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• Sprites are sometimes blurry in Flash

  - by Tim Cooper

  I am playing around with drawing an SVG sprite (imported in through [Embed]). Depending on the coordinates of the image, sometimes it appears more crisp than others. The following image shows how at different locations is it rendered differently: (Image link - You may have to download and zoom in with an image editor to see it) You'll notice that the middle sprite is more blurry than the ones on the sides. Does anyone know why this is? Any help would be appreciated.

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• Best approach for unit enemy "awareness" in RTS?

  - by Phil

  I'm using Unity3d to develop an RTS/TD hybrid prototype game. What is the best approach to have "awareness" between units and their enemies? Is it sane to have every unit check the distance to every enemy and engage if within range? The approach I'm going for right now is to have a trigger sphere on every unit. If an enemy enters the trigger, the unit becomes aware of the enemy and starts distance checking. I'm imagining that this would save some unnecessary checks? What's the best practice here (if there's such a thing)? Thanks for reading.

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• Is HTML5/WebGL performance bad on low-end Android tablets and phones?

  - by Boris van Schooten

  I've developed a couple of WebGL games, and am trying them out on Android. I found that they run very slowly on my tablet, however. For example, a game with 10 sprites or so runs as 5fps. I tried Chrome and CocoonJS, but they are comparably slow. I also tried other games, and even games with only 5 or so moving sprites are this slow. This seems inconsistent with reports from others, such as this benchmark. Typically, when people talk about HTML5 game performance, they mention well-known and higher-end phones and tables. While my 7" tablet is cheap (I believe it's a relabeled Allwinner tablet, apparently with the Mali 400 GPU), I found it generally has a good gaming performance. All the games I tried run smoothly. I also developed an OpenGL ES 2 demo with 200 shaded 3D objects, and it ran at 50fps. My suspicion is that many low-end and white-label devices may have unacceptable HTML5/WebGL support, which means there may be a large section of gamers you will not reach when you choose this as your platform. I've heard rumors about inconsistent performance of HTML5 and WebGL on different devices, but no clear picture emerges. I would like to hear if any of you have had similar experiences with HTML5 or WebGL, or whether I can find information about the percentage of devices I can expect to have decent performance.

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• Which techniques to study?

  - by Djentleman

  Just to give you some background info, I'm studying a programming major at a tertiary level and am in my third year, so I'm not a newbie off the street. However, I am still quite new to game programming as a subset of programming. One of my personal projects for next semester is to design and create a 2D platformer game with emphasis on procedural generation and "neato" effects (think metroidvania). I've written up a list of some techniques to help me improve my personal skills (using XNA for the time being). The list is as follows: QuadTrees: Build a basic program in XNA that moves basic 2D sprites (circles and squares) around a set path and speed and changes their colour when they collide. Add functionality to add and delete objects of different sizes (select a direction and speed when adding and just drag and drop them in). Particles: Build a basic program in XNA in which you can select different colours and create particle effects of those colours on screen by clicking and dragging the mouse around (simple particles emerging from where the mouse is clicked). Add functionality where you can change the amount of particles to be drawn and the speed at which they travel and when they expire. Possibly implement gravity and wind after part 3 is complete. Physics: Build a basic program in XNA where you have a ball in a set 2D environment, a wind slider, and a gravity slider (can go to negative for reverse gravity). You can click to drag the ball around and release to throw it and, depending on what you do, the ball interacts with the environment. Implement other shapes afterwards. Random 2D terrain generation: Build a basic program in XNA that randomly generates terrain (including hills, caves, etc) created from 2D tiles. Add functionality that draws the tiles from a tileset and places different tiles depending on where they lie on the y-axis (dirt on top, then rock, then lava, etc). Randomised objects: Build a basic program in XNA that, when a button is clicked, displays a randomised item sprite based on parameters (type, colour, etc) with the images pulled from tilesets. Add the ability to save the item as an object, which stores it in a side-pane where it can be selected for viewing. Movement: Build a basic program in XNA where you can move an object around in an environment (tile-based) with a camera that pans with it. No gravity. Implement gravity and wind, allow the character to jump and fall with some basic platforms. So my question is this: Are there any other commonly used techniques that I should research, and can I get some suggestions as to the effectiveness of the techniques I've chosen to work on (e.g., don't do QuadTree stuff because [insert reason here], or, do [insert technique here] before you start working on particles because [insert reason here])? I hope this is clear enough and please let me know if I can further clarify anything!

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• Where can i get the openal sdk for c++?

  - by Peter Short

  The OpenAL site I'm looking at is a crappy outdated and broken sharepoint portal and the SDK in the downloads section give me a 500 html code when i request it. http://connect.creativelabs.com/openal/Downloads/OpenAL11CoreSDK.zip I found an OpenAL SDK on a softpedia and it has headers but not alu.h or alut.h which the tutorials I'm looking at apparently require for loading wavs etc. What am I missing? Is OpenAL dead or something?

