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  • Making a game "resize-safe"

    - by CPP_Person
    It's one thing to get the graphics aligned perfectly, it's another to do this for every single resolution and not take too much time and/or make the code unreadable due to size. Games like Battlefield 3 and Minecraft seem to manage this. But what do they do to keep things from stretching or going off the screen? I don't know any algorithms to do this. I'd like some help on this topic. I've always programmed games that only handle a single resolution, so help would be appreciate.

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  • How do I simplify terrain with tunnels or overhangs?

    - by KKlouzal
    I'm attempting to store vertex data in a quadtree with C++, such that far-away vertices can be combined to simplify the object and speed up rendering. This works well with a reasonably flat mesh, but what about terrain with overhangs or tunnels? How should I represent such a mesh in a quadtree? After the initial generation, each mesh is roughly 130,000 polygons and about 300 of these meshes are lined up to create the surface of a planetary body. A fully generated planet is upwards of 10,000,000 polygons before applying any culling to the individual meshes. Therefore, this second optimization is vital for the project. The rest of my confusion focuses around my inexperience with vertex data: How do I properly loop through the vertex data to group them into specific quads? How do I conclude from vertex data what a quad's maximum size should be? How many quads should the quadtree include?

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  • Read only array, deep copy or retrieve copies one by one? (Performance and Memory)

    - by Arthur Wulf White
    In a garbage collection based system, what is the most effective way to handle a read only array if such a structure does not exist natively in the language. Is it better to return a copy of an array or allow other classes to retrieve copies of the objects stored in the array one by one? @JustinSkiles: It is not very broad. It is performance related and can actually be answered specifically for two general cases. You only need very few items: in this situation it's more effective to retrieve copies of the objects one by one. You wish to iterate over 30% or more objects. In this cases it is superior to retrieve all the array at once. This saves on functions calls. Function calls are very expansive when compared to reading directly from an array. A good specific answer could include performance, reading from an array and reading indirectly through a function. It is a simple performance related question.

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  • What is the format of DXGI_FORMAT_D24_UNORM_S8_UINT?

    - by bobobobo
    I'm trying to read the values in a depth texture of type DXGI_FORMAT_D24_UNORM_S8_UINT. I know this means "24 bits for depth, 8 bits for stencil" "A 32-bit z-buffer format that supports 24 bits for depth and 8 bits for stencil.", but how do you interpret those 24 bits? It's clearly not going to be a 32-bit int, and it's not going to be a 32-bit float. If it is an integer value, how "far away" is a value of "1" in the depth texture?

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  • Logarithmic spacing of FFT bins

    - by Mykel Stone
    I'm trying to do the examples within the GameDev.net Beat Detection article ( http://archive.gamedev.net/archive/reference/programming/features/beatdetection/index.html ) I have no issue with performing a FFT and getting the frequency data and doing most of the article. I'm running into trouble though in the section 2.B, Enhancements and beat decision factors. in this section the author gives 3 equations numbered R10-R12 to be used to determine how many bins go into each subband: R10 - Linear increase of the width of the subband with its index R11 - We can choose for example the width of the first subband R12 - The sum of all the widths must not exceed 1024 He says the following in the article: "Once you have equations (R11) and (R12) it is fairly easy to extract 'a' and 'b', and thus to find the law of the 'wi'. This calculus of 'a' and 'b' must be made manually and 'a' and 'b' defined as constants in the source; indeed they do not vary during the song." However, I cannot seem to understand how these values are calculated...I'm probably missing something simple, but learning fourier analysis in a couple of weeks has left me Decimated-in-Mind and I cannot seem to see it.

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  • Structure gameobjects and call events

    - by waco001
    I'm working on a 2D tile based game in which the player interacts with other game objects (chests, AI, Doors, Houses etc...). The entire map will be stored in a file which I can read. When loading the tilemap, it will find any tile with the ID that represents a gameobject and store it in a hashmap (right data structure I think?). private static HashMap<Integer, Class<GameObject>> gameObjects = new HashMap<Integer, Class<GameObject>>(); How exactly would I go about calling, and checking for events? I figure that I would just call the update, render and input methods of each gameobject using the hashmap. Should I got towards a Minecraft/Bukkit approach (sorry only example I can think of), where the user registers an event, and it gets called whenever that event happens, and where should I go as in resources to learn about that type of programming, (Java, LWJGL). Or should I just loop through the entire hashmap looking for an event that fits? Thanks waco

