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  • what tool should I use for drawing 2d OpenGL shapes?

    - by Kenny Winker
    I'm working on a very simple OpenGL ES 2.0 game, and I'm not sure what tool to use to create the vertex data I need. My first thought was adobe illustrator, but I can't seem to google up any info on how to convert an .ai file to vertices. I'm only going to be using very simple 2d shapes so I wonder if I need to use a 3d modelling program? How is this typically done, when you are working with 2d non-sprite shapes?

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  • What's the difference between Canvas and WebGL?

    - by gadr90
    I'm thinking about using CAAT as a part of a HTML5 game engine. One of it's features is the ability to render to Canvas and WebGL without changing anything in the client code. That is a good thing, but I haven't found precisely: what are the differences between those two technologies? I would specially like to know the differences of Canvas and WebGL in the following regards: Framerate Desktop browser support Mobile browser support Futureproofability (TM)

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  • Server for online browser game

    - by Tim Rogers
    I am going to be making an online single player browser game. The online element is needed so that a player can login and store the state of their game. This will include things like what buildings have been made and where they have been positioned as well as the users personal statistics and achievements. At this point in time, I am expecting all of the game logic to be performed client side So far, I am thinking I will use flash for creating the client side of the game. I am also creating a MySQL database to store all the users information. My question is how do I connect the two. Presumably I will need some sort of server application which will listen for incoming requests from any clients, perform the SQL query and then return the data. Does anyone have any recommendations of what technology/language to use?

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  • How can I attach a model to the bone of another model?

    - by kaykayman
    I am trying to attach one animated model to one of the bones of another animated model in an XNA game. I've found a few questions/forum posts/articles online which explain how to attach a weapon model to the bone of another model (which is analogous to what I'm trying to achieve), but they don't seem to work for me. So as an example: I want to attach Model A to a specific bone in Model B. Question 1. As I understand it, I need to calculate the transforms which are applied to the bone on Model B and apply these same transforms to every bone in Model A. Is this right? Question 2. This is my code for calculating the Transforms on a specific bone. private Matrix GetTransformPaths(ModelBone bone) { Matrix result = Matrix.Identity; while (bone != null) { result = result * bone.Transform; bone = bone.Parent; } return result; } The maths of Matrices is almost entirely lost on me, but my understanding is that the above will work its way up the bone structure to the root bone and my end result will be the transform of the original bone relative to the model. Is this right? Question 3. Assuming that this is correct I then expect that I should either apply this to each bone in Model A, or in my Draw() method: private void DrawModel(SceneModel model, GameTime gametime) { foreach (var component in model.Components) { Matrix[] transforms = new Matrix[component.Model.Bones.Count]; component.Model.CopyAbsoluteBoneTransformsTo(transforms); Matrix parenttransform = Matrix.Identity; if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(component.ParentBone)) parenttransform = GetTransformPaths(model.GetBone(component.ParentBone)); component.Player.Update(gametime.ElapsedGameTime, true, Matrix.Identity); Matrix[] bones = component.Player.GetSkinTransforms(); foreach (SkinnedEffect effect in mesh.Effects) { effect.SetBoneTransforms(bones); effect.EnableDefaultLighting(); effect.World = transforms[mesh.ParentBone.Index] * Matrix.CreateRotationY(MathHelper.ToRadians(model.Angle)) * Matrix.CreateTranslation(model.Position) * parenttransform; effect.View = getView(); effect.Projection = getProjection(); effect.Alpha = model.Opacity; } } mesh.Draw(); } I feel as though I have tried every conceivable way of incorporating the parenttransform value into the draw method. The above is my most recent attempt. Is what I'm trying to do correct? And if so, is there a reason it doesn't work? The above Draw method seems to transpose the models x/z position - but even at these wrong positions, they do not account for the animation of Model B at all. Note: As will be evident from the code my "model" is comprised of a list of "components". It is these "components" that correspond to a single "Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Graphics.Model"

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  • Bomberman clone, how to do bombs?

