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  • Smooth Camera Zoom Factor Change

    - by Siddharth
    I have game play scene in which user can zoom in and out. For which I used smooth camera in the following manner. public static final int CAMERA_WIDTH = 1024; public static final int CAMERA_HEIGHT = 600; public static final float MAXIMUM_VELOCITY_X = 400f; public static final float MAXIMUM_VELOCITY_Y = 400f; public static final float ZOOM_FACTOR_CHANGE = 1f; mSmoothCamera = new SmoothCamera(0, 0, Constants.CAMERA_WIDTH, Constants.CAMERA_HEIGHT, Constants.MAXIMUM_VELOCITY_X, Constants.MAXIMUM_VELOCITY_Y, Constants.ZOOM_FACTOR_CHANGE); mSmoothCamera.setBounds(0f, 0f, Constants.CAMERA_WIDTH, Constants.CAMERA_HEIGHT); But above thing create problem for me. When user perform zoom in and leave game play scene then other scene behaviour not look good. I already set zoom factor to 1 for this purpose. But now it show camera translation in other scene. Because scene switching time it so much small that player can easily saw translation of camera that I don't want to show. After camera reposition, everything works perfect but how to set camera its proper position. For example my loading text move from bottom to top or vice versa based on camera movement. Any more detail you want then I can able to give you.

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  • Viewport / Camera Calculation in 2D Game

    - by Dave
    we have a 2D game with some sprites and tiles and some kind of camera/viewport, that "moves" around the scene. so far so good, if we wouldn't had some special behaviour for your camera/viewport translation. normally you could stick the camera to your player figure and center it, resulting in a very cheap, undergraduate, translation equation, like : vec_translation -/+= speed (depending in what keys are pressed. WASD as default.) buuuuuuuuuut, we want our player figure be able to actually reach the bounds, when the viewport/camera has reached a maximum translation. we came up with the following solution (only keys a and d are the shown here, the rest is just adaption of calculation or maybe YOUR super-cool and elegant solution :) ): if(keys[A]) { playerX -= speed; if(playerScreenX <= width / 2 && tx < 0) { playerScreenX = width / 2; tx += speed; } else if(playerScreenX <= width / 2 && (tx) >= 0) { playerScreenX -= speed; tx = 0; if(playerScreenX < 0) playerScreenX = 0; } else if(playerScreenX >= width / 2 && (tx) < 0) { playerScreenX -= speed; } } if(keys[D]) { playerX += speed; if(playerScreenX >= width / 2 && (-tx + width) < sceneWidth) { playerScreenX = width / 2; tx -= speed; } if(playerScreenX >= width / 2 && (-tx + width) >= sceneWidth) { playerScreenX += speed; tx = -(sceneWidth - width); if(playerScreenX >= width - player.width) playerScreenX = width - player.width; } if(playerScreenX <= width / 2 && (-tx + width) < sceneWidth) { playerScreenX += speed; } } i think the code is rather self explaining: keys is a flag container for currently active keys, playerX/-Y is the position of the player according to world origin, tx/ty are the translation components vital to background / npc / item offset calculation, playerOnScreenX/-Y is the actual position of the player figure (sprite) on screen and width/height are the dimensions of the camera/viewport. this all looks quite nice and works well, but there is a very small and nasty calculation error, which in turn sums up to some visible effect. let's consider following piece of code: if(playerScreenX <= width / 2 && tx < 0) { playerScreenX = width / 2; tx += speed; } it can be translated into plain english as : if the x position of your player figure on screen is less or equal the half of your display / camera / viewport size AND there is enough space left LEFT of your viewport/camera then set players x position on screen to width half, increase translation (because we subtract the translation from something we want to move). easy, right?! doing this will create a small delta between playerX and playerScreenX. after so much talking, my question appears now here at the bottom of this document: how do I stick the calculation of my player-on-screen to the actual position of the player AND having a viewport that is not always centered aroung the players figure? here is a small test-case in processing: http://pastebin.com/bFaTauaa thank you for reading until now and thank you in advance for probably answering my question.

