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  • Should I be using Lua for game logic on mobile devices?

    - by Rob Ashton
    As above really, I'm writing an android based game in my spare time (android because it's free and I've no real aspirations to do anything commercial). The game logic comes from a very typical component based model whereby entities exist and have components attached to them and messages are sent to and fro in order to make things happen. Obviously the layer for actually performing that is thin, and if I were to write an iPhone version of this app, I'd have to re-write the renderer and core driver (of this component based system) in Objective C. The entities are just flat files determining the names of the components to be added, and the components themselves are simple, single-purpose objects containing the logic for the entity. Now, if I write all the logic for those components in Java, then I'd have to re-write them on Objective C if I decided to do an iPhone port. As the bulk of the application logic is contained within these components, they would, in an ideal world, be written in some platform-agnostic language/script/DSL which could then just be loaded into the app on whatever platform. I've been led to believe however that this is not an ideal world though, and that Lua performance etc on mobile devices still isn't up to scratch, that the overhead is too much and that I'd run into troubles later if I went down that route? Is this actually the case? Obviously this is just a hypothetical question, I'm happy writing them all in Java as it's simple and easy get things off the ground, but say I actually enjoy making this game (unlikely, given how much I'm currently disliking having to deal with all those different mobile devices) and I wanted to make a commercially viable game - would I use Lua or would I just take the hit when it came to porting and just re-write all the code?

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  • Algorithm allowing a good waypoint path following?

    - by Thierry Savard Saucier
    I'm more looking into how should I implement this, either a tutorial or even the name of the concept I'm missing. I'm pretty sure some basic pathfinding algorithm could help me here, but I dont know which one ... I have a worldmap, with different cities on it. The player can choose a city from a menu, or click on an available cities on the world map, and the toon should walk over there. But I want him to follow a predefine path. Lets say our hero is on the city 1. He clicks on city 4. I want him to follow the path to city 2 and from there to city 4. I was handling this easily with arrow movement (left right top bottom) since its a single check. Now I'm not sure how I should do this. Should I loop threw each possible path and check which one leads me to D the fastest ... and if I do how do I avoid running in circle forever with cities 1-5-2 ?

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  • Does DirectX implement Triple Buffering?

    - by Asik
    As AnandTech put it best in this 2009 article: In render ahead, frames cannot be dropped. This means that when the queue is full, what is displayed can have a lot more lag. Microsoft doesn't implement triple buffering in DirectX, they implement render ahead (from 0 to 8 frames with 3 being the default). The major difference in the technique we've described here is the ability to drop frames when they are outdated. Render ahead forces older frames to be displayed. Queues can help smoothness and stuttering as a few really quick frames followed by a slow frame end up being evened out and spread over more frames. But the price you pay is in lag (the more frames in the queue, the longer it takes to empty the queue and the older the frames are that are displayed). As I understand it, DirectX "Swap Chain" is merely a render ahead queue, i.e. buffers cannot be dropped; the longer the chain, the greater the input latency. At the same time, I find it hard to believe that the most widely used graphics API would not implement such fundamental functionality correctly. Is there a way to get proper triple buffered vertical synchronisation in DirectX?

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  • How to port animation from one skeleton to another?

    - by shawn
    While I need to do this in a Blender3D modeler script, the math should be similar for other modelers or realtime engines. Blender3D specific terminology: Armature = skeleton EditBone = rest pose bone (stores the rest pose matrix) PoseBone = can store a different pose (animation matrix) for each frame of your animation I need to share animations (Blender Actions) between Armatures which have EditBones with same names and which have the same positions, but can have different (rest pose) angles and scales. Plus the Armatures might have different bone hierarchy (bone parenting/ no bone parenting). Why I need this: I've made an importer/exporter for a 3d format for a game. The format doesn't store enough info to connect/parent the bones, which makes posing/animating character models in a 3d modeller nearly impossible (original model files for the 3d modeler don't exist, this is for modding). As there are only 2 character skeleton types in the game, I decided to optionally allow to generate the bone from a hardcoded data in the model importer and undo that in the exporter. This allows to easily pose the model for checking weights, easily create weights, makes it easier for Blender to generate automatic weights and of course makes animating possible. This worked perfectly: the importer optionally generated the Armature itself and the exporter removed those changes, so the exported model works with existing animations in the game. But now I'm writing an importer and exporter for the game's animation format and here come the problems of: Trying to make original animations work in Blender with my "custom" (modified) Armature Trying to make animations created by using the "custom" (modified) Armature work with the original models in the game (and Blender). Constraints or bone snapping inside Blender won't work as they don't care that the bones have different angles in the rest pose, they will still face the same direction. It seems I just need to get the "difference" between the EditBone matrices of all EditBones for the two Armatures somehow and apply that difference to PoseBone matrices of all PoseBones, for all frames of my animation. I need to know how to get that difference and how to apply it. BTW, PoseBone matrices are relative to rest pose, they are by default [1.000000, 0.000000, 0.000000, 0.000000](matrix [row 0]) [0.000000, 1.000000, 0.000000, 0.000000](matrix [row 1]) [0.000000, 0.000000, 1.000000, 0.000000](matrix [row 2]) [0.000000, 0.000000, 0.000000, 1.000000](matrix [row 3]) So the question is: How to get the difference between two bone (EditBone) matrices to apply that difference to the animation matrices (PoseBone matrices)? Please be easy on the matrix math.

