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  • why is glVertexAttribDivisor crashing?

    - by 2am
    I am trying to render some trees with instancing. This is rather weird, but before sleeping yesterday night, I checked the code, and it was in a running state, when I got up this morning, it is crashing when I am calling glVertexAttribDivisor I haven't changed any code since yesterday. Here is how I am sending data to GPU for instancing. glGenBuffers(1, &iVBO); glBindBuffer(GL_ARRAY_BUFFER, iVBO); glBufferData(GL_ARRAY_BUFFER, (ml_instance->i_positions.size()*sizeof(glm::vec4)) , NULL, GL_STATIC_DRAW); glBufferSubData(GL_ARRAY_BUFFER, 0, (ml_instance->i_positions.size()*sizeof(glm::vec4)), &ml_instance->i_positions[0]); And then in vertex specification-- glBindBuffer(GL_ARRAY_BUFFER, iVBO); glVertexAttribPointer(i_positions, 4, GL_FLOAT, GL_FALSE, 0, 0); glEnableVertexAttribArray(i_positions); glVertexAttribDivisor(i_positions,1); // **THIS IS WHERE THE PROGRAM CRASHES** glDrawElementsInstanced(GL_TRIANGLES, indices.size(), GL_UNSIGNED_INT, 0,TREES_INSTANCE_COUNT); I have checked ml_instance->i_positions, it has all the data that needs to render. I have checked the value of i_positions in vertex shader, it is the same as whatever I have defined there. I am little out of ideas here, everything looks pretty much fine. What am I missing?

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  • Multiple Vertex Buffers per Mesh

    - by Daniel
    I've run into the situation where the size of my mesh with all its vertices and indices, is larger than the (optimal) vertex buffer object upper limit (~8MB). I was wondering if I can sub-divide the mesh across multiple vertex buffers, and somehow retain validity of the indices. Ie a triangle with a indice at the first vertex, and an indice at the last (ie in seperate VBOs). All the while maintaining this within Vertex Array Objects. My thoughts are, save myself the hassle, and for meshes (messes :P) such as this, just use the necessary size ( 8MB); which is what I do at the moment. But ideally my buffer manager (wip) at the moment is using optimal sizes; I may just have to make a special case then... Any ideas? If necessary, a simple C++ code example is appreciated. Note: I have also cross-posted this on stackoverflow, as I was not sure as to which it would be more suitable (its partly a design question).

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  • sprite animation system height recalculating has some issues

    - by Nicolas Martel
    Basically, the way it works is that it update the frame to show every let's say 24 ticks and every time the frame update, it recalculates the height and width of the new sprite to render so that my gravity logics and stuff works well. But the problem i am having now is a bit hard to explain in words only, therefore i will use this picture to assist me The picture So what i need basically is that if let's say i froze the sprite at the first frame, then unfreeze it and freeze it at the second frame, have the second frame's sprite (let's say it's a prone move) simply stand on the foothold without starting the gravity and when switching back, have the first sprite go back on the foothold like normal without being under the foothold. I had 2 ideas on doing this but I'm not sure it's the most efficient ways to do it so i wanna hear your inputs.

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  • Drawing of a huge model - How to regain performance?

    - by marc wellman
    I have a huge model I want to draw in my XNA application but because of its size I am experiencing a tremendous loss of performance. The model has about ~50 000 000 edges and has a size on disk of 205 MB in DirectX Format. Please don't ask whether this model has to be that big - yes it has! Is there a way to transfer the model directly to my GPU in order to let the GPU do the drawing like when transferring a VertexBuffer like this: graphicsDevice.Vertices[1].SetSource(_instanceBuffers[i], 0, _sizeofMatrix); because when I try to fill a vertexBuffer with all the vertices I am getting a OutOfMemoryException.

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  • In esenthel engine how can I remove some object from Gui class?

    - by Gajet
    I know many people in this site may not know esenthel engine at all and my question may be better answered at engine forum but I'm putting it here to share the name of a real easy to code gameengine with all of you: you can easily add a Button for example to your GUI class (gui is it's shared instance) with Gui += buttonInstance.create("click on me") but I'm just wondering how can you remove an on object from from Gui members. as far as I know there is no such a method as removeChild or getChildren or anything similar.

