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• How can I obtain in-game data from Warcraft 3 from an external process?

  - by Slav

  I am implementing a behavior algorithm and would like to test it with my lovely Warcraft III game to watch how it will fight against real players. The problem I'm having is that I don't know how to obtain information about in-game state (units, structures, environment, etc.) from the running WC3 game. My algorithm needs access to the hard drive and possibly distributed computing, that's why JASS (WC3's editor language) isn't appropriate; I need to run my algorithm from a separate process. Direct3D hooking is an approach, but it wasn't done for WC3 yet and a significant drawback of that approach would be the inability to watch how the AI performs online, since it uses the viewport to issue commands. How I read in-game data from WC3 in a different process in a fastest and easiest way?

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• Setting a leader from a sprite array

  - by Craig

  I'm looking to set a leader from an array of sprites, I keep on getting a NullReferenceException was unhandled error from within my main game class when calling the UpdateMouse Method. What have I dont wrong here? class MouseSprite { Random random = new Random(); private MouseSprite leader; public void UpdateBoundaryBox() { mouseBounds.X = (int)mousePosition.X - mouseTexture.Width / 2; mouseBounds.Y = (int)mousePosition.Y - mouseTexture.Height / 2; } public void UpdateMouse(Vector2 position, MouseSprite [] mice, int numberMice, int index) { Vector2 catPosition = position; int enemies = numberMice; this.alive = true; mice[random.Next(0, mice.Length)] = leader;

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• What are some ways to separate game logic from animations and the draw loop?

  - by TMV

  I have only previously made flash games, using MovieClips and such to separate out my animations from my game logic. Now I am getting into trying my hand at making a game for Android, but the game programming theory around separating these things still confuses me. I come from a background of developing non game web applications so I am versed in more MVC like patterns and am stuck in that mindset as I approach game programming. I want to do things like abstract my game by having, for example, a game board class that contains the data for a grid of tiles with instances of a tile class that each contain properties. I can give my draw loop access to this and have it draw the game board based on the properties of each tile on the game board, but I don't understand where exactly animation should go. As far as I can tell, animation sort of sits between the abstracted game logic (model) and the draw loop (view). With my MVC mindset, it's frustrating trying to decide where animation is actually supposed to go. It would have quite a bit of data associated with it like a model, but seemingly needs to be very closely coupled with the draw loop in order to have things like frame independent animation. How can I break out of this mindset and start thinking about patterns that make more sense for games?

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• How do I improve terrain rendering batch counts using DirectX?

  - by gamer747

  We have determined that our terrain rendering system needs some work to minimize the number of batches being transferred to the GPU in order to improve performance. I'm looking for suggestions on how best to improve what we're trying to accomplish. We logically split our terrain mesh into smaller grid cells which are 32x32 world units. Each cell has meta data that dictates the four 256x256 textures that are used for spatting along with the alpha blend data, shadow, and light mappings. Each cell contains 81 vertices in a 9x9 grid. Presently, we examine each cell and determine the four textures that are being used to spat the cell. We combine that geometry with any other cell that perhaps uses the same four textures regardless of spat order. If the spat order for a cell differs, the blend map is adjusted so that the spat order is maintained the same as other like cells and blending happens in the right order too. But even with this batching approach, it isn't uncommon when looking out across an area of open terrain to have between 1200-1700 batch count depending upon how frequently textures differ or have different texture blends are between cells. We are only doing frustum culling presently. So using texture spatting, are there other alternatives that can reduce the batch count and allow rendering to be extremely performance-friendly even under DirectX9c? We considered using texture atlases since we're targeting DirectX 9c & older OpenGL platforms but trying to repeat textures using atlases and shaders result in seam artifacts which we haven't been able to eliminate with the exception of disabling mipmapping. Disabling mipmapping results in poor quality textures from a distance. How have others batched together terrain geometry such that one could spat terrain using various textures, minimizing batch count and texture state switches so that rendering performance isn't negatively impacted?

