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  • Performance issues with visibility detection and object transparency

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

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  • RGB? CMYK? Alpha? What Are Image Channels and What Do They Mean?

    - by Eric Z Goodnight
    They’re there, lurking in your image files. But have you ever wondered what are image channels are? And what do they have to do with RGB and CMYK? Here’s the answer. The channels panel in Photoshop is one of the most disused and misunderstood parts of the program. But images have color channels with or without Photoshop. Read on to find out what color channels are, what RGB and CMYK are, and learn a little bit more about how image files work Latest Features How-To Geek ETC How to Recover that Photo, Picture or File You Deleted Accidentally How To Colorize Black and White Vintage Photographs in Photoshop How To Get SSH Command-Line Access to Windows 7 Using Cygwin The How-To Geek Video Guide to Using Windows 7 Speech Recognition How To Create Your Own Custom ASCII Art from Any Image How To Process Camera Raw Without Paying for Adobe Photoshop What is the Internet? From the Today Show January 1994 [Historical Video] Take Screenshots and Edit Them in Chrome and Iron Using Aviary Screen Capture Run Android 3.0 on a Hacked Nook Google Art Project Takes You Inside World Famous Museums Emerald Waves and Moody Skies Wallpaper Change Your MAC Address to Avoid Free Internet Restrictions

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  • Early Z culling - Ogre

    - by teodron
    This question is concerned with how one can enable this "pixel filter" to work within an Ogre based app. Simply put, one can write two passes, the first without writing any colour values to the frame buffer lighting off colour_write off shading flat The second pass is the one that employs heavy pixel shader computations, hence it would be really nice to get rid of those hidden surface patches and not process them pixel-wise. This approach works, except for one thing: objects with alpha, such as billboard trees suffer in a peculiar way - from one side, they seem to capture the sky/background within their alpha region and ignore other trees/houses behind them, while viewed from the other side, they exhibit the desired behavior. To tackle the issue, I thought I could write a custom vertex shader in the first pass and offset the projected Z component of the vertex a little further away from its actual position, so that in the second pass there is a need to recompute correctly the pixels of the objects closest to the camera. This doesn't work at all, all surfaces are processed in the pixel shader and there is no performance gain. So, if anyone has done a similar trick with Ogre and alpha objects, kindly please help.

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  • Kinect will recognise your finger movement

    - by Boonei
    Sources inside Microsoft suggest they MS guys are tying to improve motion controller. This could be a huge boost to gaming. There are quite a few things that we can do with our fingers when playing games like driving, shooting,sports etc. If fingers are captured then  XBox will give more realistic version of our avatar. Eurogamer has also suggested the same according to their sources. It would be only(mostly) a software update and would not require a new camera, because the USB controller interface currently in place in Kinect can take in data up-to 35MBps. The current utilization is only around roughly 1/2 of it. So there is currently a facility to send more data. Little more tech data, Kinect does transmit 320×240-pixel in 30 fps, if the device could capture and transfer at 640×480 pixels, then better resolution can detect more movements compared to current level of detection. Lets wait and watch ! This article titled,Kinect will recognise your finger movement, was originally published at Tech Dreams. Grab our rss feed or fan us on Facebook to get updates from us.

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  • Greiner-Hormann clipping problem

    - by Belgin
    I have a set of planar polygons in 3D space defined by their vertices in counterclockwise order. Let's define the 'positive face' as being the face of the 3D polygon such as when observed, the vertices appear in counterclockwise order, and the 'negative face', the face which when observed, the vertices appear in clockwise order. I'm doing perspective projection of the set of polygons onto a projection polygon defined by the points in this order: (0, h, 0), (0, 0, 0), (w, 0, 0), and (w, h, 0), where w and h are strictly positive integers. The positive face of this projection polygon is oriented towards positive Z, and the camera point is somewhere at (0, 0, d), where d is a strictly negative number. In order to 'clip' the projected polygons into the projection polygon, I'm applying the Greiner-Hormann (PDF) clipping algorithm, which requires that the clipper and the to-be-clipped polygons be in the same order (i.e. clockwise or counterclockwise). My question is the following: How can I determine whether the projected face of the 3D polygon is the negative or the positive one? Meaning, how do I find out if I have to work with the vertices in normal or inverted order for the algorithm to work? I noticed that only if the 3D polygon is facing the projection polygon with its negative face, both of them are in the same order (counterclockwise), otherwise, a modification needs to be done. Here is a picture (PNG) that illustrates this. Note that the planes described by the polygon from the set and the projection polygon may not always be parallel.

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  • How-To Geek Gets the Microsoft MVP Award, Thanks to You

    - by The Geek
    The How-To Geek has won a Microsoft MVP award for the second year in a row, and it’s all thanks to you, our great readers that keep the site going. Join us for some mutual back-patting and some terrible photography of all the award stuff. Of course, if you’re familiar with the MVP award you’ll probably know that it’s actually for a single person, but in my opinion the award belongs to the entire How-To Geek community, without which this site would be nothing. Latest Features How-To Geek ETC HTG Projects: How to Create Your Own Custom Papercraft Toy How to Combine Rescue Disks to Create the Ultimate Windows Repair Disk What is Camera Raw, and Why Would a Professional Prefer it to JPG? The How-To Geek Guide to Audio Editing: The Basics How To Boot 10 Different Live CDs From 1 USB Flash Drive The 20 Best How-To Geek Linux Articles of 2010 Five Sleek Audi R8 Car Themes for Chrome and Iron MS Notepad Replacement Metapad Returns with a New Beta Version Spybot Search and Destroy Now Available as a Portable App (PortableApps.com) ShapeShifter: What Are Dreams? [Video] This Computer Runs on Geek Power Wallpaper Bones, Clocks, and Counters; A Look at the First 35,000 Years of Computing

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  • Mac OS needs Windows Live Writer &ndash; badly!