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  • XNA Skinned Model - Keyframe.Bone out of range exception

    - by idlackage
    I'm getting an IndexOutOfRangeException on this line of AnimationPlayer.cs: boneTransforms[keyframe.Bone] = keyframe.Transform; I don't get what it's really referring to. The error happens when keyframe.Bone is 14, but I have no idea what that's supposed to mean. The 14th bone of my model? What would that even be? I read this thread, but nothing there seemed to work. I don't have many bones, stray edges/verts, unassigned verts, unparented/non-root bones, or bones with dots in the name. What else can I be missing? Thank you for any help!

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  • OpenGL sprites and point size limitation

    - by Srdan
    I'm developing a simple particle system that should be able to perform on mobile devices (iOS, Andorid). My plan was to use GL_POINT_SPRITE/GL_PROGRAM_POINT_SIZE method because of it's efficiency (GL_POINTS are enough), but after some experimenting, I found myself in a trouble. Sprite size is limited (to usually 64 pixels). I'm calculating size using this formula gl_PointSize = in_point_size * some_factor / distance_to_camera to make particle sizes proportional to distance to camera. But at some point, when camera is close enough, problem with size limitation emerges and whole system starts looking unrealistic. Is there a way to avoid this problem? If no, what's alternative? I was thinking of manually generating billboard quad for each particle. Now, I have some questions about that approach. I guess minimum geometry data would be four vertices per particle and index array to make quads from these vertices (with GL_TRIANGLE_STRIP). Additionally, for each vertex I need a color and texture coordinate. I would put all that in an interleaved vertex array. But as you can see, there is much redundancy. All vertices of same particle share same color value, and four texture coordinates are same for all particles. Because of how glDrawArrays/Elements works, I see no way to optimise this. Do you know of a better approach on how to organise per-particle data? Should I use buffers or vertex arrays, or there is no difference because each time I have to update all particles' data. About particles simulation... Where to do it? On CPU or on a vertex processors? Something tells me that mobile's CPU would do it faster than it's vertex unit (at least today in 2012 :). So, any advice on how to make a simple and efficient particle system without particle size limitation, for mobile device, would be appreciated. (animation of camera passing through particles should be realistic)

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  • Playing part of a sfx audio file in HTML5 using WebAudio

    - by Matthew James Davis
    I have compiled all of my sound effects into one sequenced .ogg file. I have the start and stop times for each sound effect. How do I play the individual effects? That is, how do I play part of an audio file. More specificially, I've created a dictionary { 'sword_hit': { src: 'sfx.ogg', start: 265, // ms length: 212 // ms } } that my play_sound() function can use to look up 'sword_hit' and play the correct audio file at the correct start time for the correct duration. I simply need to know how to tell the WebAudio API to start playing at start ms and only play for length ms.

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  • Writing to a structured buffer with a compute shader (D3D11)

    - by Vertexwahn
    I have some problems writing to a structured buffer. First I create a structured buffer that is filled with float values beginning from 0 to 99. Afterwards a copy the structured buffer to a CPU accessible buffer is made to print the content of the structured buffer to the console. The output is as expected (Numbers 0 to 99 appear on the console). Afterwards I use a compute shader that should change the contents of the structured buffer: RWStructuredBuffer<float> Result : register( u0 ); [numthreads(1, 1, 1)] void CS_main( uint3 GroupId : SV_GroupID ) { Result[GroupId.x] = GroupId.x * 10; } But the compute shader does not change the contents of the structured buffer. The source code can be found here (main.cpp): https://bitbucket.org/Vertexwahn/cmakedemos/src/4abb067afd5781b87a553c4c720956668adca22a/D3D11ComputeShader/src/main.cpp?at=default FillCS.hlsl: https://bitbucket.org/Vertexwahn/cmakedemos/src/4abb067afd5781b87a553c4c720956668adca22a/D3D11ComputeShader/src/FillCS.hlsl?at=default

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  • How can I gain access to a player instance in a Minecraft mod?