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• Speeding up procedural texture generation

  - by FalconNL

  Recently I've begun working on a game that takes place in a procedurally generated solar system. After a bit of a learning curve (having neither worked with Scala, OpenGL 2 ES or Libgdx before), I have a basic tech demo going where you spin around a single procedurally textured planet: The problem I'm running into is the performance of the texture generation. A quick overview of what I'm doing: a planet is a cube that has been deformed to a sphere. To each side, a n x n (e.g. 256 x 256) texture is applied, which are bundled in one 8n x n texture that is sent to the fragment shader. The last two spaces are not used, they're only there to make sure the width is a power of 2. The texture is currently generated on the CPU, using the updated 2012 version of the simplex noise algorithm linked to in the paper 'Simplex noise demystified'. The scene I'm using to test the algorithm contains two spheres: the planet and the background. Both use a greyscale texture consisting of six octaves of 3D simplex noise, so for example if we choose 128x128 as the texture size there are 128 x 128 x 6 x 2 x 6 = about 1.2 million calls to the noise function. The closest you will get to the planet is about what's shown in the screenshot and since the game's target resolution is 1280x720 that means I'd prefer to use 512x512 textures. Combine that with the fact the actual textures will of course be more complicated than basic noise (There will be a day and night texture, blended in the fragment shader based on sunlight, and a specular mask. I need noise for continents, terrain color variation, clouds, city lights, etc.) and we're looking at something like 512 x 512 x 6 x 3 x 15 = 70 million noise calls for the planet alone. In the final game, there will be activities when traveling between planets, so a wait of 5 or 10 seconds, possibly 20, would be acceptable since I can calculate the texture in the background while traveling, though obviously the faster the better. Getting back to our test scene, performance on my PC isn't too terrible, though still too slow considering the final result is going to be about 60 times worse: 128x128 : 0.1s 256x256 : 0.4s 512x512 : 1.7s This is after I moved all performance-critical code to Java, since trying to do so in Scala was a lot worse. Running this on my phone (a Samsung Galaxy S3), however, produces a more problematic result: 128x128 : 2s 256x256 : 7s 512x512 : 29s Already far too long, and that's not even factoring in the fact that it'll be minutes instead of seconds in the final version. Clearly something needs to be done. Personally, I see a few potential avenues, though I'm not particularly keen on any of them yet: Don't precalculate the textures, but let the fragment shader calculate everything. Probably not feasible, because at one point I had the background as a fullscreen quad with a pixel shader and I got about 1 fps on my phone. Use the GPU to render the texture once, store it and use the stored texture from then on. Upside: might be faster than doing it on the CPU since the GPU is supposed to be faster at floating point calculations. Downside: effects that cannot (easily) be expressed as functions of simplex noise (e.g. gas planet vortices, moon craters, etc.) are a lot more difficult to code in GLSL than in Scala/Java. Calculate a large amount of noise textures and ship them with the application. I'd like to avoid this if at all possible. Lower the resolution. Buys me a 4x performance gain, which isn't really enough plus I lose a lot of quality. Find a faster noise algorithm. If anyone has one I'm all ears, but simplex is already supposed to be faster than perlin. Adopt a pixel art style, allowing for lower resolution textures and fewer noise octaves. While I originally envisioned the game in this style, I've come to prefer the realistic approach. I'm doing something wrong and the performance should already be one or two orders of magnitude better. If this is the case, please let me know. If anyone has any suggestions, tips, workarounds, or other comments regarding this problem I'd love to hear them.

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• Vehicle: Boat accelerating and turning in Unity

  - by Emilios S.

  I'm trying to make a player-controllable boat in Unity and I'm running into problems with my code. 1) I want to make the boat to accelerate and decelerate steadily instead of simply moving the speed I'm telling it to right away. 2) I want to make the player unable to steer the boat unless it is moving. 3) If possible, I want to simulate the vertical floating of a boat during its movement (it going up and down) My current code (C#) is this: using UnityEngine; using System.Collections; public class VehicleScript : MonoBehaviour { public float speed=10; public float rotationspeed=50; // Use this for initialization // Update is called once per frame void Update () { // Forward movement if(Input.GetKey(KeyCode.I)) speed = transform.Translate (Vector3.left*speed*Time.deltaTime); // Backward movement if(Input.GetKey(KeyCode.K)) transform.Translate (Vector3.right*speed*Time.deltaTime); // Left movement if(Input.GetKey(KeyCode.J)) transform.Rotate (Vector3.down*rotationspeed*Time.deltaTime); // Right movement if(Input.GetKey(KeyCode.L)) transform.Rotate (Vector3.up*rotationspeed*Time.deltaTime); } } In the current state of my code, when I press the specified keys, the boat simply moves 10 units/sec instantly, and also stops instantly. I'm not really sure how to make the things stated above, so any help would be appreciated. Just to clarify, I don't necessarily need the full code to implement those features, I just want to know what functions to use in order to achieve the desired effects. Thank you very much.

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• frame lock networking

  - by kochol

  I'm developing an RTS game and I want to add multiplayer support to my game. I picked the easiest technique to implement for start frame locking technique. I used server client networking architecture (I think it's my first mistake I think using peer to peer is a better one for this) On game update every clients send their commands and maybe receive some command then render the frame and wait for all clients to send their update complete message then all of them can go for the next frame. I send commands and all logic is calculated on the clients based on commands but the clients can go out of sync easily. Every AI controlled units make different decisions on each clients What I have to do to sync my game? Do you suggest me a better network architecture or technique?

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• Handling player logoff and logon in a persistent world without breaking immersion

  - by Boreal

  One problem I've never seen fixed in any persistent online game is how to handle player logon and logoff without the characters just popping in and out of the world. My first thought is to simply make a player's offline state as their character being asleep, but that doesn't make sense in the event of a disconnect and not an intentional logoff. How would you fix this, if you would even bother fixing it at all?

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• Unity Android: Truecolor texture performance hit and alternatives for truecolor

  - by Esa

  After integrating the graphics assets to my application, I noticed that when the textures are compressed they look very bad compared to truecolor. This happens to all the textures and it did not seem to help changing the texture type to GUI nor did it help to switch the 32-bit display buffering on. Does using truecolor textures make the application much heavier to run? Or does it just increase the size of the .APK? Are there alternatives to getting a good texture quality and a smaller texture size instead of using truecolor?

