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  • Scene Graph Traversing Techniques

    - by Bunkai.Satori
    Scene Graph seems to be the most effective way of representing the game world. The game world usually tends to be as large as the memory and device can handle. In contrast, the screen of the device captures only a fraction of the Game World/Scene Graph. Ideally, I wish to process(update and render) only the visible game objects/nodes on per-frame basis. My question therefore is, how to traverse the scene graph so, that I will focus only on the game notes that are in the camera frustum? How to organize data so that I can easily focus only on the scene graph nodes visible to me? What are techniques to minimize scenegraph traversal time? Is there such way as more effective traversal, or do I have to traverse whole scene graph on per-frame basis?

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  • Logging library for (c++) games

    - by Klaim
    I know a lot of logging libraries but didn't test a lot of them. (GoogleLog, Pantheios, the coming boost::log library...) In games, especially in remote multiplayer and multithreaded games, logging is vital to debugging, even if you remove all logs in the end. Let's say I'm making a PC game (not console) that needs logs (multiplayer and multithreaded and/or multiprocess) and I have good reasons for looking for a library for logging (like, I don't have time or I'm not confident in my ability to write one correctly for my case). Assuming that I need : performance ease of use (allow streaming or formating or something like that) reliable (don't leak or crash!) cross-platform (at least Windows, MacOSX, Linux/Ubuntu) Wich logging library would you recommand? Currently, I think that boost::log is the most flexible one (you can even log to remotely!), but have not good performance update: is for high performance, but isn't released yet. Pantheios is often cited but I don't have comparison points on performance and usage. I've used my own lib for a long time but I know it don't manage multithreading so it's a big problem, even if it's fast enough. Google Log seems interesting, I just need to test it but if you already have compared those libs and more, your advice might be of good use. Games are often performance demanding while complex to debug so it would be good to know logging libraries that, in our specific case, have clear advantages.

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  • XNA Deferred Shading, Replace BasicEffect

    - by Alex
    I have implemented deferred shading in my XNA 4.0 project, meaning that I need all objects to start out with the same shader "RenderGBuffer.fx". How can I use a custom Content Processor to: Not load any textures by default (I want to manually do this) Use "RenderGBuffer.fx" as the default shader instead of BasicEffect Below is the progress so far public class DeferredModelProcessor : ModelProcessor { EffectMaterialContent deferredShader; public DeferredModelProcessor() { } protected override MaterialContent ConvertMaterial(MaterialContent material, ContentProcessorContext context) { deferredShader = new EffectMaterialContent(); deferredShader.Effect = new ExternalReference<EffectContent>("DeferredShading/RenderGBuffer.fx"); return context.Convert<MaterialContent, MaterialContent>(deferredShader, typeof(MaterialProcessor).Name); } }

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  • Textures do not render on ATI graphics cards?

    - by Mathias Lykkegaard Lorenzen
    I'm rendering textured quads to an orthographic view in XNA through hardware instancing. On Nvidia graphics cards, this all works, tested on 3 machines. On ATI cards, it doesn't work at all, tested on 2 machines. How come? Culling perhaps? My orthographic view is set up like this: Matrix projection = Matrix.CreateOrthographicOffCenter(0, graphicsDevice.Viewport.Width, -graphicsDevice.Viewport.Height, 0, 0, 1); And my elements are rendered with the Z-coordinate 0. Edit: I just figured out something weird. If I do not call this spritebatch code above doing my textured quad rendering code, then it won't work on Nvidia cards either. Could that be due to culling information or something like that? Batch.Instance.SpriteBatch.Begin(SpriteSortMode.Immediate, BlendState.AlphaBlend, SamplerState.LinearClamp, DepthStencilState.Default, RasterizerState.CullNone); ... spriteBatch.End(); Edit 2: Here's the full code for my instancing call. public void DrawTextures() { Batch.Instance.SpriteBatch.Begin(SpriteSortMode.Texture, BlendState.AlphaBlend, SamplerState.LinearClamp, DepthStencilState.Default, RasterizerState.CullNone, textureEffect); while (texturesToDraw.Count > 0) { TextureJob texture = texturesToDraw.Dequeue(); spriteBatch.Draw(texture.Texture, texture.DestinationRectangle, texture.TintingColor); } spriteBatch.End(); #if !NOTEXTUREINSTANCING // no work to do if (positionInBufferTextured > 0) { device.BlendState = BlendState.Opaque; textureEffect.CurrentTechnique = textureEffect.Techniques["Technique1"]; textureEffect.Parameters["Texture"].SetValue(darkTexture); textureEffect.CurrentTechnique.Passes[0].Apply(); if ((textureInstanceBuffer == null) || (positionInBufferTextured > textureInstanceBuffer.VertexCount)) { if (textureInstanceBuffer != null) textureInstanceBuffer.Dispose(); textureInstanceBuffer = new DynamicVertexBuffer(device, texturedInstanceVertexDeclaration, positionInBufferTextured, BufferUsage.WriteOnly); } if (positionInBufferTextured > 0) { textureInstanceBuffer.SetData(texturedInstances, 0, positionInBufferTextured, SetDataOptions.Discard); } device.Indices = textureIndexBuffer; device.SetVertexBuffers(textureGeometryBuffer, new VertexBufferBinding(textureInstanceBuffer, 0, 1)); device.DrawInstancedPrimitives(PrimitiveType.TriangleStrip, 0, 0, textureGeometryBuffer.VertexCount, 0, 2, positionInBufferTextured); // now that we've drawn, it's ok to reset positionInBuffer back to zero, // and write over any vertices that may have been set previously. positionInBufferTextured = 0; } #endif }

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  • Spritesheet per pixel collision XNA