    - by digitaldias
    I recently bought a new  Macbook Pro (the 13” one) to dive into a new world of programming challenges as well as to get a more powerful netbook than my Packard Bell Dot which I’ve been using since last year. I’ve had immense pleasure using the netbook format and their small size in meetings (taking notes with XMind), surfing “anywhere”, and, of course blogging with windows live writer. So far the Mac is holding up, it’s sleek, responsive, and I’ve even begun looking at coding in Objective C with it, but in one arena, it is severely lacking: Blogging software. There is nothing that even comes close to Live Writer for getting your blog posts out. The few blogger applications that do exist on mac both look and feel medieval in comparison, AND some even cost money! It looks like some mac users actually install a virtual machine on their mac to run Windows XP just so they can use WLW. I’m not that extreme; instead, I’m hoping that the WLW team will write it’s awesome application as a Silverlight 4 app. That way, it would run on Mac and Windows (as a desktop app). I wonder if it will ever happen though…   PS: The image is of me, took it with the built-in camera on the mac and emailed it to the windows PC that I am writing on :)

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  • XNA - Finding boundaries in isometric tilemap

    - by Yheeky
    I have an issue with my 2D isometric engine. I'm using my own 2D camera class which works with matrices and need to find the tilemaps boundaries so the user always sees the map. Currently my map size is 100x100 (with 128x128 tiles) so the calculation (e.g. for the right boundary) is: var maxX = (TileMap.MapWidth + 1) * (TileMap.TileWidth / 2) - ViewSize.X; var maxX = (100 + 1) * (128 / 2) - 1360; // = 5104 pixels. This works fine while having scale factor of 1.0f but not for any other zoom factor. When I zoom out to 0.9f the right border should be at approx. 4954. I´m using the following code for transformation but I always get a wrong value: var maxXVector = new Vector2(maxX, 0); var maxXTransformed = Vector2.Transform(maxXVector, tempTransform).X; The result is 4593. Does anyone of you have an idea what I´m during wrong? Thanks for your help! Yheeky

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  • Deferred rendering with both Clockwise and CounterClockwise culling

    - by user1423893
    I have a deferred rendering system that works well with objects that appear solid and drawn using CounterClockwise culling. I have a problem with Clockwise culled objects that are supposed to represent hollow that display their inside faces only. The image below shows a CounterClockwise culled object (left) Clockwise culled object (right). The Clockwise culled object faces display what would be displayed on the CounterClockwise face. How can I get the lighting to light the inner faces for Clockwise culled objects and continue lighting the outer CounterClockwise faces as normal? My lighting method is below private void DeferredLighting(GameTime gameTime) { // Set the render target for the lights game.GraphicsDevice.SetRenderTarget(lightMap); // Clear the render target to (0, 0, 0, 0) game.GraphicsDevice.Clear(Color.Transparent); // Set the render states game.GraphicsDevice.BlendState = BlendState.Additive; game.GraphicsDevice.DepthStencilState = DepthStencilState.None; game.GraphicsDevice.RasterizerState = RasterizerState.CullCounterClockwise; // Set sampler state to Point as the Surface type requires it in XNA 4.0 game.GraphicsDevice.SamplerStates[0] = SamplerState.PointClamp; // Set the camera properties for all lights BaseLight.SetCameraProperties(game.ActiveCamera); // Draw the lights int numLights = lights.Count; for (int i = 0; i < numLights; ++i) { if (lights[i].Diffuse.W > 0f) { lights[i].Render(gameTime, ref normalMap, ref depthMap, ref sgrMap); } } // Resolve the render target game.GraphicsDevice.SetRenderTarget(null); } I have tried adjusting the render states but no combination works for both objects.

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  • How to blend multiple normal maps?