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  • Hidden Loading with UDK

    - by CyrusFiredawn
    I was wondering, how would I go about creating hidden loading scenes with UDK? For example, a character walks in to an elevator, the elevator fakes movement, whilst the previous floor is destroyed and the next floor is loaded on top. I assume it's possible with UDK, since it's supposedly rather flexible, but I've never used UDK before (I decided to ask this question first to save me learning it all, finding out it isn't possible, then giving up). So yeah, is hiding the loading process possible? And if so, how would I go about doing it?

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  • Will making players pay a virtual currency before entering a match discourage them from playing?

    - by Bane
    I'm making a multiplayer match-making game, and by my current design, people will need to pay a small fee before joining a match. At the end of the match, the team that won will get the money. That will be a virtual currency, but still, will it discourage people to enter matches? I introduced it to make the matches matter more, because there's always a fear that you will loose your investments. I'm not talking about anything big here, but even a small amount might have a similar psychological effect as a bigger one.

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  • Using SQL tables for storing user created level stats. Is there a better way?

    - by Ivan
    I am developing a racing game in which players can create their own tracks and upload them to a server. Players will be able to compare their best track times to their friends and see world records. I was going to generate a table for each track submitted to store the best times of each player who plays the track. However, I can't predict how many will be uploaded and I imagine too many tables might cause problems, or is this a valid method? I considered saving each player's best times in a string in a single table field like so: level1:00.45;level2:00.43;level3:00.12 If I did this I wouldn't need a separate table for each level (each level could just have a row in a 'WorldRecords' table). However, this just causes another problem because the text would eventually reach the limit for varchar length. I also considered storing the times data in XML files. This would avoid database issues and server disk space can be increased if needed. But I imagine this would be very slow. To update one players best time on one level, I would have to check every node in the file to find their time record to update. Apologies for the wall of text. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

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  • Issue with a point coordinates, which creates an unwanted triangle