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  • Realistic planetary terrain generation with weights

    - by Programmdude
    I need terrain generation for a planet. The planet will be divided up into several hundred hexes, and I need it to be realistic and based on weights. I have dabbled in terrain generation before, but nothing like this. So I figure it would be a good idea to ask the community for answers, recommended articles or the like. By realistic, I mean not just random hexes, but continent shaped things with a few islands. More desert around the equator and more ice around the poles. I also have two weights I need to base it around: ice percentage and water percentage. That means that around XX% of the planet will need to be water. Does anyone have any advice or places to start? Generating arbitrary terrain is easy, but something a bit more "organic" like this seems rather difficult. It also needs to be seamless. Should be obvious since it's a planet, but no harm in pointing it out.

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  • Does Unity's "Transparent Bumped Specular" translate to "semi-shiny must be semi-transparent"?

    - by Shivan Dragon
    Unity's documentation for the "Transparent Bumped Specular" shader/material-type is simply a concatenation of each of the descriptions for its Transparent and Specular Shaders (and also Bumped, but that doesn't apply to the question): Transparent Properties This shader can make mesh geometry partially or fully transparent by reading the alpha channel of the main texture. In the alpha, 0 (black) is completely transparent while 255 (white) is completely opaque. If your main texture does not have an alpha channel, the object will appear completely opaque. (...) Specular Properties (...) Additionally, the alpha channel of the main texture acts as a Specular Map (sometimes called "gloss map"), defining which areas of the object are more reflective than others. Black areas of the alpha will be zero specular reflection, while white areas will be full specular reflection. To me this translates to: I have a mesh representig a car tire The texture need to be very shiny on the rims parts, and almost not shiny at all for the rubber parts Also since the rim is really complex, (with like cut-out decoretions and such), I will not build that into the mesh, but fake it with transparency in the texture I can't do all this using Unity's "Transparent Bumped Specular" shader, because the "rubber" part of the texture will become semi transparent due to me painting the alpha channel dark-grey (because I want it to also be less shiny). Is this correct? If not, how can I make this work?

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  • How does Blizzard manage to support Mac OS and Windows in their games?

    - by begray
    I've always thought, that using Direct X for Windows was the most powerful, easy and modern method to create games with modern graphics nowdays. And knowing, that it's only Windows I thinks it's pretty difficult to make something similar on other platforms (Mac OS to be exact). But Blizzard somehow managed to deliver Starcraft 2 for Mac OS, and Diablo 3 will be available for Mac too. So what I'm interested in is information about: what technologies are they using for their game engines? are they using one engine for both games (Starcraft 2 and Diablo 3)? Or develop custom for each game? what are they paying in terms of time and money for Mac OS support? Thanks

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  • Making a 2D game with responsive resolution

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

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  • Loading files during run time

    - by NDraskovic
    I made a content pipeline extension (using this tutorial) in XNA 4.0 game. I altered some aspects, so it serves my need better, but the basic idea still applies. Now I want to go a step further and enable my game to be changed during run time. The file I am loading trough my content pipeline extension is very simple, it only contains decimal numbers, so I want to enable the user to change that file at will and reload it while the game is running (without recompiling as I had to do so far). This file is a very simplified version of level editor, meaning that it contains rows like: 1 1,5 1,78 -3,6 Here, the first number determines the object that will be drawn to the scene, and the other 3 numbers are coordinates where that object will be placed. So, how can I change the file that contains these numbers so that the game loads it and redraws the scene accordingly? Thanks

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  • how to do partial updates in OpenGL?

