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• iPhone game center can't create sandbox account

  - by William Jockusch

  Whenever I try to create an account on the simulator or device, I get a message "game center account services are currently unavailable. Please try again later." Furthermore, I have never been able to sign in to the game center app on the simulator. Interestingly, if I reset my device with iTunes, I can then log in to the Game Center app with my regular apple id. But whenever if I log out, then try to create a sandbox account for an app I am developing, it always fails as described above. Any suggestions?

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• FFMPEG settings for Youtube and facebook video uploads

  - by eco_bach

  Can any FFMPEG experts share their preferred settings for video conversion to both Youtube and Facebook? For youtube I am following these guidelines and my video size is 480P @ 24 fps Audio Codec: AAC-LC Channels: Stereo or Stereo + 5.1<br> Sample rate 96khz or 48 khz<br> Video Codec: H.264 Progressive scan (no interlacing)<br> High Profile<br> 2 consecutive B frames<br> Closed GOP. GOP of half the frame rate.<br> CABAC<br> Variable bitrate. No bitrate limit required Color Space: 4.2.0 http://support.google.com/youtube/bin/static.py?hl=en&topic=1728573&guide=1728585&page=guide.cs

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• Recovered video files won't play

  - by BioGeek

  I have an SD card with pictures and video which malfunctioned. I was able to recover the files with Photorec. The pictures are OK, but wen I try to open the vide files (*.mov extension) in get the following errors when I try to open them in the following programs Windows Media player: "Windows Media Player encountered a problem while playing the file" Quicktime: "Error -2048: Couldn't open the file because it is not a file that QuickTime understands" VLC: it shows the first frame of the video and the sound is just white noise The filesizes look correct so I presume the data is still in there. Is there any way to fix these recovered video files?

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• Can't Connect To A Game Server

  - by Kirs Kringle

  I'm having issues connecting to a certain game server. The game is Space Engineers. I did a wireshark and the owner of the server did as well and it just tries to request and bind until it times out on the client of the game. Nothing is dropped or red it just doesn't connect to download data from the server. Other people are able to connect to the server just fine. I do not think it is an issue with the server, but what could it possibly be and what can I do to get rid of this problem? I've tried cleaning registry, shutting off windows firewall, restarting my computer, and most recently the wireshark. Thanks,

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• Is it possible to build a single game to run in Facebook & Google+?

  - by Songo

  I was asked by my customer to build a Facebook game. The game would be something similar to Mafiawars.com where the game is hosted on a server and run through a frame on Facebook. The thing is after several days of negotiations with the customer and near the finalization of the requirements he mentioned something strange. He said that if the game was successful on Facebook then we may add it to Google+ too. I thought he meant that we'll develop a new version for Google+, but he refused as he argued that the game should be able to support both sites and he won't pay for the same game twice. Now I haven't developed neither Facebook nor Google+ games before, so I don't know if it is possible to build a single Facebook/Google+ game. How would you react to such requirement? How would you design such an application? Notes I confirmed with the customer that he wasn't talking about using Open ID he wanted full integration (sharing post, friend requests,..etc.) I really don't want to lose that customer for numerous reasons (He even agreed to extend the project time to compensate for the time I need to learn Facebook/Google+ APIs)

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• How would I go about sharing variables in a class with Lua?

  - by Nicholas Flynt

  I'm fairly new to Lua, I've been working on trying to implement Lua scripting for logic in a Game Engine I'm putting together. I've had no trouble so far getting Lua up and running through the engine, and I'm able to call Lua functions from C and C functions from Lua. The way the engine works now, each Object class contains a set of variables that the engine can quickly iterate over to draw or process for physics. While game objects all need to access and manipulate these variables in order for the Game Engine itself to see any changes, they are free to create their own variables, a Lua is exceedingly flexible about this so I don't forsee any issues. Anyway, currently the Game Engine side of things are sitting in C land, and I really want them to stay there for performance reasons. So in an ideal world, when spawning a new game object, I'd need to be able to give Lua read/write access to this standard set of variables as part of the Lua object's base class, which its game logic could then proceed to run wild with. So far, I'm keeping two separate tables of objects in place-- Lua spawns a new game object which adds itself to a numerically indexed global table of objects, and then proceeds to call a C++ function, which creates a new GameObject class and registers the Lua index (an int) with the class. So far so good, C++ functions can now see the Lua object and easily perform operations or call functions in Lua land using dostring. What I need to do now is take the C++ variables, part of the GameObject class, and expose them to Lua, and this is where google is failing me. I've encountered a very nice method here which details the process using tags, but I've read that this method is deprecated in favor of metatables. What is the ideal way to accomplish this? Is it worth the hassle of learning how to pass class definitions around using libBind or some equivalent method, or is there a simple way I can just register each variable (once, at spawn time) with the global lua object? What's the "current" best way to do this, as of Lua 5.1.4?