    - by Paul
    I would like to connect the points from the red path, to the y-axis in blue. I figured out that the problem with my triangles came from the first point (V0) : it is not located where it should be. In the console, it says its location is at 0,0, but in the emulator, it is not. The code : for(int i = 1; i < 2; i++) { CCLOG(@"_polyVertices[i-1].x : %f, _polyVertices[i-1].y : %f", _polyVertices[i-1].x, _polyVertices[i-1].y); CCLOG(@"_polyVertices[i].x : %f, _polyVertices[i].y : %f", _polyVertices[i].x, _polyVertices[i].y); ccDrawLine(_polyVertices[i-1], _polyVertices[i]); } The output : _polyVertices[i-1].x : 0.000000, _polyVertices[i-1].y : 0.000000 _polyVertices[i].x : 50.000000, _polyVertices[i].y : 0.000000 And the result : (the layer goes up, i could not take the screenshot before the layer started to go up, but the first red point starts at y=0) : Then it creates an unwanted triangle when the code continues : Would you have any idea about this? (So to force the first blue point to start at 0,0, and not at 50,0 as it seems to be now) Here is the code : - (void)generatePath{ float x = 50; //first red point float y = 0; for(int i = 0; i < kMaxKeyPoints+1; i++) { if (i<3){ _hillKeyPoints[i] = CGPointMake(x, y); x = 150 + (random() % (int) 30); y += -40; } else if(i<20){ //going right _hillKeyPoints[i] = CGPointMake(x, y); x += (random() % (int) 30); y += -40; } else if(i<25){ //stabilize _hillKeyPoints[i] = CGPointMake(x, y); x = 150 + (random() % (int) 30); y += -40; } else if(i<30){ //going left _hillKeyPoints[i] = CGPointMake(x, y); //x -= (random() % (int) 10); x = 150 + (random() % (int) 30); y += -40; } else { //back to normal _hillKeyPoints[i] = CGPointMake(x, y); x = 150 + (random() % (int) 30); y += -40; } } } -(void)generatePolygons{ static int prevFromKeyPointI = -1; static int prevToKeyPointI = -1; // key points interval for drawing while (_hillKeyPoints[_fromKeyPointI].y > -_offsetY+winSizeTop) { _fromKeyPointI++; } while (_hillKeyPoints[_toKeyPointI].y > -_offsetY-winSizeBottom) { _toKeyPointI++; } if (prevFromKeyPointI != _fromKeyPointI || prevToKeyPointI != _toKeyPointI) { _nPolyVertices = 0; float x1 = 0; int keyPoints = _fromKeyPointI; for (int i=_fromKeyPointI; i<_toKeyPointI; i++){ //V0: at (0,0) _polyVertices[_nPolyVertices] = CGPointMake(x1, y1); //first blue point _polyTexCoords[_nPolyVertices++] = CGPointMake(x1, y1); //V1: to the first "point" _polyVertices[_nPolyVertices] = CGPointMake(_hillKeyPoints[keyPoints].x, _hillKeyPoints[keyPoints].y); _polyTexCoords[_nPolyVertices++] = CGPointMake(_hillKeyPoints[keyPoints].x, _hillKeyPoints[keyPoints].y); keyPoints++; //from point at index 0 to 1 //V2, same y as point n°2: _polyVertices[_nPolyVertices] = CGPointMake(0, _hillKeyPoints[keyPoints].y); _polyTexCoords[_nPolyVertices++] = CGPointMake(0, _hillKeyPoints[keyPoints].y); //V1 again _polyVertices[_nPolyVertices] = _polyVertices[_nPolyVertices-2]; _polyTexCoords[_nPolyVertices++] = _polyVertices[_nPolyVertices-2]; //V2 again _polyVertices[_nPolyVertices] = _polyVertices[_nPolyVertices-2]; _polyTexCoords[_nPolyVertices++] = _polyVertices[_nPolyVertices-2]; //CCLOG(@"_nPolyVertices V2 again : %i", _nPolyVertices); //V3 = same x,y as point at index 1 _polyVertices[_nPolyVertices] = CGPointMake(_hillKeyPoints[keyPoints].x, _hillKeyPoints[keyPoints].y); _polyTexCoords[_nPolyVertices] = CGPointMake(_hillKeyPoints[keyPoints].x, _hillKeyPoints[keyPoints].y); y1 = _polyVertices[_nPolyVertices].y; _nPolyVertices++; } prevFromKeyPointI = _fromKeyPointI; prevToKeyPointI = _toKeyPointI; } } - (void) draw { //RED glColor4f(1, 1, 1, 1); for(int i = MAX(_fromKeyPointI, 1); i <= _toKeyPointI; ++i) { glColor4f(1.0, 0, 0, 1.0); ccDrawLine(_hillKeyPoints[i-1], _hillKeyPoints[i]); } //BLUE glColor4f(0, 0, 1, 1); for(int i = 1; i < 2; i++) { CCLOG(@"_polyVertices[i-1].x : %f, _polyVertices[i-1].y : %f", _polyVertices[i-1].x, _polyVertices[i-1].y); CCLOG(@"_polyVertices[i].x : %f, _polyVertices[i].y : %f", _polyVertices[i].x, _polyVertices[i].y); ccDrawLine(_polyVertices[i-1], _polyVertices[i]); } } Thanks

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  • My rhythm game runs choppy even with high frame rate

