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  • Spherical harmonics lighting - what does it accomplish?

    - by TravisG
    From my understanding, spherical harmonics are sometimes used to approximate certain aspects of lighting (depending on the application). For example, it seems like you can approximate the diffuse lighting cause by a directional light source on a surface point, or parts of it, by calculating the SH coefficients for all bands you're using (for whatever accuracy you desire) in the direction of the surface normal and scaling it with whatever you need to scale it with (e.g. light colored intensity, dot(n,l),etc.). What I don't understand yet is what this is supposed to accomplish. What are the actual advantages of doing it this way as opposed to evaluating the diffuse BRDF the normal way. Do you save calculations somewhere? Is there some additional information contained in the SH representation that you can't get out of the scalar results of the normal evaluation?

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  • Interacting with scene from controller/app delegate cocos2d

    - by cjroebuck
    I'm attempting to make my first cocos2d (for iphone) multiplayer game and having difficulty understanding how to interact with a scene once it is running. The game is a simple turn-based one and so I have a GameController class which co-ordinates the rounds. I also have a GameScene class which is the actual scene that is displayed during a round of the game. The basic interaction I need is for the GameController to be able to pass messages to the GameScene class.. such as StartRound/StopRound etc. The thing that complicates this is that I am loading the GameScene with a LoadingScene class which simply initialises the scene and replaces the current scene with this one, so there is no reference from GameController to GameScene, so passing messages is quite tricky. Does anyone have any ways to get around this, ideally I would still like to use a Loading class as it smooths out the memory hit when replacing scenes.

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  • DX9 Deferred Rendering, GBuffer displays as clear color only

    - by Fire31
    I'm trying to implement Catalin Zima's Deferred Renderer in a very lightweight c++ DirectX 9 app (only renders a skydome and a model), at this moment I'm trying to render the gbuffer, but I'm having a problem, the screen shows only the clear color, no matter how much I move the camera around. However, removing all the render target operations lets the app render the scene normally, even if the models are being applied the renderGBuffer effect. Any ideas of what I'm doing wrong?

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  • Embed Unity3D and load multiple games from a single app

    - by Rafael Steil
    Is is possible to export an entire unity3d project/game as an AssetBundle and load it on iOS/Android/Windows on an app that doesn't know anything about such game beforehand? What I have in mind is something like the web plugin does - it loads a series of .unity3d files over http, and render inline in the browser window. Is it even possible to do something closer for iOS/Android? I have read a lot of docs so far, but still can't be sure: http://floored.com/blog/2013/integrating-unity3d-within-ios-native-application.html http://docs.unity3d.com/Manual/LoadingResourcesatRuntime.html http://docs.unity3d.com/Manual/AssetBundlesIntro.html The code from the post at http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/112703-Override-Unity-Data-folder-path?p=749108&viewfull=1#post749108 works for Android, but how about iOS and other platforms?

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  • Correct use of VAO's in OpenGL ES2 for iOS?

