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• How to create a 3D world with 2D sprites similar to Ragnorak online?

  - by Romoku

  As far as I know Ragnorak Online is a 3D game world with 2D sprites overlayed. I would like to use this style in a game I am making in Unity, so I would like the player to be able to select little square tiles on the terrain. There are a couple routes I could take such as using a bunch of cubic polygons and linking them together or using one big map. The former approach doesn't seem to make any sense if the world is not flat as polygons wouldn't be reused often. The goal is to break down a 3D polygon into tiles which is heard to wrap my head around. I believe using something like an interval tree or array would be appropriate to store the rectangle grid, but how would I display a rectangle around the selection the player has his mouse over on the polygon terrain itself? Here is a screenshot. Here is a gameplay video. Here is the camera usage.

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• Doing powerups in a component-based system

  - by deft_code

  I'm just starting really getting my head around component based design. I don't know what the "right" way to do this is. Here's the scenario. The player can equip a shield. The the shield is drawn as bubble around the player, it has a separate collision shape, and reduces the damage the player receives from area effects. How is such a shield architected in a component based game? Where I get confused is that the shield obviously has three components associated with it. Damage reduction / filtering A sprite A collider. To make it worse different shield variations could have even more behaviors, all of which could be components: boost player maximum health health regen projectile deflection etc Am I overthinking this? Should the shield just be a super component? I really think this is wrong answer. So if you think this is the way to go please explain. Should the shield be its own entity that tracks the location of the player? That might make it hard to implement the damage filtering. It also kinda blurs the lines between attached components and entities. Should the shield be a component that houses other components? I've never seen or heard of anything like this, but maybe it's common and I'm just not deep enough yet. Should the shield just be a set of components that get added to the player? Possibly with an extra component to manage the others, e.g. so they can all be removed as a group. (accidentally leave behind the damage reduction component, now that would be fun). Something else that's obvious to someone with more component experience?

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• Wikipedia A* pathfinding algorithm takes a lot of time

  - by Vee

  I've successfully implemented A* pathfinding in C# but it is very slow, and I don't understand why. I even tried not sorting the openNodes list but it's still the same. The map is 80x80, and there are 10-11 nodes. I took the pseudocode from here Wikipedia And this is my implementation: public static List<PGNode> Pathfind(PGMap mMap, PGNode mStart, PGNode mEnd) { mMap.ClearNodes(); mMap.GetTile(mStart.X, mStart.Y).Value = 0; mMap.GetTile(mEnd.X, mEnd.Y).Value = 0; List<PGNode> openNodes = new List<PGNode>(); List<PGNode> closedNodes = new List<PGNode>(); List<PGNode> solutionNodes = new List<PGNode>(); mStart.G = 0; mStart.H = GetManhattanHeuristic(mStart, mEnd); solutionNodes.Add(mStart); solutionNodes.Add(mEnd); openNodes.Add(mStart); // 1) Add the starting square (or node) to the open list. while (openNodes.Count > 0) // 2) Repeat the following: { openNodes.Sort((p1, p2) => p1.F.CompareTo(p2.F)); PGNode current = openNodes[0]; // a) We refer to this as the current square.) if (current == mEnd) { while (current != null) { solutionNodes.Add(current); current = current.Parent; } return solutionNodes; } openNodes.Remove(current); closedNodes.Add(current); // b) Switch it to the closed list. List<PGNode> neighborNodes = current.GetNeighborNodes(); double cost = 0; bool isCostBetter = false; for (int i = 0; i < neighborNodes.Count; i++) { PGNode neighbor = neighborNodes[i]; cost = current.G + 10; isCostBetter = false; if (neighbor.Passable == false || closedNodes.Contains(neighbor)) continue; // If it is not walkable or if it is on the closed list, ignore it. if (openNodes.Contains(neighbor) == false) { openNodes.Add(neighbor); // If it isn’t on the open list, add it to the open list. isCostBetter = true; } else if (cost < neighbor.G) { isCostBetter = true; } if (isCostBetter) { neighbor.Parent = current; // Make the current square the parent of this square. neighbor.G = cost; neighbor.H = GetManhattanHeuristic(current, neighbor); } } } return null; } Here's the heuristic I'm using: private static double GetManhattanHeuristic(PGNode mStart, PGNode mEnd) { return Math.Abs(mStart.X - mEnd.X) + Math.Abs(mStart.Y - mEnd.Y); } What am I doing wrong? It's an entire day I keep looking at the same code.

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• 2D metaball liquid effect - how to feed output of one rendering pass as input to another shader

