Search Results

Search found 4426 results on 178 pages for 'serious games'.

Page 127/178 | < Previous Page | 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134  | Next Page >

• Windows 7 Phone Developer Tools CTP download

  - by mbcrump

  For those that don’t know, you can download the W7 Phone developer tools now. It is available here. I have installed it and wanted to share my experience so far. You can read the pre-release documentation here. First, here is what it comes with the install: The Windows Phone Developer Tools CTP includes the following: Visual Studio 2010 Express for Windows Phone CTP Windows Phone Emulator CTP Silverlight for Windows Phone CTP XNA 4.0 Game Studio CTP First impressions: No ISO image install (Bad for me because I use multiple machine and have to install from a bootstrapper. Its around 228mb download. I already have the VS2010 RC, but it still makes me install the VS2010 Express Edition. Windows Phone Emulator will only work with VS2010. No support for 05/08. Need at least a DX10 graphics compatible card. Final Word: (you are probably going to need this info) To start a new project, go to Installed Templates and select Silverlight for Windows Phone and Windows Phone Application. Use Silverlight for WPF style applications or XNA for W7 Games.

  Read the article

• MatheMagics - Guess My Age - Method 2

  - by PointsToShare

  © 2011 By: Dov Trietsch. All rights reserved MatheMagic – Guess My Age – Method 2 The Mathemagician stands on the stage and asks an adult to do the following: ·         Do the next few steps on your calculator, or the calculator in your phone, or even on a piece of paper. ·         Do it silently! Don’t tell me the results until I ask for them directly ·         Multiply your age by 2. ·         Add 7 to the result ·         Multiply the result by 5. ·         Tell me the result. I will nonetheless immediately tell you what your age is. How do I do this? Let’s do the algebra. Let A denote your age (2A + 7) 5 = 10A + 35 so it is of the 3 digit form XY5 Now make two numbers out of the result - The last digit and the number before it. The Last digit is obviously 5, the other 2 (or 3 for a centenarian) and this number is the age + 3. Example: I am 76 years old and here is what happens when I do the steps 76 x 2 = 152 152 + 7 = 159 159 x 5 = 795 This is made of 79 and 5. And … 79 – 3 = 76 A note to the socially aware mathemagician – it is safer to do it with a man. The chances of a veracious answer are much, much higher! The trick may be accomplished on any 2 or 3 digit number, not just one’s age, but if you want to know your date’s age, it’s a good way to elicit it. That’s All Folks PS for more Ageless “Age” mathemagics go to www.mgsltns.com/games.htm and also here: http://geekswithblogs.net/PointsToShare/archive/2011/11/15/mathemagics---guess-my-age-method-1.aspx

  Read the article

• JEOS

  - by john.graves(at)oracle.com

  JEOS stands for Just Enough Operating System.  It is  great environment for building virtual machines without all the clutter of a windowing system, games, office products, etc.  It is from Ubuntu and you install it using the Ubuntu server install, but rather than picking a standard install, press F4 and choose “Install a minimal system.” Note: The “Install a minimal virtual machine” is specific to VMWare and I plan to use VirtualBox. Be sure to include Open SSH in the install so that it installs sshd. *** Also, if you plan to install XE, you’ll need to modify the partitions to have a larger swap space (at least 1.5 G). *** Once the install is done, I find it useful to install a few other items. Update Ubuntu apt-get update Install some other tools apt-get openjdk-6-jre Yes, java will be included in any of the WebLogic installs, but I need this one if I want to do remote display (for config wizards, etc). apt-get gcc Some apps require to rebuild the kernel modules, so you’ll need a basic compiler. Install guest additions (Choose the VirtualBox Devices->Install Guest Additions…” option.  This sets up a /dev/cdrom or /dev/cdrom1.  You’ll need to manually mount this temporarily: sudo mount /dev/cdrom /mnt Then run the linux .bin file. Update nofile limits.  Most java apps fail with the standard ubuntu settings: edit /etc/security/limits.conf and add these lines at the end: *     soft nofile 65535 *     hard nofile 65535 root  soft nofile 65535 root  hard nofile 65535 These numbers are very high and I wouldn’t do this on a production system, but for this environment it is fin. To get rid of the annoying piix error on boot, add the following line to the /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf file blacklist i2c_piix4

