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  • What is the most efficient way to add and remove Slick2D sprites?

    - by kirchhoff
    I'm making a game in Java with Slick2D and I want to create planes which shoots: int maxBullets = 40; static int bullet = 0; Missile missile[] = new Missile[maxBullets]; I want to create/move my missiles in the most efficient way, I would appreciate your advise: public void shoot() throws SlickException{ if(bullet<maxBullets){ if(missile[bullet] != null){ missile[bullet].resetLocation(plane.getCenterX(), plane.getCenterY(), plane.image.getRotation()); }else{ missile[bullet] = new Missile("resources/missile.png", plane.getCenterX(), plane.getCenterY(), plane.image.getRotation()); } }else{ bullet = 0; missile[bullet].resetLocation(plane.getCenterX(), plane.getCenterY(), plane.image.getRotation()); } bullet++; } I created the method resetLocation in my Missile class in order to avoid loading again the resource. Is it correct? In the update method I've got this to move all the missiles: if(bullet > 0 && bullet < maxBullets){ float hyp = 0.4f * delta; if(bullet == 1){ missile[0].move(hyp); }else{ for(int x = 0; x<bullet; x++){ missile[x].move(hyp); } } }

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  • How do I draw a 2d plane and rotate camara (To be a board) in a 3d XNA game?

    - by Mech0z
    I am trying to create a simple board game, but the 3d part of this is really killing me. From what I can gather I have created a plane, but it never moves even though I turn the camara, but that partially makes sense as I only turn the camara with a 3d model, but in my head that makes 0 sense, in my head if I turn the camara it should affect ALL my models? But with this code the camara only "cares" about the 3d cylinder, the plane is just completely still private void OnDraw(object sender, GameTimerEventArgs e) { SharedGraphicsDeviceManager.Current.GraphicsDevice.Clear(Color.CornflowerBlue); foreach (ModelMesh mesh in cylinderModel.Meshes) { foreach (BasicEffect effect in mesh.Effects) { //effect.World = Matrix.CreateRotationX((float)e.TotalTime.TotalSeconds * 2); effect.View = Matrix.CreateLookAt(cameraPosition, Vector3.Zero, Vector3.Up); effect.Projection = Matrix.CreatePerspectiveFieldOfView(MathHelper.ToRadians(45.0f), aspectRatio, 1.0f, 10000.0f); effect.EnableDefaultLighting(); } mesh.Draw(); } //cameraPosition.Z -= 5.0f; _effect.World = Matrix.CreateRotationZ((MathHelper.ToRadians(((float)e.TotalTime.Milliseconds / 2) % 360))); foreach (EffectPass pass in _effect.CurrentTechnique.Passes) { pass.Apply(); SharedGraphicsDeviceManager.Current.GraphicsDevice.DrawUserPrimitives(PrimitiveType.TriangleStrip, _vertices, 0, 1, VertexPositionColor.VertexDeclaration); } } Is there a way to get the camara to affect all models?

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  • How can I create a VBO of a type determined at runtime?

    - by lapin
    I've written a Vbo template class to work with OpenGL. I'd like to set the type from a config file at runtime. For example: <vbo type="bump_vt" ... /> Vbo* pVbo = new Vbo(bump_vt, ...); Is there some way I can do this without a large if-else block such as: if( sType.compareTo("bump_vt") == 0 ) Vbo* pVbo = new Vbo(bump_vt, ...); else if ... I'm writing for multiple platforms in C++.

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  • SDL_DisplayFormat works, but not SDL_DisplayFormatAlpha