    - by Jixi
    So basically i'm using this: public bool IntersectPixels(Rectangle rectangleA, Color[] dataA,Rectangle rectangleB, Color[] dataB) { int top = Math.Max(rectangleA.Top, rectangleB.Top); int bottom = Math.Min(rectangleA.Bottom, rectangleB.Bottom); int left = Math.Max(rectangleA.Left, rectangleB.Left); int right = Math.Min(rectangleA.Right, rectangleB.Right); for (int y = top; y < bottom; y++) { for (int x = left; x < right; x++) { Color colorA = dataA[(x - rectangleA.Left) + (y - rectangleA.Top) * rectangleA.Width]; Color colorB = dataB[(x - rectangleB.Left) + (y - rectangleB.Top) * rectangleB.Width]; if (colorA.A != 0 && colorB.A != 0) { return true; } } } return false; } In order to detect collision, but i'm unable to figure out how to use it with animated sprites. This is my animation update method: public void AnimUpdate(GameTime gameTime) { if (!animPaused) { animTimer += (float)gameTime.ElapsedGameTime.TotalMilliseconds; if (animTimer > animInterval) { currentFrame++; animTimer = 0f; } if (currentFrame > endFrame || endFrame <= currentFrame || currentFrame < startFrame) { currentFrame = startFrame; } objRect = new Rectangle(currentFrame * TextureWidth, frameRow * TextureHeight, TextureWidth, TextureHeight); origin = new Vector2(objRect.Width / 2, objRect.Height / 2); } } Which works with multiple rows and columns. and how i call the intersect: public bool IntersectPixels(Obj me, Vector2 pos, Obj o) { Rectangle collisionRect = new Rectangle(me.objRect.X, me.objRect.Y, me.objRect.Width, me.objRect.Height); collisionRect.X += (int)pos.X; collisionRect.Y += (int)pos.Y; if (IntersectPixels(collisionRect, me.TextureData, o.objRect, o.TextureData)) { return true; } return false; } Now my guess is that i have to update the textureData everytime the frame changes, no? If so then i already tried it and miserably failed doing so :P Any hints, advices? If you need to see any more of my code just let me know and i'll update the question. Updated almost functional collisionRect: collisionRect = new Rectangle((int)me.Position.X, (int)me.Position.Y, me.Texture.Width / (int)((me.frameCount - 1) * me.TextureWidth), me.Texture.Height); What it does now is "move" the block up 50%, shouldn't be too hard to figure out. Update: Alright, so here's a functional collision rectangle(besides the height issue) collisionRect = new Rectangle((int)me.Position.X, (int)me.Position.Y, me.TextureWidth / (int)me.frameCount - 1, me.TextureHeight); Now the problem is that using breakpoints i found out that it's still not getting the correct color values of the animated sprite. So it detects properly but the color values are always: R:0 G:0 B:0 A:0 ??? disregard that, it's not true afterall =P For some reason now the collision area height is only 1 pixel..

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  • SSAO Distortion

    - by Robert Xu
    I'm currently (attempting) to add SSAO to my engine, except it's...not really work, to say the least. I use a deferred renderer to render my scene. I have four render targets: Albedo, Light, Normal, and Depth. Here are the parameters for all of them (Surface Format, Depth Format): Albedo: 32-bit ARGB, Depth24Stencil8 Light: 32-bit ARGB, None Normal: 32-bit ARGB, None Depth: 8-bit R (Single), Depth24Stencil8 To generate my random noise map for the SSAO, I do the following for each pixel in the noise map: Vector3 v3 = Vector3.Zero; double z = rand.NextDouble() * 2.0 - 1.0; double r = Math.Sqrt(1.0 - z * z); double angle = rand.NextDouble() * MathHelper.TwoPi; v3.X = (float)(r * Math.Cos(angle)); v3.Y = (float)(r * Math.Sin(angle)); v3.Z = (float)z; v3 += offset; v3 *= 0.5f; result[i] = new Color(v3); This is my GBuffer rendering effect: PixelInput RenderGBufferColorVertexShader(VertexInput input) { PixelInput pi = ( PixelInput ) 0; pi.Position = mul(input.Position, WorldViewProjection); pi.Normal = mul(input.Normal, WorldInverseTranspose); pi.Color = input.Color; pi.TPosition = pi.Position; pi.WPosition = input.Position; return pi; } GBufferTarget RenderGBufferColorPixelShader(PixelInput input) { GBufferTarget output = ( GBufferTarget ) 0; float3 position = input.TPosition.xyz / input.TPosition.w; output.Albedo = lerp(float4(1.0f, 1.0f, 1.0f, 1.0f), input.Color, ColorFactor); output.Normal = EncodeNormal(input.Normal); output.Depth = position.z; return output; } And here is the SSAO effect: float4 EncodeNormal(float3 normal) { return float4((normal.xyz * 0.5f) + 0.5f, 0.0f); } float3 DecodeNormal(float4 encoded) { return encoded * 2.0 - 1.0f; } float Intensity; float Size; float2 NoiseOffset; float4x4 ViewProjection; float4x4 ViewProjectionInverse; texture DepthMap; texture NormalMap; texture RandomMap; const float3 samples[16] = { float3(0.01537562, 0.01389096, 0.02276565), float3(-0.0332658, -0.2151698, -0.0660736), float3(-0.06420016, -0.1919067, 0.5329634), float3(-0.05896204, -0.04509097, -0.03611697), float3(-0.1302175, 0.01034653, 0.01543675), float3(0.3168565, -0.182557, -0.01421785), float3(-0.02134448, -0.1056605, 0.00576055), float3(-0.3502164, 0.281433, -0.2245609), float3(-0.00123525, 0.00151868, 0.02614773), float3(0.1814744, 0.05798516, -0.02362876), float3(0.07945167, -0.08302628, 0.4423518), float3(0.321987, -0.05670302, -0.05418307), float3(-0.00165138, -0.00410309, 0.00537362), float3(0.01687791, 0.03189049, -0.04060405), float3(-0.04335613, -0.00530749, 0.06443053), float3(0.8474263, -0.3590308, -0.02318038), }; sampler DepthSampler = sampler_state { Texture = DepthMap; MipFilter = Point; MinFilter = Point; MagFilter = Point; AddressU = Clamp; AddressV = Clamp; AddressW = Clamp; }; sampler NormalSampler = sampler_state { Texture = NormalMap; MipFilter = Linear; MinFilter = Linear; MagFilter = Linear; AddressU = Clamp; AddressV = Clamp; AddressW = Clamp; }; sampler RandomSampler = sampler_state { Texture = RandomMap; MipFilter = Linear; MinFilter = Linear; MagFilter = Linear; }; struct VertexInput { float4 Position : POSITION0; float2 TextureCoordinates : TEXCOORD0; }; struct PixelInput { float4 Position : POSITION0; float2 TextureCoordinates : TEXCOORD0; }; PixelInput SSAOVertexShader(VertexInput input) { PixelInput pi = ( PixelInput ) 0; pi.Position = input.Position; pi.TextureCoordinates = input.TextureCoordinates; return pi; } float3 GetXYZ(float2 uv) { float depth = tex2D(DepthSampler, uv); float2 xy = uv * 2.0f - 1.0f; xy.y *= -1; float4 p = float4(xy, depth, 1); float4 q = mul(p, ViewProjectionInverse); return q.xyz / q.w; } float3 GetNormal(float2 uv) { return DecodeNormal(tex2D(NormalSampler, uv)); } float4 SSAOPixelShader(PixelInput input) : COLOR0 { float depth = tex2D(DepthSampler, input.TextureCoordinates); float3 position = GetXYZ(input.TextureCoordinates); float3 normal = GetNormal(input.TextureCoordinates); float occlusion = 1.0f; float3 reflectionRay = DecodeNormal(tex2D(RandomSampler, input.TextureCoordinates + NoiseOffset)); for (int i = 0; i < 16; i++) { float3 sampleXYZ = position + reflect(samples[i], reflectionRay) * Size; float4 screenXYZW = mul(float4(sampleXYZ, 1.0f), ViewProjection); float3 screenXYZ = screenXYZW.xyz / screenXYZW.w; float2 sampleUV = float2(screenXYZ.x * 0.5f + 0.5f, 1.0f - (screenXYZ.y * 0.5f + 0.5f)); float frontMostDepthAtSample = tex2D(DepthSampler, sampleUV); if (frontMostDepthAtSample < screenXYZ.z) { occlusion -= 1.0f / 16.0f; } } return float4(occlusion * Intensity * float3(1.0, 1.0, 1.0), 1.0); } technique SSAO { pass Pass0 { VertexShader = compile vs_3_0 SSAOVertexShader(); PixelShader = compile ps_3_0 SSAOPixelShader(); } } However, when I use the effect, I get some pretty bad distortion: Here's the light map that goes with it -- is the static-like effect supposed to be like that? I've noticed that even if I'm looking at nothing, I still get the static-like effect. (you can see it in the screenshot; the top half doesn't have any geometry yet it still has the static-like effect) Also, does anyone have any advice on how to effectively debug shaders?

