Search Results

Search found 5920 results on 237 pages for 'hand drawn'.

Page 54/237 | < Previous Page | 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61  | Next Page >

• How often is software speed evident in the eyes of customers?

  - by rwong

  In theory, customers should be able to feel the software performance improvements from first-hand experience. In practice, sometimes the improvements are not noticible enough, such that in order to monetize from the improvements, it is necessary to use quotable performance figures in marketing in order to attract customers. We already know the difference between perceived performance (GUI latency, etc) and server-side performance (machines, networks, infrastructure, etc). How often is it that programmers need to go the extra length to "write up" performance analyses for which the audience is not fellow programmers, but managers and customers?

  Read the article

• Easy to use cross-platform 3D engines for C++ game development?

  - by davr

  I want to try my hand at writing a 3D game. However I don't want to start at such a low level of drawing individual triangles and writing my own 3D object loader and so on. I've heard of things like Irrlicht, Crystal Space 3D, and Cafu, but I don't have any experience with any of them. I'm looking for suggestions from people who have experience with these or other engines on which ones are well written, and are easy to get started using, without having to learn a ton of 3D math theory and how GPU's work internally.

  Read the article

• Choosing 3D modeling software Maya or 3D max?

  - by Kenneth J

  I've am a developer whose has spent most of my programming life developing web and business applications. I want to try my hand at something more challenging (but stay in the comfort of Visual Studio) ...perhaps XNA. Want 3D modeling software would be best for someone developing XNA? I have played with 3d MAX and Maya but never really did anything too involved. What are the pros and cons between them (in terms of game development)? Does one win out over the other for game development? Or is it pretty much just preference? I am new to game development and just trying to figure out the best tools to use before I really started. Any advice or other suggections would be greatly appreciated.

  Read the article

• Why i can not load a simple pixel shader effect (. fx) file in xna?

  - by Mehdi Bugnard

  I just want to load a simple *.fx file into my project to make a (pixel shader) effect. But whenever I try to compile my project, I get the following error in visual studio Error List: Errors compiling .. ID3DXEffectCompiler: There were no techniques ID3DXEffectCompiler: Compilation failed I already searched on google and found many people with the same problem. And I realized that it was a problem of encoding. With the return lines unrecognized '\ n' . I tried to copy and paste to notepad and save as with ASCII or UTF8 encoding. But the result is always the same. Do you have an idea please ? Thanks a looot :-) Here is my [.fx] file : sampler BaseTexture : register(s0); sampler MaskTexture : register(s1) { addressU = Clamp; addressV = Clamp; }; //All of these variables are pixel values //Feel free to replace with float2 variables float MaskLocationX; float MaskLocationY; float MaskWidth; float MaskHeight; float BaseTextureLocationX; //This is where your texture is to be drawn float BaseTextureLocationY; //texCoord is different, it is the current pixel float BaseTextureWidth; float BaseTextureHeight; float4 main(float2 texCoord : TEXCOORD0) : COLOR0 { //We need to calculate where in terms of percentage to sample from the MaskTexture float maskPixelX = texCoord.x * BaseTextureWidth + BaseTextureLocationX; float maskPixelY = texCoord.y * BaseTextureHeight + BaseTextureLocationY; float2 maskCoord = float2((maskPixelX - MaskLocationX) / MaskWidth, (maskPixelY - MaskLocationY) / MaskHeight); float4 bitMask = tex2D(MaskTexture, maskCoord); float4 tex = tex2D(BaseTexture, texCoord); //It is a good idea to avoid conditional statements in a pixel shader if you can use math instead. return tex * (bitMask.a); //Alternate calculation to invert the mask, you could make this a parameter too if you wanted //return tex * (1.0 - bitMask.a); }

  Read the article

• Understanding The Very Nature Of Linux - Becoming Core Programmer

  - by MrWho

  Well, I want to know how I should exactly start and get into the right path to become a core programmer and also get decent understanding of Linux infrastructure and fundamentals. I know my question may seem general or something but that's not because of my inability to ask a question.I'm just confused, I've programmed in a few languages and have got my hand dirty to code so I'm aware of the big picture of what the programmers actually do.Now, I want to get deeper and start my studies in a different level than I used to learn before, I want to become advanced core programmer and learn where it really start from.I'd like to know the bit by bit of what the today's operating systems like linux have been built on. I DO really need good references, books would be preferred for learning the fundamentals.If someone tell me the general path of what I'm supposed to do, it would be really appreciated.