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  • Calculating the "power" of a player in a "Defend Your Castle" type game

    - by Jesse Emond
    I'm a making a "Defend Your Castle" type game, where each player has a castle and must send units to destroy the opponent's castle. It looks like this (and yeah, this is the actual game, not a quick paint drawing..): Now, I'm trying to implement the AI of the opponent, and I'd like to create 4 different AI levels: Easy, Normal, Hard and Hardcore. I've never made any "serious" AI before and I'd like to create a quite complete one this time. My idea is to calculate a player's "power" score, based on the current health of its castle and the individual "power" score of its units. Then, the AI would just try to keep a score close to the player's one(Easy would stay below it, Normal would stay near it and Hard would try to get above it). But I just don't know how to calculate a player's power score. There are just too many variables to take into account and I don't know how to properly use them to create one significant number(the power level). Could anyone help me out on this one? Here are the variables that should influence a player's power score: Current castle health, the unit's total health, damage, speed and attack range. Also, the player can have increased Income(the money bag), damage(the + Damage) and speed(the + speed)... How could I include them in the score? I'm really stuck here... Or is there an other way that I could implement AI for this type of game? Thanks for your precious time.

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  • First Minecraft mod not working: make a new sword

    - by yamikoWebs
    I am making my first mod and cannot see what is wrong with it. I am using MCP and Modloader. For my first mod I was going to make swords. I started with making a new EnumToolMaterials WOOD(0, 59, 2.0F, 0, 15), STONE(1, 131, 4.0F, 1, 5), IRON(2, 250, 6.0F, 2, 14), LAPIS(3, 750, 7.0F, 2, 14), OBSIDIAN(3, 1000, 7.5F, 3, 12), EMERALD(3, 1561, 8.0F, 3, 10),//diamond GREEN(3, 2000, 9.0F, 4, 10),//emerald GOLD(0, 200, 12.0F, 0, 22); then here is the mod class public class _Mod_Yamiko extends BaseMod{ /* mod itemts */ public static final Item swordLapis = (new ItemSword(600, EnumToolMaterial.LAPIS)).setItemName("swordLapis"); public static final Item swordObsidian = (new ItemSword(601, EnumToolMaterial.OBSIDIAN)).setItemName("swordObsidian"); public static final Item swordGreen = (new ItemSword(602, EnumToolMaterial.GREEN)).setItemName("swordGreen"); public void load(){ //set images swordLapis.iconIndex = ModLoader.addOverride("/gui/items.png","/gui/swordLapis.png"); ModLoader.addName(swordLapis, "Lapis Sword"); //craft ModLoader.addRecipe(new ItemStack(_Mod_Yamiko.swordLapis, 1), new Object[]{ " X ", " X ", " Y ", 'X', Block.dirt, 'Y', Item.stick }); } public String getVersion(){ return "0.1"; } } Then I made a 16×16 .png image. I am not sure where to save it so I recompiled and reobfuscated, took the mod files and put it in my local Minecraft install, added the image where it be should be. No problems when playing but I cannot make the new sword.

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  • Double sides face with two normals

    - by Marnix
    I think this isn't possible, but I just want to check this: Is it possible to create a face in opengl that has two normals? So: I want the inside and outside of some cilinder to be drawn, but I want the lights to do as expected and not calculate it for the normal given. I was trying to do this with backface culling off, so I would have both faces, but the light was wrongly calculated of course. Is this possible, or do I have to draw an inside and an outside? So draw twice?

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  • Execute code at specific intervals, only once?

    - by Mathias Lykkegaard Lorenzen
    I am having an issue with XNA, where I want to execute some code in my Update method, but only at a given interval, and only once. I would like to avoid booleans to check if I've already called it once, if possible. My code is here: if ((gameTime.TotalGameTime.TotalMilliseconds % 500) == 0) { Caret.Visible = !Caret.Visible; } As you may have guessed, it's for a TextBox control, to animate the caret between invisible and visible states. I just have reason to believe that it is called twice or maybe even 3 times in a single update-call, which is bad, and makes it look unstable and jumpy.

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  • Does DirectX implement Triple Buffering?