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• How do I model teams and gameplay in this scorekeeping application?

  - by Eric Hill

  I'm writing a scorekeeping application for card game that has a few possibly-interesting constraints. The application accepts user registrations for players, then lets them check-in to a particular game (modeled as Event). After the final player registers, the app should generate teams, singles or doubles, depending on the preference of the person running the game and some validations (can't do doubles if there's an odd number checked in). There are @event.teams.count rounds in the game. To sum up: An event consists of `@event.teams.count` rounds; Teams can have 1 or more players Events have n or n/2 teams (depending on whether it's singles or doubles) Users will be members of different teams at different events Currently I have a rat's nest of associations: class User < ActiveRecord::Base has_many :teams, :through => :players has_many :events, :through => :teams class Event < ActiveRecord::Base has_many :rounds has_many :teams has_many :players, :through => :teams class Player < ActiveRecord::Base belongs_to :user belongs_to :team end class Team < ActiveRecord::Base has_many :players belongs_to :event end class Round < ActiveRecord::Base belongs_to :event belongs_to :user end The sticky part is team generation. I have basically a "start game" button that should freeze the registrations and pair up teams either singly or doubly, and render to Round#new so that the first (and subsequent) matches can be scored. Currently I'm implementing this as a check on Round#new that calls Event#generate_teams and displays the view: # Event#generate_teams def generate_teams # User has_many :events, :through => :registrations # self.doubles is a boolean denoting 2 players per team registrations.in_groups_of(self.doubles ? 2 : 1, nil).each do |side| self.teams << Player.create(self,side) end end Which doesn't work. Should there maybe be a Game model that ties everything together rather than (my current method) defining the game as an abstraction via the relationships between Events, Users, and Rounds (and Teams and Players and etc.)? My head is swimming.

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• How would I go about sharing variables in a C++ class with Lua?

  - by Nicholas Flynt

  I'm fairly new to Lua, I've been working on trying to implement Lua scripting for logic in a Game Engine I'm putting together. I've had no trouble so far getting Lua up and running through the engine, and I'm able to call Lua functions from C and C functions from Lua. The way the engine works now, each Object class contains a set of variables that the engine can quickly iterate over to draw or process for physics. While game objects all need to access and manipulate these variables in order for the Game Engine itself to see any changes, they are free to create their own variables, a Lua is exceedingly flexible about this so I don't forsee any issues. Anyway, currently the Game Engine side of things are sitting in C land, and I really want them to stay there for performance reasons. So in an ideal world, when spawning a new game object, I'd need to be able to give Lua read/write access to this standard set of variables as part of the Lua object's base class, which its game logic could then proceed to run wild with. So far, I'm keeping two separate tables of objects in place-- Lua spawns a new game object which adds itself to a numerically indexed global table of objects, and then proceeds to call a C++ function, which creates a new GameObject class and registers the Lua index (an int) with the class. So far so good, C++ functions can now see the Lua object and easily perform operations or call functions in Lua land using dostring. What I need to do now is take the C++ variables, part of the GameObject class, and expose them to Lua, and this is where google is failing me. I've encountered a very nice method here which details the process using tags, but I've read that this method is deprecated in favor of metatables. What is the ideal way to accomplish this? Is it worth the hassle of learning how to pass class definitions around using libBind or some equivalent method, or is there a simple way I can just register each variable (once, at spawn time) with the global lua object? What's the "current" best way to do this, as of Lua 5.1.4?

