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  • Textures of .x model deformed in XNA

    - by marc wellman
    I want to have a 3D model with textures built in SketchUp 8 be imported as a .x model in XNA. So far I have used several .x exporters like http://edecadoudal.googlepages.com/xExporter.rb 3D RAD zbylsxexporter With all of them I have the same problem: The model gets built correctly but the textures are deformed. The sizes of my texture files are multiples of four and inside Sketchup the model looks prefect. That's the texture file which is 256x256: And this is how it looks like in my XNA program: What can I do?

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  • Game engines and monetization of indie games

    - by Extrakun
    Does the game engine you use affect monetization of indie games? Of course, targeting difficult platforms is one of the issues. Besides that, how would the game engine used impact monetization of games, assuming cases where the developers is going through a portal and handling the online distribution themselves? As an example, if I make a game in DarkBASIC, will it be harder to sell it than one made with Popcaps Framework or ClanLib etc.?

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  • How can I dynamically load the correct sprite from a sprite sheet?

    - by Leonard Challis
    I am making a simple card game in unity. The game is based on a standard 52-card pack, with identical backs for unique faces. In my particular game different cards are worth different values and have various special abilities. The game will have 52 cards on the table (on the draw position or in the face-down deck or in someone's hand) at all times, so this number won't change. I thought that making a Card prefab and instantiating 52 of these manually would be a bad idea. Even doing it in code, I thought, would be a bit OTT, and that I should just instantiate visual cards when they are face-up to the player. I have a sprite sheet of the 52 cards and the back, which is imported as a Sprite in multiple mode, sliced in to a grid containing all the cards needed to play the game. The problem I now face is that, through my GameController script I want to generate a shuffled pack of cards, deal some to each player and then show those cards to a player. However, I am not sure of the best way, or even if it's possible, to do this dynamically with the sprite sheets as they are. For instance if I have the following: private CardRank rank; private CardSuite suite; private void Start() { this.rank = CardRank.Ace; this.suite = CardSuite.Spades; } This class would be instantiated by the game manager. I would have 52 of these in code. Whenever I have to visually show a card in the scene, I would use a card prefab, which is essentially a game object with a SpriteRenderer on it. I would need to dynamically load the correct sprite for this object from the spritesheet. The sliced sprites from the sprite sheet actually have names in the format AS (Ace of Spades), 7H (Seven of Hearts), etc - though this was a manual thing I did myself of course. I have also tried various alternative solutions, including creating animations, having separate sprites not in a spritesheet and having an array of available sprites in an array with a specific index for each card, but none seem as elegant as trying to load the correct sprite at runtime, as I'm trying to. So, how do I load a specific sprite from a spritesheet at runtime? I'm open to suggestions, even those that make me think differently about how to approach the problem.

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  • Huge procedurally generated 'wilderness' worlds

    - by The Communist Duck
    I'm sure you all know of games like Dwarf Fortress - massive, procedural generated wilderness and land. Something like this, taken from this very useful article. However, I was wondering how I could apply this to a much larger scale; the scale of Minecraft comes to mind (isn't that something like 8x the size of the Earth's surface?). Pseudo-infinite, I think the best term would be. The article talks about fractal perlin noise. I am no way an expert on it, but I get the general idea (it's some kind of randomly generated noise which is semi-coherent, so not just random pixel values). I could just define regions X by X in size, add some region loading type stuff, and have one bit of noise generating a region. But this would result in just huge amounts of islands. On the other extreme, I don't think I can really generate a supermassive sheet of perlin noise. And it would just be one big island, I think. I am pretty sure Perlin noise, or some noise, would be the answer in some way. I mean, the map is really nice looking. And you could replace the ascii with tiles, and get something very nice looking. Anyone have any ideas? Thanks. :D

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  • Error in my Separating Axis Theorem collision code

    - 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; int x; int y; 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); } } public void update(int xPos, int yPos){ x = xPos; y = yPos; } /* 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(new Vect(vertices[0].x+x, vertices[0].y+y)); float max = min; for (int i = 1; i < vertices.length; i++) { float p = axis.dot(new Vect(vertices[i].x+x, vertices[i].y+y)); 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(y > other.x && 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); } }

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  • Permanent death in a MUD (think command line MMORPG)

    - by Luke Laupheimer
    I have considered writing a MUD for years, and I have a lot of ideas my friends think are really cool (and that's how I'd hope to get anywhere -- word of mouth). Thing is, there's one thing I have always wanted, that my friends and strangers hated: permanent death. Now, the emotional response I get to this is visceral revulsion, every time. I'm pretty sure I am the only person that wants this, or if I'm not, I'm a tiny minority. Now, the reason I want it is because I want the actions of the players to matter. Unlike a lot of other MUDs, which have a set of static city-states and social institutions etc, I want the things my players do, should I get any, to actually change the situation. And that includes killing people. If you kill someone, you didn't send them to time out, you killed them. What happens when you kill people? They go away. They don't come back in half an hour to smack talk you some more. They're gone. Forever. By making death non-permanent, you make death not matter. It would be similar if a climax to a character's arc is getting a speeding ticket. It cheapens it. Non-permanent death cheapens death. How can I: 1) Convince my players (and random people!) that this is actually a good idea?, or 2) Find some other way to make death and violence matter as much as it does in real life (except within the game, of course) sans character deletion? What alternatives are there out there?

