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• Advantages And Disadvantages Of Resource Serialization

  - by CPP_Person

  A good example is let's say I'm making a pong game. I have a PNG image for the ball and another PNG image for the paddles. Now which would be better, loading the PNG images with a PNG loader, or loading them in a separate program, serializing it, and de-serializing it in the game itself for use? The reason why this may be good to know is because it seems like game companies (or anyone in the long run) build all of their resources into some sort of file. For example, in the game Fallout: New Vegas the DLCs are loaded as a .ESM file, which includes everything it needs, all the game does is find it, serialize it, and it has the resources. Games like Penumbra: Black Plague take a different approch and add a folder which contains all the textures, sounds, scrips, ect that it needs, but not serialized (it does this with the game itself, and the DLC). Which is the better approch and why?

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• xml file save/read error (making a highscore system for XNA game)

  - by Eddy

  i get an error after i write player name to the file for second or third time (An unhandled exception of type 'System.InvalidOperationException' occurred in System.Xml.dll Additional information: There is an error in XML document (18, 17).) (in highscores load method In data = (HighScoreData)serializer.Deserialize(stream); it stops) the problem is that some how it adds additional "" at the end of my .dat file could anyone tell me how to fix this? the file before save looks: <?xml version="1.0"?> <HighScoreData xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema"> <PlayerName> <string>neil</string> <string>shawn</string> <string>mark</string> <string>cindy</string> <string>sam</string> </PlayerName> <Score> <int>200</int> <int>180</int> <int>150</int> <int>100</int> <int>50</int> </Score> <Count>5</Count> </HighScoreData> the file after save looks: <?xml version="1.0"?> <HighScoreData xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema"> <PlayerName> <string>Nick</string> <string>Nick</string> <string>neil</string> <string>shawn</string> <string>mark</string> </PlayerName> <Score> <int>210</int> <int>210</int> <int>200</int> <int>180</int> <int>150</int> </Score> <Count>5</Count> </HighScoreData>> the part of my code that does all of save load to xml is: DECLARATIONS PART [Serializable] public struct HighScoreData { public string[] PlayerName; public int[] Score; public int Count; public HighScoreData(int count) { PlayerName = new string[count]; Score = new int[count]; Count = count; } } IAsyncResult result = null; bool inputName; HighScoreData data; int Score = 0; public string NAME; public string HighScoresFilename = "highscores.dat"; Game1 constructor public Game1() { graphics = new GraphicsDeviceManager(this); Content.RootDirectory = "Content"; Width = graphics.PreferredBackBufferWidth = 960; Height = graphics.PreferredBackBufferHeight =640; GamerServicesComponent GSC = new GamerServicesComponent(this); Components.Add(GSC); } Inicialize function (end of it) protected override void Initialize() { //other game code base.Initialize(); string fullpath =Path.Combine(HighScoresFilename); if (!File.Exists(fullpath)) { //If the file doesn't exist, make a fake one... // Create the data to save data = new HighScoreData(5); data.PlayerName[0] = "neil"; data.Score[0] = 200; data.PlayerName[1] = "shawn"; data.Score[1] = 180; data.PlayerName[2] = "mark"; data.Score[2] = 150; data.PlayerName[3] = "cindy"; data.Score[3] = 100; data.PlayerName[4] = "sam"; data.Score[4] = 50; SaveHighScores(data, HighScoresFilename); } } all methods for loading saving and output public static void SaveHighScores(HighScoreData data, string filename) { // Get the path of the save game string fullpath = Path.Combine("highscores.dat"); // Open the file, creating it if necessary FileStream stream = File.Open(fullpath, FileMode.OpenOrCreate); try { // Convert the object to XML data and put it in the stream XmlSerializer serializer = new XmlSerializer(typeof(HighScoreData)); serializer.Serialize(stream, data); } finally { // Close the file stream.Close(); } } /* Load highscores */ public static HighScoreData LoadHighScores(string filename) { HighScoreData data; // Get the path of the save game string fullpath = Path.Combine("highscores.dat"); // Open the file FileStream stream = File.Open(fullpath, FileMode.OpenOrCreate, FileAccess.Read); try { // Read the data from the file XmlSerializer serializer = new XmlSerializer(typeof(HighScoreData)); data = (HighScoreData)serializer.Deserialize(stream);//this is the line // where program gives an error } finally { // Close the file stream.Close(); } return (data); } /* Save player highscore when game ends */ private void SaveHighScore() { // Create the data to saved HighScoreData data = LoadHighScores(HighScoresFilename); int scoreIndex = -1; for (int i = 0; i < data.Count ; i++) { if (Score > data.Score[i]) { scoreIndex = i; break; } } if (scoreIndex > -1) { //New high score found ... do swaps for (int i = data.Count - 1; i > scoreIndex; i--) { data.PlayerName[i] = data.PlayerName[i - 1]; data.Score[i] = data.Score[i - 1]; } data.PlayerName[scoreIndex] = NAME; //Retrieve User Name Here data.Score[scoreIndex] = Score; // Retrieve score here SaveHighScores(data, HighScoresFilename); } } /* Iterate through data if highscore is called and make the string to be saved*/ public string makeHighScoreString() { // Create the data to save HighScoreData data2 = LoadHighScores(HighScoresFilename); // Create scoreBoardString string scoreBoardString = "Highscores:\n\n"; for (int i = 0; i<5;i++) { scoreBoardString = scoreBoardString + data2.PlayerName[i] + "-" + data2.Score[i] + "\n"; } return scoreBoardString; } when ill make this work i will start this code when i call game over (now i start it when i press some buttons, so i could test it faster) public void InputYourName() { if (result == null && !Guide.IsVisible) { string title = "Name"; string description = "Write your name in order to save your Score"; string defaultText = "Nick"; PlayerIndex playerIndex = new PlayerIndex(); result= Guide.BeginShowKeyboardInput(playerIndex, title, description, defaultText, null, null); // NAME = result.ToString(); } if (result != null && result.IsCompleted) { NAME = Guide.EndShowKeyboardInput(result); result = null; inputName = false; SaveHighScore(); } } this where i call output to the screen (ill call this in highscores meniu section when i am done with debugging) spriteBatch.DrawString(Font1, "" + makeHighScoreString(),new Vector2(500,200), Color.White); }

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• Collision detection - Smooth wall sliding, no bounce effect