    - by Bounderby
    The following code is intended to display a green square on a black background. It executes, but the green square does not show up. However, if I change SDL_DisplayFormatAlpha to SDL_DisplayFormat the square is rendered correctly. So what don't I understand? It seems to me that I am creating *surface with an alpha mask and I am using SDL_MapRGBA to map my green color, so it would be consistent to use SDL_DisplayFormatAlpha as well. (I removed error-checking for clarity, but none of the SDL API calls fail in this example.) #include <SDL.h> int main(int argc, const char *argv[]) { SDL_Init( SDL_INIT_EVERYTHING ); SDL_Surface *screen = SDL_SetVideoMode( 640, 480, 32, SDL_HWSURFACE | SDL_DOUBLEBUF ); SDL_Surface *temp = SDL_CreateRGBSurface( SDL_HWSURFACE, 100, 100, 32, 0, 0, 0, ( SDL_BYTEORDER == SDL_BIG_ENDIAN ? 0x000000ff : 0xff000000 ) ); SDL_Surface *surface = SDL_DisplayFormatAlpha( temp ); SDL_FreeSurface( temp ); SDL_FillRect( surface, &surface->clip_rect, SDL_MapRGBA( screen->format, 0x00, 0xff, 0x00, 0xff ) ); SDL_Rect r; r.x = 50; r.y = 50; SDL_BlitSurface( surface, NULL, screen, &r ); SDL_Flip( screen ); SDL_Delay( 1000 ); SDL_Quit(); return 0; }

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  • How to use a mask texture with Kobold2D

    - by alex
    I am an iOS developer but I'm new to cocos2d. I'm working on new game, I use Kobold2D, have cocos2d installed too, and I want to make this effect: I know how is done with Flash, but can't make it with Kobold2D. There's 2 images with the same size: one is a low-res image for the background and the second is a hi-res over the first one. When the "reticle" mask moves, it reveals the second image inside the circle and the background is visible outside only. I googled with no success, saw some Ray Wenderlich projects they weren't helpful.

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  • Bukkit send a custom placed name plate?

    - by HcgRandon
    Hello i have been working on a part of my plugin that has waypoints allowing the user to create delete etc. I got to thinking after using and seeing a couple of the disguse plugins. That maybe i could create a command toggle that would show the user where the waypoints they have are! I know how to do all of this i just have no idea how to display a nameplate to the client. I know its possible because disguisecraft does it i tried looking though their code but couldent find much... I belive to get this effect i need to send packets to the client if someone can direct me to a list of bukkit packets or even a solution to sending the client a custom located nameplate that would be fantastic! Thanks in advanced.

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  • XNA - positioning after rotation

    - by DijkeMark
    I have a turret with a 2 gunbarrels. The turret rotates towards my mouse. So far no problem. When it creates a few bullets and positions them at the end of the gun barrels. Here is the problem. It only works the moment the gun is point upwards. The moment it rotates the end of the gun barrels have moved ofcourse, thus the bullets don't spawn at the end of the gun battels, but at the place the where the gun barrels are when the turret is pointing upwards. How can I check where the end of the gun barrels are the moment it rotates? Thanks in Advance, Mark Dijkema PS. If you need code please let me know, I didn't post any yet, because I didn't what code you would need.

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  • Repelling a rigidbody in the direction an object is rotating

    - by ndg
    Working in Unity, I have a game object which I rotate each frame, like so: void Update() { transform.Rotate(new Vector3(0, 1, 0) * speed * Time.deltaTime); } However, I'm running into problems when it comes to applying a force to rigidbodies that collide with this game objects sphere collider. The effect I'm hoping to achieve is that objects which touch the collider are thrown in roughly the same direction as the object is rotating. To do this, I've tried the following: Vector3 force = ((transform.localRotation * Vector3.forward) * 2000) * Time.deltaTime; collision.gameObject.rigidbody.AddForce(force, ForceMode.Impulse); Unfortunately this doesn't always match the rotation of the object. To debug the issue, I wrote a simple OnDrawGizmos script, which (strangely) appears to draw the line correctly oriented to the rotation. void OnDrawGizmos() { Vector3 pos = transform.position + ((transform.localRotation * Vector3.forward) * 2); Debug.DrawLine(transform.position, pos, Color.red); } You can see the result of the OnDrawGizmos function below: What am I doing wrong?

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  • Are VM-based languages becoming viable for Graphics since the move to GPU computing?