  - by Guye Incognito

  I'm attempting to make a shader for unity3d web project. I want to implement something like in the great answer by DMGregory in this question. in order to achieve a final look something like this.. Its metaballs with specular and shading. The steps to make this shader are. 1. Convert the feathered blobs into a heightmap. 2. Generate a normalmap from the heightmap 3. Feed the normal map and height map into a standard unity shader, for instance transparent parallax specular. I pretty much have all the pieces I need assembled but I am new to shaders and need help putting them together I can generate a heightmap from the blobs using some fragment shader code I wrote (I'm just using the red channel here cus i dont know if you can access the brightness) half4 frag (v2f i) : COLOR{ half4 texcol,finalColor; texcol = tex2D (_MainTex, i.uv); finalColor=_MyColor; if(texcol.r<_botmcut) { finalColor.r= 0; } else if((texcol.r>_topcut)) { finalColor.r= 0; } else { float r = _topcut-_botmcut; float xpos = _topcut - texcol.r; finalColor.r= (_botmcut + sqrt((xpos*xpos)-(r*r)))/_constant; } return finalColor; } turns these blobs.. into this heightmap Also I've found some CG code that generates a normal map from a height map. The bit of code that makes the normal map from finite differences is here void surf (Input IN, inout SurfaceOutput o) { o.Albedo = fixed3(0.5); float3 normal = UnpackNormal(tex2D(_BumpMap, IN.uv_MainTex)); float me = tex2D(_HeightMap,IN.uv_MainTex).x; float n = tex2D(_HeightMap,float2(IN.uv_MainTex.x,IN.uv_MainTex.y+1.0/_HeightmapDimY)).x; float s = tex2D(_HeightMap,float2(IN.uv_MainTex.x,IN.uv_MainTex.y-1.0/_HeightmapDimY)).x; float e = tex2D(_HeightMap,float2(IN.uv_MainTex.x-1.0/_HeightmapDimX,IN.uv_MainTex.y)).x; float w = tex2D(_HeightMap,float2(IN.uv_MainTex.x+1.0/_HeightmapDimX,IN.uv_MainTex.y)).x; float3 norm = normal; float3 temp = norm; //a temporary vector that is not parallel to norm if(norm.x==1) temp.y+=0.5; else temp.x+=0.5; //form a basis with norm being one of the axes: float3 perp1 = normalize(cross(norm,temp)); float3 perp2 = normalize(cross(norm,perp1)); //use the basis to move the normal in its own space by the offset float3 normalOffset = -_HeightmapStrength * ( ( (n-me) - (s-me) ) * perp1 + ( ( e - me ) - ( w - me ) ) * perp2 ); norm += normalOffset; norm = normalize(norm); o.Normal = norm; } Also here is the built-in transparent parallax specular shader for unity. Shader "Transparent/Parallax Specular" { Properties { _Color ("Main Color", Color) = (1,1,1,1) _SpecColor ("Specular Color", Color) = (0.5, 0.5, 0.5, 0) _Shininess ("Shininess", Range (0.01, 1)) = 0.078125 _Parallax ("Height", Range (0.005, 0.08)) = 0.02 _MainTex ("Base (RGB) TransGloss (A)", 2D) = "white" {} _BumpMap ("Normalmap", 2D) = "bump" {} _ParallaxMap ("Heightmap (A)", 2D) = "black" {} } SubShader { Tags {"Queue"="Transparent" "IgnoreProjector"="True" "RenderType"="Transparent"} LOD 600 CGPROGRAM #pragma surface surf BlinnPhong alpha #pragma exclude_renderers flash sampler2D _MainTex; sampler2D _BumpMap; sampler2D _ParallaxMap; fixed4 _Color; half _Shininess; float _Parallax; struct Input { float2 uv_MainTex; float2 uv_BumpMap; float3 viewDir; }; void surf (Input IN, inout SurfaceOutput o) { half h = tex2D (_ParallaxMap, IN.uv_BumpMap).w; float2 offset = ParallaxOffset (h, _Parallax, IN.viewDir); IN.uv_MainTex += offset; IN.uv_BumpMap += offset; fixed4 tex = tex2D(_MainTex, IN.uv_MainTex); o.Albedo = tex.rgb * _Color.rgb; o.Gloss = tex.a; o.Alpha = tex.a * _Color.a; o.Specular = _Shininess; o.Normal = UnpackNormal(tex2D(_BumpMap, IN.uv_BumpMap)); } ENDCG } FallBack "Transparent/Bumped Specular" }

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• Opposite Force to Apply to a Collided Rigid Body?

  - by Milo

  I'm working on the physics for my GTA2-like game so I can learn more about game physics. The collision detection and resolution are working great. I'm now just unsure how to compute the force to apply to a body after it collides with a wall. My rigid body looks like this: /our simulation object class RigidBody extends Entity { //linear private Vector2D velocity = new Vector2D(); private Vector2D forces = new Vector2D(); private float mass; private Vector2D v = new Vector2D(); //angular private float angularVelocity; private float torque; private float inertia; //graphical private Vector2D halfSize = new Vector2D(); private Bitmap image; private Matrix mat = new Matrix(); private float[] Vector2Ds = new float[2]; private Vector2D tangent = new Vector2D(); private static Vector2D worldRelVec = new Vector2D(); private static Vector2D relWorldVec = new Vector2D(); private static Vector2D pointVelVec = new Vector2D(); private static Vector2D acceleration = new Vector2D(); public RigidBody() { //set these defaults so we don't get divide by zeros mass = 1.0f; inertia = 1.0f; setLayer(LAYER_OBJECTS); } protected void rectChanged() { if(getWorld() != null) { getWorld().updateDynamic(this); } } //intialize out parameters public void initialize(Vector2D halfSize, float mass, Bitmap bitmap) { //store physical parameters this.halfSize = halfSize; this.mass = mass; image = bitmap; inertia = (1.0f / 20.0f) * (halfSize.x * halfSize.x) * (halfSize.y * halfSize.y) * mass; RectF rect = new RectF(); float scalar = 10.0f; rect.left = (int)-halfSize.x * scalar; rect.top = (int)-halfSize.y * scalar; rect.right = rect.left + (int)(halfSize.x * 2.0f * scalar); rect.bottom = rect.top + (int)(halfSize.y * 2.0f * scalar); setRect(rect); } public void setLocation(Vector2D position, float angle) { getRect().set(position.x,position.y, getWidth(), getHeight(), angle); rectChanged(); } public Vector2D getPosition() { return getRect().getCenter(); } @Override public void update(float timeStep) { doUpdate(timeStep); } public void doUpdate(float timeStep) { //integrate physics //linear acceleration.x = forces.x / mass; acceleration.y = forces.y / mass; velocity.x += (acceleration.x * timeStep); velocity.y += (acceleration.y * timeStep); //velocity = Vector2D.add(velocity, Vector2D.scalarMultiply(acceleration, timeStep)); Vector2D c = getRect().getCenter(); v.x = getRect().getCenter().getX() + (velocity.x * timeStep); v.y = getRect().getCenter().getY() + (velocity.y * timeStep); setCenter(v.x, v.y); forces.x = 0; //clear forces forces.y = 0; //angular float angAcc = torque / inertia; angularVelocity += angAcc * timeStep; setAngle(getAngle() + angularVelocity * timeStep); torque = 0; //clear torque } //take a relative Vector2D and make it a world Vector2D public Vector2D relativeToWorld(Vector2D relative) { mat.reset(); Vector2Ds[0] = relative.x; Vector2Ds[1] = relative.y; mat.postRotate(JMath.radToDeg(getAngle())); mat.mapVectors(Vector2Ds); relWorldVec.x = Vector2Ds[0]; relWorldVec.y = Vector2Ds[1]; return relWorldVec; } //take a world Vector2D and make it a relative Vector2D public Vector2D worldToRelative(Vector2D world) { mat.reset(); Vector2Ds[0] = world.x; Vector2Ds[1] = world.y; mat.postRotate(JMath.radToDeg(-getAngle())); mat.mapVectors(Vector2Ds); worldRelVec.x = Vector2Ds[0]; worldRelVec.y = Vector2Ds[1]; return worldRelVec; } //velocity of a point on body public Vector2D pointVelocity(Vector2D worldOffset) { tangent.x = -worldOffset.y; tangent.y = worldOffset.x; pointVelVec.x = (tangent.x * angularVelocity) + velocity.x; pointVelVec.y = (tangent.y * angularVelocity) + velocity.y; return pointVelVec; } public void applyForce(Vector2D worldForce, Vector2D worldOffset) { //add linear force forces.x += worldForce.x; forces.y += worldForce.y; //add associated torque torque += Vector2D.cross(worldOffset, worldForce); } @Override public void draw( GraphicsContext c) { c.drawRotatedScaledBitmap(image, getPosition().x, getPosition().y, getWidth(), getHeight(), getAngle()); } public Vector2D getVelocity() { return velocity; } public void setVelocity(Vector2D velocity) { this.velocity = velocity; } } The way it is given force is by the applyForce method, this method considers angular torque. I'm just not sure how to come up with the vectors in the case where: RigidBody hits static entity RigidBody hits other RigidBody that may or may not be in motion. Would anyone know a way (without too complex math) that I could figure out the opposite force I need to apply to the car? I know the normal it is colliding with and how deep it collided. My main goal is so that say I hit a building from the side, well the car should not just stay there, it should slowly rotate out of it if I'm more than 45 degrees. Right now when I hit a wall I only change the velocity directly which does not consider angular force. Thanks!

