Search Results

Search found 28914 results on 1157 pages for 'cloud development'.

Page 485/1157 | < Previous Page | 481 482 483 484 485 486 487 488 489 490 491 492  | Next Page >

  • SEHException throw using Microsoft XACT Audio Framework (XACT3)

    - by Sweta Dwivedi
    I have been developing a game using Kinect + XNA and using Microsoft Audio Creation tool (XACT3) for managing my sound files and music, however in the code an SEHException is thrown whenever it tries to get the wave file from the wave Bank . . Sometimes the code works magically and all of a sudden it will start throwing this exception randomly ..I need a help on solving this exception /*Declaring Audio Engine for music*/ AudioEngine engine; SoundBank soundBank; WaveBank waveBank; Cue cue; /*Declaring Audio engine for sound effects*/ AudioEngine engine1; SoundBank soundbank; WaveBank wavebank; Cue effect; engine = new AudioEngine(@"Content\therapy.xgs"); soundBank = new SoundBank(engine, @"Content\Sound Bank.xsb"); **waveBank = new WaveBank(engine, @"Content\Wave Bank.xwb");** cue = null; engine1 = new AudioEngine(@"Content\Music_Manager\Sound_effects.xgs"); soundbank = new SoundBank(engine1, @"Content\Music_Manager\Sound1.xsb"); **wavebank = new WaveBank(engine1, @"Content\Music_Manager\Wave1.xwb");** effect = null; cue = soundBank.GetCue("hypnotizing"); cue.Play();

    Read the article

  • Transformation matrix that maps a window

    - by gbhall
    I'm currently learning OpenGL at uni, and they give us questions to help us learn (these are not worth anything), however I'm stuck on this one question and would have to travel over an hour and a half to uni for an answer. How do I do this question? Please include as many steps as you can, I want to be able to follow exactly how to do this. Find the transformation that maps a window whose lower left corner is at (1,1) and upper right corner is at (3,5) onto: The entire device screen whose dimension is (600, 500) A viewport that has lower left corner at (100,100) and upper right corner at (400,400) Edit: Damn sorry I should have added I am meant to find the matrix, so no code.

    Read the article

  • Transform coordinates from 3d to 2d without matrix or built in methods

    - by Thomas
    Not to long ago i started to create a small 3D engine in javascript to combine this with an html5 canvas. One of the issues I run into is how can you transform 3d to 2d coords. Since I cannot use matrices or built in transformation methods I need another way. I've tried implementing the next explanation + pseudo code: http://freespace.virgin.net/hugo.elias/routines/3d_to_2d.htm Unfortunately no luck there. I've replace all the input variables with data from my own camera and object classes. I have the following data: An object with a rotation, position vector and an array of 4 3d coords (its just a plane) a camera with a position and rotation vector the viewport - a square 600 x 600 surface. The example uses a zoom factor which I've set as 1 Most hits on google use either matrix calculations or don't implement camera rotation. Basic transformation should be like this: screen.x = x / z * zoom screen.y = y / z * zoom Can anyone point me in the right direction or explain to me howto achieve this? edit: Thanks for all your posts, I haven't been able to apply all this to my project yet but I hope to do this soon.

    Read the article

  • How do I apply skeletal animation from a .x (Direct X) file?

    - by Byte56
    Using the .x format to export a model from Blender, I can load a mesh, armature and animation. I have no problems generating the mesh and viewing models in game. Additionally, I have animations and the armature properly loaded into appropriate data structures. My problem is properly applying the animation to the models. I have the framework for applying the models and the code for selecting animations and stepping through frames. From what I understand, the AnimationKeys inside the AnimationSet supplies the transformations to transform the bind pose to the pose in the animated frame. As small example: Animation { {Armature_001_Bone} AnimationKey { 2; //Position 121; //number of frames 0;3; 0.000000, 0.000000, 0.000000;;, 1;3; 0.000000, 0.000000, 0.005524;;, 2;3; 0.000000, 0.000000, 0.022217;;, ... } AnimationKey { 0; //Quaternion Rotation 121; 0;4; -0.707107, 0.707107, 0.000000, 0.000000;;, 1;4; -0.697332, 0.697332, 0.015710, 0.015710;;, 2;4; -0.684805, 0.684805, 0.035442, 0.035442;;, ... } AnimationKey { 1; //Scale 121; 0;3; 1.000000, 1.000000, 1.000000;;, 1;3; 1.000000, 1.000000, 1.000000;;, 2;3; 1.000000, 1.000000, 1.000000;;, ... } } So, to apply frame 2, I would take the position, rotation and scale from frame 2, create a transformation matrix (call it Transform_A) from them and apply that matrix the vertices controlled by Armature_001_Bone at their weights. So I'd stuff TransformA into my shader and transform the vertex. Something like: vertexPos = vertexPos * bones[ int(bfs_BoneIndices.x) ] * bfs_BoneWeights.x; Where bfs_BoneIndices and bfs_BoneWeights are values specific to the current vertex. When loading in the mesh vertices, I transform them by the rootTransform and the meshTransform. This ensures they're oriented and scaled correctly for viewing the bind pose. The problem is when I create that transformation matrix (using the position, rotation and scale from the animation), it doesn't properly transform the vertex. There's likely more to it than just using the animation data. I also tried applying the bone transform hierarchies, still no dice. Basically I end up with some twisted models. It should also be noted that I'm working in openGL, so any matrix transposes that might need to be applied should be considered. What data do I need and how do I combine it for applying .x animations to models?