    - by felipedrl
    I'm coding a rhythm game and the game runs smoothly with uncapped fps. But when I try to cap it around 60 the game updates in little chunks, like hiccups, as if it was skipping frames or at a very low frame rate. The reason I need to cap frame rate is because in some computers I tested, the fps varies a lot (from ~80 - ~250 fps) and those drops are noticeable and degrade response time. Since this is a rhythm game this is very important. This issue is driving me crazy. I've spent a few weeks already on it and still can't figure out the problem. I hope someone more experienced than me could shed some light on it. I'll try to put here all the hints I've tried along with two pseudo codes for game loops I tried, so I apologize if this post gets too lengthy. 1st GameLoop: const uint UPDATE_SKIP = 1000 / 60; uint nextGameTick = SDL_GetTicks(); while(isNotDone) { // only false when a QUIT event is generated! if (processEvents()) { if (SDL_GetTicks() > nextGameTick) { update(UPDATE_SKIP); render(); nextGameTick += UPDATE_SKIP; } } } 2nd Game Loop: const uint UPDATE_SKIP = 1000 / 60; while (isNotDone) { LARGE_INTEGER startTime; QueryPerformanceCounter(&startTime); // process events will return false in case of a QUIT event processed if (processEvents()) { update(frameTime); render(); } LARGE_INTEGER endTime; do { QueryPerformanceCounter(&endTime); frameTime = static_cast<uint>((endTime.QuadPart - startTime.QuadPart) * 1000.0 / frequency.QuadPart); } while (frameTime < UPDATE_SKIP); } [1] At first I thought it was a timer resolution problem. I was using SDL_GetTicks, but even when I switched to QueryPerformanceCounter, supposedly less granular, I saw no difference. [2] Then I thought it could be due to a rounding error in my position computation and since game updates are smaller in high FPS that would be less noticeable. Indeed there is an small error, but from my tests I realized that it is not enough to produce the position jumps I'm getting. Also, another intriguing factor is that if I enable vsync I'll get smooth updates @60fps regardless frame cap code. So why not rely on vsync? Because some computers can force a disable on gfx card config. [3] I started printing the maximum and minimum frame time measured in 1sec span, in the hope that every a few frames one would take a long time but still not enough to drop my fps computation. It turns out that, with frame cap code I always get frame times in the range of [16, 18]ms, and still, the game "does not moves like jagger". [4] My process' priority is set to HIGH (Windows doesn't allow me to set REALTIME for some reason). As far as I know there is only one thread running along with the game (a sound callback, which I really don't have access to it). I'm using AudiereLib. I then disabled Audiere by removing it from the project and still got the issue. Maybe there are some others threads running and one of them is taking too long to come back right in between when I measured frame times, I don't know. Is there a way to know which threads are attached to my process? [5] There are some dynamic data being created during game run. But It is a little bit hard to remove it to test. Maybe I'll have to try harder this one. Well, as I told you I really don't know what to try next. Anything, I mean, anything would be of great help. What bugs me more is why at 60fps & vsync enabled I get an smooth update and at 60fps & no vsync I don't. Is there a way to implement software vsync? I mean, query display sync info? Thanks in advance. I appreciate the ones that got this far and yet again I apologize for the long post. Best Regards from a fellow coder.

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  • Best way to handle realtime melee AI in authoritative network environment

    - by PrimeDerektive
    So i've been working on a multiplayer game for a bit; it's a co-op action RPG with real-time combat. If you've seen or played TERA, I'd say it's comparable to that, but not an MMO, heh. I'm currently handling the AI units authoritatively, the server calculates their pathing, movement, and pursue/attack logic, and syncs the movement to the clients 15x per second, and the state changes when they happen. When I emulate 200ms ping, though, the client can perceive being out of range to an AI's attack, but still take the hit, because on the server he hadn't moved that far yet. This also plays hell with my real-time blocking. I don't really want to allow the clients to be allowed to say "that was out of range" or "I blocked that", but I'm not really sure how else to handle it.

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  • Generated 3d tree meshes

    - by Jari Komppa
    I did not find a question on these lines yet, correct me if I'm wrong. Trees (and fauna in general) are common in games. Due to their nature, they are a good candidate for procedural generation. There's SpeedTree, of course, if you can afford it; as far as I can tell, it doesn't provide the possibility of generating your tree meshes at runtime. Then there's SnappyTree, an online webgl based tree generator based on the proctree.js which is some ~500 lines of javascript. One could use either of above (or some other tree generator I haven't stumbled upon) to create a few dozen tree meshes beforehand - or model them from scratch in a 3d modeller - and then randomly mirror/scale them for a few more variants.. But I'd rather have a free, linkable tree mesh generator. Possible solutions: Port proctree.js to c++ and deal with the open source license (doesn't seem to be gpl, so could be doable; the author may also be willing to co-operate to make the license even more free). Roll my own based on L-systems. Don't bother, just use offline generated trees. Use some other method I haven't found yet.

