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  • How can you represent equip-able items in a 2d game?

    - by ThePlan
    I've been working on an item system for a post-apocalyptic RPG, with diablo as inspiration, and it would be awesome if I could visually represent an item that can be equipped on the player sprite. I was thinking you could have a player sprite with certain animations, then the equipped item would be drawn as if it was on the player with the same animations, so it syncs with the player animations but that couldn't work very smoothly, I imagine there's a better system. How can you graphically represent an item worn on the player, which moves like he does, and looks as if he's wearing it? I'm not asking you how to do it in framework X or platform X (altho if you REALLY need it, I'm using Allegro 5 with codeblocks on win XP) but instead I'm asking you how to generally program such an idea.

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  • How to detect collisions between sprite and a user generated shape of some sort?

    - by Huwell
    How to detect a collision between a sprite and a user generated shape of some sort. For example. There are some objects on the screen. The user takes their finger and draws an circle shape around a object (The selection rule is painting circle around the sprite, but the painting shapes may be various). I need to detect which object selected, which just like: (demo images) http://i52.tinypic.com/28h0t1g.png

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  • Do I need the 'w' component in my Vector class?

    - by bobobobo
    Assume you're writing matrix code that handles rotation, translation etc for 3d space. Now the transformation matrices have to be 4x4 to fit the translation component in. However, you don't actually need to store a w component in the vector do you? Even in perspective division, you can simply compute and store w outside of the vector, and perspective divide before returning from the method. For example: // post multiply vec2=matrix*vector Vector operator*( const Matrix & a, const Vector& v ) { Vector r ; // do matrix mult r.x = a._11*v.x + a._12*v.y ... real w = a._41*v.x + a._42*v.y ... // perspective divide r /= w ; return r ; } Is there a point in storing w in the Vector class?

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  • Box2D random crash when adding joints

    - by user46624
    I'm currently working on a project which uses Box2D, when the player uses a certain key it should anchor to the ground. For that I use a weld joint, but when I add the joint the game will sometimes crash, it has a 1/10 change to crash. The error I recieve: Showing the controller Exception in thread "main" java.lang.ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException: 11 at org.jbox2d.dynamics.Island.add(Island.java:577) at org.jbox2d.dynamics.World.solve(World.java:1073) at org.jbox2d.dynamics.World.step(World.java:598) The code for adding the joints: WeldJointDef def = new WeldJointDef(); def.initialize(body, anchoredObject.body, body.getWorldCenter()); weldJoint = (WeldJoint) world.createJoint(def); I still get the error if I synchronize it

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  • Question on methods in Object Oriented Programming

    - by mal
    I’m learning Java at the minute (first language), and as a project I’m looking at developing a simple puzzle game. My question relates to the methods within a class. I have my Block type class; it has its many attributes, set methods, get methods and just plain methods. There are quite a few. Then I have my main board class. At the moment it does most of the logic, positioning of sprites collision detection and then draws the sprites etc... As I am learning to program as much as I’m learning to program games I’m curious to know how much code is typically acceptable within a given method. Is there such thing as having too many methods? All my draw functionality happens in one method, should I break this into a few ‘sub’ methods? My thinking is if I find at a later stage that the for loop I’m using to cycle through the array of sprites searching for collisions in the spriteCollision() method is inefficient I code a new method and just replace the old method calls with the new one, leaving the old code intact. Is it bad practice to have a method that contains one if statement, and place the call for that method in the for loop? I’m very much in the early stages of coding/designing and I need all the help I can get! I find it a little intimidating when people are talking about throwing together a prototype in a day too! Can’t wait until I’m that good!

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  • Whole continent simulation [on hold]

    - by user2309021
    Let's suppose I am planning to create a simulation of an entire continent at some point in the past (let's say, around 0 A.D). Is it feasible to spawn a hundred million actors that interact with each other and their environments? Having them reproduce, extract resources, etc? The fact is that I actually want to create a simulation that allows me to zoom in from a view of the entire continent up to a single village, and interact with it. (Think as if you could keep zooming in the campaign map of any Total War game and the transition to the battle map was seamless, not a change of the "game mode"). By the way, I have never made a game in my entire life (I have programmed normal desktop applications, though), so I am really having trouble wrapping my head around how to implement such a thing. Even while thinking about how to implement a simple population simulator, without a graphical interface, I think that the O(n) complexity of traversing an array and telling all people to get one year older each time the program ticks is kind of stupid. Any kind help would be greatly appreciated :) EDIT: After being put on hold, I shall specify a question. How would you implement a simulation of all basic human dynamics (reproduction, resource consumption) in an entire continent (with millions of people)?