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• Tile Collision & Sliding against tiles

  - by Devin Rawlek

  I have a tile based map with a top down camera. My sprite stops moving when he collides with a wall in any of the four directions however I am trying to get the sprite to slide along the wall if more than one directional key is pressed after being stopped. Tiles are set to 32 x 32. Here is my code; // Gets Tile Player Is Standing On var splatterTileX = (int)player.Position.X / Engine.TileWidth; var splatterTileY = (int)player.Position.Y / Engine.TileHeight; // Foreach Layer In World Splatter Map Layers foreach (var layer in WorldSplatterTileMapLayers) { // If Sprite Is Not On Any Edges if (splatterTileX < layer.Width - 1 && splatterTileX > 0 && splatterTileY < layer.Height - 1 && splatterTileY > 0) { tileN = layer.GetTile(splatterTileX, splatterTileY - 1); // North tileNE = layer.GetTile(splatterTileX + 1, splatterTileY - 1); // North-East tileE = layer.GetTile(splatterTileX + 1, splatterTileY); // East tileSE = layer.GetTile(splatterTileX + 1, splatterTileY + 1); // South-East tileS = layer.GetTile(splatterTileX, splatterTileY + 1); // South tileSW = layer.GetTile(splatterTileX - 1, splatterTileY + 1); // South-West tileW = layer.GetTile(splatterTileX - 1, splatterTileY); // West tileNW = layer.GetTile(splatterTileX - 1, splatterTileY - 1); // North-West } // If Sprite Is Not On Any X Edges And Is On -Y Edge if (splatterTileX < layer.Width - 1 && splatterTileX > 0 && splatterTileY == 0) { tileE = layer.GetTile(splatterTileX + 1, splatterTileY); // East tileSE = layer.GetTile(splatterTileX + 1, splatterTileY + 1); // South-East tileS = layer.GetTile(splatterTileX, splatterTileY + 1); // South tileSW = layer.GetTile(splatterTileX - 1, splatterTileY + 1); // South-West tileW = layer.GetTile(splatterTileX - 1, splatterTileY); // West } // If Sprite Is On +X And -Y Edges if (splatterTileX == layer.Width - 1 && splatterTileY == 0) { tileS = layer.GetTile(splatterTileX, splatterTileY + 1); // South tileSW = layer.GetTile(splatterTileX - 1, splatterTileY + 1); // South-West tileW = layer.GetTile(splatterTileX - 1, splatterTileY); // West } // If Sprite Is On +X Edge And Y Is Not On Any Edge if (splatterTileX == layer.Width - 1 && splatterTileY < layer.Height - 1 && splatterTileY > 0) { tileS = layer.GetTile(splatterTileX, splatterTileY + 1); // South tileSW = layer.GetTile(splatterTileX - 1, splatterTileY + 1); // South-West tileW = layer.GetTile(splatterTileX - 1, splatterTileY); // West tileNW = layer.GetTile(splatterTileX - 1, splatterTileY - 1); // North-West tileN = layer.GetTile(splatterTileX, splatterTileY - 1); // North } // If Sprite Is On +X And +Y Edges if (splatterTileX == layer.Width - 1 && splatterTileY == layer.Height - 1) { tileW = layer.GetTile(splatterTileX - 1, splatterTileY); // West tileNW = layer.GetTile(splatterTileX - 1, splatterTileY - 1); // North-West tileN = layer.GetTile(splatterTileX, splatterTileY - 1); // North } // If Sprite Is Not On Any X Edges And Is On +Y Edge if (splatterTileX < (layer.Width - 1) && splatterTileX > 0 && splatterTileY == layer.Height - 1) { tileW = layer.GetTile(splatterTileX - 1, splatterTileY); // West tileNW = layer.GetTile(splatterTileX - 1, splatterTileY - 1); // North-West tileN = layer.GetTile(splatterTileX, splatterTileY - 1); // North tileNE = layer.GetTile(splatterTileX + 1, splatterTileY - 1); // North-East tileE = layer.GetTile(splatterTileX + 1, splatterTileY); // East } // If Sprite Is On -X And +Y Edges if (splatterTileX == 0 && splatterTileY == layer.Height - 1) { tileN = layer.GetTile(splatterTileX, splatterTileY - 1); // North tileNE = layer.GetTile(splatterTileX + 1, splatterTileY - 1); // North-East tileE = layer.GetTile(splatterTileX + 1, splatterTileY); // East } // If Sprite Is On -X Edge And Y Is Not On Any Edges if (splatterTileX == 0 && splatterTileY < (layer.Height - 1) && splatterTileY > 0) { tileN = layer.GetTile(splatterTileX, splatterTileY - 1); // North tileNE = layer.GetTile(splatterTileX + 1, splatterTileY - 1); // North-East tileE = layer.GetTile(splatterTileX + 1, splatterTileY); // East tileSE = layer.GetTile(splatterTileX + 1, splatterTileY + 1); // South-East tileS = layer.GetTile(splatterTileX, splatterTileY + 1); // South } // If Sprite Is In The Top Left Corner if (splatterTileX == 0 && splatterTileY == 0) { tileE = layer.GetTile(splatterTileX + 1, splatterTileY); // East tileSE = layer.GetTile(splatterTileX + 1, splatterTileY + 1); // South-East tileS = layer.GetTile(splatterTileX, splatterTileY + 1); // South } // Creates A New Rectangle For TileN tileN.TileRectangle = new Rectangle(splatterTileX * Engine.TileWidth, (splatterTileY - 1) * Engine.TileHeight, Engine.TileWidth, Engine.TileHeight); // Tile Collision Detection Between Player Rectangle And N Tile var tileNCollision = player.Rectangle.Intersects(tileN.TileRectangle); // Creates A New Rectangle For TileNE tileNE.TileRectangle = new Rectangle((splatterTileX + 1) * Engine.TileWidth, (splatterTileY - 1) * Engine.TileHeight, Engine.TileWidth, Engine.TileHeight); // Tile Collision Detection Between Player Rectangle And NE Tile var tileNECollision = player.Rectangle.Intersects(tileNE.TileRectangle); // Creates