Archives for Thu Aug 30 2012 - Page 18

low level api or graphics library?

- by German

Well, I want to learn game development, I've already know a little bit about xna, ogre and DX but, I want to choose one of them and stick with it. I'm not trying to make a "directx vs xna, ogre vs opengl, etc." thread. Some people told me that it's better to learn an engine like Ogre because you can develop games directly and you don't have to worry about the low level details, I know that. Other people told me that it's better to learn a low level api before learning something like Ogre because you will able to understand how it works. Is it valuable to have experience with Ogre or another engine but don't know anything about a low level api? What do you recommend me? Thanks in advance.

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PHP city-sim castle layout

- by Gert

I am currently contemplating the layout system for my php based game but i've run into a couple of worries. So my idea is a 9X9 grid where the center 3X3 are inner castle. The inner castle will be 6X6 if you enter it(click on it). and with the option to expand the inner castle converting one of the 9X9 tiles to a 4X4 inner castle tile. So here is my question: What is the best way to tackle this type of layout? my original idea was a 18X18 grid and saving it in the db as (idCastle, Y, X) where X is a string of 18 numbers long telling me if the tile is an inner/outer tile or a inner/outer building. but i am not really fond of this idea and would like to hear some other ideas on how to tackle this. Thanks in Advance, Gert

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How to use music in a simple game?

- by Aerovistae

It's like this: I've got this very simple game in mind, and I happen to be lucky enough to know this guy at my college who is the best musician I've ever met in person who wasn't already on a stage. He writes these beautiful songs on piano, just meandering and mysterious. They'd add so much as background music. But here's my dilemma: say I record a 5 minute long song from him. How do I use it? Do I set it playing, and then make it start over as soon as it ends? Do I leave a 5 minute period of silence and then start it over again? Or do I find other music and just have continuous music playing? What do other people usually do for this sort of thing?

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C++ unmanaged inside winform

- by Gosso

First: I am using C# and C++ on windows 7. I have created a basic rendering engine in c++ with directx 10. It works good as a stand alone application. But, when I sending the Form.Handle of a WinForm I want to render inside to the engine it crashes during D3D10CreateDeviceAndSwapChain with the following error: HRESULT: 0x887a0001 (2289696769) Name: DXGI_ERROR_INVALID_CALL I get the handle from the winform during loading of the form. unsafe { void *ptr=m_view.Handle.ToPointer(); uint v = (uint)ptr; lhandle = v.ToString(); };

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Create Levels using blender

- by notrodash

I am creating a game and I have a custom level format for levels in my game. I wanted to know if it is possible to create levels for that kinda format in Blender. My format is XML based and just declares the positions of certain objects. Online I have seen many people use Blender to create levels in their own custom format that blender can understand. How do i get blender to understand my format and use blender to create levels for my game?

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Converting world space coordinate to screen space coordinate and getting incorrect range of values

- by user1423893

I'm attempting to convert from world space coordinates to screen space coordinates. I have the following code to transform my object position Vector3 screenSpacePoint = Vector3.Transform(object.WorldPosition, camera.ViewProjectionMatrix); The value does not appear to be in screen space coordinates and is not limited to a [-1, 1] range. What step have I missed out in the conversion process? EDIT: Projection Matrix Perspective(game.GraphicsDevice.Viewport.AspectRatio, nearClipPlaneZ, farClipPlaneZ); private void Perspective(float aspect_Ratio, float z_NearClipPlane, float z_FarClipPlane) { nearClipPlaneZ = z_NearClipPlane; farClipPlaneZ = z_FarClipPlane; float yZoom = 1f / (float)Math.Tan(fov * 0.5f); float xZoom = yZoom / aspect_Ratio; matrix_Projection.M11 = xZoom; matrix_Projection.M12 = 0f; matrix_Projection.M13 = 0f; matrix_Projection.M14 = 0f; matrix_Projection.M21 = 0f; matrix_Projection.M22 = yZoom; matrix_Projection.M23 = 0f; matrix_Projection.M24 = 0f; matrix_Projection.M31 = 0f; matrix_Projection.M32 = 0f; matrix_Projection.M33 = z_FarClipPlane / (nearClipPlaneZ - farClipPlaneZ); matrix_Projection.M34 = -1f; matrix_Projection.M41 = 0f; matrix_Projection.M42 = 0f; matrix_Projection.M43 = (nearClipPlaneZ * farClipPlaneZ) / (nearClipPlaneZ - farClipPlaneZ); matrix_Projection.M44 = 0f; } View Matrix // Make our view matrix Matrix.CreateFromQuaternion(ref orientation, out matrix_View); matrix_View.M41 = -Vector3.Dot(Right, position); matrix_View.M42 = -Vector3.Dot(Up, position); matrix_View.M43 = Vector3.Dot(Forward, position); matrix_View.M44 = 1f; // Create the combined view-projection matrix Matrix.Multiply(ref matrix_View, ref matrix_Projection, out matrix_ViewProj); // Update the bounding frustum boundingFrustum.SetMatrix(matrix_ViewProj);

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Pathfinding library

- by Shivan Dragon

I'm an amateur game developer and somewhat amateur Java developer as well. I'm trying to find a way to have path finding for my game(s). I've first Googled for some existing Java libraries that have various path-finding implementations, but I've failed to find any. It seems to me that the only way to get pathfinding code is to use it via a game engine (like Unity). But I'd just like to have a library that I can use and make the game loop and other stuff on my own. Failing to find such a library I've tried implementing some algorithms myself. I've managed to make a running A* in Java, but for fancier stuff like D* I find it hard to do it by hand. So then, my question is, are there any Java libraries that contain at least some basic pathfinding algorithms implementations?

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