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  • How to handle multiple effect files in XNA

    - by Adam 'Pi' Burch
    So I'm using ModelMesh and it's built in Effects parameter to draw a mesh with some shaders I'm playing with. I have a simple GUI that lets me change these parameters to my heart's desire. My question is, how do I handle shaders that have unique parameters? For example, I want a 'shiny' parameter that affects shaders with Phong-type specular components, but for an environment mapping shader such a parameter doesn't make a lot of sense. How I have it right now is that every time I call the ModelMesh's Draw() function, I set all the Effect parameters as so foreach (ModelMesh m in model.Meshes) { if (isDrawBunny == true)//Slightly change the way the world matrix is calculated if using the bunny object, since it is not quite centered in object space { world = boneTransforms[m.ParentBone.Index] * Matrix.CreateScale(scale) * rotation * Matrix.CreateTranslation(position + bunnyPositionTransform); } else //If not rendering the bunny, draw normally { world = boneTransforms[m.ParentBone.Index] * Matrix.CreateScale(scale) * rotation * Matrix.CreateTranslation(position); } foreach (Effect e in m.Effects) { Matrix ViewProjection = camera.ViewMatrix * camera.ProjectionMatrix; e.Parameters["ViewProjection"].SetValue(ViewProjection); e.Parameters["World"].SetValue(world); e.Parameters["diffuseLightPosition"].SetValue(lightPositionW); e.Parameters["CameraPosition"].SetValue(camera.Position); e.Parameters["LightColor"].SetValue(lightColor); e.Parameters["MaterialColor"].SetValue(materialColor); e.Parameters["shininess"].SetValue(shininess); //e.Parameters //e.Parameters["normal"] } m.Draw(); Note the prescience of the example! The solutions I've thought of involve preloading all the shaders, and updating the unique parameters as needed. So my question is, is there a best practice I'm missing here? Is there a way to pull the parameters a given Effect needs from that Effect? Thank you all for your time!

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  • Blender: How to "meshify" an object I made from Bezier curves

    - by capcom
    I made a star shape using Bezier curves, and extruded it (see pic below): What I want to do is give it a rounder look - not just around the edges by using beveling. I want it to kind of look like this (well, that shape anyway): How would I go about doing this? Please keep in mind that I am extremely new to Blender. I thought that I could somehow turn this star into those default shapes that have tonnes of squares which I could pull out, and apply a mirror to it so that the same thing happens on both sides. I really don't know how to do it, and would appreciate your help.

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  • Can I remove the systems from a component entity system?

    - by nathan
    After reading a lot about entity/component based engines. I feel like there is no real definition for this kind of engine. Reading this thread: Implementing features in an Entity System and the linked article made me think a lot. I did not feel that comfortable using System concept so I'll write something else, inspired by this pattern. I'd like to know if you think it's a good way to organize game code and what improvements can be made. Regarding a more strict implementation of entity/component based engine, is my solution viable? Do I risk getting stuck at any point due to the lack of flexibility of this implementation (or anything else)? My engine, as for entity/component patterns has entities and components, no systems since the game logic is handled by components. Also, I think the main difference is the fact that my engine will use inherence and OOP concepts in general, I mean, I don't try to minimize them. Entity: an entity is an abstract class. It holds his position, width and height, scale and a list of linked components. The current implementation can be found here (java). Every frame, the entity will be updated (i.e all the components linked to this entity will be updated), and rendered, if a render component is specified. Component: like for entity, a component is an abstract class that must be extended to create new components. The behavior of an entity is created through his components collection. The component implementation can be found here. Components are updated when the owning entity is updated or for only one specific component (render component), rendered. Here is an example of a logic component (i.e not a renderable component, a component that's updated each frame) in charge of listening for keyboard events and a render component in charge of display a plain sprite (i.e not animated).

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  • Android Loading Screen: How do I use a stack to load elements?

    - by tom_mai78101
    I have some problems with figuring out what value I should put in the function: int value_needed_to_figure_out = X; ProgressBar.incrementProgressBy(value_needed_to_figure_out); I've been researching about loading screens and how to use them. Some examples I've seen have implemented Thread.sleep() in a Handler.post(new Runnable()) function. To me, I got most of that concept of using the Handler to update the ProgressBar, while pretending to do some heavy crunching work. So, I kept looking. I have read this thread here: How do I load chunks of data from an assest manager during a loading screen? It said that I can try using a stack it needs to load, and adding a size counter as I add elements to the stack. What does it mean? This is the part where I'm totally stumped. If anyone would provide some hints, I'll gladly appreciate it. Thanks in advance.