A New Rectangle For TileE tileE.TileRectangle = new Rectangle((splatterTileX + 1) * Engine.TileWidth, splatterTileY * Engine.TileHeight, Engine.TileWidth, Engine.TileHeight); // Tile Collision Detection Between Player Rectangle And E Tile var tileECollision = player.Rectangle.Intersects(tileE.TileRectangle); // Creates A New Rectangle For TileSE tileSE.TileRectangle = new Rectangle((splatterTileX + 1) * Engine.TileWidth, (splatterTileY + 1) * Engine.TileHeight, Engine.TileWidth, Engine.TileHeight); // Tile Collision Detection Between Player Rectangle And SE Tile var tileSECollision = player.Rectangle.Intersects(tileSE.TileRectangle); // Creates A New Rectangle For TileS tileS.TileRectangle = new Rectangle(splatterTileX * Engine.TileWidth, (splatterTileY + 1) * Engine.TileHeight, Engine.TileWidth, Engine.TileHeight); // Tile Collision Detection Between Player Rectangle And S Tile var tileSCollision = player.Rectangle.Intersects(tileS.TileRectangle); // Creates A New Rectangle For TileSW tileSW.TileRectangle = new Rectangle((splatterTileX - 1) * Engine.TileWidth, (splatterTileY + 1) * Engine.TileHeight, Engine.TileWidth, Engine.TileHeight); // Tile Collision Detection Between Player Rectangle And SW Tile var tileSWCollision = player.Rectangle.Intersects(tileSW.TileRectangle); // Creates A New Rectangle For TileW tileW.TileRectangle = new Rectangle((splatterTileX - 1) * Engine.TileWidth, splatterTileY * Engine.TileHeight, Engine.TileWidth, Engine.TileHeight); // Tile Collision Detection Between Player Rectangle And Current Tile var tileWCollision = player.Rectangle.Intersects(tileW.TileRectangle); // Creates A New Rectangle For TileNW tileNW.TileRectangle = new Rectangle((splatterTileX - 1) * Engine.TileWidth, (splatterTileY - 1) * Engine.TileHeight, Engine.TileWidth, Engine.TileHeight); // Tile Collision Detection Between Player Rectangle And Current Tile var tileNWCollision = player.Rectangle.Intersects(tileNW.TileRectangle); // Allow Sprite To Occupy More Than One Tile if (tileNCollision && tileN.TileBlocked == false) { tileN.TileOccupied = true; } if (tileECollision && tileE.TileBlocked == false) { tileE.TileOccupied = true; } if (tileSCollision && tileS.TileBlocked == false) { tileS.TileOccupied = true; } if (tileWCollision && tileW.TileBlocked == false) { tileW.TileOccupied = true; } // Player Up if (keyState.IsKeyDown(Keys.W) || (gamePadOneState.DPad.Up == ButtonState.Pressed)) { player.CurrentAnimation = AnimationKey.Up; if (tileN.TileOccupied == false) { if (tileNWCollision && tileNW.TileBlocked || tileNCollision && tileN.TileBlocked || tileNECollision && tileNE.TileBlocked) { playerMotion.Y = 0; } else playerMotion.Y = -1; } else if (tileN.TileOccupied) { if (tileNWCollision && tileNW.TileBlocked || tileNECollision && tileNE.TileBlocked) { playerMotion.Y = 0; } else playerMotion.Y = -1; } } // Player Down if (keyState.IsKeyDown(Keys.S) || (gamePadOneState.DPad.Down == ButtonState.Pressed)) { player.CurrentAnimation = AnimationKey.Down; // Check Collision With Tiles if (tileS.TileOccupied == false) { if (tileSWCollision && tileSW.TileBlocked || tileSCollision && tileS.TileBlocked || tileSECollision && tileSE.TileBlocked) { playerMotion.Y = 0; } else playerMotion.Y = 1; } else if (tileS.TileOccupied) { if (tileSWCollision && tileSW.TileBlocked || tileSECollision && tileSE.TileBlocked) { playerMotion.Y = 0; } else playerMotion.Y = 1; } } // Player Left if (keyState.IsKeyDown(Keys.A) || (gamePadOneState.DPad.Left == ButtonState.Pressed)) { player.CurrentAnimation = AnimationKey.Left; if (tileW.TileOccupied == false) { if (tileNWCollision && tileNW.TileBlocked || tileWCollision && tileW.TileBlocked || tileSWCollision && tileSW.TileBlocked) { playerMotion.X = 0; } else playerMotion.X = -1; } else if (tileW.TileOccupied) { if (tileNWCollision && tileNW.TileBlocked || tileSWCollision && tileSW.TileBlocked) { playerMotion.X = 0; } else playerMotion.X = -1; } } // Player Right if (keyState.IsKeyDown(Keys.D) || (gamePadOneState.DPad.Right == ButtonState.Pressed)) { player.CurrentAnimation = AnimationKey.Right; if (tileE.TileOccupied == false) { if (tileNECollision && tileNE.TileBlocked || tileECollision && tileE.TileBlocked || tileSECollision && tileSE.TileBlocked) { playerMotion.X = 0; } else playerMotion.X = 1; } else if (tileE.TileOccupied) { if (tileNECollision && tileNE.TileBlocked || tileSECollision && tileSE.TileBlocked) { playerMotion.X = 0; } else playerMotion.X = 1; } } I have my tile detection setup so the 8 tiles around the sprite are the only ones detected. The collision variable is true if the sprites rectangle intersects with one of the detected tiles. The sprites origin is centered at 16, 16 on the image so whenever this point goes over to the next tile it calls the surrounding tiles. I am trying to have collision detection like in the game Secret of Mana. If I remove the diagonal checks the sprite will pass through thoses tiles because whichever tile the sprites origin is on will be the detection center. So if the sprite is near the edge of the tile and then goes up it looks like half the sprite is walking through the wall. Is there a way for the detection to occur for each tile the sprite's rectangle touches?