    - by sak
    I'm migrating to OpenGL ES2 for one of my iOS projects, and I'm having trouble to get any geometry to render successfully. Here's where I'm setting up the VAO rendering: void bindVAO(int vertexCount, struct Vertex* vertexData, GLushort* indexData, GLuint* vaoId, GLuint* indexId){ //generate the VAO & bind glGenVertexArraysOES(1, vaoId); glBindVertexArrayOES(*vaoId); GLuint positionBufferId; //generate the VBO & bind glGenBuffers(1, &positionBufferId); glBindBuffer(GL_ARRAY_BUFFER, positionBufferId); //populate the buffer data glBufferData(GL_ARRAY_BUFFER, vertexCount, vertexData, GL_STATIC_DRAW); //size of verte position GLsizei posTypeSize = sizeof(kPositionVertexType); glVertexAttribPointer(kVertexPositionAttributeLocation, kVertexSize, kPositionVertexTypeEnum, GL_FALSE, sizeof(struct Vertex), (void*)offsetof(struct Vertex, position)); glEnableVertexAttribArray(kVertexPositionAttributeLocation); //create & bind index information glGenBuffers(1, indexId); glBindBuffer(GL_ELEMENT_ARRAY_BUFFER, *indexId); glBufferData(GL_ELEMENT_ARRAY_BUFFER, vertexCount, indexData, GL_STATIC_DRAW); //restore default state glBindVertexArrayOES(0); glBindBuffer(GL_ELEMENT_ARRAY_BUFFER, 0); glBindBuffer(GL_ARRAY_BUFFER, 0); } And here's the rendering step: //bind the frame buffer for drawing glBindFramebuffer(GL_FRAMEBUFFER, outputFrameBuffer); glClear(GL_COLOR_BUFFER_BIT); //use the shader program glUseProgram(program); glClearColor(0.4, 0.5, 0.6, 0.5); float aspect = fabsf(320.0 / 480.0); GLKMatrix4 projectionMatrix = GLKMatrix4MakePerspective(GLKMathDegreesToRadians(65.0f), aspect, 0.1f, 100.0f); GLKMatrix4 modelViewMatrix = GLKMatrix4MakeTranslation(0.0f, 0.0f, -1.0f); GLKMatrix4 mvpMatrix = GLKMatrix4Multiply(projectionMatrix, modelViewMatrix); //glUniformMatrix4fv(projectionMatrixUniformLocation, 1, GL_FALSE, projectionMatrix.m); glUniformMatrix4fv(modelViewMatrixUniformLocation, 1, GL_FALSE, mvpMatrix.m); glBindVertexArrayOES(vaoId); glDrawElements(GL_TRIANGLE_FAN, kVertexCount, GL_FLOAT, &indexId); //bind the color buffer glBindRenderbuffer(GL_RENDERBUFFER, colorRenderBuffer); [context presentRenderbuffer:GL_RENDERBUFFER]; The screen is rendering the color passed to glClearColor correctly, but not the shape passed into bindVAO. Is my VAO being built correctly? Thanks!

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  • C# and Unity - Learning to Develop a game by developing the game I want to develop

    - by 97s
    So I am pretty new to C#, I have some python and javascript experience, but nothing substantial. I have read a lot about C# and Unity and I know they are the tools I want to use. My question is: Should I be reading books about C# or should I just start hacking in unity and piecing the game together part by part? Right now I am going through the book, HeadFirst C#, and it is very good, but I taught myself web design and javascript by just creating and hacking until I got the results I wanted then looked at other code to see ways they did it and improved my code. The issue is that with the browser I got immediate results and it was all under one roof, where developing games is a completely different monster. I am just wondering if my time would be better spent buying a book that uses C# to teach you unity, and doing that instead, or if the time spent in HeadFirst book is going to be valuable. Thanks a ton, I am having difficulties using my time, and I just want to maximize it as I don't have a lot of free time. Edit: Hopefully this isn't to broad? If it is, I will delete and go elsewhere just let me know. Thanks.

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  • Rendering different materials in a voxel terrain

    - by MaelmDev
    Each voxel datapoint in my terrain model is made up of two properties: density and material type. Each is stored as an unsigned integer value (but the density is interpreted as a decimal value between 0 and 1). My current idea for rendering these different materials on the terrain mesh is to store eleven extra attributes in each vertex: six material values corresponding to the materials of the voxels that the vertices lie between, three decimal values that correspond to the interpolation each vertex has between each voxel, and two decimal values that are used to determine where the fragment lies on the triangle. The material and interpolation attributes are the exact same for each vertex in the triangle. The fragment shader samples each texture that corresponds to each material and then uses the aforementioned couple of decimal values to interpolate between these samples and obtain the final textured color of the fragment. It should work fine, but it seems like a big memory hog. I won't be able to reuse vertices in the mesh with indexing, and each vertex will have a lot of data associated with it. It also seems pretty slow. What are some ways to improve or replace this technique for drawing materials on a voxel terrain mesh?

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  • Staggered Isometric Map: Calculate map coordinates for point on screen

    - by Chris
    I know there are already a lot of resources about this, but I haven't found one that matches my coordinate system and I'm having massive trouble adjusting any of those solutions to my needs. What I learned is that the best way to do this is to use a transformation matrix. Implementing that is no problem, but I don't know in which way I have to transform the coordinate space. Here's an image that shows my coordinate system: How do I transform a point on screen to this coordinate system?

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  • XNA 4.0 SpriteFont not displaying all Characters

    - by Iain Brown
    Am looking for a little help and trying to use SpriteFont in my XNA 4.0 game but the problem is am displaying to string "This is a test" but all that's displayed on the screen is "This is st" so the "a te" are missing from the screen. The space is there for the characters but the letters are not. The code am using is: spriteBatch.Begin(SpriteSortMode.BackToFront, BlendState.AlphaBlend); spriteBatch.DrawString(font,"this is a test",new Vector2(692,372),Color.White); spriteBatch.Draw(texture,new Rectangle(0,0,100,100),Color.White); spriteBatch.End(); Any help with this would be great!

