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• How do I find which isometric tiles are inside the cameras current view?

  - by Steve

  I'm putting together an isometric engine and need to cull the tiles that aren't in the camera's current view. My tile coordinates go from left to right on the X and top to bottom on the Y with (0,0) being the top left corner. If I have access to say the top left, top right, bottom left and bottom right corner coordinates, is there a formula or something I could use to determine which tiles fall in range? This is a screenshot of the layout of the tiles for reference. If there isn't one, or there's a better way to determine which tiles are on screen and which to cull, I'm all ears and am grateful for any ideas. I've got a few other methods I may be able to try such as checking the position of the tile against a rectangle. I pretty much just need something quick. Thanks for giving this a read =)

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• Is there a cross-platform special directory I can use for game save files?

  - by Suds

  I'm developing with LWJGL and Java on a Windows 7 laptop. I've successfully set up saving to the %appdata%\gamename\saves\ or long form c:\users\user\appdata\roaming\gamename\saves\ folder by using File dir = new File(System.getenv("APPDATA") + "\\gamename\\saves\\");. I have hobbyist level experience with Linux, and zero experience with OSX. My game will be fully cross platform. Is System.getenv("APPDATA"); cross platform? If so, where does it point to on Linux or OSX? Is there a best practices alternative that I should use?

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• LOD in modern games

  - by Firas Assaad

  I'm currently working on my master's thesis about LOD and mesh simplification, and I've been reading many academic papers and articles about the subject. However, I can't find enough information about how LOD is being used in modern games. I know many games use some sort of dynamic LOD for terrain, but what about elsewhere? Level of Detail for 3D Graphics for example points out that discrete LOD (where artists prepare several models in advance) is widely used because of the performance overhead of continuous LOD. That book was published in 2002 however, and I'm wondering if things are different now. There has been some research in performing dynamic LOD using the geometry shader (this paper for example, with its implementation in ShaderX6), would that be used in a modern game? To summarize, my question is about the state of LOD in modern video games, what algorithms are used and why? In particular, is view dependent continuous simplification used or does the runtime overhead make using discrete models with proper blending and impostors a more attractive solution? If discrete models are used, is an algorithm used (e.g. vertex clustering) to generate them offline, do artists manually create the models, or perhaps a combination of both methods is used?

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• Check if an object is facing another based on angles

  - by Isaiah

  I already have something that calculates the bearing angle to get one object to face another. You give it the positions and it returns the angle to get one to face the other. Now I need to figure out how tell if on object is facing toward another object within a specified field and I can't find any information about how to do this. The objects are obj1 and obj2. Their angles are at obj1.angle and obj2.angle. Their vectors are at obj1.pos and obj2.pos. It's in the format [x,y]. The angle to have one face directly at another is found with direction(obj1.pos,obj2.pos). I want to set the function up like this: isfacing(obj1,obj2,area){...} and return true/false depending if it's in the specified field area to the angle to directly see it. I've got a base like this: var isfacing = function (obj1,obj2,area){ var toface = direction(obj1.pos,obj2.pos); if(toface+area >= obj1.angle && ob1.angle >= toface-area){ return true; } return false; } But my problem is that the angles are in 360 degrees, never above 360 and never below 0. How can I account for that in this? If the first object's angle is say at 0 and say I subtract a field area of 20 or so. It'll check if it's less than -20! If I fix the -20 it becomes 340 but x < 340 isn't what I want, I'd have to x 340 in that case. Is there someone out there with more sleep than I that can help a new dev pulling an all-nighter just to get enemies to know if they're attacking in the right direction? I hope I'm making this harder than it seems. I'd just make them always face the main char if the producer didn't want attacks from behind to work while blocking. In which case I'll need the function above anyways. I've tried to give as much info as I can think would help. Also this is in 2d.