    - by Andrew Graber
    I'm creating Minecraft mod with a pickaxe that takes away experience when you break a block. The method for taking away experience from a player is addExperience on EntityPlayer, so I need to get an instance of EntityPlayer for the player using my pickaxe when the pickaxe breaks a block, so that I can remove the appropriate amount of experience. My pickaxe class currently looks like this: public class ExperiencePickaxe extends ItemPickaxe { public ExperiencePickaxe(int ItemID, EnumToolMaterial material){ super(ItemID, material); } public boolean onBlockDestroyed(ItemStack par1ItemStack, World par2World, int par3, int par4, int par5, int par6, EntityLiving par7EntityLiving) { if ((double)Block.blocksList[par3].getBlockHardness(par2World, par4, par5, par6) != 0.0D) { EntityPlayer e = new EntityPlayer(); // create an instance e.addExperience(-1); } return true; } } Obviously, I cannot actually create a new EntityPlayer since it is an abstract class. How can I get access to the player using my pickaxe?

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  • Floodfill algorithm for GO

    - by user1048606
    The floodfill algorithm is used in the bucket tool in MS paint and photoshop, but it can also be used for GO and minesweeper. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flood_fill In go you can capture groups of stones, this website portrays it with two stones. http://www.connectedglobe.com/mindy/cap6.html This is my floodfill method in Java, it is not capturing a group of stones and I have no idea why because to me it makes sense. public void floodfill(int turn, int col, int row){ for(int a = col; a<19; a++){ for(int b = row; b<19; b++){ if(turn == black){ if(stones[col][row] == white){ stones[col][row] = 0; floodfill(black, col-1, row); floodfill(black, col+1, row); floodfill(black, col, row-1); floodfill(black, col, row+1); } } } } } It searches up, down, left, right for all the stones on the board. If the stones are white it captures them by making them 0, which represents empty.

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  • Is chess-like AI really inapplicable in turn-based strategy games?

    - by Joh
    Obviously, trying to apply the min-max algorithm on the complete tree of moves works only for small games (I apologize to all chess enthusiasts, by "small" I do not mean "simplistic"). For typical turn-based strategy games where the board is often wider than 100 tiles and all pieces in a side can move simultaneously, the min-max algorithm is inapplicable. I was wondering if a partial min-max algorithm which limits itself to N board configurations at each depth couldn't be good enough? Using a genetic algorithm, it might be possible to find a number of board configurations that are good wrt to the evaluation function. Hopefully, these configurations might also be good wrt to long-term goals. I would be surprised if this hasn't been thought of before and tried. Has it? How does it work?

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  • Move projectile in direction the gun is facing

    - by Manderin87
    I am attempting to have a projectile follow the direction a gun is facing. When using the following code I am unable to make the projectile go in the right direction. float speed = .5f; float dX = (float) -Math.cos(Math.toRadians(degree)) * speed; float dY = (float) Math.sin(Math.toRadians(degree)) * speed; Can anyone tell me what I am doing wrong? The degree is the direction the gun is facing in degree's.

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  • D3D9 Alpha Blending on the surfaces

    - by Indeera
    I have a surface (OffScreenPlain or RenderTarget with D3DFMT_A8R8G8B8) which I copy pixels (ARGB) to, from a third party function. Before pixel copying, Bits are accessed by LockRect. This surface is then StretchRect to the Backbuffer which is (D3DFMT_A8R8G8B8). Surface and Backbuffer are different dimensions. Filtering is set to D3DTEXF_NONE. Just after creating the d3d device I've set following RenderState settings D3DRS_ALPHABLENDENABLE -> TRUE D3DRS_BLENDOP -> D3DBLENDOP_ADD D3DRS_SRCBLEND -> D3DBLEND_SRCALPHA D3DRS_DESTBLEND -> D3DBLEND_INVSRCALPHA But I see no alpha blending happening. I've verified that alpha is specified in pixels. I've done a simple test by creating a vertex buffer and drawing a triangle (DrawPrimitive) which displays with alpha blending. In this test surface was StretchRect first and then DrawPrimitive, and the surface content displays without alpha blending and the triangle displays with alpha blending. What am I missing here? Thanks

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  • How do I show a minimap in a 3D world?