    - by hustlerinc
    I'm playing around with a bomberman clone to learn game-developement. So far I've done tiles, movement, collision detection, and item pickup. I also have pseudo bombplacing (just graphics and collision, no real functionality). I've made a jsFiddle of the game with the functionality I currently have. The code in the fiddle is very ugly though. Scroll past the map and you find how I place bombs. Anyway, what I would like to do is an object, that has the general information about bombs like: function Bomb(){ this.radius = player.bombRadius; this.placeBomb = function (){ if(player.bombs != 0){ // place bomb } } this.explosion = function (){ // Explosion } } I don't really know how to fit it into the code though. Everytime I place a bomb, do I do var bomb = new Bomb(); or do i need to constantly have that in the script to be able to access it. How does the bomb do damage? Is it as simple as doing X,Y in all directions until radius runs out or object stops it? Can I use something like setTimeout(bomb.explosion, 3000) as timer? Any help is appreciated, be it a simple explanation of the theory or code examples based on the fiddle. When I tried the object way it breaks the code.

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  • Do Apple and Google ask for a share if custom payment is done in a free app?

    - by user1590354
    I have a multiplatform game (web/iOS/Android) in the making. In the free version the core game is still fully playable but people who choose to pay will get more social features (and no ads, of course). I was thinking that rather than having a free and a paid version for all the platforms I may release the apps just for free and if the users want more, they have to register and pay a one-time fee (through a payment gateway or PayPal). The extra content would then be available in all the clients they have access to. Theoretically, this means a better value for the players and less maintenance and headache for me (obviously I have to handle all the payment troubles myself). Does it fit into the business model of Apple/Google? Or will they still claim their share of the registration fee?

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  • Detect collision from a particular side

    - by Fabián
    I'm making a platform sidescrolling game. All I want to do is to detect if my character is on the floor: function OnCollisionStay (col : Collision){ if(col.gameObject.tag == "Floor"){ onFloor = true; } else {onFloor = false;} } function OnCollisionExit (col : Collision){ onFloor = false; } But I know this isn't the accurate way. If I hit a cube with a "floor" tag, in the air (no matter if with the character's feet or head) I would be able to jump. Is there a way to use the same box collision to detect if I'm touching something from a specific side?

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  • Modern Shader Book?

    - by Michael Stum
    I'm interested in learning about Shaders: What are they, when/for what would I use them, and how to use them. (Specifically I'm interested in Water and Bloom effects, but I know close to 0 about Shaders, so I need a general introduction). I saw a lot of books that are a couple of years old, so I don't know if they still apply. I'm targeting XNA 4.0 at the moment (which I believe means HLSL Shaders for Shader Model 4.0), but anything that generally targets DirectX 11 and OpenGL 4 is helpful I guess.

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  • Splitting Graph into distinct polygons in O(E) complexity

    - by Arthur Wulf White
    If you have seen my last question: trapped inside a Graph : Find paths along edges that do not cross any edges How do you split an entire graph into distinct shapes 'trapped' inside the graph(like the ones described in my last question) with good complexity? What I am doing now is iterating over all edges and then starting to traverse while always taking the rightmost turn. This does split the graph into distinct shapes. Then I eliminate all the excess shapes (that are repeats of previous shapes) and return the result. The complexity of this algorithm is O(E^2). I am wondering if I could do it in O(E) by removing edges I already traversed previously. My current implementation of that returns unexpected results.

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  • As an indie game dev, what processes are the best for soliciting feedback on my design/spec/idea? [closed]