    - by János Turánszki
    I want to achieve a distortion effect which distorts the full screen. For that I spawn a couple of images with normal maps. I render their normal map part on some camera facing quads onto a rendertarget which is cleared with the color (127,127,255,255). This color means that there is no distortion whatsoever. Then I want to render some images like this one onto it: If I draw one somewhere on the screen, then it looks correct because it blends in seamlessly with the background (which is the same color that appears on the edges of this image). If I draw another one on top of it then it will no longer be a seamless transition. For this I created a blendstate in directX 11 that keeps the maximum of two colors, so it is now a seamless transition, but this way, the colors lower than 127 (0.5f normalized) will not contribute. I am not making a simulation and the effect looks quite convincing and nice for a game, but in my spare time I am thinking how I could achieve a nicer or a more correct effect with a blend state, maybe averaging the colors somehow? I I did it with a shader, I would add the colors and then I would normalize them, but I need to combine arbitrary number of images onto a rendertarget. This is my blend state now which blends them seamlessly but not correctly: D3D11_BLEND_DESC bd; bd.RenderTarget[0].BlendEnable=true; bd.RenderTarget[0].SrcBlend = D3D11_BLEND_SRC_ALPHA; bd.RenderTarget[0].DestBlend = D3D11_BLEND_INV_SRC_ALPHA; bd.RenderTarget[0].BlendOp = D3D11_BLEND_OP_MAX; bd.RenderTarget[0].SrcBlendAlpha = D3D11_BLEND_ONE; bd.RenderTarget[0].DestBlendAlpha = D3D11_BLEND_ZERO; bd.RenderTarget[0].BlendOpAlpha = D3D11_BLEND_OP_MAX; bd.RenderTarget[0].RenderTargetWriteMask = 0x0f; Is there any way of improving upon this? (PS. I considered rendering each one with a separate shader incementally on top of each other but that would consume a lot of render targets which is unacceptable)

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  • How to determine where on a path my object will be at a given point in time?

    - by Dave
    I have map and an obj that is meant to move from start to end in X amount of time. The movements are all straight lines, as curves are beyond my ability at the moment. So I am trying to get the object to move from these points, but along the way there are way points which keep it on a given path. The speed of the object is determined by how long it will take to get from start to end (based on X). This is what i have so far: //get_now() returns seconds since epoch var timepassed = get_now() - myObj[id].start; //seconds since epoch for departure var timeleft = myObj[id].end - get_now(); //seconds since epoch for arrival var journey_time = 60; //this means 60 minutes total journey time var array = [[650,250]]; //way points along the straight paths if(step == 0 || step =< array.length){ var destinationx = array[step][0]; var destinationy = array[step][1]; }else if( step == array.length){ var destinationx = 250; var destinationy = 100; } else { var destinationx = myObj[id].startx; var destinationy = myObj[id].starty; } step++; When the user logs in at any given time, the object needs to be drawn in the correct place of the path, almost as if its been travelling along the path whilst the user has not been at the PC with the available information i have above. How do I do this? Note: The camera angle in the game is a birds eye view so its a straight forward X:Y rather than isometric angles.

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  • 2-D Codes in Retail

    - by David Dorf
    The UPC you find on packaging is a one-dimensional barcode that's been in use, in one form or another, since the 1970s. While its a good symbology to encode numbers like a product identifier, its not really big enough to hold much more. It also requires a barcode scanner (like those connected to the POS), although iPhone apps like RedLaser have proved a mobile camera can be made to work in many situations. The next generation barcodes are two-dimensional and therefore capable of holding much more information as well as being more conducive to cameras. The most popular format is the QR Code, widely used in Japan because almost every mobile phone has a built-in reader. A typical use for QR Codes is to embed a URL so that that a mobile phone can quickly navigate to the specified web page. QR Codes can be found on posters, billboards, catalogs, and circulars. Speaking of which, Best Buy recently put a QR code in their circular as shown below. If fact, they even updated their iPhone application to include a QR Code reader. I was able to scan the barcode above right from the screen with my iPhone without issues, even though its fairly small in this image. Clearly they are planning to incorporate more QR Codes in their stores and advertising. If you haven't seen QR Codes before, you're not looking hard enough. They are around and will continue to spread.

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  • Vertex fog producing black artifacts

    - by Nick
    I originally posted this question on the XNA forums but got no replies, so maybe someone here can help: I am rendering a textured model using the XNA BasicEffect. When I enable fog, the model outline is still visible as many small black dots when it should be "in the fog". Why is this happening? Here's what it looks like for me -- http://tinypic.com/r/fnh440/6 Here is a minimal example showing my problem: (the ship model that this example uses is from the chase camera sample on this site -- http://xbox.create.msdn.com/en-US/education/catalog/sample/chasecamera -- in case anyone wants to try it out ;)) public class Game1 : Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Game { GraphicsDeviceManager graphics; SpriteBatch spriteBatch; Model model; public Game1() { graphics = new GraphicsDeviceManager(this); Content.RootDirectory = "Content"; } protected override void LoadContent() { // Create a new SpriteBatch, which can be used to draw textures. spriteBatch = new SpriteBatch(GraphicsDevice); // TODO: use this.Content to load your game content here model = Content.Load<Model>("ship"); foreach (ModelMesh mesh in model.Meshes) { foreach (BasicEffect be in mesh.Effects) { be.EnableDefaultLighting(); be.FogEnabled = true; be.FogColor = Color.CornflowerBlue.ToVector3(); be.FogStart = 10; be.FogEnd = 30; } } } protected override void Draw(GameTime gameTime) { GraphicsDevice.Clear(Color.CornflowerBlue); // TODO: Add your drawing code here model.Draw(Matrix.Identity * Matrix.CreateScale(0.01f) * Matrix.CreateRotationY(3 * MathHelper.PiOver4), Matrix.CreateLookAt(new Vector3(0, 0, 30), Vector3.Zero, Vector3.Up), Matrix.CreatePerspectiveFieldOfView(MathHelper.PiOver4, 16f/9f, 1, 100)); base.Draw(gameTime); } }

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  • Changing State in PlayerControler from PlayerInput