    - by skiwi
    Perhaps the title is not the most clear, so let me elaborate it more: I am talking about VM-based languages, by that I mean languages that run on the JVM (java) and for example C#. Also I am talking about 3D graphics, just to be clear. Lately the trend has been that most computing is being done on the GPU and not on the CPU, and since times the issue with programming games on a VM-based language is that garbage collecting may happen randomly. So let's take a look which is responsible for what: Showing the graphics: GPU Uploading graphics to the GPU: CPU? Needs to be done every frame? Calculating physics constraints: GPU Doing the real game logic (Determining when to move objects (independent of physics calculations), processing AI): CPU Is my list actually correct? And if it is, is for example Java becoming more viable? Or is uploading the graphics (vertices) still the most expensive operation? Would like to get more insight into this.

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  • Cocos-2D asteroids style movement (iOS)

    - by bwheeler96
    So I have a CCSprite subclass, well call this Spaceship. Spaceship needs to move on a loop, until I say othersise by calling a method. The method should look something like - (void)moveForeverAtVelocity { // method logic } The class Spaceship has two relevant iVars, resetPosition and targetPosition, the target is where we are headed, the reset is where we set to when we've hit our target. If they are both off-screen this creates a permanent looping effect. So for the logic, I have tried several things, such as CCMoveTo *move = [CCMoveTo actionWithDuration:2 position:ccp(100, 100)]; CCCallBlockN *repeat = [CCCallBlockN actionWithBlock: ^(CCNode *node) { [self moveForeverAtVelocity]; }]; [self runAction:[CCSequence actions: move, repeat, nil]]; self.position = self.resetPosition; recursively calling the moveForeverAtVelocity method. This is psuedo-code, so its not perfect. I have hard-coded some of the values for the sake of simplicity. Enough garble: The problem I am having, how can I make a method that loops forever, but can be called and reset at will. I'm running into issues with creating multiple instances of this method. If you can offer any assistance with creating this effect, that would be appreciated.

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  • MouseEvent.CLICK not working? (AS3)

    - by Jake
    ok so here's my code in AS3, I'd like to know why when i actually click on the picture, nothing happens. And if any of you have great tutorial of what to learn after classes/functions in AS3, let me know =D : package { import flash.display.Bitmap; import flash.display.Sprite; import flash.display.Shape; import flash.events.MouseEvent; public class Main extends Sprite { [Embed(source="../Pics/Picture.png")] private var HeroClass:Class; private var hero:Bitmap = new HeroClass(); public function Main():void { addChild(hero); hero.addEventListener(MouseEvent.CLICK, onClick); function onClick(e:MouseEvent):void { trace("hey"); hero.visible = false; } } } }

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  • How can I support scrolling when using batched rendering for my tiles?

    - by dardanel
    I have tiled map 100*75 and tiles are 32*32 pixel.I want to use batching for performance .I don't figure it out , because of my game needs scrolling and every frame i draw 22*16 tiles (my screen is 20*16 tile) .I thought that batching tiles for every frame .Is it good or any suggestion? edit :to more clarify I want to use occlusion culling and batching at the same time.I thought that drawing only visible areas and batching them together .But there is a something i couldn't figure out .When scrolling screen with translate matrix , if one row become invisible , I bind new row and batch them again.Every batched objects needs to buffer again.So I batch tiles and buffer to VBO every time when one row become invisible .I don't know these way is efficient or not .This is my question .And i am open to any suggestions.

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  • Phone complains that identical GLSL struct definition differs in vert/frag programs

    - by stephelton
    When I provide the following struct definition in linked frag and vert shaders, my phone (Samsung Vibrant / Android 2.2) complains that the definition differs. struct Light { mediump vec3 _position; lowp vec4 _ambient; lowp vec4 _diffuse; lowp vec4 _specular; bool _isDirectional; mediump vec3 _attenuation; // constant, linear, and quadratic components }; uniform Light u_light; I know the struct is identical because its included from another file. These shaders work on a linux implementation and on my Android 3.0 tablet. Both shaders declare "precision mediump float;" The exact error is: Uniform variable u_light type/precision does not match in vertex and fragment shader Am I doing anything wrong here, or is my phone's implementation broken? Any advice (other than file a bug report?)

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  • What are the key "connectors" for animation creation?