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  • Flash game size and distribution between asset types

    - by EyeSeeEm
    I am currently developing a Flash game and am planning on a large amount of graphics and audio assets, which has led to some questions about Flash game size. By looking at some of the popular games on NG, there seem to be many in the 5-10Mb and a few in the 10-25Mb range. I was wondering if anyone knew of other notable large-scale games and what their sizes were, and if there have been any cases of games being disadvantaged because of their size. What is a common distribution of game size between code, graphics and audio? I know this can vary strongly, but I would like to hear your thoughts on an average case for a high-quality game.

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  • Physics engine that can handle multiple attractors?

    - by brice
    I'm putting together a game that will be played mostly with three dimensional gravity. By that I mean multiple planets/stars/moons behaving realistically, and path plotting and path prediction in the gravity field. I have looked at a variety of physics engines, such as Bullet, tokamak or Newton, but none of them seem to be suitable, as I'd essentially have to re-write the gravity engine in their framework. Do you know of a physics engine that is capable of dealing with multiple bodies all attracted to one another? I don't need scenegraph management, or rendering, just core physics. (collision detection would be a bonus, as would rigid body dynamics). My background is in physics, so I would be able to write an engine that uses Verlet integration or RK4 (or even Euler integration, if I had to) but I'd much rather adapt an off the shelf solution. [edit]: There are some great resources for physics simulation of n-body problems online, and on stackoverflow

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  • What is wrong with my Dot Product? [Javascript]

    - by Clay Ellis Murray
    I am trying to make a pong game but I wanted to use dot products to do the collisions with the paddles, however whenever I make a dot product objects it never changes much from .9 this is my code to make vectors vector = { make:function(object){ return [object.x + object.width/2,object.y + object.height/2] }, normalize:function(v){ var length = Math.sqrt(v[0] * v[0] + v[1] * v[1]) v[0] = v[0]/length v[1] = v[1]/length return v }, dot:function(v1,v2){ return v1[0] * v2[0] + v1[1] * v2[1] } } and this is where I am calculating the dot in my code vector1 = vector.normalize(vector.make(ball)) vector2 = vector.normalize(vector.make(object)) dot = vector.dot(vector1,vector2) Here is a JsFiddle of my code currently the paddles don't move. Any help would be greatly appreciated

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  • XNA extending the existing Content type

    - by Maarten
    We are doing a game in XNA that reacts to music. We need to do some offline processing of the music data and therefore we need a custom type containing the Song and some additional data: // Project AudioGameLibrary namespace AudioGameLibrary { public class GameTrack { public Song Song; public string Extra; } } We've added a Content Pipeline extension: // Project GameTrackProcessor namespace GameTrackProcessor { [ContentSerializerRuntimeType("AudioGameLibrary.GameTrack, AudioGameLibrary")] public class GameTrackContent { public SongContent SongContent; public string Extra; } [ContentProcessor(DisplayName = "GameTrack Processor")] public class GameTrackProcessor : ContentProcessor<AudioContent, GameTrackContent> { public GameTrackProcessor(){} public override GameTrackContent Process(AudioContent input, ContentProcessorContext context) { return new GameTrackContent() { SongContent = new SongProcessor().Process(input, context), Extra = "Some extra data" // Here we can do our processing on 'input' }; } } } Both the Library and the Pipeline extension are added to the Game Solution and references are also added. When trying to use this extension to load "gametrack.mp3" we run into problems however: // Project AudioGame protected override void LoadContent() { AudioGameLibrary.GameTrack gameTrack = Content.Load<AudioGameLibrary.GameTrack>("gametrack"); MediaPlayer.Play(gameTrack.Song); } The error message: Error loading "gametrack". File contains Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Media.Song but trying to load as AudioGameLibrary.GameTrack. AudioGame contains references to both AudioGameLibrary and GameTrackProcessor. Are we maybe missing other references?

