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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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  • Cocos2d v2.0 and OpenGL 2.0/1.0: where to start

    - by mm24
    I started developing my very first game 3 months ago using Cocos2d 2.0 for iPhone. I am now in the stage where I'd like to add some cool effects to the bullets and some special weapons (see my waveforms question here). I got a good answer in the cocos2d-iphone forum (see this one). Unfortunately I am a bit paralized now. I don't know if I will be overdoing by learning OpengGL 2.0 or if I should just stick ot the old 1.0. There is a good intro on various tutorial's written in Steffen Itterheims blog (see this post). I would like to add to my game: a blur effect to the bullets (here is a tutorial for OpenGL 1.0) a waveform (see above) some realistic water ripples (here is a nice sample code) So now, given that I don't want to overdo things but at the same time I want to achieve those effects, from where should I start? Should I discard the OpenGL 1.0 tutorials? OR should I use only OpenGL 1.0 code? How can I avoid confusion? I mean, it seems that the compiler recognizes both, but that there are some conflictual calls in some circumnstances, I am fairly sure this has some explanation, is there some reference to this somewhere?

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  • Quaternion based rotation and pivot position

    - by Michael IV
    I can't figure out how to perform matrix rotation using Quaternion while taking into account pivot position in OpenGL.What I am currently getting is rotation of the object around some point in the space and not a local pivot which is what I want. Here is the code [Using Java] Quaternion rotation method: public void rotateTo3(float xr, float yr, float zr) { _rotation.x = xr; _rotation.y = yr; _rotation.z = zr; Quaternion xrotQ = Glm.angleAxis((xr), Vec3.X_AXIS); Quaternion yrotQ = Glm.angleAxis((yr), Vec3.Y_AXIS); Quaternion zrotQ = Glm.angleAxis((zr), Vec3.Z_AXIS); xrotQ = Glm.normalize(xrotQ); yrotQ = Glm.normalize(yrotQ); zrotQ = Glm.normalize(zrotQ); Quaternion acumQuat; acumQuat = Quaternion.mul(xrotQ, yrotQ); acumQuat = Quaternion.mul(acumQuat, zrotQ); Mat4 rotMat = Glm.matCast(acumQuat); _model = new Mat4(1); scaleTo(_scaleX, _scaleY, _scaleZ); _model = Glm.translate(_model, new Vec3(_pivot.x, _pivot.y, 0)); _model =rotMat.mul(_model);//_model.mul(rotMat); //rotMat.mul(_model); _model = Glm.translate(_model, new Vec3(-_pivot.x, -_pivot.y, 0)); translateTo(_x, _y, _z); notifyTranformChange(); } Model matrix scale method: public void scaleTo(float x, float y, float z) { _model.set(0, x); _model.set(5, y); _model.set(10, z); _scaleX = x; _scaleY = y; _scaleZ = z; notifyTranformChange(); } Translate method: public void translateTo(float x, float y, float z) { _x = x - _pivot.x; _y = y - _pivot.y; _z = z; _position.x = _x; _position.y = _y; _position.z = _z; _model.set(12, _x); _model.set(13, _y); _model.set(14, _z); notifyTranformChange(); } But this method in which I don't use Quaternion works fine: public void rotate(Vec3 axis, float angleDegr) { _rotation.add(axis.scale(angleDegr)); // change to GLM: Mat4 backTr = new Mat4(1.0f); backTr = Glm.translate(backTr, new Vec3(_pivot.x, _pivot.y, 0)); backTr = Glm.rotate(backTr, angleDegr, axis); backTr = Glm.translate(backTr, new Vec3(-_pivot.x, -_pivot.y, 0)); _model =_model.mul(backTr);///backTr.mul(_model); notifyTranformChange(); }

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  • Getting to math applications gradually

    - by den-javamaniac
    I'm currently getting a formal degree related to computation, in particular my current focus is numerical programming, scientific computing and machine learning. I'd love to apply that knowledge in game dev and expand it with statistics, probability theory, and graph theory (probably even linear algebra). The question is: which spheres of gamedev are filled with such math stuff, is it possible to advance in those without being a part of a group of people and how to get to it gradually? P.S.: I've got experience with commercial java dev and am getting my hands on C/C++ at the moment, however, I'm opened to go ahead and try Unity3D and etc.