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• How to draw a global day night curve

  - by Lumis

  I see many applications which have world-clock map, and I would like to make my own to enhance some of my mobile apps. I wonder if anybody has any knowledge where to start, how to draw a curved shadow representing the dawn and the sunset on the globe. See the example: http://aa.usno.navy.mil/imagery/earth/map?year=2012&month=6&day=19&hour=14&minute=47 I think that this curve goes up and down and creates an artic day/night etc Perhaps there is some acceptable approximation formula without a need to load data for each our and each global parallel and meridian...

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• Efficient mapping layout in 2D side-scroller, and collisions between character and the world

  - by Jack

  I haven't touched Visual Studio for a couple months now, but I was playing a game from the '90s toady and had an epiphany: I was looking for something what i didn't need, and I wasn't using what I knew correctly. One of those realizations was collision, so let me tell you a bit about my project that I was working on. The project's graphics looks like Mario or Dangerous Dave, etc., you get the idea - old-school pixels. So anyway I remember trying to think of something else than AABB for character form, but I couldn't think of anything. Perhaps I could get a suggestion for this? Another thing is the world - I don't want it to be just linear world, I want mountains, etc.. My idea is to use triangles, and no idea yet what to do if I want just part of the cube, say 3/4 or 2/4 or whatever. Hard-coding such things seems inefficient. P.S. I am not looking at the precision level offered by Box2D. Actually I remember trying to implement it at first, but I failed as my understanding of C++ wasn't advanced enough, as it'll be mentioned below. P.P.S. I am programming in C++, and I haven't done it for a couple months now. I have no means of testing it either, as my PC is broken down, and this one can barely run games from late '90s, not to speak about a compiler or a program with inefficient resource management... I am also not an expert (obviously), I don't even know if I can consider myself an average programmer. In short, I am simply curious about my thoughts and my past experience when programming the game. I may come back to it when my PC is fixed, I'm already filling a note about these things.

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• How to I access "Deny" message from a Lidgren client?

  - by TJ Mott

  I'm using the Lidgren v3 network for a UDP client/server networking model. On the server end, I'm initializing a NetServer object with the NetIncomingMessage.ConnectionApproval message type enabled. So the client is able to successfully connect and the first packet it sends is a login packet, containing a username and password supplied by the user. The server is receiving that and doing some black magic to authenticate, and everything works up to that point. If the login fails, the server calling NetIncomingMessage.SenderConnection.Deny("Invalid Login Credentials"). I want to know how to properly receive this deny message on the client. I'm getting the message, it shows up with a message type of NetIncomingMessage.StatusChanged. If I call ReadString on that message, I get a corrupted version of the string I passed to the Deny method on the server. The type of corruption varies, I've seen odd characters in there but in every case it's truncated and is way shorter than the string I entered. Any ideas? The official documentation is sparse on this topic. I could use pointers from anyone who has successfully used the Lidgren library and uses the Accept or Deny methods. Also, if I don't do any authentication and just Approve() the connection every time, stuff actually works just fine and I'm getting reliable two-way UDP traffic. (And lastly, Stack Exchange said I don't have enough reputation to use the "Lidgren" tag....???)

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• Simplest way to use Steam Leaderboards from C# [on hold]

  - by Miau

  We are about to integrate steamworks for leaderboards and achievements into our game. I see there are many open and closed source libraries that can be used to use SteamWorks from C#. Rolling our own wrapper can be done, but if the other libraries are reliable then it would be better to use and perhaps contribute back if we see any obvious gaps. Have you used any and if so what was your experience with the different libraries? Specifically for Leaderboards and achievements The ones I found are: SteamWorks.net Steam4Net Ludosity (can be used outside of Unity apparently)

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• Rotate an image in a scaled context

  - by nathan

  Here is my working piece of code to rotate an image toward a point (in my case, the mouse cursor). float dx = newx - ploc.x; float dy = newy - ploc.y; float angle = (float) Math.toDegrees(Math.atan2(dy, dx)); Where ploc is the location of the image i'm rotating. And here is the rendering code: g.rotate(loc.x + width / 2, loc.y + height / 2, angle); g.drawImage(frame, loc.x, loc.y); Where loc is the location of the image and "width" and "height" are respectively the width and height of the image. What changes are needed to make it works on a scaled context? e.g make it works with something like g.scale(sx, sy).