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  • XNA shield effect with a Primative sphere problem

    - by Sparky41
    I'm having issue with a shield effect i'm trying to develop. I want to do a shield effect that surrounds part of a model like this: http://i.imgur.com/jPvrf.png I currently got this: http://i.imgur.com/Jdin7.png (The red likes are a simple texture a black background with a red cross in it, for testing purposes: http://i.imgur.com/ODtzk.png where the smaller cross in the middle shows the contact point) This sphere is drawn via a primitive (DrawIndexedPrimitives) This is how i calculate the pieces of the sphere using a class i've called Sphere (this class is based off the code here: http://xbox.create.msdn.com/en-US/education/catalog/sample/primitives_3d) public class Sphere { // During the process of constructing a primitive model, vertex // and index data is stored on the CPU in these managed lists. List vertices = new List(); List indices = new List(); // Once all the geometry has been specified, the InitializePrimitive // method copies the vertex and index data into these buffers, which // store it on the GPU ready for efficient rendering. VertexBuffer vertexBuffer; IndexBuffer indexBuffer; BasicEffect basicEffect; public Vector3 position = Vector3.Zero; public Matrix RotationMatrix = Matrix.Identity; public Texture2D texture; /// <summary> /// Constructs a new sphere primitive, /// with the specified size and tessellation level. /// </summary> public Sphere(float diameter, int tessellation, Texture2D text, float up, float down, float portstar, float frontback) { texture = text; if (tessellation < 3) throw new ArgumentOutOfRangeException("tessellation"); int verticalSegments = tessellation; int horizontalSegments = tessellation * 2; float radius = diameter / 2; // Start with a single vertex at the bottom of the sphere. AddVertex(Vector3.Down * ((radius / up) + 1), Vector3.Down, Vector2.Zero);//bottom position5 // Create rings of vertices at progressively higher latitudes. for (int i = 0; i < verticalSegments - 1; i++) { float latitude = ((i + 1) * MathHelper.Pi / verticalSegments) - MathHelper.PiOver2; float dy = (float)Math.Sin(latitude / up);//(up)5 float dxz = (float)Math.Cos(latitude); // Create a single ring of vertices at this latitude. for (int j = 0; j < horizontalSegments; j++) { float longitude = j * MathHelper.TwoPi / horizontalSegments; float dx = (float)(Math.Cos(longitude) * dxz) / portstar;//port and starboard (right)2 float dz = (float)(Math.Sin(longitude) * dxz) * frontback;//front and back1.4 Vector3 normal = new Vector3(dx, dy, dz); AddVertex(normal * radius, normal, new Vector2(j, i)); } } // Finish with a single vertex at the top of the sphere. AddVertex(Vector3.Up * ((radius / down) + 1), Vector3.Up, Vector2.One);//top position5 // Create a fan connecting the bottom vertex to the bottom latitude ring. for (int i = 0; i < horizontalSegments; i++) { AddIndex(0); AddIndex(1 + (i + 1) % horizontalSegments); AddIndex(1 + i); } // Fill the sphere body with triangles joining each pair of latitude rings. for (int i = 0; i < verticalSegments - 2; i++) { for (int j = 0; j < horizontalSegments; j++) { int nextI = i + 1; int nextJ = (j + 1) % horizontalSegments; AddIndex(1 + i * horizontalSegments + j); AddIndex(1 + i * horizontalSegments + nextJ); AddIndex(1 + nextI * horizontalSegments + j); AddIndex(1 + i * horizontalSegments + nextJ); AddIndex(1 + nextI * horizontalSegments + nextJ); AddIndex(1 + nextI * horizontalSegments + j); } } // Create a fan connecting the top vertex to the top latitude ring. for (int i = 0; i < horizontalSegments; i++) { AddIndex(CurrentVertex - 1); AddIndex(CurrentVertex - 2 - (i + 1) % horizontalSegments); AddIndex(CurrentVertex - 2 - i); } //InitializePrimitive(graphicsDevice); } /// <summary> /// Adds a new vertex to the primitive model. This should only be called /// during the initialization process, before InitializePrimitive. /// </summary> protected void AddVertex(Vector3 position, Vector3 normal, Vector2 texturecoordinate) { vertices.Add(new VertexPositionNormal(position, normal, texturecoordinate)); } /// <summary> /// Adds a new index to the primitive model. This should only be called /// during the initialization process, before InitializePrimitive. /// </summary> protected void AddIndex(int index) { if (index > ushort.MaxValue) throw new