  - by Joey

  I'm working on a basic collision detection system that provides point - OBB collision detection. I have around 200 cubes in my environment and I check (for now) each of them in turn and see if it collides. If it does I return the colliding face's normal, save the old player position and do some trigonometry to return a new player position for my wall sliding. edit I'll define my meaning of wall sliding: If a player walks in a vertical slope and has a slight horizontal rotation to the left or the right and keeps walking forward in the wall the player should slide a little to the right/left while continually walking towards the wall till he left the wall. Thus, sliding along the wall. Everything works fine and with multiple objects as well but I still have one problem I can't seem to figure out: smooth wall sliding. In my current implementation sliding along the walls make my player bounce like a mad man (especially noticable with gravity on and moving forward). I have a velocity/direction vector, a normal vector from the collided plane and an old and new player position. First I negate the normal vector and get my new velocity vector by substracting the inverted normal from my direction vector (which is the vector to slide along the wall) and I add this vector to my new Player position and recalculate the direction vector (in case I have multiple collisions). I know I am missing some step but I can't seem to figure it out. Here is my code for the collision detection (run every frame): Vector direction; Vector newPos(camera.GetOriginX(), camera.GetOriginY(), camera.GetOriginZ()); direction = newPos - oldPos; // Direction vector // Check for collision with new position for(int i = 0; i < NUM_OBJECTS; i++) { Vector normal = objects[i].CheckCollision(newPos.x, newPos.y, newPos.z, direction.x, direction.y, direction.z); if(normal != Vector::NullVector()) { // Get inverse normal (direction STRAIGHT INTO wall) Vector invNormal = normal.Negative(); Vector wallDir = direction - invNormal; // We know INTO wall, and DIRECTION to wall. Substract these and you got slide WALL direction newPos = oldPos + wallDir; direction = newPos - oldPos; } } Any help would be greatly appreciated! FIX I eventually got things up and running how they should thanks to Krazy, I'll post the updated code listing in case someone else comes upon this problem! for(int i = 0; i < NUM_OBJECTS; i++) { Vector normal = objects[i].CheckCollision(newPos.x, newPos.y, newPos.z, direction.x, direction.y, direction.z); if(normal != Vector::NullVector()) { Vector invNormal = normal.Negative(); invNormal = invNormal * (direction * normal).Length(); // Change normal to direction's length and normal's axis Vector wallDir = direction - invNormal; newPos = oldPos + wallDir; direction = newPos - oldPos; } }

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• Where do you search/look for game developers for an indie game startup?

  - by G.Campos

  Hey there I just recently saw stackoverflow had a game dev sister site so here I am, wondering if you experienced fellows know where one can search/look for game developers for an indie game startup? In other words: I have a game idea which I've written down with as much detail as possible (so anyone else can understand how it works) and now I'm looking for a heavy php programmer with whom to pair up in order to go from idea to reality. I'm a front-end/interface designer and an intermediate programmer. I recognize my project requires heavy programming skills which I do not have as of today =) So, what websites, communities or places do you recommend I go look into? Where do good programmers interested in indie games go look for projects if they don't have their own? Thanks in advance G.Campos

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• Scene Graph Traversing Techniques

  - by Bunkai.Satori

  Scene Graph seems to be the most effective way of representing the game world. The game world usually tends to be as large as the memory and device can handle. In contrast, the screen of the device captures only a fraction of the Game World/Scene Graph. Ideally, I wish to process(update and render) only the visible game objects/nodes on per-frame basis. My question therefore is, how to traverse the scene graph so, that I will focus only on the game notes that are in the camera frustum? How to organize data so that I can easily focus only on the scene graph nodes visible to me? What are techniques to minimize scenegraph traversal time? Is there such way as more effective traversal, or do I have to traverse whole scene graph on per-frame basis?

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• JOGL hardware based shadow mapping - computing the texture matrix

  - by axel22

  I am implementing hardware shadow mapping as described here. I've rendered the scene successfully from the light POV, and loaded the depth buffer of the scene into a texture. This texture has correctly been loaded - I check this by rendering a small thumbnail, as you can see in the screenshot below, upper left corner. The depth of the scene appears to be correct - objects further away are darker, and that are closer to the light are lighter. However, I run into trouble while rendering the scene from the camera's point of view using the depth texture - the texture on the polygons in the scene is rendered in a weird, nondeterministic fashion, as shown in the screenshot. I believe I am making an error while computing the texture transformation matrix, but I am unsure where exactly. Since I have no matrix utilities in JOGL other then the gl[Load|Mult]Matrix procedures, I multiply the matrices using them, like this: void calcTextureMatrix() { glPushMatrix(); glLoadIdentity(); glLoadMatrixf(biasmatrix, 0); glMultMatrixf(lightprojmatrix, 0); glMultMatrixf(lightviewmatrix, 0); glGetFloatv(GL_MODELVIEW_MATRIX, shadowtexmatrix, 0); glPopMatrix(); } I obtained these matrices by using the glOrtho and gluLookAt procedures: glLoadIdentity() val wdt = width / 45 val hgt = height / 45 glOrtho(wdt, -wdt, -hgt, hgt, -45.0, 45.0) glGetFloatv(GL_MODELVIEW_MATRIX, lightprojmatrix, 0) glLoadIdentity() glu.gluLookAt( xlook + lightpos._1, ylook + lightpos._2, lightpos._3, xlook, ylook, 0.0f, 0.f, 0.f, 1.0f) glGetFloatv(GL_MODELVIEW_MATRIX, lightviewmatrix, 0) My bias matrix is: float[] biasmatrix = new float[16] { 0.5f, 0.f, 0.f, 0.f, 0.f, 0.5f, 0.f, 0.f, 0.f, 0.f, 0.5f, 0.f, 0.5f, 0.5f, 0.5f, 1.f } After applying the camera projection and view matrices, I do: glTexGeni(GL_S, GL_TEXTURE_GEN_MODE, GL_EYE_LINEAR) glTexGenfv(GL_S, GL_EYE_PLANE, shadowtexmatrix, 0) glEnable(GL_TEXTURE_GEN_S) for each component. Does anybody know why the texture is not being rendered correctly? Thank you.

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• Difficulties with rotation of a sprite

  - by Johnny

  I want to program a dolphin that jumps and rotates like a real dolphin. Jumping is not the problem, but I don't know how to make the rotation. At the moment, my dolphin rotates a little weird. But I want that it rotates like a real dolphin does. How can I improve the rotation? public class Game1 : Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Game { GraphicsDeviceManager graphics; SpriteBatch spriteBatch; Texture2D image, water; float Gravity = 5.0F; float Acceleration = 20.0F; Vector2 Position = new Vector2(1200,720); Vector2 Velocity; float rotation = 0; SpriteEffects flip; Vector2 Speed = new Vector2(0, 0); public Game1() { graphics = new GraphicsDeviceManager(this); Content.RootDirectory = "Content"; graphics.PreferredBackBufferWidth = 1280; graphics.PreferredBackBufferHeight = 720; } protected override void Initialize() { base.Initialize(); } protected override void LoadContent() { spriteBatch = new SpriteBatch(GraphicsDevice); image = Content.Load<Texture2D>("cartoondolphin"); water = Content.Load<Texture2D>("background"); flip = SpriteEffects.None; } protected override void Update(GameTime gameTime) { float VelocityX = 0f; float VelocityY = 0f; float time = (float)gameTime.ElapsedGameTime.TotalSeconds; KeyboardState kbState = Keyboard.GetState(); if(kbState.IsKeyDown(Keys.Left)) { rotation = 0; flip = SpriteEffects.None; VelocityX += -5f; } if(kbState.IsKeyDown(Keys.Right)) { rotation = 0; flip = SpriteEffects.FlipHorizontally; VelocityX += 5f; } // jump if the dolphin is under water if(Position.Y >= 670) { if (kbState.IsKeyDown(Keys.A)) { if (flip == SpriteEffects.None) { rotation += 0.01f; VelocityY += 40f; } else { rotation -= 0.01f; VelocityY += 40f; } } } else { if (flip == SpriteEffects.None) { rotation -= 0.01f; VelocityY += -10f; } else { rotation += 0.01f; VelocityY += -10f; } } float deltaY = 0; float deltaX = 0; deltaY = Gravity * (float)gameTime.ElapsedGameTime.TotalSeconds; deltaX += VelocityX * (float)gameTime.ElapsedGameTime.TotalSeconds * Acceleration; deltaY += -VelocityY * (float)gameTime.ElapsedGameTime.TotalSeconds * Acceleration; Speed = new Vector2(Speed.X + deltaX, Speed.Y + deltaY); Position += Speed * (float)gameTime.ElapsedGameTime.TotalSeconds; Velocity.X = 0; if (Position.Y + image.Height/2 > graphics.PreferredBackBufferHeight) Position.Y = graphics.PreferredBackBufferHeight - image.Height/2; base.Update(gameTime); } protected override void Draw(GameTime gameTime) { GraphicsDevice.Clear(Color.CornflowerBlue); spriteBatch.Begin(); spriteBatch.Draw(water, new Rectangle(0, graphics.PreferredBackBufferHeight -100, graphics.PreferredBackBufferWidth, 100), Color.White); spriteBatch.Draw(image, Position, null, Color.White, rotation, new Vector2(image.Width / 2, image.Height / 2), 1, flip, 1); spriteBatch.End(); base.Draw(gameTime); } }

