a rough prototype of a mecha fighting game. These are the basics I came up with: Multiplayer (matchmaking for up to 10 people, for now) Browser based (HTML5) 2D (<canvas>) Persistent (as in, players have accounts and don't have to use a new mech each time they start a match) Players earn money upon destroying another mech, which is used to buy parts (guns, armor, boosters, etc) Simplicity (both of the game itself, and of the development of said game) No "leveling" (as in, players don't get awarded with XP) The last part is bothering me. At first, I wanted to have players gain experience points (XP) when destroying other mechs, but gaining two things at once (money and XP) seemed to be in conflict with my last point, which is simplicity. If I were to have a leveling system, that would require additional development. But, the biggest problem is that I simply couldn't fit it anywhere! Adding levels would require adding meaning to these levels, and most of the things that I hoped to achieve could already be achieved with the money mechanic I introduced. So I decided to drop leveling off completely. That, in turn, removed a fairly popular and robust mean of progression in games from my game (not that I would use it well anyway). Is there another way of progression in games, aside from leveling and XP points, that wouldn't get rendered redundant by my money mechanic, would be somehow meaningful (even on a symbolic level), and wouldn't be in conflict with my last point, which is simplicity?

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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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• BizTalk: History of one project architecture

  - by Leonid Ganeline

  "In the beginning God made heaven and earth. Then he started to integrate." At the very start was the requirement: integrate two working systems. Small digging up: It was one system. It was good but IT guys want to change it to the new one, much better, chipper, more flexible, and more progressive in technologies, more suitable for the future, for the faster world and hungry competitors. One thing. One small, little thing. We cannot turn off the old system (call it A, because it was the first), turn on the new one (call it B, because it is second but not the last one). The A has a hundreds users all across a country, they must study B. A still has a lot nice custom features, home-made features that cannot disappear. These features have to be moved to the B and it is a long process, months and months of redevelopment. So, the decision was simple. Let’s move not jump, let’s both systems working side-by-side several months. In this time we could teach the users and move all custom A’s special functionality to B. That automatically means both systems should work side-by-side all these months and use the same data. Data in A and B must be in sync. That’s how the integration projects get birth. Moreover, the specific of the user tasks requires the both systems must be in sync in real-time. Nightly synchronization is not working, absolutely.   First draft The first draft seems simple. Both systems keep data in SQL databases. When data changes, the Create, Update, Delete operations performed on the data, and the sync process could be started. The obvious decision is to use triggers on tables. When we are talking about data, we are talking about several entities. For example, Orders and Items [in Orders]. We decided to use the BizTalk Server to synchronize systems. Why it was chosen is another story. Second draft   Let’s take an example how it works in more details. 1.       User creates a new entity in the A system. This fires an insert trigger on the entity table. Trigger has to pass the message “Entity created”. This message includes all attributes of the new entity, but I focused on the Id of this entity in the A system. Notation for this message is id.A. System A sends id.A to the BizTalk Server. 2.       BizTalk transforms id.A to the format of the system B. This is easiest part and I will not focus on this kind of transformations in the following text. The message on the picture is still id.A but it is in slightly different format, that’s why it is changing in color. BizTalk sends id.A to the system B. 3.       The system B creates the entity on its side. But it uses different id-s for entities, these id-s are id.B. System B saves id.A+id.B. System B sends the message id.A+id.B back to the BizTalk. 4.       BizTalk sends the message id.A+id.B to the system A. 5.       System A saves id.A+id.B. Why both id-s should be saved on both systems? It was one of the next requirements. Users of both systems have to know the systems are in sync or not in sync. Users working with the entity on the system A can see the id.B and use it to switch to the system B and work there with the copy of the same entity. The decision was to store the pairs of entity id-s on both sides. If there is only one id, the entities are not in sync yet (for the Create operation). Third draft Next problem was the reliability of the synchronization. The synchronizing process can be interrupted on each step, when message goes through the wires. It can be communication problem, timeout, temporary shutdown one of the systems, the second system cannot be synchronized by some internal reason. There were several potential problems that prevented from enclosing the whole synchronization process in one transaction. Decision was to restart the whole sync process if it was not finished (in case of the error). For this purpose was created an additional service. Let’s call it the Resync service. We still keep the id pairs in both systems, but only for the fast access not for the synchronization process. For the synchronizing these id-s now are kept in one main place, in the Resync service database. The Resync service keeps record as: ·       Id.A ·       Id.B ·       Entity.Type ·       Operation (Create, Update, Delete) ·       IsSyncStarted (true/false) ·       IsSyncFinished (true/false0 The example now looks like: 1.       