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  • Rotating a child shape relative to its parent's orientation

    - by user1423893
    When rotating a shape using a quaternion value I also wish rotate its child shape. The parent and child shapes both start with different orientations but their relative orientations should always be the same. How can I use the difference between the previous and current quaternions of the parent shape in order to transform the child segment and rotate it relative to its parent shape? public Quaternion Orientation { get { return entity.Orientation; } set { Quaternion previousValue = entity.Orientation; entity.Orientation = value; // Use the difference between the quaternion values to update child orientation } }

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  • Space invaders clone not moving properly

    - by ThePlan
    I'm trying to make a basic space invaders clone in allegro 5, I've got my game set up, basic events and such, here is the code: #include <allegro5/allegro.h> #include <allegro5/allegro_image.h> #include <allegro5/allegro_primitives.h> #include <allegro5/allegro_font.h> #include <allegro5/allegro_ttf.h> #include "Entity.h" // GLOBALS ========================================== const int width = 500; const int height = 500; const int imgsize = 3; bool key[5] = {false, false, false, false, false}; bool running = true; bool draw = true; // FUNCTIONS ======================================== void initSpaceship(Spaceship &ship); void moveSpaceshipRight(Spaceship &ship); void moveSpaceshipLeft(Spaceship &ship); void initInvader(Invader &invader); void moveInvaderRight(Invader &invader); void moveInvaderLeft(Invader &invader); void initBullet(Bullet &bullet); void fireBullet(); void doCollision(); void updateInvaders(); void drawText(); enum key_t { UP, DOWN, LEFT, RIGHT, SPACE }; enum source_t { INVADER, DEFENDER }; int main(void) { if(!al_init()) { return -1; } Spaceship ship; Invader invader; Bullet bullet; al_init_image_addon(); al_install_keyboard(); al_init_font_addon(); al_init_ttf_addon(); ALLEGRO_DISPLAY *display = al_create_display(width, height); ALLEGRO_EVENT_QUEUE *event_queue = al_create_event_queue(); ALLEGRO_TIMER *timer = al_create_timer(1.0 / 60); ALLEGRO_BITMAP *images[imgsize]; ALLEGRO_FONT *font1 = al_load_font("arial.ttf", 20, 0); al_register_event_source(event_queue, al_get_keyboard_event_source()); al_register_event_source(event_queue, al_get_display_event_source(display)); al_register_event_source(event_queue, al_get_timer_event_source(timer)); images[0] = al_load_bitmap("defender.bmp"); images[1] = al_load_bitmap("invader.bmp"); images[2] = al_load_bitmap("explosion.bmp"); al_convert_mask_to_alpha(images[0], al_map_rgb(0, 