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  • which flash 3d particle engine generate such xml file

    - by Huang F. Lei
    I found some particle config files like below one, but I don't know which flash 3d particle engine use them, they are different from away3d's which use 'root' as root element of xml. <effect pos="0 0 0"> <property cache="1" lifetime="10000"/> <mesh blendmode="add"> <path> <frame y="100" durtime="1000" x="0" z="0"/> </path> <scale> <frame y="0.2000000001" durtime="300" x="2.2" z="2.2"/> <frame y="0.4" durtime="300" x="2.7" z="2.7"/> </scale> </mesh> <vibrate delayTime="100" amplitude="10" durationTime="750" intension="50"/> <quad billboard="false" > </quad> <particle global="false" pos=""> <scale> <frame y="1" durtime="0" x="1" z="1"/> <frame y="1" durtime="2000" x="1.5" z="1.5"/> </scale> </particle> </effect>

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  • Efficiency concerning thread granularity

    - by MaelmDev
    Lately, I've been thinking of ways to use multithreading to improve the speed of different parts of a game engine. What confuses me is the appropriate granularity of threads, especially when dealing with single-instruction-multiple-data (SIMD) tasks. Let's use line-of-sight detection as an example. Each AI actor must be able to detect objects of interest around them and mark them. There are three basic ways to go about this with multithreading: Don't use threading at all. Create a thread for each actor. Create a thread for each actor-object combination. Option 1 is obviously going to be the least efficient method. However, choosing between the next two options is more difficult. Only using one thread per actor is still running through every object in series instead of in parallel. However, are CPU's able to create and join threads in the granularity posed in Option 3 efficiently? It seems like that many calls to the OS could be really slow, and varying enormously between different hardware.

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  • Fixed timestep with interpolation in AS3

    - by Jim Sreven
    I'm trying to implement Glenn Fiedler's popular fixed timestep system as documented here: http://gafferongames.com/game-physics/fix-your-timestep/ In Flash. I'm fairly sure that I've got it set up correctly, along with state interpolation. The result is that if my character is supposed to move at 6 pixels per frame, 35 frames per second = 210 pixels a second, it does exactly that, even if the framerate climbs or falls. The problem is it looks awful. The movement is very stuttery and just doesn't look good. I find that the amount of time in between ENTER_FRAME events, which I'm adding on to my accumulator, averages out to 28.5ms (1000/35) just as it should, but individual frame times vary wildly, sometimes an ENTER_FRAME event will come 16ms after the last, sometimes 42ms. This means that at each graphical redraw the character graphic moves by a different amount, because a different amount of time has passed since the last draw. In theory it should look smooth, but it doesn't at all. In contrast, if I just use the ultra simple system of moving the character 6px every frame, it looks completely smooth, even with these large variances in frame times. How can this be possible? I'm using getTimer() to measure these time differences, are they even reliable?

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  • How can I improve my Animation

    - by sharethis
    The first approaches in animation for my game relied mostly on sine and cosine functions with the time as parameter. Here is an example of a very basic jump I implemented. if(jumping) { height = sin(time); if(height < 0) jumping = false; // player landed player.position.z = height; } if(keydown(SPACE) && !jumping) { jumping = true; time = now(); // store the starting time } So my player jumped in a perfect sine function. That seems quite natural, because he slows down when he reached the top position, and in the fall he speeds up again. But patching every animation out of sine and cosine is stretched to its limits soon. So can I improve my animation and provide a more abstract layer?

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  • How should I plan the inheritance structure for my game?

