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  • Computer Games Technolgy or Software Engineering?

    - by Suleman Anwar
    I'm in the last year of my college and going to university next year. Could you tell me what the difference between Software Engineering and Computer Games Technology is? I know a bit of both but don't know the actual difference. I'm kind off in a dilemma between these two. I want to be a programmer, I'd love to go into gaming but I heard getting a job within a computer games company is really hard.

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  • Logic that can traverse all possible layouts, but not checking every combination of identical pieces?

    - by George Bailey
    Suppose we have a grid of arbitrary size, which is filled by blocks of various widths and heights. There are many 2x2 blocks (meaning they take a total of 4 cells in the grid) and many 3x3 blocks, as well as some 5x4, 4x5, 2x3, etc. I was hoping I could set up a program that would look at all possible layouts, and rank them, and find the best one. Simply it would look at all possible positions of these blocks, and see what setup is the best rank. (the rank based on how many of these can be connected by a roadway system of 1x1 road blocks, and how many squares can be left empty after this is done. - wanting to fit the most blocks as possible with the least roads.) My question, is how should I traverse all the possibilities? I could take all the blocks and try them one at a time, but since all 2x2 blocks are equal, and there are a couple dozen of them, there is no point in trying every combination there, as in the following AA BBB AA BBB CCBBB CCEEE DD EEE DD EEE is exactly the same as CC EEE CC EEE AAEEE AABBB DD BBB DD BBB You notice that there are 2 3x3 blocks and 3 2x2 blocks in my two examples. Based on the model I have now, the computer would try both of these combinations, as well as many others. The problem is that it is going to try every single possible variation of my couple dozen 2x2 blocks. And that is sorely inefficient. Is there a reasonable way to take out this duplicated work, somehow getting the computer program to treat all 2x2 blocks as equal/identical, instead of one requiring rearranging/swapping of these identical blocks? Can this be done?

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  • 2D wave-like sprite movement XNA

    - by TheBroodian
    I'm trying to create a particle that will 'circle' my character. When the particle is created, it's given a random position in relation to my character, and a box to provide boundaries for how far left or right this particle should circle. When I use the phrase 'circle', I'm referring to a simulated circling, i.e., when moving to the right, the particle will appear in front of my character, when passing back to the left, the particle will appear behind my character. That may have been too much context, so let me cut to the chase: In essence, the path I would like my particle to follow would be akin to a sine wave, with the left and right sides of the provided rectangle being the apexes of the wave. The trouble I'm having is that the position of the particle will be random, so it will never be produced at the same place within the wave twice, but I have no idea how to create this sort of behavior procedurally.

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  • Is it normal to these Xcode prompts/errors when you deploy to IOS Simulator from Unity?

    - by Greg
    Just trying out the IOS build process.... Is it normal to see: Q1 - "upgrade to latest project format - project currently in Xcode 3.1 format, this will upgrade to 3.2" - just click OK and let Xcode do it's stuff? Q2 - same as Q1 but this time for the message "Remove obsolete build settings - will remove the build setting PREBINDING" Q3 - also when deploying to "Lastest IOS Simulator" you get the Simulator target produced, but also a non-simulator target which has lots of errors. So I assume you just ignore this target and not use it in Xcode correct? (i.e. just use the simulator target that is produced) Q4 - get a lot of warning after the simulator target is built? program works ok however.... Images For Q1 and Q2: For Q4: Settings used in Unity: Errors I see in XCode:

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  • Good 2D Platformer Physics