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• Custom Gesture in cocos2d

  - by Lewis

  I've found a little tutorial that would be useful for my game: http://blog.mellenthin.de/archives/2012/02/13/an-one-finger-rotation-gesture-recognizer/ But I can't work out how to convert that gesture to work with cocos2d, I have found examples of pre made gestures in cocos2d, but no custom ones, is it possible? EDIT STILL HAVING PROBLEMS WITH THIS: I've added the code from Sentinel below (from SO), the Gesture and RotateGesture have both been added to my solution and are compiling. Although In the rotation class now I only see selectors, how do I set those up? As the custom gesture found in that project above looks like: header file for custom gesture: #import <Foundation/Foundation.h> #import <UIKit/UIGestureRecognizerSubclass.h> @protocol OneFingerRotationGestureRecognizerDelegate <NSObject> @optional - (void) rotation: (CGFloat) angle; - (void) finalAngle: (CGFloat) angle; @end @interface OneFingerRotationGestureRecognizer : UIGestureRecognizer { CGPoint midPoint; CGFloat innerRadius; CGFloat outerRadius; CGFloat cumulatedAngle; id <OneFingerRotationGestureRecognizerDelegate> target; } - (id) initWithMidPoint: (CGPoint) midPoint innerRadius: (CGFloat) innerRadius outerRadius: (CGFloat) outerRadius target: (id) target; - (void)reset; - (void)touchesBegan:(NSSet *)touches withEvent:(UIEvent *)event; - (void)touchesMoved:(NSSet *)touches withEvent:(UIEvent *)event; - (void)touchesEnded:(NSSet *)touches withEvent:(UIEvent *)event; - (void)touchesCancelled:(NSSet *)touches withEvent:(UIEvent *)event; @end .m for custom gesture file: #include <math.h> #import "OneFingerRotationGestureRecognizer.h" @implementation OneFingerRotationGestureRecognizer // private helper functions CGFloat distanceBetweenPoints(CGPoint point1, CGPoint point2); CGFloat angleBetweenLinesInDegrees(CGPoint beginLineA, CGPoint endLineA, CGPoint beginLineB, CGPoint endLineB); - (id) initWithMidPoint: (CGPoint) _midPoint innerRadius: (CGFloat) _innerRadius outerRadius: (CGFloat) _outerRadius target: (id <OneFingerRotationGestureRecognizerDelegate>) _target { if ((self = [super initWithTarget: _target action: nil])) { midPoint = _midPoint; innerRadius = _innerRadius; outerRadius = _outerRadius; target = _target; } return self; } /** Calculates the distance between point1 and point 2. */ CGFloat distanceBetweenPoints(CGPoint point1, CGPoint point2) { CGFloat dx = point1.x - point2.x; CGFloat dy = point1.y - point2.y; return sqrt(dx*dx + dy*dy); } CGFloat angleBetweenLinesInDegrees(CGPoint beginLineA, CGPoint endLineA, CGPoint beginLineB, CGPoint endLineB) { CGFloat a = endLineA.x - beginLineA.x; CGFloat b = endLineA.y - beginLineA.y; CGFloat c = endLineB.x - beginLineB.x; CGFloat d = endLineB.y - beginLineB.y; CGFloat atanA = atan2(a, b); CGFloat atanB = atan2(c, d); // convert radiants to degrees return (atanA - atanB) * 180 / M_PI; } #pragma mark - UIGestureRecognizer implementation - (void)reset { [super reset]; cumulatedAngle = 0; } - (void)touchesBegan:(NSSet *)touches withEvent:(UIEvent *)event { [super touchesBegan:touches withEvent:event]; if ([touches count] != 1) { self.state = UIGestureRecognizerStateFailed; return; } } - (void)touchesMoved:(NSSet *)touches withEvent:(UIEvent *)event { [super touchesMoved:touches withEvent:event]; if (self.state == UIGestureRecognizerStateFailed) return; CGPoint nowPoint = [[touches anyObject] locationInView: self.view]; CGPoint prevPoint = [[touches anyObject] previousLocationInView: self.view]; // make sure the new point is within the area CGFloat distance = distanceBetweenPoints(midPoint, nowPoint); if ( innerRadius <= distance && distance <= outerRadius) { // calculate rotation angle between two points CGFloat angle = angleBetweenLinesInDegrees(midPoint, prevPoint, midPoint, nowPoint); // fix value, if the 12 o'clock position is between prevPoint and nowPoint if (angle > 180) { angle -= 360; } else if (angle < -180) { angle += 360; } // sum up single steps cumulatedAngle += angle; // call delegate if ([target respondsToSelector: @selector(rotation:)]) { [target rotation:angle]; } } else { // finger moved outside the area self.state = UIGestureRecognizerStateFailed; } } - (void)touchesEnded:(NSSet *)touches withEvent:(UIEvent *)event { [super touchesEnded:touches withEvent:event]; if (self.state == UIGestureRecognizerStatePossible) { self.state = UIGestureRecognizerStateRecognized; if ([target respondsToSelector: @selector(finalAngle:)]) { [target finalAngle:cumulatedAngle]; } } else { self.state = UIGestureRecognizerStateFailed; } cumulatedAngle = 0; } - (void)touchesCancelled:(NSSet *)touches withEvent:(UIEvent *)event { [super touchesCancelled:touches withEvent:event]; self.state = UIGestureRecognizerStateFailed; cumulatedAngle = 0; } @end Then its initialised like this: // calculate center and radius of the control CGPoint midPoint = CGPointMake(image.frame.origin.x + image.frame.size.width / 2, image.frame.origin.y + image.frame.size.height / 2); CGFloat outRadius = image.frame.size.width / 2; // outRadius / 3 is arbitrary, just choose something >> 0 to avoid strange // effects when touching the control near of it's center gestureRecognizer = [[OneFingerRotationGestureRecognizer alloc] initWithMidPoint: midPoint innerRadius: outRadius / 3 outerRadius: outRadius target: self]; [self.view addGestureRecognizer: gestureRecognizer]; The selector below is also in the same file where the initialisation of the gestureRecogonizer: - (void) rotation: (CGFloat) angle { // calculate rotation angle imageAngle += angle; if (imageAngle > 360) imageAngle -= 360; else if (imageAngle < -360) imageAngle += 360; // rotate image and update text field image.transform = CGAffineTransformMakeRotation(imageAngle * M_PI / 180); [self updateTextDisplay]; } I can't seem to get this working in the RotateGesture class can anyone help me please I've been stuck on this for days now. SECOND EDIT: Here is the users code from SO that was suggested to me: Here is projec on GitHub: SFGestureRecognizers It uses builded in iOS UIGestureRecognizer, and don't needs to be integrated into cocos2d sources. Using it, You can make any gestures, just like you could, if you whould work with UIGestureRecognizer. For example: I made a base class Gesture, and subclassed it for any new gesture: //Gesture.h @interface Gesture : NSObject <UIGestureRecognizerDelegate> { UIGestureRecognizer *gestureRecognizer; id delegate; SEL preSolveSelector; SEL possibleSelector; SEL beganSelector; SEL changedSelector; SEL endedSelector; SEL cancelledSelector; SEL failedSelector; BOOL preSolveAvailable; CCNode *owner; } - (id)init; - (void)addGestureRecognizerToNode:(CCNode*)node; - (void)removeGestureRecognizerFromNode:(CCNode*)node; -(void)recognizer:(UIGestureRecognizer*)recognizer; @end //Gesture.m #import "Gesture.h" @implementation Gesture - (id)init { if (!(self = [super init])) return self; preSolveAvailable = YES; return self; } - (BOOL)gestureRecognizer:(UIGestureRecognizer *)gestureRecognizer shouldRecognizeSimultaneouslyWithGestureRecognizer:(UIGestureRecognizer *)otherGestureRecognizer { return YES; } - (BOOL)gestureRecognizer:(UIGestureRecognizer *)recognizer shouldReceiveTouch:(UITouch *)touch { //! For swipe gesture recognizer we want it to be executed only if it occurs on the main layer, not any of the subnodes ( main layer is higher in hierarchy than children so it will be receiving touch by default ) if ([recognizer class] == [UISwipeGestureRecognizer class]) { CGPoint pt = [touch locationInView:touch.view]; pt = [[CCDirector sharedDirector] convertToGL:pt]; for (CCNode *child in owner.children) { if ([child isNodeInTreeTouched:pt]) { return NO; } } } return YES; } - (void)addGestureRecognizerToNode:(CCNode*)node { [node addGestureRecognizer:gestureRecognizer]; owner = node; } - (void)removeGestureRecognizerFromNode:(CCNode*)node { [node removeGestureRecognizer:gestureRecognizer]; } #pragma mark - Private methods -(void)recognizer:(UIGestureRecognizer*)recognizer { CCNode *node = recognizer.node; if (preSolveSelector && preSolveAvailable) { preSolveAvailable = NO; [delegate performSelector:preSolveSelector withObject:recognizer withObject:node]; } UIGestureRecognizerState state = [recognizer state]; if (state == UIGestureRecognizerStatePossible && possibleSelector) { [delegate performSelector:possibleSelector withObject:recognizer withObject:node]; } else if (state == UIGestureRecognizerStateBegan && beganSelector) [delegate performSelector:beganSelector withObject:recognizer withObject:node]; else if (state == UIGestureRecognizerStateChanged && changedSelector) [delegate performSelector:changedSelector withObject:recognizer withObject:node]; else if (state == UIGestureRecognizerStateEnded && endedSelector) { preSolveAvailable = YES; [delegate performSelector:endedSelector withObject:recognizer withObject:node]; } else if (state == UIGestureRecognizerStateCancelled && cancelledSelector) { preSolveAvailable = YES; [delegate performSelector:cancelledSelector withObject:recognizer withObject:node]; } else if (state == UIGestureRecognizerStateFailed && failedSelector) { preSolveAvailable = YES; [delegate performSelector:failedSelector withObject:recognizer withObject:node]; } } @end Subclass example: //RotateGesture.h #import "Gesture.h" @interface RotateGesture : Gesture - (id)initWithTarget:(id)target preSolveSelector:(SEL)preSolve possibleSelector:(SEL)possible beganSelector:(SEL)began changedSelector:(SEL)changed endedSelector:(SEL)ended cancelledSelector:(SEL)cancelled failedSelector:(SEL)failed; @end //RotateGesture.m #import "RotateGesture.h" @implementation RotateGesture - (id)initWithTarget:(id)target preSolveSelector:(SEL)preSolve possibleSelector:(SEL)possible beganSelector:(SEL)began changedSelector:(SEL)changed endedSelector:(SEL)ended cancelledSelector:(SEL)cancelled failedSelector:(SEL)failed { if (!(self = [super init])) return self; preSolveSelector = preSolve; delegate = target; possibleSelector = possible; beganSelector = began; changedSelector = changed; endedSelector = ended; cancelledSelector = cancelled; failedSelector = failed; gestureRecognizer = [[UIRotationGestureRecognizer alloc] initWithTarget:self action:@selector(recognizer:)]; gestureRecognizer.delegate = self; return self; } @end Use example: - (void)addRotateGesture { RotateGesture *rotateRecognizer = [[RotateGesture alloc] initWithTarget:self preSolveSelector:@selector(rotateGesturePreSolveWithRecognizer:node:) possibleSelector:nil beganSelector:@selector(rotateGestureStateBeganWithRecognizer:node:) changedSelector:@selector(rotateGestureStateChangedWithRecognizer:node:) endedSelector:@selector(rotateGestureStateEndedWithRecognizer:node:) cancelledSelector:@selector(rotateGestureStateCancelledWithRecognizer:node:) failedSelector:@selector(rotateGestureStateFailedWithRecognizer:node:)]; [rotateRecognizer addGestureRecognizerToNode:movableAreaSprite]; } I dont understand how to implement the custom gesture code at the start of this post into the rotateGesture class which is a subclass of the gesture class written by the SO user. Any ideas please? When I get 6 more rep I'll add a bounty to this.