0, 0)); al_convert_mask_to_alpha(images[1], al_map_rgb(0, 0, 0)); al_convert_mask_to_alpha(images[2], al_map_rgb(0, 0, 0)); initSpaceship(ship); initBullet(bullet); initInvader(invader); al_start_timer(timer); while(running) { ALLEGRO_EVENT ev; al_wait_for_event(event_queue, &ev); if(ev.type == ALLEGRO_EVENT_TIMER) { draw = true; if(key[RIGHT] == true) moveSpaceshipRight(ship); if(key[LEFT] == true) moveSpaceshipLeft(ship); } else if(ev.type == ALLEGRO_EVENT_DISPLAY_CLOSE) running = false; else if(ev.type == ALLEGRO_EVENT_KEY_DOWN) { switch(ev.keyboard.keycode) { case ALLEGRO_KEY_ESCAPE: running = false; break; case ALLEGRO_KEY_LEFT: key[LEFT] = true; break; case ALLEGRO_KEY_RIGHT: key[RIGHT] = true; break; case ALLEGRO_KEY_SPACE: key[SPACE] = true; break; } } else if(ev.type == ALLEGRO_KEY_UP) { switch(ev.keyboard.keycode) { case ALLEGRO_KEY_LEFT: key[LEFT] = false; break; case ALLEGRO_KEY_RIGHT: key[RIGHT] = false; break; case ALLEGRO_KEY_SPACE: key[SPACE] = false; break; } } if(draw && al_is_event_queue_empty(event_queue)) { draw = false; al_draw_bitmap(images[0], ship.pos_x, ship.pos_y, 0); al_flip_display(); al_clear_to_color(al_map_rgb(0, 0, 0)); } } al_destroy_font(font1); al_destroy_event_queue(event_queue); al_destroy_timer(timer); for(int i = 0; i < imgsize; i++) al_destroy_bitmap(images[i]); al_destroy_display(display); } // FUNCTION LOGIC ====================================== void initSpaceship(Spaceship &ship) { ship.lives = 3; ship.speed = 2; ship.pos_x = width / 2; ship.pos_y = height - 20; } void initInvader(Invader &invader) { invader.health = 100; invader.count = 40; invader.speed = 0.5; invader.pos_x = 300; invader.pos_y = 300; } void initBullet(Bullet &bullet) { bullet.speed = 10; } void moveSpaceshipRight(Spaceship &ship) { ship.pos_x += ship.speed; if(ship.pos_x >= width) ship.pos_x = width-30; } void moveSpaceshipLeft(Spaceship &ship) { ship.pos_x -= ship.speed; if(ship.pos_x <= 0) ship.pos_x = 0+30; } However it's not behaving the way I want it to behave, in fact the behavior for the ship movement is un-normal. Basically I specified that the ship only moves when the right/left key is down, however the ship is moving constantly to the direction of the key pressed, it never stops although it should only move while my key is down. Even more weird behavior, when I press the opposite key the ship completely stops no matter what else I press. What's wrong with the code? Why does the ship move constantly even after I specified it only moves when a key is down?