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  • Does SFML render graphics outside the window?

    - by ThePlan
    While working on a tile-based map I figured it would be a good idea if I would only render what the player sees on the game window, but then it occurred to me that SFML could already be optimized enough to know when it doesn't have to render those things. Let's say I draw a 30x30 squared maps (A medium one) but the player only sees a bunch of them, not entirely. Would SFML automatically hide what the player doesn't see, or should I hide it myself?

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  • Basic game architechture best practices in Cocos2D on iOS

    - by MrDatabase
    Consider the following simple game: 20 squares floating around an iPhone's screen. Tapping a square causes that square to disappear. What's the "best practices" way to set this up in Cocos2D? Here's my plan so far: One Objective-c GameState singleton class (maintains list of active squares) One CCScene (since there's no menus etc) One CCLayer (child node of the scene) Many CCSprite nodes (one for each square, all child nodes of the layer) Each sprite listens for a tap on itself. Receive tap = remove from GameState Since I'm relatively new to Cocos2D I'd like some feedback on this design. For example I'm unsure of the GameState singleton. Perhaps it's unnecessary.

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  • Circle-Line Collision Detection Problem

    - by jazzdawg
    I am currently developing a breakout clone and I have hit a roadblock in getting collision detection between a ball (circle) and a brick (convex polygon) working correctly. I am using a Circle-Line collision detection test where each line represents and edge on the convex polygon brick. For the majority of the time the Circle-Line test works properly and the points of collision are resolved correctly. Collision detection working correctly. However, occasionally my collision detection code returns false due to a negative discriminant when the ball is actually intersecting the brick. Collision detection failing. I am aware of the inefficiency with this method and I am using axis aligned bounding boxes to cut down on the number of bricks tested. My main concern is if there are any mathematical bugs in my code below. /* * from and to are points at the start and end of the convex polygons edge. * This function is called for every edge in the convex polygon until a * collision is detected. */ bool circleLineCollision(Vec2f from, Vec2f to) { Vec2f lFrom, lTo, lLine; Vec2f line, normal; Vec2f intersectPt1, intersectPt2; float a, b, c, disc, sqrt_disc, u, v, nn, vn; bool one = false, two = false; // set line vectors lFrom = from - ball.circle.centre; // localised lTo = to - ball.circle.centre; // localised lLine = lFrom - lTo; // localised line = from - to; // calculate a, b & c values a = lLine.dot(lLine); b = 2 * (lLine.dot(lFrom)); c = (lFrom.dot(lFrom)) - (ball.circle.radius * ball.circle.radius); // discriminant disc = (b * b) - (4 * a * c); if (disc < 0.0f) { // no intersections return false; } else if (disc == 0.0f) { // one intersection u = -b / (2 * a); intersectPt1 = from + (lLine.scale(u)); one = pointOnLine(intersectPt1, from, to); if (!one) return false; return true; } else { // two intersections sqrt_disc = sqrt(disc); u = (-b + sqrt_disc) / (2 * a); v = (-b - sqrt_disc) / (2 * a); intersectPt1 = from + (lLine.scale(u)); intersectPt2 = from + (lLine.scale(v)); one = pointOnLine(intersectPt1, from, to); two = pointOnLine(intersectPt2, from, to); if (!one && !two) return false; return true; } } bool pointOnLine(Vec2f p, Vec2f from, Vec2f to) { if (p.x >= min(from.x, to.x) && p.x <= max(from.x, to.x) && p.y >= min(from.y, to.y) && p.y <= max(from.y, to.y)) return true; return false; }

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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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  • Getting to math applications gradually

    - by den-javamaniac
    I'm currently getting a formal degree related to computation, in particular my current focus is numerical programming, scientific computing and machine learning. I'd love to apply that knowledge in game dev and expand it with statistics, probability theory, and graph theory (probably even linear algebra). The question is: which spheres of gamedev are filled with such math stuff, is it possible to advance in those without being a part of a group of people and how to get to it gradually? P.S.: I've got experience with commercial java dev and am getting my hands on C/C++ at the moment, however, I'm opened to go ahead and try Unity3D and etc.