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• Question about mipmaps + anisotropic filtering

  - by Telanor

  I'm a bit confused here and maybe someone can explain this to me. I created a simple test texture for my terrain which is nothing more than a solid green color with a black grid overlayed on top of it. If I look at the terrain in the distance with mipmapping on and linear filtering, the grid lines become blurry fairly quickly and further back the grid is pretty much invisible. With these settings, I don't get any moire patterns at all. If I turn on anisotropic filtering, however, the higher the anisotropic level, the more the terrain looks like it did with without mipmapping. The lines are much crisper nearby but in the distance I start to see terrible moire patterns. My understanding was that mipmapping is supposed to get rid of moire patterns. I've always had anisotropic filtering on in every game I play and I've never noticed any moire patterns as a result, so I don't understand why it's happening in my game. I am using logarithmic depth however, could that be causing any problems? And if it is, how do I resolve it? I've created my sampler state like so (I'm using slimdx): ssa = SamplerState.FromDescription(Engine.Device, new SamplerDescription { AddressU = TextureAddressMode.Clamp, AddressV = TextureAddressMode.Clamp, AddressW = TextureAddressMode.Clamp, Filter = Filter.Anisotropic, MaximumAnisotropy = anisotropicLevel, MinimumLod = 0, MaximumLod = float.MaxValue });

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• Platformer Starter Kit - Collision Issues

  - by Cyral

  I'm having trouble with my game that is based off the XNA Platformer starter kit. My game uses smaller tiles (16x16) then the original (32x40) which I'm thinking may be having an effect on collision (Being it needs to be more precise). Standing on the edge of a tile and jumping causes the player to move off the the tile when he lands. And 80% of the time, when the player lands, he goes flying though SOLID tiles in a diagonal fashion. This is very annoying as it is almost impossible to test other features, when spawning and jumping will result in the player landing in another part of the level or falling off the edge completely. The code is as follows: /// <summary> /// Updates the player's velocity and position based on input, gravity, etc. /// </summary> public void ApplyPhysics(GameTime gameTime) { float elapsed = (float)gameTime.ElapsedGameTime.TotalSeconds; Vector2 previousPosition = Position; // Base velocity is a combination of horizontal movement control and // acceleration downward due to gravity. velocity.X += movement * MoveAcceleration * elapsed; velocity.Y = MathHelper.Clamp(velocity.Y + GravityAcceleration * elapsed, -MaxFallSpeed, MaxFallSpeed); velocity.Y = DoJump(velocity.Y, gameTime); // Apply pseudo-drag horizontally. if (IsOnGround) velocity.X *= GroundDragFactor; else velocity.X *= AirDragFactor; // Prevent the player from running faster than his top speed. velocity.X = MathHelper.Clamp(velocity.X, -MaxMoveSpeed, MaxMoveSpeed); // Apply velocity. Position += velocity * elapsed; Position = new Vector2((float)Math.Round(Position.X), (float)Math.Round(Position.Y)); // If the player is now colliding with the level, separate them. HandleCollisions(); // If the collision stopped us from moving, reset the velocity to zero. if (Position.X == previousPosition.X) velocity.X = 0; if (Position.Y == previousPosition.Y) velocity.Y = 0; } /// <summary> /// Detects and resolves all collisions between the player and his neighboring /// tiles. When a collision is detected, the player is pushed away along one /// axis to prevent overlapping. There is some special logic for the Y axis to /// handle platforms which behave differently depending on direction of movement. /// </summary> private void HandleCollisions() { // Get the player's bounding rectangle and find neighboring tiles. Rectangle bounds = BoundingRectangle; int leftTile = (int)Math.Floor((float)bounds.Left / Tile.Width); int rightTile = (int)Math.Ceiling(((float)bounds.Right / Tile.Width)) - 1; int topTile = (int)Math.Floor((float)bounds.Top / Tile.Height); int bottomTile = (int)Math.Ceiling(((float)bounds.Bottom / Tile.Height)) - 1; // Reset flag to search for ground collision. isOnGround = false; // For each potentially colliding tile, for (int y = topTile; y <= bottomTile; ++y) { for (int x = leftTile; x <= rightTile; ++x) { // If this tile is collidable, ItemCollision collision = Level.GetCollision(x, y); if (collision != ItemCollision.Passable) { // Determine collision depth (with direction) and magnitude. Rectangle tileBounds = Level.GetBounds(x, y); Vector2 depth = RectangleExtensions.GetIntersectionDepth(bounds, tileBounds); if (depth != Vector2.Zero) { float absDepthX = Math.Abs(depth.X); float absDepthY = Math.Abs(depth.Y); // Resolve the collision along the shallow axis. if (absDepthY < absDepthX || collision == ItemCollision.Platform) { // If we crossed the top of a tile, we are on the ground. if (previousBottom <= tileBounds.Top) isOnGround = true; // Ignore platforms, unless we are on the ground. if (collision == ItemCollision.Impassable || IsOnGround) { // Resolve the collision along the Y axis. Position = new Vector2(Position.X, Position.Y + depth.Y); // Perform further collisions with the new bounds. bounds = BoundingRectangle; } } else if (collision == ItemCollision.Impassable) // Ignore platforms. { // Resolve the collision along the X axis. Position = new Vector2(Position.X + depth.X, Position.Y); // Perform further collisions with the new bounds. bounds = BoundingRectangle; } } } } } // Save the new bounds bottom. previousBottom = bounds.Bottom; } It also tends to jitter a little bit sometimes, I'm solved some of this with some fixes I found here on stackexchange, But Ive only seen one other case of the flying though blocks problem. This question seems to have a similar problem in the video, but mine is more crazy. Again this is a very annoying bug! Any help would be greatly appreciated! EDIT: Speed stuff // Constants for controling horizontal movement private const float MoveAcceleration = 13000.0f; private const float MaxMoveSpeed = 1750.0f; private const float GroundDragFactor = 0.48f; private const float AirDragFactor = 0.58f; // Constants for controlling vertical movement private const float MaxJumpTime = 0.35f; private const float JumpLaunchVelocity = -3500.0f; private const float GravityAcceleration = 3400.0f; private const float MaxFallSpeed = 550.0f; private const float JumpControlPower = 0.14f;

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• What is the benefit of triple buffering?