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• Getting Started with Boxee

  - by DigitalGeekery

  Boxee is a free Media PC application that runs on Windows, Mac, and Ubuntu Linux. With Boxee, you can integrate online video, music and pictures, with your own local media and social networking. Today we are going to take a closer look at Boxee and some of it’s features. Note: We used Windows 7 for this tutorial. Your experience on a Mac or Ubuntu Linux build may vary slightly. Hardware Requirements x86 (Intel/AMD processor) based system running at 1.0GHz or greater 512MB system memory (RAM) or more Video card capable of OpenGL 1.4, Direct X 9.0 Software Requirements Mac OS X 10.4+ (Intel based processor) Ubuntu Linux 9.04+ x86 only Windows XP / Vista / 7 (64 bit in Vista or 7) Installing Boxee Before downloading and installing Boxee, you’ll need to register for a free account. (See link below) Once your account is registered and verified, you’ll be able to log in and download the application. Installation is pretty straightforward…just take the defaults. Boxee will open in full screen mode and you’ll be prompted to login with your username and password. Before you login, you may want to take a moment to click on the “Guide” icon and learn a bit about navigating in Boxee. Some basic keyboard navigation is as follows. Move right, left, up, & down with the arrow keys. Hit “Enter” to make a selection, the forward slash key “\” to toggle between full screen and windowed mode, and “Esc” to go back to the previous screen. For Playback, the volume is controlled by plus & minus (+/-) keys, you can Play / Pause using the spacebar, and skip using the arrow keys. Boxee will also work with any infrared remote. If you have an iPhone or iPod Touch you can download software to enable them as a Boxee remote. If you’re using a mouse and keyboard, hover over the username and password boxes to enter your login credentials. If using a a remote, click your OK button and enter credentials with the on screen keyboard. Click “Done” when finished.   When you are ready to login, enter your credentials and click “Login.” On first login, you’ll be prompted to calibrate your screen. If you choose “Skip” you can always calibrate your screen later under Settings > Appearance > Screen. When Boxee opens, you’ll be greeted by the Home screen. To the left will be your Feeds. This will be any recommended content from friends on Boxee, and social networks such as Facebook and Twitter. Although, when you first login, it will mainly be info from the Boxee staff. You’ll have “Featured” content in the center and your Queue on the right. You’ll also have the Menu along the top.   Pop Up Menu The Pop Menu can be accessed by hitting the “Esc” key, or back on your remote. Depending on where you are located in Boxee, you may have to hit it a few time to “back out” to the Pop Up menu. From the Pop Up Menu, you can easily access any of the resources, settings, and favorites. Queue The Queue is your playlist of TV shows, movies, or Internet videos you wish to watch. When you find an offering you’d like to watch, select it and then click “Add to Queue.” The selected item will be added to your Queue and can be accessed at any time from the Menu. TV Show Library The TV Show library can contain files from your local hard drive or streaming content from the Web. Boxee pulls content from a variety of online locations such as Hulu and TV network sites. Click on the show to see which specific episodes are currently available. To search for your favorite shows, click on the yellow arrow to the left, or navigate to the left with your keyboard or remote. Enter your selection into the search box. My Apps By default, the “My Apps” section includes a list of the most popular apps, such as Netflix, Pandora, YouTube, and others. You can remove Apps from “My Apps,” or add new Apps from the Apps Library.   To access all the available Apps, click on the left arrow button, or click on the yellow arrow at the left, then select “App Library.” Choose an App from the Library and click it to open… … and then select “Add to My Apps.” Or, you can click start to play the App if you don’t wish to Add it to your “My Apps.”   Music, Pictures, and Movies Boxee will scan your PC for movies, pictures, and music. You can choose to scan specific folders by clicking on “Scan Media Folders…” … or from the Pop Up Menu, selecting Settings > Media, and then browsing for your media.   Conclusion Boxee to be a great way to integrate your local media with online streaming content. It can be run as an application on your home PC, or as a stand alone media PC. It should also be noted, however, that your access to online content will vary depending on your country. If you are a Windows Media Center user and and want to add the additional features of Boxee, check out our article on integrating Boxee with Windows 7 Media Center. Download Boxee Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Integrate Boxee with Media Center in Windows 7Disable Fast User Switching on Windows XPOops! Sorry About the Feed ErrorsDisplay a list of Started Services from the Command Line (Windows)Feedburner to Google: Worst Transition Ever. 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• How to Manage Your Movies in Boxee