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  • Will setInterval give me Delay?

    - by Oliver Schöning
    I am setting up a JavaScript Server for my Game. Am I understanding this correctly: If I use setInterval to call a function every second, and takes 2 seconds to process. Then I am going to "stack up" requests indefinetly the Client will become more and more out of sync? If I use setTimeout, and specify 1 second. Then the function will run (again, lets say 2 seconds) and then start the timeout. And not stack up requests.

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  • ScissorStack LIBGDX example?

    - by user36531
    I cant find a good resource/tutorial on how to do this. I would appreciate it if someone could provide a scissorstack example from an entity class. ie. using scissorstack on PlayerClass such that the map renders around the Player sprite, say 5 tiles. which would then allow me to create a Pawn class and apply same methodology to give a pawn sprite a lower number, like only rendering 1 tile around the location of the pawn.

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  • Is it better to cut and store all sprites needed from a spritesheet in memory, or cut them out just-in-time?

    - by xLite
    I'm not sure what's best practice here as I have little experience with this. Essentially what I am asking is... if it's better to get your single PNG with all your different sprites on it for use in-game, cut out every sprite on startup and store them in memory, then access the already-cut-out sprite from memory quickly or Only have the single PNG with all the different sprites residing in memory, and when you need, for example, a tree. You cut out the tree from the PNG and then continue to use it as normal. I imagine the former is more CPU friendly than the latter but less memory friendly, vice versa for the latter. I want to know what the norm is for game dev. This is a pixel based game using 2D art. Each PNG is actually an avatar's sprite sheet with each body part separated and then later joined to form the full body of the avatar.

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  • Moving an object using its velocity on a closed curve

    - by Futaro
    I want that an object follows a path, in Peggle game there are some pegs that have movement in a closed path. How can i get the same result? I guess that I can use parametric curve but I need use the velocity and not the position (x, y). I use NAPE and I have this in my gameloop: //circunference angle = angle + 1*(Math.PI / 180); movableBall.position.x = radius * Math.cos(angle)+ h; movableBall.position.y = radius * Math.sin(angle)+ k; it's works but I can not control the velocity, each movableBall must have its own velocity. Besides, from docs of NAPE:"Setting the position of a body is equivalent to simply teleporting the body; for instance moving a kinematic body by position is not the way to go about things.." I want to use: movableBall.velocity.x =?? movableBall.velocity.y = ?? The final idea is to follow others paths like the Lemniscate of Bernoulli. Thanks!

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  • What's the difference between a "Release" Xbox 360 build and a "Debug" one?

    - by Sebastian Gray
    I've got a build of my game that works on Windows under a release and debug build as expected. When I deploy the debug version of the game to the Xbox, it works as expected and runs the same as on Windows - however when I deploy the release version to the XBOX I get different behaviour within the game. I'm using a 3rd party library for the collisions (which is where I am seeing differences between the release and debug versions of my game); so I can't see what's actually different but I suspect they have some compiler directive for Debug on the Xbox to the Release version on the Xbox. As such, I'm thinking that I may need to release my game with the Debug build instead of the Release build but I want to know what issues I can expect by doing so? Are there any significant performance issues between the two build profiles?

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  • Unity gizmos vs. referenced game objects

    - by DuckMaestro
    I'm designing a Unity script that I intend to be highly reusable and as easy as possible to setup within the editor. To this end, a number of properties of this script really need some kind of visual representation on screen. It is an unresolved question to me whether the design of the script should require references to placeholder game objects, OR just Vector3's and float's that have associated gizmos drawn for them. Normally a gizmo would be a natural choice, except that Unity gizmos are not directly manipulable (as far as I can tell). Because of this shortcoming I'm having to consider whether depending on references to placeholder game objects is a more designer-friendly approach ultimately, in spite of the extra setup required, and that it might be counter-intuitive when the placeholder game objects disappear at run-time (which my script would do). Is there a community standard or preference here in this case? Can a Unity-experienced game programmer / designer speak to which approach they feel is more intuitive or more convenient to setup, when using a 3rd party script? Or is this just splitting hairs as long as I ship an example prefab with my script?

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  • How do I make this ad execution?