    - by Bubblewrap
    Got a really typical use-case here. I have large map made up of hexagons and at any given time only a small section of the map is visible. To provide an overview of the complete map, I want to show a small 2D representation of the map in a corner of the screen. What is the recommended approach for this in libgdx? Keep in mind the minimap must be updated when the currently visible section changes and when the map is updated. I've found SpriteBatch(info here), but the warning label on it made me think twice: A SpriteBatch is a pretty heavy object so you should only ever have one in your program. I'm not sure I'm supposed to use the one SpriteBatch that I can have on the minimap, and I'm also not sure how to interpret "heavy" in this context. Another thing to possibly keep in mind is that the minimap will probably be part of a larger UI, is there any way to integrate these two?

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  • Extrapolation breaks collision detection

    - by user22241
    Before applying extrapolation to my sprite's movement, my collision worked perfectly. However, after applying extrapolation to my sprite's movement (to smooth things out), the collision no longer works. This is how things worked before extrapolation: However, after I implement my extrapolation, the collision routine breaks. I am assuming this is because it is acting upon the new coordinate that has been produced by the extrapolation routine (which is situated in my render call ). After I apply my extrapolation How to correct this behaviour? I've tried puting an extra collision check just after extrapolation - this does seem to clear up a lot of the problems but I've ruled this out because putting logic into my rendering is out of the question. I've also tried making a copy of the spritesX position, extrapolating that and drawing using that rather than the original, thus leaving the original intact for the logic to pick up on - this seems a better option, but it still produces some weird effects when colliding with walls. I'm pretty sure this also isn't the correct way to deal with this. I've found a couple of similar questions on here but the answers haven't helped me. This is my extrapolation code: public void onDrawFrame(GL10 gl) { //Set/Re-set loop back to 0 to start counting again loops=0; while(System.currentTimeMillis() > nextGameTick && loops < maxFrameskip){ SceneManager.getInstance().getCurrentScene().updateLogic(); nextGameTick+=skipTicks; timeCorrection += (1000d/ticksPerSecond) % 1; nextGameTick+=timeCorrection; timeCorrection %=1; loops++; tics++; } extrapolation = (float)(System.currentTimeMillis() + skipTicks - nextGameTick) / (float)skipTicks; render(extrapolation); } Applying extrapolation render(float extrapolation){ //This example shows extrapolation for X axis only. Y position (spriteScreenY is assumed to be valid) extrapolatedPosX = spriteGridX+(SpriteXVelocity*dt)*extrapolation; spriteScreenPosX = extrapolationPosX * screenWidth; drawSprite(spriteScreenX, spriteScreenY); } Edit As I mentioned above, I have tried making a copy of the sprite's coordinates specifically to draw with.... this has it's own problems. Firstly, regardless of the copying, when the sprite is moving, it's super-smooth, when it stops, it's wobbling slightly left/right - as it's still extrapolating it's position based on the time. Is this normal behavior and can we 'turn it off' when the sprite stops? I've tried having flags for left / right and only extrapolating if either of these is enabled. I've also tried copying the last and current positions to see if there is any difference. However, as far as collision goes, these don't help. If the user is pressing say, the right button and the sprite is moving right, when it hits a wall, if the user continues to hold the right button down, the sprite will keep animating to the right, while being stopped by the wall (therefore not actually moving), however because the right flag is still set and also because the collision routine is constantly moving the sprite out of the wall, it still appear to the code (not the player) that the sprite is still moving, and therefore extrapolation continues. So what the player would see, is the sprite 'static' (yes, it's animating, but it's not actually moving across the screen), and every now and then it shakes violently as the extrapolation attempts to do it's thing....... Hope this help

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  • Surface normal to screen angle

    - by Tannz0rz
    I've been struggling to get this working. I simply wish to take a surface normal and convert it to a screen angle. As an example, assuming we're working with the highlighted surface on the sphere below, where the arrow is the normal, the 2D angle would obviously be PI/4 radians. Here's one of the many things I've tried to no avail: float4 A = v.vertex; float4 B = v.vertex + float4(v.normal, 0.0); A = mul(VP, A); B = mul(VP, B); A.xy = (0.5 * (A.xy / A.w)) + 0.5; B.xy = (0.5 * (B.xy / B.w)) + 0.5; o.theta = atan2(B.y - A.y, B.x - A.x); I'm finally at my wit's end. Thanks for any and all help.