    - by Asik
    As AnandTech put it best in this 2009 article: In render ahead, frames cannot be dropped. This means that when the queue is full, what is displayed can have a lot more lag. Microsoft doesn't implement triple buffering in DirectX, they implement render ahead (from 0 to 8 frames with 3 being the default). The major difference in the technique we've described here is the ability to drop frames when they are outdated. Render ahead forces older frames to be displayed. Queues can help smoothness and stuttering as a few really quick frames followed by a slow frame end up being evened out and spread over more frames. But the price you pay is in lag (the more frames in the queue, the longer it takes to empty the queue and the older the frames are that are displayed). As I understand it, DirectX "Swap Chain" is merely a render ahead queue, i.e. buffers cannot be dropped; the longer the chain, the greater the input latency. At the same time, I find it hard to believe that the most widely used graphics API would not implement such fundamental functionality correctly. Is there a way to get proper triple buffered vertical synchronisation in DirectX?

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  • Algorithm allowing a good waypoint path following?

    - by Thierry Savard Saucier
    I'm more looking into how should I implement this, either a tutorial or even the name of the concept I'm missing. I'm pretty sure some basic pathfinding algorithm could help me here, but I dont know which one ... I have a worldmap, with different cities on it. The player can choose a city from a menu, or click on an available cities on the world map, and the toon should walk over there. But I want him to follow a predefine path. Lets say our hero is on the city 1. He clicks on city 4. I want him to follow the path to city 2 and from there to city 4. I was handling this easily with arrow movement (left right top bottom) since its a single check. Now I'm not sure how I should do this. Should I loop threw each possible path and check which one leads me to D the fastest ... and if I do how do I avoid running in circle forever with cities 1-5-2 ?

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  • How to use UILongPressGestureRecognizer with sprite drag & wait?

    - by ganesh
    May be it's asked before also but I couldn't find any good answer. Please tell me how this can be implemented with UILongPressGestureRecognizer? A user drags a sprite from X location to Y location. Then it waits at Y location (touch is not ended yet) for 1 or 2 secs and release the touch i.e touch is ended. In this case, shouldn't following states be triggered in below order for UILongPressGestureRecognizer: UIGestureRecognizerStateBegan UIGestureRecognizerStateChanged UIGestureRecognizerStateEnded ? My problem is if UIPanGestureRecognizer is also implemented to handle drags, UILongPressGesture is never triggered even after Long waits. Any thoughts?

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  • How to build a 4x game?

    - by Marco
    I'm trying to study how succefully implement a 4x game. Area of interest: 1) map data: how to store stellars systems (graphs?), how to generate them and so on.. 2) multiplayer: how to organize code in a non graphical server and a client to display it 3) command system: what are patters to catch user and ai decisions and handle them, adding at first "explore" and "colonize" then "combat", "research", "spy" and so on (commands can affect ships, planets, research, etc..) 4) ai system: ai can use commands to expand, upgrade planets and ship I know is a big questions, so help is appreciated :D 1) Map data Best choice is have a graph to model a galaxy. A node is a stellar system and every system have a list of planets. Ship cannot travel outside of predefined paths, like in Ascendancy: http://www.abandonia.com/files/games/221/Ascendancy_2.png Every connection between two stellar systems have a cost, in turns. Generate a galaxy is only a matter of: - dimension: number of stellar systems, - variety: randomize number of planets and types (desertic, earth, etc..), - positions of each stellar system on game space - connections: assure that exist a path between every node, so graph is "connected" (not sure if this a matematically correct term) 2) Multiplayer Game is organized in turns: player 1, player 2, ai1, ai2. Server take care of all data and clients just diplay it and collect data change. Because is a turn game, latency is not a problem :D 3) Command system I would like to design a hierarchy of commands to take care of this aspect: abstract Genericcommand (target) ExploreCommand (Ship) extends genericcommand colonizeCommand (Ship) buildcommand(planet, object) and so on. In my head all this commands are stored in a queue for every planets, ships or reasearch center or spy, and each turn a command is sent to a server to apply command and change data state 4) ai system I don't have any idea about this. Is a big topic and what I want is a simple ai. Something like "expand and fight against everyone". I think about a behaviour tree to control ai moves, so I can develop an ai that try to build ships to expand and then colonize planets, upgrade them throught science and combat enemies. Could be done with a finite state machine too ? any ideas, resources, article are welcome!