    - by Will
    It is general wisdom that you redraw the entire viewport on each frame. I would like to use partial updates; what are the various ways can do that, and what are their pros, cons and relative performance? (Using textures, FBOs, the accumulator buffer, any kind of scissors that can affect swapbuffers etc?) A scenario: a scene with a fair few thousand visible trees; although the textures are mipmapped and they are drawn via VBOs roughly front-to-back with so on, its still a lot of polys. Would streaming a single screen-sized texture be better than throwing them at the screen every frame? You'd have to redraw and recapture them only on camera movement or as often as your wind model updates or whatever, which need not be every frame.

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  • 3D texture coordinates for a cube

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

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  • What is the format of DXGI_FORMAT_D24_UNORM_S8_UINT?

    - by bobobobo
    I'm trying to read the values in a depth texture of type DXGI_FORMAT_D24_UNORM_S8_UINT. I know this means "24 bits for depth, 8 bits for stencil" "A 32-bit z-buffer format that supports 24 bits for depth and 8 bits for stencil.", but how do you interpret those 24 bits? It's clearly not going to be a 32-bit int, and it's not going to be a 32-bit float. If it is an integer value, how "far away" is a value of "1" in the depth texture?

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  • Math major as a viable degree

    - by Zak O'Keefe
    While I realize there are many topics about CS vs software engineering vs game school programs, I haven't found anything relating to whether pure math degrees (with CS minor and electives) would also be a viable program. By this I mean: Would having a math major, CS minor put one at competitive disadvantage as compared to a pure CS program? This relates specifically to game engine programming, more on the graphics side. Background (for those who care): Currently a math major, CS minor at school and looking to land a career doing graphics engine programming. Admittedly, I love math and if at all possible would like to stay my current program as long as it doesn't put me at a competitive disadvantage trying to land a job post-graduation. That being said, I'm strong in the traditional C/C++ languages, strong concurrent programming skills, and currently produce self-made games for iOS. As an employer, how badly is the math major hurting me? Just want to get some advice from people already in the field!

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  • How to implement smooth flocking