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  • How do I load tmx files with Slick2d?

    - by mbreen
    I just started using Slick2D and learned how simple it is to load in a tilemap and display it. I tried atleast a dozen different tmx files from numerous examples to see if it was the actual file that was corrupted. Everytime I get this error: Exception in thread "main" java.lang.RuntimeException: Resource not found: data/maps/desert.tmx at org.newdawn.slick.util.ResourceLoader.getResourceAsStream(ResourceLoader.java:69) at org.newdawn.slick.tiled.TiledMap.<init>(TiledMap.java:101) at game.Game.init(Game.java:17) at game.Tunneler.initStatesList(Tunneler.java:37) at org.newdawn.slick.state.StateBasedGame.init(StateBasedGame.java:164) at org.newdawn.slick.AppGameContainer.setup(AppGameContainer.java:390) at org.newdawn.slick.AppGameContainer.start(AppGameContainer.java:314) at game.Tunneler.main(Tunneler.java:29) Here is my Game class: package game; 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 org.newdawn.slick.tiled.TiledMap; public class Game extends BasicGameState{ private int stateID = -1; private TiledMap map = null; public Game(int stateID){ this.stateID = stateID; } public void init(GameContainer container, StateBasedGame game) throws SlickException{ map = new TiledMap("data/maps/desert.tmx","maps");//ERROR } public void render(GameContainer container, StateBasedGame game, Graphics g) throws SlickException{ //map.render(0,0); } public void update(GameContainer container, StateBasedGame game, int delta) throws SlickException{ } public int getID(){return stateID;} } I've tried to see if anyone else has had similar problems but haven't turned up anything. I am able to load other files, so I don't believe it's a compiler issue. My menu class can load images and display them just fine. Also, the filepath is correct. Please let me know if you have any pointers that might help me sort this out.

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  • Which data structure should I use for dynamically generated platforms?

    - by Joey Green
    I'm creating a platform type of game with various types of platforms. Platforms that move, shake, rotate, etc. Multiple types and multiple of each type can be on the screen at once. The platforms will be procedural generated. I'm trying to figure out which of the following would be a better platform system: Pre-allocate all platforms when the scene loads, storing each platform type into different platform type arrays( i.e. regPlatformArray ), and just getting one when I need one. The other option is to allocate and load what I need when my code needs it. The problem with 1 is keeping up with the indices that are in use on screen and which aren't. The problem with 2 is I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around how I would store these platforms so that I can call the update/draw methods on them and managing that data structure that holds them. The data structure would constantly be growing and shrinking. It seems there could be too much complexity. I'm using the cocos2d iPhone game engine. Anyways, which option would be best or is there a better option?

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  • Collision detection - Smooth wall sliding, no bounce effect

    - by Joey
    I'm working on a basic collision detection system that provides point - OBB collision detection. I have around 200 cubes in my environment and I check (for now) each of them in turn and see if it collides. If it does I return the colliding face's normal, save the old player position and do some trigonometry to return a new player position for my wall sliding. edit I'll define my meaning of wall sliding: If a player walks in a vertical slope and has a slight horizontal rotation to the left or the right and keeps walking forward in the wall the player should slide a little to the right/left while continually walking towards the wall till he left the wall. Thus, sliding along the wall. Everything works fine and with multiple objects as well but I still have one problem I can't seem to figure out: smooth wall sliding. In my current implementation sliding along the walls make my player bounce like a mad man (especially noticable with gravity on and moving forward). I have a velocity/direction vector, a normal vector from the collided plane and an old and new player position. First I negate the normal vector and get my new velocity vector by substracting the inverted normal from my direction vector (which is the vector to slide along the wall) and I add this vector to my new Player position and recalculate the direction vector (in case I have multiple collisions). I know I am missing some step but I can't seem to figure it out. Here is my code for the collision detection (run every frame): Vector direction; Vector newPos(camera.GetOriginX(), camera.GetOriginY(), camera.GetOriginZ()); direction = newPos - oldPos; // Direction vector // Check for collision with new position for(int i = 0; i < NUM_OBJECTS; i++) { Vector normal = objects[i].CheckCollision(newPos.x, newPos.y, newPos.z, direction.x, direction.y, direction.z); if(normal != Vector::NullVector()) { // Get inverse normal (direction STRAIGHT INTO wall) Vector invNormal = normal.Negative(); Vector wallDir = direction - invNormal; // We know INTO wall, and DIRECTION to wall. Substract these and you got slide WALL direction newPos = oldPos + wallDir; direction = newPos - oldPos; } } Any help would be greatly appreciated! FIX I eventually got things up and running how they should thanks to Krazy, I'll post the updated code listing in case someone else comes upon this problem! for(int i = 0; i < NUM_OBJECTS; i++) { Vector normal = objects[i].CheckCollision(newPos.x, newPos.y, newPos.z, direction.x, direction.y, direction.z); if(normal != Vector::NullVector()) { Vector invNormal = normal.Negative(); invNormal = invNormal * (direction * normal).Length(); // Change normal to direction's length and normal's axis Vector wallDir = direction - invNormal; newPos = oldPos + wallDir; direction = newPos - oldPos; } }

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  • Movement prediction for non-shooters