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• Per-vertex animation with VBOs: VBO per character or VBO per animation?

  - by charstar

  Goal To leverage the richness of well vetted animation tools such as Blender to do the heavy lifting for a small but rich set of animations. I am aware of additive pose blending like that from Naughty Dog and similar techniques but I would prefer to expend a little RAM/VRAM to avoid implementing a thesis-ready pose solver. I would also like to avoid implementing a key-frame + interpolation curve solver (reinventing Blender vertex groups and IPOs), if possible. Scenario Meshes are animated using either skeletons (skinned animation) or some form of morph targets (i.e. per-vertex key frames). However, in either case, the animations are known in full at load-time, that is, there is no physics, IK solving, or any other form of in-game pose solving. The number of character actions (animations) will be limited but rich (hand-animated). There may be multiple characters using a each mesh and its animations simultaneously in-game (they will likely be at different frames of the same animation at the same time). Assume color and texture coordinate buffers are static. Current Considerations Much like a non-shader-powered pose solver, create a VBO for each character and copy vertex and normal data to each VBO on each frame (VBO in STREAMING). Create one VBO for each animation where each frame (interleaved vertex and normal data) is concatenated onto the VBO. Then each character simply has a buffer pointer offset based on its current animation frame (e.g. pointer offset = (numVertices+numNormals)*frameNumber). (VBO in STATIC) Known Trade-Offs In 1 above: Each VBO would be small but there would be many VBOs and therefore lots of buffer binding and vertex copying each frame. Both client and pipeline intensive. In 2 above: There would be few VBOs therefore insignificant buffer binding and no vertex data getting jammed down the pipe each frame, but each VBO would be quite large. Are there any pitfalls to number 2 (aside from finite memory)? I've found a lot of information on what you can do, but no real best practices. Are there other considerations or methods that I am missing?