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  • Blender: How to "meshify" an object I made from Bezier curves

    - by capcom
    I made a star shape using Bezier curves, and extruded it (see pic below): What I want to do is give it a rounder look - not just around the edges by using beveling. I want it to kind of look like this (well, that shape anyway): How would I go about doing this? Please keep in mind that I am extremely new to Blender. I thought that I could somehow turn this star into those default shapes that have tonnes of squares which I could pull out, and apply a mirror to it so that the same thing happens on both sides. I really don't know how to do it, and would appreciate your help.

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  • Turn-based JRPG battle system architecture resources

    - by BenoitRen
    The past months I've been busy programming a 2D JRPG (Japanese-style RPG) in C++ using the SDL library. The exploration mode is more or less done. Now I'm tackling the battle mode. I have been unable to find any resources about how a classic turn-based JRPG battle system is structured. All I find are discussions about damage formula. I've tried googling, searching gamedev.net's message board, and crawling through C++-related questions here on Stack Exchange. I've also tried reading source code of existing open source RPGs, but without a guide of some sort it's like trying to find a needle in a haystack. I'm not looking for a set of rules like D&D or anything similar. I'm talking purely about code and object structure design. A battle system asks the player for input using menus. Next the battle turn is executed as the heroes and the enemies execute their actions. Can anyone point me in the right direction? Thanks in advance.

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  • Is using multiple canvas objects a good practice?

    - by user1818924
    We're developing a jump and run game with HTML5 and JavaScript and have to build an own game framework for this. Here we have some difficulties and would like to ask you for some advice: We have a "Stage" object, which represents the root of our game and is a global div-wrapper. The stage can contain multiple "Scenes", which are also div-elements. We would implement a Scene for the playing task, for pause, etc. and switch between them. Each scene can therefore contain multiple "Layers", representing a canvas. These Layer contain "ObjectEntities", which represent images or other shapes like rectangles, etc. Each Objectentity has its own temporaryCanvas, to be able to draw images for one entity, whereas another contains a rectangle. We set an activeScene in our Stage, so when the game is played, just the active scene is drawn. Calling activeScene.draw(), calls all sublayers to draw, which draw their entities (calling drawImage(entity.canvas)). But is this some kind of good practice? Having multiple canvas to draw? Each game loop every layer-context is cleared and drawn again. E.g. we just have a still Background-Layer, … wouldn't it be more useful to draw this once and not to clear it every time and redraw it? Or should we use a global canvas for example in the Stage and just use this canvas to draw? But we thought this would be to expensive...

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  • Android Loading Screen: How do I use a stack to load elements?

    - by tom_mai78101
    I have some problems with figuring out what value I should put in the function: int value_needed_to_figure_out = X; ProgressBar.incrementProgressBy(value_needed_to_figure_out); I've been researching about loading screens and how to use them. Some examples I've seen have implemented Thread.sleep() in a Handler.post(new Runnable()) function. To me, I got most of that concept of using the Handler to update the ProgressBar, while pretending to do some heavy crunching work. So, I kept looking. I have read this thread here: How do I load chunks of data from an assest manager during a loading screen? It said that I can try using a stack it needs to load, and adding a size counter as I add elements to the stack. What does it mean? This is the part where I'm totally stumped. If anyone would provide some hints, I'll gladly appreciate it. Thanks in advance.

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  • Pygame: Save a list of objects/classes/surfaces