    - by Jess Telford
    Background I have worked in a professional environment where the process usually goes like the following: Brain storm idea Solidify the game mechanics / design Iterate on design/idea to create a more solid experience Spec out the details of the design/idea Build it Step 3. is generally done with the stakeholders of the game (developers, designers, investors, publishers, etc) to reach an 'agreement' which meets the goals of all involved. Due to this process involving a series of often opposing and unique view points, creative solutions can surface through discussion / iteration. This is backed up by a process for collating the changes / new ideas, as well as structured time for discussion. As a (now) indie developer, I have to play the role of all the stakeholders (developers, designers, investors, publishers, etc), and often find myself too close to the idea / design to do more than minor changes, which I feel to be local maxima when it comes to the best result (I'm looking for the global maxima, of course). I have read that ideas / game designs / unique mechanics are merely multipliers of execution, and that keeping them secret is just silly. In sharing the idea with others outside the realm of my own thinking, I hope to replicate the influence other stakeholders have. I am struggling with the collation of changes / new ideas, and any kind of structured method of receiving feedback. My question: As an indie game developer, how and where can I share my ideas/designs to receive meaningful / constructive feedback? How can I successfully collate the feedback into a new iteration of the design? Are there any specialized websites, etc?

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  • Adding sub-entities to existing entities. Should it be done in the Entity and Component classes?

    - by Coyote
    I'm in a situation where a player can be given the control of small parts of an entity (i.e. Left missile battery). Therefore I started implementing sub entities as follow. Entities are Objects with 3 arrays: pointers to components pointers to sub entities communication subscribers (temporary implementation) Now when an entity is built it has a few components as you might expect and also I can attach sub entities which are handled with some dedicated code in the Entity and Component classes. I noticed sub entities are sharing data in 3 parts: position: the sub entities are using the parent's position and their own as an offset. scrips: sub entities are draining ammo and energy from the parent. physics: sub entities add weight to the parent I made this to quickly go forward, but as I'm slowly fixing current implementations I wonder if this wasn't a mistake. Is my current implementation something commonly done? Will this implementation put me in a corner? I thought it might be a better thing to create some sort of SubEntityComponent where sub entities are attached and handled. But before changing anything I wanted to seek the community's wisdom.

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  • Hide individual regions on a territory map

    - by Paul
    I have a map of adjacent irregularly-shaped territories. It happens to be a county map, but that's not important. In the game, the player only sees a few to start, and as he progresses to new territories, the ones adjacent to it are revealed. It's a territory-scale fog-of-war. I'm using Unity3D, and my inclination is to make a set of planes, each of which has an image of a single territory on it, and then arrange them manually like a jigsaw puzzle. It then is fairly easy to respond to a click on each region and also to mark the planes as visible or invisible, or even do clever things like fade or zoom on individual regions. This sounds like an arduous task, and if we need to change the visual design of the territories, we'd have to cut up the main map all over again into each of the individual pieces. Does anyone have a more elegant solution to this problem?

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  • How do game engines implement certain features?

    - by Milo
    I have always wondered how modern game engines do things such as realistic water, ambient occluded lighting, eye adaptation, global illumination, etc. I'm not so much interested in the implementation details, but more on what part of the graphics API such as D3D or OpenGL allow adding such functionality. The only thing I can think of is shaders, but I do not think just shaders can do all that. So really what I'm asking is, what functions or capabilities of graphics APIs enable developers to implement these types of features into their engines? Thanks

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  • Rotate an image in a scaled context

    - by nathan
    Here is my working piece of code to rotate an image toward a point (in my case, the mouse cursor). float dx = newx - ploc.x; float dy = newy - ploc.y; float angle = (float) Math.toDegrees(Math.atan2(dy, dx)); Where ploc is the location of the image i'm rotating. And here is the rendering code: g.rotate(loc.x + width / 2, loc.y + height / 2, angle); g.drawImage(frame, loc.x, loc.y); Where loc is the location of the image and "width" and "height" are respectively the width and height of the image. What changes are needed to make it works on a scaled context? e.g make it works with something like g.scale(sx, sy).

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  • Better data structure for a game like Bubble Witch

    - by CrociDB
    I'm implementing a bubble-witch-like game (http://www.king.com/games/puzzle-games/bubble-witch/), and I was thinking on what's the better way to store the "bubbles" and to work with. I thought of using graphs, but that might be too complex for a trivial thing. Thought of a matrix, just like a tile map, but that might get too 'workaroundy'. I don't know. I'll be doing in Flash/AS3, though. Thanks. :)

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  • 2D Tile Map for Platformer, XML or SQLite?