  Read the article

• Problem graphics with ATI Radeon x1270 (RS690M) on Ubuntu 12.04

  - by Giuseppe Della Corte

  I'm Italian and so I apologize for my English! I'm a beginner to Ubuntu and I tried it on my desktop PC and it's fantastic, fast and fun! I decided to try it on my netbook Packard Bell DOT M/A and this is the configuration: AMD Athlon L110 1.2GHz 2GB of RAM ATI Radeon x1270 (RS690M) 150GB Hard Disk I installed Ubuntu 12.04 with Wubi (dualboot Windows 7 + Ubuntu 12.04), because the netbook does not have a DVD player! During the installation everything is OK, after it was installed I see mistakes in the graphical display! I see objects that are seen in different colors and moving (buttons, mouse pointer, text bar ... etc ...) At one point came not to see anything, such as this screenshot: The drivers are open, that is already installed in Ubuntu. Windows 7 video card runs fine, can run well Aero (transparent window effects), I can watch movies in HD and play some games with the Catalyst drivers from AMD. Now I ask a favor, you can help me solve this problem? Is there a fix for this driver or drivers different on the Internet? Thanks for your attention, good bye!

  Read the article

• Effect of using dedicated NVidia card instead of Intel HD4000

  - by Sman789

  Short version: Can someone please advise me of the effect of adding a dedicated NVIDIA GeForce GT 630M card to an Ubuntu laptop in terms of power consumption and performance gains/losses when doing general productivity tasks and booting up. Also, how good are the closed source, open source, and Bumblebee drivers for these newer cards compared to support for the Intel HD4000? Long version/Background, if any info here is helpful: I'm thinking of ordering a laptop from PC Specialist (a UK company who actually sell machines without Windows pre-installed) with the following specifications: Genesis IV: 15.6" AUO Matte 95% Gamut LED Widescreen (1920x1080) Intel® Core™i5 Dual Core Mobile Processor i5-3210M (2.50GHz) 3MB 4GB SAMSUNG 1600MHz SODIMM DDR3 MEMORY (1 x 4GB) 120GB INTEL® 520 SERIES SSD, SATA 6 Gb/s (upto 550MB/sR | 520MB/sW) Intel 2 Channel High Definition Audio + MIC/Headphone Jack GIGABIT LAN & WIRELESS INTEL® N135 802.11N (150Mbps) + BLUETOOTH Now, as I want this laptop mainly for work and not for games, I would be more than content with the HD4000 integrated chip which comes with the processor. However, for compatibility reasons, I am not able to get the specs I want unless I choose a NVIDIA GeForce GT 630M 1GB graphics card, which I don't have a great deal of use for. I'm willing to buy it, however, as it's still cheaper than any other laptop with the specs I want. However, I know that Linux power management isn't fantastic with open-source graphics drivers, and I don't much about Bumblebee. Basically, whilst I'm happy to 'tolerate' the card being there, I don't want to experience any negative effects on the rest of my system (battery, performance etc) and if there are likely to be any, I might reconsider my purchase. So if anyone can advise me on the effects, I would be very grateful, since I doubt I can just turn the card off. Thankyou for any assistance :)

  Read the article

• How do you run XBMC on nvidia dual screen and stop it from taking over the keyboard and mouse?