    - by Sam Tubb
    I am working on a game, in which you can create mazes. You place blocks on a 16x16 grid, while choosing from a variety of block to make the level with. Whenever you create a block, it adds this class: class Block(object): def __init__(self,x,y,spr): self.x=x self.y=y self.sprite=spr self.rect=self.sprite.get_rect(x=self.x,y=self.y) to a list called instances. I tried shelving it to a .bin file, but it returns some error dealing with surfaces. How can I go about saving and loading levels? Any help is appreciated! :) Here is the whole code for reference: import pygame from pygame.locals import * #initstuff pygame.init() screen=pygame.display.set_mode((640,480)) pygame.display.set_caption('PiMaze') instances=[] #loadsprites menuspr=pygame.image.load('images/menu.png').convert() b1spr=pygame.image.load('images/b1.png').convert() b2spr=pygame.image.load('images/b2.png').convert() currentbspr=b1spr curspr=pygame.image.load('images/curs.png').convert() curspr.set_colorkey((0,255,0)) #menu menuspr.set_alpha(185) menurect=menuspr.get_rect(x=-260,y=4) class MenuItem(object): def __init__(self,pos,spr): self.x=pos[0] self.y=pos[1] self.sprite=spr self.pos=(self.x,self.y) self.rect=self.sprite.get_rect(x=self.x,y=self.y) class Block(object): def __init__(self,x,y,spr): self.x=x self.y=y self.sprite=spr self.rect=self.sprite.get_rect(x=self.x,y=self.y) while True: #menu items b1menu=b1spr.get_rect(x=menurect.left+32,y=48) b2menu=b2spr.get_rect(x=menurect.left+64,y=48) menuitems=[MenuItem(b1menu,b1spr),MenuItem(b2menu,b2spr)] screen.fill((20,30,85)) mse=pygame.mouse.get_pos() key=pygame.key.get_pressed() placepos=((mse[0]/16)*16,(mse[1]/16)*16) if key[K_q]: if mse[0]<260: if menurect.right<255: menurect.right+=1 else: if menurect.left>-260: menurect.left-=1 else: if menurect.left>-260: menurect.left-=1 for e in pygame.event.get(): if e.type==QUIT: exit() if menurect.right<100: if e.type==MOUSEBUTTONUP: if e.button==1: to_remove = [i for i in instances if i.rect.collidepoint(placepos)] for i in to_remove: instances.remove(i) if not to_remove: instances.append(Block(placepos[0],placepos[1],currentbspr)) for i in instances: screen.blit(i.sprite,i.rect) if not key[K_q]: screen.blit(curspr,placepos) screen.blit(menuspr,menurect) for item in menuitems: screen.blit(item.sprite,item.pos) if item.rect.collidepoint(mse): if pygame.mouse.get_pressed()==(1,0,0): currentbspr=item.sprite pygame.draw.rect(screen, ((255,0,0)), item, 1) pygame.display.flip()

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  • How would I balance a multiplayer competitive game

    - by Simon
    I'm looking at my first foray into developing a game, and would love to know whether you guys have any thoughts on game balancing on limited multiplayer games. The game I have in mind involves a neutral player that has to achieve a goal, with two supporting "deity" players who are one of 'good' and 'evil' - One of the deity players would try to help the player achieve their goal, while the other would try to thwart them. Any thoughts or pointers on how I can ensure the deities are balanced? If you want me to expand, I will, just didn't want to give away too much of the game play before I finish it.

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  • Power Distribution amongst connected nodes

    - by Perky
    In my game the map is represented by connected nodes, each node has a number of connected nodes. The nodes represent a system in which players can build structures and move units about. If you're familiar with Sins of a Solar Empire the game map is very similar. I want each node to be able to produce power and share it with all connected nodes. For example if A, B, C & D are all connected and produce 100 power units, then each system should have 400 power units available. If node B builds a structure that consumes 100 power units then A, B, C & D should then have 300 power units available. I've been working on this system all day and haven't been able to get it working quite the way I want. My current implementation is to first recurse through each nodes's connected node adding up the power, I keep a list of closed nodes so it doesn't loop, it's quite similar to A* actually. Pseudo code: All nodes start with the properties node.power = 0 node.basePower = 100 // could be different for each node. node.initialPower = node.basePower - function propagatePower( node, initialPower, closedNodes ) node.power += initialPower add( closedNodes, node ) connectedNodes = connected_nodes_except_from( closedNodes ) foreach node in connectedNodes do propagatePower( node, initialPower, closedNodes ) end end After this I iterate through all power consumers. foreach consumer in consumers do node = consumer.parentNode if node.power >= consumer.powerConsumption then consumer.powerConsumed += consumer.powerConsumption node.producedPower -= consumer.powerConsumption end end Then I adjust the initial power for the next propagation cycle. foreach node in nodes do node.initialPower = node.basePower - node.producedPower node.displayPower = node.power // for rendering the power. node.power = 0 end This seemed to work at first but then I came into a problem. Say two nodes A & B produce 100Pu each, it's shared so both A & B have 200Pu. I then make two structures that consume 80Pu each on A (160Pu). Then the nodes power is adjusted to basePower - producedPower (100-160 = -60). Nodes are propagated, both nodes now have 40Pu (A: -60 + B: 100 = 40). Which is correct because they started with 200Pu - 160Pu = 40Pu. However now node.power >= consumer.powerConsumption is false. Whats worse is it's false for any structure that uses more that 40Pu, so the whole system goes down. I could deduct from consumer.powerConsumption but what do I do if power is reduced elsewhere? I don't have the correct data to perform the necessary checks. It's late so I'm probably not thinking straight but I thought to ask on here to see if anyone has any other implementations, better or worse I'd be interested to know.