    - by Jeremy Talus
    In my player input I wanna change the the "State" of my player controller but I have some trouble to do it my player input is declared like that : class ResistancePlayerInput extends PlayerInput within ResistancePlayerController config(ResistancePlayerInput); and in my playerControler I have that : class ResistancePlayerController extends GamePlayerController; var name PreviousState; DefaultProperties { CameraClass = class 'ResistanceCamera' //Telling the player controller to use your custom camera script InputClass = class'ResistanceGame.ResistancePlayerInput' DefaultFOV = 90.f //Telling the player controller what the default field of view (FOV) should be } simulated event PostBeginPlay() { Super.PostBeginPlay(); } auto state Walking { event BeginState(name PreviousStateName) { Pawn.GroundSpeed = 200; `log("Player Walking"); } } state Running extends Walking { event BeginState(name PreviousStateName) { Pawn.GroundSpeed = 350; `log("Player Running"); } } state Sprinting extends Walking { event BeginState(name PreviousStateName) { Pawn.GroundSpeed = 800; `log("Player Sprinting"); } } I have tried to use PCOwner.GotoState(); and ResistancePlayerController(PCOwner).GotoState(); but won't work. I have also tried a simple GotoState, and nothing happen how can I call GotoState for the PC Class from my player input ?

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  • How to Archive, Search, and View Your Tweet Statistics with ThinkUp

    - by YatriTrivedi
    Worried about archiving your tweets? Want a more powerful search? Want to see your tweet statistics? You can do all of that and more by installing ThinkUp on your home server. ThinkUp is a brilliant application (currently in beta) that will archive all of your tweets, your replies, responses, etc. so that you can search through them and find out some helpful usage statistics. It has quite a few plugins, including one that adds full Facebook support, too. It’s designed to be installed on a LAMP server; that is, Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP is what will provide the backbone for it. While it’s possible to install it on a Windows- or Mac-based machine, it’s most easily handled in Linux, so we’ll be using Ubuntu to show you how to get it up and running. It’s in very active development by the founder, Gina Trapani, and by many users in the community Latest Features How-To Geek ETC How to Recover that Photo, Picture or File You Deleted Accidentally How To Colorize Black and White Vintage Photographs in Photoshop How To Get SSH Command-Line Access to Windows 7 Using Cygwin The How-To Geek Video Guide to Using Windows 7 Speech Recognition How To Create Your Own Custom ASCII Art from Any Image How To Process Camera Raw Without Paying for Adobe Photoshop What is the Internet? From the Today Show January 1994 [Historical Video] Take Screenshots and Edit Them in Chrome and Iron Using Aviary Screen Capture Run Android 3.0 on a Hacked Nook Google Art Project Takes You Inside World Famous Museums Emerald Waves and Moody Skies Wallpaper Change Your MAC Address to Avoid Free Internet Restrictions

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  • Free Developer Day - Hands-on Oracle 11g Applications Development

    - by [email protected]
    Spend a day with us learning the key tools, frameworks, techniques, and best practices for building database-backed applications. Gain hands-on experience developing database-backed applications with innovative and performance-enhancing methods. Meet, learn from, and network with Oracle database application development experts and your peers. Get a chance to win a Flip video camera and Oracle prizes, and enjoy post-event benefits such as advanced lab content downloads.Bring your own laptop (Windows, Linux, or Mac with minimum 2Gb RAM) and take away scripts, labs, and applications*.Space is limited. "Register Now"  for this FREE event. Don't miss your exclusive opportunity to meet with Oracle application development & database experts, win Oracle Trainings, and discuss today's most vital application development topics.          Win two Oracle Trainings valued in $2500 each. Offered by SDT Learning Corp·         Oracle Application Express: Developing Web Applications (duración de 4 días)·         Oracle Fusion Middleware 11g: Java Programming Ed 1.1 (duración de 5 días)You can also be registered Calling to Jamielle Gandía at 787-999-3187Requirements by TrackFor .Net Track1) A windows machine with 2 GB memory2) Attendees must in advance of the show, download and install VMWare player:       http://www.vmware.com/products/player/3) Attendees should test their machine to make sure they can run an executable on an external USB hard drive (some corporate machines are locked down so they cannot do this)For Java TrackYou will save time if you install these applications in advance:1) A windows machine with 2 GB memory2) VirtualBox must be installed in each laptopWhat is virtual box? Where can I download it?For APEX Track1) A windows machine with 2 GB memoryOracle Corporate agenda @  HereNote:  (Limited to 50 people per Track)

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  • ArchBeat Link-o-Rama Top 10 for November 2, 2012

    - by Bob Rhubart
    ADF Mobile - Login Functionality | Andrejus Baranovskis "The new ADF Mobile approach with native deployment is cool when you want to access phone functionality (camera, email, sms and etc.), also when you want to build mobile applications with advanced UI, " reports Oracle ACE Director Andrejus Baranovskis. Big Data: Running out of Metric System | Andrew McAfee Do very large numbers make your brain hurt? Better stock up on aspirin. According to Andrew McAfee: "It seems safe to say that before the current decade is out we’ll need to convene a 20th conference to come up with some more prefixes for extraordinarily large quantities not to describe intergalactic distances or the amount of energy released by nuclear reactions, but to capture the amount of digital data in the world." Cloud computing will save us from the zombie apocalypse | Cloud Computing - InfoWorld "It's just a matter of time before we migrate our existing IT assets to public cloud systems," says InfoWorld cloud blogger David Linthicum. "Additionally, it's a short window until the dead rise from the grave and attempt to eat our brains." Is is Halloween or something? Thought for the Day "A computer lets you make more mistakes faster than any invention in human history—with the possible exceptions of hand guns and tequila." — Mitch Ratcliffe

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  • Making files generally available on Linux system (when security is relatively unimportant)?