    - by ShadowChaser
    I'm working on an isometric 2D game with moderate-scale multiplayer, approximately 20-30 players connected at once to a persistent server. I've had some difficulty getting a good movement prediction implementation in place. Physics/Movement The game doesn't have a true physics implementation, but uses the basic principles to implement movement. Rather than continually polling input, state changes (ie/ mouse down/up/move events) are used to change the state of the character entity the player is controlling. The player's direction (ie/ north-east) is combined with a constant speed and turned into a true 3D vector - the entity's velocity. In the main game loop, "Update" is called before "Draw". The update logic triggers a "physics update task" that tracks all entities with a non-zero velocity uses very basic integration to change the entities position. For example: entity.Position += entity.Velocity.Scale(ElapsedTime.Seconds) (where "Seconds" is a floating point value, but the same approach would work for millisecond integer values). The key point is that no interpolation is used for movement - the rudimentary physics engine has no concept of a "previous state" or "current state", only a position and velocity. State Change and Update Packets When the velocity of the character entity the player is controlling changes, a "move avatar" packet is sent to the server containing the entity's action type (stand, walk, run), direction (north-east), and current position. This is different from how 3D first person games work. In a 3D game the velocity (direction) can change frame to frame as the player moves around. Sending every state change would effectively transmit a packet per frame, which would be too expensive. Instead, 3D games seem to ignore state changes and send "state update" packets on a fixed interval - say, every 80-150ms. Since speed and direction updates occur much less frequently in my game, I can get away with sending every state change. Although all of the physics simulations occur at the same speed and are deterministic, latency is still an issue. For that reason, I send out routine position update packets (similar to a 3D game) but much less frequently - right now every 250ms, but I suspect with good prediction I can easily boost it towards 500ms. The biggest problem is that I've now deviated from the norm - all other documentation, guides, and samples online send routine updates and interpolate between the two states. It seems incompatible with my architecture, and I need to come up with a better movement prediction algorithm that is closer to a (very basic) "networked physics" architecture. The server then receives the packet and determines the players speed from it's movement type based on a script (Is the player able to run? Get the player's running speed). Once it has the speed, it combines it with the direction to get a vector - the entity's velocity. Some cheat detection and basic validation occurs, and the entity on the server side is updated with the current velocity, direction, and position. Basic throttling is also performed to prevent players from flooding the server with movement requests. After updating its own entity, the server broadcasts an "avatar position update" packet to all other players within range. The position update packet is used to update the client side physics simulations (world state) of the remote clients and perform prediction and lag compensation. Prediction and Lag Compensation As mentioned above, clients are authoritative for their own position. Except in cases of cheating or anomalies, the client's avatar will never be repositioned by the server. No extrapolation ("move now and correct later") is required for the client's avatar - what the player sees is correct. However, some sort of extrapolation or interpolation is required for all remote entities that are moving. Some sort of prediction and/or lag-compensation is clearly required within the client's local simulation / physics engine. Problems I've been struggling with various algorithms, and have a number of questions and problems: Should I be extrapolating, interpolating, or both? My "gut feeling" is that I should be using pure extrapolation based on velocity. State change is received by the client, client computes a "predicted" velocity that compensates for lag, and the regular physics system does the rest. However, it feels at odds to all other sample code and articles - they all seem to store a number of states and perform interpolation without a physics engine. When a packet arrives, I've tried interpolating the packet's position with the packet's velocity over a fixed time period (say, 200ms). I then take the difference between the interpolated position and the current "error" position to compute a new vector and place that on the entity instead of the velocity that was sent. However, the assumption is that another packet will arrive in that time interval, and it's incredibly difficult to "guess" when the next packet will arrive - especially since they don't all arrive on fixed intervals (ie/ state changes as well). Is the concept fundamentally flawed, or is it correct but needs some fixes / adjustments? What happens when a remote player stops? I can immediately stop the entity, but it will be positioned in the "wrong" spot until it moves again. If I estimate a vector or try to interpolate, I have an issue because I don't store the previous state - the physics engine has no way to say "you need to stop after you reach position X". It simply understands a velocity, nothing more complex. I'm reluctant to add the "packet movement state" information to the entities or physics engine, since it violates basic design principles and bleeds network code across the rest of the game engine. What should happen when entities collide? There are three scenarios - the controlling player collides locally, two entities collide on the server during a position update, or a remote entity update collides on the local client. In all cases I'm uncertain how to handle the collision - aside from cheating, both states are "correct" but at different time periods. In the case of a remote entity it doesn't make sense to draw it walking through a wall, so I perform collision detection on the local client and cause it to "stop". Based on point #2 above, I might compute a "corrected vector" that continually tries to move the entity "through the wall" which will never succeed - the remote avatar is stuck there until the error gets too high and it "snaps" into position. How do games work around this?

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  • Alpha blending without depth writing

    - by teodron
    A recurring problem I get is this one: given two different billboard sets with alpha textures intended to create particle special effects (such as point lights and smoke puffs), rendering them correctly is tedious. The issue arising in this scenario is that there's no way to use depth writing and make certain billboards obey depth information as they appear in front of others that are clearly closer to the camera. I've described the problem on the Ogre forums several times without any suggestions being given (since the application I'm writing uses their engine). What could be done then? sort all individual billboards from different billboard sets to avoid writing the depth and still have nice alpha blended results? If yes, please do point out some resources to start with in the frames of the aforementioned Ogre engine. Any other suggestions are welcome!

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  • How can we view 3d objects from top down view in TD game

    - by Syed
    I am making a tower defense game. I am working in x and y axis only. I have made a grid, snapped towers and made a pathfinding algo to run enemy. Initially I have worked with cubes and spheres in place of towers and enemies. Now I am going to place real towers (3D). Note that I haven't used z axis up till now. The user will analyze the game from top down view. I want the user to see towers placement with a little bit of 3d view but I have made my all code in 2d thing. Is there any solution to my problem that somewhat tower placement would view a 3D touch or you can say 2.5D ?? (like fieldrunners) or should I have to involve z axis and ignoring y axis ?

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  • Character Stats and Power