ArgumentOutOfRangeException("index"); indices.Add((ushort)index); } /// <summary> /// Queries the index of the current vertex. This starts at /// zero, and increments every time AddVertex is called. /// </summary> protected int CurrentVertex { get { return vertices.Count; } } public void InitializePrimitive(GraphicsDevice graphicsDevice) { // Create a vertex declaration, describing the format of our vertex data. // Create a vertex buffer, and copy our vertex data into it. vertexBuffer = new VertexBuffer(graphicsDevice, typeof(VertexPositionNormal), vertices.Count, BufferUsage.None); vertexBuffer.SetData(vertices.ToArray()); // Create an index buffer, and copy our index data into it. indexBuffer = new IndexBuffer(graphicsDevice, typeof(ushort), indices.Count, BufferUsage.None); indexBuffer.SetData(indices.ToArray()); // Create a BasicEffect, which will be used to render the primitive. basicEffect = new BasicEffect(graphicsDevice); //basicEffect.EnableDefaultLighting(); } /// <summary> /// Draws the primitive model, using the specified effect. Unlike the other /// Draw overload where you just specify the world/view/projection matrices /// and color, this method does not set any renderstates, so you must make /// sure all states are set to sensible values before you call it. /// </summary> public void Draw(Effect effect) { GraphicsDevice graphicsDevice = effect.GraphicsDevice; // Set our vertex declaration, vertex buffer, and index buffer. graphicsDevice.SetVertexBuffer(vertexBuffer); graphicsDevice.Indices = indexBuffer; graphicsDevice.BlendState = BlendState.Additive; foreach (EffectPass effectPass in effect.CurrentTechnique.Passes) { effectPass.Apply(); int primitiveCount = indices.Count / 3; graphicsDevice.DrawIndexedPrimitives(PrimitiveType.TriangleList, 0, 0, vertices.Count, 0, primitiveCount); } graphicsDevice.BlendState = BlendState.Opaque; } /// <summary> /// Draws the primitive model, using a BasicEffect shader with default /// lighting. Unlike the other Draw overload where you specify a custom /// effect, this method sets important renderstates to sensible values /// for 3D model rendering, so you do not need to set these states before /// you call it. /// </summary> public void Draw(Camera camera, Color color) { // Set BasicEffect parameters. basicEffect.World = GetWorld(); basicEffect.View = camera.view; basicEffect.Projection = camera.projection; basicEffect.DiffuseColor = color.ToVector3(); basicEffect.TextureEnabled = true; basicEffect.Texture = texture; GraphicsDevice device = basicEffect.GraphicsDevice; device.DepthStencilState = DepthStencilState.Default; if (color.A < 255) { // Set renderstates for alpha blended rendering. device.BlendState = BlendState.AlphaBlend; } else { // Set renderstates for opaque rendering. device.BlendState = BlendState.Opaque; } // Draw the model, using BasicEffect. Draw(basicEffect); } public virtual Matrix GetWorld() { return /*world */ Matrix.CreateScale(1f) * RotationMatrix * Matrix.CreateTranslation(position); } } public struct VertexPositionNormal : IVertexType { public Vector3 Position; public Vector3 Normal; public Vector2 TextureCoordinate; /// <summary> /// Constructor. /// </summary> public VertexPositionNormal(Vector3 position, Vector3 normal, Vector2 textCoor) { Position = position; Normal = normal; TextureCoordinate = textCoor; } /// <summary> /// A VertexDeclaration object, which contains information about the vertex /// elements contained within this struct. /// </summary> public static readonly VertexDeclaration VertexDeclaration = new VertexDeclaration ( new VertexElement(0, VertexElementFormat.Vector3, VertexElementUsage.Position, 0), new VertexElement(12, VertexElementFormat.Vector3, VertexElementUsage.Normal, 0), new VertexElement(24, VertexElementFormat.Vector2, VertexElementUsage.TextureCoordinate, 0) ); VertexDeclaration IVertexType.VertexDeclaration { get { return VertexPositionNormal.VertexDeclaration; } } } A simple call to the class to initialise it. The Draw method is called in the master draw method in the Gamecomponent. My current thoughts on this are: The direction of the weapon hitting the ship is used to get the middle position for the texture Wrap a texture around the drawn sphere based on this point of contact Problem is i'm not sure how to do this. Can anyone help or if you have a better idea please tell me i'm open for opinion? :-) Thanks.