    - by Ole Thomsen Buus
    Hi, I am using Ubuntu 9.10 on a stationary PC. I have a secondary 1 TB harddrive with a single big logical partition (currently formatted as ext4). It is mounted as /usr3 with options user, exec in /etc/fstab. I am doing highspeed imaging experiments. Well, only 260fps, but that still creates many individual files since each frames is saved as one png-file. The stationary is not used by anyone other than me which is why the default security model posed by ubuntu is not necessary. What is the best way to make the entire contents of /usr3 generally available on all systems. In case I need to move the harddrive to another Ubuntu 9.x or 10.x machine? When grabbing image with the firewire camera I use a selfmade grabbing software-utility (console based) in sudo-mode. This creates all files with root as owner and group. I am logged in as user otb and usually I do the following when having to make files generally available to otb: sudo chown otb -R * sudo chgrp otb -R * sudo chmod a=rwx -R * This takes some time since the disk now contains individual ~200000 files. After this, how would linux behave if I moved the harddrive to another system where the user otb is also available? Would the files still be accessible without sudo use?

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  • Why would accessing photos over a network be a problem for Digikam?

    - by Shedeki
    Digikam has always worked nicely for me. I recently setup a Synology DiskStation (DS212+) and moved all my pictures to it, keeping them in an encrypted folder. I mount that folder using cifs, as some bug prevents eCryptfs and NFS from working together. This has led Digikam to being incredibly slow. Startup takes a very long time (several minutes for 41779 items, 123.8GB) but worse is how long it takes Digikam to write files. I like using Digikams import feature to copy new images from my camera to the hard drive because it checks for duplicates as well as creating a clear folder structure according to the dates the images were taken. Since I moved to using the network drive Digikam takes about 5 to 10 times as long to import photos than it did before. Saving modified or converted images takes equally long. What I am looking for is a way to help Digikam speed things up or an alternative piece of software (I have never liked Digikam being so very much KDEish…). There are just so many features that only Digikam seems to combine, e.g.: Batch processing. Respects existing folder structure. Does not mess up files for other applications. *.NEF support. Caches thumbnails in a clean way.

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  • Desktop Fun: Snow Covered Trees Wallpaper Collection

    - by Asian Angel
    Trees can become beautiful works of natural art when snow accumulates on them and make you feel as if you have stepped into another world when walking through them. So grab your jacket, gloves, and snowboots for a journey through this frosty scenery with our Snow Covered Trees Wallpaper Collection. Note: Click on the picture to see the full-size image—these wallpapers vary in size so you may need to crop, stretch, or place them on a colored background in order to best match them to your screen’s resolution. For more wallpapers be certain to see our great collections in the Desktop Fun section. Latest Features How-To Geek ETC HTG Projects: How to Create Your Own Custom Papercraft Toy How to Combine Rescue Disks to Create the Ultimate Windows Repair Disk What is Camera Raw, and Why Would a Professional Prefer it to JPG? The How-To Geek Guide to Audio Editing: The Basics How To Boot 10 Different Live CDs From 1 USB Flash Drive The 20 Best How-To Geek Linux Articles of 2010 Arctic Theme for Windows 7 Gives Your Desktop an Icy Touch Install LibreOffice via PPA and Receive Auto-Updates in Ubuntu Creative Portraits Peek Inside the Guts of Modern Electronics Scenic Winter Lane Wallpaper to Create a Relaxing Mood Access Your Web Apps Directly Using the Context Menu in Chrome The Deep – Awesome Use of Metal Objects as Deep Sea Creatures [Video]

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  • How to use Pixel Bender (pbj) in ActionScript3 on large Vectors to make fast calculations?

    - by Arthur Wulf White
    Remember my old question: 2d game view camera zoom, rotation & offset using 'Filter' / 'Shader' processing? I figured I could use a Pixel Bender Shader to do the computation for any large group of elements in a game to save on processing time. At least it's a theory worth checking. I also read this question: Pass large array to pixel shader Which I'm guessing is about accomplishing the same thing in a different language. I read this tutorial: http://unitzeroone.com/blog/2009/03/18/flash-10-massive-amounts-of-3d-particles-with-alchemy-source-included/ I am attempting to do some tests. Here is some of the code: private const SIZE : int = Math.pow(10, 5); private var testVectorNum : Vector.<Number>; private function testShader():void { shader.data.ab.value = [1.0, 8.0]; shader.data.src.input = testVectorNum; shader.data.src.width = SIZE/400; shader.data.src.height = 100; shaderJob = new ShaderJob(shader, testVectorNum, SIZE / 4, 1); var time : int = getTimer(), i : int = 0; shaderJob.start(true); trace("TEST1 : ", getTimer() - time); } The problem is that I keep getting a error saying: [Fault] exception, information=Error: Error #1000: The system is out of memory. Update: I managed to partially workaround the problem by converting the vector into bitmapData: (Using this technique I still get a speed boost of 3x using Pixel Bender) private function testShader():void { shader.data.ab.value = [1.0, 8.0]; var time : int = getTimer(), i : int = 0; testBitmapData.setVector(testBitmapData.rect, testVectorInt); shader.data.src.input = testBitmapData; shaderJob = new ShaderJob(shader, testBitmapData); shaderJob.start(true); testVectorInt = testBitmapData.getVector(testBitmapData.rect); trace("TEST1 : ", getTimer() - time); }

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  • Particle and Physics problem.