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• Problem with alleg42.dll / program crashes / Allegro & Codeblocks

  - by user24152

  I'm having a serious problem with allegro. The program should display random pixels on the screen and when I build and run it I get the following error message: Below is the full code of my program: #include <stdio.h> #include <stdlib.h> #include <time.h> #include "allegro.h" #define Text_Color_Red makecol(255,0,0) int main() { int ret; int color_depth = 32; int x; int y; int red; int green; int blue; int color; //init allegro allegro_init(); //install keyboard install_keyboard(); //set color depth to 32 bits set_color_depth(color_depth); //init random seed srand(time(NULL)); //init video mode to 640 x 480 ret = set_gfx_mode(GFX_AUTODETECT_WINDOWED,640,480,0,0); if(ret !=0) { allegro_message(allegro_error); return 1; } //Display string textprintf(screen,font,0,0,10,0,Text_Color_Red,"Screen Resolution is: %dx%d -- Press ESC to quit !",SCREEN_W,SCREEN_H); //display pixels until ESC key is pressed //wait for keypress while(!key[KEY_ESC]) { //set a random location x = 10 + rand() % (SCREEN_W-20); y = 10 + rand() % (SCREEN_H-20); //set a random color red = rand() % 255; green = rand() % 255; blue = rand() % 255; color = makecol(red,green,blue); //draw the pixel putpixel(screen, x, y, color); } //quit allegro allegro_exit(); } END_OF_MAIN() Error message: AllegroPixels1.exe has encountered a problem and needs to close. We are sorry for the inconvenience. Error signature: AppName: allegropixels1.exe AppVer: 0.0.0.0 ModName: alleg42.dll ModVer: 4.2.3.0 Offset: 0006c05c I am using Windows XP inside a virtual machine under Parallels 7.0

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• What is the best way to exploit multicores when making multithread games?

  - by Keeper

  Many people suggest to write a program, and then start optimizing it. But I think that when it's coming to multithreading with multicore, a little think ahead is required. I've read about using threads, and experienced it myself during some courses at the university (still a student). The big question is simple, but a bit abstract: What thread related steps in game design do I need to take, before implementation? Now trying to be more specific. Let's say, as an example, that I'm making a small board game (like Monopoly) that I want to be multithreaded. My goal Is that this multithreaded game will exploit the best of the multicore system, lets say 4-6 cores (like in i7 processors). My answer to this question at the moment is, one thread for each of these four basic components: GUI User Input / Output AI (computer rival) Other game related calculations (like shortest path from A to B, or level up status change) I'm not an expert (yet!), and I'm sure there are better answers out there. Any suggestion, answer, different approach will be helpful. Some thoughts: Maybe splitting the main database is a good way.. (or total disaster.. )

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• How can I change this isometric engine to make it so that you could distinguish between blocks that are on different planes?

  - by l5p4ngl312

  I have been working on an isometric minecraft-esque game engine for a strategy game I plan on making. As you can see, it really needs some sort of shading. It is difficult to distinguish between separate elevations when the camera is facing away from the slope because everything is the same shade. So my question is: can I shade just a specific section of a sprite? All of those blocks are just sprites, so if I shaded the entire image, it would shade the whole block. I am using LWJGL. Are there any other approaches to take? Heres a link to a screenshot from the engine: http://i44.tinypic.com/qxqlix.jpg

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• 3D physics engine for accurate collision handling on desktop/laptop computers (non-console)

  - by Georges Oates Larsen

  What are your suggestions for a physics engine that satisfies the following criteria? Capable of calculating collisions between multiple concave mesh-based colliders Handles many collisions going on at once (for instance one mesh being wedged between two others, which themselves may be wedged between two meshes) Does not allow for collider passthrough, even at high speeds. For instance, if I am applying force to a programmatically hinged object that makes it spin, I do not want it to pass through another rigidbody that it collides with while spinning. I have this problem using PhysX As implied before, reacts well to hinged objects, preferably has its own implementation of a hinge, but I am willing to program my own. The important part is that it has some sort of interface that guarantees accurate collision tracking even when dealing with these things Platform independent -- runs on mac as well as PC, also not tied down to specific graphics cards I think that's the best way to explain what I am looking for. Basically, I need SUPER reliable collisions. Something that can't be accomplished with a simple ray casting approach that sends a ray from the last position of the object to the current position (as this object may be potentially large and colliding with small objects via rotation) Bonus points for also including an OPEN SOURCE engine.

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• How to obtain window handle in SDL 2.0.3

  - by Diorthotis

  I need to obtain the handle of the window for SDL 2.0.3. I got the suggestion to use info.window after initializing SDL and filling the info variable with data by calling SDL_GetWindowWMInfo(); included in the header file SDL_syswm.h. My compiler (visual studio 2008 professional edition) gives the following error: 226) : error C2039: 'window' : is not a member of 'SDL_SysWMinfo' 1 include\sdl_syswm.h(173) : see declaration of 'SDL_SysWMinfo' Any help appreciated. Thanks. Nevermind, I needed to use "info.info.win.window". That seems a bit redundant, but whateves.

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• I'm looking to learn how to apply traditional animation techniques to my graphics engine - are there any tutorials or online-resources that can help?