    - by Stephen Tierney
    I'm developing a 2D platformer with some uni friends. We've based it upon the XNA Platformer Starter Kit which uses .txt files to store the tile map. While this is simple it does not give us enough control and flexibility with level design. I'm doing some research into whether to store level data in an XML file or in a database like SQLite. Which would be the best for this situation? Do either have any drawbacks (performance etc) compared to the other?

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  • Updating games for iOS 6 and new iPhone/iPod Touch

    - by SundayMonday
    Say I have a game that runs full-screen on iPhone 4S and older devices. The balance of the game is just right for the 480 x 320 screen and associated aspect ratio. Now I want to update my game to run full-screen on the new iPhone/iPod Touch where the aspect ratio of the screen is different. It seems like this can be challenging for some games in terms of maintaining the "balance". For example if the extra screen space was just tacked onto the right side of Jet Pack Joyride the balance would be thrown off since the user now has more time to see and react to obstacles. Also it could be challenging in terms of code maintenance. Perhaps Jet Pack Joyride would slightly increase the speed of approaching obstacles when the game is played on newer devices. However this quickly becomes messy when extra conditional statements are added all over the code. One solution is to have some parameters that are set in once place at start-up depending on the device type. What are some strategies for updating iOS games to run on the new iPhone and iPod Touch?

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  • creating a pre-menu level select screen

    - by Ephiras
    Hi I am working on creating a tower Defence java applet game and have come to a road block about implementing a title screen that i can select the level and difficulty of the rest of the game. my title screen class is called Menu. from this menu class i need to pass in many different variables into my Main class. i have used different classes before and know how to run them and such. but if both classes extend applet and each has its individual graphics method how can i run things from Main even though it was created in Menu. what i essentially want to do is run the Menu class withits action listeners and graphics until a Difficulty button has been selected, run the main class (which 100% works without having to have the Menu class) and pretty much terminate Menu so that i cannot go back to it, do not see its buttons or graphics menus. can i run one applet annd when i choose a button close that one and launch the other one? IF you would like to download the full project you can find it here, i had to comment out all the code that wasn't working my Menu class import java.awt.*; import java.awt.event.*; import java.applet.*; public class Menu extends Applet implements ActionListener{ Button bEasy,bMed,bHard; Main m; public void init(){ bEasy= new Button("Easy"); bEasy.setBounds(140,200,100,50); add(bEasy); bMed = new Button("Medium");bMed.setBounds(280,200,100,50); add(bMed); bHard= new Button("Hard");bHard.setBounds(420,200,100,50); add(bHard); setLayout(null); } public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e){ Main m = new Main(20,10,3000,mapMed);//break; switch (e.getSource()){ case bEasy: Main m = new Main(6000,20,"levels/levelEasy.png");break;//enimies tower money world case bMed: Main m = new Main(4000,15,"levels/levelMed.png");break; case bHard: Main m = new Main(2000,10,"levels/levelEasy.png");break; default: break; } } public void paint(){ //m.draw(g) } } and here is my main class initialising code. import java.awt.*; import java.awt.event.*; import java.applet.*; import java.io.IOException; public class Main extends Applet implements Runnable, MouseListener, MouseMotionListener, ActionListener{ Button startButton, UpgRange, UpgDamage; //set up the buttons Color roadCol,startCol,finCol,selGrass,selRoad; //set up the colors Enemy e[][]; Tower t[]; Image towerpic,backpic,roadpic,levelPic; private Image i; private Graphics doubleG; //here is the world 0=grass 1=road 2=start 3=end int world[][],eStartX,eStartY; boolean drawMouse,gameEnd; static boolean start=false; static int gridLength=15; static int round=0; int Mx,My,timer=1500; static int sqrSize=31; int towers=0,towerSelected=-10; static int castleHealth=2000; String levelPath; //choose the level Easy Med or Hard int maxEnemy[] = {5,7,12,20,30,15,50,30,40,60};//number of enimies per round int maxTowers=15;//maximum number of towers allowed static int money =2000,damPrice=600,ranPrice=350,towerPrice=700; //money = the intial ammount of money you start of with //damPrice is the price to increase the damage of a tower //ranPrice is the price to increase the range of a tower public void main(int cH,int mT,int mo,int dP,int rP,int tP,String path,int[] mE)//constructor 1 castleHealth=cH; maxTowers=mT; money=mo; damPrice=dP; ranPrice=rP; towerPrice=tP; String levelPath=path; maxEnemy = mE; buildLevel(); } public void main(int cH,int mT,String path)//basic constructor castleHealth=cH; maxTowers=mT; String levelPath=path; maxEnemy = mE; buildLevel(); } public void init(){ setSize(sqrSize*15+200,sqrSize*15);//set the size of the screen roadCol = new Color(255,216,0);//set the colors for the different objects startCol = new Color(0,38,255); finCol = new Color(255,0,0); selRoad = new Color(242,204,155);//selColor is the color of something when your mouse hovers over it selGrass = new Color(0,190,0); roadpic = getImage(getDocumentBase(),"images/road.jpg"); towerpic = getImage(getDocumentBase(),"images/tower.png"); backpic = getImage(getDocumentBase(),"images/grass.jpg"); levelPic = getImage(getDocumentBase(),"images/level.jpg"); e= new Enemy[maxEnemy.length][];//activates all of the enimies for (int r=0;r<e.length;r++) e[r] = new Enemy[maxEnemy[r]]; t= new Tower[maxTowers]; for (int i=0;i<t.length;i++) t[i]= new Tower();//activates all the towers for (int i=0;i<e.length; i++)//sets all of the enimies starting co ordinates for (int j=0;j<e[i].length;j++) e[i][j] = new Enemy(eStartX,eStartY,world); initButtons();//initialise all the buttons addMouseMotionListener(this); addMouseListener(this); }