    - by Craig
    I'm working on a simple survival game, avoid the big guy and chase the the small guys to stay alive for as long as possible. I have taken the chase and evade example from MSDN create and drawn 20 mice on the screen. I want the small guys to flock when they arent evading. They are doing this, but it isnt as smooth as I would like it to be. How do i make the movement smoother? Its very jittery.# Below is what I have going at the moment, flocking code is within the IF statement, when it isnt set to evading. Any help would be greatly appreciated! :) namespace ChaseAndEvade { class MouseSprite { public enum MouseAiState { // evading the cat Evading, // the mouse can't see the "cat", and it's wandering around. Wander } // how fast can the mouse move? public float MaxMouseSpeed = 4.5f; // and how fast can it turn? public float MouseTurnSpeed = 0.20f; // MouseEvadeDistance controls the distance at which the mouse will flee from // cat. If the mouse is further than "MouseEvadeDistance" pixels away, he will // consider himself safe. public float MouseEvadeDistance = 100.0f; // this constant is similar to TankHysteresis. The value is larger than the // tank's hysteresis value because the mouse is faster than the tank: with a // higher velocity, small fluctuations are much more visible. public float MouseHysteresis = 60.0f; public Texture2D mouseTexture; public Vector2 mouseTextureCenter; public Vector2 mousePosition; public MouseAiState mouseState = MouseAiState.Wander; public float mouseOrientation; public Vector2 mouseWanderDirection; int separationImpact = 4; int cohesionImpact = 6; int alignmentImpact = 2; int sensorDistance = 50; public void UpdateMouse(Vector2 position, MouseSprite [] mice, int numberMice, int index) { Vector2 catPosition = position; int enemies = numberMice; // first, calculate how far away the mouse is from the cat, and use that // information to decide how to behave. If they are too close, the mouse // will switch to "active" mode - fleeing. if they are far apart, the mouse // will switch to "idle" mode, where it roams around the screen. // we use a hysteresis constant in the decision making process, as described // in the accompanying doc file. float distanceFromCat = Vector2.Distance(mousePosition, catPosition); // the cat is a safe distance away, so the mouse should idle: if (distanceFromCat > MouseEvadeDistance + MouseHysteresis) { mouseState = MouseAiState.Wander; } // the cat is too close; the mouse should run: else if (distanceFromCat < MouseEvadeDistance - MouseHysteresis) { mouseState = MouseAiState.Evading; } // if neither of those if blocks hit, we are in the "hysteresis" range, // and the mouse will continue doing whatever it is doing now. // the mouse will move at a different speed depending on what state it // is in. when idle it won't move at full speed, but when actively evading // it will move as fast as it can. this variable is used to track which // speed the mouse should be moving. float currentMouseSpeed; // the second step of the Update is to change the mouse's orientation based // on its current state. if (mouseState == MouseAiState.Evading) { // If the mouse is "active," it is trying to evade the cat. The evasion // behavior is accomplished by using the TurnToFace function to turn // towards a point on a straight line facing away from the cat. In other // words, if the cat is point A, and the mouse is point B, the "seek // point" is C. // C // B // A Vector2 seekPosition = 2 * mousePosition - catPosition; // Use the TurnToFace function, which we introduced in the AI Series 1: // Aiming sample, to turn the mouse towards the seekPosition. Now when // the mouse moves forward, it'll be trying to move in a straight line // away from the cat. mouseOrientation = ChaseAndEvadeGame.TurnToFace(mousePosition, seekPosition, mouseOrientation, MouseTurnSpeed); // set currentMouseSpeed to MaxMouseSpeed - the mouse should run as fast // as it can. currentMouseSpeed = MaxMouseSpeed; } else { // if the mouse isn't trying to evade the cat, it should just meander // around the screen. we'll use the Wander function, which the mouse and // tank share, to accomplish this. mouseWanderDirection and // mouseOrientation are passed by ref so that the wander function can // modify them. for more information on ref parameters, see // http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/14akc2c7(VS.80).aspx ChaseAndEvadeGame.Wander(mousePosition, ref mouseWanderDirection, ref mouseOrientation, MouseTurnSpeed); // if the mouse is wandering, it should only move at 25% of its maximum // speed. currentMouseSpeed = .25f * MaxMouseSpeed; Vector2 separate = Vector2.Zero; Vector2 moveCloser = Vector2.Zero; Vector2 moveAligned = Vector2.Zero; // What the AI does when it sees other AIs for (int j = 0; j < enemies; j++) { if (index != j) { // Calculate a vector towards another AI Vector2 separation = mice[index].mousePosition - mice[j].mousePosition; // Only react if other AI is within a certain distance if ((separation.Length() < this.sensorDistance) & (separation.Length()> 0) ) { moveAligned += mice[j].mouseWanderDirection; float distance = Math.Abs(separation.Length()); if (distance == 0) distance = 1; moveCloser += mice[j].mousePosition; separation.Normalize(); separate += separation / distance; } } } if (moveAligned.LengthSquared() != 0) { moveAligned.Normalize(); } if (moveCloser.LengthSquared() != 0) { moveCloser.Normalize(); } moveCloser /= enemies; mice[index].mousePosition += (separate * separationImpact) + (moveCloser * cohesionImpact) + (moveAligned * alignmentImpact); } // The final step is to move the mouse forward based on its current // orientation. First, we construct a "heading" vector from the orientation // angle. To do this, we'll use Cosine and Sine to tell us the x and y // components of the heading vector. See the accompanying doc for more // information. Vector2 heading = new Vector2( (float)Math.Cos(mouseOrientation), (float)Math.Sin(mouseOrientation)); // by multiplying the heading and speed, we can get a velocity vector. the // velocity vector is then added to the mouse's current position, moving him // forward. mousePosition += heading * currentMouseSpeed; } } }

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  • Hero/Character sprite size in comparison to tile size?

    - by Kid
    So I'm making this simple platformer where the Hero is 16x16 in size, but also, the tile size is 16x16. Which sounds fine right? But my game window/world is 800x416, which makes the Hero is really really tiny in comparison. This really surprised me, but given Ive never made a platformer before it is also a new discovery. Is there a rule set for scale in platformer games? I'd like to have my game window remain the size it is (800x416), cause the game involves large levels. But how big should my hero be? I hope I was clear with the question, and I appreciate any insight. Thanks

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  • How does interpolation actually work to smooth out an object's movement?