  - by DigitalGeekery

  Boxee is a free cross platform HTPC application that plays media locally and via the Internet. Today we’ll take a look at how to manage your local movie collection in Boxee. Note: We are using the most recent version of Boxee running on Windows 7. Your experience on an earlier version or a Mac or Linux build may vary slightly. If you are using an earlier version of Boxee, we recommend you update to the current version (0.9.21.11487). The latest update features significant improvements in file and media identification. Naming your Movie Files Proper file naming is important for Boxee to correctly identify your movie files. Before you get started you may want to take some time to name your files properly. Boxee supports the following naming conventions: Lawrence of Arabia.avi Lawrence.of.Arabia.avi Lawrence of Arabia (1962).avi Lawrence.of.Arabia(1962).avi For multi-part movies, you can use .part or .cd to identify first and second parts of the movie. Gettysburg.part1.avi Gettysburg.part2.avi If you are unsure of the correct title of the movie, check with IMDB.com. Supported File Types Boxee supports the following video file types and codecs: AVI, MPEG, WMV, ASF, FLV, MKV, MOV, MP4, M4A, AAC, NUT, Ogg, OGM, RealMedia RAM/RM/RV/RA/RMVB, 3gp, VIVO, PVA, NUV, NSV, NSA, FLI, FLC, and DVR-MS (beta support) CDs, DVDs, VCD/SVCD MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4 (SP and ASP, including DivX, XviD, 3ivx, DV, H.263), MPEG-4 AVC (aka H.264), HuffYUV, Indeo, MJPEG, RealVideo, QuickTime, Sorenson, WMV, Cinepak Adding Movie Files to Boxee Boxee will automatically scan your default media folders and add any movie files to My Movies. Boxee will attempt to identify the media and check sources on the web to get data like cover art and other metadata. You can add as many sources to Boxee as you like from your local hard drive, external hard drives or from your network. You will need to make sure you have access to shared folders on the networked computer hosting the media you want to share. You can browse for other folders to scan by selecting Scan Media Folders.   You can also add media files by selecting Settings from the Home screen… Then select Media… and then selecting Add Sources. Browse for your directory and select Add source. Next, you’ll need to select the media type and the type of scanning. You can also change the share name if you’d like. When finished, select Add. You should see a quick notification at the top of the screen that the source was added.   Select Scan source to have Boxee to begin scanning your media files and attempt to properly identify them. Your movies may not show up instantly in My Movies. It will take Boxee some time to fully scan your sources, especially if you have a large collection. Eventually you should see My Movies begin to populate with cover art and metadata.   You can see the progress and find unidentified files by clicking on the yellow arrow to the left, or navigating to the left with your keyboard or remote and selecting Manage Sources.   Here you can see how many files (if any) Boxee failed to identify. To see which titles are unresolved, select Unidentified Files.   Here you’ll find your unresolved files. Select one of the unidentified files to search for the proper movie information. Next, select the Indentify Video icon. Boxee will fill in the title of the file or you edit the title yourself in the text box. Click Search. The results of your search will be displayed. Scroll through and select the title that fits your movie. Check the details of the film to make sure you have the correct title and select Done.   Fixing Incorrectly Indentified Files If you find a movie has been incorrectly identified you can correct it manually. Select the movie. Then search for the correct movie title from the list and select it. When you’re sure you found the correct movie, click Done. Filtering your Movies You can filter your movie collection by genre, or by whether it has been marked as watched or unwatched. When you’ve finished watching a movie, Boxee will mark it as watched.   You can also manually mark a title as watched.   Boxee also features a wide variety of genres by which you can filter the titles in your library. Playing your Movie When you’re ready to start watching a movie, simply select your title.   From here, you can select the “i” icon to read more information about the movie, add it to your queue, or add a shortcut. Click Local File to begin playing.   Now you’re ready to enjoy your movie. If you don’t have a large movie collection or just need more selection, you may want to check out the Netflix App for Boxee. Looking for a Boxee remote? Check out the iPhone App for Boxee. Links Download Boxee IMDB.com Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Watch Netflix Instant Movies in BoxeeIntegrate Boxee with Media Center in Windows 7Customize the Background in BoxeeUse your iPhone or iPod Touch as a Boxee RemoteGetting Started with Boxee TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips HippoRemote Pro 2.2 Xobni Plus for Outlook All My Movies 5.9 CloudBerry Online Backup 1.5 for Windows Home Server What is HTML5? Default Programs Editor – One great tool for Setting Defaults Convert BMP, TIFF, PCX to Vector files with RasterVect Free Identify Fonts using WhatFontis.com Windows 7’s WordPad is Actually Good Greate Image Viewing and Management with Zoner Photo Studio Free