System A creates id.A. id.A is saved on the A. Id.A is sent to the BizTalk. 2.       BizTalk sends id.A to the Resync and to the B. id.A is saved on the Resync. 3.       System B creates id.B. id.A+id.B are saved on the B. id.A+id.B are sent to the BizTalk. 4.       BizTalk sends id.A+id.B to the Resync and to the A. id.A+id.B are saved on the Resync. 5.       id.A+id.B are saved on the B. Resync changes the IsSyncStarted and IsSyncFinished flags accordingly. The Resync service implements three main methods: ·       Save (id.A, Entity.Type, Operation) ·       Save (id.A, id.B, Entity.Type, Operation) ·       Resync () Two Save() are used to save id-s to the service storage. See in the above example, in 2 and 4 steps. What about the Resync()? It is the method that finishes the interrupted synchronization processes. If Save() is started by the trigger event, the Resync() is working as an independent process. It periodically scans the Resync storage to find out “unfinished” records. Then it restarts the synchronization processes. It tries to synchronize them several times then gives up.     One more thing, both systems A and B must tolerate duplicates of one synchronizing process. Say on the step 3 the system B was not able to send id.A+id.B back. The Resync service must restart the synchronization process that will send the id.A to B second time. In this case system B must just send back again also created id.A+id.B pair without errors. That means “tolerate duplicates”. Fourth draft Next draft was created only because of the aesthetics. As it always happens, aesthetics gave significant performance gain to the whole system. First was the stupid question. Why do we need this additional service with special database? Can we just master the BizTalk to do something like this Resync() does? So the Resync orchestration is doing the same thing as the Resync service. It is started by the Id.A and finished by the id.A+id.B message. The first works as a Start message, the second works as a Finish message.     Here is a diagram the whole process without errors. It is pretty straightforward. The Resync orchestration is waiting for the Finish message specific period of time then resubmits the Id.A message. It resubmits the Id.A message specific number of times then gives up and gets suspended. It can be resubmitted then it starts the whole process again: waiting [, resubmitting [, get suspended]], finishing. Tuning up The Resync orchestration resubmits the id.A message with special “Resubmitted” flag. The subscription filter on the Resync orchestration includes predicate as (Resubmit_Flag != “Resubmitted”). That means only the first Sync orchestration starts the Resync orchestration. Other Sync orchestration instantiated by the resubmitting can finish this Resync orchestration but cannot start another instance of the Resync   Here is a diagram where system B was inaccessible for some period of time. The Resync orchestration resubmitted the id.A two times. Then system B got the response the id.A+id.B and this finished the Resync service execution. What is interesting about this, there were submitted several identical id.A messages and only one id.A+id.B message. Because of this, the system B and the Resync must tolerate the duplicate messages. We also told about this requirement for the system B. Now the same requirement is for the Resunc. Let’s assume the system B was very slow in the first response and the Resync service had time to resubmit two id.A messages. System B responded not, as it was in previous case, with one id.A+id.B but with two id.A+id.B messages. First of them finished the Resync execution for the id.A. What about the second id.A+id.B? Where it goes? So, we have to add one more internal requirement. The whole solution must tolerate many identical id.A+id.B messages. It is easy task with the BizTalk. I added the “SinkExtraMessages” subscriber (orchestration with one receive shape), that just get these messages and do nothing. Real design Real architecture is much more complex and interesting. In reality each system can submit several id.A almost simultaneously and completely unordered. There are not only the “Create entity” operation but the Update and Delete operations. And these operations relate each other. Say the Update operation after Delete means not the same as Update after Create. In reality there are entities related each other. Say the Order and Order Items. Change on one of it could start the series of the operations on another. Moreover, the system internals are the “black boxes” and we cannot predict the exact content and order of the operation series. It worth to say, I had to spend a time to manage the zombie message problems. The zombies are still here, but this is not a problem now. And this is another story. What is interesting in the last design? One orchestration works to help another to be more reliable. Why two orchestration design is more reliable, isn’t it something strange? The Synch orchestration takes all the message exchange between systems, here is the area where most of the errors could happen. The Resync orchestration sends and receives messages only within the BizTalk server. Is there another design? Sure. All Resync functionality could be implemented inside the Sync orchestration. Hey guys, some other ideas?