    - by Eric Thoma
    I am trying to write a platform shooter in C++ with a really good class structure for robustness. The game itself is secondary; it is the learning process of writing it that is primary. I am implementing an inheritance tree for all of the objects in my game, but I find myself unsure on some decisions. One specific issue that it bugging me is this: I have an Actor that is simply defined as anything in the game world. Under Actor is Character. Both of these classes are abstract. Under Character is the Philosopher, who is the main character that the user commands. Also under Character is NPC, which uses an AI module with stock routines for friendly, enemy and (maybe) neutral alignments. So under NPC I want to have three subclasses: FriendlyNPC, EnemyNPC and NeutralNPC. These classes are not abstract, and will often be subclassed in order to make different types of NPC's, like Engineer, Scientist and the most evil Programmer. Still, if I want to implement a generic NPC named Kevin, it would nice to be able to put him in without making a new class for him. I could just instantiate a FriendlyNPC and pass some values for the AI machine and for the dialogue; that would be ideal. But what if Kevin is the one benevolent Programmer in the whole world? Now we must make a class for him (but what should it be called?). Now we have a character that should inherit from Programmer (as Kevin has all the same abilities but just uses the friendly AI functions) but also should inherit from FriendlyNPC. Programmer and FriendlyNPC branched away from each other on the inheritance tree, so inheriting from both of them would have conflicts, because some of the same functions have been implemented in different ways on the two of them. 1) Is there a better way to order these classes to avoid these conflicts? Having three subclasses; Friendly, Enemy and Neutral; from each type of NPC; Engineer, Scientist, and Programmer; would amount to a huge number of classes. I would share specific implementation details, but I am writing the game slowly, piece by piece, and so I haven't implemented past Character yet. 2) Is there a place where I can learn these programming paradigms? I am already trying to take advantage of some good design patterns, like MVC architecture and Mediator objects. The whole point of this project is to write something in good style. It is difficult to tell what should become a subclass and what should become a state (i.e. Friendly boolean v. Friendly class). Having many states slows down code with if statements and makes classes long and unwieldy. On the other hand, having a class for everything isn't practical. 3) Are there good rules of thumb or resources to learn more about this? 4) Finally, where does templating come in to this? How should I coordinate templates into my class structure? I have never actually taken advantage of templating honestly, but I hear that it increases modularity, which means good code.

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  • Drawing lots of tiles with OpenGL, the modern way

    - by Nic
    I'm working on a small tile/sprite-based PC game with a team of people, and we're running into performance issues. The last time I used OpenGL was around 2004, so I've been teaching myself how to use the core profile, and I'm finding myself a little confused. I need to draw in the neighborhood of 250-750 48x48 tiles to the screen every frame, as well as maybe around 50 sprites. The tiles only change when a new level is loaded, and the sprites are changing all the time. Some of the tiles are made up of four 24x24 pieces, and most (but not all) of the sprites are the same size as the tiles. A lot of the tiles and sprites use alpha blending. Right now I'm doing all of this in immediate mode, which I know is a bad idea. All the same, when one of our team members tries to run it, he gets very bad frame rates (~20-30 fps), and it's much worse when there are more tiles, especially when a lot of those tiles are the kind that are cut into pieces. This all makes me think that the problem is the number of draw calls being made. I've thought of a few possible solutions to this, but I wanted to run them by some people who know what they're talking about so I don't waste my time on something stupid: TILES: When a level is loaded, draw all the tiles once into a frame buffer attached to a big honking texture, and just draw a big rectangle with that texture on it every frame. Put all the tiles into a static vertex buffer when the level is loaded, and draw them that way. I don't know if there's a way to draw objects with different textures with a single call to glDrawElements, or if this is even something I'd want to do. Maybe just put all the tiles into a big giant texture and use funny texture coordinates in the VBO? SPRITES: Draw each sprite with a separate call to glDrawElements. Use a dynamic VBO somehow. Same texture question as number 2 above. Point sprites? This is probably silly. Are any of these ideas sensible? Is there a good implementation somewhere I could look over?