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  • How do I morph between meshes that have different vertex counts?

    - by elijaheac
    I am using MeshMorpher from the Unify wiki in my Unity project, and I want to be able to transform between arbitrary meshes. This utility works best when there are an equal number of vertices between the two meshes. Is there some way to equalize the vertex count between a set of meshes? I don't mean that this would reduce the vertex count of a mesh, but would rather add redundant vertices to any meshes with smaller counts. However, if there is an alternate method of handling this (other than increasing vertices), I would like to know.

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  • (int) Math.floor(x / TILESIZE) or just (int) (x / TILESIZE)

    - by Aidan Mueller
    I have a Array that stores my map data and my Tiles are 64X64. Sometimes I need to convert from pixels to units of tiles. So I was doing: int x int y public void myFunction() { getTile((int) Math.floor(x / 64), (int) Math.floor(y / 64)).doOperation(); } But I discovered by using (I'm using java BTW) System.out.println((int) (1 / 1.5)) that converting to an int automatically rounds down. This means that I can replace the (int) Math.floor with just x / 64. But if I run this on a different OS do you think it might give a different result? I'm just afraid there might be some case where this would round up and not down. Should I keep doing it the way I was and maybe make a function like convert(int i) to make it easier? Or is it OK to just do x / 64?

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  • SWF file not playing after being published

    - by rsquare
    I'm trying to run the "connector" example that comes bundled with the SmartFoxServer 2X downloads.. There it connects to the server and loads the correct configuration file. When I run it in Adobe Flash Professional 5, it runs correctly and connects to the server but after being published as SWF movie, it doesnt work. It loads the configuration file but can't connect and gives an error connection failure: ERROR 2048. This is the example I'm talking about.

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  • Texture displays on Android emulator but not on device