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  • Lightning whip particle effects

    - by Fibericon
    I'm currently using Mercury Particle Engine for the particle effects in my game, and I'm trying to create a sort of lightning whip - basically a lightning effect bound to a line that curves when the player moves. I know how to use the editor, and I have particle effects working in game. However, I'm completely lost as to where I should start for this specific particle effect. Perhaps if I could find the code for it in a different particle engine, I could convert it, but I can't seem to find that either. What I did find was a lot of tutorials for creating the lines associated with lightning programmatically, which doesn't help in this case because I don't want it to be rigid. Perhaps it would be more like some sort of laser beam with crackling effects around it? I'm running into a wall as far as even beginning to implement this goes.

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  • Change players state and controls in-game

    - by Samurai Fox
    I'm using Unity 3D Let's say the player is an ice cube. You control it like a normal player. On press of a button, ice transforms (with animation) into water. You control it completely different than the ice cube. Another great example would be: Player is human being and has normal FPS controls. On press of a button human transforms into birds and now has completely different controls. Now, my question is, what would be easier and better: make one object with animation transition and to stay in that state of anim. until button is pressed again make two object: ice and water. Ice has an animation of turning into water. So replace ice (with animation) with water object And if anyone knows this one too: how to switch between 2 different types of player controls.

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  • Behaviour Trees with irregular updates

    - by Robominister
    I'm interested in behaviour trees that aren't iterated every game tick, but every so often. (Edit: the tree could specify how many frames within the main game loop to wait before running its tick function again). Every theoretical implementation I have seen of behaviour trees talks of the tree search being carried out every game update - which seems necessary, because a leaf node (eg a behaviour, like 'return to base') needs to be constantly checked to see if is still running, failed or completed. Can anyone suggest how I might start implementing a tree that isnt run every tick, or point me in the direction of good material specific to this case (I am struggling to find anything)? My thoughts so far: action leaf nodes (when they start) must only push some kind of action object onto a list for an entity, rather than directly calling any code that makes the entity do something. The list of actions for the entity would be run every frame (update any that need to run, pop any that have completed from the list). the return state from a given action must be fed back into the tree, so that when we run the tree iteration again (and reach the same action leaf node - so the tree has so far determined that we ought to still be trying this action) - that the action has completed, or is still running etc. If my actual action code is running from an action list on an entity, then I possibly need to cancel previously running actions in the list - i am thinking that I can just delete the entire stack of queued up actions. I've seen the idea of ActionLists which block lower priority actions when a higher priority one is added, but this seems like very close logic to behaviour trees, and I dont want to be duplicating behaviour. This leaves me with some questions 1) How would I feed the action return state back into the tree? Its obvious I need to store some information relating to 'currently executing actions' on the entity, and check that in the tree tick, but I can't imagine how. 2) Does having a seperate behaviour tree (for deciding behaviour) and action list (for carrying out actual queued up actions) sound like a reasonable approach? 3) Is the approach of updating a behaviour tree irregularly actually used by anyone? It seems like a nice idea for budgeting ai search time when you have a lot of ai entities to process. (Edit) - I am also thinking about storing a single instance of a given behaviour tree in memory, and providing it by reference to any entity that uses it. So any information about what action was last selected for execution on an entity must be stored in a data context relative to the entity (which the tree can check). (I am probably answering my own questions as i go!) I hope I have expressed my questions adequately! Thanks in advance for any help :)

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  • Collision planes confusion

    - by Jeffrey
    I'm following this tutorial by thecplusplusguy and in the linked video he explain that for example for the world basement and walls we need to create the actual rendered (shown to the player) walls and then duplicate them, place them in the same coordinates as the rendered walls and call them collision (by defining their material to collision). Then it defines in the Object loader function that those objects with material == collision are collision planes and should not be rendered but just used to check collision. Now I'm pretty confused. Why would we add this kind of complexity to a problem that can easily be solved by a simple loadObject(string plane_object, bool check_collision);: Creating only the walls object (by loading .obj file in plane_object) Define them also as collision planes whenever the check_collision is set to true In this case we have lowered the complexity of his method and make it more flexible and faster to develop (faster because we don't always have to make a copy for each plane and flexible because we don't hardcode the Object loader). The only case in which this method could not work is when we need hidden collision planes, and for that we could modify the loadObject() function like this: loadObject(string plane_object, bool check_collision = true, bool hide_object = false); Creating only the walls object (by loading .obj file in plane_object) Define them also as collision planes whenever the check_collision is set to true And add the ability to actually show the object or hide it based on hide_object. The final question is: am I right? What would the possible problem encountered with my solution versus his?

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  • relationship between the model and the renderer

    - by acrilige
    I tried to build a simple graphics engine, and faced with this problems: i have a list of models that i need to draw, and object (renderer) that implements IRenderer interface with method DrawObject(Object* obj). Implementation of renderer depends on using graphics library (opengl/directx). 1st question: model should not know nothing about renderer implementation, but in this case where can i hold (cache) information that depends on renderer implementation? For example, if model have this definition: class Model { public: Model(); Vertex* GetVertices() const; private: Vertex* m_vertices; }; what is the best way to cache, for example, vertex buffer of this model for dx11? Hold it in renderer object? 2nd question: what is the best way for model to say renderer HOW it must be rendered (for example with texture, bump mapping, or may be just in one color). I thought it can be done with flags, like this: model-SetRenderOptions(RENDER_TEXTURE | RENDER_BUMPMAPPING | RENDER_LIGHTING); and in Renderer::DrawModel method check for each flag. But looks like it will become uncomfortable with the options count growth...