    Read the article

  • Javascript A* path finding ENEMY MOVEMENT in 3D environment

    - by faiz
    iam trying to implement pathfinding algorithm using PATHFINDING.JS in 3D world using webgl. iam have made a matrix of 200x200. and placed my enemy(swat) in it .iam confused in implmenting the path. i have tried implementing the path by compparing the value of each array value with swat's position . it works ! but ** THE ENEMY KEEPS GOING FROM THE UNWALKABLE AREA OF MY MATRIX....like the enemy should not move from 119,100(x=119,z=100) but its moving from that co-ordinate too ..... can any one help me out in this regard .. *prob facing :* enemy (swat character keeps moving from the wall /unwalkable area) wanted solution : enemy does not move from the unwalkable path.. ** function draw() { grid = new PF.Grid(200, 200); grid.setWalkableAt( 119,100, false); grid.setWalkableAt( 107,100, false); grid.setWalkableAt( 103,104, false); grid.setWalkableAt( 103,100, false); grid.setWalkableAt( 135,100, false); grid.setWalkableAt( 103,120, false); grid.setWalkableAt( 103,112, false); grid.setWalkableAt( 127,100, false); grid.setWalkableAt( 123,100, false); grid.setWalkableAt( 139,100, false); grid.setWalkableAt( 103,124, false); grid.setWalkableAt( 103,128, false); grid.setWalkableAt( 115,100, false); grid.setWalkableAt( 131,100, false); grid.setWalkableAt( 103,116, false); grid.setWalkableAt( 103,108, false); grid.setWalkableAt( 111,100, false); grid.setWalkableAt( 103,132, false); finder = new PF.AStarFinder(); f1=Math.abs(first_person_controller.position.x); f2=Math.abs(first_person_controller.position.z); ff1=Math.round(f1); ff2=Math.round(f2); s1=Math.abs(swat.position.x); s2=Math.abs(swat.position.z); ss1=Math.round(s1); ss2=Math.round(s1); path = finder.findPath(ss1,ss2,ff1,ff2, grid); size=path.length-1; Ai(); } function Ai(){ if (i<size) { if (swat.position.x >= path[i][0]) { swat.position.x -= 0.3; if(Math.floor(swat.position.x) == path[i][0]) { i=i+1; } } else if(swat.position.x <= path[i][0]) { swat.position.x += 0.3; if(Math.floor(swat.position.x) == path[i][0]) { i=i+1; } } } if (j<size) { if((Math.abs(swat.position.z)) >= path[j][1]) { swat.position.z -= 0.3; if(Math.floor(Math.abs(swat.position.z)) == path[j][1]) { j=j+1; } } else if((Math.abs(swat.position.z)) <= path[j][1]) { swat.position.z += 0.3; if(Math.floor(Math.abs(swat.position.z)) == path[j][1]) { j=j+1; } } } }

    Read the article

  • Cocos2d copied actions not responding?

    - by Stephen
    I am running an animation on 2 sprites like so: -(void) startFootballAnimation { CCAnimation* footballAnim = [CCAnimation animationWithFrame:@"Football" frameCount:60 delay:0.005f]; spiral = [CCAnimate actionWithAnimation:footballAnim]; CCRepeatForever* repeat = [CCRepeatForever actionWithAction:spiral]; [self runAction:repeat]; [secondFootball runAction:[[repeat copy] autorelease]]; } The problem I am having is I call this method: - (void) slowAnimation { [spiral setDuration:[spiral duration] + 0.01]; } and it only slows down the first sprites animation and not the second one. Do I need to do something different with copied actions to get them to react to the slowing of the animation?

    Read the article

  • Handling Players, enemies and attacks in HTML5

    - by Chris Morris
    I'm building a simple (currently) game with free roaming player and monsters on a map built by a 2D grid. I've been looking at the methods for implementing characters and enemies onto the screen and I've seen two seperate methods for doing this online. Drawing the player onto the screen canvas directly and refreshing the entire screen every FPS tick. Having a separate canvas to handle the player and moving the player canvas on top of the screen canvas via absolute positioning. I can see some pros and cons of both methods but what is generally the best method for doing this? I assume the second due to not having to drain resources by refreshing the map when the user is not moving, but the type of game will generally have constant movement.