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• Creating a 2D Line Branch

  - by Danran

  I'm looking into creating a 2D line branch, something for a "lightning effect". I did ask this question before on creating a "lightning effect" (mainly though referring to the process of the glow & after effects the lightning has & to whether it was a good method to use or not); Methods of Creating a "Lightning" effect in 2D However i never did get around to getting it working. So i've been trying today to get a seconded attempt going but i'm getting now-were :/. So to be clear on what i'm trying to-do, in this article posted; http://drilian.com/2009/02/25/lightning-bolts/ I'm trying to create the line segments seen in the images on the site. I'm confused mainly by this line in the pseudo code; // Offset the midpoint by a random amount along the normal. midPoint += Perpendicular(Normalize(endPoint-startPoint))*RandomFloat(-offsetAmount,offsetAmount); If someone could explain this to me it would be really grateful :).

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• Can I use remade sprites in my game?

  - by John Skridles

  Can I use remade sprites in my game? I am making a game and I used some sprites, but I didn't copy them. I remade them completely the character looks nothing like the original. I only did this to get the movement of the character right (moving, running, jumping, punching). I've been working on the game for a long time, so I really need to know is it safe and legal to do this. I do intend making a small profit.

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• Trouble using Ray.Intersect method on bounding boxes in a 2D XNA game

  - by getsauce

  I am trying to use a ray and bounding box to determine if a box is between the player and the mouse pointer in 2D space. When I try testing the code, the collision will return true when pointed at the box but it also returns true under other circumstances where it shouldn't. For instance. If I have a player on the left and a box directly to the right, I can put the mouse pointer a few hundred pixels above the box or a few hundred below and it will still return true. Also, I can put my mouse pointer to the left of the player and in a certain area it will still return true. Does anyone have any idea what might cause this? I have left out definitions for some of my members and properties just to make this code sample easier to read. The position property is just a Vector2 for where each object is located. ray = new Ray(new Vector3(player.Position, 0), new Vector3(mouse.Position, 0); box = new BoundingBox(new Vector3(box.Position, 0), new Vector3( new Vector2(box.Position + box.Width, box.Position + box.Height), 0); if (ray.Intersects(box) != null) collision = true; else collision = false;

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• XNA ModelMesh.Draw vs GraphicsDevice.DrawIndexedPrimitives

  - by cubrman

  I am using XNA 4.0 and I wonder if drawing models with multiple meshes is better by filling the vertex and index buffers first and calling GraphicsDevice.DrawIndexedPrimitives() or by simply using good ol' foreach(...) {ModelMesh.Draw()}. Is it possible to add data to vertex/index buffers at all in order to pack all the models on the scene in them and then call Draw only once per frame? I would appreciate a link to an in-depth explanation. Thanks.

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• What should a game have in order to keep humans playing it?

  - by Adam Davis

  In many entertainment professions there suggestions, loose rules, or general frameworks one follows that appeal to humans in one way or another. For instance, many movies and books follow the monomyth. In video games I find many types of games that attract people in different ways. Some are addicted to facebook gem matching games. Others can't get enough of FPS games. Once in awhile, though, you find a game that seems to transcend stereotypes and appeals almost immediately to everyone that plays it. For instance, Plants Versus Zombies seems to have a very, very large demographic of players. There are other games similar in reach. I'm curious what books, blogs, etc there are that explore these game types and styles, and tries to suss out one or more popular frameworks/styles that satisfy people, while keeping them coming back for more.

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• How to implement an intelligent enemy in a shoot-em-up?

  - by bummzack

  Imagine a very simple shoot-em-up, something we all know: You're the player (green). Your movement is restricted to the X axis. Our enemy (or enemies) is at the top of the screen, his movement is also restricted to the X axis. The player fires bullets (yellow) at the enemy. I'd like to implement an A.I. for the enemy that should be really good at avoiding the players bullets. My first idea was to divide the screen into discrete sections and assign weights to them: There are two weights: The "bullet-weight" (grey) is the danger imposed by a bullet. The closer the bullet is to the enemy, the higher the "bullet-weight" (0..1, where 1 is highest danger). Lanes without a bullet have a weight of 0. The second weight is the "distance-weight" (lime-green). For every lane I add 0.2 movement cost (this value is kinda arbitrary now and could be tweaked). Then I simply add the weights (white) and go to the lane with the lowest weight (red). But this approach has an obvious flaw, because it can easily miss local minima as the optimal place to go would be simply between two incoming bullets (as denoted with the white arrow). So here's what I'm looking for: Should find a way through bullet-storm, even when there's no place that doesn't impose a threat of a bullet. Enemy can reliably dodge bullets by picking an optimal (or almost optimal) solution. Algorithm should be able to factor in bullet movement speed (as they might move with different velocities). Ways to tweak the algorithm so that different levels of difficulty can be applied (dumb to super-intelligent enemies). Algorithm should allow different goals, as the enemy doesn't only want to evade bullets, he should also be able to shoot the player. That means that positions where the enemy can fire at the player should be preferred when dodging bullets. So how would you tackle this? Contrary to other games of this genre, I'd like to have only a few, but very "skilled" enemies instead of masses of dumb enemies.