  Read the article

• Pathfinding Java library

  - by Shivan Dragon

  I'm an amateur game developer and somewhat amateur Java developer as well. I'm trying to find a way to have path finding for my game(s). I've first googled for some existing Java libraries that have various path-finding implementations, but I've failed to find any. It seems to me that the only way to get pathfinding code is to use it via a game engine (like Unity). But I'd just like to have a library that I can use and make the game loop and other stuff on my own. Failing to find such a library I've tried implementing some algorithms myself. I've managed to make a running AStar in Java, but for fancier stuff like DStar I find it hard to do it by hand. So then, my question is, are there any Java libraries that contain at least some basic pathfinding algorithms implementations?

  Read the article

• google-chrome video application association

  - by Ben Lee

  Is there any way to tell google-chrome to launch video files of particular types in an external application (or even just to bring up the download box as if the type was un-handled), instead of showing the video inside the browser? Searching online, it seems that chrome is supposed to use xdg-mime for file associations, but apparently is ignoring this for video. For example, when I do: xdg-mime query default video/mpeg It returns dragonplayer.desktop. But when I click on a mpeg video link, chrome displays it internally instead of launching Dragon Player (if I double click on a mpeg file in my file manager, on the other hand, it does open Dragon Player). So is there a way to tell chrome to respect this setting, or another way to coax chrome into opening the file externally? If it matters, I'm running the latest version of google-chrome stable (not chromium) at the time of writing, v. 18.0.1025.151, on kubuntu 11.10.

  Read the article

• Algorithm for a lucky game [on hold]

  - by Ronnie

  Assume we have the following Keno(lottery type) game: From 80 numbers(from 1 to 80), 20 are being drawn. The players choose 1 or 2 or 3..... or 12 numbers to play(12 categories). If they choose for example 4 then they win if they predict correctly a certain amount of numbers(2,3 or 4) from the 4 they have played and lose if the predict only 1 or 0 numbers. They win X times their money accordingly to some predefined factor depending on how many numbers they predict from each category. The same with the other categories. And e.g 11 out of 11 gives 250000 times your money and 12 out of 12 gives 1000000 your money. So the company would want to avoid winnings so high. Every draw by the company is being made every 5 minutes and in each draw around 120000 (let's say) different predictions(Keno tickets) are being played. Let's assume 12000 are being played in category 10 and 12000 in category 11 and also 12000 in category 12. I'm wondering if there is an algorithm to allow the company that provides the game in the 5 minutes between the drawings, to find a 20 number set, in order to avoid any "12 out of 12" and "11 out of 11" and "11 out of 12" and "10 out of 11" and "10 out of 10" winning ticket. That means is there any algorithm, where in a time of less than 1 minute approximately(in todays hardware), to be able to find a 20 number set so that none of the 12000 12 and 11 and 10 number sets that the players played(in categories 10,11 and 12) contains any winning of "12 out of 12" and "11 out of 11" and "11 out of 12" and "10 out of 11" and "10 out of 10"? Or even better the generalization of the problem: What is the best algorithm(from a perspective of minimal time), to be able to find a Y number set from numbers 1 to Z(e.g Y=20, Z=80) so that none of the X sets of K-numbers that are being played(in category K) contains more than K-m numbers from the Y-set? (Note that for Y=K and m=1 there is a practical algorithm.)

  Read the article

• Junior developer support

  - by lady_killer

  I am a junior developer in my first work experience after university. I joined the company as PHP developer but I ended up developing using C# and ASP.NET. Right from the start I did not receive any training in C# and I was assigned with ASP projects with quite tight deadlines scoped by Senior developers. The few project hand overs I had from other developers were brief and it looked like I had to discover the system myself, in really short time. This is my first job as web developer and I wonder whether it is normal not to have a kind of mentor to show me how to do things, especially because I am completely new to the technology. Also, do you have idea how to tackle this? As you can imagine, it gets really frustrating! Thank you!

  Read the article

• Replica Myst Book Actually Plays all the Myst Games

  - by Jason Fitzpatrick

  Runaway 1990s gaming hit Myst features books that had the power to transport you to other worlds. One dedicated fan has gone so far as to make a book that, when opened, transports you to the Myst universe. From hand-crafting the book itself to populating the guts of the book with carefully selected (and frequently modified) parts, Mike Ando left no part of his project uncustomized. The end result is a stunning mod and tribute to the Myst franchise–a beautiful book you can open and play through all the games in the series. Check out the video above to see it in action then hit up the link below to check out Mike’s build album. Myst Book [via Hack A Day] What Is the Purpose of the “Do Not Cover This Hole” Hole on Hard Drives? How To Log Into The Desktop, Add a Start Menu, and Disable Hot Corners in Windows 8 HTG Explains: Why You Shouldn’t Use a Task Killer On Android

  Read the article

• Web Developer or Software Engineer?