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• Drawing a circle in opengl es android, squiggly boundaries

  - by ladiesMan217

  I am new to OpenGL ES and facing a hard time drawing a circle on my GLSurfaceView. Here's what I have so far. the Circle Class public class MyGLBall { private int points=40; private float vertices[]={0.0f,0.0f,0.0f}; private FloatBuffer vertBuff; //centre of circle public MyGLBall(){ vertices=new float[(points+1)*3]; for(int i=3;i<(points+1)*3;i+=3){ double rad=(i*360/points*3)*(3.14/180); vertices[i]=(float)Math.cos(rad); vertices[i+1]=(float) Math.sin(rad); vertices[i+2]=0; } ByteBuffer bBuff=ByteBuffer.allocateDirect(vertices.length*4); bBuff.order(ByteOrder.nativeOrder()); vertBuff=bBuff.asFloatBuffer(); vertBuff.put(vertices); vertBuff.position(0); } public void draw(GL10 gl){ gl.glPushMatrix(); gl.glTranslatef(0, 0, 0); // gl.glScalef(size, size, 1.0f); gl.glColor4f(1.0f,1.0f,1.0f, 1.0f); gl.glVertexPointer(3, GL10.GL_FLOAT, 0, vertBuff); gl.glEnableClientState(GL10.GL_VERTEX_ARRAY); gl.glDrawArrays(GL10.GL_TRIANGLE_FAN, 0, points/2); gl.glDisableClientState(GL10.GL_VERTEX_ARRAY); gl.glPopMatrix(); } } I couldn't retrieve the screenshot of my image but here's what it looks like As you can see the border has crests and troughs thereby renering it squiggly which I do not want. All I want is a simple curve

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• How to code a 4x shader/filter which emulates arcade crt display behavior?

  - by Arthur Wulf White

  I want to write a shader/filer probably in adobe Pixel Bender that will do the best job possible in emulating the fill of an oldskul monochromatic arcade CRT screen. Much like this here: http://filthypants.blogspot.com/2012/07/customizing-cgwgs-crt-pixel-shader.html Here are some attributes I know will exist in this filter: It will take in a low res image 160 x 120 and return a medium res image 640 x 480. It will add scanlines It will blur the color channels to create that color bleeding effect It will distort the shape of the image from a perfect rectangle into a rounder shape. The question is, could you please provide any other attributes that are beneficial to emulating an arcade CRT feel and links and resources on coding these effects. Thanks

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• How to set TextureFilter to Point to make example Bloom filter work?

  - by Mr Bell

  I have simple app that renders some particles and now I am trying to apply the bloom shader from the xna samplers ( http://create.msdn.com/en-US/education/catalog/sample/bloom ) to it, but I am running into this exception: "XNA Framework HiDef profile requires TextureFilter to be Point when using texture format Vector4." When the BloomComponent tries to end the sprite batch in the DrawFullscreenQuad method: spriteBatch.Begin(0, BlendState.Opaque, SamplerState.PointWrap, null, null, effect); spriteBatch.Draw(texture, new Rectangle(0, 0, width, height), Color.White); spriteBatch.End(); //<------- Exception thrown here It seems to be related to the pixel shaders that I am using to animate the particle. In a nutshell, I have a texture2d in vector4 format that holds particle positions, and another one for velocities. Here is a snippet from that area: GraphicsDevice.SetRenderTarget(tempRenderTarget); animationEffect.CurrentTechnique = animationEffect.Techniques[technique]; spriteBatch.Begin(SpriteSortMode.Immediate, BlendState.Opaque, SamplerState.PointWrap, DepthStencilState.DepthRead, RasterizerState.CullNone, animationEffect); spriteBatch.Draw(randomValues, new Rectangle(0, 0, width, height), Color.White); spriteBatch.End(); What I comment out the code that calls the particle animation pixel shaders the bloom component runs fine. Is there some state that I need to reset to make the bloom work?

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• Clientside anticheating in multiplayer game 1vs1

  - by garnav

  I'm developing a simple card game, where there will be a matchmaking system that will put you against another human player. This will be the only game mode available, a 1vs1 against another human, no AI. I want to prevent cheating as much as possible. I have already read a lot of similar questions here and I already know that I cannot trust the client and I have to make all verifications server side. I intend to have a server (need one for the matchmaking anyway) and I intend to make some verifications server side but if I want to check everything server side this makes my server to be able to keep track of the state of all current games and check every action, and I don't have the money/infrastructure to support that server. My idea is to make clients check and verify some of the actions made by their opponent* and if they find some illegal action notify the possible cheating to the server and make the server verify it. This will still require my server to keep track of all current games, but it will save resources only checking some things that cannot be checked at client side(like card order in the deck) and only checking other things when they are actually wrong. *(only those they can check with out allowing themselves cheating! for example:they can't check if the played card was in hand cos that will need them to know all cards in hand) Summing up, my questions are: is this a viable approach? will I actually save resources doing this or the extra complexity in the server and client for exchanging this messages is not worth it? do you know any game that has successfully or unsuccessfully tried a similar approach? Thanks all for reading and answering

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• AS3 Stage3D Mouse click problem?

  - by Martin K

  I have a problem with Mouse interaction and Stage3D. The only way I found to register to listen to mouse clicks and interact with Stage3D, is to add a mouse eventListener directly to the .stage. However this will result in any time i click anywhere in the flash application the mouse click will fire, even if there is an overlaid 2D menu where the user intended to click. IE I have a 3D application running in the background, which listens to clicks, and I have some floating User Interface elements in the foreground, and ideally if I clicked a button in the foreground, then that would NOT fire a click event that the Stage3D would register. Any idea how to solve this problem?

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• C++ problem with assimp 3D model loader

  - by Brendan Webster

  In my game I have model loading functions for Assimp model loading library. I can load the model and render it, but the model displays incorrectly. The models load in as if they were using a seperate projection matrix. I have looked over my code over and over again, but I probably keep on missing the obvious reason why this is happening. Here is an image of my game: It's simply a 6 sided cube, but it's off big time! Here are my code snippets for rendering the cube to the screen: void C_MediaLoader::display(void) { float tmp; glTranslatef(0,0,0); // rotate it around the y axis glRotatef(angle,0.f,0.f,1.f); glColor4f(1,1,1,1); // scale the whole asset to fit into our view frustum tmp = scene_max.x-scene_min.x; tmp = aisgl_max(scene_max.y - scene_min.y,tmp); tmp = aisgl_max(scene_max.z - scene_min.z,tmp); tmp = (1.f / tmp); glScalef(tmp/5, tmp/5, tmp/5); // center the model //glTranslatef( -scene_center.x, -scene_center.y, -scene_center.z ); // if the display list has not been made yet, create a new one and // fill it with scene contents if(scene_list == 0) { scene_list = glGenLists(1); glNewList(scene_list, GL_COMPILE); // now begin at the root node of the imported data and traverse // the scenegraph by multiplying subsequent local transforms // together on GL's matrix stack. recursive_render(scene, scene->mRootNode); glEndList(); } glCallList(scene_list); } void C_MediaLoader::recursive_render (const struct aiScene *sc, const struct aiNode* nd) { unsigned int i; unsigned int n = 0, t; struct aiMatrix4x4 m = nd->mTransformation; // update transform aiTransposeMatrix4(&m); glPushMatrix(); glMultMatrixf((float*)&m); // draw all meshes assigned to this node for (; n < nd->mNumMeshes; ++n) { const struct aiMesh* mesh = scene->mMeshes[nd->mMeshes[n]]; apply_material(sc->mMaterials[mesh->mMaterialIndex]); if(mesh->mNormals == NULL) { glDisable(GL_LIGHTING); } else { glEnable(GL_LIGHTING); } for (t = 0; t < mesh->mNumFaces; ++t) { const struct aiFace* face = &mesh->mFaces[t]; GLenum face_mode; switch(face->mNumIndices) { case 1: face_mode = GL_POINTS; break; case 2: face_mode = GL_LINES; break; case 3: face_mode = GL_TRIANGLES; break; default: face_mode = GL_POLYGON; break; } glBegin(face_mode); for(i = 0; i < face->mNumIndices; i++) { int index = face->mIndices[i]; if(mesh->mColors[0] != NULL) glColor4fv((GLfloat*)&mesh->mColors[0][index]); if(mesh->mNormals != NULL) glNormal3fv(&mesh->mNormals[index].x); glVertex3fv(&mesh->mVertices[index].x); } glEnd(); } } // draw all children for (n = 0; n < nd->mNumChildren; ++n) { recursive_render(sc, nd->mChildren[n]); } glPopMatrix(); } Sorry there is so much code to look through, but I really cannot find the problem, and I would love to have help.