    - by qaisjp
    I'm creating an animation "engine" for a 2D game which loads a *.2dped file to load a character (it's body part positions, height, length of arm etc), and then a *.2difp to manipulate the body part positions. I'd like to know what the key body parts (bones, I mean) I should allow to be manipulated. My current list, sorted by ID's: 1: BONE_PELVIS1 2: BONE_PELVIS 3: BONE_SPINE1 4: BONE_UPPERTORSO 5: BONE_NECK 6: BONE_HEAD2 7: BONE_HEAD1 8: BONE_HEAD 21: BONE_RIGHTUPPERTORSO 22: BONE_RIGHTSHOULDER 23: BONE_RIGHTELBOW 24: BONE_RIGHTWRIST 25: BONE_RIGHTHAND 26: BONE_RIGHTTHUMB 31: BONE_LEFTUPPERTORSO 32: BONE_LEFTSHOULDER 33: BONE_LEFTELBOW 34: BONE_LEFTWRIST 35: BONE_LEFTHAND 36: BONE_LEFTTHUMB 41: BONE_LEFTHIP 42: BONE_LEFTKNEE 43: BONE_LEFTANKLE 44: BONE_LEFTFOOT 51: BONE_RIGHTHIP 52: BONE_RIGHTKNEE 53: BONE_RIGHTANKLE 54: BONE_RIGHTFOOT It's currently made to support real people, but am I going too accurate for a 2D character?

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  • Game getting progressively laggier?

    - by Valentin Krummenacher
    I have a small game in HTML5 that uses socket.io to communicate with a node.js server. Now my problem is that, eversince I did my last update on it it seems to have something "chunk up" in the background making it laggier and laggier the longer it runs. In the update were a few temporary local variables being defined with var(you know, variables that are only used during one function and then not needed anymore) alongside with alot of other changes, and I am not even sure if this update or something else is causing this. Might the "var" have caused it? Or what other reasons might this strange complication have?

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  • Instead of the specified Texture, black circles on a green background are getting rendered. Why?

    - by vinzBad
    I'm trying to render a Texture via OpenGL. But instead of the texture black circles on a green background are rendered. (They scale, depending what the rotation of the texture is) Example: The texture I'm trying to render is the following: This is the code I use to render the texture, it's located in my Sprite-class. public void Render() { Matrix4 matrix = Matrix4.CreateTranslation(-OriginX, -OriginY, 0) * Matrix4.CreateRotationZ(Rotation) * Matrix4.CreateTranslation(X, Y, 0); Vector2[] corners = { new Vector2(0,0), //top left new Vector2(Width ,0),//top right new Vector2(Width,Height),//bottom rigth new Vector2(0,Height)//bottom left }; //copy the corners to the uv coordinates Vector2[] uv = corners.ToArray<Vector2>(); //transform the coordinates for (int i = 0; i < 4; i++) corners[i] = new Vector2(Vector3.Transform(new Vector3(corners[i]), matrix)); //GL.Color3(TintColor); GL.BindTexture(TextureTarget.Texture2D, _ID); GL.Begin(BeginMode.Quads); { for (int i = 0; i < 4; i++) { GL.TexCoord2(uv[i]); GL.Vertex3(corners[i].X, corners[i].Y, _layerDepth); } } GL.End(); if (EnableDebugDraw) { GL.Color3(Color.Violet); GL.PointSize(3); GL.Begin(BeginMode.Points); { for (int i = 0; i < 4; i++) GL.Vertex2(corners[i]); } GL.End(); GL.Color3(Color.Green); GL.Begin(BeginMode.Points); GL.Vertex2(X, Y); GL.End(); } } This is how I setup OpenGL. public static void SetupGL() { GL.Enable(EnableCap.AlphaTest); GL.AlphaFunc(AlphaFunction.Greater, 0.1f); GL.Enable(EnableCap.Texture2D); GL.Hint(HintTarget.PerspectiveCorrectionHint, HintMode.Nicest); } With this function I load the texture: public static uint LoadTexture(string path) { uint id; GL.GenTextures(1, out id); GL.BindTexture(TextureTarget.Texture2D, id); Bitmap bitmap = new Bitmap(path); BitmapData data = bitmap.LockBits(new System.Drawing.Rectangle(0, 0, bitmap.Width, bitmap.Height), ImageLockMode.ReadOnly, System.Drawing.Imaging.PixelFormat.Format32bppArgb); GL.TexImage2D(TextureTarget.Texture2D, 0, PixelInternalFormat.Rgba, data.Width, data.Height, 0, OpenTK.Graphics.OpenGL.PixelFormat.Bgra, PixelType.UnsignedByte, data.Scan0); bitmap.UnlockBits(data); GL.TexParameter(TextureTarget.Texture2D, TextureParameterName.TextureMinFilter, (int)TextureMinFilter.Linear); GL.TexParameter(TextureTarget.Texture2D, TextureParameterName.TextureMagFilter, (int)TextureMagFilter.Linear); return id; } And here I call Sprite.Render() protected override void OnRenderFrame(FrameEventArgs e) { GL.ClearColor(Color.MidnightBlue); GL.Clear(ClearBufferMask.ColorBufferBit); _sprite.Render(); SwapBuffers(); base.OnRenderFrame(e); } As I stole this code from the Textures-Example from OpenTK, I don't understand why this doesn't work.