    - by Stephen Furlani
    I'm making an RPG game system and I'm having a hard time deciding on doing detailed or abstract character statistics. These statistics define the character's natural - not learned - abilities. For example: Mass Effect: 0 (None that I can see) X20 (Xtreme Dungeon Mastery): 1 "STAT" Diablo: 4 "Strength, Magic, Dexterity, Vitality" Pendragon: 5 "SIZ, STR, DEX, CON, APP" Dungeons & Dragons (3.x, 4e): 6 "Str, Dex, Con, Wis, Int, Cha" Fallout 3: 7 "S.P.E.C.I.A.L." RIFTS: 8 "IQ, ME, MA, PS, PP, PE, PB, Spd" Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay (1st ed?): 12-ish "WS, BS, S, T, Ag, Int, WP, Fel, A, Mag, IP, FP" HERO (5th ed): 14 "Str, Dex, Con, Body, Int, Ego, Pre, Com, PD, ED, Spd, Rec, END, STUN" The more stats, the more complex and detailed your character becomes. This comes with a trade-off however, because you usually only have limited resources to describe your character. D&D made this infamous with the whole min/max-ing thing where strong characters were typically not also smart. But also, a character with a high Str typically also has high Con, Defenses, Hit Points/Health. Without high numbers in all those other stats, they might as well not be strong since they wouldn't hold up well in hand-to-hand combat. So things like that force trade-offs within the category of strength. So my original (now rejected) idea was to force players into deciding between offensive and defensive stats: Might / Body Dexterity / Speed Wit / Wisdom Heart Soul But this left some stat's without "opposites" (or opposites that were easily defined). I'm leaning more towards the following: Body (Physical Prowess) Mind (Mental Prowess) Heart (Social Prowess) Soul (Spiritual Prowess) This will define a character with just 4 numbers. Everything else gets based off of these numbers, which means they're pretty important. There won't, however, be ways of describing characters who are fast, but not strong or smart, but absent minded. Instead of defining the character with these numbers, they'll be detailing their character by buying skills and powers like these: Quickness Add a +2 Bonus to Body Rolls when Dodging. for a character that wants to be faster, or the following for a big, tough character Body Building Add a +2 Bonus to Body Rolls when Lifting, Pushing, or Throwing objects. [EDIT - removed subjectiveness] So my actual questions is what are some pitfalls with a small stat list and a large amount of descriptive powers? Is this more difficult to port cross-platform (pen&paper, PC) for example? Are there examples of this being done well/poorly? Thanks,

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  • How can a NodeJS server be used from Game Maker HTML5?

    - by Tokyo Dan
    I want to create a client-server game that runs on Game Maker HTML5-NodeJS. The NodeJS server will be an AI server - a bot that acts like a human opponent and plays against the human player at a front-end game client that is coded in GM HTML5. How can a NodeJS server be used from GM HTML5. Are there any examples of such a system? I already got an iOS game that can talk to a remote AI server (coded in Lua) using TCP sockets. Can this be done with Game Maker HTML5 and NodeJS.

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  • Camera frustum calculation coming out wrong

    - by Telanor
    I'm trying to calculate a view/projection/bounding frustum for the 6 directions of a point light and I'm having trouble with the views pointing along the Y axis. Our game uses a right-handed, Y-up system. For the other 4 directions I create the LookAt matrix using (0, 1, 0) as the up vector. Obviously that doesn't work when looking along the Y axis so for those I use an up vector of (-1, 0, 0) for -Y and (1, 0, 0) for +Y. The view matrix seems to come out correctly (and the projection matrix always stays the same), but the bounding frustum is definitely wrong. Can anyone see what I'm doing wrong? This is the code I'm using: camera.Projection = Matrix.PerspectiveFovRH((float)Math.PI / 2, ShadowMapSize / (float)ShadowMapSize, 1, 5); for(var i = 0; i < 6; i++) { var renderTargetView = shadowMap.GetRenderTargetView((TextureCubeFace)i); var up = DetermineLightUp((TextureCubeFace) i); var forward = DirectionToVector((TextureCubeFace) i); camera.View = Matrix.LookAtRH(this.Position, this.Position + forward, up); camera.BoundingFrustum = new BoundingFrustum(camera.View * camera.Projection); } private static Vector3 DirectionToVector(TextureCubeFace direction) { switch (direction) { case TextureCubeFace.NegativeX: return -Vector3.UnitX; case TextureCubeFace.NegativeY: return -Vector3.UnitY; case TextureCubeFace.NegativeZ: return -Vector3.UnitZ; case TextureCubeFace.PositiveX: return Vector3.UnitX; case TextureCubeFace.PositiveY: return Vector3.UnitY; case TextureCubeFace.PositiveZ: return Vector3.UnitZ; default: throw new ArgumentOutOfRangeException("direction"); } } private static Vector3 DetermineLightUp(TextureCubeFace direction) { switch (direction) { case TextureCubeFace.NegativeY: return -Vector3.UnitX; case TextureCubeFace.PositiveY: return Vector3.UnitX; default: return Vector3.UnitY; } } Edit: Here's what the values are coming out to for the PositiveX and PositiveY directions: Constants: Position = {X:0 Y:360 Z:0} camera.Projection = [M11:0.9999999 M12:0 M13:0 M14:0] [M21:0 M22:0.9999999 M23:0 M24:0] [M31:0 M32:0 M33:-1.25 M34:-1] [M41:0 M42:0 M43:-1.25 M44:0] PositiveX: up = {X:0 Y:1 Z:0} target = {X:1 Y:360 Z:0} camera.View = [M11:0 M12:0 M13:-1 M14:0] [M21:0 M22:1 M23:0 M24:0] [M31:1 M32:0 M33:0 M34:0] [M41:0 M42:-360 M43:0 M44:1] camera.BoundingFrustum: Matrix = [M11:0 M12:0 M13:1.25 M14:1] [M21:0 M22:0.9999999 M23:0 M24:0] [M31:0.9999999 M32:0 M33:0 M34:0] [M41:0 M42:-360 M43:-1.25 M44:0] Top = {A:0.7071068 B:-0.7071068 C:0 D:254.5584} Bottom = {A:0.7071068 B:0.7071068 C:0 D:-254.5584} Left = {A:0.7071068 B:0 C:0.7071068 D:0} Right = {A:0.7071068 B:0 C:-0.7071068 D:0} Near = {A:1 B:0 C:0 D:-1} Far = {A:-1 B:0 C:0 D:5} PositiveY: up = {X:0 Y:0 Z:-1} target = {X:0 Y:361 Z:0} camera.View = [M11:-1 M12:0 M13:0 M14:0] [M21:0 M22:0 M23:-1 M24:0] [M31:0 M32:-1 M33:0 M34:0] [M41:0 M42:0 M43:360 M44:1] camera.BoundingFrustum: Matrix = [M11:-0.9999999 M12:0 M13:0 M14:0] [M21:0 M22:0 M23:1.25 M24:1] [M31:0 M32:-0.9999999 M33:0 M34:0] [M41:0 M42:0 M43:-451.25 M44:-360] Top = {A:0 B:0.7071068 C:0.7071068 D:-254.5585} Bottom = {A:0 B:0.7071068 C:-0.7071068 D:-254.5585} Left = {A:-0.7071068 B:0.7071068 C:0 D:-254.5585} Right = {A:0.7071068 B:0.7071068 C:0 D:-254.5585} Near = {A:0 B:1 C:0 D:-361} Far = {A:0 B:-1 C:0 D:365} When I use the resulting BoundingFrustum to cull regions outside of it, this is the result: Pass PositiveX: Drew 3 regions Pass NegativeX: Drew 6 regions Pass PositiveY: Drew 400 regions Pass NegativeY: Drew 36 regions Pass PositiveZ: Drew 3 regions Pass NegativeZ: Drew 6 regions There are only 400 regions to draw and the light is in the center of them. As you can see, the PositiveY direction is drawing every single region. With the near/far planes of the perspective matrix set as small as they are, there's no way a single frustum could contain every single region.