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• How to make game sessions like "with friends" games?

  - by Miguel lugo

  I want to make a game like "words with friends" or "chess with friends" or "Draw Something" or any of the other online multiplayer type games that are based around friends having game sessions with each other. I have made one app before that had no online features so I know the basics of objective-C and xCode. I looked up facebook connect so I know how to make friends find other friends to play with through Facebook. Just not how to make the gaming session. I only need my game to send a small array (or XML if it's better) of strings and integers from one iPhone to the other as each iPhone takes a turn. I'm NOT sending some complex video or anything like in "Draw Something." I was hoping someone could point me in the right direction (whether link to website or book or just a general idea) for how to do gaming sessions between two iPhones. I read this tutorial http://www.raywenderlich.com/3932/how-to-create-a-socket-based-iphone-app-and-server but it seems to be more about having two iPhones communicate over a server on a laptop or through the same wifi, not how to have iPhones game together over any Internet connection like in "with friends" games. I've tried to research this in other places but I'm never quite sure if what the articles I find are talking about is related to what I want or not. Someone please just point me in the right direction or give me a general outline of what to do. I will look up the specifics on my own once I know what to look for. Thank you.

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• Need help in determing what, if any, tools can be used to create a free Flash game

  - by ReaperOscuro

  Yes I proudly -and sadly- declare that I am a complete nincompoop when it comes to Flash, and I have been fishing around the big wide web for information. The reason for this is that I have been contracted to create a game(s) for a website -the usual flash-based games caveat. Please I do not mean things like by those gaming generator websites, I mean small yet professional games- but the caveat, as always, is that impossible dream: it needs to be done all for free. The budget...well imagine it as not there. Annoyingly is that I am a game designer yes, but with a ridiculously tight deadline I haven't got much time to re-learn (ah the heady days of programming at uni) everything by the end of March, so I'd like to ask some people who know their stuff rather than keep looking at a gazillion different things. This is my understanding: with the flash sdk you can create a game, albeit you need to be pretty programming savvy. FlashDevelop helps there -yet I am not entirely sure how. Yet even FD says to use Flash for the animation/graphics. Yes its undeniably powerful but as I said there is the unattainable demand of no money. The million dollar question: what, if any, tools can I use to create a free flash game?

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• Should I be using Lua for game logic on mobile devices?

  - by Rob Ashton

  As above really, I'm writing an android based game in my spare time (android because it's free and I've no real aspirations to do anything commercial). The game logic comes from a very typical component based model whereby entities exist and have components attached to them and messages are sent to and fro in order to make things happen. Obviously the layer for actually performing that is thin, and if I were to write an iPhone version of this app, I'd have to re-write the renderer and core driver (of this component based system) in Objective C. The entities are just flat files determining the names of the components to be added, and the components themselves are simple, single-purpose objects containing the logic for the entity. Now, if I write all the logic for those components in Java, then I'd have to re-write them on Objective C if I decided to do an iPhone port. As the bulk of the application logic is contained within these components, they would, in an ideal world, be written in some platform-agnostic language/script/DSL which could then just be loaded into the app on whatever platform. I've been led to believe however that this is not an ideal world though, and that Lua performance etc on mobile devices still isn't up to scratch, that the overhead is too much and that I'd run into troubles later if I went down that route? Is this actually the case? Obviously this is just a hypothetical question, I'm happy writing them all in Java as it's simple and easy get things off the ground, but say I actually enjoy making this game (unlikely, given how much I'm currently disliking having to deal with all those different mobile devices) and I wanted to make a commercially viable game - would I use Lua or would I just take the hit when it came to porting and just re-write all the code?