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  • Multiplayer online game engine/pipeline

    - by Slav
    I am implementing online multiplayer game where client must be written in AS3 (Flash) to embed game into browser and server in C++ (abstract part of which is already written and used with other games). Networking models may differ from each other, but currently I'm looking toward game's logic run on both client and server parts but they're written on different languages while it's not the main problem. My previous game (pretty big one - was implemented with efforts of ~5 programmers in 1.5 years) was mainly "written" within electronic tables as structured objects with implemented inheritance: was written standalone tool which generated AS3 and C++ (languages of platforms to which the game was published) using specified electronic tables file (.xls or .ods). That file contained ~50 tables with ~50 rows and ~50 columns each and was mainly written by game designers which do not know any programming languages. But that game was single-player. Having declared problem with my currently implementing MMO, I'm looking toward some vast pipeline, where will be resolved such problems like: game objects descriptions (which starships exist within game, how much HP they have, how fast move, what damage deal...) actions descriptions (what players or NPCs can do: attack each other, collect resources, build structures, move, teleport, cast spells) - actions are transmitted through server between clients influences (what happens when specified action applied on specified object, e.i "Ship A attacked Ship B: field "HP" of Ship B reduced by amount of field "damage" of Ship A" Influences can be much more difficult, yes, e.i. "damage is twice it's size when Ship has =5 allies around him in a 200 units range during night" and so on. If to be able to write such logic within some "design document" it will be easily possible to: let designers to do their job without programmer's intervention or any bug-prone programming validate described logic transfer (transform, convert) to any programming language where it will be executed Did somebody worked on something like that? Is there some tools/engines/pipelines which concernes with it? How to handle all of this problems simultaneously in a best way or do I properly imagine my tasks and problems to myself?

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  • Basic collision direction detection on 2d objects

    - by Osso Buko
    I am trying to develop a platform game for Android by using ANdroid GL Engine (ANGLE). And I am having trouble with collision detection. I have two objects which is shaped as rectangular. And no change in rotation. Here is a scheme of attributes of objects. What i am trying to do is when objects collide they block each other's movement on that direction. Every object has 4 boolean (bTop, bBottom, bRight, bLeft). For example when bBottom is true object can't advance on that direction. I came up with a solution but it seems it only works on one dimensional. Bottom and top or right and left. public void collisionPlatform (MyObject a, MyObject b) { // first obj is player and second is a wall or a platform Vector p1 = a.mPosition; // p1 = middle point of first object Vector d1 = a.mPosition2; // width(mX) and height of first object Vector mSpeed1 = a.mSpeed; // speed vector of first object Vector p2 = b.mPosition; // p1 = middle point of second object Vector d2 = b.mPosition2; // width(mX) and height of second object Vector mSpeed2 = b.mSpeed; // speed vector of second object float xDist, yDist; // distant between middle of two object float width , height; // this is average of two objects measurements width=(width1+width2)/2 xDist=(p1.mX - p2.mX); // calculate distance // if positive first object is at the right yDist=(p1.mY - p2.mY); // if positive first object is below width = d1.mX + d2.mX; // average measurements calculate height = d1.mY + d2.mY; width/=2; height/=2; if (Math.abs(xDist) < width && Math.abs(yDist) < height) { // Two object is collided if(p1.mY>p2.mY) { // first object is below second one a.bTop = true; if(a.mSpeed.mY<0) a.mSpeed.mY=0; b.bBottom = true; if(b.mSpeed.mY>0) b.mSpeed.mY=0; } else { a.bBottom = true; if(a.mSpeed.mY>0) a.mSpeed.mY=0; b.bTop = true; if(b.mSpeed.mY<0) b.mSpeed.mY=0; } } As seen in my code it simply will not work. when object comes from right or left it doesn't work. I tried couple of ways other than this one but none worked. I am guessing right method will include mSpeed vector. But I have no idea how to do it. I really appreciate if you could help. Sorry for my bad english.