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  • Why does creating dynamic bodies in JBox2D freeze my app?

    - by Amplify91
    My game hangs/freezes when I create dynamic bullet objects with Box2D and I don't know why. I am making a game where the main character can shoot bullets by the user tapping on the screen. Each touch event spawns a new FireProjectileEvent that is handled properly by an event queue. So I know my problem is not trying to create a new body while the box2d world is locked. My bullets are then created and managed by an object pool class like this: public Projectile getProjectile(){ for(int i=0;i<mProjectiles.size();i++){ if(!mProjectiles.get(i).isActive){ return mProjectiles.get(i); } } return mSpriteFactory.createProjectile(); } mSpriteFactory.createProjectile() leads to the physics component of the Projectile class creating its box2d body. I have narrowed the issue down to this method and it looks like this: public void create(World world, float x, float y, Vec2 vertices[], boolean dynamic){ BodyDef bodyDef = new BodyDef(); if(dynamic){ bodyDef.type = BodyType.DYNAMIC; }else{ bodyDef.type = BodyType.STATIC; } bodyDef.position.set(x, y); mBody = world.createBody(bodyDef); PolygonShape dynamicBox = new PolygonShape(); dynamicBox.set(vertices, vertices.length); FixtureDef fixtureDef = new FixtureDef(); fixtureDef.shape = dynamicBox; fixtureDef.density = 1.0f; fixtureDef.friction = 0.0f; mBody.createFixture(fixtureDef); mBody.setFixedRotation(true); } If the dynamic parameter is set to true my game freezes before crashing, but if it is false, it will create a projectile exactly how I want it just doesn't function properly (because a projectile is not a static object). Why does my program fail when I try to create a dynamic object at runtime but not when I create a static one? I have other dynamic objects (like my main character) that work fine. Any help would be greatly appreciated. This is a screenshot of a method profile I did: Especially notable is number 8. I'm just still unsure what I'm doing wrong. Other notes: I am using JBox2D 2.1.2.2. (Upgraded from 2.1.2.1 to try to fix this problem) When the application freezes, if I hit the back button, it appears to move my game backwards by one update tick. Very strange.

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  • How should bots be recognised in a game?

    - by Bane
    I'm interested in how bots are usually written. Here's my situation: I plan to make an online 2D mecha game in HTML5, and the server-side will be done with node. It is intended to be multiplayer, but I also want to make bots in case there aren't enough players. How does my game logic see them, as players or as bots? Is there a standard by which I should make them? Also, any general tips and hints will be OK.

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  • Delaying a Foreach loop half a second

    - by Sigh-AniDe
    I have created a game that has a ghost that mimics the movement of the player after 10 seconds. The movements are stored in a list and i use a foreach loop to go through the commands. The ghost mimics the movements but it does the movements way too fast, in split second from spawn time it catches up to my current movement. How do i slow down the foreach so that it only does a command every half a second? I don't know how else to do it. Please help this is what i tried : The foreach runs inside the update method DateTime dt = DateTime.Now; foreach ( string commandDirection in ghostMovements ) { int mapX = ( int )( ghostPostition.X / scalingFactor ); int mapY = ( int )( ghostPostition.Y / scalingFactor ); // If the dt is the same as current time if ( dt == DateTime.Now ) { if ( commandDirection == "left" ) { switch ( ghostDirection ) { case ghostFacingUp: angle = 1.6f; ghostDirection = ghostFacingRight; Program.form.direction = ""; dt.AddMilliseconds( 500 );// add half a second to dt break; case ghostFacingRight: angle = 3.15f; ghostDirection = ghostFacingDown; Program.form.direction = ""; dt.AddMilliseconds( 500 ); break; case ghostFacingDown: angle = -1.6f; ghostDirection = ghostFacingLeft; Program.form.direction = ""; dt.AddMilliseconds( 500 ); break; case ghostFacingLeft: angle = 0.0f; ghostDirection = ghostFacingUp; Program.form.direction = ""; dt.AddMilliseconds( 500 ); break; } } } }

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  • Easiest Way To Implement "Slow Motion" and variable game speed in XNA?