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• Is there a way to legally create a game mod?

  - by Rodrigo Guedes

  Some questions about it: If I create a funny version of a copyrighted game and sell it (crediting the original developers) would it be considered a parody or would I need to pay royalties? If I create a game mod for my own personal use would it be legal? What if I gave it for free to a friend? Is there a general rule about it or it depends on the developer will? P.S.: I'm not talking about cloning games like this question. It's all about a game clearly based on another. Something like "GTA Gotham City" ;) EDIT: This picture that I found over the internet illustrate what I'm talking about: Just in case I was not clear: I never created a mod game. I was just wondering if it would be legally possible before trying to do it. I'm not apologizing piracy. I pay dearly for my games (you guys have no idea how expensive games are in Brazil due to taxes). Once more I say that the question is not about cloning. Cloning is copy something and try to make your version look like a brand new product. Mods are intended to make reference to one or more of its source. I'm not sure if it can be done legally (if I knew I wasn't asking) but I'm sure this question is not a duplicate. Even so, I trust in the moderators and if they close my question I will not be offended - at least I had an opportunity to explain myself and got 1 good answer (by the time I write this, maybe some more will be given later).

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• Rendering a big game universe - bitmaps or vector graphics?

  - by user1641923

  I am new to an Android development, though I have much experience with Java, C++, PHP programming and a bit experience with vector graphics too (basic 3d Studio Max, Flash, etc). I am starting to work on an Android game. It is going to be a 2D space shooter/RPG, and I am not going to use any game engines and any 3D party libs. I really want to create a very large game universe, or even pseudo-infinite (without visible borders, as if it were a 2D projection of a sphere). It should include 10-12 clusters of 7-8 planets/other space objects and random amount of single asteroids/comets, which player can interact with and also not interactive background. I am looking for a least complicated aproach to create such a universe. My current ideas are: Simply create bitmaps with space scenery background so that they can be tiled seamlessly repeated and construct my 2D universe of this tiles, then place interactive objects (planets, other spaceships) on it. Using vector graphics. I would have a solid color background, some random background objects and gradients here and there. My problems here: Lack of knowledge of how well vector graphics is integrated in Android. Performance? Memory usage? Does Android manage big bitmaps well? Do all of the bitmaps have to be in memory during all game process? I am interested in technical details regarding each of the ideas and a suggestion, which I should go with.

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• What is the best type of c# timer to use with a Unity game that uses many timers simultaneously?

  - by Kyle Seidlitz

  I am developing a stand-alone 3d game in Unity that will have anywhere from 1 to 200 timers running simultaneously. There will be a GameObject containing 1 timer. For this game timer durations will range from 5 minutes to 4 days. There will not be any countdown displays or any UI for the timers. Each object is a prefab, with all the necessary materials included. An attached script will handle the timer and all the necessary code to change the materials and make any sound effects. Once the timer is expired, the user will then click on the object again, and the object will be destroyed, and the user's inventory will be adjusted. If the user wants to save or end the game before all the timers are done, the start value of the still running timers is to be saved to an XML file such that when the game is started again, any still running timers will be checked to see if they have expired, where the object's materials will be changed appropriately. I am still trying to figure out what type of timer to use, and see also if there are any suggestions for saving and calculating times over several days. What class(es) of timers should I use? Are there any special issues I should look out for in terms of performance?

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• Publishing a game -- any way to target both WP7 and Win8 Store?