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  • Pack of resources in one big file with XNA

    - by Cristian
    Is it possible to pack all the little .xnb files into one big file? Given the level of abstraction of the XNA Framework I though this would come out of the box but I can't find any well integrated solution. So far the best candidate is XnaZip but in addition to having to compile the resources in a post-build event, and a little trouble porting the game to XBOX I have to rename all the references to resources I have already implemented.

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  • game performance

    - by iQue
    I'm making a game for android, and earlier today I was trying to add some cool stuff to my game. The problem is this thing needs like 5 timers. I build my timers like this: timer += deltaTime; if(timer >= 2.0f){ doStuff; timer -= 2.0f; } // this timers gets stuff done every 2 secs Will having to many timers like this, getting checked every frame, screw up my games performance? The effect I wanted to add was a crosshair every 2 sec, then remove it after 2 sec and do a timed animation. So an array of crosshairs dependent on a bunch of timers to be exact. This caused my game to shut down when used, so thats why Im wondering if using that many timers causes my game to flip out.

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  • Interesting/Innovative Open Source tools for indie games [closed]

    - by Gastón
    Just out of curiosity, I want to know opensource tools or projects that can add some interesting features to indie games, preferably those that could only be found on big-budget games. EDIT: As suggested by The Communist Duck and Joe Wreschnig, I'm putting the examples as answers. EDIT 2: Please do not post tools like PyGame, Inkscape, Gimp, Audacity, Slick2D, Phys2D, Blender (except for interesting plugins) and the like. I know they are great tools/libraries and some would argue essential to develop good games, but I'm looking for more rare projects. Could be something really specific or niche, like generating realistic trees and plants, or realistic AI for animals.

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  • Realistic planetary terrain generation with weights

    - by Programmdude
    I need terrain generation for a planet. The planet will be divided up into several hundred hexes, and I need it to be realistic and based on weights. I have dabbled in terrain generation before, but nothing like this. So I figure it would be a good idea to ask the community for answers, recommended articles or the like. By realistic, I mean not just random hexes, but continent shaped things with a few islands. More desert around the equator and more ice around the poles. I also have two weights I need to base it around: ice percentage and water percentage. That means that around XX% of the planet will need to be water. Does anyone have any advice or places to start? Generating arbitrary terrain is easy, but something a bit more "organic" like this seems rather difficult. It also needs to be seamless. Should be obvious since it's a planet, but no harm in pointing it out.

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  • Exporting XNA class library as a DLL file

    - by Will Bagley
    I have downloaded an open source project that I intend to use with my current game. The download came with all the class files from the original project as well as a pre-compiled DLL file representing the project. I was able to easily link this DLL with my current project and get it working just fine, no problems there. The problem I now have is that I want to make a couple of changes to the original libraries (extend its functionality a bit to better suit my needs) and re-export the class library as a DLL again, but I have no clue how to do this. Is there some simple way in VS where I can just take the class library and export/compile it as a DLL file again or is there more to it than that? This seems like something that should be pretty simple but my efforts to find an answer have so far come up with nothing. Thanks in advance.

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  • How many vertices are needed to draw reasonably good-looking terrain?

    - by bobbaluba
    I have some pretty expensive code in my terrain vertex shader, and I am trying to figure out if it will still be fast enough. I haven't yet developed a level-of-detail system for my terrain rendering, but I can easily benchmark my code by just drawing mock triangles. My problem is, how do I know how many vertices to test with? Are there for example rendering engines that will tell me how many terrain vertices are currently on-screen? Or maybe it is possible to create a formula that will give me an estimate based on screen resolution?

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  • Maintaining State in Mud Engine