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  • Render 3d object to 2d surface (embedded system)

    - by Martin Berger
    i am working on an embedded system of a sort, and in some free time i would like to test its drawing capabilities. System in question is ARM Cortex M3 microcontroller attached to EasyMX Stellaris board. And i have a small 320x240 TFT screen :) Now, i have some free time each day and i want to create rotating cube. Micro C PRO for ARM doesnt have 3d drawing capabilities, which means it must be done in software. From the book Introduction to 3D Game Programming with DirectX 10 i know matrix algebra for transformations but that is cool when you have DirectX to set camera right. I gues i could make 2d object to rotate, but how would i go with 3d one? Any ideas and examples are welcome. Although i would prefer advices. I'd like to understand this.

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  • Manually updating HTML5 local storage?

    - by hustlerinc
    I'm just starting out HTML5 game developement (and game dev in general) and watching all the videos and tutorials available something has crossed my mind. Everyone keep saying I should set the cookie's (or cached files) to be expired after a certain amount of time. So that when it reaches that time the browser automatically downloads all assets again, even if it's the same asset's. Wouldn't it be possible to manually define the version of the game? For example the user has downloaded all the files for 1.01 of the game, when updating I change a simple variable to 1.02. When the user logs in it would compare his version to the current and if they are not equal only then it downloads the files? This could even be improved to download only specific files depending on what needs to be updated? Would this be possible or am I just dreaming? What are the possible downsides of this approach?

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  • Why is my model's scale changing after rotating it?

    - by justnS
    I have just started a simple flight simulator and have implemented Roll and pitch. In the beginning, testing went very well; however, after about 15-20 seconds of constantly moving the thumbsticks in a random or circular motion, my model's scale begins to grow. At first I thought the model was moving closer to the camera, but i set break points when it was happening and can confirm the translation of my orientation matrix remains 0,0,0. Is this a result of Gimbal Lock? Does anyone see an obvious error in my code below? public override void Draw( Matrix view, Matrix projection ) { Matrix[] transforms = new Matrix[Model.Bones.Count]; Model.CopyAbsoluteBoneTransformsTo( transforms ); Matrix translateMatrix = Matrix.Identity * Matrix.CreateFromAxisAngle( _orientation.Right, MathHelper.ToRadians( pitch ) ) * Matrix.CreateFromAxisAngle( _orientation.Down, MathHelper.ToRadians( roll ) ); _orientation *= translateMatrix; foreach ( ModelMesh mesh in Model.Meshes ) { foreach ( BasicEffect effect in mesh.Effects ) { effect.World = _orientation * transforms[mesh.ParentBone.Index]; effect.View = view; effect.Projection = projection; effect.EnableDefaultLighting(); } mesh.Draw(); } } public void Update( GamePadState gpState ) { roll = 5 * gpState.ThumbSticks.Left.X; pitch = 5 * gpState.ThumbSticks.Left.Y; }

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  • Triangulating a partially triangulated mesh (2D)

    - by teodron
    Referring to the above exhibits, this is the scenario I am working with: starting with a planar graph (in my case, a 2D mesh) with a given triangulation, based on a certain criterion, the graph nodes are labeled as RED and BLACK. (A) a subgraph containing all the RED nodes (with edges between only the directly connected neighbours) is formed (note: although this figure shows a tree forming, it may well happen that the subgraph contain loops) (B) Problem: I need to quickly build a triangulation around the subgraph (e.g. as shown in figure C), but under the constraint that I have to keep the already present edges in the final result. Question: Is there a fast way of achieving this given a partially triangulated mesh? Ideally, the complexity should be in the O(n) class. Some side-remarks: it would be nice for the triangulation algorithm to take into account a certain vertex priority when adding edges (e.g. it should always try to build a "1-ring" structure around the most important nodes first - I can implement iteratively such a routine, but it's O(n^2) ). it would also be nice to reflect somehow the "hop distance" when adding edges: add edges first between the nodes that were "closer" to each other given the start topology. Nevertheless, disregarding the remarks, is there an already known scenario similar to this one where a triangulation is built upon a partially given set of triangles/edges?