    Read the article

  • Narrow-phase collision detection algorithms

    - by Marian Ivanov
    There are three phases of collision detection. Broadphase: It loops between all objecs that can interact, false positives are allowed, if it would speed up the loop. Narrowphase: Determines whether they collide, and sometimes, how, no false positives Resolution: Resolves the collision. The question I'm asking is about the narrowphase. There are multiple algorithms, differing in complexity and accuracy. Hitbox intersection: This is an a-posteriori algorithm, that has the lowest complexity, but also isn't too accurate, Color intersection: Hitbox intersection for each pixel, a-posteriori, pixel-perfect, not accuratee in regards to time, higher complexity Separating axis theorem: This is used more often, accurate for triangles, however, a-posteriori, as it can't find the edge, when taking last frame in account, it's more stable Linear raycasting: A-priori algorithm, useful for semi-realistic-looking physics, finds the intersection point, even more accurate than SAT, but with more complexity Spline interpolation: A-priori, even more accurate than linear rays, even more coplexity. There are probably many more that I've forgot about. The question is, in when is it better to use SAT, when rays, when splines, and whether there is anything better.

    Read the article

  • Incomplete mesh using DrawIndexedPrimitives after rotating mesh

    - by user1278255
    Through help on this site I was able to draw the triangles of an unrotated, nonscaled nontransformed mesh created in Blender and exported to OBJ, accurately imported through Assimp and rendered in XNA Graphics. However after applying rotation on a single axis in Blender(Z) and adding materials(I wanted to test loading of materials through Assimp) the same mesh appears incomplete. Is something wrong with my view matrix or is it something else? This is what the unrotated mesh looks like: http://www.4shared.com/photo/qXNUSvxtba/okcube.html Here is the rotated mesh: http://www.4shared.com/photo/HAys2rWvba/badcube.html Camera, View and Projection are defined as follows: cameraPos = new Vector3(0, 5, 9); viewMatrix = Matrix.CreateLookAt(cameraPos, new Vector3(0, 0, 1), new Vector3(0, 1, 0)); projectionMatrix = Matrix.CreatePerspectiveFieldOfView(MathHelper.PiOver4, device.Viewport.AspectRatio, 1.0f, 200.0f); Rendering is done through this code: device.Clear(ClearOptions.Target | ClearOptions.DepthBuffer, Color.DarkSlateBlue, 1.0f, 0); effect = new BasicEffect(GraphicsDevice); effect.VertexColorEnabled = true; effect.View = viewMatrix; effect.Projection = projectionMatrix; effect.World = Matrix.Identity; foreach (EffectPass pass in effect.CurrentTechnique.Passes) { pass.Apply(); device.SetVertexBuffer(vertexBuffer); device.Indices = indexBuffer; device.DrawIndexedPrimitives(Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Graphics.PrimitiveType.TriangleList, 0, 0, oScene.Meshes[0].VertexCount, 0, mMesh.FaceCount); } base.Draw(gameTime);

    Read the article

  • Trying to detect collision between two polygons using Separating Axis Theorem

    - by Holly
    The only collision experience i've had was with simple rectangles, i wanted to find something that would allow me to define polygonal areas for collision and have been trying to make sense of SAT using these two links Though i'm a bit iffy with the math for the most part i feel like i understand the theory! Except my implementation somewhere down the line must be off as: (excuse the hideous font) As mentioned above i have defined a CollisionPolygon class where most of my theory is implemented and then have a helper class called Vect which was meant to be for Vectors but has also been used to contain a vertex given that both just have two float values. I've tried stepping through the function and inspecting the values to solve things but given so many axes and vectors and new math to work out as i go i'm struggling to find the erroneous calculation(s) and would really appreciate any help. Apologies if this is not suitable as a question! CollisionPolygon.java: package biz.hireholly.gameplay; import android.graphics.Canvas; import android.graphics.Color; import android.graphics.Paint; import biz.hireholly.gameplay.Types.Vect; public class CollisionPolygon { Paint paint; private Vect[] vertices; private Vect[] separationAxes; CollisionPolygon(Vect[] vertices){ this.vertices = vertices; //compute edges and separations axes separationAxes = new Vect[vertices.length]; for (int i = 0; i < vertices.length; i++) { // get the current vertex Vect p1 = vertices[i]; // get the next vertex Vect p2 = vertices[i + 1 == vertices.length ? 0 : i + 1]; // subtract the two to get the edge vector Vect edge = p1.subtract(p2); // get either perpendicular vector Vect normal = edge.perp(); // the perp method is just (x, y) => (-y, x) or (y, -x) separationAxes[i] = normal; } paint = new Paint(); paint.setColor(Color.RED); } public void draw(Canvas c, int xPos, int yPos){ for (int i = 0; i < vertices.length; i++) { Vect v1 = vertices[i]; Vect v2 = vertices[i + 1 == vertices.length ? 0 : i + 1]; c.drawLine( xPos + v1.x, yPos + v1.y, xPos + v2.x, yPos + v2.y, paint); } } /* consider changing to a static function */ public boolean intersects(CollisionPolygon p){ // loop over this polygons separation exes for (Vect axis : separationAxes) { // project both shapes onto the axis Vect p1 = this.minMaxProjection(axis); Vect p2 = p.minMaxProjection(axis); // do the projections overlap? if (!p1.overlap(p2)) { // then we can guarantee that the shapes do not overlap return false; } } // loop over the other polygons separation axes Vect[] sepAxesOther = p.getSeparationAxes(); for (Vect axis : sepAxesOther) { // project both shapes onto the axis Vect p1 = this.minMaxProjection(axis); Vect p2 = p.minMaxProjection(axis); // do the projections overlap? if (!p1.overlap(p2)) { // then we can guarantee that the shapes do not overlap return false; } } // if we get here then we know that every axis had overlap on it // so we can guarantee an intersection return true; } /* Note projections wont actually be acurate if the axes aren't normalised * but that's not necessary since we just need a boolean return from our * intersects not a Minimum Translation Vector. */ private Vect minMaxProjection(Vect axis) { float min = axis.dot(vertices[0]); float max = min; for (int i = 1; i < vertices.length; i++) { float p = axis.dot(vertices[i]); if (p < min) { min = p; } else if (p > max) { max = p; } } Vect minMaxProj = new Vect(min, max); return minMaxProj; } public Vect[] getSeparationAxes() { return separationAxes; } public Vect[] getVertices() { return vertices; } } Vect.java: package biz.hireholly.gameplay.Types; /* NOTE: Can also be used to hold vertices! Projections, coordinates ect */ public class Vect{ public float x; public float y; public Vect(float x, float y){ this.x = x; this.y = y; } public Vect perp() { return new Vect(-y, x); } public Vect subtract(Vect other) { return new Vect(x - other.x, y - other.y); } public boolean overlap(Vect other) { if( other.x <= y || other.y >= x){ return true; } return false; } /* used specifically for my SAT implementation which i'm figuring out as i go, * references for later.. * http://www.gamedev.net/page/resources/_/technical/game-programming/2d-rotated-rectangle-collision-r2604 * http://www.codezealot.org/archives/55 */ public float scalarDotProjection(Vect other) { //multiplier = dot product / length^2 float multiplier = dot(other) / (x*x + y*y); //to get the x/y of the projection vector multiply by x/y of axis float projX = multiplier * x; float projY = multiplier * y; //we want to return the dot product of the projection, it's meaningless but useful in our SAT case return dot(new Vect(projX,projY)); } public float dot(Vect other){ return (other.x*x + other.y*y); } }