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  • What are some valuable conferences for game developers?

    - by Tommy
    Lately I was thinking of visiting a Game Developer Conference and so I search the Internet, but I didn't find a thorough list of available Conferences. Now I know some of them, like the GDC in San Francisco but I was wondering, what other Game Developer Conferences are out there. So my question is: What Game Dev Conferences do you know, that are valuable for Game Developers and Game Designers? Have you visited one of these Conferences yourself? Is there a skill level needed to appreciate such a Conference? I am aware, that there is no "true" answer to this question, but I think, that an overview over existing Conferences could be usefull for all levels of game developers.

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  • How exactly are textures drawn on faces of cubes?

    - by Christian Frantz
    Are they drawn from the lower left corner clockwise? I know how triangles are created, I'm not just sure if textures are the same way. The texture on my cube is skewed way off and after playing around with the U,V coordinates, I still can't get it right. //front left bottom corner ok vertices[0] = (new VertexPositionTexture(new Vector3(0, 0, 0), new Vector2(1, 0))); //front left upper corner vertices[1] = (new VertexPositionTexture(new Vector3(0, 1, 0), new Vector2(1, 1))); //front right upper corner ok vertices[2] = (new VertexPositionTexture(new Vector3(1, 1, 0), new Vector2(0, 1))); //front lower right corner vertices[3] = (new VertexPositionTexture(new Vector3(1, 0, 0), new Vector2(0, 0))); //back left lower corner ok vertices[4] = (new VertexPositionTexture(new Vector3(0, 0, -1), new Vector2(0, 1))); //back left upper corner vertices[5] = (new VertexPositionTexture(new Vector3(0, 1, -1), new Vector2(1, 1))); //back right upper corner ok vertices[6] = (new VertexPositionTexture(new Vector3(1, 1, -1), new Vector2(1, 0))); //back right lower corner vertices[7] = (new VertexPositionTexture(new Vector3(1, 0, -1), new Vector2(0, 0)));

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  • xml file save/read error (making a highscore system for XNA game)

    - by Eddy
    i get an error after i write player name to the file for second or third time (An unhandled exception of type 'System.InvalidOperationException' occurred in System.Xml.dll Additional information: There is an error in XML document (18, 17).) (in highscores load method In data = (HighScoreData)serializer.Deserialize(stream); it stops) the problem is that some how it adds additional "" at the end of my .dat file could anyone tell me how to fix this? the file before save looks: <?xml version="1.0"?> <HighScoreData xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema"> <PlayerName> <string>neil</string> <string>shawn</string> <string>mark</string> <string>cindy</string> <string>sam</string> </PlayerName> <Score> <int>200</int> <int>180</int> <int>150</int> <int>100</int> <int>50</int> </Score> <Count>5</Count> </HighScoreData> the file after save looks: <?xml version="1.0"?> <HighScoreData xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema"> <PlayerName> <string>Nick</string> <string>Nick</string> <string>neil</string> <string>shawn</string> <string>mark</string> </PlayerName> <Score> <int>210</int> <int>210</int> <int>200</int> <int>180</int> <int>150</int> </Score> <Count>5</Count> </HighScoreData>> the part of my code that does all of save load to xml is: DECLARATIONS PART [Serializable] public struct HighScoreData { public string[] PlayerName; public int[] Score; public int Count; public HighScoreData(int count) { PlayerName = new string[count]; Score = new int[count]; Count = count; } } IAsyncResult result = null; bool inputName; HighScoreData data; int Score = 0; public string NAME; public string HighScoresFilename = "highscores.dat"; Game1 constructor public Game1() { graphics = new GraphicsDeviceManager(this); Content.RootDirectory = "Content"; Width = graphics.PreferredBackBufferWidth = 960; Height = graphics.PreferredBackBufferHeight =640; GamerServicesComponent GSC = new GamerServicesComponent(this); Components.Add(GSC); } Inicialize function (end of it) protected override void Initialize() { //other game code base.Initialize(); string fullpath =Path.Combine(HighScoresFilename); if (!File.Exists(fullpath)) { //If the file doesn't exist, make a fake one... // Create the data to save data = new HighScoreData(5); data.PlayerName[0] = "neil"; data.Score[0] = 200; data.PlayerName[1] = "shawn"; data.Score[1] = 180; data.PlayerName[2] = "mark"; data.Score[2] = 150; data.PlayerName[3] = "cindy"; data.Score[3] = 100; data.PlayerName[4] = "sam"; data.Score[4] = 50; SaveHighScores(data, HighScoresFilename); } } all methods for loading saving and output public static void SaveHighScores(HighScoreData data, string filename) { // Get the path of the save game string fullpath = Path.Combine("highscores.dat"); // Open the file, creating it if necessary FileStream stream = File.Open(fullpath, FileMode.OpenOrCreate); try { // Convert the object to XML data and put it in the stream XmlSerializer serializer = new XmlSerializer(typeof(HighScoreData)); serializer.Serialize(stream, data); } finally { // Close the file stream.Close(); } } /* Load highscores */ public static HighScoreData LoadHighScores(string filename) { HighScoreData data; // Get the path of the save game string fullpath = Path.Combine("highscores.dat"); // Open the file FileStream stream = File.Open(fullpath, FileMode.OpenOrCreate, FileAccess.Read); try { // Read the data from the file XmlSerializer serializer = new XmlSerializer(typeof(HighScoreData)); data = (HighScoreData)serializer.Deserialize(stream);//this is the line // where program gives an error } finally { // Close the file stream.Close(); } return (data); } /* Save player highscore when game ends */ private void SaveHighScore() { // Create the data to saved HighScoreData data = LoadHighScores(HighScoresFilename); int scoreIndex = -1; for (int i = 0; i < data.Count ; i++) { if (Score > data.Score[i]) { scoreIndex = i; break; } } if (scoreIndex > -1) { //New high score found ... do swaps for (int i = data.Count - 1; i > scoreIndex; i--) { data.PlayerName[i] = data.PlayerName[i - 1]; data.Score[i] = data.Score[i - 1]; } data.PlayerName[scoreIndex] = NAME; //Retrieve User Name Here data.Score[scoreIndex] = Score; // Retrieve score here SaveHighScores(data, HighScoresFilename); } } /* Iterate through data if highscore is called and make the string to be saved*/ public string makeHighScoreString() { // Create the data to save HighScoreData data2 = LoadHighScores(HighScoresFilename); // Create scoreBoardString string scoreBoardString = "Highscores:\n\n"; for (int i = 0; i<5;i++) { scoreBoardString = scoreBoardString + data2.PlayerName[i] + "-" + data2.Score[i] + "\n"; } return scoreBoardString; } when ill make this work i will start this code when i call game over (now i start it when i press some buttons, so i could test it faster) public void InputYourName() { if (result == null && !Guide.IsVisible) { string title = "Name"; string description = "Write your name in order to save your Score"; string defaultText = "Nick"; PlayerIndex playerIndex = new PlayerIndex(); result= Guide.BeginShowKeyboardInput(playerIndex, title, description, defaultText, null, null); // NAME = result.ToString(); } if (result != null && result.IsCompleted) { NAME = Guide.EndShowKeyboardInput(result); result = null; inputName = false; SaveHighScore(); } } this where i call output to the screen (ill call this in highscores meniu section when i am done with debugging) spriteBatch.DrawString(Font1, "" + makeHighScoreString(),new Vector2(500,200), Color.White); }