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  • Publishing a game -- any way to target both WP7 and Win8 Store?

    - by Rei Miyasaka
    I'm at a dilemma which seems should soon become an important issue for a lot of developers. If I build a game in XNA, I won't be able to publish it on the Windows 8 Store, as it would be a classic application -- and classic applications can't be sold on the store. If I build a game in Metro DirectX, I would be able to sell it on the Store, but porting it to Windows Phone would involve porting it to Reach XNA, which in fact would likely involve more effort even than porting to OS X or Android -- both of which support C++. Of all the WinRT API that is supported on C++/JS/.NET, DirectX can only be programmed from C++. It's also unlikely that Microsoft will update Windows 7 or Vista to support the new DirectX features, although that would make the Metro DirectX the first new version of DirectX to stop supporting the immediate predecessor OS. If I build a game in Pre-Win8 DirectX 9/10/11, I won't be able to sell it on the Windows Store or Windows Phone, but I could sell it on something like Steam. It would also involve the most amount of manual plumbing. In fact, DirectWrite, despite being part of DirectX 11, doesn't talk to Direct3D. I'm getting really tired of all these restrictions -- artificial and otherwise -- and I'm coming to a point where I'm considering switching to a platform with a less fragmented API, like Android or Mac/iOS. As far as bringing a game into market goes, excluding the actual market share of any platforms that I might consider, what other factors would help me in making a decision? Just a few years ago this question was a lot easier to answer: if you were primarily concerned with Windows platforms, all you had to answer was whether you wanted DirectX, XNA, or something like SlimDX. If you made the wrong decision, no biggie -- all you really would have lost is XBox and the fairly small Windows Phone market.

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  • How can I achieve a 3D-like effect with spritebatch's rotation and scale parameters

    - by Alic44
    I'm working on a 2d game with a top-down perspective similar to Secret of Mana and the 2D Final Fantasy games, with one big difference being that it's an action rpg using a 3-dimensional physics engine. I'm trying to draw an aimer graphic (basically an arrow) at my characters' feet when they're aiming a ranged weapon. At first I just converted the character's aim vector to radians and passed that into spritebatch, but there was a problem. The position of every object in my world is scaled for perspective when it's drawn to the screen. So if the physics engine coordinates are (1, 0, 1), the screen coords are actually (1, .707) -- the Y and Z axis are scaled by a perspective factor of .707 and then added together to get the screen coordinates. This meant that the direction the aimer graphic pointed (thanks to its rotation value passed into spritebatch) didn't match up with the direction the projectile actually traveled over time. Things looked fine when the characters fired left, right, up, or down, but if you fired on a diagonal the perspective of the physics engine didn't match with the simplistic way I was converting the character's aim direction to a screen rotation. Ok, fast forward to now: I've got the aimer's rotation matched up with the path the projectile will actually take, which I'm doing by decomposing a transform matrix which I build from two rotation matrices (one to represent the aimer's rotation, and one to represent the camera's 45 degree rotation on the x axis). My question is, is there a way to get not just rotation from a series of matrix transformations, but to also get a Vector2 scale which would give the aimer the appearance of being a 3d object, being warped by perspective? Orthographic perspective is what I'm going for, I think. So, the aimer arrow would get longer when facing sideways, and shorter when facing north and south because of the perspective. At the same time, it would get wider when facing north and south, and less wide when facing right or left. I'd like to avoid actually drawing the aimer texture in 3d because I'm still using spritebatch's layerdepth parameter at this point in my project, and I don't want to have to figure out how to draw a 3d object within the depth sorting system I already have. I can provide code and more details if this is too vague as a question... This is my first post on stack exchange. Thanks a lot for reading! Note: (I think) I realize it can't be a technically correct 3D perspective, because the spritebatch's vector2 scaling argument doesn't allow for an object to be skewed the way it actually should be. What I'm really interested in is, is there a good way to fake the effect, or should I just drop it and not scale at all? Edit to clarify without the help of a picture (apparently I can't post them yet): I want the aimer arrow to look like it has been painted on the ground at the character's feet, so it should appear to be drawn on the ground plane (in my case the XZ plane) which should be tilted at a 45 degree angle (around the X axis) from the viewing perspective. Alex