  - by user782220

  I read everything written in a previous question. From what I understand in double buffering the program must wait until the finished drawing is copied or swapped before starting the next drawing. In triple buffering the program has two back buffers and can immediately start drawing in the one that is not involved in such copying. But with triple buffering if you're in a situation where you can take advantage of the third buffer doesn't that suggest that you are drawing frames faster than the monitor can refresh. So then you don't actually get a higher frame rate. So what is the benefit of triple buffering then?

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• Positioning a sprite in XNA: Use ClientBounds or BackBuffer?

  - by Martin Andersson

  I'm reading a book called "Learning XNA 4.0" written by Aaron Reed. Throughout most of the chapters, whenever he calculates the position of a sprite to use in his call to SpriteBatch.Draw, he uses Window.ClientBounds.Width and Window.ClientBounds.Height. But then all of a sudden, on page 108, he uses PresentationParameters.BackBufferWidth and PresentationParameters.BackBufferHeight instead. I think I understand what the Back Buffer and the Client Bounds are and the difference between those two (or perhaps not?). But I'm mighty confused about when I should use one or the other when it comes to positioning sprites. The author uses for the most part Client Bounds both for checking whenever a moving sprite is of the screen and to find a spawn point for new sprites. However, he seems to make two exceptions from this pattern in his book. The first time is when he wants some animated sprites to "move in" and cross the screen from one side to another (page 108 as mentioned). The second and last time is when he positions a texture to work as a button in the lower right corner of a Windows Phone 7 screen (page 379). Anyone got an idea? I shall provide some context if it is of any help. Here's how he usually calls SpriteBatch.Draw (code example from where he positions a sprite in the middle of the screen [page 35]): spriteBatch.Draw(texture, new Vector2( (Window.ClientBounds.Width / 2) - (texture.Width / 2), (Window.ClientBounds.Height / 2) - (texture.Height / 2)), null, Color.White, 0, Vector2.Zero, 1, SpriteEffects.None, 0); And here is the first case of four possible in a switch statement that will set the position of soon to be spawned moving sprites, this position will later be used in the SpriteBatch.Draw call (page 108): // Randomly choose which side of the screen to place enemy, // then randomly create a position along that side of the screen // and randomly choose a speed for the enemy switch (((Game1)Game).rnd.Next(4)) { case 0: // LEFT to RIGHT position = new Vector2( -frameSize.X, ((Game1)Game).rnd.Next(0, Game.GraphicsDevice.PresentationParameters.BackBufferHeight - frameSize.Y)); speed = new Vector2(((Game1)Game).rnd.Next( enemyMinSpeed, enemyMaxSpeed), 0); break;

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• How to load with "simplegame" mode after cooking?

  - by Emran Bayati

  i got a problem after i cook my game in Frontend (udk) ! Every thing is ok during the Cook operation i mean i compiled my scripts,it's ok there's no problem in this step,and i cooked my packages it's ok too ! no problem just like last step. so before i package the whole game;i'll lunch it and see if every thing is ok ! but when i load the game it'll load whit the Unreal tournament default game type ! i mean i don't want it to load with this type ! i want it to load with the "simplegame" game type ! i need to say that i set game type to "simplegame" in the Editor from View world Properties Game Type! but still it's loading with Ut game mode when i cook the game ! I just want load my game in "Simplegame" mode after cooked. if any one can help ! plz help ! Tnx Alot Emran Bayati

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• How to handle a player's level and its consequent privileges?

  - by Songo

  I'm building a game similar to Mafia Wars where a player can do tasks for his gang and gain experience and thus advancing his level. The game is built using PHP and a Mysql database. In the game I want to limit the resources allowed to player based on his level. For example: ________| (Max gold) | (Max army size) | (Max moves) | ... Level 1 | 1000 | 100 | 10 | ... Level 2 | 1500 | 200 | 20 | ... Level 3 | 3000 | 300 | 25 | ... . . . In addition certain features of the game won't be allowed until a certain level is reached such as players under Level 10 can't trade in the game market, players under Level 20 can't create alliances,...etc. The way I have modeled it is by implementing a very loooong ACL (Access Control List) with about 100 entries (an entry for each level). However, I think there may be a simpler approach to this seeing that this feature have been implemented in many games before.

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• Mesh with quads to triangle mesh

  - by scape

  I want to use Blender for making models yet realize some of the polygons are not triangles but contain quads or more (example: cylinder top and bottom). I could export the the mesh as a basic mesh file and import it in to an openGL application and workout rendering the quads as tris, but anything with more than 4 vert indices is beyond me. Is it typical to convert the mesh to a triangle-based mesh inside blender before exporting it? I actually tried this through the quads_convert_to_tris method within a blender py script and the top of the cylinder does not look symmetrical. What is typically done to render a loaded mesh as a tri?

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• How do I run my XBOX XNA game without a network connection?

  - by Hugh

  I need to demo my XBOX XNA game in college. The college doesn't allow this type of device to connect to the network. I deployed my game to the Xbox and it is sitting in the games list along with my other games. It runs fine with a network connection but when its offline it comes up with an error message saying its needs a connection to run the game. This makes no sense, the game is deployed on the Xbox memory, it must be some security policy or something! Is there any way around this? The demo is on monday!