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• Voxel Engine in Multiplayer?

  - by Oliver Schöning

  This is a question more out of Interest for now, because I am not even near to the point that I could create this project at the moment. I really like the progress on the Atomontage Engine. A Voxel engine that is WIP at the moment. I would like to create a Voxel SERVER eventually. First in JavaScript (That's what I am learning right now) later perhaps in C++ for speed. Remember, I am perfectly aware that this is very hard! This is a brainstorm for the next 10 years as for now. What I would like to achieve one day is a Multiplayer Game in the Browser where the voxels positions are updated by XYZ input from the server. The Browser Does only 3 things: sending player input to the server, updating Voxel positions send from the server and rendering the world. I imagine using something like the Three.js libary on the client side. So that would be my programming dream right there... Now to something simpler for the near future. Right now I am learning javascript. And I am making games with Construct2. (A really cool JavaScript "game maker") The plan is to create a 2D Voxel enviorment (Block Voxels) on the Socket.IO Server* and send the position of the Voxels and Players to the Client side which then positions the Voxel Blocks to the Server Output coordinates. I think that is a bit more manageable then the other bigger idea. And also there should be no worries about speed with this type of project in JavaScript (I hope). Extra Info: *I am using nodejs (Without really knowing what it does besides making Socket.IO work) So now some questions: Is the "dream project" doable in JavaScript? Or is C++ just the best option because it does not take as long to be interpreted at run time like JavaScript? What are the limitations? I can think of some: Need of a Powerful server depending on how much information the server has to process. Internet Speed; Sending the data of the Voxel positions to every player could add up being very high! The browser FPS might go down quickly if rendering to many objects. One way of fixing reducing the packages Could be to let the browser calculate some of the Voxel positions from Several Values. But that would slow down the Client side too. What about the more achievable project? I am almost 100% convinced that this is possible in JavaScript, and that there are several ways of doing this. This is just XY position Updating for now.. Hope this did make some sense. Please comment if you got something to say :D

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• OpenGL Performance Questions

  - by Daniel

  This subject, as with any optimisation problem, gets hit on a lot, but I just couldn't find what I (think) I want. A lot of tutorials, and even SO questions have similar tips; generally covering: Use GL face culling (the OpenGL function, not the scene logic) Only send 1 matrix to the GPU (projectionModelView combination), therefore decreasing the MVP calculations from per vertex to once per model (as it should be). Use interleaved Vertices Minimize as many GL calls as possible, batch where appropriate And possibly a few/many others. I am (for curiosity reasons) rendering 28 million triangles in my application using several vertex buffers. I have tried all the above techniques (to the best of my knowledge), and received almost no performance change. Whilst I am receiving around 40FPS in my implementation, which is by no means problematic, I am still curious as to where these optimisation 'tips' actually come into use? My CPU is idling around 20-50% during rendering, therefore I assume I am GPU bound for increasing performance. Note: I am looking into gDEBugger at the moment Cross posted at StackOverflow

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• How can I find the right UV coordinates for interpolating a bezier curve?

  - by ssb

  I'll let this picture do the talking. I'm trying to create a mesh from a bezier curve and then add a texture to it. The problem here is that the interpolation points along the curve do not increase linearly, so points farther from the control point (near the endpoints) stretch and those in the bend contract, causing the texture to be uneven across the curve, which can be problematic when using a pattern like stripes on a road. How can I determine how far along the curve the vertices actually are so I can give a proper UV coordinate? EDIT: Allow me to clarify that I'm not talking about the trapezoidal distortion of the roads. That I know is normal and I'm not concerned about. I've updated the image to show more clearly where my concerns are. Interpolating over the curve I get 10 segments, but each of these 10 segments is not spaced at an equal point along the curve, so I have to account for this in assigning UV data to vertices or else the road texture will stretch/shrink depending on how far apart vertices are at that particular part of the curve.

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• SDL & Windows 8 Metro WinRT

  - by Adrian

  I am just beginning to dip my tow into game programming and have been reading up on SDL, SFML, OpenGL, XNA, MonoGame and of course DirectX. (Needless to say there are a lot of choices out there) As much as I like SFMLs syntax I have chosen to read up and start with SDL as it is pretty ubiquitous and available on every platform (Windows, Linux, Mac) and also available on portable devices (Android, iOS) with the current exception of WinPhone 7 After that pre-amble here is my question. I notice that the docs say that for the windows platform the SDL API calls through to DirectX for higher perf. ( http://www.libsdl.org/intro.en/whatplatforms.html ) Microsoft have said that for Metro Game Apps you can only use DirectX (which means no XNA, no OpenGL, no SFML, etc, etc) My question is: If SDL just wraps DirectX calls will I (we) be able to use SDL to bring games to the new Metro WinRT environment and Windows 8 marketplace? This would be great if possible. Additionally as WinPhone 8 is supposedly built on Win8 then this could mean SDL would be available on the win phone in the future too. Thanks for your time in responding to this question and I look forward to hearing your response. EDIT: Based on DeadMG's answer I have installed Visual Studio 11 (beta) in Windows 8 Consumer Preview (CP) and went file-New to check project types. The project types: "Blank Application", "Direct2D Application" and "Direct3D Application" look of interest. I have selected "Direct2D App" but SDL generates its own window when you call: SDL_INIT Is it possible to link/setup the SDL window to point to the Direct2D surface in the this project?