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  • Bullet pattern isn't behaving as expected

    - by Fibericon
    I have a boss that's supposed to continuously shoot five streams of bullets, each at a different angle. It starts off just fine, but doesn't seem to want to use its entire array of bullets. No matter how large I set the length of bulletList, the boss simply stops shooting after a couple of seconds, then pick up again shortly. Here's what I'm using to generate the pattern: Vector3 direction = new Vector3(0.5f, -1, 0); for (int r = 0; r < boss.gun.bulletList.Length; r++) { if (!boss.gun.bulletList[r].isActive) { boss.gun.bulletList[r].direction = direction; boss.gun.bulletList[r].speed = boss.gun.BulletSpeedAdjustment; boss.gun.bulletList[r].position = boss.position; boss.gun.bulletList[r].isActive = true; break; } } direction = new Vector3(-0.5f, -1, 0); //Repeat with four similar for loops, to place a bullet in each direction It doesn't seem to matter if the bulletList length is 1000 or 100000. What could be the issue here?

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  • Custom mesh format - yea or nay?

    - by Electro
    In the process of writing my game prototype, I have found the OBJ format to be insufficient for my needs - it does not support any sort of animation, it doesn't support triangle strips (I'm targeting my ancient hardware). MD2 wouldn't fit the bill because it doesn't have support for named model pieces. MD3 would probably work, but like OBJ, it doesn't have support for triangle strips. Considering the limitations of the formats above, I've come to the conclusion that it may be necessary to write my own format to accommodate my requirements, but that feels like reinventing the wheel. So, I need a format which can specify indexed tri-strips, supports textures, UV-mapping, collision data, can have multiple named segments and supports animations (have I forgotten anything?). Is there any format like that which already exists, or do I have to write my own?

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  • J2ME character animation with multiple sprite sheets

    - by Alex
    I'm working on a J2ME game and I want to have walking animations. Each direction of walking has a separate sprite sheet (i.e. one for walking up, one for walking right etc), I also have a static idle image for each direction held together in a single file. I've tried to hold an array of sprites in my player class and then just drawing the sprite corresponding to the current direction, but this doesn't seem to work. I'm aware that if I combine all the animations into one sprite sheet I could set up different animation sequences, but I want to be able to do it with separate images for each animation. Is there a way that anyone knows of to achieve this? And ideally without too much extra code (as opposed to combining the sprites into one sheet)

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  • How should bots be recognised in a game?

    - by Bane
    I'm interested in how bots are usually written. Here's my situation: I plan to make an online 2D mecha game in HTML5, and the server-side will be done with node. It is intended to be multiplayer, but I also want to make bots in case there aren't enough players. How does my game logic see them, as players or as bots? Is there a standard by which I should make them? Also, any general tips and hints will be OK.

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  • Creating my own kill cam

    - by DalexL
    I plan on creating my own kill cam system for a sandbox tool set. After thinking about the mechanics of the kill cam itself, however, I'm quite lost. I'm trying to recreate the ones commonly seen in call of duty games that show, from the view of the killer, the actual killing scene. My Thoughts: -I can't just keep in memory when people kill others because I wouldn't know when to start the 'recording process'. There is on way for me to accurately determine when somebody is 'about' to kill someone. -My only real idea so far is to have a complete duplicate of everything loaded off to the side copying all the movement from the original world but with a 10 second delay. That way, all the kill cams would be 10 seconds long and the persons camera would just be moved to the second world of their killer. My Questions: Is there already an accepted way to do this? Does anybody have any good ideas for something like this? Thanks if you can!

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