  - by blueberryfields

  There are many traditional animation techniques - such as blurring of motion, motion along an elliptical curve rather than a straight line, counter-motion before beginning of movement - which help with creating the appearance of a realistic 3D animated character. I'm looking to incorporate tools and short cuts for some of these into my graphics engine, to make it easier for my end users to use these techniques in their animations. Is there a good resource listing the techniques and the principles behind them, especially how they might apply to a graphics engine or 3D animation?

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• How do history generation algorithms work?

  - by Bane

  I heard of the game Dwarf Fortress, but only now one of the people I follow on Youtube made a commentary on it... I was more than surprised when I noticed how Dwarf Fortress actually generates a history for the world! Now, how do these algorithms work? What do they usually take as input, except the length of the simulation? How specific can they be? And more importantly; can they be made in Javascript, or is Javascript too slow? (I guess this depends on the depth of the simulation, but take Dwarf Fortress as an example.)

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• Save Zone Implementation in Asteroids

  - by Moaz

  I would like to implement a safe zone for asteroids so that when the ship gets destroyed, it shouldn't be there unless it is safe from other asteroids. I tried to check the distance between each asteroid and the ship, and if it is above threshold, it sets a flag to the ship that's a safe zone, but sometimes it work and sometimes it doesn't for (list<Asteroid>::iterator itr_astroid = asteroids.begin(); itr_astroid!=asteroids.end(); ) { if(currentShip.m_state == Ship::Ship_Dead) { float distance = itr_astroid->getCenter().distance(Vec2f(getWindowWidth()/2,getWindowHeight()/2)); if( distance>200) { currentShip.m_saveField = true; break; } else { currentShip.m_saveField = false; itr_astroid++; } } else { itr_astroid++; } }

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• Is an in-app purchase required to unlock game in order to bypass pirating acceptable?

  - by digitaljoel

  I'm considering writing a mobile game and looking at distribution. The game will have a server requirement, which means I will have to pay for bandwidth, hosting, processor time, etc. Because of that I'll need to make at least a little money off this thing. According to the press piracy is rampant in the android community. To get around this, I'm thinking of implementing a simple model where the game is free, perhaps allowing play for X number of turns or something, and then requiring an in-app purchase to continue to play. I would clearly explain this in the app description, and the in-app purchase would be managed per account so it would be linked to your google play account so you wouldn't have to re-purchase every time you get a new device. Would gamers accept this model or see it as unreasonable?

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• How to highlight non-rectengular hotspots?

  - by HuseyinUslu

  So my question is highly related to Creating non-rectangular hotspots and detecting clicks. Yet again, I've irregular hot-spots (think the game Risk). So basically, we can detect clicks on these hot-spots easily using color key mapping as discussed in above question which I don't have any problems implementing (which is also covered here in details). The problem is about highlighting these irreguar hotspots. So let me explain the question a bit more - the above color key mapping guide uses this as a world map; then the author color-maps the imaginary countries; which we can now detect the country the pointer is over. In the same article author mentions outlining countries on mouse-over; though to get the effect, he creates unique border assets for each country - like; So for the game I'm working on I'm using the same color-key mapping idea to detect hot-spots, but I didn't like the way of highlighting hot-spots. Coloring all the hot-spots is already a great work for me - as I've 25+ hot-spots for each map - further more the need to have 25 unique border/highlight asset per hot-spot doesn't sound right. Anyone have a better idea/suggestion on highlighting these hot-spots?

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• What are my tool options to prototype a 2D multiplayer game?

  - by Asher Einhorn

  I'm looking for the best tool to allow me to quickly put together a 2D game that relies largely on networking. It's extremely likely that this game will require a server side program to constantly run. I have little experience with these things and since it's a prototype i'd like the easiest options for achieving this. I am looking to make this game for the web and mobile devices, although at present I only have access to ios hardware, (no android etc). I just want to get the bare bones of this set up so I can test it from the earliest opportunity to see if it's fun.

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• Creating a DrawableGameComponent

  - by Christian Frantz

  If I'm going to draw cubes effectively, I need to get rid of the numerous amounts of draw calls I have and what has been suggested is that I create a "mesh" of my cubes. I already have them being stored in a single vertex buffer, but the issue lies in my draw method where I am still looping through every cube in order to draw them. I thought this was necessary as each cube will have a set position, but it lowers the frame rate incredibly. What's the easiest way to go about this? I have a class CubeChunk that inherits Microsoft.Stuff.DrawableGameComponent, but I don't know what comes next. I suppose I could just use the chunk of cubes created in my cube class, but that would just keep me going in circles and drawing each cube individually. The goal here is to create a draw method that draws my chunk as a whole, and to not draw individual cubes as I've been doing.