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• In MMO game, how to handle user characters, who are offline?

  - by Deele

  In my medieval MMO game, players have their own character, that represents themselves inside game. Like a King. Players could have cities and armies, but King acts as main driving force. Then it comes to player, going offline/vacation/disconnect. How to deal with "offline King", to keep some sort of reality in game, without ruining everything for player. I have never liked unrealistic stuff in games, like appearing/dissapearing from thin air, like in WoW or other MMO RPG's, when it comes to connect/disconnect, like in Matrix movie, when you are disconnected, your "avatar" inside the system just vaninshes. Ok, if player char stays where it was left, other players who are online could kick his ass like offline player char was frozen? I see only one solution - give player char, while offline, some sort of AI, that controls char. Is there any other solutions? May be, some sort of legend/story, could make users only as inner-voice, leaving King just passively controlled by user, or other stuff... Please, help! I hope you understand my question.

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• Logic / Render phases with a single thread

  - by DevilWithin

  The question I have may generate different opinions from different developers, but I'd still like to have an answer on this. Its all about the updating and rendering steps of the game loop, and their use under multi and single threaded environments. Currently, there is one thread running, which takes care of sequentially executing events , logic and rendering. Sometimes, the logic part may wish to change the game state to something else, and in between do some loading of files. The result is that the game hangs completely while loading, and then proceeds to normal rendering of the new state. To go around this, i could make another thread, do the loading there while the main thread renders a smooth loading animation, and then proceed normally. The real question is about if i don't create another thread. I could refresh the screen from the logic thread, and provide some basic loading screen, which could be not so smoothly updated while the files load. In fact, this approach is not loved by a lot of developers, as it scrambles render code in the logic step, which may cause problems of different sorts.. Hope its clear!

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• Game testing on Android - emulator or real devices?

  - by n00bfuscator

  I am working at a localization agency and we have been approached by a client about testing their games on iOS as well as Android. Testing on iOS seems fairly easy as we can just buy a couple of devices and we should be covered. For Android it seems to be completely different. From what i found, the emulator can cover all API levels, screen sizes and such, but i hear it's buggy and nothing could replace testing on real devices. With the vast amount of Android devices out there and the rate at which new devices are released it seems impossible to keep up. How can i test games (localization and functional) on Android covering all compatible devices?

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• World of Warcraft like C++/C# server (highload)

  - by Edward83

  I know it is very big topic and maybe my question is very beaten, but I'm interesting of basics how to write highload server for UDP/TCP client-server communications in MMO-like game on C++/C#? I mean what logic of retrieving hundreds and thousands packages at the same time and sending updates to clients? Please advice me with architecture solutions, your experience, ready-to-use libraries. Maybe you know some interesting details how WoW servers work. Thank you! Edit: my question is about developing, not hardware/software tools;

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• How many players can UDK support without Networking

  - by N0xus

  I've been looking for the answer to this for some time now, but cannot find anything online that is helpful. What I want to know is the amount of players that the UDK can support on one single machine. An example of this would be golden eye on the N64. On that, you could get 4 players all playing the same game at the same time using split screen. Like in this image: Does anyone know is the UDK is capable of doing similar?

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• How can I pass an external instance to the constructor of an object that's being created using the default XNA XML content loader?