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  • Why don't Normal maps in tangent space have a single blue color?

    - by seahorse
    Normal maps are predominantly blue in color because the z component maps to Blue and since normals point out of the surface in the z direction we see Blue as the predominant component. If the above is true then why are normal maps just of one color i.e. blue and they should not be having any other shades(not even shades of blue) Since by definition tangent space is perpendicular to normal at any point we should have the normal always pointing in the Z (Blue direction) with no X(Red component) and Y(Green component). Thus the normal map(since it is a "normal map") should have had color of normals which is just the Blue(Z =Blue compoennt = 1, R=0, G=0) and the normal map should have been of only Blue color with no shades in between. But even then normal maps are not so, and they have gradients of shades in them, why is this so?

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  • Entity Component System for HUD and GUI

    - by Jason L.
    This is a very rough sketch of how I currently have things designed. It should, at least, give an idea of how my ECS is currently designed. If you notice in that diagram, I have basically split the HUD out of the ECS. They have their own set of things (HudLayer, HudComponent, etc) and are handled differently. This is where I'm struggling, though. There are many different instances in which the HUD will need to know about entities. Not just data changing (I have an event dispatcher for that), but the actual entity and all it encompasses. There are also situations where entities will need to be able to query the HUD for data. Let's take a couple examples: First, my equipment screen. On here I can change the equipment on a character (Entity). In order for this to happen, I need to know about the entity. At least I think I do? How can I handle this? The second scenario involves my Systems needing to query a HudComponent for data. A specific example would be my battle system. Each "team" is given a 3x3 grid they can move around in. See here: Skills target these cells, and not the player, so I would need a way for my systems to determine which cells are occupied and which are not. Basically I need a way for two way communication between Systems and my HUD. I know it's recommended (by some people, anyways) to take your HUD out of the ECS. Is that appropriate in my case?

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  • Overriding component behavior

    - by deft_code
    I was thinking of how to implement overriding of behaviors in a component based entity system. A concrete example, an entity has a heath component that can be damaged, healed, killed etc. The entity also has an armor component that limits the amount of damage a character receives. Has anyone implemented behaviors like this in a component based system before? How did you do it? If no one has ever done this before why do you think that is. Is there anything particularly wrong headed about overriding component behaviors? Below is rough sketch up of how I imagine it would work. Components in an entity are ordered. Those at the front get a chance to service an interface first. I don't detail how that is done, just assume it uses evil dynamic_casts (it doesn't but the end effect is the same without the need for RTTI). class IHealth { public: float get_health( void ) const = 0; void do_damage( float amount ) = 0; }; class Health : public Component, public IHealth { public: void do_damage( float amount ) { m_damage -= amount; } private: float m_health; }; class Armor : public Component, public IHealth { public: float get_health( void ) const { return next<IHealth>().get_health(); } void do_damage( float amount ) { next<IHealth>().do_damage( amount / 2 ); } }; entity.add( new Health( 100 ) ); entity.add( new Armor() ); assert( entity.get<IHealth>().get_health() == 100 ); entity.get<IHealth>().do_damage( 10 ); assert( entity.get<IHealth>().get_health() == 95 ); Is there anything particularly naive about the way I'm proposing to do this?

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  • 3D Paint tool in Maya

    - by Joris
    Hey everyone, could someone help me out on this question? When I am trying to texture objects in maya (for example a barrel) I want to texture it with a brush. When I try to use the 3D painting tool it al gets black even when I have a image file selected. Also the resolution is very very low of the models and textures in maya, though the texture image is very high quality. Can someone please help me? Thanks so much for helping.