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  • Mapping dynamic buffers in Direct3D11 in Windows Store apps

    - by Donnie
    I'm trying to make instanced geometry in Direct3D11, and the ID3D11DeviceContext1->Map() call is failing with the very helpful error of "Invalid Parameter" when I'm attempting to update the instance buffer. The buffer is declared as a member variable: Microsoft::WRL::ComPtr<ID3D11Buffer> m_instanceBuffer; Then I create it (which succeeds): D3D11_BUFFER_DESC instanceDesc; ZeroMemory(&instanceDesc, sizeof(D3D11_BUFFER_DESC)); instanceDesc.Usage = D3D11_USAGE_DYNAMIC; instanceDesc.ByteWidth = sizeof(InstanceData) * MAX_INSTANCE_COUNT; instanceDesc.BindFlags = D3D11_BIND_VERTEX_BUFFER; instanceDesc.CPUAccessFlags = D3D11_CPU_ACCESS_WRITE; instanceDesc.MiscFlags = 0; instanceDesc.StructureByteStride = 0; DX::ThrowIfFailed(d3dDevice->CreateBuffer(&instanceDesc, NULL, &m_instanceBuffer)); However, when I try to map it: D3D11_MAPPED_SUBRESOURCE inst; DX::ThrowIfFailed(d3dContext->Map(m_instanceBuffer.Get(), 0, D3D11_MAP_WRITE, 0, &inst)); The map call fails with E_INVALIDARG. Nothing is NULL incorrectly, and this being one of my first D3D apps I'm currently stumped on what to do next to track it down. I'm thinking I must be creating the buffer incorrectly, but I can't see how. Any input would be appreciated.

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  • database design help for game / user levels / progress

    - by sprugman
    Sorry this got long and all prose-y. I'm creating my first truly gamified web app and could use some help thinking about how to structure the data. The Set-up Users need to accomplish tasks in each of several categories before they can move up a level. I've got my Users, Tasks, and Categories tables, and a UserTasks table which joins the three. ("User 3 has added Task 42 in Category 8. Now they've completed it.") That's all fine and working wonderfully. The Challenge I'm not sure of the best way to track the progress in the individual categories toward each level. The "business" rules are: You have to achieve a certain number of points in each category to move up. If you get the number of points needed in Cat 8, but still have other work to do to complete the level, any new Cat 8 points count toward your overall score, but don't "roll over" into the next level. The number of Categories is small (five currently) and unlikely to change often, but by no means absolutely fixed. The number of points needed to level-up will vary per level, probably by a formula, or perhaps a lookup table. So the challenge is to track each user's progress toward the next level in each category. I've thought of a few potential approaches: Possible Solutions Add a column to the users table for each category and reset them all to zero each time a user levels-up. Have a separate UserProgress table with a row for each category for each user and the number of points they have. (Basically a Many-to-Many version of #1.) Add a userLevel column to the UserTasks table and use that to derive their progress with some kind of SUM statement. Their current level will be a simple int in the User table. Pros & Cons (1) seems like by far the most straightforward, but it's also the least flexible. Perhaps I could use a naming convention based on the category ids to help overcome some of that. (With code like "select cats; for each cat, get the value from Users.progress_{cat.id}.") It's also the one where I lose the most data -- I won't know which points counted toward leveling up. I don't have a need in mind for that, so maybe I don't care about that. (2) seems complicated: every time I add or subtract a user or a category, I have to maintain the other table. I foresee synchronization challenges. (3) Is somewhere in between -- cleaner than #2, but less intuitive than #1. In order to find out where a user is, I'd have mildly complex SQL like: SELECT categoryId, SUM(points) from UserTasks WHERE userId={user.id} & countsTowardLevel={user.level} groupBy categoryId Hmm... that doesn't seem so bad. I think I'm talking myself into #3 here, but would love any input, advice or other ideas. P.S. Sorry for the cross-post. I wrote this up on SO and then remembered that there was a game dev-focused one. Curious to see if I get different answers one place than the other....

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  • How to move a directional light according to the camera movement?

    - by Andrea Benedetti
    Given a light direction, how can I move it according to the camera movement, in a shader? Think that an artist has setup a scene (e.g., in 3DSMax) with a mesh in center of that and a directional light with a position and a target. From this position and target I've calculated the light direction. Now I want to use the same direction in my lighting equation but, obviously, I want that this light moves correctly with the camera. Thanks.

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  • Automatically zoom out the camera to show all players

    - by user36159
    I am building a game in XNA that takes place in a rectangular arena. The game is multiplayer and each player may go where they like within the arena. The camera is a perspective camera that looks directly downwards. The camera should be automatically repositioned based on the game state. Currently, the xy position is a weighted sum of the xy positions of important entities. I would like the camera's z position to be calculated from the xy coordinates so that it zooms out to the point where all important entities are visible. My current approach is to: hw = the greatest x distance from the camera to an important entity hh = the greatest y distance from the camera to an important entity Calculate z = max(hw / tan(FoVx), hh / tan(FoVy)) My code seems to almost work as it should, but the resulting z values are always too low by a factor of about 4. Any ideas?

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  • Level and Player objects - which should contain which?