    - by Johnathon Sullinger
    I am currently working on a Mud Engine and have started implementing my state engine. One of the things that has me troubled is maintaining different states at once. For instance, lets say that the user has started a tutorial, which requires specific input. If the user types "help" I want to switch in to a help state, so they can get the help they need, then return them to the original state once exiting the help. my state system uses a State Manager to manage the state per user: public class StateManager { /// <summary> /// Gets the current state. /// </summary> public IState CurrentState { get; private set; } /// <summary> /// Gets the states available for use. /// </summary> /// <value> public List<IState> States { get; private set; } /// <summary> /// Gets the commands available. /// </summary> public List<ICommand> Commands { get; private set; } /// <summary> /// Gets the mob that this manager controls the state of. /// </summary> public IMob Mob { get; private set; } public void Initialize(IMob mob, IState initialState = null) { this.Mob = mob; if (initialState != null) { this.SwitchState(initialState); } } /// <summary> /// Performs the command. /// </summary> /// <param name="message">The message.</param> public void PerformCommand(IMessage message) { if (this.CurrentState != null) { ICommand command = this.CurrentState.GetCommand(message); if (command is NoOpCommand) { // NoOperation commands indicate that the current state is not finished yet. this.CurrentState.Render(this.Mob); } else if (command != null) { command.Execute(this.Mob); } else if (command == null) { new InvalidCommand().Execute(this.Mob); } } } /// <summary> /// Switches the state. /// </summary> /// <param name="state">The state.</param> public void SwitchState(IState state) { if (this.CurrentState != null) { this.CurrentState.Cleanup(); } this.CurrentState = state; if (state != null) { this.CurrentState.Render(this.Mob); } } } Each of the different states that the user can be in, is a Type implementing IState. public interface IState { /// <summary> /// Renders the current state to the players terminal. /// </summary> /// <param name="player">The player to render to</param> void Render(IMob mob); /// <summary> /// Gets the Command that the player entered and preps it for execution. /// </summary> /// <returns></returns> ICommand GetCommand(IMessage command); /// <summary> /// Cleanups this instance during a state change. /// </summary> void Cleanup(); } Example state: public class ConnectState : IState { /// <summary> /// The connected player /// </summary> private IMob connectedPlayer; public void Render(IMob mob) { if (!(mob is IPlayer)) { throw new NullReferenceException("ConnectState can only be used with a player object implementing IPlayer"); } //Store a reference for the GetCommand() method to use. this.connectedPlayer = mob as IPlayer; var server = mob.Game as IServer; var game = mob.Game as IGame; // It is not guaranteed that mob.Game will implement IServer. We are only guaranteed that it will implement IGame. if (server == null) { throw new NullReferenceException("LoginState can only be set to a player object that is part of a server."); } //Output the game information mob.Send(new InformationalMessage(game.Name)); mob.Send(new InformationalMessage(game.Description)); mob.Send(new InformationalMessage(string.Empty)); //blank line //Output the server MOTD information mob.Send(new InformationalMessage(string.Join("\n", server.MessageOfTheDay))); mob.Send(new InformationalMessage(string.Empty)); //blank line mob.StateManager.SwitchState(new LoginState()); } /// <summary> /// Gets the command. /// </summary> /// <param name="message">The message.</param> /// <returns>Returns no operation required.