  - by dahacker89

  A question that I have been asking myself and really confused which path to take. So I need your guys help as to the pros and cons of these 2 professions in today's world. I love web applications development as the Web is the best thing to happen in this age and nearly everyone gets by on the World Wide Web. And also tend to keep learning about new technologies and about web services. On the other hand I like software engineering also for the desktop applications as I have had experience with development small scale softwares in VB.Net, Java, C++, etc. Which path has more scope and better future? Whats your view?

  Read the article

• help animating player in corona sdk

  - by andrew McCutchan

  working on a game in the corona sdk with lua and I need help so the player animates on the line drawn. Right now he animates at the beggining and the end but not on the line. here is the player code function spawnPlayerObject(xPlayerSpawn,yPlayerSpawn,richTurn) --spawns Rich where we need him. -- riches sprite sheet and all his inital spirites. We need to adjust this so that animations 3-6 are the only ones that animate when moving horizontally local richPlayer = sprite.newSpriteSet(richSheet1,1,6) sprite.add(richPlayer, "rich", 1,6,500,1) rich = sprite.newSprite(richPlayer) rich.x = xPlayerSpawn rich.y = yPlayerSpawn rich:scale(_W*0.0009, _W*0.0009) -- scale is used to adjust the size of the object. richDir = richTurn rich.rotation = richDir rich:prepare("rich") rich:play() physics.addBody( rich, "static", { friction=1, radius = 15 } ) -- needs a better physics body for collision detection. end and here is the code for the line function movePlayerOnLine(event) --for the original image replace all rich with player. if posCount ~= linePart then richDir = math.atan2(ractgangle_hit[posCount].y-rich.y,ractgangle_hit[posCount].x-rich.x)*180/math.pi playerSpeed = 5 rich.x = rich.x + math.cos(richDir*math.pi/180)*playerSpeed rich.y = rich.y + math.sin(richDir*math.pi/180)*playerSpeed if rich.x < ractgangle_hit[posCount].x+playerSpeed*10 and rich.x > ractgangle_hit[posCount].x-playerSpeed*10 then if rich.y < ractgangle_hit[posCount].y+playerSpeed*10 and rich.y > ractgangle_hit[posCount].y-playerSpeed*10 then posCount = posCount + 1 end end I don't think anything has changed recently but I have been getting an error when testing of " attempt to upvalue "rich" a nil value" on the second line, richDir = etc.

  Read the article

• Strategies for browser compatibility on web applications in a corporate environment

  - by TiagoBrenck

  With the new CSS 3 and HTML 5 technology, web applications have gained a lot of new tools for a better UI (user interface) interaction, beautiful templates and even responsive layout to fit into tablets and smartphones. Within a corporate environment, those new technologies are required so the company can "follow" the IT evolution and their concurrent, but they also want that those new web applications supports old browsers. How should I deal with this situation? By one side we are asked to follow the the evolution of technology, create responsive layouts and use a lot of cool jQuery plugins. On the other hand, we are asked to support old browsers that do not support those new responsive features, plugins or components. I would like advice and strategies on how to create "modern" web applications that are also supported on old browsers. How does your company deal with this situation? Is it possible to have the same web application run well and beautifully on old browsers, and be responsive and interactive on newer browsers?

  Read the article

• Test iPhone app on iPad mini?

  - by Devfly

  I have developed an iPhone app, right now I only need a device for testing. I have 300$, and two choices - second hand iPhone 4, or brand new iPad mini. The better choice obviously is the iPad, but is it sufficient for testing iPhone apps on? On the iPad, iPhone apps can run just fine in 2X mode, but are there any differences between the app performance on iPhone and iPad (except the chipset). Should I test my app on actual iPhone, or the iPad will suffice? My app is RSS reader, not some game, so I think everything will be fine with testing on iPad mini. If I buy the iPad I will find some friends iPhone 4/3gs running iOS 5.1 (because my app's deployment target is 5.1, and the iPad comes with 6.0), but of course I can't extensively test on this iPhone. Thank you!