    - by Maggie
    I am doing research on replicating an ad execution - http://www.digitalbuzzblog.com/gol-airlines-mobile-controlled-banner-game/ It's a simple "game" involving using the phone as a forward/back/left/right controller for a car in flash on the internet. I've started reading on P2P, but I'm finding such a vast amount of information and non specific to what I need that it's hard for me to sort through. Does anyone know any tutorials or can shed some light on how I might go about making a very simple mobile controller for a flash game?

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  • failbit is being set and I can't figure out why

    - by felipedrl
    I'm writing a MIDI file loader. Everything is going fine until at some track I get a failbit exception while trying to read from file. I can't figure out why, I've checked the file size and it's ok too. Upon checking "errno" and it returns "0". Any ideas? Thanks. The snippet follows: file.read(reinterpret_cast<char*>(&mHeader.id), sizeof(MidiHeader)); mTracks = new MidiTrack[mHeader.nTracks]; for (uint i = 0; i < mHeader.nTracks; ++i) { // this read fails on 6th i. I've checked hexadecimal file and it's // ok so far. file.read(reinterpret_cast<char*>(&mTracks[i].id), sizeof(uint)); if (file.fail()) { std::cerr << errno << std::endl; massert(false); } massert(mTracks[i].id == 0x6B72544D); file.read(reinterpret_cast<char*>(&mTracks[i].size), sizeof(uint)); mTracks[i].size = swapBytes(mTracks[i].size); mTracks[i].data = new char[mTracks[i].size]; file.read(mTracks[i].data, mTracks[i].size * sizeof(char)); totalBytesRead += 8 + mTracks[i].size; massert(totalBytesRead <= fileSize); }

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  • How can I get my first-person character in Unity to move to a ledge with an animation?

    - by BallzOfSteel
    I'm trying to get this to happen: The character walks up to a large crate, the player presses a button, and an animation starts playing where the character climbs up on to the crate. (all in first person view). So far I tried this with normal "First Person Controller" Prefab in Unity. My code so far: function OnTriggerStay(other : Collider){ if(other.tag == "GrabZone"){ if(Input.GetKeyDown("e")){ animation.Play("JumpToLedge"); } } } However when i use this on The FPC it will always play from the position the animation is created on. I also tried to create an empty game object, placing the FPC in there. Gives same effect. I also tried just animating the graphics of the FPC alone. This seems to work but since the Character Controller itself is not animated that stays onthe ground. So the whole FPC wont work anymore. Is there anyway i could let this animation play on the local position the player is on at that time? Or can you think of any other logical solution for a grab and climb?

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  • How to adjust the shooting angle of an object

    - by Blue
    I've been trying to add an angle adjustment feature to a power bar that I got from unity3dStudents. But I can't seem to get the code right. I'm using addforce to rigidbody, it works but the power is too great. I also found that rotating the object it's shooting from changes the angle. But I don't know how to proceed from that. Can somebody show me the problem with the script below, as in how to add height to the addforce without it going to far up or to the side? Or how to change the angle of the object? var theAngle : int; var maxAngle : int = 130; var minAngle : int = 0; var angleIncreasing : boolean = false; var angleDecreasing : boolean = false; var rotationSpeed : float = 10; var ball : Rigidbody; var spawnPos : Transform; var shotForce : float = 25; function Update () { if(Input.GetKeyDown("k")){ angleIncreasing = true; angleDecreasing = false; } if(Input.GetKeyUp("k")){ angleIncreasing = false; } if(Input.GetKeyDown("l")){ angleIncreasing = false; angleDecreasing = true; } if(Input.GetKeyUp("l")){ angleDecreasing = false; } ------- if(angleIncreasing){ theAngle += Time.deltaTime * rotationSpeed; if(theAngle > maxAngle){ theAngle = maxAngle; } } if(angleDecreasing){ theAngle -= Time.deltaTime * rotationSpeed; if(theAngle < minAngle){ theAngle = minAngle; } } } function Shoot(power : float, angle : int){ ---- var forward : Vector3 = spawnPos.forward; var upward : Vector3 = spawnPos.up; pFab.AddForce(forward * power * shotForce); pFab.AddForce(upward * angle * 10); ---- }

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  • Need an engine for MMO mockup

    - by Kayle
    What I don't need is an MMORPG engine, at the moment. What I do need is a flexible easy-to-use engine that I can make a mock-up with. I don't need support for more than 10 players in an instance, so any multiplayer platform is probably fine. I need an engine with which I can create the following core features: Waves of simple AI enemies that have specific objectives (move to point A, destroy target, move to point B). The units present can be between 50-200 in number. An over-the-shoulder view and the ability to control a team of 3 (like Mass Effect or the latest Dragon Age) Functioning inventory system Right now, all I can really think of is Unreal or Source. Any other suggestions? Again, this is a proving mock-up, not an actual MMO. I'm not terribly worried about the visual aspects as we just want to test mechanics. Note: Can write some scripts in Python, Ruby, or Lua, if necessary.