    - by Joe Wreschnig
    I have a basic character controller set up for a 2D platformer with Box2D, and I'm starting to tweak it to try to make it feel good. Physics engines have a lot of knobs to tweak, and it's not clear to me, writing with a physics engine for the first time, which ones I should use. Should jumping apply a force for several ticks? An impulse? Directly set velocity? How do I stop the avatar from sticking to walls without taking away all its friction (or do I take away all the friction, but only in the air)? Should I model the character as a capsule? A box with rounded corners? A box with two wheels? Just one big wheel? I feel like someone must have done this before! There seem to be very few resources available on the web that are not "baby's first physics", which all cut off where I'm hoping someone has already solved the issues. Most examples of physics engines for platformers have floaty-feeling controls, or in-air jumps, or easily exploitable behavior when temporary penetration is too high, etc. Some examples of what I mean: A short tap of jump jumps a short distance; a long tap jumps higher. Short skidding when stopping or reversing directions at high velocity. Standing stably on inclines (but maybe sliding down them when ducking). Analog speed when using an analog controller. All the other things that separate good platformers from bad platformers. Dare I suggest, stable moving platforms? I'm not really looking for "hey, do this." Obviously, the right thing to do is dependent on what I want in the game. But I'm hoping someone somewhere has gone through the possibilities and said "well technique A does feature X well, technique B does Y well, but that doesn't work with C", or has some worked examples beyond "if (key == space) character.impulse(0, 1)"

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  • DX9 Deferred Rendering, GBuffer displays as clear color only

    - by Fire31
    I'm trying to implement Catalin Zima's Deferred Renderer in a very lightweight c++ DirectX 9 app (only renders a skydome and a model), at this moment I'm trying to render the gbuffer, but I'm having a problem, the screen shows only the clear color, no matter how much I move the camera around. However, removing all the render target operations lets the app render the scene normally, even if the models are being applied the renderGBuffer effect. Any ideas of what I'm doing wrong?

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  • How to teach game programming at school ?

    - by jokoon
    I'm in this private school right now, and apart from my progressive stoppage of anti-depressants, I'm having an hard time focusing on what the school wants me to do. The school has a professional contract for a game we have to do with Unity. I don't really learn anything new while using unity, so I don't like using it. We recently learned how to use DirectX, and we have to do some sort of Gradius-precursor clone (Parsec) with directX, in 3D: this annoys me, and I'm currently learning to use Ogre3D by myself by making some game. The teacher is an engineer, and all of us won't be engineers. How would you teach game programming ?

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  • Artist, Looking to lean how to program games, where do I start? [on hold]

    - by Christopher Hindson
    I have bean an artist for many years now I am very comfortable with using Photoshop and Flash but I want to learn how to but together my own games, I bean doing my own research into this and at the moment I am at little bit stuck on witch direction to go down. So my question is witch programming language should I learn? I have already bean looking into this what i understand is that Gamemaker with its built in language (GML) is one of the most friendly to people who are new to the game making world. I have played around with this program and was pretty happy with it but I want more also you can use Unity with language such as C and javascript and then games built with Java witch looks interesting. One more thing before you send your answer in at this moment in time I would only be able to make 2D game but 3D isn't out of the picture.

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  • Android Loading Screen: How do I use a stack to load elements?

    - by tom_mai78101
    I have some problems with figuring out what value I should put in the function: int value_needed_to_figure_out = X; ProgressBar.incrementProgressBy(value_needed_to_figure_out); I've been researching about loading screens and how to use them. Some examples I've seen have implemented Thread.sleep() in a Handler.post(new Runnable()) function. To me, I got most of that concept of using the Handler to update the ProgressBar, while pretending to do some heavy crunching work. So, I kept looking. I have read this thread here: How do I load chunks of data from an assest manager during a loading screen? It said that I can try using a stack it needs to load, and adding a size counter as I add elements to the stack. What does it mean? This is the part where I'm totally stumped. If anyone would provide some hints, I'll gladly appreciate it. Thanks in advance.

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  • Animation API vs frame animation