    - by user22241
    I've asked a few similar questions over the past 8 months or so with no real joy, so I am going make the question more general. I have an Android game which is OpenGL ES 2.0. within it I have the following Game Loop: My loop works on a fixed time step principle (dt = 1 / ticksPerSecond) loops=0; while(System.currentTimeMillis() > nextGameTick && loops < maxFrameskip){ updateLogic(dt); nextGameTick+=skipTicks; timeCorrection += (1000d/ticksPerSecond) % 1; nextGameTick+=timeCorrection; timeCorrection %=1; loops++; } render(); My intergration works like this: sprite.posX+=sprite.xVel*dt; sprite.posXDrawAt=sprite.posX*width; Now, everything works pretty much as I would like. I can specify that I would like an object to move across a certain distance (screen width say) in 2.5 seconds and it will do just that. Also because of the frame skipping that I allow in my game loop, I can do this on pretty much any device and it will always take 2.5 seconds. Problem However, the problem is that when a render frame skips, the graphic stutter. It's extremely annoying. If I remove the ability to skip frames, then everything is smooth as you like, but will run at different speeds on different devices. So it's not an option. I'm still not sure why the frame skips, but I would like to point out that this is Nothing to do with poor performance, I've taken the code right back to 1 tiny sprite and no logic (apart from the logic required to move the sprite) and I still get skipped frames. And this is on a Google Nexus 10 tablet (and as mentioned above, I need frame skipping to keep the speed consistent across devices anyway). So, the only other option I have is to use interpolation (or extrapolation), I've read every article there is out there but none have really helped me to understand how it works and all of my attempted implementations have failed. Using one method I was able to get things moving smoothly but it was unworkable because it messed up my collision. I can foresee the same issue with any similar method because the interpolation is passed to (and acted upon within) the rendering method - at render time. So if Collision corrects position (character now standing right next to wall), then the renderer can alter it's position and draw it in the wall. So I'm really confused. People have said that you should never alter an object's position from within the rendering method, but all of the examples online show this. So I'm asking for a push in the right direction, please do not link to the popular game loop articles (deWitters, Fix your timestep, etc) as I've read these multiple times. I'm not asking anyone to write my code for me. Just explain please in simple terms how Interpolation actually works with some examples. I will then go and try to integrate any ideas into my code and will ask more specific questions if need-be further down the line. (I'm sure this is a problem many people struggle with).

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  • Algorithm to shift the car

    - by Simran kaur
    I have a track that can be divided into n number of tracks and a car as GamObject. The track has transforms such that some part of the track's width lies in negative x axis and other in positive. Requirement: One move should cross one track. On every move(left or right), I want the car to reach exact centre of the next track on either sides i.e left or right. My code: Problem: : Because of negative values , somewhere I am missing out something that is making car move not in desirable positions and that's because of negative values only. variable tracks is the number of tracks the whole track is divided in. variable dist is the total width of the complete track. On left movement: if (Input.GetKeyDown (KeyCode.LeftArrow)) { if (this.transform.position.x < r.renderer.bounds.min.x + box.size.x) { this.transform.position = new Vector3 (r.renderer.bounds.min.x + Mathf.FloorToInt(box.size.x), this.transform.position.y, this.transform.position.z); } else { int tracknumber = Mathf.RoundToInt(dist - transform.position.x)/tracks; float averagedistance = (tracknumber*(dist/tracks) + (tracknumber-1)*(dist/tracks))/2; if(transform.position.x > averagedistoftracks) { amountofmovement = amountofmovement + (transform.position.x - averagedistance); } else { amountofmovement = amountofmovement - (averagedistance - transform.position.x); } this.transform.position = new Vector3 (this.transform.position.x - amountofmovement, this.transform.position.y, this.transform.position.z); } }

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  • Structure gameobjects and call events

    - by waco001
    I'm working on a 2D tile based game in which the player interacts with other game objects (chests, AI, Doors, Houses etc...). The entire map will be stored in a file which I can read. When loading the tilemap, it will find any tile with the ID that represents a gameobject and store it in a hashmap (right data structure I think?). private static HashMap<Integer, Class<GameObject>> gameObjects = new HashMap<Integer, Class<GameObject>>(); How exactly would I go about calling, and checking for events? I figure that I would just call the update, render and input methods of each gameobject using the hashmap. Should I got towards a Minecraft/Bukkit approach (sorry only example I can think of), where the user registers an event, and it gets called whenever that event happens, and where should I go as in resources to learn about that type of programming, (Java, LWJGL). Or should I just loop through the entire hashmap looking for an event that fits? Thanks waco

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  • How would I be able to get a game over screen using the pause function?