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  • Best database setup for one click games

    - by ewizard
    I am building a one click game website/mobile app, and I am debating between using MySQL and MongoDB for the backend. The way I have been exploring it is with a NodeJS/Express/Angular/Passport/MongoDB stack - I have also implemented Socket.io. I have gotten to the point where I am sending data from the flash game to the server (NodeJS). The only data that needs to be sent is basic user information, the players score at the end of each game, and some x,y positions for each players game (for anti-cheating). It seems like MySQL would work fine, but as I am already using MongoDB - are there any major drawbacks to continuing to work with MongoDB on this project?

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  • Tips on how to notify a user of new features in your game (Android)

    - by brent777
    I have noticed a problem when releasing new features for a game that I wrote for Android and published on Google Play Store. Because my game is "stage-based" - and not a game like Hay Day, for example, where users will just go into the game every day since it can't really be finished - my users are not aware of new features that I release for the game. For example, if I publish a new version of my game and it contains a couple new stages, most of their devices will just auto-update the game and they don't even notice this and think to check out what's new. So this is why an approach like popping open a dialog that showcases the new feature(s) when they open the game for the first time after the update was done is not really sufficient. I am looking for some tips on an approach that will draw my users back into the game and then they could read more detail about new features on such a dialog. I was thinking of something like a notification that tells them to check out the new features after an update is done but I am not sure if this is a good idea. Any suggestions to help me solve this problem would be awesome.

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  • How can I render multiple windows with DirectX 9 in C++?