  - by Paul Swartout

  I have set up dual screen under Ubuntu 12.04. I have a GeForce 8500 GT and have used the nVidia control panel to set up dual screen in "Separate screen mode". Here's the resulting xorg.conf # nvidia-settings: X configuration file generated by nvidia-settings # nvidia-settings: version 295.33 (buildd@zirconium) Fri Mar 30 13:38:49 UTC 2012 Section "ServerLayout" Identifier "Layout0" Screen 0 "Screen0" 0 0 Screen 1 "Screen1" RightOf "Screen0" InputDevice "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard" InputDevice "Mouse0" "CorePointer" Option "Xinerama" "0" EndSection Section "Files" EndSection Section "InputDevice" # generated from default Identifier "Mouse0" Driver "mouse" Option "Protocol" "auto" Option "Device" "/dev/psaux" Option "Emulate3Buttons" "no" Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5" EndSection Section "InputDevice" # generated from default Identifier "Keyboard0" Driver "kbd" EndSection Section "Monitor" # HorizSync source: edid, VertRefresh source: edid Identifier "Monitor0" VendorName "Unknown" ModelName "Maxdata/Belinea B1925S1W" HorizSync 31.0 - 83.0 VertRefresh 56.0 - 75.0 Option "DPMS" EndSection Section "Monitor" # HorizSync source: builtin, VertRefresh source: builtin Identifier "Monitor1" VendorName "Unknown" ModelName "CRT-1" HorizSync 28.0 - 55.0 VertRefresh 43.0 - 72.0 Option "DPMS" EndSection Section "Device" Identifier "Device0" Driver "nvidia" VendorName "NVIDIA Corporation" BoardName "GeForce 8500 GT" BusID "PCI:1:0:0" Screen 0 EndSection Section "Device" Identifier "Device1" Driver "nvidia" VendorName "NVIDIA Corporation" BoardName "GeForce 8500 GT" BusID "PCI:1:0:0" Screen 1 EndSection Section "Screen" Identifier "Screen0" Device "Device0" Monitor "Monitor0" DefaultDepth 24 Option "TwinView" "0" Option "metamodes" "CRT-0: nvidia-auto-select +0+0" SubSection "Display" Depth 24 EndSubSection EndSection Section "Screen" # Removed Option "metamodes" "CRT-1: 1280x768 +0+0" Identifier "Screen1" Device "Device1" Monitor "Monitor1" DefaultDepth 24 Option "TwinView" "0" Option "metamodes" "CRT-1: 1360x768_60 +0+0" SubSection "Display" Depth 24 EndSubSection EndSection All well and good and I have a nice blank XWindow displayed on my TV (the 2nd monitor). I then fire up XBMC from a terminal on the PC monitor using DISPLAY=:0.1 xbmc XBMC fires up quite nicely on the TV however I can no longer use the main PC monitor / mouse / keyboard as XBMC on the TV screen seems to have focus. I was hoping to have XBMC running on the TV and let the kids use the MCE remote whilst I get on with my work on the PC monitor. Does anyone have any idea how to overcome this? I'm presuming there's some xorg.conf fun and games needed but I've no idea where to start to be honest.

  Read the article

• The Correct Usage of DLLs with a DirectX Game?

  - by smoth190

  I'm using DirectX 10 (in C++) to make a game engine, and a test driver program on top of it. Now that I've written many messy rough drafts of an engine, I want to make the final (or sorta final) clean version. I choose to follow how I've seen other engines do it, and that's to have all the core nasty messy crap in a DLL, and then you can create games with just a few functions (well, not really :D). However, I'm unsure of what nasty messy crap to put in that DLL. I don't know about speed restrictions with DLLs. What I've done is put my winproc in the DLL, and have a class that takes the messages, and sends them through to the program using the DLL. Then that program does what it needs to do, and calls a rendering functions back in the DLL that renders everything. Only problem is it gets very low FPS (2, to be exact...). I've looked through everything, and I don't know if the way I'm using DLLs in causing this, or its something different. Whether it's the DLLs or not, I still want to know how to use a DLL correctly with a game engine. I like being neat, I hate having to see all those long names of DirectX classes. I use typedef a lot.

  Read the article

• Bejeweled-like game, managing different gem/powerup behaviors?