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• Arrive steering behavior

  - by dbostream

  I bought a book called Programming game AI by example and I am trying to implement the arrive steering behavior. The problem I am having is that my objects oscillate around the target position; after oscillating less and less for awhile they finally come to a stop at the target position. Does anyone have any idea why this oscillating behavior occur? Since the examples accompanying the book are written in C++ I had to rewrite the code into C#. Below is the relevant parts of the steering behavior: private enum Deceleration { Fast = 1, Normal = 2, Slow = 3 } public MovingEntity Entity { get; private set; } public Vector2 SteeringForce { get; private set; } public Vector2 Target { get; set; } public Vector2 Calculate() { SteeringForce.Zero(); SteeringForce = SumForces(); SteeringForce.Truncate(Entity.MaxForce); return SteeringForce; } private Vector2 SumForces() { Vector2 force = new Vector2(); if (Activated(BehaviorTypes.Arrive)) { force += Arrive(Target, Deceleration.Slow); if (!AccumulateForce(force)) return SteeringForce; } return SteeringForce; } private Vector2 Arrive(Vector2 target, Deceleration deceleration) { Vector2 toTarget = target - Entity.Position; double distance = toTarget.Length(); if (distance > 0) { //because Deceleration is enumerated as an int, this value is required //to provide fine tweaking of the deceleration.. double decelerationTweaker = 0.3; double speed = distance / ((double)deceleration * decelerationTweaker); speed = Math.Min(speed, Entity.MaxSpeed); Vector2 desiredVelocity = toTarget * speed / distance; return desiredVelocity - Entity.Velocity; } return new Vector2(); } private bool AccumulateForce(Vector2 forceToAdd) { double magnitudeRemaining = Entity.MaxForce - SteeringForce.Length(); if (magnitudeRemaining <= 0) return false; double magnitudeToAdd = forceToAdd.Length(); if (magnitudeToAdd > magnitudeRemaining) magnitudeToAdd = magnitudeRemaining; SteeringForce += Vector2.NormalizeRet(forceToAdd) * magnitudeToAdd; return true; } This is the update method of my objects: public void Update(double deltaTime) { Vector2 steeringForce = Steering.Calculate(); Vector2 acceleration = steeringForce / Mass; Velocity = Velocity + acceleration * deltaTime; Velocity.Truncate(MaxSpeed); Position = Position + Velocity * deltaTime; } If you want to see the problem with your own eyes you can download a minimal example here. Thanks in advance.

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• Actionscript 3.0 - Enemies do not move right in my platformer game

  - by Christian Basar

  I am making a side-scrolling platformer game in Flash (Actionscript 3.0). I have made lots of progress lately, but I have come across a new problem. I will give some background first. My game level's terrain (or 'floor') is referenced by a MovieClip variable called 'floor.' My desire is to have the Player and enemy characters walk along the terrain. I have gotten the Player character to move on the terrain just fine; he walks up/down hills and falls whenever there is no ground beneath him. Here is the code I created to allow the Player to follow the terrain correctly. Much more code is used to control the Player, but only this code deals with the Player character's following of the terrain and gravity. // If the Player's not on the ground (not touching the 'floor' MovieClip)... if (!onGround) { // Disable ducking downKeyPressed = false; // Increase the Player's 'y' position by his 'y' velocity player.y += playerYVel; } // Increase the 'playerYVel' variable so that the Player will fall // progressively faster down the screen. This code technically // runs "all the time" but in reality it only affects the player // when he's off the ground. playerYVel += gravity; // Give the Player a terminal velocity of 15 px/frame if (playerYVel > 15) { playerYVel = 15; } // If the Player has not hit the 'floor,' increase his falling //speed if (! floor.hitTestPoint(player.x, player.y, true)) { player.y += playerYVel; // The Player is not on the ground when he's not touching it onGround = false; } Since getting this code to work for the Player, I have created a 'SkullDemon' class, which is one of the planned enemies for my game. I want the 'SkullDemon' objects to move along the terrain like the Player does. With lots of great help, I have already coded the EventListeners, etc. necessary for the 'SkullDemons' to move. Unfortunately, I am having trouble getting them to move along the terrain. In fact, they do not touch the terrain at all; they move along the top of the boundary of the 'floor' MovieClip! I had a simple text diagram showing what I mean, but unfortunately Stackoverflow does not format it correctly. I hope my problem is clear from my description. Strangely enough, my code for the Player's movement and the 'SkullDemon's' movement is almost exactly the same, yet the 'SkullDemons' do not move like the Player does. Here is my code for the SkullDemon movement: // Move all of the Skull Demons using this method protected function moveSkullDemons():void { // Go through the whole 'skullDemonContainer' for (var skullDi:int = 0; skullDi < skullDemonContainer.numChildren; skullDi++) { // Set the SkullDemon 'instance' variable to equal the current SkullDemon skullDIns = SkullDemon(skullDemonContainer.getChildAt(skullDi)); // For now, just move the Skull Demons left at 5 units per second skullDIns.x -= 5; // If the Skull Demon has not hit the 'floor,' increase his falling //speed if (! floor.hitTestPoint(skullDIns.x, skullDIns.y, true)) { // Increase the Skull Demon's 'y' position by his 'y' velocity skullDIns.y += skullDIns.sdYVel; // The Skull Demon is not on the ground when he's not touching it skullDIns.sdOnGround = false; } // Increase the 'sdYVel' variable so that the Skull Demon will fall // progressively faster down the screen. This code technically // runs "all the time" but in reality it only affects the Skull Demon // when he's off the ground. if (! skullDIns.sdOnGround) { skullDIns.sdYVel += skullDIns.sdGravity; // Give the Skull Demon a terminal velocity of 15 px/frame if (skullDIns.sdYVel > 15) { skullDIns.sdYVel = 15; } } // What happens when the Skull Demon lands on the ground after a fall? // The Skull Demon is only on the ground ('onGround == true') when // the ground is touching the Skull Demon MovieClip's origin point, // which is at the Skull Demon's bottom centre for (var i:int = 0; i < 10; i++) { // The Skull Demon is only on the ground ('onGround == true') when // the ground is touching the Skull Demon MovieClip's origin point, // which is at the Skull Demon's bottom centre if (floor.hitTestPoint(skullDIns.x, skullDIns.y, true)) { skullDIns.y = skullDIns.y; // Set the Skull Demon's y-axis speed to 0 skullDIns.sdYVel = 0; // The Skull Demon is on the ground again skullDIns.sdOnGround = true; } } } } // End of 'moveSkullDemons()' function It is almost like the 'SkullDemons' are interacting with the 'floor' MovieClip using the hitTestObject() function, and not the hitTestPoint() function which is what I want, and which works for the Player character. I am confused about this problem and would appreciate any help you could give me. Thanks!