  Read the article

• SharpDx: using maximized RenderForm

  - by ceiling cat

  I'm trying to learn DirectX via SharpDX, very new to this. What I want to do is be able to draw 2D shapes for a game I'm trying to make. So I started with the demo "MiniRect" that came with SharpDX. Since I want my game to be full-screen, I changed the RenderForm to be maximized (using WindowState) and set the FromBorderStyle to None. I noticed that even if the form is set to maximized, it's size is always 800 by 600. In my renderloop, if I specify the location for the rectangle has 400 by 300, it is drawn in the middle of the screen. If I try to set the location via mouse-click (using the RenderForm's MouseClick event, there is always an offset present between where the mouse was clicked and where the drawing shows up. My system DPI is set to the standard (96) so there shouldn't be any scaling. But it looks like there is a scaling factor of about 2.4 If it's not the DPI settings, does anyone have any idea what this be related to? The problem doesnt happen if the RenderForm is not maximized. Is there another way to be drawing full-screen using SharpDX? Thanks

  Read the article

• Design Code Outside of an IDE (C#)?

  - by ryanzec

  Does anyone design code outside of an IDE? I think that code design is great and all but the only place I find myself actually design code (besides in my head) is in the IDE itself. I generally think about it a little before hand but when I go to type it out, it is always in the IDE; no UML or anything like that. Now I think having UML of your code is really good because you are able to see a lot more of the code on one screen however the issue I have is that once I type it in UML, I then have to type the actual code and that is just a big duplicate for me. For those who work with C# and design code outside of Visual Studio (or at least outside Visual Studio's text editor), what tools do you use? Do those tools allow you to convert your design to actual skeleton code? It is also possible to convert code to the design (when you update the code and need an updated UML diagram or whatnot)?

  Read the article

• links for 2010-03-31

  - by Bob Rhubart

  Andy Mulholland: Rethinking the narrow and deep expertise model "We increasingly realise that we have to read requirements in a more open way to decide what techniques can be used, what business experience can be added, etc, so the whole idea of encouraging ‘cross’ discipline understanding seems to look increasingly necessary as we look at how technology touches every part of business, and/or any other aspect of life. It is time to rethink the narrow and deep expertise model and consider T-shaped approaches where the depth is complimented by the width to understand how it might be used and how it fits with other capabilities and disciplines too." -- Andy Mulholland (tags: enterprisearchitecture) @vambenepe: Smoothing a discrete world "For the short term (until we sell one) there are three cars in my household. A manual transmission, an automatic and a CVT (continuous variable transmission). This makes me uniquely qualified to write about Cloud Computing." -- William Vambenepe (tags: otn oracle cloud) @fteter: The Price of Progress "I wonder about the price of progress on the business world. Do some of us get attached to old business models or software applications? Do we resist change for the better for emotional reasons? Are we sometimes impediments to progress just because we don't want things to change?" -- Oracle ACE Director Floyd Teter (tags: otn oracle oracleace progress innovation) Pat Shepherd: Enterprise Architecture should not be Arbitrary "If done properly the Business, Application and Information architectures are nailed down BEFORE any technological direction (SOA or otherwise) is set. Those 3 layers and Governance (people and processes), IMHO, are layers that should not vary much as they have everything to do with understanding the business -- from which technological conclusions can later be drawn." - Pat Shepherd, responding to a post by Jordan Braunstein. (tags: oracle otn enterprisearchitecture soa)

  Read the article

• SQLAuthority News – #TechEDIn – TechEd India 2012 – Things to Do and Explore for SQL Enthusiast