    - by Rob
    I have written a simple UI which takes an image (256x256) and maps it to a rectangle. This works perfectly on the emulator however on the phone the texture does not show, I see only a white rectangle. This is my code: public void onSurfaceCreated(GL10 gl, EGLConfig config) { byteBuffer = ByteBuffer.allocateDirect(shape.length * 4); byteBuffer.order(ByteOrder.nativeOrder()); vertexBuffer = byteBuffer.asFloatBuffer(); vertexBuffer.put(cardshape); vertexBuffer.position(0); byteBuffer = ByteBuffer.allocateDirect(shape.length * 4); byteBuffer.order(ByteOrder.nativeOrder()); textureBuffer = byteBuffer.asFloatBuffer(); textureBuffer.put(textureshape); textureBuffer.position(0); // Set the background color to black ( rgba ). gl.glClearColor(0.0f, 0.0f, 0.0f, 0.5f); // Enable Smooth Shading, default not really needed. gl.glShadeModel(GL10.GL_SMOOTH); // Depth buffer setup. gl.glClearDepthf(1.0f); // Enables depth testing. gl.glEnable(GL10.GL_DEPTH_TEST); // The type of depth testing to do. gl.glDepthFunc(GL10.GL_LEQUAL); // Really nice perspective calculations. gl.glHint(GL10.GL_PERSPECTIVE_CORRECTION_HINT, GL10.GL_NICEST); gl.glEnable(GL10.GL_TEXTURE_2D); loadGLTexture(gl); } public void onDrawFrame(GL10 gl) { gl.glClear(GL10.GL_COLOR_BUFFER_BIT | GL10.GL_DEPTH_BUFFER_BIT); gl.glDisable(GL10.GL_DEPTH_TEST); gl.glMatrixMode(GL10.GL_PROJECTION); // Select Projection gl.glPushMatrix(); // Push The Matrix gl.glLoadIdentity(); // Reset The Matrix gl.glOrthof(0f, 480f, 0f, 800f, -1f, 1f); gl.glMatrixMode(GL10.GL_MODELVIEW); // Select Modelview Matrix gl.glPushMatrix(); // Push The Matrix gl.glLoadIdentity(); // Reset The Matrix gl.glEnableClientState(GL10.GL_VERTEX_ARRAY); gl.glEnableClientState(GL10.GL_TEXTURE_COORD_ARRAY); gl.glLoadIdentity(); gl.glTranslatef(card.x, card.y, 0.0f); gl.glBindTexture(GL10.GL_TEXTURE_2D, texture[0]); //activates texture to be used now gl.glVertexPointer(2, GL10.GL_FLOAT, 0, vertexBuffer); gl.glTexCoordPointer(2, GL10.GL_FLOAT, 0, textureBuffer); gl.glDrawArrays(GL10.GL_TRIANGLE_STRIP, 0, 4); gl.glDisableClientState(GL10.GL_VERTEX_ARRAY); gl.glDisableClientState(GL10.GL_TEXTURE_COORD_ARRAY); } public void onSurfaceChanged(GL10 gl, int width, int height) { // Sets the current view port to the new size. gl.glViewport(0, 0, width, height); // Select the projection matrix gl.glMatrixMode(GL10.GL_PROJECTION); // Reset the projection matrix gl.glLoadIdentity(); // Calculate the aspect ratio of the window GLU.gluPerspective(gl, 45.0f, (float) width / (float) height, 0.1f, 100.0f); // Select the modelview matrix gl.glMatrixMode(GL10.GL_MODELVIEW); // Reset the modelview matrix gl.glLoadIdentity(); } public int[] texture = new int[1]; public void loadGLTexture(GL10 gl) { // loading texture Bitmap bitmap; bitmap = BitmapFactory.decodeResource(context.getResources(), R.drawable.image); // generate one texture pointer gl.glGenTextures(0, texture, 0); //adds texture id to texture array // ...and bind it to our array gl.glBindTexture(GL10.GL_TEXTURE_2D, texture[0]); //activates texture to be used now // create nearest filtered texture gl.glTexParameterf(GL10.GL_TEXTURE_2D, GL10.GL_TEXTURE_MIN_FILTER, GL10.GL_NEAREST); gl.glTexParameterf(GL10.GL_TEXTURE_2D, GL10.GL_TEXTURE_MAG_FILTER, GL10.GL_LINEAR); // Use Android GLUtils to specify a two-dimensional texture image from our bitmap GLUtils.texImage2D(GL10.GL_TEXTURE_2D, 0, bitmap, 0); // Clean up bitmap.recycle(); } As per many other similar issues and resolutions on the web i have tried setting the minsdkversion is 3, loading the bitmap via an input stream bitmap = BitmapFactory.decodeStream(is), setting BitmapFactory.Options.inScaled to false, putting the images in the nodpi folder and putting them in the raw folder.. all of which didn't help. I'm not really sure what else to try..

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  • Tools for creating assets? [closed]

    - by Agent_9191
    There are similar questions about finding existing resources that are free for use (free sprites/images, music, sound), but I'm interested in creating the resources myself. What tools do you use for asset creation/modification? Please only put one tool per answer. Also try to include the following information: Product Name Link to website Type of assets is can create (2D images, 3D images, audio, etc) OS(s) supported Cost License (if free/open source) General summary

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  • Sending changes to a terrain heightmap over UDP

    - by Floomi
    This is a more conceptual, thinking-out-loud question than a technical one. I have a 3D heightmapped terrain as part of a multiplayer RTS that I would like to terraform over a network. The terraforming will be done by units within the gameworld; the player will paint a "target heightmap" that they'd like the current terrain to resemble and units will deform towards that on their own (a la Perimeter). Given my terrain is 257x257 vertices, the naive approach of sending heights when they change will flood the bandwidth very quickly - updating a quarter of the terrain every second will hit ~66kB/s. This is clearly way too much. My next thought was to move to a brush-based system, where you send e.g. the centre of a circle, its radius, and some function defining the influence of the brush from the centre going outwards. But even with reliable UDP the "start" and "stop" messages could still be delayed. I guess I could compare timestamps and compensate for this, although it'd likely mean that clients would deform verts too much on their local simulations and then have to smooth them back to the correct heights. I could also send absolute vert heights in the "start" and "stop" messages to guarantee correct data on the clients. Alternatively I could treat brushes in a similar way to units, and do the standard position + velocity + client-side prediction jazz on them, with the added stipulation that they deform terrain within a certain radius around them. The server could then intermittently do a pass and send (a subset of) recently updated verts to clients as and when there's bandwidth to spare. Any other suggestions, or indications that I'm on the right (or wrong!) track with any of these ideas would be greatly appreciated.