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• Html 5 ping pong game side collision problem

  - by Gurjit

  I am making a simple ping pong game where I am facing a side collision problem means when the ball collides with the either side of the paddle . Although I have written code for making it works but something is failing....I want plz someone to give suggestions and tell how to avoid it. Means while trying to hit the ball with side face of the paddle poses a problem.!! Here is the main part of the code causing problem function checkCollision(){ ///// This is collision detection for the upper part ///// if( cy + radius >= paddleTop && cx + radius > paddleLeft && cy + radius >= paddleTop + 5 && cx - radius <= paddleLeft + paddleWidth ) { dy = -dy; ++hits; /// On collision we are increasing the Score playSound(); } else if( cy + radius >= paddleTop && cy + radius <= paddleTop + paddleHeight && cx + radius >= paddleLeft && cy - radius <= paddleLeft - (radius + 1) ) { dx = -dx; } } here is working fiddle for it :- http://jsfiddle.net/gurjitmehta/orzpzf69/

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• How AlphaBlend Blendstate works in XNA when accumulighting light into a RenderTarget?

  - by cubrman

  I am using a Deferred Rendering engine from Catalin Zima's tutorial: His lighting shader returns the color of the light in the rgb channels and the specular component in the alpha channel. Here is how light gets accumulated: Game.GraphicsDevice.SetRenderTarget(LightRT); Game.GraphicsDevice.Clear(Color.Transparent); Game.GraphicsDevice.BlendState = BlendState.AlphaBlend; // Continuously draw 3d spheres with lighting pixel shader. ... Game.GraphicsDevice.BlendState = BlendState.Opaque; MSDN states that AlphaBlend field of the BlendState class uses the next formula for alphablending: (source × Blend.SourceAlpha) + (destination × Blend.InvSourceAlpha), where "source" is the color of the pixel returned by the shader and "destination" is the color of the pixel in the rendertarget. My question is why do my colors are accumulated correctly in the Light rendertarget even when the new pixels' alphas equal zero? As a quick sanity check I ran the following code in the light's pixel shader: float specularLight = 0; float4 light4 = attenuation * lightIntensity * float4(diffuseLight.rgb,specularLight); if (light4.a == 0) light4 = 0; return light4; This prevents lighting from getting accumulated and, subsequently, drawn on the screen. But when I do the following: float specularLight = 0; float4 light4 = attenuation * lightIntensity * float4(diffuseLight.rgb,specularLight); return light4; The light is accumulated and drawn exactly where it needs to be. What am I missing? According to the formula above: (source x 0) + (destination x 1) should equal destination, so the "LightRT" rendertarget must not change when I draw light spheres into it! It feels like the GPU is using the Additive blend instead: (source × Blend.One) + (destination × Blend.One)

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• Capitalizing on JavaScript's prototypal inheritance

  - by keithjgrant

  JavaScript has a class-free object system in which objects inherit properties directly from other objects. This is really powerful, but it is unfamiliar to classically trained programmers. If you attempt to apply classical design patterns directly to JavaScript, you will be frustrated. But if you learn to work with JavaScript's prototypal nature, your efforts will be rewarded. ... It is Lisp in C's clothing. -Douglas Crockford What does this mean for a game developer working with canvas and HTML5? I've been looking over this question on useful design patterns in gaming, but prototypal inheritance is very different than classical inheritance, and there are surely differences in the best way to apply some of these common patterns. For example, classical inheritance allows us to create a moveableEntity class, and extend that with any classes that move in our game world (player, monster, bullet, etc.). Sure, you can strongarm JavaScript to work that way, but in doing so, you are kind of fighting against its nature. Is there a better approach to this sort of problem when we have prototypal inheritance at our fingertips?

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• Marketing: Angry Birds - How it's done

  - by John

  Why do some apps, like Angry Birds, dominate the market while other cool/fun/addicting apps are never heard of? I'm trying to figure out the best marketing strategy, or best way to sell an app to mass market. Does anybody have any ideas or things they noticed about the marketing of major blockbuster apps, like Angry Birds, why they get so popular and stay at the top of charts. Thanks for any ideas, comments ...

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• Skanska Builds Global Workforce Insight with Cloud-Based HCM System