    - by TerryB
    I have an XNA 4.0 game that I want to be able to switch into slow motion and back again to full speed every now and then. So if you kill an enemy the game switches into slow motion as they explode and then goes back to normal. What is the easiest way to do this in XNA 4.0 without having to alter all my existing code that relies on GameTime? I have some code that relies on the TotalGameTime, which will be wrong unless I get XNA to slow down. Is there anyway to avoid refactoring that code? Thanks!

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  • Math major as a viable degree

    - by Zak O'Keefe
    While I realize there are many topics about CS vs software engineering vs game school programs, I haven't found anything relating to whether pure math degrees (with CS minor and electives) would also be a viable program. By this I mean: Would having a math major, CS minor put one at competitive disadvantage as compared to a pure CS program? This relates specifically to game engine programming, more on the graphics side. Background (for those who care): Currently a math major, CS minor at school and looking to land a career doing graphics engine programming. Admittedly, I love math and if at all possible would like to stay my current program as long as it doesn't put me at a competitive disadvantage trying to land a job post-graduation. That being said, I'm strong in the traditional C/C++ languages, strong concurrent programming skills, and currently produce self-made games for iOS. As an employer, how badly is the math major hurting me? Just want to get some advice from people already in the field!

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  • How can I use the dualforward parameter in my unity shader to use lightmaps and normal maps together?

    - by Raphaeltm
    I'm using the free version of unity and I would like to combine lightmaps with specularity and normal maps. After doing a -bunch- of research, I've figured out that there doesn't seem to be any easy way to do this in the free version of unity, which doesn't support deferred rendering/easy use of dual lightmaps. However, it looks like it's possible, by writing a custom shader, using the "dualforward" parameter in a shader, switching the lightmapping mode to "dual lightmaps" and turning on "Use in forward ren." (basically, writing a shader that specifies the use of dual lightmaps, which should allow for a combination of lightmaps and normal maps) So I downloaded the source code for the default shaders (because all I need is a normal specular bumped shader) and added "dualforward" to the parameters: Shader "Bumped Specular Dual Lightmaps" { Properties { _Color ("Main Color", Color) = (1,1,1,1) _SpecColor ("Specular Color", Color) = (0.5, 0.5, 0.5, 1) _Shininess ("Shininess", Range (0.03, 1)) = 0.078125 _MainTex ("Base (RGB) Gloss (A)", 2D) = "white" {} _BumpMap ("Normalmap", 2D) = "bump" {} } SubShader { Tags { "RenderType"="Opaque" } LOD 400 CGPROGRAM #pragma surface surf BlinnPhong dualforward sampler2D _MainTex; sampler2D _BumpMap; fixed4 _Color; half _Shininess; struct Input { float2 uv_MainTex; float2 uv_BumpMap; }; void surf (Input IN, inout SurfaceOutput o) { fixed4 tex = tex2D(_MainTex, IN.uv_MainTex); o.Albedo = tex.rgb * _Color.rgb; o.Gloss = tex.a; o.Alpha = tex.a * _Color.a; o.Specular = _Shininess; o.Normal = UnpackNormal(tex2D(_BumpMap, IN.uv_BumpMap)); } ENDCG } FallBack "Specular" } This, however, doesn't seem to work. When I keep the "dualforward" param, every object that uses it seems to be lit by the one directional light in the scene. When I remove the "dualforward" param, it they look like normal lightmapped objects with no normal maps or specularity. I noticed that the support for "dualforward" seems to be new in v.3.4.2, so I made sure to download it (I was running 3.4.1), but it still doesn't work. Anybody have any advice for me?