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• Efficient path-finding in free space

  - by DeadMG

  I've got a game situated in space, and I'd like to issue movement orders, which requires pathfinding. Now, it's my understanding that A* and such mostly apply to trees, and not empty space which does not have pathfinding nodes. I have some obstacles, which are currently expressed as fixed AABBs- that is, there is no unbounded "terrain" obstacle. In addition, I expect most obstacles to be reasonably approximable as cubes or spheres. So I've been thinking of applying a much simpler pathfinding algorithm- that is, simply cast a ray from the current position to the target position, and then I can get a list of obstacles using spatial partitioning relatively quickly. What I'm not so sure about is how to determine the part where the ordered unit manoeuvres around the obstacles. What I've been thinking so far is that I will simply use potential fields- that is, all units will feel a strong repulsive force away from each other and a moderate force towards the desired point. This also has the advantage that to issue group orders, I can simply order a mid-level force towards another entity. But this obviously won't achieve the optimal solution. Will potential fields achieve a reasonable approximation given my parameters, or do I need another solution?

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• Nifty popup fails to register

  - by Snailer

  I'm new to Nifty GUI, so I'm following a tutorial here for making popups. For now, I'm just trying to get a very basic "test" popup to show, but I get multiple errors and none of them make much sense. To show a popup, I believe it is necessary to first have a Nifty Screen already showing, which I do. So here is the ScreenController for the working Nifty Screen: public class WorkingScreen extends AbstractAppState implements ScreenController { //Main is my jme SimpleApplication private Main app; private Nifty nifty; private Screen screen; public WorkingScreen() {} public void equip(String slotstr) { int slot = Integer.valueOf(slotstr); System.out.println("Equipping item in slot "+slot); //Here's where it STOPS working. app.getPlayer().registerPopupScreen(nifty); System.out.println("Registered new popup"); Element ele = nifty.createPopup(app.getPlayer().POPUP); System.out.println("popup is " +ele); nifty.showPopup(nifty.getCurrentScreen(), ele.getId(), null); } @Override public void initialize(AppStateManager stateManager, Application app) { super.initialize(stateManager, app); this.app = (Main)app; } @Override public void update(float tpf) { /** jME update loop! */ } public void bind(Nifty nifty, Screen screen) { this.nifty = nifty; this.screen = screen; } When I call equip(0) the system prints Equipping item in slot 0, then a lot of errors and none of the subsequent println()'s. Clearly it botches somewhere in Player.registerPopupScreen(Nifty nifty). Here's the method: public final String POPUP = "Test Popup"; public void registerPopupScreen(Nifty nifty) { System.out.println("Attempting new popup"); PopupBuilder b = new PopupBuilder(POPUP) {{ childLayoutCenter(); backgroundColor("#000a"); panel(new PanelBuilder() {{ id("List"); childLayoutCenter(); height(percentage(75)); width(percentage(50)); control(new ButtonBuilder("TestButton") {{ label("TestButton"); width("120px"); height("40px"); align(Align.Center); }}); }}); }}; System.out.println("PopupBuilder success."); b.registerPopup(nifty); System.out.println("Registerpopup success."); } Because that first println() doesn't show, it looks like this method isn't even called at all! Edit After removing all calls on the Player object, the popup works. It seems I'm not "allowed" to access the player from the ScreenController. Unfortunate, since I need information on the player for the popup. Is there a workaround?

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• How to play many sounds at once in OpenAL

  - by Krom Stern

  I'm developing an RTS game and I would like to add sounds to it. My choice has landed on OpenAL. I have plenty of units which from time to time make sounds: fSound.Play(sfx_shoot, location). Sounds often repeat, e.g. when squad of archers shoots arrows, but they are not synced with each other. My questions are: What is the common design pattern to play multiple sounds in OpenAL, when some of them are duplicate? What are the hardware limitations on sounds count and tricks to overcome them?