    - by Quincy
    This was originally a forum post so I hope you guys don't mind it being 2 questions in one. I am making a game and I got some basic physics implemented. I have 2 problems, 1 with particles being drawn in the wrong place and one with going through walls while jumping in corners. Skip over to about 15 sec video showing the 2 problems : http://youtube.com/watch?v=Tm9nfWsWfiM So the problem with the particles seems to be coming from the removal, as soon as I remove that piece of code it instantly works, but there shouldn't be a problem since they shouldn't even draw when their energy gets to 0 (and then they get removed) So my first question is, how are these particles getting warped all over the screen ? Relevant code : Particle class : class Particle { //Physics public Vector2 position = new Vector2(0,0); public float direction = 180; public float speed = 100; public float energy = 1; protected float startEnergy = 1; //Visual public Sprite sprite; public float rotation = 0; public float scale = 1; public byte alpha = 255; public BlendMode blendMode { get { return sprite.BlendMode; } set { sprite.BlendMode = value; } } public Particle() { } public virtual void Think(float frameTime) { if (energy - frameTime < 0) energy = 0; else energy -= frameTime; position += new Vector2((float)Math.Cos(MathHelper.DegToRad(direction)), (float)Math.Sin(MathHelper.DegToRad(direction))) * speed * frameTime; alpha = (byte)(255 * energy / startEnergy); sprite.Rotation = rotation; sprite.Position = position; sprite.Color = new Color(sprite.Color.R, sprite.Color.G, sprite.Color.B, alpha); } public virtual void Draw(float frameTime) { if (energy > 0) { World.camera.DrawSprite(sprite); } } // Basic particle implementation class BasicSprite : Particle { public BasicSprite(Sprite _sprite) { sprite = _sprite; } } Emitter : class Emitter { protected static Random rand = new Random(); protected List<Particle> particles = new List<Particle>(); public BaseEntity target = null; public Vector2 position = new Vector2(0, 0); public bool Active = true; public float timeAlive = 0; public int particleCount = 0; public int ParticlesPerSeccond { get { return (int)(1 / particleSpawnTime); } set { particleSpawnTime = 1 / (float)value; } } public float dieTime = float.MaxValue; float particleSpawnTime = 0.05f; float spawnTime = 0; public Emitter() { } public virtual void Think(float frametime) { spawnTime += frametime; if (dieTime != float.MaxValue) { timeAlive += frametime; if (timeAlive >= dieTime) Active = false; } if (Active) { if (target != null) position = target.Position; while (spawnTime > particleSpawnTime) { spawnTime -= particleSpawnTime; AddParticle(); particleCount++; } } for (int i = 0; i < particles.Count; i++) { particles[i].Think(frametime); if (particles[i].energy <= 0) { particles.Remove(particles[i]); // As soon as this is removed, it works particleCount--; } } } public virtual void AddParticle() { } public virtual void Draw(float frametime) { foreach (Particle particle in particles) { particle.Draw(frametime); } } } class BloodEmitter : Emitter { Image image; public BloodEmitter() { image = new Image(@"Content/Particles/TinyCircle.png"); image.CreateMaskFromColor(new Color(255, 0, 255, 255)); this.dieTime = 0.5f; this.ParticlesPerSeccond = 100; } public override void AddParticle() { Sprite sprite = new Sprite(image); sprite.Color = new Color((byte)(rand.NextDouble() * 255), (byte)(rand.NextDouble() * 255), (byte)(rand.NextDouble() * 255)); BasicSprite particle = new BasicSprite(sprite); particle.direction = (float)rand.NextDouble() * 360; particle.position = position; particle.blendMode = BlendMode.Alpha; particles.Add(particle); } } The seccond problem is the physics problem, for some reason I can get through the right bottom corner while jumping. I think this is coming from me switching animations but I thought I made it compensate for that. Relevant code : PhysicsEntity : class PhysicsEntity : BaseEntity { // Horizontal movement constants protected const float maxHorizontalSpeed = 1000; protected const float horizontalAcceleration = 15; protected const float horizontalDragAir = 0.95f; protected const float horizontalDragGround = 0.95f; // Vertical movement constants protected const float maxVerticalSpeed = 1000; protected const float verticalAcceleration = 20; // Everything needed for movement and correct animations protected float movement = 0; protected bool onGround = false; protected Vector2 Velocity = new Vector2(0, 0); protected float maxSpeed = 0; float lastThink = 0; float thinkTime = 1f/60f; public PhysicsEntity(Vector2 position, Sprite sprite) : base(position, sprite) { } public override void Draw(float frameTime) { base.Draw(frameTime); } public override void Think(float frameTime) { CalculateMovement(frameTime); base.Think(frameTime); } protected void CalculateMovement(float frameTime) { lastThink += frameTime; while (lastThink > thinkTime) { onGround = false; Velocity.X = MathHelper.Clamp(Velocity.X + horizontalAcceleration * movement, -maxHorizontalSpeed, maxHorizontalSpeed); if (onGround) Velocity.X *= horizontalDragGround; else Velocity.X *= horizontalDragAir; if (maxSpeed < Velocity.X) maxSpeed = Velocity.X; Velocity.Y = MathHelper.Clamp(Velocity.Y + verticalAcceleration, -maxVerticalSpeed, maxVerticalSpeed); lastThink -= thinkTime; DoCollisions(thinkTime); DoAnimations(thinkTime); } } public virtual void DoAnimations(float frameTime) { } public void DoCollisions(float frameTime) { Position.Y += Velocity.Y * frameTime; Vector2 tileCollision = GetTileCollision(); if (tileCollision.X != -1 || tileCollision.Y != -1) { Vector2 collisionDepth = CollisionRectangle.DepthIntersection( new Rectangle( tileCollision.X * World.tileEngine.TileWidth, tileCollision.Y * World.tileEngine.TileHeight, World.tileEngine.TileWidth, World.tileEngine.TileHeight ) ); Position.Y += collisionDepth.Y; if (collisionDepth.Y < 0) onGround = true; Velocity.Y = 0; } Position.X += Velocity.X * frameTime; tileCollision = GetTileCollision(); if (tileCollision.X != -1 || tileCollision.Y != -1) { Vector2 collisionDepth = CollisionRectangle.DepthIntersection( new Rectangle( tileCollision.X * World.tileEngine.TileWidth, tileCollision.Y * World.tileEngine.TileHeight, World.tileEngine.TileWidth, World.tileEngine.TileHeight ) ); Position.X += collisionDepth.X; Velocity.X = 0; } } public void DoCollisions(Vector2 difference) { CollisionRectangle.Y = Position.Y - difference.Y; CollisionRectangle.Height += difference.Y; Vector2 tileCollision = GetTileCollision(); if (tileCollision.X != -1 || tileCollision.Y != -1) { Vector2 collisionDepth = CollisionRectangle.DepthIntersection( new Rectangle( tileCollision.X * World.tileEngine.TileWidth, tileCollision.Y * World.tileEngine.TileHeight, World.tileEngine.TileWidth, World.tileEngine.TileHeight ) ); Position.Y += collisionDepth.Y; if (collisionDepth.Y < 0) onGround = true; Velocity.Y = 0; } CollisionRectangle.X = Position.X - difference.X; CollisionRectangle.Width += difference.X; tileCollision = GetTileCollision(); if (tileCollision.X != -1 || tileCollision.Y != -1) { Vector2 collisionDepth = CollisionRectangle.DepthIntersection( new Rectangle( tileCollision.X * World.tileEngine.TileWidth, tileCollision.Y * World.tileEngine.TileHeight, World.tileEngine.TileWidth, World.tileEngine.TileHeight ) ); Position.X += collisionDepth.X; Velocity.X = 0; } } Vector2 GetTileCollision() { int topLeftTileX = (int)(CollisionRectangle.TopLeft.X / World.tileEngine.TileWidth); int topLeftTileY = (int)(CollisionRectangle.TopLeft.Y / World.tileEngine.TileHeight); int BottomRightTileX = (int)(CollisionRectangle.DownRight.X / World.tileEngine.TileWidth); int BottomRightTileY = (int)(CollisionRectangle.DownRight.Y / World.tileEngine.TileHeight); if (CollisionRectangle.DownRight.Y % World.tileEngine.TileHeight == 0) // If your exactly against the tile don't count that as being inside the tile BottomRightTileY -= 1; if (CollisionRectangle.DownRight.X % World.tileEngine.TileWidth == 0) // If your exactly against the tile don't count that as being inside the tile BottomRightTileX -= 1; for (int i = topLeftTileX; i <= BottomRightTileX; i++) { for (int j = topLeftTileY; j <= BottomRightTileY; j++) { if (World.tileEngine.TileIsSolid(i, j)) { return new Vector2(i, j); } } } return new Vector2(-1, -1); } } Player : enum State { Standing, Running, Jumping, Falling, Sliding, WallSlide } class Player : PhysicsEntity { private State state { get { return currentState; } set { if (currentState != value) { currentState = value; animationChanged = true; } } } private State currentState = State.Standing; private BasicEmitter basicEmitter = new BasicEmitter(); public bool flipped; public bool animationChanged = false; protected const float jumpPower = 600; AnimationManager animationManager; Rectangle DrawRectangle; public override Rectangle CollisionRectangle { get { return new Rectangle( Position.X - DrawRectangle.Width / 2f, Position.Y - DrawRectangle.Height / 2f, DrawRectangle.Width, DrawRectangle.Height ); } } public Player(Vector2 position, Sprite sprite) : base(position, sprite) { // Only posted the relevant bit DrawRectangle = animationManager.currentAnimation.drawingRectangle; } public override void Draw(float frameTime) { World.camera.DrawSprite( Sprite, Position + new Vector2(DrawRectangle.X, DrawRectangle.Y), animationManager.currentAnimation.drawingRectangle ); } public override void Think(float frameTime) { //I only posted the relevant stuff if (animationChanged) { // if the animation has changed make sure we compensate for the change in with and height animationChanged = false; DoCollisions(animationManager.getSizeDifference()); } DoCustomMovement(); base.Think(frameTime); if (!onGround && Velocity.Y > 0) { state = State.Falling; } } void DoCustomMovement() { if (onGround) { if (World.renderWindow.Input.IsKeyDown(KeyCode.W)) { Velocity.Y = -jumpPower; state = State.Jumping; } } } public override void DoAnimations(float frameTime) { string stateName = Enum.GetName(typeof(State), state); if (!animationManager.currentAnimationIs(stateName)) { animationManager.PlayAnimation(stateName); } animationManager.Think(frameTime); DrawRectangle = animationManager.currentAnimation.drawingRectangle; Sprite.Center = new Vector2( DrawRectangle.X + DrawRectangle.Width / 2, DrawRectangle.Y + DrawRectangle.Height / 2 ); Sprite.FlipX(flipped); } So why am I warping through walls ? I have given this some thought but I just can't seem to find out why this is happening. Full source if needed : source : http://www.mediafire.com/?rc7ddo09gnr68zd (download link)