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• What is the best way to code the XNA Game Server for FPS game?

  - by AgentFire

  I'm writing a FPS XNA game. It gonna be multiplayer so I came up with following: I'm making two different assemblies — one for the game logic and the second for drawing it and the game irrelevant stuff (like rocket trails). The type of the connection is client-server (not peer-to-peer), so every client at first connects to the server and then the game begins. I'm completly decided to use XNA.Framework.Game class for the clients to run their game in window (or fullscreen) and the GameComponent/DrawableGameComponent classes to store the game objects and update&draw them on each frame. Next, I want to get the answer to the question: What should I do on the server side? I got few options: Create my own Game class on the server, which will process all the game logic (only, no graphics). The reason why I am not using the standart Game class is when I call Game.Run() the white window appears and I cant figure out how to get rid of it. Use somehow the original XNA's Game class, which is already has the GameComponent collection and Update event (60 times per second, just what I need). UPDATE: I got more questions: First, what socket mode should I use? TCP or UDP? And how to actually let the client know that this packet is meant to be processed after that one? Second, if I is going to use exacly GameComponent class for the game objects which is stored and process on the server, how to make them to be drawn on the client? Inherit them (while they are combined to an assembly)? Something else?

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• Is there a portal dedicated to HTML5 games?

  - by Bane

  Just to get something straight; by "portal", I mean a website that frequently publishes a certain type of games, has a blog, some articles, maybe some tutorials and so on. All of these things are not required (except the game publishing part, of course), for example, I consider Miniclip to be a flash game portal. The reason for defining this term is because I'm not sure if other people use it in this context. I recently (less than a year ago) got into HTML5 game development, nothing serious, just my own small projects that I didn't really show to a lot of people, and that certainly didn't end up somewhere on the web (although, I am planning to make a website for my next game). I am interested in the existence of an online portal where indie devs (or non-indie ones, doesn't really matter that much) can publish their own games, sort of like "by devs for devs", also a place where you can find some simple tutorials on basic HTML5 game development and so on... I doubt something like this exists for several reasons: You can't really commercialize an HTML5 game without a strong server-side and microtransactions The code can be easily copied HTML5 is simply new, and things need time to get their own portals somewhere... If a thing like this does not exist, I think I might get into making one some day...

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• Updating physics for animated models