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  • Convience of mySQL over xml

    - by Bonechilla
    Currently I use XML to store specific information to correctly load a few things such as a list of specfied characters, scenes and music, Once more I use JAXB in combination with standard compression/decompression(ZIP) functionality to store a list of extrenous data. This data is called to add functionality to the character, somewhat like Skills in an RPG. Each skill is seperated into its own XML file with a grandlist which contains the names of each file with their extensions omitted and zipped in folder that gets encrypted. At first using xml was working fine however as the skill list grow i worry about its stability. I was wondering if I should begin storing the data in mySQL. Originally I planned to simply convert everything to JSON over xml but i think possibly mySQL would be a better move. Can anyone inform me of the key difference and pros and cons of each I guess i'm looking for the best way to store the data more conviently and would be easier to operate on. The data is mostly primatives and strings and the only arraylist of values i have i can just concat into a single field and parse later

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  • How to rotate FBX files in 90 degree while running on a path in iTween in unity 3d

    - by Jack Dsilva
    I am doing one racing game,in which I used iTween path systems to smooth camera turning in turns,iTween path systems works fine(special thanks to Bob Berkebile) Here first I used one cube to follow path and it works fine in turning But my problem is instead of using cube I used FBX(character) to follow path here when turn comes character will not move This is my problem Image: I want this type: How to Slove this problem?

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  • 2D metaball liquid effect - how to feed output of one rendering pass as input to another shader