    - by Max
    I'm pretty far down the road in my game right now, closing in on the end. And I'm adding little tweaks here and there. I used custom frame animation of a single image with many versions of my sprite on it, and controlled which part of the image to show using rectangles. But I'm starting to think that maybe I should've used the Animation API that comes with android instead. Will this effect my performance in a negative way? Can I still use rectangles to draw my bitmap? Could I add effects from the Animation API to my current frame-controlled animation? like the fadeout-effect etc? this would mean I wont have to change my current code. I want some of my animations to fade out, and just noticed that using the Animation API makes things alot easier. But needless to say, I would prefer not having to change all my animation-code. I'm bad at explaining, so Ill show a bit of how I do my animation: private static final int BMP_ROWS = 1; //I use top-view so only need my sprite to have 1 direction private static final int BMP_COLUMNS = 3; public void update(GameControls controls) { if (sprite.isMoving) { currentFrame = ++currentFrame % BMP_COLUMNS; } else { this.setFrame(1); } } public void draw(Canvas canvas, int x, int y, float angle) { this.x=x; this.y=y; canvas.save(); canvas.rotate(angle , x + width / 2, y + height / 2); int srcX = currentFrame * width; int srcY = 0 * height; Rect src = new Rect(srcX, srcY, srcX + width, srcY + height); Rect dst = new Rect(x, y, x + width, y + height); canvas.drawBitmap(bitmap, src, dst, null); canvas.restore(); }

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  • Designing rules to fight smallpox in Civ-style TBS games

    - by Williham Totland
    TL;DR: How do you design a ruleset for a Civ-style TBS game that prevents city smallpox from being a profitable or viable strategy? Long version: Civ-style games are pretty great. Bringing a civilization from cradle to grave is a great endeavor, and practicing diplomacy with hard-line human players is fun and challenging. In theory. In practice, however, many of these games has, especially in multiplayer, exactly one viable strategy: City smallpox, a.k.a. infinite city spread, a.k.a. covering all available space with 1-citizen cities, packed as tight as they will go. I suppose this could count as emergent gameplay, but still; it could hardly be considered to be in the spirit of the class of game. The Civilization series, of course, is stuck in their more or less fixed rule sets, established with Civilization. Yes, there have been major changes in some respects, but the rules pertaining to city building and maintenance have stayed pretty similar. So the question, then: If you build a ruleset for a TBS from the ground up; what rules should be in place to prevent Infinite City Sprawl from being a viable strategy? Or should ICS be a viable strategy?

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  • Best way to prevent UIPanGestureRecognizer from firing when moving sprites in cocos2d

    - by cjroebuck
    Im using UIPanGestureRecognizer in my cocos2d game to do drag and drop of sprites. I have a row of sprites and when I drag a sprite on top of another one, the sprite underneath it and any other sprites between should shift left or right out of the way to allow space to drop the currently selected sprite. This is working ok, however, if I am too quick at dragging the sprite around the screen, this triggers another round of the UIPanGestureRecognizer's callback method, and screws up the logic, as the sprites are in-between shifting. I need a way to freeze the callback from firing, whilst the other sprites are shifting, then once they have finished moving, re-enable the callback to fire. Whats the best way to do this?

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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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  • 3D Graphics with XNA Game Studio 4.0 bug in light map?