    - by Joachim Velzel
    I am having problems with my snake game, when the snake collides with itself it draws a "game over" image in the background, but only while it's colliding with itself. I want it to behave like the pause function, so that as soon as the snake collides with itself it draws an image on the screen and stops the game play. And then how would you be able to restart or to quit the game? I just have this for the detection at the moment: if (snakeHeadRectangle.Intersects(snakeBodyRectangleArray[bodyNumber])) { spriteBatch.Draw(textureGameOver, gameOverPosition, Color.White); } Thanks

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  • Dealing with 2D pixel shaders and SpriteBatches in XNA 4.0 component-object game engine?

    - by DaveStance
    I've got a bit of experience with shaders in general, having implemented a couple, very simple, 3D fragment and vertex shaders in OpenGL/WebGL in the past. Currently, I'm working on a 2D game engine in XNA 4.0 and I'm struggling with the process of integrating per-object and full-scene shaders in my current architecture. I'm using a component-entity design, wherein my "Entities" are merely collections of components that are acted upon by discreet system managers (SpatialProvider, SceneProvider, etc). In the context of this question, my draw call looks something like this: SceneProvider::Draw(GameTime) calls... ComponentManager::Draw(GameTime, SpriteBatch) which calls (on each drawable component) DrawnComponent::Draw(GameTime, SpriteBatch) The SpriteBatch is set up, with the default SpriteBatch shader, in the SceneProvider class just before it tells the ComponentManager to start rendering the scene. From my understanding, if a component needs to use a special shader to draw itself, it must do the following when it's Draw(GameTime, SpriteBatch) method is invoked: public void Draw(GameTime gameTime, SpriteBatch spriteBatch) { spriteBatch.End(); spriteBatch.Begin(SpriteSortMode.Immediate, BlendState.AlphaBlend, null, null, null, EffectShader, ViewMatrix); // Draw things here that are shaded by the "EffectShader." spriteBatch.End(); spriteBatch.Begin(/* same settings that were set by SceneProvider to ensure the rest of the scene is rendered normally */); } My question is, having been told that numerous calls to SpriteBatch.Begin() and SpriteBatch.End() within a single frame was terrible for performance, is there a better way to do this? Is there a way to instruct the currently running SpriteBatch to simply change the Effect shader it is using for this particular draw call and then switch it back before the function ends?

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  • XNA Quadtree with LOD

    - by Byron Cobb
    I'm looking to create a fairly large environment, and as such would like to implement a quadtree and use LOD on it. I've looked through numerous examples and I get the basic idea of a quadtree. Start with a root node with 4 vertices covering the whole map and divide into 4 children nodes until I meet some criteria(max number of triangles) I'm looking for some very very basic algorithm or explanation with respect to drawing the quadtree. What vertices need to be stored per iteration? When do I determine what vertices to draw? When to update indices and vertices? Hope to integrate the bounding frustrum? Do I include parent and child vertices? I'm looking for very simple instruction on what to do. I've scoured the internet for days now looking, but everyone adds extra code and a different spin without explanation. I understand quadtrees, but not with respect to 3d rendering and lod. A link to an outside source will probably have been read by myself already and won't help. Regards, Byron.

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  • XNA 4: GetData from Texture2D and Set it into Texture3D with specific order

    - by cubrman
    I am trying to convert my color grading 2d lookup texture into 3d LUT. When I simply use: ColorAtlas.GetData(data); ColorAtlas3D.SetData(data); I get this: I tried building my 2d atlass horizontally but it did not helped - the data was messed up in a different way. So my question is how can I influence the order of the data I get from the 2d atlas and how can I properly pass it into my 3d atlas? Update: I know that I can GetData from a specific Rectangular area and put it into several arrays, but the result is still the same. This is what I tried: Color[] data2D = new Color[0]; for (int i = 0; i < 32; i++) { Color[] data = new Color[32 * 32]; GraphicsDevice.SetRenderTarget(null); ColorAtlas.GetData(0, new Rectangle(0, i*32, 32, 32), data, 0, data.Length); int oldLength = data2D.Length; Array.Resize<Color>(ref data2D, oldLength + data.Length); Array.Copy(data, 0, data2D, oldLength, data.Length); } ColorAtlas3D.SetData(data2D);