  - by Wissam

  I thought I'd ask a question and look forward to some insight from this very compelling community. In a Bejeweled-like (Match 3) game, the standard behavior once a valid swap of two adjacent tiles is made is that the resulting matching tiles are destroyed, any tiles now sitting over empty spaces fall to the position above the next present-tile, and any void created above is filled with new tiles. In richer Match-3 games like Bejeweled, 4 in a row (as opposed to just 3) modifies this behavior such that the tile that was swapped is retained, turned into a "flaming" gem, it falls, and then the empty space above is filled. The next time that "flaming gem" is played it explodes and destroys the 8 perimeter tiles, triggers a different animation sequence (neighbors of those 8 tiles being destroyed look like they've been hit by a shockwave then they fall to their respective positions). Scoring is different, the triggered sounds are different, etc. There are even more elaborate behaviors for Match5, Match-cross-pattern, and many powerups that can be purchased, each which produces a more elaborate sequence of events, sounds, animations, scoring, etc... What is the best approach to developing all these different behaviors that respond to players' "move" and her current "performance" and that deviate from the standard sequence of events, scoring, animation, sounds etc, in such a way that we can always flexibly introduce a new "powerup" ? What we are doing now is hard-coding the events of each one, but the task is long and arduous and seems like the wrong approach especially since the game-designers and testers often offer (later) valuable insight on what works better in-game, which means that the code itself may have to be re-written even for minor changes in behavior (say, destroy only 7 neighboring tiles, instead of all 8 in an explosion). ANY pointers for good practices here would be highly appreciated.

  Read the article

• How can I draw crisp per-pixel images with OpenGL ES on Android?

  - by Qasim

  I have made many Android applications and games in Java before, however I am very new to OpenGL ES. Using guides online, I have made simple things in OpenGL ES, including a simple triangle and a cube. I would like to make a 2D game with OpenGL ES, but what I've been doing isn't working quite so well, as the images I draw aren't to scale, and no matter what guide I use, the image is always choppy and not the right size (I'm debugging on my Nexus S). How can I draw crisp, HD images to the screen with GL ES? Here is an example of what happens when I try to do it: And the actual image: Here is how my texture is created: //get id int id = -1; gl.glGenTextures(1, texture, 0); id = texture[0]; //get bitmap Bitmap bitmap = BitmapFactory.decodeResource(context.getResources(), R.drawable.ball); //parameters gl.glBindTexture(GL10.GL_TEXTURE_2D, id); gl.glTexParameterf(GL10.GL_TEXTURE_2D, GL10.GL_TEXTURE_MIN_FILTER, GL10.GL_NEAREST); gl.glTexParameterf(GL10.GL_TEXTURE_2D, GL10.GL_TEXTURE_MAG_FILTER, GL10.GL_LINEAR); gl.glTexParameterf(GL10.GL_TEXTURE_2D, GL10.GL_TEXTURE_WRAP_S, GL10.GL_CLAMP_TO_EDGE); gl.glTexParameterf(GL10.GL_TEXTURE_2D, GL10.GL_TEXTURE_WRAP_T, GL10.GL_CLAMP_TO_EDGE); gl.glTexEnvf(GL10.GL_TEXTURE_ENV, GL10.GL_TEXTURE_ENV_MODE, GL10.GL_REPLACE); GLUtils.texImage2D(GL10.GL_TEXTURE_2D, 0, bitmap, 0); //crop image mCropWorkspace[0] = 0; mCropWorkspace[1] = height; mCropWorkspace[2] = width; mCropWorkspace[3] = -height; ((GL11) gl).glTexParameteriv(GL10.GL_TEXTURE_2D, GL11Ext.GL_TEXTURE_CROP_RECT_OES, mCropWorkspace, 0);

  Read the article

• In MMO game, how to handle user characters, who are offline?

  - by Deele

  In my medieval MMO game, players have their own character, that represents themselves inside game. Like a King. Players could have cities and armies, but King acts as main driving force. Then it comes to player, going offline/vacation/disconnect. How to deal with "offline King", to keep some sort of reality in game, without ruining everything for player. I have never liked unrealistic stuff in games, like appearing/dissapearing from thin air, like in WoW or other MMO RPG's, when it comes to connect/disconnect, like in Matrix movie, when you are disconnected, your "avatar" inside the system just vaninshes. Ok, if player char stays where it was left, other players who are online could kick his ass like offline player char was frozen? I see only one solution - give player char, while offline, some sort of AI, that controls char. Is there any other solutions? May be, some sort of legend/story, could make users only as inner-voice, leaving King just passively controlled by user, or other stuff... Please, help! I hope you understand my question.