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  • Strategies to Defeat Memory Editors for Cheating - Desktop Games

    - by ashes999
    I'm assuming we're talking about desktop games -- something the player downloads and runs on their local computer. Many are the memory editors that allow you to detect and freeze values, like your player's health. How do you prevent cheating? What strategies are effective to combat this kind of cheating? I'm looking for some good ones. Two I use that are mediocre are: Displaying values as a percentage instead of the number (eg. 46/50 = 92% health) A low-level class that holds values in an array and moves them with each change

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  • How to show other characters in online 2D rpg

    - by Loligans
    I have Player 1 and Player 2 I am using Json to send and retrieve player data between the client and the server, but when another player logs in, and is in the same map, how would I send that data to both players to update the graphics engine to show there are 2 Players on the map? About my game it is a 2D RPG tile based game it is 24x15 Tiles it is Real time Action it should interact anywhere between 10-150 ping players interact with each other when in the same map and can see each other moving around the game world is persistent, and is saved when the server shuts down Right now the server just sends the player Only their information which is inside a Json Object Here is an example of what I am talking about If you notice there are 2 separate characters in 2 separate clients, but they are running on the same server. I am trying to get them to show up on both clients, but I don't know how I should accomplish this. Should I send it as an added value in the Json object? Also what is the name of this process so I can look it up and find more info on it?

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  • What are good JS libraries for game dev?

    - by acidzombie24
    If I decide to write a simple game both text and graphical (2d) what libraries would I use? (Assume we are using a HTML5 compatible browser) The main things I can think of Rendering text on screen Animating sprites (using images/css) Input (capturing the arrow keys and getting relative mouse positions) Perhaps some preloading resource or dynamically loading resources and choosing order Sound (but I am unsure how important this will be to me at first). Perhaps with mixing and chaining sounds or looping forever until stop. Networking (low priority) to connect a user to another or to continuously GET data without multiple request (I know this exist but I don't know how easy it is to setup or use. But this isn't important to me. Its for the question).

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  • Understanding Box2d Restitution & Bouncing

    - by layzrr
    I'm currently trying to implement basketball bouncing into my game using Box2d (jBox2d technically), but I'm a bit confused about restitution. While trying to create the ball in the testbed first, I've run into infinite bouncing, as described in this question, however obviously not using my own implementation. The Box2d manual describes restitution as follows: Restitution is used to make objects bounce. The restitution value is usually set to be between 0 and 1. Consider dropping a ball on a table. A value of zero means the ball won't bounce. This is called an inelastic collision. A value of one means the ball's velocity will be exactly reflected. This is called a perfectly elastic collision. My confusion lies in that I am still getting infinite bouncing with restitution values at 0.75/0.8. The same behavior can be seen in the testbed under Collision Watching - Varying Restitution, on the 6th and 7th balls. I believe the last one has restitution of 1, which makes sense, but I don't understand why the second to last ball bounces infinitely (as is happening with my working basketball I've created). I am looking to understand the restitution concept more fully, as well as look for a solution to infinite bouncing with the Box2d framework. My instinct was to sleep objects that appeared to be moving in very small increments, but this seems like a misuse of the engine. Should I just work with lower restitution values altogether?

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  • Starting out with OpenGL when most tutorials are out of date

    - by AUTO
    I'm sure there are already a bunch of questions like this asked, but the constant updating of the OpenGL library throws them all away, and in a month or two, the answers here will be worthless again. I am ready to start programming in OpenGL using C++. I've got a working compiler (DevCpp; do NOT ask me to switch to VC++, and don't ask me why). Now I'm just looking for a solid tutorial on how to program with OpenGL. My assistant found the tutorial provided by NeHe Productions, but as I've come to find out, it's WAY OUT OF DATE! (although I did pull together a basic window to support an OpenGL canvas) Then I went online, and found the OpenGL SuperBible, which apparently uses freeglut? But what I'd like to know is whether or not SuperBible 5th edition is up to date any longer. The suggestion to freeglut I found said the latest version was 2.6.0 but now it's 2.8.0! Is the OpenGL SuperBible still a good, and fairly up-to-date place to start? Is there a better place to go to learn OpenGL? Am I allowed to simply store freeglut in the DevCpp include directory (maybe in GL), or is there some important procedure? Are there any comments or suggestions that I didn't think to ask since I'm only just beginning? @dreta cleared some things up for me, so now I have a better idea of what to ask: I think I'd like to start out with OpenGL using a wrapper library instead of directly accessing OpenGL.I just think that, for a beginner, it would be easier for me to program and get good results, while I don't yet have to understand all the grimy details (as @stephelton mentioned). The problem is, I can't find any library that doesn't have undefined references to no longer supported functions. Freeglut sounds operational, but it still uses GLU.Does anyone know what I can do?Also, I tried compiling the first SuperBible's source, but I got errors since GLAPI is not being defined as a type, the error originating in the GLU library. I'd like to use the SuperBible, but I don't know how to fix this.