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  • Space Invaders-type game: Keeping the enemies aligned with each other as they turn around?

    - by CorundumGames
    OK, so here's the lowdown of the problem I'm trying to solve. I'm developing a game in PyGame that's a cross between Space Invaders and Columns. I'm trying to make the motion of the enemies similar to that of the aliens in Space Invaders; that is, they're all clustered in a grid, and if even one hits the side of the screen, the entire formation moves down and turns around. However, the motion of these aliens is continuous (as continuous as a monitor can be, anyway), not on a discrete grid like in the original. The enemies are instances of an Enemy class, and in turn they're held by a 2D array in a enemysquadron module (which, if you don't use Python, is in this case essentially a singleton due to the way Python modules work). Inside the Enemy class I have a class-scope velocity vector that is reversed every time an Enemy object touches the edge of the screen. This won't do, though, because as time goes on the enemies just become disorganized and jumbled (i.e. not in a grid as planned). I haven't implemented the Enemies going downward yet, so let's not worry about that right now. Any tips?

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  • Why are MVC & TDD not employed more in game architecture?

    - by secoif
    I will preface this by saying I haven't looked a huge amount of game source, nor built much in the way of games. But coming from trying to employ 'enterprise' coding practices in web apps, looking at game source code seriously hurts my head: "What is this view logic doing in with business logic? this needs refactoring... so does this, refactor, refactorrr" This worries me as I'm about to start a game project, and I'm not sure whether trying to mvc/tdd the dev process is going to hinder us or help us, as I don't see many game examples that use this or much push for better architectural practices it in the community. The following is an extract from a great article on prototyping games, though to me it seemed exactly the attitude many game devs seem to use when writing production game code: Mistake #4: Building a system, not a game ...if you ever find yourself working on something that isn’t directly moving your forward, stop right there. As programmers, we have a tendency to try to generalize our code, and make it elegant and be able to handle every situation. We find that an itch terribly hard not scratch, but we need to learn how. It took me many years to realize that it’s not about the code, it’s about the game you ship in the end. Don’t write an elegant game component system, skip the editor completely and hardwire the state in code, avoid the data-driven, self-parsing, XML craziness, and just code the damned thing. ... Just get stuff on the screen as quickly as you can. And don’t ever, ever, use the argument “if we take some extra time and do this the right way, we can reuse it in the game”. EVER. is it because games are (mostly) visually oriented so it makes sense that the code will be weighted heavily in the view, thus any benefits from moving stuff out to models/controllers, is fairly minimal, so why bother? I've heard the argument that MVC introduces a performance overhead, but this seems to me to be a premature optimisation, and that there'd more important performance issues to tackle before you worry about MVC overheads (eg render pipeline, AI algorithms, datastructure traversal, etc). Same thing regarding TDD. It's not often I see games employing test cases, but perhaps this is due to the design issues above (mixed view/business) and the fact that it's difficult to test visual components, or components that rely on probablistic results (eg operate within physics simulations). Perhaps I'm just looking at the wrong source code, but why do we not see more of these 'enterprise' practices employed in game design? Are games really so different in their requirements, or is a people/culture issue (ie game devs come from a different background and thus have different coding habits)?