  Read the article

• Server-side Architecture for Online Game

  - by Draiken

  basically I have a game client that has communicate with a server for almost every action it takes, the game is in Java (using LWJGL) and right now I will start making the server. The base of the game is normally one client communicating with the server alone, but I will require later on for several clients to work together for some functionalities. I've already read how authentication server should be sepparated and I intend on doing it. The problem is I am completely inexperienced in this kind of server-side programming, all I've ever programmed were JSF web applications. I imagine I'll do socket connections for pretty much every game communication since HTML is very slow, but I still don't really know where to start on my server. I would appreciate reading material or guidelines on where to start, what architecture should the game server have and maybe some suggestions on frameworks that could help me getting the client-server communication. I've looked into JNAG but I have no experience with this kind of thing, so I can't really tell if it is a solid and good messaging layer. Any help is appreciated... Thanks ! EDIT: Just a little more information about the game. It is intended to be a very complex game with several functionalities, making some functionalities a "program" inside the program. It is not an usual game, like FPS or RPG but I intend on having a lot of users using these many different "programs" inside the game. If I wasn't clear enough, I'd really appreciate people that have already developed games with java client/server architecture, how they communicated, any frameworks, apis, messaging systems, etc. It is not a question of lack of knowledge of language, more a question for advice, so I don't end up creating something that works, but in the later stages will have to be rewriten for any kind of limiting reason. PS: sorry if my english is not perfect...

  Read the article

• Line Intersection from parametric equation

  - by Sidar

  I'm sure this question has been asked before. However, I'm trying to connect the dots by translating an equation on paper into an actual function. I thought It would be interesting to ask here instead on the Math sites (since it's going to be used for games anyway ). Let's say we have our vector equation : x = s + Lr; where x is the resulting vector, s our starting point/vector. L our parameter and r our direction vector. The ( not sure it's called like this, please correct me ) normal equation is : x.n = c; If we substitute our vector equation we get: (s+Lr).n = c. We now need to isolate L which results in L = (c - s.n) / (r.n); L needs to be 0 < L < 1. Meaning it needs to be between 0 and 1. My question: I want to know what L is so if I were to substitute L for both vector equation (or two lines) they should give me the same intersection coordinates. That is if they intersect. But I can't wrap my head around on how to use this for two lines and find the parameter that fits the intersection point. Could someone with a simple example show how I could translate this to a function/method?

  Read the article

• Putting Together a Game Design Team?

  - by Kaia

  I'm attempting to put together a game design team that is willing to help me design/program, test, and somewhat produce the game we make to the public. I need anyone who knows anything about programming/coding, designing, etc. Once we get it up and running and out into the world (over dramatic maybe? haha) I have ideas of generating a profit from it so there is a possibility of payment. My thinking on it (so far) is this: 2D (possibly. I haven't decided if I want it 2D or 3D. It really depends on what is easier) 3rd person. Adventure (I want there to be a point to it, but like a point with no real end) I want there to be a story to it. If you've ever played Dofus, think like that. There is a story to the game, but no real end. I want (if possible) to include mini-games. These could end up becoming a possible way for a player to aquire in-game money, quest items, etc. If anyone is interested in helping me create the story line/script (which we will finsih first, before creating the game) please contact me. I want to get this completed as soon as possible.

  Read the article

• Must all AI states be able to react to any event?