    Read the article

  • 2D metaball liquid effect - how to feed output of one rendering pass as input to another shader

    - by Guye Incognito
    I'm attempting to make a shader for unity3d web project. I want to implement something like in the great answer by DMGregory in this question. in order to achieve a final look something like this.. Its metaballs with specular and shading. The steps to make this shader are. 1. Convert the feathered blobs into a heightmap. 2. Generate a normalmap from the heightmap 3. Feed the normal map and height map into a standard unity shader, for instance transparent parallax specular. I pretty much have all the pieces I need assembled but I am new to shaders and need help putting them together I can generate a heightmap from the blobs using some fragment shader code I wrote (I'm just using the red channel here cus i dont know if you can access the brightness) half4 frag (v2f i) : COLOR{ half4 texcol,finalColor; texcol = tex2D (_MainTex, i.uv); finalColor=_MyColor; if(texcol.r<_botmcut) { finalColor.r= 0; } else if((texcol.r>_topcut)) { finalColor.r= 0; } else { float r = _topcut-_botmcut; float xpos = _topcut - texcol.r; finalColor.r= (_botmcut + sqrt((xpos*xpos)-(r*r)))/_constant; } return finalColor; } turns these blobs.. into this heightmap Also I've found some CG code that generates a normal map from a height map. The bit of code that makes the normal map from finite differences is here void surf (Input IN, inout SurfaceOutput o) { o.Albedo = fixed3(0.5); float3 normal = UnpackNormal(tex2D(_BumpMap, IN.uv_MainTex)); float me = tex2D(_HeightMap,IN.uv_MainTex).x; float n = tex2D(_HeightMap,float2(IN.uv_MainTex.x,IN.uv_MainTex.y+1.0/_HeightmapDimY)).x; float s = tex2D(_HeightMap,float2(IN.uv_MainTex.x,IN.uv_MainTex.y-1.0/_HeightmapDimY)).x; float e = tex2D(_HeightMap,float2(IN.uv_MainTex.x-1.0/_HeightmapDimX,IN.uv_MainTex.y)).x; float w = tex2D(_HeightMap,float2(IN.uv_MainTex.x+1.0/_HeightmapDimX,IN.uv_MainTex.y)).x; float3 norm = normal; float3 temp = norm; //a temporary vector that is not parallel to norm if(norm.x==1) temp.y+=0.5; else temp.x+=0.5; //form a basis with norm being one of the axes: float3 perp1 = normalize(cross(norm,temp)); float3 perp2 = normalize(cross(norm,perp1)); //use the basis to move the normal in its own space by the offset float3 normalOffset = -_HeightmapStrength * ( ( (n-me) - (s-me) ) * perp1 + ( ( e - me ) - ( w - me ) ) * perp2 ); norm += normalOffset; norm = normalize(norm); o.Normal = norm; } Also here is the built-in transparent parallax specular shader for unity. Shader "Transparent/Parallax Specular" { Properties { _Color ("Main Color", Color) = (1,1,1,1) _SpecColor ("Specular Color", Color) = (0.5, 0.5, 0.5, 0) _Shininess ("Shininess", Range (0.01, 1)) = 0.078125 _Parallax ("Height", Range (0.005, 0.08)) = 0.02 _MainTex ("Base (RGB) TransGloss (A)", 2D) = "white" {} _BumpMap ("Normalmap", 2D) = "bump" {} _ParallaxMap ("Heightmap (A)", 2D) = "black" {} } SubShader { Tags {"Queue"="Transparent" "IgnoreProjector"="True" "RenderType"="Transparent"} LOD 600 CGPROGRAM #pragma surface surf BlinnPhong alpha #pragma exclude_renderers flash sampler2D _MainTex; sampler2D _BumpMap; sampler2D _ParallaxMap; fixed4 _Color; half _Shininess; float _Parallax; struct Input { float2 uv_MainTex; float2 uv_BumpMap; float3 viewDir; }; void surf (Input IN, inout SurfaceOutput o) { half h = tex2D (_ParallaxMap, IN.uv_BumpMap).w; float2 offset = ParallaxOffset (h, _Parallax, IN.viewDir); IN.uv_MainTex += offset; IN.uv_BumpMap += offset; fixed4 tex = tex2D(_MainTex, IN.uv_MainTex); o.Albedo = tex.rgb * _Color.rgb; o.Gloss = tex.a; o.Alpha = tex.a * _Color.a; o.Specular = _Shininess; o.Normal = UnpackNormal(tex2D(_BumpMap, IN.uv_BumpMap)); } ENDCG } FallBack "Transparent/Bumped Specular" }