    - by Guye Incognito
    I'm attempting to make a shader for unity3d web project. I want to implement something like in the great answer by DMGregory in this question. in order to achieve a final look something like this.. Its metaballs with specular and shading. The steps to make this shader are. 1. Convert the feathered blobs into a heightmap. 2. Generate a normalmap from the heightmap 3. Feed the normal map and height map into a standard unity shader, for instance transparent parallax specular. I pretty much have all the pieces I need assembled but I am new to shaders and need help putting them together I can generate a heightmap from the blobs using some fragment shader code I wrote (I'm just using the red channel here cus i dont know if you can access the brightness) half4 frag (v2f i) : COLOR{ half4 texcol,finalColor; texcol = tex2D (_MainTex, i.uv); finalColor=_MyColor; if(texcol.r<_botmcut) { finalColor.r= 0; } else if((texcol.r>_topcut)) { finalColor.r= 0; } else { float r = _topcut-_botmcut; float xpos = _topcut - texcol.r; finalColor.r= (_botmcut + sqrt((xpos*xpos)-(r*r)))/_constant; } return finalColor; } turns these blobs.. into this heightmap Also I've found some CG code that generates a normal map from a height map. The bit of code that makes the normal map from finite differences is here void surf (Input IN, inout SurfaceOutput o) { o.Albedo = fixed3(0.5); float3 normal = UnpackNormal(tex2D(_BumpMap, IN.uv_MainTex)); float me = tex2D(_HeightMap,IN.uv_MainTex).x; float n = tex2D(_HeightMap,float2(IN.uv_MainTex.x,IN.uv_MainTex.y+1.0/_HeightmapDimY)).x; float s = tex2D(_HeightMap,float2(IN.uv_MainTex.x,IN.uv_MainTex.y-1.0/_HeightmapDimY)).x; float e = tex2D(_HeightMap,float2(IN.uv_MainTex.x-1.0/_HeightmapDimX,IN.uv_MainTex.y)).x; float w = tex2D(_HeightMap,float2(IN.uv_MainTex.x+1.0/_HeightmapDimX,IN.uv_MainTex.y)).x; float3 norm = normal; float3 temp = norm; //a temporary vector that is not parallel to norm if(norm.x==1) temp.y+=0.5; else temp.x+=0.5; //form a basis with norm being one of the axes: float3 perp1 = normalize(cross(norm,temp)); float3 perp2 = normalize(cross(norm,perp1)); //use the basis to move the normal in its own space by the offset float3 normalOffset = -_HeightmapStrength * ( ( (n-me) - (s-me) ) * perp1 + ( ( e - me ) - ( w - me ) ) * perp2 ); norm += normalOffset; norm = normalize(norm); o.Normal = norm; } Also here is the built-in transparent parallax specular shader for unity. Shader "Transparent/Parallax Specular" { Properties { _Color ("Main Color", Color) = (1,1,1,1) _SpecColor ("Specular Color", Color) = (0.5, 0.5, 0.5, 0) _Shininess ("Shininess", Range (0.01, 1)) = 0.078125 _Parallax ("Height", Range (0.005, 0.08)) = 0.02 _MainTex ("Base (RGB) TransGloss (A)", 2D) = "white" {} _BumpMap ("Normalmap", 2D) = "bump" {} _ParallaxMap ("Heightmap (A)", 2D) = "black" {} } SubShader { Tags {"Queue"="Transparent" "IgnoreProjector"="True" "RenderType"="Transparent"} LOD 600 CGPROGRAM #pragma surface surf BlinnPhong alpha #pragma exclude_renderers flash sampler2D _MainTex; sampler2D _BumpMap; sampler2D _ParallaxMap; fixed4 _Color; half _Shininess; float _Parallax; struct Input { float2 uv_MainTex; float2 uv_BumpMap; float3 viewDir; }; void surf (Input IN, inout SurfaceOutput o) { half h = tex2D (_ParallaxMap, IN.uv_BumpMap).w; float2 offset = ParallaxOffset (h, _Parallax, IN.viewDir); IN.uv_MainTex += offset; IN.uv_BumpMap += offset; fixed4 tex = tex2D(_MainTex, IN.uv_MainTex); o.Albedo = tex.rgb * _Color.rgb; o.Gloss = tex.a; o.Alpha = tex.a * _Color.a; o.Specular = _Shininess; o.Normal = UnpackNormal(tex2D(_BumpMap, IN.uv_BumpMap)); } ENDCG } FallBack "Transparent/Bumped Specular" }

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  • SharpDX/D3D: How to implement and draw fonts/text

    - by Dmitrij A
    I am playing with SharpDX (Direct3D for .NET) without using "Toolkit", already finished with basic rendering 3D models. But now i am wondering how to program/create fonts for game (2D), or how to simple draw variable text to output with Direct3D? (it is not as SharpDX question as common Direct3D question, how to start with game GUIs? And what should i do to program simple GUI's like menu for a game (generally i understand that it's shaders).