  - by Michael

  I'm trying to understand how to use the XNA XML content importer to instantiate non-trivial objects that are more than a collection of basic properties (e.g., a class that inherits from DrawableGameObject or GameObject and requires other things to be passed into its constructor). Is it possible to pass existing external instances (e.g., an instance of the current Game) to the constructor of an object that's being created using the default XNA XML content loader? For example, imagine that I have the following class, inheriting from DrawableGameComponent: public class Character : DrawableGameComponent { public string Name { get; set; } public Character(Game game) : base(game) { } public override void Update(GameTime gameTime) { } public override void Draw(GameTime gameTime) { } } If I had a simple class that did not need other parameters in its constructor (i.e., the Game instance), then I could simply use this XML: <XnaContent> <Asset Type="MyNamespace.Character"> <Name>John Doe</Name> </Asset> </XnaContent> ...and then create an instance of Character using this code: var character = Content.Load<Character>("MyXmlAssetName"); But that won't work because I need to pass the need to pass the Game into the constructor. What's the best way to handle this situation? Is there a way to pass in things like the current Game using the default XNA XML content loader? Do I need to write my own XML loader? (If so, how?) Is there a better object-oriented design that I should be using for my classes? Note: Although I used Game in this example, I'm really just asking how to pass any type of existing instance to my constructors. (For example, I'm using the Farseer Physics Engine, and some of my classes also need a reference to the Farseer World object too.) Thanks in advance.

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• Understanding Unity3d physics: where is the force applied?

  - by Heisenbug

  I'm trying to understand which is the right way to apply forces to a RigidBody. I noticed that there are AddForce and AddRelativeForce methods, one applied in world space coordinate system meanwhile the other in the local space. The thing that I do not understand is the following: usually in physics library (es. Bullet) we can specify the force vector and also the force application point. How can I do this in Unity? Is it possible to apply a force vector in a specific point relative to the given RigidBody coordinate system? Where does AddForce apply the force?

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• How should I account for the GC when building games with Unity?

  - by Eonil

  *As far as I know, Unity3D for iOS is based on the Mono runtime and Mono has only generational mark & sweep GC. This GC system can't avoid GC time which stops game system. Instance pooling can reduce this but not completely, because we can't control instantiation happens in the CLR's base class library. Those hidden small and frequent instances will raise un-deterministic GC time eventually. Forcing complete GC periodically will degrade performance greatly (can Mono force complete GC, actually?) So, how can I avoid this GC time when using Unity3D without huge performance degrade?

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• Subdividing a polygon into boxes of varying size

  - by Michael Trouw

  I would like to be pointed to information / resources for creating algorithms like the one illustrated on this blog, which is a subdivision of a polygon (in my case a voronoi cell) into several boxes of varying size: http://procworld.blogspot.nl/2011/07/city-lots.html In the comments a paper by among others the author of the blog can be found, however the only formula listed is about candidate location suitability: http://www.groenewegen.de/delft/thesis-final/ProceduralCityLayoutGeneration-Preprint.pdf Any language will do, but if examples can be given Javascript is preferred (as it is the language i am currently working with) A similar question is this one: What is an efficient packing algorithm for packing rectangles into a polygon?

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• glsl demo suggestions ?

  - by brainydexter

  In a lot of places I interviewed recently, I have been asked many a times if I have worked with shaders. Even though, I have read and understand the pipeline, the answer to that question has been no. Recently, one of the places asked me if I can send them a sample of 'something' that is "visually polished". So, I decided to take the plunge and wrote some simple shader in GLSL(with opengl).I now have a basic setup where I can use vbos with glsl shaders. I have a very short window left to send something to them and I was wondering if someone with experience, could suggest an idea that is interesting enough to grab someone's attention. Thanks

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• How to improve Minecraft-esque voxel world performance?

  - by SomeXnaChump

  After playing Minecraft I marveled a bit at its large worlds but at the same time I found them extremely slow to navigate, even with a quad core and meaty graphics card. Now I assume Minecraft is fairly slow because: A) It's written in Java, and as most of the spatial partitioning and memory management activities happen in there, it would naturally be slower than a native C++ version. B) It doesn't partition its world very well. I could be wrong on both assumptions; however it got me thinking about the best way to manage large voxel worlds. As it is a true 3D world, where a block can exist in any part of the world, it is basically a big 3D array [x][y][z], where each block in the world has a type (i.e BlockType.Empty = 0, BlockType.Dirt = 1 etc.) Now, I am assuming to make this sort of world perform well you would need to: A) Use a tree of some variety (oct/kd/bsp) to split all the cubes out; it seems like an oct/kd would be the better option as you can just partition on a per cube level not a per triangle level. B) Use some algorithm to work out which blocks can currently be seen, as blocks closer to the user could obfuscate the blocks behind, making it pointless to render them. C) Keep the block object themselves lightweight, so it is quick to add and remove them from the trees. I guess there is no right answer to this, but I would be interested to see peoples' opinions on the subject. How would you improve performance in a large voxel-based world?