    Read the article

  • Creating a Strong Bridge to the Post PC World

    - by Webgui
    Moving from location to location requires strong roads.  When crossing a barrier though, like a body of water or valley, we are required to build a strong bridge to get us from point A to point B in a way that is fast, safe, and easy.Yet we are not talking here about driving a car or riding a bus.  As we in the computing world are evidencing the move to the post-PC era, modernizing and migrating legacy applications to harness the power of HTML5 web, cloud and mobile is one of the most difficult challenges enterprises have faced.  Constant technological changes have weakened the business value of legacy systems, which have been developed over the years through huge investments.  There are several risks of course in this move.  Do you choose to simply rewrite code of legacy apps and transform them to HTML5 one by one?  This is quite expensive (according to research firm Gartner, the cost is $6 - $26 per line of code).  Of course, the pace of the rewriting process is very slow – around 170 lines per day for each developer – which slows down business productivity in a world in which no organization can afford to fall behind.  Other questions include whether the new cloud-based apps will have the same functionality as the trusted applications that worked for you for years.  How will the user experience be affected?  And of course, what about data security?  So we are faced with the challenge of building a sturdy bridge to stabilize our move in order to allow us to confidently and easily move our legacy applications into the post-PC era.   We at Gizmox are excited to release the first downloadable Community Technology Preview (CTP) of our Instant CloudMove Transposition Studio.Developers: To download the tool, and try it out for yourself, please visit http://www.visualwebgui.com/download.aspx.The CTP is the first and only tool-based solution allowing any Microsoft Visual Studio developer to extend VB6 and .NET enterprise client/server applications into HTML5 web, cloud and mobile applications, including the ability to upgrade their code and UI while doing so.   It is the only solution to fully replicate enterprise desktop applications behavior in the post-PC era.  With Instant CloudMove, the transposed application is available on any mobile or tablet device, browser and across any client operating system. Moreover, the extended application logic and data remains on the server behind the fire-wall and therefore the application’s front end is secured-by-design.   We would love for you to try out the tool for yourselves and let us know what you think.  How are you finding the move?

    Read the article

  • How to handle a player's level and its consequent privileges?

    - by Songo
    I'm building a game similar to Mafia Wars where a player can do tasks for his gang and gain experience and thus advancing his level. The game is built using PHP and a Mysql database. In the game I want to limit the resources allowed to player based on his level. For example: ________| (Max gold) | (Max army size) | (Max moves) | ... Level 1 | 1000 | 100 | 10 | ... Level 2 | 1500 | 200 | 20 | ... Level 3 | 3000 | 300 | 25 | ... . . . In addition certain features of the game won't be allowed until a certain level is reached such as players under Level 10 can't trade in the game market, players under Level 20 can't create alliances,...etc. The way I have modeled it is by implementing a very loooong ACL (Access Control List) with about 100 entries (an entry for each level). However, I think there may be a simpler approach to this seeing that this feature have been implemented in many games before.