  - by Prog

  FSMs implemented with the State design pattern are a common way to design AI agents. I am familiar with the State design pattern and know how to implement it. How is this used in games to design AI agents? Consider a simplified class Monster, representing an AI agent: class Monster { State state; // other fields omitted public void update(){ // called every game-loop cycle state.execute(this); } public void setState(State state){ this.state = state; } // irrelevant stuff omitted } There are several State subclasses implementing execute() differently. So far, classic State pattern. AI agents are subject to environmental effects and other objects communicating with them. For example, an AI agent might tell another AI agent to attack (i.e. agent.attack()). Or a fireball might tell an AI agent to fall down. This means that the agent must have methods such as attack() and fallDown(), or commonly some message receiving mechanism to understand such messages. With an FSM, the current State of the agent should be the one taking care of such method calls - i.e. the agent delegates to the current state upon every event. Is this correct? If correct, how is this done? Are all states obligated by their superclass to implement methods such as attack(), fallDown() etc., so the agent can always delegate to them on almost every event? Or is it done in some other way?

  Read the article

• How do I separate model positions from view positions in MVC?

  - by tieTYT

  Using MVC in games (as opposed to web apps) always confuses me when it comes to the view. How am I supposed to keep the model agnostic of how the view is presenting things? I always end up giving the Model a position that holds x and y but invariably, these values end up being in units of pixels and that feels wrong. I can see the advantage* of avoiding that but how am I supposed to? This idea was suggested: Don't think of it in units of pixels, think of them in arbitrary distance units that just happen map to pixels at a 1:1 ratio. Oh, the resolution is half of what it was? We are now taking the x/y coordinates at 50% value for screen display, and your spells casting range is still 300 units long, which now is 150 pixels. But those numbers conveniently work out. What do I do if the numbers divide in such a way that I get decimal places? Floating points are unsafe. I think allowing decimal places would eventually cause really weird bugs in my game. *It'd let me write the model once and write different views depending on the device.

  Read the article

• Separate collision mesh model?

  - by Menno Gouw

  I want to have another go at 3D within XNA. What I have seen from some other games that they just have a separate very low poly model "cage" around the environment model. However I can not find any reference to this. I have not that much experience with XNA 3D either. Is it possible to have this cage within each of my environmental models already? Lets just say I call the mesh within the .FBX wall and col_wall. How would I call to these different meshes within XNA? The player would just have a tight collision cube around. To make it a bit more efficient I will be making divide the map up by cubes and only calculate collision if the player is in it. Question two: I can't find anywhere to do cube vs mesh collision. Is there a method for this? Or perhaps it is possible to build my collision cage out of cubes in the 3D app and on loading of the models in XNA replace them directly by cubes? So I could just do box to box collision which should be very cheap and still give the player the ability to move over ledges on the static models.

  Read the article

• Is it possible to generate Events and Hooks in Lua for any game without built-in support?

  - by pr0tocol

  Does a game have to have built-in functions to accept and run lua scripts, or can I design Events and Hooks using Lua on any game I please, akin to the days where C code could be used to hook into the WinAPI using dlls? The reason I ask is, I am trying to create a background application that will perform events and hooks on a particular game that does not currently support lua in-game. Brief examples: Events: - An action executed by the PLAYER is detected. For instance, hitting the Q key will normally make my character use an ability, but with my Lua script running in the background, will cause a sound to play on my computer (or something). Hooks: - An action within the GAME is detected. For instance, the game spawns an enemy every minute. When an enemy spawns, the script will detect this and perform an action, for instance playing a sound locally on the computer. I would like to do both, but I know for games like Garry's Mod, the game already has built-in support for running lua scripts. Is there a way to do either events OR hooks using lua similarly to how C/C++ can connect to a game using WinAPI dlls?