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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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  • JBox2D Polygon Collisions Acting Strange

    - by andy
    I have been playing around with JBox2D and Slick2D and made a little demo with a ground object, a box object, and two different polygons. The problem I am facing is that the collision-detection for the polygons seems to be off (see picture below), but the box's collision works fine. My Code: Main Class package main; import org.jbox2d.common.Vec2; import org.jbox2d.dynamics.BodyType; import org.jbox2d.dynamics.World; import org.newdawn.slick.GameContainer; import org.newdawn.slick.Graphics; import org.newdawn.slick.SlickException; import org.newdawn.slick.state.BasicGameState; import org.newdawn.slick.state.StateBasedGame; import shapes.Box; import shapes.Polygon; public class State1 extends BasicGameState{ World world; int velocityIterations; int positionIterations; float pixelsPerMeter; int state; Box ground; Box box1; Polygon poly1; Polygon poly2; Renderer renderer; public State1(int state) { this.state = state; } @Override public void init(GameContainer gc, StateBasedGame game) throws SlickException { velocityIterations = 10; positionIterations = 10; pixelsPerMeter = 1f; world = new World(new Vec2(0.f, -9.8f)); renderer = new Renderer(gc, gc.getGraphics(), pixelsPerMeter, world); box1 = new Box(-100f, 200f, 40, 50, BodyType.DYNAMIC, world); ground = new Box(-14, -275, 50, 900, BodyType.STATIC, world); poly1 = new Polygon(50f, 10f, new Vec2[] { new Vec2(-6f, -14f), new Vec2(0f, -20f), new Vec2(6f, -14f), new Vec2(10f, 10f), new Vec2(-10f, 10f) }, BodyType.DYNAMIC, world); poly2 = new Polygon(0f, 10f, new Vec2[] { new Vec2(10f, 0f), new Vec2(20f, 0f), new Vec2(30f, 10f), new Vec2(30f, 20f), new Vec2(20f, 30f), new Vec2(10f, 30f), new Vec2(0f, 20f), new Vec2(0f, 10f) }, BodyType.DYNAMIC, world); } @Override public void update(GameContainer gc, StateBasedGame game, int delta) throws SlickException { world.step((float)delta / 180f, velocityIterations, positionIterations); } @Override public void render(GameContainer gc, StateBasedGame game, Graphics g) throws SlickException { renderer.render(); } @Override public int getID() { return this.state; } } Polygon Class package shapes; import org.jbox2d.collision.shapes.PolygonShape; import org.jbox2d.common.Vec2; import org.jbox2d.dynamics.Body; import org.jbox2d.dynamics.BodyDef; import org.jbox2d.dynamics.BodyType; import org.jbox2d.dynamics.FixtureDef; import org.jbox2d.dynamics.World; import org.newdawn.slick.Color; public class Polygon { public float x, y; public Color color; public BodyType bodyType; org.newdawn.slick.geom.Polygon poly; BodyDef