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• Detect two specific objects collision with bullet physics

  - by sebap123

  I have got some problem with defining collision between objects in my game using bullet physics. I know that objects are colliding with each other simultaneously and I don't have to do anything more. However I need to be noticed when one object collides with one of the rest. It is quite awkward written so I will tell what I want to achive. I have got ball which hits wall from tubes. Everything is on the floor. When ball hits wall some fragments fall down to infinity. So I have got bellow floor btStaticPlaneShape. This is place where most of objects is stoping and then I can start another action. But not all of them. So I've been trying to use function checkCollideWith but it isn't good method as it was said in reference and wiki. So I've checked method described in wiki http://bulletphysics.org/mediawiki-1.5.8/index.php/Collision_Callbacks_and_Triggers called contact information. This isn't good method either because it is extremly hard to identify what is what when colliding. You have to also remember that ball is almost all the time colliding with something - floor, wall or eart level. So is there any other method to check what is colliding with what?

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• Input handling between game loops

  - by user48023

  This may be obvious and trivial for you but as I am a newbie in programming I come with a specific question. I have three loops in my game engine which are input-loop, update-loop and render-loop. Update-loop is set to 10 ticks per second with a fixed timestep, render-loop is capped at around 60 fps and the input-loop runs as fast as possible. I am using one of the Javascript frameworks which provide such things but it doesn't really matter. Let's say I am rendering a tile map and the view of which elements are rendered depends on camera-like movement variables which are modified during key pressing. This is only about camera/viewport and rendering, no game physics involved here. And now, how can I handle input events among these loops to keep consistent engine reaction? Am I supposed to read the current variable modified with input and do some needed calculations in a update-loop and share the result so it could be interpolated in a render-loop? Or read the input effect directly inside the render-loop and put needed calculations inside? I thought interpreting user input inside an update-loop with a low tick rate would be inaccurate and kind of unresponsive while rendering with interpolation in the final view. How it is done properly in games overall?

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• HTML5 game engine for a 2D or 2.5D RPG style "map walk"

  - by stargazer

  please help me to choose a HTML5 game engine or Javascript libraries I want to do the following in the game: when the game starts a part the huge map (full size of the map: about 7 screens) is shown. The map itself is completely designed in the editor mapeditor.org (or in some comparable editor - if you know a good alternative to mapeditor.org - let me know) and loaded at runtime or at design time. The game engine should support loading of isometric maps (well, in worst case only orthogonal maps will be sufficient) both "tile layer" and "object layer" from mapeditor.org should be supported. Scrolling/performance of this map should be fast enough. The map and the game should be either in 2D (orthogonal map) or in 2.5D (isometric map) The game engine should support movement of sprites with animation. Let say I have a sprite for "human" with animation sequences showing "walking" in 8 directions - it should be imported into game engine and should "walk" on the map without writing a lot of Javascript code. Automatic scrolling of the map the "human" nears the screen border. Collision detection, "solid" objects. The mapeditor.org supports properies on tiles. Let say I assign a "solid" property to some tiles in editor. It should be easy to check this "solid" property in the game engine and implement kind of "solid" behavior, so the animanted sprites do not walk through the walls. Collision detection - it should be easy to implement some custom functionality like "when sprite A is close to sprite B - call this function" Showing "dialogs" or popup windows on top of the map - should be easy to implement. Cross-browser audio support - (it is implemented quite well in construct 2 from scirra, so I'm looking for the comparable audio quality) The game itself is a king of RPG but without fighting scenes and without huge "inventory". The main character just walking on the map, discovers some things, there are dialogs and sounds. The functionality of this example from sprite.js http://batiste.dosimple.ch/sprite.js/tests/mapeditor/map_reader.html is very close to what I'm developing. But I'm not a Javascript guru (and a very lazy guy) and would like to write even less Javascript code as in the example...

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• Pygame surfaces and their Rects

  - by Jaka Novak

  I am trying to understand how pygame surfaces work. I am confused about Rect position of Surface object. If I try blit surface on screen at some position then Surface is drawn at right position, but Rect of the surface is still at position (0, 0)... I tried write my own surface class with new rect, but i am not sure if is that right solution. My goal is that i could move surface like image with rect.move() or something like that. If there is any solution to do that i would be happy to read it. Thanks for answer and time for reading this awful English If helps i write some code for better understanding my problem. (run it first, and then uncomment two lines of code and run again to see the diference): import pygame from pygame.locals import * class SurfaceR(pygame.Surface): def __init__(self, size, position): pygame.Surface.__init__(self, size) self.rect = pygame.Rect(position, size) self.position = position self.size = size def get_rect(self): return self.rect def main(): pygame.init() screen = pygame.display.set_mode((640, 480)) pygame.display.set_caption("Screen!?") clock = pygame.time.Clock() fps = 30 white = (255, 255, 255) red = (255, 0, 0) green = (0, 255, 0) blue = (0, 0, 255) surface = pygame.Surface((70,200)) surface.fill(red) surface_re = SurfaceR((300, 50), (100, 300)) surface_re.fill(blue) while True: for event in pygame.event.get(): if event.type == QUIT: return 0 screen.blit(surface, (100,50)) screen.blit(surface_re, surface_re.position) #pygame.draw.rect(screen, white, surface.get_rect()) #pygame.draw.rect(screen, white, surface_re.get_rect()) pygame.display.update() clock.tick(fps) if __name__ == "__main__": main()

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• OpenGL 2D Depth Perception

  - by Stephen James

  This is the first time i have ever commented on a forum about programming, so sorry if I'm not specific enough. Here's my problem: I have a 2D RPG game written in Java using LWJGL. All works fine, but at the moment I'm having trouble deciding what the best way to do depth perception is. So , for example, if the player goes in front of the tree/enemy (lower than the objects y-coordinate) then show the player in front), if the player goes behind the tree/enemy (higher than the objects specific y-coordinate), then show the player behind the object. I have tried writing a block of code to deal with this, and it works quite well for the trees, but not for the enemies yet. Is there a simpler way of doing this in LWJGL that I'm missing? Thanks :)

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• How can we view 3d objects from top down view in TD game

  - by Syed

  I am making a tower defense game. I am working in x and y axis only. I have made a grid, snapped towers and made a pathfinding algo to run enemy. Initially I have worked with cubes and spheres in place of towers and enemies. Now I am going to place real towers (3D). Note that I haven't used z axis up till now. The user will analyze the game from top down view. I want the user to see towers placement with a little bit of 3d view but I have made my all code in 2d thing. Is there any solution to my problem that somewhat tower placement would view a 3D touch or you can say 2.5D ?? (like fieldrunners) or should I have to involve z axis and ignoring y axis ?