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  • Maintaining State in Mud Engine

    - by Johnathon Sullinger
    I am currently working on a Mud Engine and have started implementing my state engine. One of the things that has me troubled is maintaining different states at once. For instance, lets say that the user has started a tutorial, which requires specific input. If the user types "help" I want to switch in to a help state, so they can get the help they need, then return them to the original state once exiting the help. my state system uses a State Manager to manage the state per user: public class StateManager { /// <summary> /// Gets the current state. /// </summary> public IState CurrentState { get; private set; } /// <summary> /// Gets the states available for use. /// </summary> /// <value> public List<IState> States { get; private set; } /// <summary> /// Gets the commands available. /// </summary> public List<ICommand> Commands { get; private set; } /// <summary> /// Gets the mob that this manager controls the state of. /// </summary> public IMob Mob { get; private set; } public void Initialize(IMob mob, IState initialState = null) { this.Mob = mob; if (initialState != null) { this.SwitchState(initialState); } } /// <summary> /// Performs the command. /// </summary> /// <param name="message">The message.</param> public void PerformCommand(IMessage message) { if (this.CurrentState != null) { ICommand command = this.CurrentState.GetCommand(message); if (command is NoOpCommand) { // NoOperation commands indicate that the current state is not finished yet. this.CurrentState.Render(this.Mob); } else if (command != null) { command.Execute(this.Mob); } else if (command == null) { new InvalidCommand().Execute(this.Mob); } } } /// <summary> /// Switches the state. /// </summary> /// <param name="state">The state.</param> public void SwitchState(IState state) { if (this.CurrentState != null) { this.CurrentState.Cleanup(); } this.CurrentState = state; if (state != null) { this.CurrentState.Render(this.Mob); } } } Each of the different states that the user can be in, is a Type implementing IState. public interface IState { /// <summary> /// Renders the current state to the players terminal. /// </summary> /// <param name="player">The player to render to</param> void Render(IMob mob); /// <summary> /// Gets the Command that the player entered and preps it for execution. /// </summary> /// <returns></returns> ICommand GetCommand(IMessage command); /// <summary> /// Cleanups this instance during a state change. /// </summary> void Cleanup(); } Example state: public class ConnectState : IState { /// <summary> /// The connected player /// </summary> private IMob connectedPlayer; public void Render(IMob mob) { if (!(mob is IPlayer)) { throw new NullReferenceException("ConnectState can only be used with a player object implementing IPlayer"); } //Store a reference for the GetCommand() method to use. this.connectedPlayer = mob as IPlayer; var server = mob.Game as IServer; var game = mob.Game as IGame; // It is not guaranteed that mob.Game will implement IServer. We are only guaranteed that it will implement IGame. if (server == null) { throw new NullReferenceException("LoginState can only be set to a player object that is part of a server."); } //Output the game information mob.Send(new InformationalMessage(game.Name)); mob.Send(new InformationalMessage(game.Description)); mob.Send(new InformationalMessage(string.Empty)); //blank line //Output the server MOTD information mob.Send(new InformationalMessage(string.Join("\n", server.MessageOfTheDay))); mob.Send(new InformationalMessage(string.Empty)); //blank line mob.StateManager.SwitchState(new LoginState()); } /// <summary> /// Gets the command. /// </summary> /// <param name="message">The message.</param> /// <returns>Returns no operation required.</returns> public Commands.ICommand GetCommand(IMessage message) { return new NoOpCommand(); } /// <summary> /// Cleanups this instance during a state change. /// </summary> public void Cleanup() { // We have nothing to clean up. return; } } With the way that I have my FSM set up at the moment, the user can only ever have one state at a time. I read a few different posts on here about state management but nothing regarding keeping a stack history. I thought about using a Stack collection, and just pushing new states on to the stack then popping them off as the user moves out from one. It seems like it would work, but I'm not sure if it is the best approach to take. I'm looking for recommendations on this. I'm currently swapping state from within the individual states themselves as well which I'm on the fence about if it makes sense to do there or not. The user enters a command, the StateManager passes the command to the current State and lets it determine if it needs it (like passing in a password after entering a user name), if the state doesn't need any further commands, it returns null. If it does