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• Converting a DrawModel() using BasicEffect to one using Effect

  - by Fibericon

  Take this DrawModel() provided by MSDN: private void DrawModel(Model m) { Matrix[] transforms = new Matrix[m.Bones.Count]; float aspectRatio = graphics.GraphicsDevice.Viewport.Width / graphics.GraphicsDevice.Viewport.Height; m.CopyAbsoluteBoneTransformsTo(transforms); Matrix projection = Matrix.CreatePerspectiveFieldOfView(MathHelper.ToRadians(45.0f), aspectRatio, 1.0f, 10000.0f); Matrix view = Matrix.CreateLookAt(new Vector3(0.0f, 50.0f, Zoom), Vector3.Zero, Vector3.Up); foreach (ModelMesh mesh in m.Meshes) { foreach (BasicEffect effect in mesh.Effects) { effect.EnableDefaultLighting(); effect.View = view; effect.Projection = projection; effect.World = gameWorldRotation * transforms[mesh.ParentBone.Index] * Matrix.CreateTranslation(Position); } mesh.Draw(); } } How would I apply a custom effect to a model with that? Effect doesn't have View, Projection, or World members. This is what they recommend replacing the foreach loop with: foreach (ModelMesh mesh in terrain.Meshes) { foreach (Effect effect in mesh.Effects) { mesh.Draw(); } } Of course, that doesn't really work. What else needs to be done?

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• Realtime rendering using a ray tracing engine

  - by Keyhan Asghari

  I want to render an object that has a mesh with one million hexagonal elements(100 * 100 * 100). Lights, shadows and textures is not important and each element has a solid color. and finally, the actions I want to have, is simply rotating the object, zooming and panning. I am wondering what ray tracing engine is better for my conditions. or, do I have to take another approach? any help will be appreciated.

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• "Walking" along a rotating surface in LimeJS

  - by Dave Lancea

  I'm trying to have a character walk along a plank (a long, thin rectangle) that works like a seesaw, being rotated around a central point by box2d physics (falling objects). I want the left and right arrow keys to move the player up and down the plank, regardless of it's slope, and I don't want to use real physics for the player movement. My idea for achieving this was to compute the coordinate based on the rotation of the plank and the current location "up" or "down" the board. My math is derived from here: http://math.stackexchange.com/questions/143932/calculate-point-given-x-y-angle-and-distance Here's the code I have so far: movement = 0; if(keys[37]){ // Left movement = -3; } if(keys[39]){ // Right movement = 3; } // this.plank is a LimeJS sprite. // getRotation() Should return an angle in degrees var rotation = this.plank.getRotation(); // this.current_plank_location is initialized as 0 this.current_plank_location += movement; var x_difference = this.current_plank_location * Math.cos(rotation); var y_difference = this.current_plank_location * Math.sin(rotation); this.setPosition(seesaw.PLANK_CENTER_X + x_difference, seesaw.PLANK_CENTER_Y + y_difference); This code causes the player to swing around in a circle when they are out of the center of the plank given a slight change in rotation of the plank. Any ideas on how I can get the player position to follow the board position?

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• Debugging Minimum Translation Vector

  - by SyntheCypher

  I implemented the minimum translation vector from codezealot's tutorial on SAT (Separating Axis Theorem) but I'm having an issue I can't quite figure out. Here's the example I have: As you can see in top and bottom left images regardless of the side the of the green car which red car is penetrating the MTV for the red car still remains as a negative number also here is the same example when the front of the red car is facing the opposite direction the number will always be positive. When the red car is past the half way through the green car it should switch polarity. I thought I'd compensated for this in my code, but apparently not either that or it's a bug I can find. Here is my function for finding and returning the MTV, any help would be much appreciated: Code

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