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  • How to rotate a group of objects around a common center?

    - by user1662292
    I've made a model in 3D Studio Max 9. It consists of a variety of cubes, clyinders etc. In XNA I've imported the model okay and it shows correctly. However, when I apply rotation, each component in the model rotates around it's own centre. I want the model to rotate as a single unit. I've linked the components in 3D Max and they rotate as I want in Max. protected override void LoadContent() { spriteBatch = new SpriteBatch(GraphicsDevice); model = Content.Load<Model>("Models/Alien1"); } protected override void Update(GameTime gameTime) { camera.Update(1f, new Vector3(), graphics.GraphicsDevice.Viewport.AspectRatio); rotation += 0.1f; base.Update(gameTime); } protected override void Draw(GameTime gameTime) { GraphicsDevice.Clear(Color.CornflowerBlue); Matrix[] transforms = new Matrix[model.Bones.Count]; model.CopyAbsoluteBoneTransformsTo(transforms); Matrix worldMatrix = Matrix.Identity; Matrix rotationYMatrix = Matrix.CreateRotationY(rotation); Matrix translateMatrix = Matrix.CreateTranslation(location); worldMatrix = rotationYMatrix * translateMatrix; foreach (ModelMesh mesh in model.Meshes) { foreach (BasicEffect effect in mesh.Effects) { effect.World = worldMatrix * transforms[mesh.ParentBone.Index]; effect.View = camera.viewMatrix; effect.Projection = camera.projectionMatrix; effect.EnableDefaultLighting(); effect.PreferPerPixelLighting = true; } mesh.Draw(); } base.Draw(gameTime); } More Info: Rotating the object via it's properties works fine so I'm guessing there's something up with the code rather than with the object itself. Translating the object also causes the objects to get moved independently of each other rather than as a single model and each piece becomes spread around the scene. The model is in .X format.

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  • Should iOS games use a Timer?

    - by ????
    No matter what frameworks we use -- Core Graphics, Cocos2D, OpenGL ES -- to write games, should a timer be used (for games that has animation even when a user doesn't do any input, such as after firing a missile and waiting to see if the UFO is hit)? I read that NSTimer might not get fired until after scheduled time (interval), and CADisplayLink can delay and get fired at a later time as well, only that it tells you how late it is so you can move the object more, so it can make the object look like it skipped frame. Must we use a Timer? And if so, what is the best one to use?

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  • Collision representation in game overworlds

    - by Akroy
    I'm implementing a 2D overworld where one can walk through an area that is not tile based. I was wondering the best way to implement collisions. In the past when I've done similar things, I've used one image (or set of images) to show an elaborately drawn world and then a second binary image that does nothing but differentiate "wall" and "not wall". Then, I'd use the first for all drawing to the screen, but the second for collision detection. Having another image of the same size to represent collisions seems like lots of overhead. Is there a better way to handle this? (I'm currently using C++ with SDL, although I'm more interested in general concepts)

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  • Virtualization of the human race interactivity and beyond. [on hold]

    - by J Michael Caldwell
    We are in the processes of attempting this lofty goal. It requires multidiscipline advancements over long periods of time. Achieving this requires a great deal of science advancement including major programming and algorithm developments. These requirements are going to be ongoing and will be required well into the next century. Does anyone know of individuals or feel themselves that they might be knowledgable or interested in this endeavor? Details upon request. Thanks Michael

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  • Drawing Shape in DebugView (Farseer)