need to continue doing work, it returns a No Operation to let the state manager know that the state still requires further input from the user. If null is returned, the state manager will then go find the appropriate state for the command entered by the user. Example state requiring additional input from the user public class LoginState : IState { /// <summary> /// The connected player /// </summary> private IPlayer connectedPlayer; private enum CurrentState { FetchUserName, FetchPassword, InvalidUser, } private CurrentState currentState; /// <summary> /// Renders the current state to the players terminal. /// </summary> /// <param name="mob"></param> /// <exception cref="System.NullReferenceException"> /// ConnectState can only be used with a player object implementing IPlayer /// or /// LoginState can only be set to a player object that is part of a server. /// </exception> public void Render(IMob mob) { if (!(mob is IPlayer)) { throw new NullReferenceException("ConnectState can only be used with a player object implementing IPlayer"); } //Store a reference for the GetCommand() method to use. this.connectedPlayer = mob as IPlayer; var server = mob.Game as IServer; // Register to receive new input from the user. mob.ReceivedMessage += connectedPlayer_ReceivedMessage; if (server == null) { throw new NullReferenceException("LoginState can only be set to a player object that is part of a server."); } this.currentState = CurrentState.FetchUserName; switch (this.currentState) { case CurrentState.FetchUserName: mob.Send(new InputMessage("Please enter your user name")); break; case CurrentState.FetchPassword: mob.Send(new InputMessage("Please enter your password")); break; case CurrentState.InvalidUser: mob.Send(new InformationalMessage("Invalid username/password specified.")); this.currentState = CurrentState.FetchUserName; mob.Send(new InputMessage("Please enter your user name")); break; } } /// <summary> /// Receives the players input. /// </summary> /// <param name="sender">The sender.</param> /// <param name="e">The e.</param> void connectedPlayer_ReceivedMessage(object sender, IMessage e) { // Be good memory citizens and clean ourself up after receiving a message. // Not doing this results in duplicate events being registered and memory leaks. this.connectedPlayer.ReceivedMessage -= connectedPlayer_ReceivedMessage; ICommand command = this.GetCommand(e); } /// <summary> /// Gets the Command that the player entered and preps it for execution. /// </summary> /// <param name="command"></param> /// <returns>Returns the ICommand specified.</returns> public Commands.ICommand GetCommand(IMessage command) { if (this.currentState == CurrentState.FetchUserName) { this.connectedPlayer.Name = command.Message; this.currentState = CurrentState.FetchPassword; } else if (this.currentState == CurrentState.FetchPassword) { // find user } return new NoOpCommand(); } /// <summary> /// Cleanups this instance during a state change. /// </summary> public void Cleanup() { // If we have a player instance, we clean up the registered event. if (this.connectedPlayer != null) { this.connectedPlayer.ReceivedMessage -= this.connectedPlayer_ReceivedMessage; } } Maybe my entire FSM isn't wired up in the best way, but I would appreciate input on what would be the best to maintain a stack of state in a MUD game engine, and if my states should be allowed to receive the input from the user or not to check what command was entered before allowing the state manager to switch states. Thanks in advance.

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  • Correct Rotation and Translation with a 4x4 matrix

    - by sFuller
    I am using a 4x4 matrix to transform verts in a shader. I multiply an identity matrix by a rotation matrix by a translation matrix. I am trying to first rotate the verts and then translate them, however in my result, it appears that the verts are being transformed and then rotated. My matrix looks something like this: m00 m01 m02 tx m10 m11 m12 ty m20 m21 m22 tz --- --- --- 1 I am not using OpenGL's fixed function pipeline, I am multiplying matrices on the client side, and uploading the matrix to a GLSL shader. If it helps, I am using my own matrix multiplication code, but I have recreated this problem using matrices on my graphing calculator, so I don't believe my matrix code has errors.. I'll include a visual aid if needed.

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  • Does use of simple shaders improve performace/battery life?

    - by Miro
    I'm making OpenGL game for Android. Till now i've used only fixed function pipeline, but i'm rendering simple things. Fixed function pipeline includes a lot of stuff i don't need. So i'm thinking about implementing shaders in my game to simplify OpenGL pipeline if it can make better performance. Better performance = better battery life, unless fps is limited by software limit, not hardware power.

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