  - by Rei Miyasaka

  I'm at a dilemma which seems should soon become an important issue for a lot of developers. If I build a game in XNA, I won't be able to publish it on the Windows 8 Store, as it would be a classic application -- and classic applications can't be sold on the store. If I build a game in Metro DirectX, I would be able to sell it on the Store, but porting it to Windows Phone would involve porting it to Reach XNA, which in fact would likely involve more effort even than porting to OS X or Android -- both of which support C++. Of all the WinRT API that is supported on C++/JS/.NET, DirectX can only be programmed from C++. It's also unlikely that Microsoft will update Windows 7 or Vista to support the new DirectX features, although that would make the Metro DirectX the first new version of DirectX to stop supporting the immediate predecessor OS. If I build a game in Pre-Win8 DirectX 9/10/11, I won't be able to sell it on the Windows Store or Windows Phone, but I could sell it on something like Steam. It would also involve the most amount of manual plumbing. In fact, DirectWrite, despite being part of DirectX 11, doesn't talk to Direct3D. I'm getting really tired of all these restrictions -- artificial and otherwise -- and I'm coming to a point where I'm considering switching to a platform with a less fragmented API, like Android or Mac/iOS. As far as bringing a game into market goes, excluding the actual market share of any platforms that I might consider, what other factors would help me in making a decision? Just a few years ago this question was a lot easier to answer: if you were primarily concerned with Windows platforms, all you had to answer was whether you wanted DirectX, XNA, or something like SlimDX. If you made the wrong decision, no biggie -- all you really would have lost is XBox and the fairly small Windows Phone market.

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• What is the breakdown of jobs in game development?

  - by Destry Ullrich

  There's a project I'm trying to start for Indie Game Development; specifically, it's going to be a social networking website that lets developers meet through (It's a secret). One of the key components is showing what skills members have. Question: I need to know what MAJOR game development roles are not represented in the following list, keeping in mind that many specialist roles are being condensed into more broad, generalist roles: Art Animator (Characters, creatures, props, etc.) Concept Artist (2D scenes, environments, props, silhouettes, etc.) Technical Artist (UI artists, typefaces, graphic designers, etc.) 3D Artist (Modeling, rigging, texture, lighting, etc.) Audio Composer (Scores, music, etc.) Sound Engineer (SFX, mood setting, audio implementation, etc.) Voice (Dialog, acting, etc.) Design Creative Director (Initial direction, team management, communications, etc.) Gameplay Designer (Systems, mechanics, control mapping, etc.) World Designer (Level design, aesthetics, game progression, events, etc.) Writer (Story, mythos, dialog, flavor text, etc.) Programming Engine Programming (Engine creation, scripting, physics, etc.) Graphics Engineer (Sprites, lighting, GUI, etc.) Network Engineer (LAN, multiplayer, server support, etc.) Technical Director (I don't know what a technical director would even do.) Post Script: I have an art background, so i'm not familiar with what the others behind game creation actually do. What's missing from this list, and if you feel some things should be changed around how so?

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• How to pause and resume a game in XNA using the same key?

  - by user13095

  I'm attempting to implement a really simple game state system, this is my first game - trying to make a Tetris clone. I'd consider myself a novice programmer at best. I've been testing it out by drawing different textures to the screen depending on the current state. The 'Not Playing' state seems to work fine, I press Space and it changes to 'Playing', but when I press 'P' to pause or resume the game nothing happens. I tried checking current and previous keyboard states thinking it was happening to fast for me to see, but again nothing seemed to happen. If I change either the pause or resume, so they're both different, it works as intended. I'm clearly missing something obvious, or completely lacking some know-how in regards to how update and/or the keyboard states work. Here's what I have in my Update method at the moment: protected override void Update(GameTime gameTime) { KeyboardState CurrentKeyboardState = Keyboard.GetState(); // Allows the game to exit if (CurrentKeyboardState.IsKeyDown(Keys.Escape)) this.Exit(); // TODO: Add your update logic here if (CurrentGameState == GameStates.NotPlaying) { if (CurrentKeyboardState.IsKeyDown(Keys.Space)) CurrentGameState = GameStates.Playing; } if (CurrentGameState == GameStates.Playing) { if (CurrentKeyboardState.IsKeyDown(Keys.P)) CurrentGameState = GameStates.Paused; } if (CurrentGameState == GameStates.Paused) { if (CurrentKeyboardState.IsKeyDown(Keys.P)) CurrentGameState = GameStates.Playing; } base.Update(gameTime); }

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• What's the best way to handle numerous recurring log entries in game loop?