</returns> public Commands.ICommand GetCommand(IMessage message) { return new NoOpCommand(); } /// <summary> /// Cleanups this instance during a state change. /// </summary> public void Cleanup() { // We have nothing to clean up. return; } } With the way that I have my FSM set up at the moment, the user can only ever have one state at a time. I read a few different posts on here about state management but nothing regarding keeping a stack history. I thought about using a Stack collection, and just pushing new states on to the stack then popping them off as the user moves out from one. It seems like it would work, but I'm not sure if it is the best approach to take. I'm looking for recommendations on this. I'm currently swapping state from within the individual states themselves as well which I'm on the fence about if it makes sense to do there or not. The user enters a command, the StateManager passes the command to the current State and lets it determine if it needs it (like passing in a password after entering a user name), if the state doesn't need any further commands, it returns null. If it does need to continue doing work, it returns a No Operation to let the state manager know that the state still requires further input from the user. If null is returned, the state manager will then go find the appropriate state for the command entered by the user. Example state requiring additional input from the user public class LoginState : IState { /// <summary> /// The connected player /// </summary> private IPlayer connectedPlayer; private enum CurrentState { FetchUserName, FetchPassword, InvalidUser, } private CurrentState currentState; /// <summary> /// Renders the current state to the players terminal. /// </summary> /// <param name="mob"></param> /// <exception cref="System.NullReferenceException"> /// ConnectState can only be used with a player object implementing IPlayer /// or /// LoginState can only be set to a player object that is part of a server. /// </exception> public void Render(IMob mob) { if (!(mob is IPlayer)) { throw new NullReferenceException("ConnectState can only be used with a player object implementing IPlayer"); } //Store a reference for the GetCommand() method to use. this.connectedPlayer = mob as IPlayer; var server = mob.Game as IServer; // Register to receive new input from the user. mob.ReceivedMessage += connectedPlayer_ReceivedMessage; if (server == null) { throw new NullReferenceException("LoginState can only be set to a player object that is part of a server."); } this.currentState = CurrentState.FetchUserName; switch (this.currentState) { case CurrentState.FetchUserName: mob.Send(new InputMessage("Please enter your user name")); break; case CurrentState.FetchPassword: mob.Send(new InputMessage("Please enter your password")); break; case CurrentState.InvalidUser: mob.Send(new InformationalMessage("Invalid username/password specified.")); this.currentState = CurrentState.FetchUserName; mob.Send(new InputMessage("Please enter your user name")); break; } } /// <summary> /// Receives the players input. /// </summary> /// <param name="sender">The sender.</param> /// <param name="e">The e.</param> void connectedPlayer_ReceivedMessage(object sender, IMessage e) { // Be good memory citizens and clean ourself up after receiving a message. // Not doing this results in duplicate events being registered and memory leaks. this.connectedPlayer.ReceivedMessage -= connectedPlayer_ReceivedMessage; ICommand command = this.GetCommand(e); } /// <summary> /// Gets the Command that the player entered and preps it for execution. /// </summary> /// <param name="command"></param> /// <returns>Returns the ICommand specified.</returns> public Commands.ICommand GetCommand(IMessage command) { if (this.currentState == CurrentState.FetchUserName) { this.connectedPlayer.Name = command.Message; this.currentState = CurrentState.FetchPassword; } else if (this.currentState == CurrentState.FetchPassword) { // find user } return new NoOpCommand(); } /// <summary> /// Cleanups this instance during a state change. /// </summary> public void Cleanup() { // If we have a player instance, we clean up the registered event. if (this.connectedPlayer != null) { this.connectedPlayer.ReceivedMessage -= this.connectedPlayer_ReceivedMessage; } } Maybe my entire FSM isn't wired up in the best way, but I would appreciate input on what would be the best to maintain a stack of state in a MUD game engine, and if my states should be allowed to receive the input from the user or not to check what command was entered before allowing the state manager to switch states. Thanks in advance.