    - by Eibis
    i'm following the tutorials on 3D Graphics with XNA Game Studio 4.0 and I came up with an horrible effect when I tried to implement the Light Map http://i.stack.imgur.com/BUWvU.jpg this effect shows up when I look towards the center of the house (and it moves with me). it has this shape because I'm using a sphere to represent light; using other light shapes gives different results. I'm using a class PreLightingRenderer: using System; using System.Collections.Generic; using System.Linq; using System.Text; using Microsoft.Xna.Framework; using Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Graphics; using Dhpoware; using Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Content; namespace XNAFirstPersonCamera { public class PrelightingRenderer { // Normal, depth, and light map render targets RenderTarget2D depthTarg; RenderTarget2D normalTarg; RenderTarget2D lightTarg; // Depth/normal effect and light mapping effect Effect depthNormalEffect; Effect lightingEffect; // Point light (sphere) mesh Model lightMesh; // List of models, lights, and the camera public List<CModel> Models { get; set; } public List<PPPointLight> Lights { get; set; } public FirstPersonCamera Camera { get; set; } GraphicsDevice graphicsDevice; int viewWidth = 0, viewHeight = 0; public PrelightingRenderer(GraphicsDevice GraphicsDevice, ContentManager Content) { viewWidth = GraphicsDevice.Viewport.Width; viewHeight = GraphicsDevice.Viewport.Height; // Create the three render targets depthTarg = new RenderTarget2D(GraphicsDevice, viewWidth, viewHeight, false, SurfaceFormat.Single, DepthFormat.Depth24); normalTarg = new RenderTarget2D(GraphicsDevice, viewWidth, viewHeight, false, SurfaceFormat.Color, DepthFormat.Depth24); lightTarg = new RenderTarget2D(GraphicsDevice, viewWidth, viewHeight, false, SurfaceFormat.Color, DepthFormat.Depth24); // Load effects depthNormalEffect = Content.Load<Effect>(@"Effects\PPDepthNormal"); lightingEffect = Content.Load<Effect>(@"Effects\PPLight"); // Set effect parameters to light mapping effect lightingEffect.Parameters["viewportWidth"].SetValue(viewWidth); lightingEffect.Parameters["viewportHeight"].SetValue(viewHeight); // Load point light mesh and set light mapping effect to it lightMesh = Content.Load<Model>(@"Models\PPLightMesh"); lightMesh.Meshes[0].MeshParts[0].Effect = lightingEffect; this.graphicsDevice = GraphicsDevice; } public void Draw() { drawDepthNormalMap(); drawLightMap(); prepareMainPass(); } void drawDepthNormalMap() { // Set the render targets to 'slots' 1 and 2 graphicsDevice.SetRenderTargets(normalTarg, depthTarg); // Clear the render target to 1 (infinite depth) graphicsDevice.Clear(Color.White); // Draw each model with the PPDepthNormal effect foreach (CModel model in Models) { model.CacheEffects(); model.SetModelEffect(depthNormalEffect, false); model.Draw(Camera.ViewMatrix, Camera.ProjectionMatrix, Camera.Position); model.RestoreEffects(); } // Un-set the render targets graphicsDevice.SetRenderTargets(null); } void drawLightMap() { // Set the depth and normal map info to the effect lightingEffect.Parameters["DepthTexture"].SetValue(depthTarg); lightingEffect.Parameters["NormalTexture"].SetValue(normalTarg); // Calculate the view * projection matrix Matrix viewProjection = Camera.ViewMatrix * Camera.ProjectionMatrix; // Set the inverse of the view * projection matrix to the effect Matrix invViewProjection = Matrix.Invert(viewProjection); lightingEffect.Parameters["InvViewProjection"].SetValue(invViewProjection); // Set the render target to the graphics device graphicsDevice.SetRenderTarget(lightTarg); // Clear the render target to black (no light) graphicsDevice.Clear(Color.Black); // Set render states to additive (lights will add their influences) graphicsDevice.BlendState = BlendState.Additive; graphicsDevice.DepthStencilState = DepthStencilState.None; foreach (PPPointLight light in Lights) { // Set the light's parameters to the effect light.SetEffectParameters(lightingEffect); // Calculate the world * view * projection matrix and set it to // the effect Matrix wvp = (Matrix.CreateScale(light.Attenuation) * Matrix.CreateTranslation(light.Position)) * viewProjection; lightingEffect.Parameters["WorldViewProjection"].SetValue(wvp); // Determine the distance between the light and camera float dist = Vector3.Distance(Camera.Position, light.Position); // If the camera is inside the light-sphere, invert the cull mode // to draw the inside of the sphere instead of the outside if (dist < light.Attenuation) graphicsDevice.RasterizerState = RasterizerState.CullClockwise; // Draw the point-light-sphere lightMesh.Meshes[0].Draw(); // Revert the cull mode graphicsDevice.RasterizerState = RasterizerState.CullCounterClockwise; } // Revert the blending and depth render states graphicsDevice.BlendState = BlendState.Opaque; graphicsDevice.DepthStencilState = DepthStencilState.Default; // Un-set the render target graphicsDevice.SetRenderTarget(null); } void prepareMainPass() { foreach (CModel model in Models) foreach (ModelMesh mesh in model.Model.Meshes) foreach (ModelMeshPart part in mesh.MeshParts) { // Set the light map and viewport parameters to each model's effect if (part.Effect.Parameters["LightTexture"] != null) part.Effect.Parameters["LightTexture"].SetValue(lightTarg); if (part.Effect.Parameters["viewportWidth"] != null) part.Effect.Parameters["viewportWidth"].SetValue(viewWidth); if (part.Effect.Parameters["viewportHeight"] != null) part.Effect.Parameters["viewportHeight"].SetValue(viewHeight); } } } } that uses three effect: PPDepthNormal.fx float4x4 World; float4x4 View; float4x4 Projection; struct VertexShaderInput { float4 Position : POSITION0; float3 Normal : NORMAL0; }; struct VertexShaderOutput { float4 Position : POSITION0; float2 Depth : TEXCOORD0; float3 Normal : TEXCOORD1; }; VertexShaderOutput VertexShaderFunction(VertexShaderInput input) { VertexShaderOutput output; float4x4 viewProjection = mul(View, Projection); float4x4 worldViewProjection = mul(World, viewProjection); output.Position = mul(input.Position, worldViewProjection); output.Normal = mul(input.Normal, World); // Position's z and w components correspond to the distance // from camera and distance of the far plane respectively output.Depth.xy = output.Position.zw; return output; } // We render to two targets simultaneously, so we can't // simply return a float4 from the pixel shader struct PixelShaderOutput { float4 Normal : COLOR0; float4 Depth : COLOR1; }; PixelShaderOutput PixelShaderFunction(VertexShaderOutput input) { PixelShaderOutput output; // Depth is stored as distance from camera / far plane distance // to get value between 0 and 1 output.Depth = input.Depth.x / input.Depth.y; // Normal map simply stores X, Y and Z components of normal // shifted from (-1 to 1) range to (0 to 1) range output.Normal.xyz = (normalize(input.Normal).xyz / 2) + .5; // Other components must be initialized to compile output.Depth.a = 1; output.Normal.a = 1; return output; } technique Technique1 { pass Pass1 { VertexShader = compile vs_1_1 VertexShaderFunction(); PixelShader = compile ps_2_0 PixelShaderFunction(); } } PPLight.fx float4x4 WorldViewProjection; float4x4 InvViewProjection; texture2D DepthTexture; texture2D NormalTexture; sampler2D depthSampler = sampler_state { texture = ; minfilter = point; magfilter = point; mipfilter = point; }; sampler2D normalSampler = sampler_state { texture = ; minfilter = point; magfilter = point; mipfilter = point; }; float3 LightColor; float3 LightPosition; float LightAttenuation; // Include shared functions #include "PPShared.vsi" struct VertexShaderInput { float4 Position : POSITION0; }; struct VertexShaderOutput { float4 Position : POSITION0; float4 LightPosition : TEXCOORD0; }; VertexShaderOutput VertexShaderFunction(VertexShaderInput input) { VertexShaderOutput output; output.Position = mul(input.Position, WorldViewProjection); output.LightPosition = output.Position; return output; } float4 PixelShaderFunction(VertexShaderOutput input) : COLOR0 { // Find the pixel coordinates of the input position in the depth // and normal textures float2 texCoord = postProjToScreen(input.LightPosition) + halfPixel(); // Extract the depth for this pixel from the depth map float4 