  - by HCM-Oracle

  By David Baum - Originally posted on Profit Peter Bjork grew up building things. He started his work life learning all sorts of trades at his father’s construction company in the northern part of Sweden. So in college, it was natural for him to pursue a bachelor’s degree in construction engineering—but he broke new ground when he added a master’s degree in finance to his curriculum vitae. Written on a traditional résumé, Bjork’s current title (vice president of information systems strategies) doesn’t reveal the diversity of his experience—that he’s adept with hammer and nails as well as rows and columns. But a big part of his current job is to work with his counterparts in human resources (HR) designing, building, and deploying the systems needed to get a complete view of the skills and potential of Skanska’s 22,000-strong white-collar workforce. And Bjork believes that complete view is essential to Skanska’s success. “Our business is really all about people,” says Bjork, who has worked with Skanska for 16 years. “You can have equipment and financial resources, but to truly succeed in a business like ours you need to have the right people in the right places. That’s what this system is helping us accomplish.” In a global HR environment that suffers from a paradox of high unemployment and a scarcity of skilled labor, managers need to have a complete understanding of workforce capabilities to develop management skills, recruit for open positions, ensure that staff is getting the training they need, and reduce attrition. Skanska’s human capital management (HCM) systems, based on Oracle Talent Management Cloud, play a critical role delivering that understanding. “Skanska’s philosophy of having great people, encouraging their development, and giving them the chance to move across business units has nurtured a culture of collaboration, but managing a diverse workforce spread across the globe is a monumental challenge,” says Annika Lindholm, global human resources system owner in the HR department at Skanska’s headquarters just outside of Stockholm, Sweden. “We depend heavily on Oracle’s cloud technology to support our HCM function.” Construction, Workers For Skanska’s more than 60,000 employees and contractors, managing huge construction projects is an everyday job. Beyond erecting signature buildings, management’s goal is to build a corporate culture where valuable talent can be sought out and developed, bringing in the right mix of people to support and grow the business. “Of all the companies in our space, Skanska is probably one of the strongest ones, with a laser focus on people and people development,” notes Tom Crane, chief HR and communications officer for Skanska in the United States. “Our business looks like equipment and material, but all we really have at the end of the day are people and their intellectual capital. Without them, second only to clients, of course, you really can’t achieve great things in the high-profile environment in which we work.” During the 1990s, Skanska entered an expansive growth phase. A string of successful acquisitions paved the way for the company’s transformation into a global enterprise. “Today the company’s focus is on profitable growth,” continues Crane. “But you can’t really achieve growth unless you are doing a very good job of developing your people and having the right people in the right places and driving a culture of growth.” In the United States alone, Skanska has more than 8,000 employees in four distinct business units: Skanska USA Building, also known as the Construction Manager, builds everything at ground level and above—hospitals, educational facilities, stadiums, airport terminals, and other massive projects. Skanska USA Civil does everything at ground level and below, such as light rail, water treatment facilities, power plants or power industry facilities, highways, and bridges. Skanska Infrastructure Development develops public-private partnerships—projects in which Skanska adds equity and also arranges for outside financing. Skanska Commercial Development acts like a commercial real estate developer, acquiring land and building offices on spec or build-to-suit for its clients. Skanska's international portfolio includes construction of the new Meadowlands Stadium. Getting the various units to operate collaboratatively helps Skanska deliver high value to clients and shareholders. “When we have this collaboration among units, it allows us to enrich each of the business units and, at the same time, develop our future leaders to be more facile in operating across business units—more accepting of a ‘one Skanska’ approach,” explains Crane. Workforce Worldwide But HR needs processes and tools to support managers who face such business dynamics. Oracle Talent Management Cloud is helping Skanska implement world-class recruiting strategies and generate the insights needed to drive quality hiring practices, internal mobility, and a proactive approach to building talent pipelines. With their new cloud system in place, Skanska HR leaders can manage everything from recruiting, compensation, and goal and performance management to employee learning and talent review—all as part of a single, cohesive software-as-a-service (SaaS) environment. Skanska has successfully implemented two modules from Oracle Talent Management Cloud—the recruiting and performance management modules—and is in the process of implementing the learn module. Internally, they call the systems Skanska Recruit, Skanska Talent, and Skanska Learn. The timing is apropos. With high rates of unemployment in recent years, there have been many job candidates on the market. However, talent scarcity continues to frustrate recruiters. Oracle Taleo Recruiting Cloud Service, one of the applications in the Oracle Talent Management cloud portfolio, enables Skanska managers to create more-intelligent recruiting strategies, pulling high-performer profile statistics to create new candidate profiles and using multitiered screening and assessments to ensure that only the best-suited candidate applications make it to the recruiter’s desk. Tools such as applicant tracking, interview management, and requisition management help recruiters and hiring managers streamline the hiring process. Oracle’s cloud-based software system automates and streamlines many other HR processes for Skanska’s multinational organization and delivers insight into the success of recruiting and talent-management efforts. “The Oracle system is definitely helping us to construct global HR processes,” adds Bjork. “It is really important that we have a business model that is decentralized, so we can effectively serve our local markets, and interact with our global ERP [enterprise resource planning] systems as well. We would not be able to do this without a really good, well-integrated HCM system that could support these efforts.” A key piece of this effort is something Skanska has developed internally called the Skanska Leadership Profile. Core competencies, on which all employees are measured, are used in performance reviews to determine weak areas but also to discover talent, such as those who will be promoted or need succession plans. This global profiling system brings consistency to the way HR professionals evaluate and review talent across the company, with a consistent set of ratings and a consistent definition of competencies. All salaried employees in Skanska are tied to a talent management process that gives opportunity for midyear and year-end reviews. Using the performance management module, managers can align individual goals with corporate goals; provide clear visibility into how each employee contributes to the success of the organization; and drive a strategic, end-to-end talent management strategy with a single, integrated system for all talent-related activities. This is critical to a company that is highly focused on ensuring that every employee has a development plan linked to his or her succession potential. “Our approach all along has been to deploy software applications that are seamless to end users,” says Crane. “The beauty of a cloud-based system is that much of the functionality takes place behind the scenes so we can focus on making sure users can access the data when they need it. This model greatly improves their efficiency.” The employee profile not only sets a competency baseline for new employees but is also integrated with Skanska’s other back-office Oracle systems to ensure consistency in the way information is used to support other business functions. “Since we have about a dozen different HR systems that are providing us with information, we built a master database that collects all the information,” explains Lindholm. “That data is sent not only to Oracle Talent Management Cloud, but also to other systems that are dependent on this information.” Collaboration to Scale Skanska is poised to launch a new Oracle module to link employee learning plans to the review process and recruitment assessments. According to Crane, connecting these processes allows Skanska managers to see employees’ progress and produce an updated learning program. For example, as employees take classes, supervisors can consult the Oracle Talent Management Cloud portal to monitor progress and align it to each individual’s training and development plan. “That’s a pretty compelling solution for an organization that wants to manage its talent on a real-time basis and see how the training is working,” Crane says. Rolling out Oracle Talent Management Cloud was a joint effort among HR, IT, and a global group that oversaw the worldwide implementation. Skanska deployed the solution quickly across all markets at once. In the United States, for example, more than 35 offices quickly got up to speed on the new system via webinars for employees and face-to-face training for the HR group. “With any migration, there are moments when you hold your breath, but in this case, we had very few problems getting the system up and running,” says Crane. Lindholm adds, “There has been very little resistance to the system as users recognize its potential. Customizations are easy, and a lasting partnership has developed between Skanska and Oracle when help is needed. They listen to us.” Bjork elaborates on the implementation process from an IT perspective. “Deploying a SaaS system removes a lot of the complexity,” he says. “You can downsize the IT part and focus on the business part, which increases the probability of a successful implementation. If you want to scale the system, you make a quick phone call. That’s all it took recently when we added 4,000 users. We didn’t have to think about resizing the servers or hiring more IT people. Oracle does that for us, and they have provided very good support.” As a result, Skanska has been able to implement a single, cost-effective talent management solution across the organization to support its strategy to recruit and develop a world-class staff. Stakeholders are confident that they are providing the most efficient recruitment system possible for competent personnel at all levels within the company—from skilled workers at construction sites to top management at headquarters. And Skanska can retain skilled employees and ensure that they receive the development opportunities they need to grow and advance.

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