    - by Thane Brimhall
    I've been working on a several simple games, and I've always come to a decision point where I have to choose whether to have the Level object as an attribute of the Player class or the Player as an attribute of the Level class. I can see arguments for both: The Level should contain the player because it also contains every other entity. In fact it just makes sense this way: "John is in the room." It makes it a bit more difficult to move the player to a new level, however, because then each level has to pass its player object to an upcoming level. On the other hand, it makes programming sense to me to leave the player as the top-level object that is persistent between levels, and the environment changes because the player decides to change his level and location. It becomes very easy to change levels, because all I have to do is replace the level variable on the player. What's the most common practice here? Or better yet, is there a "right" way to architecture this relationship?

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  • Game engine IDE template [on hold]

    - by Spencer Killen
    Hey so I'm working on a fairly basic javascript game, and it's beginning to get to the point where my 'engine' to which I wrote, is difficult to manage in an all text environment, Iv already thought of using a javascript IDE like jet brains, but i was wondering if I could go 1 step further and have use a piece of software to purpose as an IDE and have a customizable GUI that I could use to automate class construction and such, for example, I have it set up right now so that everytime I want to create a new block (it's a platformer) I must copy a text file and fill in all the setting such as bounding box, sprite ect, it would be a lot easier if I could press a button and have a menu apear where I would fill in these values (I have a game maker background) is there software like this? If not what are some similar solutions to my problem?

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  • Collision Detection for a 2D RPG

    - by PHMitrious
    First of all, I have done some research on this topic before asking, and I'm asking this question as a mean to get some opinions on this topic, so I don't make a decision only on my own, but taking into account other people's experience as well. I'm starting a 2D online RPG project. I am using SFML for graphics and input and I'm creating a basic game structure and all for the game, creating modules for each part of the game. Well, let me get to the point I just wanted to give you guys some context. I want to decide on how I'm going to work with collision detection. Well I'm kinda going to work on maps with a tile map divided in layers (as usual) and add an extra 2 layers - not exactly in the map - for objects. So I'll have collisions between objects and agents (players - npcs - monsters - spells etc) and agents and tiles. The seconds one can be easily solved the first one need a little bit of work. I considered both creating a basic collision test engine using polygons and a quadtree to diminish tests since I'm going to be working with big maps with lots of objects - creating both a physical and graphical world representation. And I also considered using a physics engine like Box2D for collision tests. I think the first approach would take more work on my part but the second one would have the overhead of using a whole physics engine for just collision detection and no physics. What do you guys think ?

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  • Direct2D Transform

    - by James
    I have a beginner question about Direct2D transforms. I have a 20 x 10 bitmap that I would like to draw in different orientations. To start, I would like to draw it vertically with a destination rectangle of say: (left, top, right, bottom) (300, 300, 310, 320) The bitmap is wider than it is tall (20 x 10), but when I draw it vertically, it will be appear taller than it is wide (10 x 20). I know that I can use a rotation matrix like so: m_pRenderTarget->SetTransform( D2D1::Matrix3x2F::Rotation( 90.0f, D2D1::Point2F(<center of shape>)) ); But when I use this method to rotate my shape, the destination rectangle is still wider than it is tall. Maybe it would look something like this: (left, top, right, bottom) (280, 290, 300, 300) The destination rectangle is 20 x 10 but the bitmap appears on the screen as 10 x 20. I can't look at the destination rectangle in the debugger and compare it to: (left, top, right, bottom) (300, 300, 310, 320) Is there any simple way to say "I want to rotate it so that the image is rendered to exactly this destination rectangle after the rotation?" In this case, I would like to say "Please rotate the bitmap so that it appears on the screen at this location:" (left, top, right, bottom) (300, 300, 310, 320) If I can't do that, is there any way to find out the 10 x 20 destination rectangle where the bitmap is actually being rendered to the screen?

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  • Improving Click and Drag with C++

    - by Josh
    I'm currently using SFML 2.0 to develop a game in C++. I have a game sprite class that has a click and drag method. The method works, but there is a slight problem. If the mouse moves too fast, the object the user selected can't keep up and is left behind in the spot where the mouse left its bounds. I will share the class definition and the given function implementation. Definition: class codePeg { protected: FloatRect bounds; CircleShape circle; int xPos, yPos, xDiff, yDiff, once; int xBase, yBase; Vector2i mousePos; Vector2f circlePos; public: void init(RenderWindow& Window); void draw(RenderWindow& Window); void drag(RenderWindow& Window); void setPegPosition(int x, int y); void setPegColor(Color pegColor); void mouseOver(RenderWindow& Window); friend int isPegSelected(void); }; Implementation of the "drag" function: void codePeg::drag(RenderWindow& Window) { mousePos = Mouse::getPosition(Window); circlePos = circle.getPosition(); if(Mouse::isButtonPressed(Mouse::Left)) { if(mousePos.x > xPos && mousePos.y > yPos && mousePos.x - bounds.width < xPos && mousePos.y - bounds.height < yPos) { if(once) { xDiff = mousePos.x - circlePos.x; yDiff = mousePos.y - circlePos.y; once = 0; } xPos = mousePos.x - xDiff; yPos = mousePos.y - yDiff; circle.setPosition(xPos, yPos); } } else { once = 1; xPos = xBase; yPos = yBase; xDiff = 0; yDiff = 0; circle.setPosition(xBase, yBase); } Window.draw(circle); } Like I said, the function works, but to me, the code is very ugly and I think it could be improved and could be more efficient. The only thing I can think of as to why the object cannot keep up with the mouse is that there are too many function calls and/or checks. The user does not really have to mouse the mouse "fast" for it to happen, I would say at an average pace the object is left behind. How can I improve the code so that the object remains with the mouse when it is selected? Any help improving this code or giving advice is greatly appreciated.