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  • Efficiently separating Read/Compute/Write steps for concurrent processing of entities in Entity/Component systems

    - by TravisG
    Setup I have an entity-component architecture where Entities can have a set of attributes (which are pure data with no behavior) and there exist systems that run the entity logic which act on that data. Essentially, in somewhat pseudo-code: Entity { id; map<id_type, Attribute> attributes; } System { update(); vector<Entity> entities; } A system that just moves along all entities at a constant rate might be MovementSystem extends System { update() { for each entity in entities position = entity.attributes["position"]; position += vec3(1,1,1); } } Essentially, I'm trying to parallelise update() as efficiently as possible. This can be done by running entire systems in parallel, or by giving each update() of one system a couple of components so different threads can execute the update of the same system, but for a different subset of entities registered with that system. Problem In reality, these systems sometimes require that entities interact(/read/write data from/to) each other, sometimes within the same system (e.g. an AI system that reads state from other entities surrounding the current processed entity), but sometimes between different systems that depend on each other (i.e. a movement system that requires data from a system that processes user input). Now, when trying to parallelize the update phases of entity/component systems, the phases in which data (components/attributes) from Entities are read and used to compute something, and the phase where the modified data is written back to entities need to be separated in order to avoid data races. Otherwise the only way (not taking into account just "critical section"ing everything) to avoid them is to serialize parts of the update process that depend on other parts. This seems ugly. To me it would seem more elegant to be able to (ideally) have all processing running in parallel, where a system may read data from all entities as it wishes, but doesn't write modifications to that data back until some later point. The fact that this is even possible is based on the assumption that modification write-backs are usually very small in complexity, and don't require much performance, whereas computations are very expensive (relatively). So the overhead added by a delayed-write phase might be evened out by more efficient updating of entities (by having threads work more % of the time instead of waiting). A concrete example of this might be a system that updates physics. The system needs to both read and write a lot of data to and from entities. Optimally, there would be a system in place where all available threads update a subset of all entities registered with the physics system. In the case of the physics system this isn't trivially possible because of race conditions. So without a workaround, we would have to find other systems to run in parallel (which don't modify the same data as the physics system), other wise the remaining threads are waiting and wasting time. However, that has disadvantages Practically, the L3 cache is pretty much always better utilized when updating a large system with multiple threads, as opposed to multiple systems at once, which all act on different sets of data. Finding and assembling other systems to run in parallel can be extremely time consuming to design well enough to optimize performance. Sometimes, it might even not be possible at all because a system just depends on data that is touched by all other systems. Solution? In my thinking, a possible solution would be a system where reading/updating and writing of data is separated, so that in one expensive phase, systems only read data and compute what they need to compute, and then in a separate, performance-wise cheap, write phase, attributes of entities that needed to be modified are finally written back to the entities. The Question How might such a system be implemented to achieve optimal performance, as well as making programmer life easier? What are the implementation details of such a system and what might have to be changed in the existing EC-architecture to accommodate this solution?

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  • Fastest bit-blit in C# ?

    - by AttackingHobo
    I know there is Unity, and XNA that both use C#, but I am don't know what else I could use. The reason I say C# is that the syntax and style is similar to AS3, which I am familiar with, and I want to choose the correct framework to start learning with. What should I use to be able to do the most possible bit-blit(direct pixel copy) objects per frame. EDIT: I should not need to add this, but I am looking for the most possible amount of objects per frame because I am making a few Bullet-Hell SHMUPS. I need thousands and thousands of bullets, particles, and hundreds of enemies on the screen at once. I am looking for a solution to do as many bit-blit operations per frame, I am not looking for a general purpose engine. EDIT2: I want bit-blitting because I do not want to exclude people who have lower end video cards but a fast processor from playing my games.

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