  - by Mathias Hölzl

  For a new game we have do set up a scene with a minimum of 30 bone animated models.(shooter) The problem is that the update process for the animated models takes too long. Thats what I do: Each character has ~30 bones and for every update tick the animation gets calculated and every bone fires a event with the new matrix. The physics receives the event with the new matrix and updates the collision shape for that bone. The time that it takes to build the animation isn't that bad (0.2ms for 30 Bones - 6ms for 30 models). But the main problem is that the physic engine (Bullet) uses a diffrent matrix for transformation and so its necessary to convert it. Code for matrix conversion: (~0.005ms) btTransform CLEAR_PHYSICS_API Mat_to_btTransform( Mat mat ) { btMatrix3x3 bulletRotation; btVector3 bulletPosition; XMFLOAT4X4 matData = mat.GetStorage(); // copy rotation matrix for ( int row=0; row<3; ++row ) for ( int column=0; column<3; ++column ) bulletRotation[row][column] = matData.m[column][row]; for ( int column=0; column<3; ++column ) bulletPosition[column] = matData.m[3][column]; return btTransform( bulletRotation, bulletPosition ); } The function for updating the transform(Physic): void CLEAR_PHYSICS_API BulletPhysics::VKinematicMove(Mat mat, ActorId aid) { if ( btRigidBody * const body = FindActorBody( aid ) ) { btTransform tmp = Mat_to_btTransform( mat ); body->setWorldTransform( tmp ); } } The real problem is the function FindActorBody(id): ActorIDToBulletActorMap::const_iterator found = m_actorBodies.find( id ); if ( found != m_actorBodies.end() ) return found->second; All physic actors are stored in m_actorBodies and thats why the updating process takes to long. But I have no idea how I could avoid this. Friendly greedings, Mathias

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• 2D/Isometric map algorithm

  - by Icarus Cocksson

  First of all, I don't have much experience on game development but I do have experience on development. I do know how to make a map, but I don't know if my solution is a normal or a hacky solution. I don't want to waste my time coding things, and realise they're utterly crap and lose my motivation. Let's imagine the following map. (2D - top view - A square) X: 0 to 500 Y: 0 to 500 My character currently stands at X:250,Y:400, somewhere near center of 100px above bottom and I can control him with my keyboard buttons. LEFT button does X--, UP button does Y-- etc. This one is kid's play. I'm asking this because I know there are some engines that automate this task. For example, games like Diablo 3 uses an engine. You can pretty much drag drop a rock to map, and it is automatically being placed here - making player unable to pass through/detect the collision. But what the engine exactly does in the background? Generates a map like mine, places a rock at the center, and checks it like: unmovableObjects = array('50,50'); //we placed a rock at 50,50 location if(Map.hasUnmovableObject(CurrentPlayerX, CurrentPlayerY)) { //unable to move } else { //able to move } My question is: Is this how 2D/Isometric maps are being generated or there is a different and more complex logic behind them?

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• Will a polled event system cause lag for a server?

  - by Milo

  I'm using a library called ENet. It is a reliable UDP library. The way it works is a polled event system like this: ENetEvent event; /* Wait up to 1000 milliseconds for an event. */ while (enet_host_service (client, & event, 1000) > 0) { switch (event.type) { case ENET_EVENT_TYPE_CONNECT: printf ("A new client connected from %x:%u.\n", event.peer -> address.host, event.peer -> address.port); /* Store any relevant client information here. */ event.peer -> data = "Client information"; break; case ENET_EVENT_TYPE_RECEIVE: printf ("A packet of length %u containing %s was received from %s on channel %u.\n", event.packet -> dataLength, event.packet -> data, event.peer -> data, event.channelID); /* Clean up the packet now that we're done using it. */ enet_packet_destroy (event.packet); break; case ENET_EVENT_TYPE_DISCONNECT: printf ("%s disconected.\n", event.peer -> data); /* Reset the peer's client information. */ event.peer -> data = NULL; } } It waits up to 1000 milliseconds for an event. If I'm hosting say 75 event driven card games and a lobby on the same thread as this code, will it cause any problems. If my understanding is correct, the process will simply sleep until there is an event, when there is one, it will process the event then come back here where potentially 5 or so events have queued up since so enet_host_services would return right away and not cause lag. I have been advised not to use multiple threads, will that be alright like this? Thanks

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• How to define type-specific scripts when using a 'type object' programming pattern?