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• OpenGL 2D Depth Perception

  - by Stephen James

  I have a 2D RPG game written in Java using LWJGL. All works fine, but at the moment I'm having trouble deciding what the best way to do depth perception is. So , for example, if the player goes in front of the tree/enemy (lower than the objects y-coordinate) then show the player in front), if the player goes behind the tree/enemy (higher than the objects specific y-coordinate), then show the player behind the object. I have tried writing a block of code to deal with this, and it works quite well for the trees, but not for the enemies yet. Is there a simpler way of doing this in LWJGL that I'm missing?

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• Create bullet physics rigid body along the vertices of a blender model

  - by Krishnabhadra

  I am working on my first 3D game, for iphone, and I am using Blender to create models, Cocos3D game engine and Bullet for physics simulation. I am trying to learn the use of physics engine. What I have done I have created a small model in blender which contains a Cube (default blender cube) at the origin and a UVSphere hovering exactly on top of this cube (without touching the cube) I saved the file to get MyModel.blend. Then I used File -> Export -> PVRGeoPOD (.pod/.h/.cpp) in Blender to export the model to .pod format to use along with Cocos3D. In the coding side, I added necessary bullet files to my Cocos3D template project in XCode. I am also using a bullet objective C wrapper. -(void) initializeScene { _physicsWorld = [[CC3PhysicsWorld alloc] init]; [_physicsWorld setGravity:0 y:-9.8 z:0]; /*Setup camera, lamp etc.*/ .......... ........... /*Add models created in blender to scene*/ [self addContentFromPODFile: @"MyModel.pod"]; /*Create OpenGL ES buffers*/ [self createGLBuffers]; /*get models*/ CC3MeshNode* cubeNode = (CC3MeshNode*)[self getNodeNamed:@"Cube"]; CC3MeshNode* sphereNode = (CC3MeshNode*)[self getNodeNamed:@"Sphere"]; /*Those boring grey colors..*/ [cubeNode setColor:ccc3(255, 255, 0)]; [sphereNode setColor:ccc3(255, 0, 0)]; float *cVertexData = (float*)((CC3VertexArrayMesh*)cubeNode.mesh).vertexLocations.vertices; int cVertexCount = (CC3VertexArrayMesh*)cubeNode.mesh).vertexLocations.vertexCount; btTriangleMesh* cTriangleMesh = new btTriangleMesh(); // for (int i = 0; i < cVertexCount * 3; i+=3) { // printf("\n%f", cVertexData[i]); // printf("\n%f", cVertexData[i+1]); // printf("\n%f", cVertexData[i+2]); // } /*Trying to create a triangle mesh that curresponds the cube in 3D space.*/ int offset = 0; for (int i = 0; i < (cVertexCount / 3); i++){ unsigned int index1 = offset; unsigned int index2 = offset+6; unsigned int index3 = offset+12; cTriangleMesh->addTriangle( btVector3(cVertexData[index1], cVertexData[index1+1], cVertexData[index1+2] ), btVector3(cVertexData[index2], cVertexData[index2+1], cVertexData[index2+2] ), btVector3(cVertexData[index3], cVertexData[index3+1], cVertexData[index3+2] )); offset += 18; } [self releaseRedundantData]; /*Create a collision shape from triangle mesh*/ btBvhTriangleMeshShape* cTriMeshShape = new btBvhTriangleMeshShape(cTriangleMesh,true); btCollisionShape *sphereShape = new btSphereShape(1); /*Create physics objects*/ gTriMeshObject = [_physicsWorld createPhysicsObjectTrimesh:cubeNode shape:cTriMeshShape mass:0 restitution:1.0 position:cubeNode.location]; sphereObject = [_physicsWorld createPhysicsObject:sphereNode shape:sphereShape mass:1 restitution:0.1 position:sphereNode.location]; sphereObject.rigidBody->setDamping(0.1,0.8); } When I run the sphere and cube shows up fine. I expect the sphere object to fall directly on top of the cube, since I have given it a mass of 1 and the physics world gravity is given as -9.8 in y direction. But What is happening the spere rotates around cube three or times and then just jumps out of the scene. Then I know I have some basic misunderstanding about the whole process. So my question is, how can I create a physics collision shape which corresponds to the shape of a particular mesh model. I may need complex shapes than cube and sphere, but before going into them I want to understand the concepts.

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• Clean Code Developer & Certification in IT - MSCC 21.09.2013