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• Spreadsheets in Game Design?

  - by Joey Green

  There have been two instances from the past two weeks that I've heard from well known successful game developers that they use spreadsheets when designing games. The first being David Whatley in this GDCVault video: http://gdcvault.com/play/1012372/From-Zero-to-Time-Magazine The second being the guys that do Walled Garden Weekly: http://walledgardenweekly.com/ David said he models everything out and uses excel models to see how everything plays out. What on earth is he talking about? Is it seeing how the game mechanics react to each other? Is there somewhere where I can learn more about how to do this? Thanks

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• How to control in the vertex shader where pixel ends up in the renderTarget?

  - by cubrman

  What if I have an arbitrary renderTarget, that is smaller than the screen (say it is 1x1 pixel) and I want to make sure in the VertexShaderFunction that all my pixels end up exactly in that 1 pixel region? No matter what I do, they all seem to get culled at some point, though GraphicDevise.Clear() works OK. Where is the top left corner of the renderTarget Vertex-shader-vise? I tried output.Position = (0,0,0,0)/(0,0,0,1)/(1,1,1,1)/(-0.5,0.5,0,1) NOTHING works! Fullscreen quad is not an option 'cause I actually need to process geometry in the shaders to get the results I need.

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• XNA: Rotating Bones

  - by MLM

  XNA 4.0 I am trying to learn how to rotate bones on a very simple tank model I made in Cinema 4D. It is rigged by 3 bones, Root - Main - Turret - Barrel I have binded all of the objects to the bones so that all translations/rotations work as planned in C4D. I exported it as .fbx I based my test project after: http://create.msdn.com/en-US/education/catalog/sample/simple_animation I can build successfully with no errors but all the rotations I try to do to my bones have no effect. I can transform my Root successfully using below but the bone transforms have no effect: myModel.Root.Transform = world; Matrix turretRotation = Matrix.CreateRotationY(MathHelper.ToRadians(37)); Matrix barrelRotation = Matrix.CreateRotationX(barrelRotationValue); MainBone.Transform = MainTransform; TurretBone.Transform = turretRotation * TurretTransform; BarrelBone.Transform = barrelRotation * BarrelTransform; I am wondering if my model is just not right or something important I am missing in the code. Here is my Game1.cs using System; using System.Collections.Generic; using System.Linq; using Microsoft.Xna.Framework; using Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Audio; using Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Content; using Microsoft.Xna.Framework.GamerServices; using Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Graphics; using Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Input; using Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Media; namespace ModelTesting { /// <summary> /// This is the main type for your game /// </summary> public class Game1 : Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Game { GraphicsDeviceManager graphics; SpriteBatch spriteBatch; float aspectRatio; Tank myModel; public Game1() { graphics = new GraphicsDeviceManager(this); Content.RootDirectory = "Content"; } /// <summary> /// Allows the game to perform any initialization it needs to before starting to run. /// This is where it can query for any required services and load any non-graphic /// related content. Calling base.Initialize will enumerate through any components /// and initialize them as well. /// </summary> protected override void Initialize() { // TODO: Add your initialization logic here myModel = new Tank(); base.Initialize(); } /// <summary> /// LoadContent will be called once per game and is the place to load /// all of your content. /// </summary> protected override void LoadContent() { // Create a new SpriteBatch, which can be used to draw textures. spriteBatch = new SpriteBatch(GraphicsDevice); // TODO: use this.Content to load your game content here myModel.Load(Content); aspectRatio = graphics.GraphicsDevice.Viewport.AspectRatio; } /// <summary> /// UnloadContent will be called once per game and is the place to unload /// all content. /// </summary> protected override void UnloadContent() { // TODO: Unload any non ContentManager content here } /// <summary> /// Allows the game to run logic such as updating the world, /// checking for collisions, gathering input, and playing audio. /// </summary> /// <param name="gameTime">Provides a snapshot of timing values.</param> protected override void Update(GameTime gameTime) { // Allows the game to exit if (GamePad.GetState(PlayerIndex.One).Buttons.Back == ButtonState.Pressed) this.Exit(); // TODO: Add your update logic here float time = (float)gameTime.TotalGameTime.TotalSeconds; // Move the pieces /* myModel.TurretRotation = (float)Math.Sin(time * 0.333f) * 1.25f; myModel.BarrelRotation = (float)Math.Sin(time * 0.25f) * 0.333f - 0.333f; */ base.Update(gameTime); } /// <summary> /// This is called when the game should draw itself. /// </summary> /// <param name="gameTime">Provides a snapshot of timing values.</param> protected override void Draw(GameTime gameTime) { GraphicsDevice.Clear(Color.CornflowerBlue); // Calculate the camera matrices. float time = (float)gameTime.TotalGameTime.TotalSeconds; Matrix rotation = Matrix.CreateRotationY(MathHelper.ToRadians(45)); Matrix view = Matrix.CreateLookAt(new Vector3(2000, 500, 0), new Vector3(0, 150, 0), Vector3.Up); Matrix projection = Matrix.CreatePerspectiveFieldOfView(MathHelper.PiOver4, graphics.GraphicsDevice.Viewport.AspectRatio, 10, 10000); // TODO: Add your drawing code here myModel.Draw(rotation, view, projection); base.Draw(gameTime); } } } And here is my tank class: using System; using System.Collections.Generic; using System.Linq; using Microsoft.Xna.Framework; using Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Audio; using Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Content; using Microsoft.Xna.Framework.GamerServices; using Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Graphics; using Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Input; using Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Media; namespace ModelTesting { public class Tank { Model myModel; // Array holding all the bone transform matrices for the entire model. // We could just allocate this locally inside the Draw method, but it // is more efficient to reuse a single array, as this avoids creating // unnecessary garbage. public Matrix[] boneTransforms; // Shortcut references to the bones that we are going to animate. // We could just look these up inside the Draw method, but it is more // efficient to do the lookups while loading and cache the results. ModelBone MainBone; ModelBone TurretBone; ModelBone BarrelBone; // Store the original transform matrix for each animating bone. Matrix MainTransform; Matrix TurretTransform; Matrix BarrelTransform; // current animation positions float turretRotationValue; float barrelRotationValue; /// <summary> /// Gets or sets the turret rotation amount. /// </summary> public float TurretRotation { get { return turretRotationValue; } set { turretRotationValue = value; } } /// <summary> /// Gets or sets the barrel rotation amount. /// </summary> public float BarrelRotation { get { return barrelRotationValue; } set { barrelRotationValue = value; } } /// <summary> /// Load the model /// </summary> public void Load(ContentManager Content) { // TODO: use this.Content to load your game content here myModel = Content.Load<Model>("Models\\simple_tank02"); MainBone = myModel.Bones["Main"]; TurretBone = myModel.Bones["Turret"]; BarrelBone = myModel.Bones["Barrel"]; MainTransform = MainBone.Transform; TurretTransform = TurretBone.Transform; BarrelTransform = BarrelBone.Transform; // Allocate the transform matrix array. boneTransforms = new Matrix[myModel.Bones.Count]; } public void Draw(Matrix world, Matrix view, Matrix projection) { myModel.Root.Transform = world; Matrix turretRotation = Matrix.CreateRotationY(MathHelper.ToRadians(37)); Matrix barrelRotation = Matrix.CreateRotationX(barrelRotationValue); MainBone.Transform = MainTransform; TurretBone.Transform = turretRotation * TurretTransform; BarrelBone.Transform = barrelRotation * BarrelTransform; myModel.CopyAbsoluteBoneTransformsTo(boneTransforms); // Draw the model, a model can have multiple meshes, so loop foreach (ModelMesh mesh in myModel.Meshes) { // This is where the mesh orientation is set foreach (BasicEffect effect in mesh.Effects) { effect.World = boneTransforms[mesh.ParentBone.Index]; effect.View = view; effect.Projection = projection; effect.EnableDefaultLighting(); } // Draw the mesh, will use the effects set above mesh.Draw(); } } } }