    Read the article

  • Learning to optimize with Assembly

    - by niktehpui
    I am a second year student of Computer Games Technology. I recently finished my first prototype of my "kind" of own pathfinder (that doesn't use A* instead a geometrical approach/pattern recognition, the pathfinder just needs the knowledge about the terrain that is in his view to make decisions, because I wanted an AI that could actually explore, if the terrain is already known, then it will walk the shortest way easily, because the pathfinder has a memory of nodes). Anyway my question is more general: How do I start optimizing algorithms/loops/for_each/etc. using Assembly, although general tips are welcome. I am specifically looking for good books, because it is really hard to find good books on this topic. There are some small articles out there like this one, but still isn't enough knowledge to optimize an algorithm/game... I hope there is a modern good book out there, that I just couldn't find...

    Read the article

  • Marketing: Angry Birds - How it's done

    - by John
    Why do some apps, like Angry Birds, dominate the market while other cool/fun/addicting apps are never heard of? I'm trying to figure out the best marketing strategy, or best way to sell an app to mass market. Does anybody have any ideas or things they noticed about the marketing of major blockbuster apps, like Angry Birds, why they get so popular and stay at the top of charts. Thanks for any ideas, comments ...

    Read the article

  • What's the proper way to calculate probability for a card game?

    - by Milan Babuškov
    I'm creating AI for a card game, and I run into problem calculating the probability of passing/failing the hand when AI needs to start the hand. Cards are A, K, Q, J, 10, 9, 8, 7 (with A being the strongest) and AI needs to play to not take the hand. Assuming there are 4 cards of the suit left in the game and one is in AI's hand, I need to calculate probability that one of the other players would take the hand. Here's an example: AI player has: J Other 2 players have: A, K, 7 If a single opponent has AK7 then AI would lose. However, if one of the players has A or K without 7, AI would survive. Now, looking at possible distribution, I have: P1 P2 AI --- --- --- AK7 loses AK 7 survives A7 K survives K7 A survives A 7K survives K 7A survives 7 KA survives AK7 loses Looking at this, it seems that there is 75% chance of survival. However, I skipped the permutations that mirror the ones from above. It should be the same, but somehow when I write them all down, it seems that chance is only 50%: P1 P2 AI --- --- --- AK7 loses A7K loses K7A loses KA7 loses 7AK loses 7KA loses AK 7 survives A7 K survives K7 A survives KA 7 survives 7A K survives 7K A survives A K7 survives A 7K survives K 7A survives K A7 survives 7 AK survives 7 KA survives AK7 loses A7K loses K7A loses KA7 loses 7AK loses 7KA loses 12 loses, 12 survivals = 50% chance. Obviously, it should be the same (shouldn't it?) and I'm missing something in one of the ways to calculate. Which one is correct?

    Read the article

  • A*, Tile costs and heuristic; How to approach

    - by Kevin Toet
    I'm doing exercises in tile games and AI to improve my programming. I've written a highly unoptimised pathfinder that does the trick and a simple tile class. The first problem i ran into was that the heuristic was rounded to int's which resulted in very straight paths. Resorting a Euclidian Heuristic seemed to fixed it as opposed to use the Manhattan approach. The 2nd problem I ran into was when i tried added tile costs. I was hoping to use the value's of the flags that i set on the tiles but the value's were too small to make the pathfinder consider them a huge obstacle so i increased their value's but that breaks the flags a certain way and no paths were found anymore. So my questions, before posting the code, are: What am I doing wrong that the Manhatten heuristic isnt working? What ways can I store the tile costs? I was hoping to (ab)use the enum flags for this The path finder isnt considering the chance that no path is available, how do i check this? Any code optimisations are welcome as I'd love to improve my coding. public static List<Tile> FindPath( Tile startTile, Tile endTile, Tile[,] map ) { return FindPath( startTile, endTile, map, TileFlags.WALKABLE ); } public static List<Tile> FindPath( Tile startTile, Tile endTile, Tile[,] map, TileFlags acceptedFlags ) { List<Tile> open = new List<Tile>(); List<Tile> closed = new List<Tile>(); open.Add( startTile ); Tile tileToCheck; do { tileToCheck = open[0]; closed.Add( tileToCheck ); open.Remove( tileToCheck ); for( int i = 0; i < tileToCheck.neighbors.Count; i++ ) { Tile tile = tileToCheck.neighbors[ i ]; //has the node been processed if( !closed.Contains( tile ) && ( tile.flags & acceptedFlags ) != 0 ) { //Not in the open list? if( !open.Contains( tile ) ) { //Set G int G = 10; G += tileToCheck.G; //Set Parent tile.parentX = tileToCheck.x; tile.parentY = tileToCheck.y; tile.G = G; //tile.H = Math.Abs(endTile.x - tile.x ) + Math.Abs( endTile.y - tile.y ) * 10; //TODO omg wtf and other incredible stories tile.H = Vector2.Distance( new Vector2( tile.x, tile.y ), new Vector2(endTile.x, endTile.y) ); tile.Cost = tile.G + tile.H + (int)tile.flags; //Calculate H; Manhattan style open.Add( tile ); } //Update the cost if it is else { int G = 10;//cost of going to non-diagonal tiles G += map[ tile.parentX, tile.parentY ].G; //If this path is shorter (G cost is lower) then change //the parent cell, G cost and F cost. if ( G < tile.G ) //if G cost is less, { tile.parentX = tileToCheck.x; //change the square's parent tile.parentY = tileToCheck.y; tile.G = G;//change the G cost tile.Cost = tile.G + tile.H + (int)tile.flags; // add terrain cost } } } } //Sort costs open = open.OrderBy( o => o.Cost).ToList(); } while( tileToCheck != endTile ); closed.Reverse(); List<Tile> validRoute = new List<Tile>(); Tile currentTile = closed[ 0 ]; validRoute.Add( currentTile ); do { //Look up the parent of the current cell. currentTile = map[ currentTile.parentX, currentTile.parentY ]; currentTile.renderer.material.color = Color.green; //Add tile to list validRoute.Add( currentTile ); } while ( currentTile != startTile ); validRoute.Reverse(); return validRoute; } And my Tile class: [Flags] public enum TileFlags: int { NONE = 0, DIRT = 1, STONE = 2, WATER = 4, BUILDING = 8, //handy WALKABLE = DIRT | STONE | NONE, endofenum } public class Tile : MonoBehaviour { //Tile Properties public int x, y; public TileFlags flags = TileFlags.DIRT; public Transform cachedTransform; //A* properties public int parentX, parentY; public int G; public float Cost; public float H; public List<Tile> neighbors = new List<Tile>(); void Awake() { cachedTransform = transform; } }