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  • How can I implement an Iris Wipe effect?

    - by Vandell
    For those who doesn't know: An iris wipe is a wipe that takes the shape of a growing or shrinking circle. It has been frequently used in animated short subjects, such as those in the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies cartoon series, to signify the end of a story. When used in this manner, the iris wipe may be centered around a certain focal point and may be used as a device for a "parting shot" joke, a fourth wall-breaching wink by a character, or other purposes. Example from flasheff.com Your answer may or may not include a coding sample, a language agnostic explanation is considered enough.

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  • DrawIndexedPrimitives overdraws data in previous buffer if called in loop

    - by Daniel Excinsky
    I doubled the question from stackoverflow here, and will delete the opposite of a question that gave me the answer. I have the Draw method in one of my renderers, that loops through the dictionary and gets precollected and preinitialized buffers. When dictionary has only one element, everything is just fine. But with more elements what I get on the screen is only the data from the last buffer (I suppose, not sure) My Draw method: public void Draw(GameTime gameTime) { if (!_areStaticEffectsSet) { // blockEffect.Parameters["TextureAtlas"].SetValue(textureAtlas); blockEffect.Parameters["HorizonColor"].SetValue(World.HORIZONCOLOR); blockEffect.Parameters["NightColor"].SetValue(World.NIGHTCOLOR); blockEffect.Parameters["MorningTint"].SetValue(World.MORNINGTINT); blockEffect.Parameters["EveningTint"].SetValue(World.EVENINGTINT); blockEffect.Parameters["SunColor"].SetValue(World.SUNCOLOR); _areStaticEffectsSet = true; } blockEffect.Parameters["World"].SetValue(Matrix.Identity); blockEffect.Parameters["View"].SetValue(_player.CameraView); blockEffect.Parameters["Projection"].SetValue(_player.CameraProjection); blockEffect.Parameters["CameraPosition"].SetValue(_player.CameraPosition); blockEffect.Parameters["timeOfDay"].SetValue(_world.TimeOfDay); var viewFrustum = new BoundingFrustum(_player.CameraView * _player.CameraProjection); _graphicsDevice.BlendState = BlendState.Opaque; _graphicsDevice.DepthStencilState = DepthStencilState.Default; foreach (KeyValuePair<int, Texture2D> textureAtlas in textureAtlases) { blockEffect.Parameters["TextureAtlas"].SetValue(textureAtlas.Value); foreach (EffectPass pass in blockEffect.CurrentTechnique.Passes) { pass.Apply(); //TODO: ?????????? ??????????????? ?? ?????? ?? ??????? ??????? VertexBuffer ? IndexBuffer foreach (Chunk chunk in _world.Chunks.Values) { if (chunk == null || chunk.IsDisposed) { continue; } if (chunk.BoundingBox.Intersects(viewFrustum) && chunk.GetBlockIndexBuffer(textureAtlas.Key) != null) { lock (chunk) { if (chunk.GetBlockIndexBuffer(textureAtlas.Key).IndexCount > 0) { VertexBuffer vertexBuffer = chunk.GetBlockVertexBuffer(textureAtlas.Key); IndexBuffer indexBuffer = chunk.GetBlockIndexBuffer(textureAtlas.Key); //if (chunk.DrawIndex == new Vector3i(0, 0, 0)) //{ //if (textureAtlas.Key == -1) //{ //var varray = new [] //{ //new VertexPositionTextureLight(new Vector3(0,68,0), new Vector2(0,1),1,new Vector3(0,0,0), new Vector3(1,1,1)), //new VertexPositionTextureLight(new Vector3(0,68,1), new Vector2(0,1),1,new Vector3(0,0,0), new Vector3(1,1,1)), //new VertexPositionTextureLight(new Vector3(1,68,0), new Vector2(0,1),1,new Vector3(0,0,0), new Vector3(1,1,1)) //}; //var iarray = new short[] {0, 1, 2}; //vertexBuffer = new VertexBuffer(_graphicsDevice, typeof(VertexPositionTextureLight), varray.Length, BufferUsage.WriteOnly); //indexBuffer = new IndexBuffer(_graphicsDevice, IndexElementSize.SixteenBits, iarray.Length, BufferUsage.WriteOnly); //vertexBuffer.SetData(varray); //indexBuffer.SetData(iarray); } } _graphicsDevice.SetVertexBuffer(vertexBuffer); _graphicsDevice.Indices = indexBuffer; _graphicsDevice.DrawIndexedPrimitives(PrimitiveType.TriangleList, 0, 0, vertexBuffer.VertexCount, 0, indexBuffer.IndexCount / 3); } } } } } } } Noteworthy things about the code: XNA version is 4.0. I've commented the debugging code in the loop, but left it for it may bring some insight. I try not only to change vertices/indices in the loop, but textureAtlas also. Code in the shader about textureAtlas: Texture TextureAtlas; sampler TextureAtlasSampler = sampler_state { texture = <TextureAtlas>; magfilter = POINT; minfilter = POINT; mipfilter = POINT; AddressU = WRAP; AddressV = WRAP; }; struct VSInput { float4 Position : POSITION0; float2 TexCoords1 : TEXCOORD0; float SunLight : COLOR0; float3 LocalLight : COLOR1; float3 Normal : NORMAL0; }; VertexPositionTextureLight is my own realization of IVertexType. So, do anybody know about this problem, or see the wrongness in my code (that's far more likely)?