    - by Friso1990
    I'm trying to render multiple windows, using DirectX 9 and swap chains, but even though I create 2 windows, I only see the first one that I've created. My RendererDX9 header is this: #include <d3d9.h> #include <Windows.h> #include <vector> #include "RAT_Renderer.h" namespace RAT_ENGINE { class RAT_RendererDX9 : public RAT_Renderer { public: RAT_RendererDX9(); ~RAT_RendererDX9(); void Init(RAT_WindowManager* argWMan); void CleanUp(); void ShowWin(); private: LPDIRECT3D9 renderInterface; // Used to create the D3DDevice LPDIRECT3DDEVICE9 renderDevice; // Our rendering device LPDIRECT3DSWAPCHAIN9* swapChain; // Swapchain to make multi-window rendering possible WNDCLASSEX wc; std::vector<HWND> hwindows; void Render(int argI); }; } And my .cpp file is this: #include "RAT_RendererDX9.h" static LRESULT CALLBACK MsgProc( HWND hWnd, UINT msg, WPARAM wParam, LPARAM lParam ); namespace RAT_ENGINE { RAT_RendererDX9::RAT_RendererDX9() : renderInterface(NULL), renderDevice(NULL) { } RAT_RendererDX9::~RAT_RendererDX9() { } void RAT_RendererDX9::Init(RAT_WindowManager* argWMan) { wMan = argWMan; // Register the window class WNDCLASSEX windowClass = { sizeof( WNDCLASSEX ), CS_CLASSDC, MsgProc, 0, 0, GetModuleHandle( NULL ), NULL, NULL, NULL, NULL, "foo", NULL }; wc = windowClass; RegisterClassEx( &wc ); for (int i = 0; i< wMan->getWindows().size(); ++i) { HWND hWnd = CreateWindow( "foo", argWMan->getWindow(i)->getName().c_str(), WS_OVERLAPPEDWINDOW, argWMan->getWindow(i)->getX(), argWMan->getWindow(i)->getY(), argWMan->getWindow(i)->getWidth(), argWMan->getWindow(i)->getHeight(), NULL, NULL, wc.hInstance, NULL ); hwindows.push_back(hWnd); } // Create the D3D object, which is needed to create the D3DDevice. renderInterface = (LPDIRECT3D9)Direct3DCreate9( D3D_SDK_VERSION ); // Set up the structure used to create the D3DDevice. Most parameters are // zeroed out. We set Windowed to TRUE, since we want to do D3D in a // window, and then set the SwapEffect to "discard", which is the most // efficient method of presenting the back buffer to the display. And // we request a back buffer format that matches the current desktop display // format. D3DPRESENT_PARAMETERS deviceConfig; ZeroMemory( &deviceConfig, sizeof( deviceConfig ) ); deviceConfig.Windowed = TRUE; deviceConfig.SwapEffect = D3DSWAPEFFECT_DISCARD; deviceConfig.BackBufferFormat = D3DFMT_UNKNOWN; deviceConfig.BackBufferHeight = 1024; deviceConfig.BackBufferWidth = 768; deviceConfig.EnableAutoDepthStencil = TRUE; deviceConfig.AutoDepthStencilFormat = D3DFMT_D16; // Create the Direct3D device. Here we are using the default adapter (most // systems only have one, unless they have multiple graphics hardware cards // installed) and requesting the HAL (which is saying we want the hardware // device rather than a software one). Software vertex processing is // specified since we know it will work on all cards. On cards that support // hardware vertex processing, though, we would see a big performance gain // by specifying hardware vertex processing. renderInterface->CreateDevice( D3DADAPTER_DEFAULT, D3DDEVTYPE_HAL, hwindows[0], D3DCREATE_SOFTWARE_VERTEXPROCESSING, &deviceConfig, &renderDevice ); this->swapChain = new LPDIRECT3DSWAPCHAIN9[wMan->getWindows().size()]; this->renderDevice->GetSwapChain(0, &swapChain[0]); for (int i = 0; i < wMan->getWindows().size(); ++i) { renderDevice->CreateAdditionalSwapChain(&deviceConfig, &swapChain[i]); } renderDevice->SetRenderState(D3DRS_CULLMODE, D3DCULL_CCW); // Set cullmode to counterclockwise culling to save resources renderDevice->SetRenderState(D3DRS_AMBIENT, 0xffffffff); // Turn on ambient lighting renderDevice->SetRenderState(D3DRS_ZENABLE, TRUE); // Turn on the zbuffer } void RAT_RendererDX9::CleanUp() { renderDevice->Release(); renderInterface->Release(); } void RAT_RendererDX9::Render(int argI) { // Clear the backbuffer to a blue color renderDevice->Clear( 0, NULL, D3DCLEAR_TARGET, D3DCOLOR_XRGB( 0, 0, 255 ), 1.0f, 0 ); LPDIRECT3DSURFACE9 backBuffer = NULL; // Set draw target this->swapChain[argI]->GetBackBuffer(0, D3DBACKBUFFER_TYPE_MONO, &backBuffer); this->renderDevice->SetRenderTarget(0, backBuffer); // Begin the scene renderDevice->BeginScene(); // End the scene renderDevice->EndScene(); swapChain[argI]->Present(NULL, NULL, hwindows[argI], NULL, 0); } void RAT_RendererDX9::ShowWin() { for (int i = 0; i < wMan->getWindows().size(); ++i) { ShowWindow( hwindows[i], SW_SHOWDEFAULT ); UpdateWindow( hwindows[i] ); // Enter the message loop MSG msg; while( GetMessage( &msg, NULL, 0, 0 ) ) { if (PeekMessage( &msg, NULL, 0U, 0U, PM_REMOVE ) ) { TranslateMessage( &msg ); DispatchMessage( &msg ); } else { Render(i); } } } } } LRESULT CALLBACK MsgProc( HWND hWnd, UINT msg, WPARAM wParam, LPARAM lParam ) { switch( msg ) { case WM_DESTROY: //CleanUp(); PostQuitMessage( 0 ); return 0; case WM_PAINT: //Render(); ValidateRect( hWnd, NULL ); return 0; } return DefWindowProc( hWnd, msg, wParam, lParam ); } I've made a sample function to make multiple windows: void RunSample1() { //Create the window manager. RAT_ENGINE::RAT_WindowManager* wMan = new RAT_ENGINE::RAT_WindowManager(); //Create the render manager. RAT_ENGINE::RAT_RenderManager* rMan = new RAT_ENGINE::RAT_RenderManager(); //Create a window. //This is currently needed to initialize the render manager and create a renderer. wMan->CreateRATWindow("Sample 1 - 1", 10, 20, 640, 480); wMan->CreateRATWindow("Sample 1 - 2", 150, 100, 480, 640); //Initialize the render manager. rMan->Init(wMan); //Show the window. rMan->getRenderer()->ShowWin(); } How do I get the multiple windows to work?