    Read the article

  • 2D platformers: why make the physics dependent on the framerate?

    - by Archagon
    "Super Meat Boy" is a difficult platformer that recently came out for PC, requiring exceptional control and pixel-perfect jumping. The physics code in the game is dependent on the framerate, which is locked to 60fps; this means that if your computer can't run the game at full speed, the physics will go insane, causing (among other things) your character to run slower and fall through the ground. Furthermore, if vsync is off, the game runs extremely fast. Could those experienced with 2D game programming help explain why the game was coded this way? Wouldn't a physics loop running at a constant rate be a better solution? (Actually, I think a physics loop is used for parts of the game, since some of the entities continue to move normally regardless of the framerate. Your character, on the other hand, runs exactly [fps/60] as fast.) What bothers me about this implementation is the loss of abstraction between the game engine and the graphics rendering, which depends on system-specific things like the monitor, graphics card, and CPU. If, for whatever reason, your computer can't handle vsync, or can't run the game at exactly 60fps, it'll break spectacularly. Why should the rendering step in any way influence the physics calculations? (Most games nowadays would either slow down the game or skip frames.) On the other hand, I understand that old-school platformers on the NES and SNES depended on a fixed framerate for much of their control and physics. Why is this, and would it be possible to create a patformer in that vein without having the framerate dependency? Is there necessarily a loss of precision if you separate the graphics rendering from the rest of the engine? Thank you, and sorry if the question was confusing.

    Read the article

  • XNA Skinned Animated Mesh Rendering Exported from Maya

    - by Devin Garner
    I am working on translating an old RTS game engine I wrote from DirectX9 to XNA. My old models didn't have animation & are an old format, so I'm trying with an FBX file. I temporarily "borrowed" a model from League of Legends just to test if my rendering is working correctly. I imported the mesh/bones/skin/animation into Maya 2012 using an "unnamed" 3rd-party import tool. (obviously I'll have to get legit models later, but I just want to test if my programming is correct). Everything looks correct in maya and it renders the animations flawlessly. I exported everything into a single FBX file (with only a single animation). I then tried to load this model using the example at the following site: http://create.msdn.com/en-US/education/catalog/sample/skinned_model With my exported FBX, the animation looks correct for most of the frames, however at random times it screws up for a split second. Basically, the body/arms/head will look right, but the leg/foot will shoot out to a random point in space for a second & then go back to the normal position. The original FBX from the sample looks correct in my program. It seems odd that my model was imported into maya wrong, since it displays fine in Maya. So, I'm thinking either I'm exporting it wrong, or the sample code is bad & the model from the sample caters to the samples bad code. I'm new to 3D programming & maya, so chances are I'm doing something wrong in the export. I'm using mostly the defaults, but I've tried all 3 interpolation modes (quaternion, euler, resample). Thanks

    Read the article

  • Static "LoD" hack opinions

    - by David Lively
    I've been playing with implementing dynamic level of detail for rendering a very large mesh in XNA. It occurred to me that (duh) the whole point of this is to generate small triangles close to the camera, and larger ones far away. Given that, rather than constantly modifying or swapping index buffers based on a feature's rendered size or distance from the camera, it would be a lot easier (and potentially quite a bit faster), to render a single "fan" or flat wedge/frustum-shaped planar mesh that is tessellated into small triangles close to the near or small end of the frustum and larger ones at the far end, sort of like this (overhead view) (Pardon the gap in the middle - I drew one side and mirrored it) The triangle sizes are chosen so that all are approximately the same size when projected. Then, that mesh would be transformed to track the camera so that the Z axis (center vertical in this image) is always aligned with the view direction projected into the XZ plane. The vertex shader would then read terrain heights from a height texture and adjust the Y coordinate of the mesh to match a height field that defines the terrain. This eliminates the need for culling (since the mesh is generated to match the viewport dimensions) and the need to modify the index and/or vertex buffers when drawing the terrain. Obviously this doesn't address terrain with overhangs, etc, but that could be handled to a certain extent by including a second mesh that defines a sort of "ceiling" via a different texture. The other LoD schemes I've seen aren't particularly difficult to implement and, in some cases, are a lot more flexible, but this seemed like a decent quick-and-dirty way to handle height map-based terrain without getting into geometry manipulation. Has anyone tried this? Opinions?