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  • Overriding component behavior

    - by deft_code
    I was thinking of how to implement overriding of behaviors in a component based entity system. A concrete example, an entity has a heath component that can be damaged, healed, killed etc. The entity also has an armor component that limits the amount of damage a character receives. Has anyone implemented behaviors like this in a component based system before? How did you do it? If no one has ever done this before why do you think that is. Is there anything particularly wrong headed about overriding component behaviors? Below is rough sketch up of how I imagine it would work. Components in an entity are ordered. Those at the front get a chance to service an interface first. I don't detail how that is done, just assume it uses evil dynamic_casts (it doesn't but the end effect is the same without the need for RTTI). class IHealth { public: float get_health( void ) const = 0; void do_damage( float amount ) = 0; }; class Health : public Component, public IHealth { public: void do_damage( float amount ) { m_damage -= amount; } private: float m_health; }; class Armor : public Component, public IHealth { public: float get_health( void ) const { return next<IHealth>().get_health(); } void do_damage( float amount ) { next<IHealth>().do_damage( amount / 2 ); } }; entity.add( new Health( 100 ) ); entity.add( new Armor() ); assert( entity.get<IHealth>().get_health() == 100 ); entity.get<IHealth>().do_damage( 10 ); assert( entity.get<IHealth>().get_health() == 95 ); Is there anything particularly naive about the way I'm proposing to do this?

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  • How do I get the correct values from glReadPixels in OpenGL 3.0?

    - by NoobScratcher
    I'm currently trying to Implement mouse selection into my game editor and I ran into a little problem when I look at the values stored in &pixel[0],&pixel[1],&pixel[2],&pixel[3]; I get r: 0 g: 0 b: 0 a: 0 As you can see I'm not able to get the correct values from glReadPixels(); My 3D models are red colored using glColor3f(255,0,0); I was hoping someone could help me figure this out. Here is the source code: case WM_LBUTTONDOWN: { GetCursorPos(&pos); ScreenToClient(hwnd, &pos); GLenum err = glGetError(); while (glGetError() != GL_NO_ERROR) {cerr << err << endl;} glReadPixels(pos.x, SCREEN_HEIGHT - 1 - pos.y, 1, 1, GL_RGB, GL_UNSIGNED_BYTE, &pixel[0] ); cerr << "r: "<< (int)pixel[0] << endl; cerr << "g: "<< (int)pixel[1] << endl; cerr << "b: "<< (int)pixel[2] << endl; cerr << "a: "<< (int)pixel[3] << endl; cout << pos.x << endl; cout << pos.y << endl; } break; I use : WIN32 API OPENGL 3.0 C++

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  • How do you properly organize a commercial game?

    - by Reactorcore
    For the past months I've been studying programming and I've finally learned how to code, but one thing that is confusing me is how to properly organize the design of a game project - code wise. The game I'm building is a pretty standard commercial game. It has the basic components of a normal game: A world, characters and items interacting with each other and all of this is run by game manager. Basically you play as a hero in a world and do stuff. Fight, explore and interact. Think of your standard adventure game that starts off with an intro, goes to the menu system, then gets into the game and back to the menu. Pretty much like 99% of any commercial game or otherwise serious game projects. Thats what I'm aiming at. The problem is: How do you properly code a commercial game architecture? How do you organize it? How do you make it not become unmaintainable spaghetti code? What specific things to keep in mind when building this, codewise? How you can help me: a) Please tell how do you code your own game projects. What is your thought-process when designing the architecture? b) Recommend books, blogs, tutorials, videos or anything else on how to organize a commercial video game. c) Give hints and tips on do's/don'ts when building a game, codewise. Please help!

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