  It was a very busy weekend this time, and quite some hectic to organise the second meetup on a Saturday for the Mauritius Software Craftsmanship Community (MSCC) but it was absolutely fun. Following, I'm writing a brief summary about the topics we spoke about and the new impulses I got. "What a meetup... I was positively impressed. At the beginning I thought that noone would actually show up but then by the time the room got filled. Lots of conversation, great dialogues and fantastic networking between fresh students, experienced students, experienced employees, and self-employed attendees. That's what community is all about!" Above quote was my first reaction shortly after the gathering. And despite being busy during the weekend and yesterday, I took my time to reflect a little bit on things happened and statements made before writing it here on my blog. Additionally, I was also very curious about possible reactions and blogs from other attendees. Reactions from other craftsmen Let me quickly give you some links and quotes from others first... "Like Jochen posted on facebook, that was indeed a 5+ hours marathon (maybe 4 hours for me but still) … Wohoo! We’re indeed a bunch of crazy geeks who did not realise how time flew as we dived into the myriad discussions that sprouted. Yet in the end everyone was happy (:" -- Ish on MSCC meetup - The marathon (: "And the 4hours spent @ Talking drums bore its fruit..I was doing something I never did before....reading the borrowed book while walking....and though I was not that familiar with things mentionned in the book...I was skimming,scanning & flipping...reading titles...short paragraphs...and I skipped pages till I reached home." -- Yannick on Mauritius Software Craftsmanship 1st Meet-up "Hi Developers, Just wanted to share with you the meetups i attended last Saturday - [...] - The second meetup is the one hosted by Jochen Kirstätter, the MSCC, where the attendees were Craftsman, no woman, this time - all sharing the same passion of being a developer - even though it is on different platforms(Windows - Windows Phone - Linux - Adobe(yes a designer) - .Net) - but we manage to sit at the same table - sharing developer views and experience in the corporate world - also talking about good practice when coding( where Jochen initiated a discussion on Clean Coding ) i could not stay till the end - but from what i have heard - the longer you stay the more fun you have till 1600. Developers in the Facebook grouping i invite you to stay tuned about the various developer communities popping up - where you can come to share and learn good practices, develop the entrepreneurial spirit, and learn and share your passion about technologies" -- Arnaud on Facebook More feedback has been posted on the event directly. So, should I really write more? Wouldn't that spoil the impressions? Starting the day with a surprise Indeed, I was very pleased to stumble over the existence of Mobile Monday Mauritius on LinkedIn, an association about any kind of mobile app development, mobile gadgets and latest smartphones on the market. Despite the Monday in their name they had scheduled their recent meeting on Saturday between 10:00 and 12:00hrs. Wow, what a coincidence! Let's grap the bull by its horns and pay them an introductory visit. As they chose the Ebene Accelerator at the Orange Tower in Ebene it was a no-brainer to leave home a bit earlier and stop by. It was quite an experience and fun to talk to the geeks over there. Really looking forward to organise something together.... Arriving at the venue As the children got a bit uneasy at the MoMo gathering and I didn't want to disturb them too much, we arrived early at Bagatelle. Well, no problems as we went for a decent breakfast at Food Lover's Market. Shortly afterwards we went to our venue location, Talking Drums, and prepared the room for the meeting. We only had to take off a repro-painting of the wall in order to have a decent area for the projector. All went very smooth and my two little ones were of great help. Just in time, our first craftsman Avinash arrived on the spot. And then the waiting started... Luckily, not too long. Bit by bit more and more IT people came to join our meeting. Meanwhile, I used the time to give a brief introduction about the MSCC in general, what we are (hm, maybe I am) trying to achieve and that the recent phase is completely focused on creating more awareness that a community like the MSCC is active here in Mauritius. As soon as we reached some 'critical mass' of about ten people I asked everyone for a short introduction and bio, just in case... Conversation between participants started to kick in and we were actually more networking than having a focus on our topics of the day. Quick updates on latest news and development around the MSCC Finally, Clean Code Developer No matter how the position is actually called, whether it is Software Engineer, Software Developer, Programmer, Architect, or Craftsman, anyone working in IT is facing almost the same obstacles. As for the process of writing software applications there are re-occurring patterns and principles combined with some common exercise and best practices on how to resolve them. Initiated by the must-read book 'Clean Code' by Robert C. Martin (aka Uncle Bob) the concept of the Clean Code Developer (CCD) was born already some years ago. CCD is much likely to traditional martial arts where you create awareness of certain principles and learn how to apply practices to improve your style. The CCD initiative recommends to indicate your level of knowledge and experience with coloured wrist bands - equivalent to the belt colours - for various reasons. Frankly speaking, I think that the biggest advantage here is provided by the obvious recognition of conceptual understanding. For example, take the situation of a team meeting... A member with a higher grade in CCD, say Green grade, sees that there are mainly Red grades to talk to, and adjusts her way of communication to their level of understanding. The choice of words might change as certain elements of CCD are not yet familiar to all team members. So instead of talking in an abstract way which only Green grades could follow the whole scenario comes down to Red grade level. Different story, better results... Similar to learning martial arts, we only covered two grades during this occasion - black and red. Most interestingly, there was quite some positive feedback and lots of questions about the principles and practices of the red grade. And we gathered real-world examples from various craftsman and discussed them. Following the Clean Code Developer Red Grade and some annotations from our meetup: CCD Red Grade - Principles Don't Repeat Yourself - DRY Keep It Simple, Stupid (and Short) - KISS Beware of Optimisations! Favour Composition over Inheritance - FCoI Interestingly most of the attendees already heard about those key words but couldn't really classify or categorize them. It's very similar to a situation in which you do not the particular for a thing and have to describe it to others... until someone tells you the actual name and suddenly all is very simple. CCD Red Grade - Practices Follow the Boy Scouts Rule Root Cause Analysis - RCA Use a Version Control System Apply Simple Refactoring Pattern Reflect Daily Introduction to the principles and practices of Clean Code Developer - here: Red Grade As for the various ToDo's we commonly agreed that the Boy Scout Rule clearly is not limited to software development or IT administration but applies to daily life in general. Same for the root cause analysis, btw. We really had good stories with surprisingly endings and conclusions. A quick check about who is using a version control system brought more drive into the conversation. Not only that we had people that aren't using any VCS at all, we also had the 'classic' approach of backup folders and naming conventions as well as the VCS 'junkie' that has to use multiple systems at a time. Just for the records: Git and GitHub seem to be in favour of some of the attendees. Regarding the daily reflection at the end of the day we came up with an easy solution: Wrap it up as a blog entry! Certifications in IT This is kind of a controversy in IT in general. Is it interesting to go for certifications or are they completely obsolete? What are the possibilities to get certified? What are the options we have in Mauritius? How would certificates stand compared to other educational tracks like Computer Science or Web Design. The ratio between craftsmen with certifications like MCP, MSTS, CCNA or LPI versus the ones without wasn't in favour for the first group but there was a high interest in the topic itself and some were really surprised to hear that exam preparations are completely free available online including temporarily voucher codes for either discounts or completely free exams. Furthermore, we discussed possible options on forming so-called study groups on a specific certificates and organising more frequent meetups in order to learn together. Taking into consideration that we have sponsored access to the video course material of Pluralsight (and now PeepCode as well as TrainSignal), we might give it a try by the end of the year. Current favourites are LPIC Level 1 and one of the Microsoft exams 40-78x. Feedback and ideas for the MSCC The closing conversations and discussions about how the MSCC is recently doing, what are the possibilities and what's (hopefully) going to happen in the future were really fertile and I made a couple of mental bullet points which I'm looking forward to tackle down together with orher craftsmen. Eventually, it might be a good option to elaborate on some issues during our weekly Code & Coffee sessions one Wednesday morning. Active discussion on various IT topics like certifications (LPI, MCP, CCNA, etc) and sharing experience Finally, we made it till the end of the planned time. Well, actually the talk was still on and we continued even after 16:00hrs. Unfortunately, we (the children and I) had to leave for evening activities. My resume of the day... It was great to have 15 craftsmen in one room. There are hundreds of IT geeks out there in Mauritius, and as Mauritius Software Craftsmanship Community we still have a lot of work to do to pass on the message to some more key players and companies. Currently, it seems that we are able to attract a good number of students in Computer Science... but we have a lot more to offer, even or especially for IT people on the job. I'm already looking forward to our next Saturday meetup in the near future. PS: Meetup pictures are courtesy of Nirvan Pagooah. Thanks for sharing...

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• XNA Masking Mayhem

  - by TropicalFlesh

  I'd like to start by mentioning that I'm just an amateur programmer of the past 2 years with no formal training and know very little about maximizing the potential of graphics hardware. I can write shaders and manipulate a multi-layered drawing environment, but I've basically stuck to minimalist pixel shaders. I'm working on putting dynamic point light shadows in my 2d sidescroller, and have had it working to a reasonable degree. Just chucking it in without working on serious optimizations outside of basic culling, I can get 50 lights or so onscreen at once and still hover around 100 fps. The only issue is that I'm on a very high end machine and would like to target the game at as many platforms I can, low and high end. The way I'm doing shadows involves a lot of masking before I can finally draw the light to my light layer. Basically, my technique to achieveing such shadows is as follows. See pics in this album http://imgur.com/a/m2fWw#0 The dark gray represents the background tiles, the light gray represents the foreground tiles, and the yellow represents the shadow-emitting foreground tile. I'll draw the light using a radial gradient and a color of choice I'll then exclude light from the mask by drawing some geometry extending through the tile from my point light. I actually don't mask the light yet at this point, but I'm just illustrating the technique in this image Finally, I'll re-include the foreground layer in my mask, as I only want shadows to collect on the background layer and finally multiply the light with it's mask to the light layer My question is simple - How can I go about reducing the amount of render target switches I need to do to achieve the following: a. Draw mask to exclude shadows from the foreground to it's own target once per frame b. For each light that emits shadows, -Begin light mask as full white -Render shadow geometry as transparent with an opaque blendmode to eliminate shadowed areas from the mask -Render foreground mask back over the light mask to reintroduce light to the foreground c. Multiply light texture with it's individual mask to the main light layer.

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