  - by pinaldave

  TechEd India 2012 is just 48 hours away and I have been receiving lots of requests regarding how SQL enthusiasts can maximize their time they’ll be spending at TechEd India 2012. Trust me – TechEd is the biggest Tech Event in India and it is much larger in magnitude than we can imagine. There are plenty of tracks there and lots of things to do. Honestly, we need clone ourselves multiple times to completely cover the event. However, I am going to talk about SQL enthusiasts only right now. In this post, I’ll share a few things they can do in this big event. But before I start talking about specific things, there is one thing which is a must – Keynote. There are amazing Keynotes planned every single day at TechEd India 2012. One should not miss them at all. Social Media I am a big believer of the social media. I am everywhere - Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and GPlus. I suggest you follow the tag #TechEdIn as well as contribute at the healthy conversation going on right now. You may want to follow a few of the SQL Server enthusiasts who are also attending events like TechEd India. This way, you will know where they are and you can contribute along with them. For a good start, you can follow all the speakers who are presenting at the event. I have linked all the speakers’ names with their respective Twitter accounts. Networking Do not stop meeting new people. Introduce yourself. Catch the speakers after their sessions. Meet other SQL experts and discuss SQL as well as life aside SQL. The best way to start the communication is to talk about something new. Here are a few lines I usually use when I have to break the ice: SQL Server 2012 is just released and I have installed it. How many SQL Server sessions are you going to attend? I am going to attend _________ I am a big fan of SQL Server. Sessions Agenda Day 1 T-SQL Rediscovered with SQL Server 2012 - Jacob Sebastian Catapult your data with SQL Server 2012 integration services - Praveen Srivatsa Processing Big Data with SQL Server 2012 and Hadoop  - Stephan Forte SQL Server Misconceptions and Resolution – A Practical Perspective – Pinal Dave and Vinod Kumar Securing with ContainedDB in SQL Server 2012  - Pranab Majumdar Agenda Day 2 Hand-on-Lab – Exploring Power View with SQL Server 2012 – Ravi S. Maniam Hand-on-Lab - SQL Server 2012 – AlwaysOn Availability Groups  - Amit Ganguli Agenda Day 3 Peeling SQL Server like an Onion: Internals Debunked  - Vinod Kumar Speed Up! – Parallel Processes and Unparalleled Performance  - Pinal Dave Keeping Your Database Available – ‘AlwaysOn’  - Balmukund Lakhani Lesser Known Facts of SQL Server Backup and Restore  - Amit Banerjee Top five reasons why you want SQL Server 2012 BI - Praveen Srivatsa Product Booth and Event Partners There will be a dedicated SQL Server booth at the event. I suggest you stop by there and do communication with SQL Server Experts. Additionally there will be booths of various event partners. Stop by their booth and see if they have a product which can help your career. I know that Pluralsight has recently released my course on their online learning site and if that interests you, you can talk about the subject with them. Bring Your Camera Make a list of the people you want to meet. Follow them on Twitter or send them an email and know their location. Introduce yourself, meet them and have your conversation. Do not forget to take a photo with them and later on, share the photo on social media. It would be nice to send an email to everyone with attached high resolution images if you have their email address. After-hours parties After-hours parties are not always about eating and meeting friends but sometimes, they are very informative. Last time I ended up meeting an SQL expert, and we end up talking for long hours on various aspects of SQL Server. After 4 hours, we figured out that he stays in the same apartment complex as mine and since we have had an excellent friendship, he has then become our family friend. So, my advice is that you start to seek out who is meeting where in the evening and see if you can get invited to the parties. Make new friends but never lose mutual respect by doing something silly. Meet Me I will be at the event for three days straight. I will be around the SQL tracks. Please stop by and introduce yourself. I would like to meet you and talk to you. Meeting folks from the Community is very important as we all speak the same language at the end of the day – SQL Server. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQLAuthority News, SQLServer, T SQL, Technology

  Read the article

• "Optimal" game loop for 2D side-scroller

  - by MrDatabase

  Is it possible to describe an "optimal" (in terms of performance) layout for a 2D side-scroller's game loop? In this context the "game loop" takes user input, updates the states of game objects and draws the game objects. For example having a GameObject base class with a deep inheritance hierarchy could be good for maintenance... you can do something like the following: foreach(GameObject g in gameObjects) g.update(); However I think this approach can create performance issues. On the other hand all game objects' data and functions could be global. Which would be a maintenance headache but might be closer to an optimally performing game loop. Any thoughts? I'm interested in practical applications of near optimal game loop structure... even if I get a maintenance headache in exchange for great performance.