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• Java Slick2d Animation not working

  - by user3558075

  Hello everyone I am trying to make a simple 2d game using java and the slick2d library. this is my first time doing it and i need some help. right now I am trying to make the Animations for the character, so that when you go right he turns right and when you go left he turns left... but I keep getting an error when im drawing the character, ive try'd re-downloading slick but that didnt work. when i get rid of the player.draw(x,y); line of code it dosen't crash but the character isnt there. heres my code, can anyone help? package enteties; import input.Keyinput; import org.newdawn.slick.Animation; import org.newdawn.slick.GameContainer; import org.newdawn.slick.Graphics; import org.newdawn.slick.Image; import org.newdawn.slick.Input; import org.newdawn.slick.SlickException; import org.newdawn.slick.state.BasicGameState; import org.newdawn.slick.state.StateBasedGame; import playerinfo.Playerinfo; public class Player extends BasicGameState{ Playerinfo pi = new Playerinfo(); Keyinput ki = new Keyinput(); Animation player,up,down,left,right; public void init(GameContainer gc, StateBasedGame sbg) throws SlickException { Image[] goingUp = {new Image("res/buckysBack.png") , new Image("res/charBack.png")}; Image[] goingDown = {new Image("res/buckysFront.png") , new Image("res/charFront.png")}; Image[] goingLeft = {new Image("res/buckysLeft.png") , new Image("res/charLeft.png")}; Image[] goingRight = {new Image("res/buckysRight.png") , new Image("res/charRight.png")}; int[] duration = {200,200}; Animation up = new Animation(goingUp,duration,false); Animation down = new Animation(goingDown,duration,false); Animation left = new Animation(goingLeft,duration,false); Animation right = new Animation(goingRight,duration,false); player = up; } public void render(GameContainer gc, StateBasedGame sbg, Graphics g) throws SlickException { //error happens here, when i remove this line it dosent crash player.draw(720,450); } public void update(GameContainer gc, StateBasedGame sbg, int delta) throws SlickException { } public int getID() { return 0; } }

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• Slick and Timers?