def; PolygonShape ps; FixtureDef fd; Body body; World world; Vec2[] verts; public Polygon(float x, float y, Vec2[] verts, BodyType bodyType, World world) { this.verts = verts; this.x = x; this.y = y; this.bodyType = bodyType; this.world = world; init(); } public void init() { def = new BodyDef(); def.type = bodyType; def.position.set(x, y); ps = new PolygonShape(); ps.set(verts, verts.length); fd = new FixtureDef(); fd.shape = ps; fd.density = 2.0f; fd.friction = 0.7f; fd.restitution = 0.5f; body = world.createBody(def); body.createFixture(fd); } } Rendering Class package main; import org.jbox2d.collision.shapes.PolygonShape; import org.jbox2d.collision.shapes.ShapeType; import org.jbox2d.common.MathUtils; import org.jbox2d.common.Vec2; import org.jbox2d.dynamics.Body; import org.jbox2d.dynamics.Fixture; import org.jbox2d.dynamics.World; import org.newdawn.slick.Color; import org.newdawn.slick.GameContainer; import org.newdawn.slick.Graphics; import org.newdawn.slick.geom.Polygon; import org.newdawn.slick.geom.Transform; public class Renderer { World world; float pixelsPerMeter; GameContainer gc; Graphics g; public Renderer(GameContainer gc, Graphics g, float ppm, World world) { this.world = world; this.pixelsPerMeter = ppm; this.g = g; this.gc = gc; } public void render() { Body current = world.getBodyList(); Vec2 center = current.getLocalCenter(); while(current != null) { Vec2 pos = current.getPosition(); g.pushTransform(); g.translate(pos.x * pixelsPerMeter + (0.5f * gc.getWidth()), -pos.y * pixelsPerMeter + (0.5f * gc.getHeight())); Fixture f = current.getFixtureList(); while(f != null) { ShapeType type = f.getType(); g.setColor(getColor(current)); switch(type) { case POLYGON: { PolygonShape shape = (PolygonShape)f.getShape(); Vec2[] verts = shape.getVertices(); int count = shape.getVertexCount(); Polygon p = new Polygon(); for(int i = 0; i < count; i++) { p.addPoint(verts[i].x, verts[i].y); } p.setCenterX(center.x); p.setCenterY(center.y); p = (Polygon)p.transform(Transform.createRotateTransform(current.getAngle() + MathUtils.PI, center.x, center.y)); p = (Polygon)p.transform(Transform.createScaleTransform(pixelsPerMeter, pixelsPerMeter)); g.draw(p); break; } case CIRCLE: { f.getShape(); } default: } f = f.getNext(); } g.popTransform(); current = current.getNext(); } } public Color getColor(Body b) { Color c = new Color(1f, 1f, 1f); switch(b.m_type) { case DYNAMIC: if(b.isActive()) { c = new Color(255, 123, 0); } else { c = new Color(99, 99, 99); } break; case KINEMATIC: break; case STATIC: c = new Color(111, 111, 111); break; default: break; } return c; } } Any help with fixing the collisions would be greatly appreciated, and if you need any other code snippets I would be happy to provide them.