depth = tex2D(depthSampler, texCoord); // Recreate the position with the UV coordinates and depth value float4 position; position.x = texCoord.x * 2 - 1; position.y = (1 - texCoord.y) * 2 - 1; position.z = depth.r; position.w = 1.0f; // Transform position from screen space to world space position = mul(position, InvViewProjection); position.xyz /= position.w; // Extract the normal from the normal map and move from // 0 to 1 range to -1 to 1 range float4 normal = (tex2D(normalSampler, texCoord) - .5) * 2; // Perform the lighting calculations for a point light float3 lightDirection = normalize(LightPosition - position); float lighting = clamp(dot(normal, lightDirection), 0, 1); // Attenuate the light to simulate a point light float d = distance(LightPosition, position); float att = 1 - pow(d / LightAttenuation, 6); return float4(LightColor * lighting * att, 1); } technique Technique1 { pass Pass1 { VertexShader = compile vs_1_1 VertexShaderFunction(); PixelShader = compile ps_2_0 PixelShaderFunction(); } } PPShared.vsi has some common functions: float viewportWidth; float viewportHeight; // Calculate the 2D screen position of a 3D position float2 postProjToScreen(float4 position) { float2 screenPos = position.xy / position.w; return 0.5f * (float2(screenPos.x, -screenPos.y) + 1); } // Calculate the size of one half of a pixel, to convert // between texels and pixels float2 halfPixel() { return 0.5f / float2(viewportWidth, viewportHeight); } and finally from the Game class I set up in LoadContent with: effect = Content.Load(@"Effects\PPModel"); models[0] = new CModel(Content.Load(@"Models\teapot"), new Vector3(-50, 80, 0), new Vector3(0, 0, 0), 1f, Content.Load(@"Textures\prova_texture_autocad"), GraphicsDevice); house = new CModel(Content.Load(@"Models\house"), new Vector3(0, 0, 0), new Vector3((float)-Math.PI / 2, 0, 0), 35.0f, Content.Load(@"Textures\prova_texture_autocad"), GraphicsDevice); models[0].SetModelEffect(effect, true); house.SetModelEffect(effect, true); renderer = new PrelightingRenderer(GraphicsDevice, Content); renderer.Models = new List(); renderer.Models.Add(house); renderer.Models.Add(models[0]); renderer.Lights = new List() { new PPPointLight(new Vector3(0, 120, 0), Color.White * .85f, 2000) }; where PPModel.fx is: float4x4 World; float4x4 View; float4x4 Projection; texture2D BasicTexture; sampler2D basicTextureSampler = sampler_state { texture = ; addressU = wrap; addressV = wrap; minfilter = anisotropic; magfilter = anisotropic; mipfilter = linear; }; bool TextureEnabled = true; texture2D LightTexture; sampler2D lightSampler = sampler_state { texture = ; minfilter = point; magfilter = point; mipfilter = point; }; float3 AmbientColor = float3(0.15, 0.15, 0.15); float3 DiffuseColor; #include "PPShared.vsi" struct VertexShaderInput { float4 Position : POSITION0; float2 UV : TEXCOORD0; }; struct VertexShaderOutput { float4 Position : POSITION0; float2 UV : TEXCOORD0; float4 PositionCopy : TEXCOORD1; }; VertexShaderOutput VertexShaderFunction(VertexShaderInput input) { VertexShaderOutput output; float4x4 worldViewProjection = mul(World, mul(View, Projection)); output.Position = mul(input.Position, worldViewProjection); output.PositionCopy = output.Position; output.UV = input.UV; return output; } float4 PixelShaderFunction(VertexShaderOutput input) : COLOR0 { // Sample model's texture float3 basicTexture = tex2D(basicTextureSampler, input.UV); if (!TextureEnabled) basicTexture = float4(1, 1, 1, 1); // Extract lighting value from light map float2 texCoord = postProjToScreen(input.PositionCopy) + halfPixel(); float3 light = tex2D(lightSampler, texCoord); light += AmbientColor; return float4(basicTexture * DiffuseColor * light, 1); } technique Technique1 { pass Pass1 { VertexShader = compile vs_1_1 VertexShaderFunction(); PixelShader = compile ps_2_0 PixelShaderFunction(); } } I don't have any idea on what's wrong... googling the web I found that this tutorial may have some bug but I don't know if it's the LightModel fault (the sphere) or in a shader or in the class PrelightingRenderer. Any help is very appreciated, thank you for reading!