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  • Proper updating of GeoClipMaps

    - by thr
    I have been working on an implementation of gpu-based geo clip maps, but there is a section of the GPU Gems 2 article that i just can't seem to understand, specifically this paragraph and more precisely the bolded part: The choice of grid size n = 2k-1 has the further advantage that the finer level is never exactly centered with respect to its parent next-coarser level. In other words, it is always offset by 1 grid unit either left or right, as well as either top or bottom (see Figure 2-4), depending on the position of the viewpoint. In fact, it is necessary to allow a finer level to shift while its next-coarser level stays fixed, and therefore the finer level must sometimes be off-center with respect to the next-coarser level. An alternative choice of grid size, such as n = 2k-3, would provide the possibility for exact centering Let's take an example image from the article: My "understanding" of the way the clip maps were update was that you floor the position of the viewpoint to an int, and such get the center vertex point if this is not the same as the previous center point, you update the entire map. Now, this obviously is not the case - but what I am failing to understand is this: If you look at the image above, if the viewpoint was to move one unit to the right, then the inner ring (the one just around the view point + white center square) would end up getting a 1 unit space on both the left and right side of itself. But there is nothing in the paper that deals with this, what i mean is that it would end up looking like this (excuse my crummy cut-and-paste editing of the above image): This is obviously not a valid state of the. So, would the solution be that a clip ring (layer) can only move in increments of the ring/layer it's contained within? Wouldn't this end up being very restrictive? I feel like I am missing some crucial understanding of parts of the algorithm, but I have been over both this paper and the original paper from 2004 and I just can't see what I am not getting.

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  • What should a game have in order to keep humans playing it?

    - by Adam Davis
    In many entertainment professions there suggestions, loose rules, or general frameworks one follows that appeal to humans in one way or another. For instance, many movies and books follow the monomyth. In video games I find many types of games that attract people in different ways. Some are addicted to facebook gem matching games. Others can't get enough of FPS games. Once in awhile, though, you find a game that seems to transcend stereotypes and appeals almost immediately to everyone that plays it. For instance, Plants Versus Zombies seems to have a very, very large demographic of players. There are other games similar in reach. I'm curious what books, blogs, etc there are that explore these game types and styles, and tries to suss out one or more popular frameworks/styles that satisfy people, while keeping them coming back for more.

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  • Any significant performance cost to using BlendState.Premultiplied?

    - by Donutz
    Normally I guess you'd use BlendState.AlphaBlend because normally when you load your textures through the pipeline they're already premultiplied. However, if you're loading textures at runtime from PNGs or some such, you have to loop through the pixels and premultiply them, which can take a long time if you've got a lot of textures to load. So it looks (haven't tried it) like using BlendState.Premultiplied instead of BlendState.AlphaBlend should handle non-premultiplied textures and produce the same visual result, without all the startup costs. I have to wonder if there's a non-obvious cost to doing this, like a huge drop in performance or something. Anyone know?

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  • Tile-wide extent tracing on a grid.

    - by Larolaro
    I'm currently working on A* pathfinding on a grid and I'm looking to smooth the generated path, while also considering the extent of the character moving along it. I'm using a grid for the pathfinding, however character movement is free roaming, not strict tile to tile movement. To achieve a smoother, more efficient path, I'm doing line traces on a grid to determine if there is unwalkable tiles between tiles to shave off unecessary corners. However, because a line trace is zero extent, it doesn't consider the extent of the character and gives bad results (not returning unwalkable tiles just missed by the line, causing unwanted collisions). So what I'm looking for is rather than a line algorithm that determines the tiles under it, I'm looking for one that determines the tiles under a tile-wide extent line. Here is an image to help visualise my problem! Does anyone have any ideas? I've been working with Bresenham's line and other alternatives but I haven't yet figured out how to nail this specific problem.

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