  - by Erik

  I am in the process of creating a game engine written in C++, using the C/C++ SQLite interface to achieve a 'type object' pattern. The process is largely similar to what is outlined here (Thank you Bob Nystrom for the great resource!). I have a generally defined Entity class that when a new object is created, data is taken from a SQLite database and then is pushed back into a pointer vector, which is then iterated through, calling update() for each object. All the ints, floats, strings are loaded in fine, but the script() member of Entity is proving an issue. It's not much fun having a bunch of stationary objects laying around my gameworld. The only solutions I've come up with so far are: Create a monolithic EntityScript class with member functions encompassing all game AI and then calling the corresponding script when iterating through the Entity vector. (Not ideal) Create bindings between C++ and a scripting language. This would seem to get the job done, but it feels like implementing this (given the potential memory overhead) and learning a new language is overkill for a small team (2-3 people) that know the entirety of the existing game engine. Can you suggest any possible alternatives? My ideal situation would be that to add content to the game, one would simply add a script file to the appropriate directory and append the SQLite database with all the object data. All that is required is to have a variety of integers and floats passed between both the engine and the script file.

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• Changing the material on an object on click in unity

  - by user1509674

  Iam working on unity2d.I have six game object Object1,Object1,Object1,(these are images) ObjectImage1,ObjectImage2,ObjectImage3(these are images). I have arranged the object in the scene as a list one below another Object1 Object2 Object3 When I click the Object1 --- should change to ObjectImage1 Object2 ----should change to ObjectImage2, but the above image of object1(objectImage1) at present should change to Object1 Object3 ----? should change to ObjectImage3,but the above image on object2(objectImage2) should change to Object2 These is similar to selection.I have coded Like when I click of Object2 its changing to ObjectIamge2 but the first object is not changing to object1 from objectImage1.Can anybody help me coding it out. Edit: public GameObject newSprite; private Vector3 currentSpritePosition; void Start() { newSprite.renderer.enabled = false; currentSpritePosition = transform.position; //then make it invisible renderer.enabled = false; //give the new sprite the position of the latter newSprite.transform.position = currentSpritePosition; //then make it visible newSprite.renderer.enabled = true; } void OnMouseExit(){ //just the reverse process renderer.enabled = true; newSprite.renderer.enabled = false; } This is the code used to change the material: public GameObject newSprite; private Vector3 currentSpritePosition; void Start(){ newSprite.renderer.enabled = false; } void OnMouseEnter(){ //getting the current position of the current sprite if ever it can move; currentSpritePosition = transform.position; //then make it invisible renderer.enabled = false; //give the new sprite the position of the latter newSprite.transform.position = currentSpritePosition; //then make it visible newSprite.renderer.enabled = true; } void OnMouseExit(){ //just the reverse process renderer.enabled = true; newSprite.renderer.enabled = false; }

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• Which software to keep track of my project?

  - by Exa

  I'm about to start the first real phase of my game development which will consist of the acquisition of information, resources and the definition of where I want to go and what I will need for that. I just want to make sure that I'm prepared as best as possible before I actually start development. I don't like the thought of using Microsoft Word or Excel for my project management... I already worked with MS Project but I don't think it fits my needs. I need a software where I can easily maintain project steps, milestones, important issues, information about technologies and engines I use, as well as simple notes and thoughts I just want to write down. I usually prefer a whiteboard for stuff like that but unfortunately it's not a persistent way of storing. ;) Also writing it down the old-school way is something I can think of, but only for quick notes... Which software do you use for that? Are there commonly used programs? Is there any free software at all?

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• Jump handling and gravity

  - by sprawl

  I'm new to game development and am looking for some help on improving my jump handling for a simple side scrolling game I've made. I would like to make the jump last longer if the key is held down for the full length of the jump, otherwise if the key is tapped, make the jump not as long. Currently, how I'm handling the jumping is the following: Player.prototype.jump = function () { // Player pressed jump key if (this.isJumping === true) { // Set sprite to jump state this.settings.slice = 250; if (this.isFalling === true) { // Player let go of jump key, increase rate of fall this.settings.y -= this.velocity; this.velocity -= this.settings.gravity * 2; } else { // Player is holding down jump key this.settings.y -= this.velocity; this.velocity -= this.settings.gravity; } } if (this.settings.y >= 240) { // Player is on the ground this.isJumping = false; this.isFalling = false; this.velocity = this.settings.maxVelocity; this.settings.y = 240; } } I'm setting isJumping on keydown and isFalling on keyup. While it works okay for simple use, I'm looking for a better way handle jumping and gravity. It's a bit buggy if the gravity is increased (which is why I had to put the last y setting in the last if condition in there) on keyup, so I'd like to know a better way to do it. Where are some resources I could look at that would help me better understand how to handle jumping and gravity? What's a better approach to handling this? Like I said, I'm new to game development so I could be doing it completely wrong. Any help would be appreciated.