  Read the article

• Ranking players depending on decision making during a game

  - by tabchas

  How would I go about a ranking system for players that play a game? Basically, looking at video games, players throughout the game make critical decisions that ultimately impact the end game result. Is there a way or how would I go about a way to translate some of those factors (leveling up certain skills, purchasing certain items, etc.) into something like a curve that can be plotted on a graph? This game that I would like to implement this is League of Legends. Example: Player is Level 1 in the beginning. Gets a kill very early in the game (he gets gold because of the kill and it increases his "power curve"), and purchases attack damage (gives him more damage which also increases his "power curve". However, the player that he killed (Player 2), buys armor (counters attack damage). This slightly increases Player 2's own power curve, and reduces Player 1's power curve. There's many factors I would like to take into account. These relative factors (example: BECAUSE Player 2 built armor, and I am mainly attack damage, it lowers my OWN power curve) seem the hardest to implement. My question is this: Is there a certain way to approach this task? Are there similar theoretical concepts behind ranking systems that I should read up on? I've seen the ELO system, but it doesn't seem what I want since it simply takes into account wins and losses.

  Read the article

• techniques for displaying vehicle damage

  - by norca

  I wonder how I can displaying vehicle damage. I am talking about an good way to show damage on screen. Witch kind of model are common in games and what are the benefits of them. What is state of the art? One way i can imagine is to save a set of textures (normal/color/lightmaps, etc) to a state of the car (normal, damage, burnt out) and switch or blending them. But is this really good without changing the model? Another way i was thinking about is preparing animations for different locations on my car, something like damage on the front, on the leftside/rightside or on the back. And start blending the specific animation. But is this working with good textures? Whats about physik engines? Is it usefull to use it for deforming vertexdata? i think losing parts of my car (doors, sirens, weapons) can looks really nice. my game is a kind of rts in a top down view. vehicles are not the really most importend units (its no racing game), but i have quite a lot in. thx for help

  Read the article

• Web application interacts bi-directional with server program?

  - by Roelof Berkepeis

  I want to write a web application to play chess against the engine Crafty. I'm not new to PHP and javascript, but must learn how to interact with a server process : how can a web application and/or (jQuery) ajax interact bi-directionally with a (linux) program running on the server? At this moment i am developing on (Apache) local host. Crafty is installed on my Ubuntu PC. This well-known chess engine has no GUI, it runs in terminal by the command $ /usr/games/crafty and so you can play chess against it and even see it's calculations. I can make Crafty run by PHP, using the functions proc_open() or exec(), and most documentation i found states that the output stream should be a file .. But i think i don't want such setup, because then the webpage should be constanty polling that file (eg. by ajax) to see if some new data was appended, right? How can Crafty talk to the web page directly, saying "i have calculated another variation" or "i have decided a move" etc, then display this info on the web page and let the user give some counter move, just like in terminal. Isn't it possible to use some session / stream / listener? I have no clue at all, can anybody point me in a right direction?

  Read the article

• What are all the components of a "Facebook App"?

  - by pnongrata

  I am a developer who has never personally partaken in social media (in any form) for reasons completely outside the scope of this question. I am "off the grid" (no Facebook, Twitter, etc accounts). I'm currently building a web app and would like the app to have a presence on Facebook, and possibly even "port" my app over as a Facebook app. My understanding of Facebook Apps is that they're just normal web apps that get <iframe>d into a Facebook page. The app is actually hosted on your server (not FB's servers). But this got me thinking: Don't Facebook Apps have "profile pages"? Is there anything developers can do to customize the behavior of their own profile pages? Do apps have the ability to do things like MySpace themes used to do (i.e., customize and interact with User profile pages, Groups, etc.)? Do Facebook Apps gain any sort of extra capabilities (inside of Facebook) that a normal web app would not have? It seems to me like if all a Facebook App is, is an iframed-web app, that it would still need to communicate with Facebook via its many APIs, just like a normal app would have to, right? If it's not possible to write an app that can customize the UI or behavior of user profiles and other pages, then how do games like "Farmville" interact with User profiles so that you see updates to profiles like "John Smith reached level 2 of Farmville"? Basically, I'm asking any battle-worn Facebook app developers if my understanding of Facebook Apps is correct, or if I'm missing anything big here. It's my understanding that for security reasons (obviously) Facebook doesn't allow apps to customize anything outside of the iframe it lives in. So if I want my app to appear like it's "interacting" with its Facebook users, it looks like I just need to publish stuff to the users' news feeds to try and encourage people to use my app (please correct me if I'm wrong here!). Thanks in advance for any corrections, clarifications, advice or suggestions!