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  • How do I adjust the origin of rotation for a group of sprites?

    - by Jon
    I am currently grouping sprites together, then applying a rotation transformation on draw: private void UpdateMatrix(ref Vector2 origin, float radians) { Vector3 matrixorigin = new Vector3(origin, 0); _rotationMatrix = Matrix.CreateTranslation(-matrixorigin) * Matrix.CreateRotationZ(radians) * Matrix.CreateTranslation(matrixorigin); } Where the origin is the Centermost point of my group of sprites. I apply this transformation to each sprite in the group. My problem is that when I adjust the point of origin, my entire sprite group will re-position itself on screen. How could I differentiate the point of rotation used in the transformation, from the position of the sprite group? Is there a better way of creating this transformation matrix? EDIT Here is the relevant part of the Draw() function: Matrix allTransforms = _rotationMatrix * camera.GetTransformation(); spriteBatch.Begin(SpriteSortMode.BackToFront, null, null, null, null, null, allTransforms); for (int i = 0; i < _map.AllParts.Count; i++) { for (int j = 0; j < _map.AllParts[0].Count; j++) { spriteBatch.Draw(_map.AllParts[i][j].Texture, _map.AllParts[i][j].Position, null, Color.White, 0, _map.AllParts[i][j].Origin, 1.0f, SpriteEffects.None, 0f); } } This all works fine, again, the problem is that when a rotation is set and the point of origin is changed, the sprite group's position is offset on screen. I am trying to figure out a way to adjust the point of origin without causing a shift in position. EDIT 2 At this point, I'm looking for workarounds as this is not working. Does anyone know of a better way to rotate a group of sprites in XNA? I need a method that will allow me to modify the point of rotation (origin) without affecting the position of the sprite group on screen.

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  • How to visually "connect" skybox edges with terrain model

    - by David
    I'm working on a simple airplane game where I use skybox cube rendered using disabled depth test. Very close to the bottom side of the skybox is my terrain model. What bothers me is that the terrain is not connected to the skybox bottom. This is not visible while the plane flies low, but as it gets some altitude, the terrain looks smaller because of the perspective. Since the skybox center is always same as the camera position, the skybox moves with the plane, but the terrain goes into the distance. Ok, I think you understand the problem. My question is how to fix it. It's an airplane game so limiting max altitude is not possible. I thought about some way to stretch terrain to always cover whole bottom side of the skybox cube, but that doesn't feel right and I don't even know how would I calculate new terrain dimensions every frame. Here are some screenshot of games where you can clearly see the problem: (oops, I cannot post images yet) darker brown is the skybox bottom here: http://i.stack.imgur.com/iMsAf.png untextured brown is the skybox bottom here: http://i.stack.imgur.com/9oZr7.png

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  • Regulating how much to draw based on how much was drawn last frame.

    - by Mike Howard
    I have a 3D game world on an iPhone (limited graphics speed), and I'm already regulating whether I draw each shape on the screen based on it's size and distance from the camera. Something like... if (how_big_it_looks_from_the_camera > constant) then draw What I want to do now is also take into account how many shapes are being drawn, so that in busier areas of the game world I can draw less than I otherwise would. I tried to do this by dividing how_big_it_looks by the number of shapes that were drawn last frame (well, the square root of this but I'm simplifying - the problem is the same). if (how_big_it_looks / shapes_drawn > constant2) then draw But the check happens at the level of objects which represent many drawn shapes, and if an object containing many shapes is switched on, it increases shapes_drawn lots and switches itself back off the next frame. It flickers on and off. I tried keeping a kind of weighted average of previous values, by each frame doing something like shapes_drawn_recently = 0.9 * shapes_drawn_recently + 0.1 * shapes_just_drawn, but of course it only slows the flickering down because of the nature of the feedback loop. Is there a good way of solving this? My project is in Objective-C, but a general algorithm or pseudo-code is good too. Thanks.

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