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• Lerping to a center point while in motion

  - by Fibericon

  I have an enemy that initially flies in a circular motion, while facing away from the center point. This is how I achieve that: position.Y = (float)(Math.Cos(timeAlive * MathHelper.PiOver4) * radius + origin.Y); position.X = (float)(Math.Sin(timeAlive * MathHelper.PiOver4) * radius + origin.X); if (timeAlive < 5) { angle = (float)Math.Atan((0 - position.X) / (0 - position.Y)); if (0 < position.Y) RotationMatrix = Matrix.CreateRotationX(MathHelper.PiOver2) * Matrix.CreateRotationZ(-1 * angle); else RotationMatrix = Matrix.CreateRotationX(MathHelper.PiOver2) * Matrix.CreateRotationZ(MathHelper.Pi - angle); } That part works just fine. After five seconds of this, I want the enemy to turn inward, facing the center point. However, I've been trying to lerp to that point, since I don't want it to simply jump to the new rotation. Here's my code for trying to do that: else { float newAngle = -1 * (float)Math.Atan((0 - position.X) / (0 - position.Y)); angle = MathHelper.Lerp(angle, newAngle, (float)gameTime.ElapsedGameTime.Milliseconds / 1000); if (0 < position.Y) RotationMatrix = Matrix.CreateRotationX(MathHelper.PiOver2) * Matrix.CreateRotationZ(MathHelper.Pi - angle); else RotationMatrix = Matrix.CreateRotationX(MathHelper.PiOver2) * Matrix.CreateRotationZ(-1 * angle); } That doesn't work so fine. It seems like it's going to at first, but then it just sort of skips around. How can I achieve what I want here?

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• Transform 3d viewport vector to 2d vector

  - by learning_sam

  I am playing around with 3d transformations and came along an issue. I have a 3d vector already within the viewport and need to transform it to a 2d vector. (let's say my screen is 10x10) Does that just straight works like regualar transformation or is something different here? i.e.: I have the vector a = (2, 1, 0) within the viewport and want the 2d vector. Does that works like this and if yes how do I handle the "0" within the 3rd component?

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• Determine how to display a tile based on surrounding tiles

  - by Jsmith

  I have a game engine which generates maps randomly, set on a 2d grid which is composed of 34px square graphical tiles. These tiles can be displayed in any of three ways, wall, corner, and floor(exists in 2 states, passable and impassible), and four directions, north, south, west and east. What I need to do is, based on the tiles around each individual tile, determine which state to display the tile in, e.g. north wall, northeast corner, floor so that when a player alters the map, the tiles around the affected tile adjust themselves to suit(i.e. tunneling). In case it becomes important, all gameobjects are inherited from the same class, whether they be players, NPC's, walls, or items.

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• How does this circle collision detection math work?

  - by Griffin

  I'm going through the wildbunny blog to learn about collision detection. I'm confused about how the vectors he's talking about come into play. Here's the part that confuses me: p = ||A-B|| – (r1+r2) The two spheres are penetrating by distance p. We would also like the penetration vector so that we can correct the penetration once we discover it. This is the vector that moves both circles to the point where they just touch, correcting the penetration. Importantly it is not only just a vector that does this, it is the only vector which corrects the penetration by moving the minimum amount. This is important because we only want to correct the error, not introduce more by moving too much when we correct, or too little. N = (A-B) / ||A-B|| P = N*p Here we have calculated the normalised vector N between the two centres and the penetration vector P by multiplying our unit direction by the penetration distance. I understand that p is the distance by which the circles penetrate, but I don't get what exactly N and P are. It seems to me N is just the coordinates of the 3rd point of the right trianlge formed by point A and B (A-B) then being divided by the hypotenuse of that triangle or distance between A and B (||A-B||). What's the significance of this? Also, what is the penetration vector used for? It seems to me like a movement that one of the circles would perform to get un-penetrated.

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• Is it possible to map mouse coordinates to isometric tiles with this coordinate system?

  - by plukich

  I'm trying to implement mouse interaction in a 2D isometric game, but I'm not sure if it's possible given the coordinate system used for tile maps in the game. I've read some helpful things like this. However, this game's coordinate system is "jagged" (for lack of a better word), and looks like this: Is it even possible to map mouse coordinates to this successfully, since the y-axis can't be drawn on this tile-map as a straight line? I've thought about doing odd-y-value translations and even-y-value translations with two different matrices, but that only makes sense going from tile to screen.

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• Cliché monsters to populate a steampunk fantasy setting dwarven dungeon?

  - by Alexander Gladysh

  I'm looking for a list of cliché monsters for a steampunk computer game (assume one kind or another of casual rogue-like RPG), to populate lower levels of ancient dwarven-built dungeons. Dwarves are a technology/science race in the setting I am aiming for. The world is a low-magic one. I'm stuck after listing various mechanical golems, gigantic spiders (every dungeon must have some of them!), and maybe a mechanical barlog as a megaboss. What would player expect? What are the key cultural references for such setting? I know a couple of games with suitable steampunk dwarves, but none are detailed enough in the underworld monsters area. Please point me in the right direction. (If you have a single funny monster suggestion, please mention it in comments, not in answer. ;-) )

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