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  • Postgres: clear entire database before re-creating / re-populating from bash script

    - by Hoff
    hi folks, I'm writing a shell script (will become a cronjob) that will: 1: dump my production database 2: import the dump into my development database Between step 1 and 2, I need to clear the development database (drop all tables?). How is this best accomplished from a shell script? So far, it looks like this: #!/bin/bash time=`date '+%Y'-'%m'-'%d'` # 1. export(dump) the current production database pg_dump -U production_db_name > /backup/dir/backup-${time}.sql # missing step: drop all tables from development database so it can be re-populated # 2. load the backup into the development database psql -U development_db_name < backup/dir/backup-${time}.sql Many thanks in advance! Martin

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  • Pre game loading time vs. in game loading time

    - by Keeper
    I'm developing a game in which a random maze is included. There are some AI creatures, lurking the maze. And I want them to go in some path according to the mazes shape. Now there are two possibilities for me to implement that, the first way (which I used) is by calculating several wanted lurking paths once the maze is created. The second, is by calculating a path once needed to be calculated, when a creature starts lurking it. My main concern is loading times. If I calculate many paths at the creating of the maze, the pre loading time is a bit long, so I thought about calculating them when needed. At the moment the game is not 'heavy' so calculating paths in mid game is not noticeable, but I'm afraid it will once it will get more complicated. Any suggestions, comments, opinions, will be of help. Edit: As for now, let p be the number of pre-calculated paths, a creatures has the probability of 1/p to take a new path (which means a path calculation) instead of an existing one. A creature does not start its patrol until the path is fully calculated of course, so no need to worry about him getting killed in the process.

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  • What can make a peaceful game successful?

    - by Miro
    Today, the most successful games are action games like FPS, RPG, MMORPG... I'd like to make peaceful game, but I don't know how to attract people. I can make good graphics, but that's not the main thing that makes people like game more that couple of minutes. The content is important. In game styles mentioned in beginning are main content fight, kill others, make from yourself predator/the most powerful creature/player in the game. But what content can attract people in peaceful game?

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  • How to update entity states and animations in a component-based game

    - by mivic
    I'm trying to design a component-based entity system for learning purposes (and later use on some games) and I'm having some troubles when it comes to updating entity states. I don't want to have an update() method inside the Component to prevent dependencies between Components. What I currently have in mind is that components hold data and systems update components. So, if I have a simple 2D game with some entities (e.g. player, enemy1, enemy 2) that have Transform, Movement, State, Animation and Rendering components I think I should have: A MovementSystem that moves all the Movement components and updates the State components And a RenderSystem that updates the Animation components (the animation component should have one animation (i.e. a set of frames/textures) for each state and updating it means selecting the animation corresponding to the current state (e.g. jumping, moving_left, etc), and updating the frame index). Then, the RenderSystem updates the Render components with the texture corresponding to the current frame of each entity's Animation and renders everything on screen. I've seen some implementations like Artemis framework, but I don't know how to solve this situation: Let's say that my game has the following entities. Each entity have a set of states and one animation for each state: player: "idle", "moving_right", "jumping" enemy1: "moving_up", "moving_down" enemy2: "moving_left", "moving_right" What are the most accepted approaches in order to update the current state of each entity? The only thing that I can think of is having separate systems for each group of entities and separate State and Animation components so I would have PlayerState, PlayerAnimation, Enemy1State, Enemy1Animation... PlayerMovementSystem, PlayerRenderingSystem... but I think this is a bad solution and breaks the purpose of having a component-based system. As you can see, I'm quite lost here, so I'd very much appreciate any help.

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  • Drawing an outline around an arbitrary group of hexagons

    - by Perky
    Is there an algorithm for drawing an outline around around an arbitrary group of hexagons? The polygon outline drawn may be concave. See the images below, the green line is what I am trying to achieve. The hexagons are stored as vertices and drawn as polygons. Edit: I've uploaded images that should explain more. I want to favour convex hulls because it's conveys an area of control more quickly. Each hexagon is stored in a multidimensional array so they all have x and y coordinates, I can easily find adjacent hexagons and the opposite vertex, i.e. adjacentHexagon = getAdjacentHexagon( someHexagon, NORTHWEST ) if there isn't a hexagon immediately adjacent it will continue to search in that direction until it finds one or hits the map edges.

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  • 2D Platform Game Jumping

    - by Bradley Kreuger
    I'm currently writing a game in XNA for fun which uses C#. I have got my sprites loaded and when the character moves right he looks like he is running right and when he moves left he looks like he is running left. I been looking everywhere for a good coding example for how to create a jumping ability. I have read all the physics stuff that I can stand and it doesn't help when I can't figure out how to use say space bar to jump yet can't keep them from using space just jump again until they land.

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  • What is a good way to measure game virality?