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• Processing component pools problem - Entity Subsystem

  - by mani3xis

  Architecture description I'm creating (designing) an entity system and I ran into many problems. I'm trying to keep it Data-Oriented and efficient as much as possible. My components are POD structures (array of bytes to be precise) allocated in homogeneous pools. Each pool has a ComponentDescriptor - it just contains component name, field types and field names. Entity is just a pointer to array of components (where address acts like an entity ID). EntityPrototype contains entity name and array of component names. Finally Subsystem (System or Processor) which works on component pools. Actual problem The problem is that some components dependents on others (Model, Sprite, PhysicalBody, Animation depends on Transform component) which makes a lot of problems when it comes to processing them. For example, lets define some entities using [S]prite, [P]hysicalBody and [H]ealth: Tank: Transform, Sprite, PhysicalBody BgTree: Transform, Sprite House: Transform, Sprite, Health and create 4 Tanks, 5 BgTrees and 2 Houses and my pools will look like: TTTTTTTTTTT // Transform pool SSSSSSSSSSS // Sprite pool PPPP // PhysicalBody pool HH // Health component There is no way to process them using indices. I spend 3 days working on it and I still don't have any ideas. In previous designs TransformComponent was bound to the entity - but it wasn't a good idea. Can you give me some advices how to process them? Or maybe I should change the overall design? Maybe I should create pools of entites (pools of component pools) - but I guess it will be a nightmare for CPU caches. Thanks

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• Is there an alternative to SDL 1.3 for a C++ game that should run on iOS and Android?

  - by futlib

  I've used SDL for many desktop games, always as the cross-platform glue for: Creating a window Processing input Rendering images Rendering fonts Playing sounds/music It has never disappointed me at those tasks. But when it comes to graphics, I prefer to work with the OpenGL API directly, even though all of our games are 2D. In the project I'm currently working on, I've made sure to only use the API subset supported by both OpenGL 1.3 and OpenGL 1.0, so making the thing run on Android should be easy, I thought. Turns out there is no official Android or iOS port of SDL yet. However, there's one in SDL 1.3, which is still in development. SDL 1.3 doesn't seem very appealing to me for three reasons: It's been in development for at least 4 years, and I have no idea when it will be done, not to mention stable. It's not ported to as many platforms as SDL 1.2. From what I've seen, it uses OpenGL for drawing, so I suppose the community will move away from directly using OpenGL. So I'm wondering if I should use a different library for our current project - it doesn't matter much if I need to port my existing code from SDL 1.2 to SDL 1.3 or to some other library. We're planning to release on Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, iOS and Android, so good support for these platforms is essential. Is there anything stable that does what I want?

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• Clutter for game GUI

  - by tjameson

  I'm pretty new to game development, having only written a simple 3d game for a class project, but I'd like to get started on a bigger project. I'm writing an MMORPG to run in both the browser (WebGL) and natively (OpenGL ES 2). In choosing a GUI toolkit, I'm trying to find a style that work work natively and would be simple to emulate in WebGL. I am considering using D or Go for writing my game, so interfacing with C++ libraries will be difficult, if not impossible. Of course, the language isn't the end goal here, so if using C++ will save considerable time, I'll bite the bullet and use that. In order to reduce the amount of code I'll have to write for the browser, I'm considering using something simple like Clutter for basic abstractions, which I think will be pretty easy to emulate (layered canvases maybe?). Does anyone have experience using Clutter for a 3d game? Note: I haven't used any game development libraries, and I only have limited experience with GUI libraries. I do have HTML+CSS experience, so maybe librocket is a viable solution?

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