  Read the article

• Costs/profit of/when starting an indie company

  - by Jack

  In short, I want to start a game company. I do not have much coding experience (just basic understanding and ability to write basic programs), any graphics design experience, any audio mixing experience, or whatever else technical. However, I do have a lot of ideas, great analytical skills and a very logical approach to life. I do not have any friends who are even remotely technical (or creative in regards to games for that matter). So now that we've cleared that up, my question is this: how much, minimally, would it cost me to start such a company? I know that a game could be developed in under half a year, which means it would have to operate for half a year prior, and that's assuming that the people working on the first project do their jobs good, don't leave game breaking bugs, a bunch of minor bugs, etc.. So how much would it cost me, and what would be the likely profit in half a year? I'm looking at minimal costs here, as to do it, I would have to sell my current apartment and buy a new, smaller one, pay taxes, and likely move to US/CA/UK to be closer to technologically advanced people (and be able to speak the language of course). EDIT: I'm looking at a small project for starters, not a huge AAA title.

  Read the article

• Where is he now?

  - by Chris G. Williams

  A couple months ago, I announced I was leaving Magenic in order to take a break from consulting. I figured I'd post an update as to what I'm doing now, since I haven't exactly been slacking off.1) I accepted a position as a Lead Developer with RealPage. I work on a number of internal use applications for a subsidiary known as LevelOne. The majority of my work is in ASP.NET, a surprising amount of VB.NET, some C# and I'm picking up a few new tools for my belt... specifically Python, MongoDB and Perl.2) I am still the owner of Big Robot Games, a retail game store / coffee shop in the South Carolina upstate region. I'm not as involved in the day to day activity as I was, but I'm there most nights and weekends, when I'm not off doing other things, like #3.3) I am on the staff of Rock Revolt Magazine as a journalist, covering live performances as well as interviewing bands, providing album & video game reviews, fixing the website and the occasional prison ink. (Just kidding on that last one.)4) In whatever time is leftover, I still manage to bang out a little code on Heroic Adventure! (aka HA!) and talk about Windows Phone, XNA and whatever else suits me, wherever they'll let me.I guess that's about it.

  Read the article

• Queueing up character actions

  - by TheBroodian

  I'm developing a 2D platformer with action-fighter elements. Currently things are working relatively smoothly but I'm having difficulty sorting something out. For the time, keeping my character's states and actions separated and preventing them from stepping on each others' toes is working out well and properly, but I would like to add a feature to my character to get him to behave a little bit more fluidly for the player. At the moment, he has numerous attacks and abilities that he can execute, all of them being executed with button presses. Here lies the problem: Being as everything is executed through button presses, while an action is in progress I flag the game to disregard further button presses until the action has completed. Therefore, consecutive actions cannot be performed until after the previous action has completed entirely. In runtime this behavior feels very icky, and very ungamelike. In games that rest most memorably at the forefront of my mind the player is able to execute button commands during the process of actions, and at the end of the current action, the following action is executed (seems like some sort of a queue system or something) Can anybody offer any guidance with this?

  Read the article

• Octrees and Vertex Buffer Objects

  - by sharethis

  As many others I want to code a game with a voxel based terrain. The data is represented by voxels which are rendered using triangles. I head of two different approaches and want to combine them. First, I could once divide the space in chunks of a fixed size like many games do. What I could do now is to generate a polygon shape for each chunk and store that in a vertex buffer object (vbo). Each time a voxel changes, the polygon and vbo of its chunk is recreated. Additionally it is easy to dynamically load and reload parts of the terrain. Another approach would be to use octrees and divide the space in eight cubes which are divided again and again. So I could efficiently render the terrain because I don't have to go deeper in a solid cube and can draw that as a single one (with a repeated texture). What I like to use for my game is an octree datastructure. But I can't imagine how to use vbos with that. How is that done, or is this impossible?

  Read the article

< Previous Page | 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134  | Next Page >