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  • Logic in Entity Components Systems

    - by aaron
    I'm making a game that uses an Entity/Component architecture basically a port of Artemis's framework to c++,the problem arises when I try to make a PlayerControllerComponent, my original idea was this. class PlayerControllerComponent: Component { public: virtual void update() = 0; }; class FpsPlayerControllerComponent: PlayerControllerComponent { public: void update() { //handle input } }; and have a system that updates PlayerControllerComponents, but I found out that the artemis framework does not look at sub-classes the way I thought it would. So all in all my question here is should I make the framework aware of subclasses or should I add a new Component like object that is used for logic.

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  • Simple collision detection for pong

    - by Dave Voyles
    I'm making a simple pong game, and things are great so far, but I have an odd bug which causes my ball (well, it's a box really) to get stuck on occasion when detecting collision against the ceiling or floor. It looks as though it is trying to update too frequently to get out of the collision check. Basically the box slides against the top or bottom of the screen from one paddle to the other, and quickly bounces on and off the wall while doing so, but only bounces a few pixels from the wall. What can I do to avoid this problem? It seems to occur at random. Below is my collision detection for the wall, as well as my update method for the ball. public void UpdatePosition() { size.X = (int)position.X; size.Y = (int)position.Y; position.X += speed * (float)Math.Cos(direction); position.Y += speed * (float)Math.Sin(direction); CheckWallHit(); } // Checks for collision with the ceiling or floor. // 2*Math.pi = 360 degrees // TODO: Change collision so that ball bounces from wall after getting caught private void CheckWallHit() { while (direction > 2 * Math.PI) { direction -= 2 * Math.PI; } while (direction < 0) { direction += 2 * Math.PI; } if (position.Y <= 0 || (position.Y > resetPos.Y * 2 - size.Height)) { direction = 2 * Math.PI - direction; } }

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  • setPosition of Sprite onUpdate in AndEngine

    - by SSH This
    I am trying to get a "highlighter" circle to follow around a sprite, but I am having trouble, I thought I could use the onUpdate method that's available to me in SequenceEntityModifier but it's not working for me. Here is my code: // make sequence mod with move modifier SequenceEntityModifier modifier = new SequenceEntityModifier(myMovemod) { @Override protected void onModifierFinished(IEntity pItem) { // animation finished super.onModifierFinished(pItem); } public float onUpdate(float pSecondsElapsed, IEntity pItem) { highlighter.setPosition(player2.getX() - highlighterOffset, player2.getY() - highlighterOffset); return pSecondsElapsed; } }; When onUpdate is completely commented out, the sprite moves like I want it to, everything is ok. When I put the onUpdate in, the sprite doesn't move at all. I have a feeling that I am overriding the original onUpdate's actions? Am I going about this the wrong way? I am new to Java, so please feel free to advise if this isn't going to work. UPDATE: The player2 is the sprite that I'm trying to get the highlighter to follow.

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  • Best way to detect if vec3 is between vec3(x) and vec3(y) in glsl

    - by elect
    As titled I am sampling from a texture and if the color is somehow gray [vec3(.8), vec3(.9)] and an uniform is 1 I need to substitute that color with another one I am not a glsl veteran but I am pretty sure there is a more elegant and compact (without mentioning faster) way than this: vec3 textureColor = texture(texture0, oUV); if(settings.w == 1 && textureColor.r > .8 && textureColor.r < .9 && textureColor.g > .8 && textureColor.g < .9 && textureColor.b > .8 && textureColor.b < .9)

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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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  • Facebook Game database design

    - by facebook-100000781341887
    Hi, I'm currently develop a facebook mafia like PHP game(of course, a light weight version), here is a simplify database(MySQL) of the game id-a <int3> <for index> uid <chr15> <facebook uid> HP <int3> <health point> exp <int3> <experience> money <int3> <money> list_inventory <chr5> <the inventory user hold...some special here, talk next> ... and 20 other fields just like reputation, num of combat... *the number next to the type is the size(byte) of the type For the list_inventory, there have 40 inventorys in my game, (actually, I have 5 these kind of list in my database), and each user can only contain 1 qty of each inventory, therefore, I assign 5 char for this field and each bit of char as 1 item(5 char * 8 bit = 40 slot), and I will do some manipulation by PHP to extract the data from this 5 byte. OK, I was thinking on this, if this game contains 100,000 user, and only 10% are active, therefore, if use my method, for the space use, 5 byte * 100,000 = 500 KB if I use another method, create a table user_hold_inventory, if the user have the inventory, then insert a record into this table, so, for 10,000 active user, I assume they got all item, but for other, I assume they got no item, here is the fields of the new table id-b <int3> <for index> id-a <int3> <id of the user table> inv_no <int1> <inventory that user hold> for the space use, ([id] (3+3) byte + [inv_no] 1 byte ) * [active user] 10,000 * [all inventory] * 40 = 2.8 MB seems method 2 have use more space, but it consume less CPU power. Please comment these 2 method or please correct me if there have another better method rather than what I think. Another question is, my database contain 26 fields, but I counted 5 of them are not change frquently, should I need to separate it on the other table or not? So many words, thanks for reading :)

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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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  • Basic procedural generated content works, but how could I do the same in reverse?