  - by user3491043

  I'm making a game where I need events to happen in a precise amount of time. Explanation : I want that event A happens at 12000ms, and event B happens every 10000ms. So "if"s should looks like this. //event A if(Ticks == 12000) //do things //even B if(Ticks % 10000 == 0) //do stuff But now how can I have this "Ticks" value ? I tried to declare an int and then increasing it in the update method, I tried 2 ways of increasing it : Ticks++; It doesn't works because the update method is not always called every microseconds. Ticks += delta; It's kinda good but the delta is not always equals to 1, so I can miss the precise values I need in the if statements So if you know how can I do events in a precise amount of time please tell me how can I do this

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• Swinging a sword in Xcode with Sprite Kit

  - by jking14

  I'm working on making an RPG in Xcode, and I'm having a major gameplay issue when it comes to having my character swing his sword in a way that is realistic and gameplay compatible. Right now, when the player taps the screen and the sword is in one of the player's hand, it rotates the upright sword 90 degrees. The sword which is a parent of the player floats in front of the player because of a collision issue I'm looking for any advice anyone can give on how to add a sword to the game and have it swing in a way that looks somewhat realistic and can damage enemies that are more than a single pixel away from the player

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• Role of systems in entity systems architecture

  - by bio595

  I've been reading a lot about entity components and systems and have thought that the idea of an entity just being an ID is quite interesting. However I don't know how this completely works with the components aspect or the systems aspect. A component is just a data object managed by some relevant system. A collision system uses some BoundsComponent together with a spatial data structure to determine if collisions have happened. All good so far, but what if multiple systems need access to the same component? Where should the data live? An input system could modify an entities BoundsComponent, but the physics system(s) need access to the same component as does some rendering system. Also, how are entities constructed? One of the advantages I've read so much about is flexibility in entity construction. Are systems intrinsically tied to a component? If I want to introduce some new component, do I also have to introduce a new system or modify an existing one? Another thing that I've read often is that the 'type' of an entity is inferred by what components it has. If my entity is just an id how can I know that my robot entity needs to be moved or rendered and thus modified by some system? Sorry for the long post (or at least it seems so from my phone screen)!

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• Rule of thumb for enemy art design in 2D platformer

  - by Terrance

  I'm at the early stages of developing a 2D side scrolling open ended platformer (think Metroidvania) and am having a bit of difficulty at enemy design inspiration for something of a scifi, nature, fantasy setting that isn't overly familar or obvious. I haven't seen too many articles, blogs or books that talk about the subject at great length. Is there a fair rule of thumb when coming up with enemy art with respect to keeping your player engaged?

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• Issue with multiplayer interpolation

  - by Ben Cracknell

  In a fast-paced multiplayer game I'm working on, there is an issue with the interpolation algorithm. You can see it clearly in the image below. Cyan: Local position when a packet is received Red: Position received from packet (goal) Blue: Line from local position to goal when packet is received Black: Local position every frame As you can see, the local position seems to oscillate around the goals instead of moving between them smoothly. Here is the code: // local transform position when the last packet arrived. Will lerp from here to the goal private Vector3 positionAtLastPacket; // location received from last packet private Vector3 goal; // time since the last packet arrived private float currentTime; // estimated time to reach goal (also the expected time of the next packet) private float timeToReachGoal; private void PacketReceived(Vector3 position, float timeBetweenPackets) { positionAtLastPacket = transform.position; goal = position; timeToReachGoal = timeBetweenPackets; currentTime = 0; Debug.DrawRay(transform.position, Vector3.up, Color.cyan, 5); // current local position Debug.DrawLine(transform.position, goal, Color.blue, 5); // path to goal Debug.DrawRay(goal, Vector3.up, Color.red, 5); // received goal position } private void FrameUpdate() { currentTime += Time.deltaTime; float delta = currentTime/timeToReachGoal; transform.position = FreeLerp(positionAtLastPacket, goal, currentTime / timeToReachGoal); // current local position Debug.DrawRay(transform.position, Vector3.up * 0.5f, Color.black, 5); } /// <summary> /// Lerp without being locked to 0-1 /// </summary> Vector3 FreeLerp(Vector3 from, Vector3 to, float t) { return from + (to - from) * t; } Any idea about what's going on?

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• AI for a mixed Turn Based + Real Time battle system - Something "Gambit like" the right approach?

  - by Jason L.

  This is maybe a question that's been asked 100 times 1,000 different ways. I apologize for that :) I'm in the process of building the AI for a game I'm working on. The game is a turn based one, in the vein of Final Fantasy but also has a set of things that happen in real time (reactions). I've experimented with FSM, HFSMs, and Behavior Trees. None of them felt "right" to me and all felt either too limiting or too generic / big. The idea I'm toying with now is something like a "Rules engine" that could be likened to the Gambit system from Final Fantasy 12. I would have a set of predefined personalities. Each of these personalities would have a set of conditions it would check on each event (Turn start, time to react, etc). These conditions would be priority ordered, and the first one that returns true would be the action I take. These conditions can also point to a "choice" action, which is just an action that will make a choice based on some Utility function. Sort of a mix of FSM/HFSM and a Utility Function approach. So, a "gambit" with the personality of "Healer" may look something like this: (ON) Ally HP = 0% - Choose "Relife" spell (ON) Ally HP < 50% - Choose Heal spell (ON) Self HP < 65% - Choose Heal spell (ON) Ally Debuff - Choose Debuff Removal spell (ON) Ally Lost Buff - Choose Buff spell Likewise, a "gambit" with the personality of "Agressor" may look like this: (ON) Foe HP < 10% - Choose Attack skill (ON) Foe any - Choose target - Choose Attack skill (ON) Self Lost Buff - Choose Buff spell (ON) Foe HP = 0% - Taunt the player What I like about this approach is it makes sense in my head. It also would be extremely easy to build an "AI Editor" with an approach like this. What I'm worried about is.. would it be too limiting? Would it maybe get too complicated? Does anyone have any experience with AIs in Turn Based games that could maybe provide me some insight into this approach.. or suggest a different approach? Many thanks in advance!!!

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