    - by Chris Garrett
    I have added some social features to an iPhone game (Lexitect if you're curious), such as email, Twitter, and Facebook integration for sharing high scores. Along with these features, I am measuring how many times users make it to each step. The goal of these features are to make the game more viral, and I am trying to get to a measure of game virality. I would think that a game virality metric would produce a number based on 1.0, where 1.0 = zero viral growth, and 1.01 would represent 1% viral growth over some unit of time. How is virality normally measured, and in what units? How is time capped on the metric? i.e. if I gave each player a year to determine how many recommendations they make, I wouldn't get any real numbers for a year from the time I start tracking it. Are there any standards for tracking virality in a meaningful way?

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  • Trouble exporting Maya models to Panda3D?

    - by Aerovistae
    Having issues here. I added the Panda3D exporter script thing to Maya. 2 things: When I go to export to a .egg, no .egg is formed. Instead a fileToBeExported_temp.mb appears next to the original fileToBeExported.ma. My models use curving meshes with many subdivisions, easily in the thousands, like on the smoothed tentacles of an octopus. Will Panda be able to handle this in the first place? I can't find out on my own since it won't export.

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  • how to add water effect to an image

    - by brainydexter
    This is what I am trying to achieve: A given image would occupy say 3/4th height of the screen. The remaining 1/4th area would be a reflection of it with some waves (water effect) on it. I'm not sure how to do this. But here's my approach: render the given texture to another texture called mirror texture (maybe FBOs can help me?) invert mirror texture (scale it by -1 along Y) render mirror texture at height = 3/4 of the screen add some sense of noise to it OR using pixel shader and time, put pixel.z = sin(time) to make it wavy (Tech: C++/OpenGL/glsl) Is my approach correct ? Is there a better way to do this ? Also, can someone please recommend me if using FrameBuffer Objects would be the right thing here ? Thanks

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  • Radiosity using a hemisphere

    - by P. Avery
    I'm working on a radiosity processor. I'm projecting scene geometry onto a hemisphere at a high order of tessellation during a visibility pass onto a 1024x1024 render target. The problem is that the edges of certain triangles are not being rendered to the item buffer( render target )...so when I test certain edges( or pixels during pixel shader ) for visibility during a reconstruction pass, visible edges are not identified and as a result the pixel for that edge is discarded. One solution was to increase the resolution of the item buffer( up to 4096x4096 )...this helped and more edges were visible, however, this was not fullproof. How do I increase visibility? Here is a screenshot of a scene after radiosity is applied: the seams are edges along a triangle face that were not visible due to the resolution of the item buffer... fixed the problem by sampling the item buffer w/8 points:

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  • 2D water with dynamic waves

    - by user1103457
    New Super Mario Bros has really cool 2D water that I'd like to learn how to create. Here's a video showing it. When something hits the water, it creates a wave. There are also constant "background" waves. You can get a good look at the constant waves just after 00:50 when the camera isn't moving. I assume the splashes in NSMB work as in the first part of this tutorial. But in NSMB the water also has constant waves on the surface, and the splashes look very different. Another difference is that in the tutorial, if you create a splash, it first creates a deep "hole" in the water at the origin of the splash. In new super mario bros this hole is absent or much smaller. I am referring to the splashes that the player creates when jumping in and out of the water. How do they create the constant waves and the splashes? I am especially interested in the splashes, and how they work together with the constant waves. I am programming in XNA. I've tried this myself, but couldn't really get it all to work well together. Bonus questions: How do they create the light spots just under the surface of the waves and how do they texture the deeper parts of the water? This is the first time I try to create water like this. EDIT: I assume the constant waves are created using a sine function. The splashes are probably created in a way like in the tutorial. (But they are not the same, so I am still interested in how to make this kind of splashes) But I have a lot of trouble combining those things. I know I can use the sine function to set the height of a specific watercolumn but the splashes are using the speed, to determine the new height. I can't figure out how to combine those. Not that I am not asking how the developers of new super mario bros did this exactly. I am just interested in ways to recreate an effect like it. This week I have an examweek so I don't have time to work on the code. After this week I will spend a lot of time on it. But I am constantly thinking about it, so that's why I will be checking comments etc. I just won't be looking at the code since it might be too time-consuming.

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