    - by andrew
    My 2D world is made up of blocks. At the moment, I create a block and assign it a number between 1 and 4. The number assigned to the nth block is always the same (i.e if the player walks backwards or restarts the game.) and is generated in the function below. As shown here by this animation, the colours represent the number. function generate_data(n) math.randomseed(n) -- resets the random so that the 'random' number for n is always the same math.random() -- fixes lua random bug local no = math.random(4) --print(no, n) return no end Now I want to limit the next block's number - a block of 1 will always have a block 2 after it, while block 2 will either have a block 1,2 or 3 after it, etc. Before, all the blocks data was randomly generated, initially, and then saved. This data was then loaded and used instead of being randomly called. While working this way, I could specify what the next block would be easily and it would be saved for consistency. I have now removed this saving/loading in favour of procedural generation as I realised that save whiles would get very big after travelling. Back to the present. While travelling forward (to the right), it is easy to limit what the next blocks number will be. I can generate it at the same time as the other data. The problem is when travelling backwards (to the left) I can not think of a way to load the previous block so that it is always the same. Does anyone have any ideas on how I could sort this out?

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  • Need help with auto-scaffolding template in ASP.NET MVC

    - by DanM
    I'm trying to write an auto-scaffolder for Index views. I'd like to be able to pass in a collection of models or view-models (e.g., IQueryable<MyViewModel>) and get back an HTML table that uses the DisplayName attribute for the headings (th elements) and Html.Display(propertyName) for the cells (td elements). Each row should correspond to one item in the collection. Here's what I have so far: <%@ Control Language="C#" Inherits="System.Web.Mvc.ViewUserControl" %> <% var items = (IQueryable<TestProj.ViewModels.TestViewModel>)Model; // Should be generic! var properties = items.First().GetMetadata().Properties .Where(pm => pm.ShowForDisplay && !ViewData.TemplateInfo.Visited(pm)); %> <table> <tr> <% foreach(var property in properties) { %> <th> <%= property.DisplayName %> </th> <% } %> </tr> <% foreach(var item in items) { %> <tr> <% foreach(var property in properties) { %> <td> <%= Html.Display(property.DisplayName) %> // This doesn't work! </td> <% } %> </tr> <% } %> </table> Two problems with this: I'd like it to be generic. So, I'd like to replace var items = (IQueryable<TestProj.ViewModels.TestViewModel>)Model; with var items = (IQueryable<T>)Model; or something to that effect. The <td> elements are not working because the Html in <%= Html.Display(property.DisplayName) %> contains the model for the view, which is a collection of items, not the item itself. Somehow, I need to obtain an HtmlHelper object whose Model property is the current item, but I'm not sure how to do that. How do I solve these two problems?

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  • Doing a passable 4X game AI

    - by Extrakun
    I am coding a rather "simple" 4X game (if a 4X game can be simple). It's indie in scope, and I am wondering if there's anyway to come up with a passable AI without having me spending months coding on it. The game has three major decision making portions; spending of production points, spending of movement points and spending of tech points (basically there are 3 different 'currency', currency unspent at end of turn is not saved) Spend Production Points Upgrade a planet (increase its tech and production) Build ships (3 types) Move ships from planets to planets (costing Movement Points) Move to attack Move to fortify Research Tech (can partially research a tech i.e, as in Master of Orion) The plan for me right now is a brute force approach. There are basically 4 broad options for the player - Upgrade planet(s) to its his production and tech output Conquer as many planets as possible Secure as many planets as possible Get to a certain tech as soon as possible For each decision, I will iterate through the possible options and come up with a score; and then the AI will choose the decision with the highest score. Right now I have no idea how to 'mix decisions'. That is, for example, the AI wishes to upgrade and conquer planets at the same time. I suppose I can have another logic which do a brute force optimization on a combination of those 4 decisions.... At least, that's my plan if I can't think of anything better. Is there any faster way to make a passable AI? I don't need a very good one, to rival Deep Blue or such, just something that has the illusion of intelligence. This is my first time doing an AI on this scale, so I dare not try something too grand too. So far I have experiences with FSM, DFS, BFS and A*