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  • 3D/perspective Top down shooter bullet issues

    - by Tseng
    I'm developing a top-down shooter with multiple levels (ground for ground units, middle level for buildings, top level for air unity). The problem is the collision. Though I can make the collider box of a bullet be long enough to reach the ground (and collide with it), the real issue is optical. When the bullet is fired from a aircraft and collides with some object on the ground (building, ground unit) it will be optically offset due to the perspective camera, because it looks like the shot "by-passed" the target as seen below Is there any way to make the bullets collide perspectively correct? I'm using Unity3d Engine and it offers only simple colliders (box, sphere, cylinder, mesh and wheel), though I don't think a cone-formed collider would solve this issue. I'd need a (cheap) way to check if it's overlapping a destructible object? I thought of casting a ray from the camera through the bullet and if it hits something destructible, trigger an action, but that's quite punctual and maybe to performance heavy on certain number of bullets

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  • 2D platformers: why make the physics dependent on the framerate?

    - by Archagon
    "Super Meat Boy" is a difficult platformer that recently came out for PC, requiring exceptional control and pixel-perfect jumping. The physics code in the game is dependent on the framerate, which is locked to 60fps; this means that if your computer can't run the game at full speed, the physics will go insane, causing (among other things) your character to run slower and fall through the ground. Furthermore, if vsync is off, the game runs extremely fast. Could those experienced with 2D game programming help explain why the game was coded this way? Wouldn't a physics loop running at a constant rate be a better solution? (Actually, I think a physics loop is used for parts of the game, since some of the entities continue to move normally regardless of the framerate. Your character, on the other hand, runs exactly [fps/60] as fast.) What bothers me about this implementation is the loss of abstraction between the game engine and the graphics rendering, which depends on system-specific things like the monitor, graphics card, and CPU. If, for whatever reason, your computer can't handle vsync, or can't run the game at exactly 60fps, it'll break spectacularly. Why should the rendering step in any way influence the physics calculations? (Most games nowadays would either slow down the game or skip frames.) On the other hand, I understand that old-school platformers on the NES and SNES depended on a fixed framerate for much of their control and physics. Why is this, and would it be possible to create a patformer in that vein without having the framerate dependency? Is there necessarily a loss of precision if you separate the graphics rendering from the rest of the engine? Thank you, and sorry if the question was confusing.

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  • How can I prevent seams from showing up on objects using lower mipmap levels?

    - by Shivan Dragon
    Disclaimer: kindly right click on the images and open them separately so that they're at full size, as there are fine details which don't show up otherwise. Thank you. I made a simple Blender model, it's a cylinder with the top cap removed: I've exported the UVs: Then imported them into Photoshop, and painted the inner area in yellow and the outer area in red. I made sure I cover well the UV lines: I then save the image and load it as texture on the model in Blender. Actually, I just reload it as the image where the UVs are exported, and change the viewport view mode to textured. When I look at the mesh up-close, there's yellow everywhere, everything seems fine: However, if I start zooming out, I start seeing red (literally and metaphorically) where the texture edges are: And the more I zoom, the more I see it: Same thing happends in Unity, though the effect seems less pronounced. Up close is fine and yellow: Zoom out and you see red at the seams: Now, obviously, for this simple example a workaround is to spread the yellow well outside the UV margins, and its fine from all distances. However this is an issue when you try making a complex texture that should tile seamlessly at the edges. In this situation I either make a few lines of pixels overlap (in which case it looks bad from upclose and ok from far away), or I leave them seamless and then I have those seams when seeing it from far away. So my question is, is there something I'm missing, or some extra thing I must do to have my texture look seamless from all distances?

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