    Read the article

  • Determinism in multiplayer simulation with Box2D, and single computer

    - by Jake
    I wrote a small test car driving multiplayer game with Box2D using TCP server-client communcations. I ran 1 instance of server.exe and 2 instance of client.exe on the same machine that I code and compile the executables. I type inputs (WASD for a simple car movement) into one of the 2 clients and I can get both clients to update the simulation. There are 2 cars in the simulation. As long as the cars do not collide, I get the same identical output on both client.exe. I can run the car(s) around for as long as I could they still update the same. However, if I start to collide the cars, very quickly they go out of sync. My tools: Windows 7, C++, MSVS 2010, Box2D, freeGlut. My Psuedocode: // client.exe void timer(int value) { tcpServer.send(my_inputs); foreach(i = player including myself) inputs[i] = tcpServer.receive(); foreach(i = player including myself) players[i].process(inputs[i]); myb2World.step(33, 8, 6); // Box2D world step simulation foreach(i = player including myself) renderer.render(player[i]); glutTimerFunc(33, timer, 0); } // server.exe void serviceloop { while(all clients alive) { foreach(c = clients) tcpClients[c].receive(&inputs[c]); // send input of each client to all clients foreach(source = clients) { foreach(dest = clients) { tcpClients[dest].send(inputs[source]); } } } } I have read all over the internet and SE the following claims (paraphrased): Box2D is deterministic as long as floating point architecture/implementation is the same. (For any deterministic engine) Determinism is gauranteed if playback of recorded inputs is on the same machine with exe compiled using same compiler and machine. Additionally my server.exe and client.exe gameloop is single thread with blocking socket calls and fixed time step. Question: Can anyone explain what I did wrong to get different Box2D output?

    Read the article

  • Using multiple indexes with buffer objects in OpenTK

    - by Rushyo
    I've got multiple buffers in OpenGL holding data on position, normals and texcoords. I also have an equal number of buffers holding distinct index data for each of those buffers. I quite like this format (indvidual indexes for each buffer) utilised by COLLADA since it strikes me as optimally efficient at accessing each buffer. I've set up pointers to the relevant data arrays using VertexPointer, NormalPointer, etc however I have no way to assign pointers to the index buffers since DrawElements appear to only look at one ElementArrayBuffer. Can I utilise multiple indices some way or will I be better off using a different technique which can support this? I'd prefer to keep the distinct indices if at all possible.

    Read the article

  • Drawing simple geometric figures with DrawUserPrimitives?

    - by Navy Seal
    I'm trying to draw a simple triangle based on an array of vertex. I've been searching for a tutorial and I found a simple example on riemers but I couldn't get it to work. I think it was made for XNA 3 and it seems there were some changes to XNA 4? Using this example: http://www.riemers.net/eng/Tutorials/XNA/Csharp/Series1/The_first_triangle.php I get this error: Additional information: The current vertex declaration does not include all the elements required by the current vertex shader. TextureCoordinate0 is missing. I'm not english so I'm having some trouble to understand everything. For what I understand error is confusing because I'm trying to draw a triangle color based and not texture based and it shouldn't need a texture. Also I saw some articles about dynamic shadows and lights and I would like to know if this is the kind of code used to do it with some tweaks like culling because I'm wondering if its heavy code for performance in real time.

    Read the article

  • Are there any alternative JS ports of Box2D?

    - by Petteri Hietavirta
    I have been thinking about creating a top down 2D car game for HTML5. For my first game I wrote the physics and collisions my self but for this one I would like to use some ready made library. I found out Box2D and its JS port. http://box2d-js.sourceforge.net It seems to be quite old port, made in 2008. Is it lacking many features of current Box2D or does it have major issues with it? And are there any alternatives for it?

    Read the article

  • what tool should I use for drawing 2d OpenGL shapes?

    - by Kenny Winker
    I'm working on a very simple OpenGL ES 2.0 game, and I'm not sure what tool to use to create the vertex data I need. My first thought was adobe illustrator, but I can't seem to google up any info on how to convert an .ai file to vertices. I'm only going to be using very simple 2d shapes so I wonder if I need to use a 3d modelling program? How is this typically done, when you are working with 2d non-sprite shapes?

    Read the article

< Previous Page | 481 482 483 484 485 486 487 488 489 490 491 492  | Next Page >