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  • How much it will cost to create tile-set similar to HoM&M 2?

    - by Alexey Petrushin
    How much it will cost to create tile-set similar to HoM&M 2? I'm mostly interested in the tile-set graphics only, no animation needed, the big images of town and creatures can be done as quick and dirty pensil sketches. The quality of tiles and its amount should be roughly the same as in HoM&M 2. Can You please give a rough estimate how much it will take man-hours and how much will it cost?

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  • Difficulties with rotation of a sprite

    - by Johnny
    I want to program a dolphin that jumps and rotates like a real dolphin. Jumping is not the problem, but I don't know how to make the rotation. At the moment, my dolphin rotates a little weird. But I want that it rotates like a real dolphin does. How can I improve the rotation? public class Game1 : Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Game { GraphicsDeviceManager graphics; SpriteBatch spriteBatch; Texture2D image, water; float Gravity = 5.0F; float Acceleration = 20.0F; Vector2 Position = new Vector2(1200,720); Vector2 Velocity; float rotation = 0; SpriteEffects flip; Vector2 Speed = new Vector2(0, 0); public Game1() { graphics = new GraphicsDeviceManager(this); Content.RootDirectory = "Content"; graphics.PreferredBackBufferWidth = 1280; graphics.PreferredBackBufferHeight = 720; } protected override void Initialize() { base.Initialize(); } protected override void LoadContent() { spriteBatch = new SpriteBatch(GraphicsDevice); image = Content.Load<Texture2D>("cartoondolphin"); water = Content.Load<Texture2D>("background"); flip = SpriteEffects.None; } protected override void Update(GameTime gameTime) { float VelocityX = 0f; float VelocityY = 0f; float time = (float)gameTime.ElapsedGameTime.TotalSeconds; KeyboardState kbState = Keyboard.GetState(); if(kbState.IsKeyDown(Keys.Left)) { rotation = 0; flip = SpriteEffects.None; VelocityX += -5f; } if(kbState.IsKeyDown(Keys.Right)) { rotation = 0; flip = SpriteEffects.FlipHorizontally; VelocityX += 5f; } // jump if the dolphin is under water if(Position.Y >= 670) { if (kbState.IsKeyDown(Keys.A)) { if (flip == SpriteEffects.None) { rotation += 0.01f; VelocityY += 40f; } else { rotation -= 0.01f; VelocityY += 40f; } } } else { if (flip == SpriteEffects.None) { rotation -= 0.01f; VelocityY += -10f; } else { rotation += 0.01f; VelocityY += -10f; } } float deltaY = 0; float deltaX = 0; deltaY = Gravity * (float)gameTime.ElapsedGameTime.TotalSeconds; deltaX += VelocityX * (float)gameTime.ElapsedGameTime.TotalSeconds * Acceleration; deltaY += -VelocityY * (float)gameTime.ElapsedGameTime.TotalSeconds * Acceleration; Speed = new Vector2(Speed.X + deltaX, Speed.Y + deltaY); Position += Speed * (float)gameTime.ElapsedGameTime.TotalSeconds; Velocity.X = 0; if (Position.Y + image.Height/2 > graphics.PreferredBackBufferHeight) Position.Y = graphics.PreferredBackBufferHeight - image.Height/2; base.Update(gameTime); } protected override void Draw(GameTime gameTime) { GraphicsDevice.Clear(Color.CornflowerBlue); spriteBatch.Begin(); spriteBatch.Draw(water, new Rectangle(0, graphics.PreferredBackBufferHeight -100, graphics.PreferredBackBufferWidth, 100), Color.White); spriteBatch.Draw(image, Position, null, Color.White, rotation, new Vector2(image.Width / 2, image.Height / 2), 1, flip, 1); spriteBatch.End(); base.Draw(gameTime); } }

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  • Converting from different handedness coordinate systems

    - by SirYakalot
    I am currently porting a demo from XNA to DirectX which, as I understand it, both have coordinate systems with different handednesses. What are the things I need to bare in mind when converting between the two? I understand not everything needs to be changed. Also I notice that many of the 3D maths functions in some of the direct3D libraries have right handed and left handed alternatives. Would it be better to just use these?

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