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  • Space-efficient data structures for broad-phase collision detection

    - by Marian Ivanov
    As far as I know, these are three types of data structures that can be used for collision detection broadphase: Unsorted arrays: Check every object againist every object - O(n^2) time; O(log n) space. It's so slow, it's useless if n isn't really small. for (i=1;i<objects;i++){ for(j=0;j<i;j++) narrowPhase(i,j); }; Sorted arrays: Sort the objects, so that you get O(n^(2-1/k)) for k dimensions O(n^1.5) for 2d and O(n^1.67) for 3d and O(n) space. Assuming the space is 2D and sortedArray is sorted so that if the object begins in sortedArray[i] and another object ends at sortedArray[i-1]; they don't collide Heaps of stacks: Divide the objects between a heap of stacks, so that you only have to check the bucket, its children and its parents - O(n log n) time, but O(n^2) space. This is probably the most frequently used approach. Is there a way of having O(n log n) time with less space? When is it more efficient to use sorted arrays over heaps and vice versa?

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  • Group Matchmaking

    - by Simon Kérouack
    Consider different groups(1 or more players) queuing together, we want to make 2 opposing teams containing each the same amount of players while keeping the groups together. At the same time we want to make both teams' average ranking as close as possible. Now also consider we have as a working set the subset of groups currently queuing within a given ranking range. For an example, let's say we have the following groups, ordered by queuing time: Id, playerCount, totalRank, avgRank 0, 3, 126, 42 1, 2, 60, 30 2, 1, 25, 25 3, 2, 80, 40 4, 1, 40, 40 5, 1, 20, 20 6, 3, 150, 50 for this specific subset, the expected output should ideally be: team1: 0, 1 (total: 186) team2: 2, 5, 6 (total: 195) up to now the solution I have been using is to balance out each team by making each team pick the group with highest ranking within the subset turn by turn. The team who picks is the one with the currently lowest average rank unless one is already full. If one team is already full the other team tries to complete itself with groups that would make the rank gap as small as possible. This solution turns out to have issues with frequent edge cases and I'm looking for a better solution, or some fine-tuning that could be made. In most cases, players seems to want teams of 5 people and queue in group of 2. Our average subset when 2 teams of 5 are chosen is made of about 14 players if that may be of any help.

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  • Ray Tracing concers: Efficient Data Structure and Photon Mapping

    - by Grieverheart
    I'm trying to build a simple ray tracer for specific target scenes. An example of such scene can be seen below. I'm concerned as to what accelerating data structure would be most efficient in this case since all objects are touching but on the other hand, the scene is uniform. The objects in my ray tracer are stored as a collection of triangles, thus I also have access to individual triangles. Also, when trying to find the bounding box of the scene, how should infinite planes be handled? Should one instead use the viewing frustum to calculate the bounding box? A few other questions I have are about photon mapping. I've read the original paper by Jensen and many more material. In the compact data structure for the photon they introduce, they store photon power as 4 chars, which from my understanding is 3 chars for color and 1 for flux. But I don't understand how 1 char is enough to store a flux of the order of 1/n, where n is the number of photons (I'm also a bit confused about flux vs power). The other question about photon mapping is, if it would be more efficient in my case to store photons per object (or even per Object's triangle) instead of using a balanced kd-tree. Also, same question about bounding box of the scene but for photon mapping. How should one find a bounding box from the pov of the light when infinite planes are involved?

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  • What exactly can shaders be used for?

    - by Bane
    I'm not really a 3D person, and I've only used shaders a little in some Three.js examples, and so far I've got an impression that they are only being used for the graphical part of the equation. Although, the (quite cryptic) Wikipedia article and some other sources lead me to believe that they can be used for more than just graphical effects, ie, to program the GPU (Wikipedia). So, the GPU is still a processor, right? With a larger and a different instruction set for easier and faster vector manipulation, but still a processor. Can I use shaders to make regular programs (provided I've got access to the video memory, which is probable)? Edit: regular programs == "Applications", ie create windows/console programs, or at least have some way of drawing things on the screen, maybe even taking user input.

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  • What is a good way to measure game virality?

    - by Chris Garrett
    I have added some social features to an iPhone game (Lexitect if you're curious), such as email, Twitter, and Facebook integration for sharing high scores. Along with these features, I am measuring how many times users make it to each step. The goal of these features are to make the game more viral, and I am trying to get to a measure of game virality. I would think that a game virality metric would produce a number based on 1.0, where 1.0 = zero viral growth, and 1.01 would represent 1% viral growth over some unit of time. How is virality normally measured, and in what units? How is time capped on the metric? i.e. if I gave each player a year to determine how many recommendations they make, I wouldn't get any real numbers for a year from the time I start tracking it. Are there any standards for tracking virality in a meaningful way?

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