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  • Facing a character towards the mouse

    - by ratata
    I'm trying to port a simple 2d top down shooter game from C++(Allegro) to Java and i'm having problems with rotating my character. Here's the code i used in c++ if (keys[A]) RotateRight(player, degree); if (keys[D]) RotateLeft(player, degree); void RotateLeft(Player& player, float& degree) { degree += player.rotatingSpeed; if ( degree >= 360 ) degree = 0; } void RotateRight(Player& player, float& degree) { degree -= player.rotatingSpeed; if ( degree <= 0) degree = 360; } And this is what i have in render section: al_draw_rotated_bitmap(player.image, player.frameWidth / 2, player.frameHeight / 2, player.x, player.y, degree * 3.14159 / 180, 0); Instead of using A-D keys i want to use mouse this time. I've been searching since last night and came up to few sample codes however noone of them worked. For example this just made my character to circle around the map: int centerX = width / 2; int centerY = height / 2; double angle = Math.atan2(centerY - mouseY, centerX - mouseX) - Math.PI / 2; ((Graphics2D)g).rotate(angle, centerX, centerY); g.fillRect(...); // draw your rectangle Any help is much appreciated.

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  • When to use Euler vs Axis angles vs Quaternions?

    - by manning18
    I understand the theory behind each but I was wondering if people could share their experiences in when one would use one over the other For instance, if you were implementing a chase camera, a FPS-style mouse look or writing some kinematic routine, what would be the factors you consider to go with one type over the other and when might you need to convert from one form of representation to the other? Are there certain things that only one system can do that the others can't? (eg smooth interpolation with quaternions)

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  • Visitor-pattern vs inheritance for rendering

    - by akaltar
    I have a game engine that currently uses inheritance to provide a generic interface to do rendering: class renderable { public: void render(); }; Each class calls the gl_* functions itself, this makes the code hard to optimize and hard to implement something like setting the quality of rendering: class sphere : public renderable { public: void render() { glDrawElements(...); } }; I was thinking about implementing a system where I would create a Renderer class that would render my objects: class sphere { void render( renderer* r ) { r->renderme( *this ); } }; class renderer { renderme( sphere& sphere ) { // magically get render resources here // magically render a sphere here } }; My main problem is where should I store the VBOs and where should I Create them when using this method? Should I even use this approach or stick to the current one, perhaps something else? PS: I already asked this question on SO but got no proper answers.

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  • Can Google Translate's audio files be used in a game?

    - by ashes999
    For my game, I need text-to-speech. Since it's Android, I decided to settle for MP3s, since the range of words spoken is few. For my prototype, I'm using Google Translate to generate the audio since it has awesome pronounciation across multiple languages. But can I use it in production? What if I sell my game for $1 on the app store? All I can find on SE is that the API may be LGPL, and that the licensing page mentions the API is only available for academic research -- nothing more. My usage is a bit different; I'm actually capturing the audio bits and using those instead. I'm curious to know the license for this; I can't find anything with my Google-fu.

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  • Does it make the game more fun when the user is forced to progress through the levels sequentially rather than letting them pick and play?

    - by BeachRunnerJoe
    Hello. For the first time in my game, I'm stuck with a real design dilemma. I guess that's a good thing ;) I'm building a word puzzle game that has five levels, each with 30 puzzles. Currently, the user has to solve one puzzle at a time before moving to the next. However, I'm finding the user occasionally gets stuck on a puzzle, at which point they can no longer play until they solve it. This is obviously bad because many people will probably just quit playing the game and delete the app. The only elegant solution I can find to helping the player get unstuck is changing the design of the game to allow the users to pick any puzzle to play at any time. This way, if they get stuck, they can come back to it later and at least they have other puzzles to play in the meantime. It's my opinion, however, that this new flow design doesn't make the game as fun as the original flow design where the player has to complete a puzzle before moving to the next. To me, it's like anything else, when you only have one of something, it's more enjoyable, but when you have 30 of something, it's far less enjoyable. In fact, when I present the user with 30 puzzles to choose from, I'm concerned I might be making them feel like it's a lot of work they have to do and that's bad. I even had a tester voluntarily tell me that being forced to complete a puzzle before moving to the next is actually motivating. My questions are... Do you agree/disagree? Do you have any suggestions for how I can help the player get unstuck? Thanks so much in advance for your thoughts! EDIT: I should mention that I've already considered a few other solutions to helping the user get unstuck, but none of them seem like good ideas. They are... Add more hints: Currently, the user gets two hints per puzzle. If I increase the hint count, it only makes the game more easy and still leaves the possibility of the user getting stuck. Add a "Show Solution" button: This seems like a bad idea because it's my opinion this takes the fun out of the game for many people who would probably otherwise solve the puzzle if they didn't have the quick option to see the solution.

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