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  • XNA 4: GetData from Texture2D and Set it into Texture3D with specific order

    - by cubrman
    I am trying to convert my color grading 2d lookup texture into 3d LUT. When I simply use: ColorAtlas.GetData(data); ColorAtlas3D.SetData(data); I get this: I tried building my 2d atlass horizontally but it did not helped - the data was messed up in a different way. So my question is how can I influence the order of the data I get from the 2d atlas and how can I properly pass it into my 3d atlas? Update: I know that I can GetData from a specific Rectangular area and put it into several arrays, but the result is still the same. This is what I tried: Color[] data2D = new Color[0]; for (int i = 0; i < 32; i++) { Color[] data = new Color[32 * 32]; GraphicsDevice.SetRenderTarget(null); ColorAtlas.GetData(0, new Rectangle(0, i*32, 32, 32), data, 0, data.Length); int oldLength = data2D.Length; Array.Resize<Color>(ref data2D, oldLength + data.Length); Array.Copy(data, 0, data2D, oldLength, data.Length); } ColorAtlas3D.SetData(data2D);

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  • Best way to store a large amount of game objects and update the ones onscreen

    - by user3002473
    Good afternoon guys! I'm a young beginner game developer working on my first large scale game project and I've run into a situation where I'm not quite sure what the best solution may be (if there is a lone solution). The question may be vague (if anyone can think of a better title after having read the question, please edit it) or broad but I'm not quite sure what to do and I thought it would help just to discuss the problem with people more educated in the field. Before we get started, here are some of the questions I've looked at for help in the past: Best way to keep track of game objects Elegant way to simulate large amounts of entities within a game world What is the most efficient container to store dynamic game objects in? I've also read articles about different data structures commonly used in games to store game objects such as this one about slot maps, but none of them are really what I'm looking for. Also, if it helps at all I'm using Python 3 to design the game. It has to be Python 3, if I could I would use C++ or Unityscript or something else, but I'm restricted to having to use Python 3. My game will be a form of side scroller shooter game. In said game the player will traverse large rooms with large amounts of enemies and other game objects to update (think some of the larger areas in Cave Story or Iji). The player obviously can't see the entire room all at once, so there is a viewport that follows the player around and renders only a selection of the room and the game objects that it contains. This is not a foreign concept. The part that's getting me confused has to do with how certain game objects are updated. Some of them are to be updated constantly, regardless of whether or not they can be seen. Other objects however are only to be updated when they are onscreen (for example, an enemy would only be updated to react to the player when it is onscreen or when it is in a certain range of the screen). Another problem is that game objects have to be easily referable by other game objects; something that happens in the player's update() method may affect another object in the world. Collision detection in games is always a serious problem. I need a way of containing the game objects such that it minimizes the number of cases when testing for collisions against one another. The final problem is that of creating and destroying game objects. I think this problem is pretty self explanatory. To store the game objects then I've considered a number of different methods. The original method I had was to simply store all the objects in a hash table by an id. This method was simple, and decently fast as it allows all the objects to be looked up in O(1) complexity, and also allows them to be deleted fairly easily. Hash collisions would not be a major problem; I wasn't originally planning on using computer generated ids to store the game objects I was going to rely on them all using ids given to them by the game designer (such names would be strings like 'Player' or 'EnemyWeapon4'), and even if I did use computer generated ids, if I used a decent hashing algorithm then the chances of collisions would be around 1 in 4 billion. The problem with using a hash table however is that it is inefficient in checking to see what objects are in range of the viewport. Considering the fact that certain game objects move (as well as the viewport itself), the only solution I could think of in order to only update objects that are in the viewport would be to iterate through every object in the hash table and check if it is in the viewport or not, updating only the ones that are in the valid area. This would be incredibly slow in scenarios where the amount of game objects exceeds 500, or even 200. The second solution was to store everything in a 2-d list. The world is partitioned up into cells (a tilemap essentially), where each cell or tile is the same size and is square. Each cell would contain a list of the game objects that are currently occupying it (each game object would be inserted into a cell depending on the center of the object's collision mask). A 2-d list would allow me to take the top-left and bottom-right corners of the viewport and easily grab a rectangular area of the grid containing only the cells containing entities that are in valid range to be updated. This method also solves the problem of collision detection; when I take an entity I can find the cell that it is currently in, then check only against entities in it's cell and the 8 cells around it. One problem with this system however is that it prohibits easy lookup of game objects. One solution I had would be to simultaneously keep a hash table that would contain all the positions of the objects in the 2-d list indexed by the id of said object. The major problem with a 2-d list is that it would need to be rebuilt every single game frame (along with the hash table of object positions), which may be a serious detriment to game speed. Both systems have ups and downs and seem to solve some of each other's problems, however using them both together doesn't seem like the best solution either. If anyone has any thoughts, ideas, suggestions, comments, opinions or solutions on new data structures or better implementations of the existing data structures I have in mind, please post, any and all criticism and help is welcome. Thanks in advance! EDIT: Please don't close the question because it has a bad title, I'm just bad with names!

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  • Is there a global "low resolution" filter for OpenGL?

    - by Ian Henry
    I'm trying to learn a little about OpenGL, so I'm making a simple 2D game (with OpenTK), and so far it's coming along well. I thought it would be fun to give it that, for lack of a better word, retropixelated look of games from the early nineties. I figured it would be an easy thing to do -- simply draw everything at half its normal size and scale up with no anti-aliasing. But I can't find any resources on how to do this. I can set the min/mag filters of my textures to nearest and that works fine for my sprites, but I'm using lots of primitives and I'd like the effect to apply to them as well. The one idea I had was to draw everything at half size, then somehow copy the render buffer to a texture, then render that texture full-size, but I don't know how to do that, and it seems like there must be a better way. Can anyone help me out?

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  • DirectWrite Producing Strange Artifacts?

    - by smoth190
    I've written the basis to my UI system around Direct2D. I like it because it's fast and easy to use (even if I had to do some messy work to get it to work with DirectX11). However, I notice when using DirectWrite I'm getting strange problems with my text. As you can see, the e is a little screwwed up, and it overall looks a little bumpy. This only happens with certain fonts in certain sizes, and with certain arrangements of letters. This particular example is Verdana in size 16.0 font. Can I fix this? It's pretty annoying to change all my words and fonts because of this problem.

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