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  • Error X3650 when compiling shader in XNA

    - by Saikai
    I'm attempting to convert the XBDEV.NET Mosaic Shader for use in my XNA project and having trouble. The compiler errors out because of the half globals. At first I tried replacing the globals and just writing the variables explicitly in the code, but that garbles the Output. Next I tried replacing all the half with float vars, but that still garbles the resulting Image. I call the effect file from SpriteBatch.Begin(). Is there a way to convert this shader to the new pixel shader conventions? Are there any good tutorials for this topic? Here is the shader file for reference: /*****************************************************************************/ /* File: tiles.fx Details: Modified version of the NVIDIA Composer FX Demo Program 2004 Produces a tiled mosaic effect on the output. Requires: Vertex Shader 1.1 Pixel Shader 2.0 Modified by: [email protected] (www.xbdev.net) */ /*****************************************************************************/ float4 ClearColor : DIFFUSE = { 0.0f, 0.0f, 0.0f, 1.0f}; float ClearDepth = 1.0f; /******************************** TWEAKABLES *********************************/ half NumTiles = 40.0; half Threshhold = 0.15; half3 EdgeColor = {0.7f, 0.7f, 0.7f}; /*****************************************************************************/ texture SceneMap : RENDERCOLORTARGET < float2 ViewportRatio = { 1.0f, 1.0f }; int MIPLEVELS = 1; string format = "X8R8G8B8"; string UIWidget = "None"; >; sampler SceneSampler = sampler_state { texture = <SceneMap>; AddressU = CLAMP; AddressV = CLAMP; MIPFILTER = NONE; MINFILTER = LINEAR; MAGFILTER = LINEAR; }; /***************************** DATA STRUCTS **********************************/ struct vertexInput { half3 Position : POSITION; half3 TexCoord : TEXCOORD0; }; /* data passed from vertex shader to pixel shader */ struct vertexOutput { half4 HPosition : POSITION; half2 UV : TEXCOORD0; }; /******************************* Vertex shader *******************************/ vertexOutput VS_Quad( vertexInput IN) { vertexOutput OUT = (vertexOutput)0; OUT.HPosition = half4(IN.Position, 1); OUT.UV = IN.TexCoord.xy; return OUT; } /********************************** pixel shader *****************************/ half4 tilesPS(vertexOutput IN) : COLOR { half size = 1.0/NumTiles; half2 Pbase = IN.UV - fmod(IN.UV,size.xx); half2 PCenter = Pbase + (size/2.0).xx; half2 st = (IN.UV - Pbase)/size; half4 c1 = (half4)0; half4 c2 = (half4)0; half4 invOff = half4((1-EdgeColor),1); if (st.x > st.y) { c1 = invOff; } half threshholdB = 1.0 - Threshhold; if (st.x > threshholdB) { c2 = c1; } if (st.y > threshholdB) { c2 = c1; } half4 cBottom = c2; c1 = (half4)0; c2 = (half4)0; if (st.x > st.y) { c1 = invOff; } if (st.x < Threshhold) { c2 = c1; } if (st.y < Threshhold) { c2 = c1; } half4 cTop = c2; half4 tileColor = tex2D(SceneSampler,PCenter); half4 result = tileColor + cTop - cBottom; return result; } /*****************************************************************************/ technique tiles { pass p0 { VertexShader = compile vs_1_1 VS_Quad(); ZEnable = false; ZWriteEnable = false; CullMode = None; PixelShader = compile ps_2_0 tilesPS(); } }

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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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