  Read the article

• Annotate source code with diagrams as comments

  - by Steven Lu

  I write a lot of (primarily c++ and javascript) code that touches upon computational geometry and graphics and those kinds of topics, so I have found that visual diagrams have been an indispensable part of the process of solving problems. I have determined just now that "oh, wouldn't it just be fantastic if I could somehow attach a hand-drawn diagram to a piece of code as a comment", and this would allow me to come back to something I worked on, days, weeks, months earlier and far more quickly re-grok my algorithms. As a visual learner, I feel like this has the potential to improve my productivity with almost every type of programming because simple diagrams can help with understanding and reasoning about any type of non-trivial data structure. Graphs for example. During graph theory class at university I had only ever been able to truly comprehend the graph relationships that I could actually draw diagrammatical representations of. So... No IDE to my knowledge lets you save a picture as a comment to code. My thinking was that I or someone else could come up with some reasonably easy-to-use tool that can convert an image into a base64 binary string which I can then insert into my code. If the conversion/insertion process can be streamlined enough it would allow a far better connection between the diagram and the actual code, so I no longer need to chronographically search through my notebooks. Even more awesome: plugins for the IDEs to automatically parse out and display the image. There is absolutely nothing difficult about this from a theoretical point of view. My guess is that it would take some extra time for me to actually figure out how to extend my favorite IDEs and maintain these plugins, so I'd be totally happy with a sort of code post-processor which would do the same parsing out and rendering of the images and show them side by side with the code, inside of a browser or something. Since I'm a javascript programmer by trade. What do people think? Would anyone pay for this? I would.

  Read the article

• Starcraft 2 - Third Person Custom Map

  - by Norla

  I would like to try my hand at creating a custom map in Starcraft 2 that has a third-person camera follow an individual unit. There are a few custom maps that exist with this feature already, so I do know this is possible. What I'm having trouble wrapping my head around are the features that are new to the SC2 map editor that didn't exist in the Warcraft 3 editor. For instance, to do a third-person map, do I need a custom mods file, or can everything be done in the map file? Regardless, is it worth using a mod file? What map settings do I NEED to edit/implement? Which are not necessary, but recommended?

  Read the article

• how do i run teamviewer in a headless system?

  - by Serge

  im really new to ubuntu 12.04 and ive been trying to get remote desktop services between me and my server. and i dont have any spare monitors, keyboards, or mice. i did connect said items too the server and got teamviewer running and connected. but i cant use those components every time i want to go remote desktop. i have ssh but i want a GUI on hand for annoying stressful situations. i read somewhere that ubuntu doesnt start a gui if there is no monitor connected. and tried those xorg.conf setups to no avail. i believe this is the reason why my headlesds setup isnt working. how can i get my GUI to startup while headless?

  Read the article

• 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

  Read the article

• Brainworkshop won't go fullscreen

  - by user1777025

  I am unable to run brainworkshop in fullscreen mode. After correctly changing the config.ini file to launch the script in fullscreen mode all I get is a window of the same size as before but with no frame or title bar, aligned to the top right (below the menu bar and to the right of the edge of the screen). I tried posting a screenshot but as I'm a new user I wasn't allowed to... I tried looking around in the pyglet files to see if I could find anything that might be causing this but it's all beyond me. Any suggestions? Right after posting this I relaunched the script and now the same borderless, resizeable window is launched aligned to the bottom right hand corner of the screen... I'm running ubuntu 12.04 and brainworkshop 4.8.4.

  Read the article

• BlitzMax - generating 2D neon glowing line effect to png file

  - by zanlok

  Originally asked on StackOverflow, but it became tumbleweed. I'm looking to create a glowing line effect in BlitzMax, something like a Star Wars lightsaber or laserbeam. Doesn't have to be realtime, but just to TImage objects and then maybe saved to PNG for later use in animation. I'm happy to use 3D features, but it will be for use in a 2D game. Since it will be on black/space background, my strategy is to draw a series of white blurred lines with color and high transparency, then eventually central lines less blurred and more white. What I want to draw is actually bezier curved lines. Drawing curved lines is easy enough, but I can't use the technique above to create a good laser/neon effect because it comes out looking very segmented. So, I think it may be better to use a blur effect/shader on what does render well, which is a 1-pixel bezier curve. The problems I've been having are: Applying a shader to just a certain area of the screen where lines are drawn. If there's a way to do draw lines to a texture and then blur that texture and save the png, that would be great to hear about. There's got to be a way to do this, but I just haven't gotten the right elements working together yet. Any help from someone familiar with this stuff would be greatly appreciated. Using just 2D calls could be advantageous, simpler to understand and re-use. It would be very nice to know how to save a PNG that preserves the transparency/alpha stuff. p.s. I've reviewed this post (and many many others on the Blitz site), have samples working, and even developed my own 5x5 frag shaders. But, it's 3D and a scene-wide thing that doesn't seem to convert to 2D or just a certain area very well. I'd rather understand how to apply shading to a 2D scene, especially using the specifics of BlitzMax.

  Read the article

< Previous Page | 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61  | Next Page >