    - by keyvan kazemi
    As the title says, I need to draw a shape/polygon in Farseer using debugview. I have this piece of code which converts a Texture to polygon: //load texture that will represent the tray trayTexture = Content.Load<Texture2D>("tray"); //Create an array to hold the data from the texture uint[] data = new uint[trayTexture.Width * trayTexture.Height]; //Transfer the texture data to the array trayTexture.GetData(data); //Find the vertices that makes up the outline of the shape in the texture Vertices verts = PolygonTools.CreatePolygon(data, trayTexture.Width, false); //Since it is a concave polygon, we need to partition it into several smaller convex polygons _list = BayazitDecomposer.ConvexPartition(verts); Vector2 vertScale = new Vector2(ConvertUnits.ToSimUnits(1)); foreach (Vertices verti in _list) { verti.Scale(ref vertScale); } tray = BodyFactory.CreateCompoundPolygon(MyWorld, _list, 10); Now in DebugView I guess I have to use "DrawShape" method which requires: DrawShape(Fixture fixture, Transform xf, Color color) My question is how can I get the variables needed for this method, namely Fixture and Transform?

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  • Why Android for new (micro) consoles?

    - by Klaim
    There are a lot of new (micro) consoles with Android inside coming soon or already there (OUYA for example). My question is: why use Android and not another OS as base for these consoles? I assume that there are pragmatic answers to this but I can't see any clear killer feature. For example, one can assume that any stable Linux distribution would work (like Valve seem to think). Android is primarily targetted at mobile platforms which mean it is built around the idea of being interrupted which goes against a lot of what console devs needs in new hardware - but is not killing Android as a platform for gamedev either as it's just a constraint. Why not another OS? What's the Android killer features that make micro-console builder using it instead of Linux or anything else?

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  • Entity System with C++ templates

    - by tommaisey
    I've been getting interested in the Entity/Component style of game programming, and I've come up with a design in C++ which I'd like a critique of. I decided to go with a fairly pure Entity system, where entities are simply an ID number. Components are stored in a series of vectors - one for each Component type. However, I didn't want to have to add boilerplate code for every new Component type I added to the game. Nor did I want to use macros to do this, which frankly scare me. So I've come up with a system based on templates and type hinting. But there are some potential issues I'd like to check before I spend ages writing this (I'm a slow coder!) All Components derive from a Component base class. This base class has a protected constructor, that takes a string parameter. When you write a new derived Component class, you must initialise the base with the name of your new class in a string. When you first instantiate a new DerivedComponent, it adds the string to a static hashmap inside Component mapped to a unique integer id. When you subsequently instantiate more Components of the same type, no action is taken. The result (I think) should be a static hashmap with the name of each class derived from Component that you instantiate at least once, mapped to a unique id, which can by obtained with the static method Component::getTypeId ("DerivedComponent"). Phew. The next important part is TypedComponentList<typename PropertyType>. This is basically just a wrapper to an std::vector<typename PropertyType> with some useful methods. It also contains a hashmap of entity ID numbers to slots in the array so we can find Components by their entity owner. Crucially TypedComponentList<> is derived from the non-template class ComponentList. This allows me to maintain a list of pointers to ComponentList in my main ComponentManager, which actually point to TypedComponentLists with different template parameters (sneaky). The Component manager has template functions such as: template <typename ComponentType> void addProperty (ComponentType& component, int componentTypeId, int entityId) and: template <typename ComponentType> TypedComponentList<ComponentType>* getComponentList (int componentTypeId) which deal with casting from ComponentList to the correct TypedComponentList for you. So to get a list of a particular type of Component you call: TypedComponentList<MyComponent>* list = componentManager.getComponentList<MyComponent> (Component::getTypeId("MyComponent")); Which I'll admit looks pretty ugly. Bad points of the design: If a user of the code writes a new Component class but supplies the wrong string to the base constructor, the whole system will fail. Each time a new Component is instantiated, we must check a hashed string to see if that component type has bee instantiated before. Will probably generate a lot of assembly because of the extensive use of templates. I don't know how well the compiler will be able to minimise this. You could consider the whole system a bit complex - perhaps premature optimisation? But I want to use this code again and again, so I want it to be performant. Good points of the design: Components are stored in typed vectors but they can also be found by using their entity owner id as a hash. This means we can iterate them fast, and minimise cache misses, but also skip straight to the component we need if necessary. We can freely add Components of different types to the system without having to add and manage new Component vectors by hand. What do you think? Do the good points outweigh the bad?

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