  - by Kaa

  I have a custom logging system, use of which is scattered all over the engine and game. The system is linked to a "LogStore" that has an std::vector<string> logs[NUM_LOG_TYPES] - each vector corresponds with it's log type (info, error, debug, etc.). There's one extra std::vector that has "coordinates" to all log entries in the order they were received. Now, all the logging output is also displayed inside my development console in the game. The game console is handled by HTML-type GUI and therefore requires a new <p> element being added for each log output. My problem is that the log entries that are generated in the main loop each frame freeze the engine, because they continue to add elements to the in-game console, and if the console or guy generates a warning - that creates an infinite logging loop. I want to solve it by handling the recurring log entries in an elegant way that lets you know that something is critically wrong, but won't freeze the engine - like displaying the count of errors in the last 60 frames instead of displaying errors themselves. But how do you guys handle this? Does anyone know any nifty tricks to do this? I understand the question may sound vague, but if someone came across this type of issue I'm sure they would know exactly what's happening. Example problematic log entries: OpenGL warnings (I actually do check for errors every frame in many places) Really any prints anywhere in the main loop (may be debugging, may be warnings)

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• How should I structure the implementation of turn-based board game rules?

  - by Setzer22

  I'm trying to create a turn-based strategy game on a tilemap. I'm using design by component so far, but I can't find a nice way to fit components into the part I want to ask. I'm struggling with the "game rules" logic. That is, the code that displays the menu, allows the player to select units, and command them, then tells the unit game objects what to do given the player input. The best way I could thing of handling this was using a big state machine, so everything that could be done in a "turn" is handled by this state machine, and the update code of this state machine does different things depending on the state. However, this approach leads to a large amount of code (anything not model-related) going into a big class. Of course I can subdivide this big class into more classes, but it doesn't feel modular and upgradable enough. I'd like to know of better systems to handle this in order to be able to upgrade the game with new rules without having a monstruous if/else chain (or switch / case, for that matter). Any ideas? What specific design pattern other than MVC should I be using?

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• How should I implement multiple threads in a game? [duplicate]

  - by xerwin

  This question already has an answer here: Multi-threaded games best practices. One thread for 'logic', one for rendering, or more? 6 answers So I recently started learning Java, and having a interest in playing games as well as developing them, naturally I want to create game in Java. I have experience with games in C# and C++ but all of them were single-threaded simple games. But now, I learned how easy it is to make threads in Java, I want to take things to the next level. I started thinking about how would I actually implement threading in a game. I read couple of articles that say the same thing "Usually you have thread for rendering, for updating game logic, for AI, ..." but I haven't (or didn't look hard enough) found example of implementation. My idea how to make implementation is something like this (example for AI) public class AIThread implements Runnable{ private List<AI> ai; private Player player; /*...*/ public void run() { for (int i = 0; i < ai.size(); i++){ ai.get(i).update(player); } Thread.sleep(/* sleep until the next game "tick" */); } } I think this could work. If I also had a rendering and updating thread list of AI in both those threads, since I need to draw the AI and I need to calculate the logic between player and AI(But that could be moved to AIThread, but as an example) . Coming from C++ I'm used to do thing elegantly and efficiently, and this seems like neither of those. So what would be the correct way to handle this? Should I just keep multiple copies of resources in each thread or should I have the resources on one spot, declared with synchronized keyword? I'm afraid that could cause deadlocks, but I'm not yet qualified enough to know when a code will produce deadlock.

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• split video (avi/h264) on keyframe

  - by m.sr

  Hallo. I have a big video file. ffmpeg, tcprobe and other tool say, it is an h264-stream in an AVI-container. Now i'd like to cut out small chunks form the video. Problem: The index of the video seam corrupted/destroyed. I kind of fixed this via mplayer -forceidx -saveidx <IndexFile> <BigVideoFile>. The Problem here is, that I'm now stuck with mplayer/mencoder which can use this index file via -loadidx <IndexFile>. I have tried correcting the index like described in man aviindex (mplayer -frames 0 -saveidx mpidx broken.avi ; aviindex -i mpidx -o tcindex ; avimerge -x tcindex -i broken.avi -o fixed.avi), but this didn't fix my video - meaning that most tools i've tested couldn't search in the video file. Problem: I sut out parts of the video via following command: mencoder -loadidx in.idx -ss 8578 -endpos 20 -oac faac -ovc x264 -sws 9 -lavfopts format=mp4 -x264encopts <LotsOfOpts> -of lavf -vf scale=800:-10,harddup in.avi -o out.mp4. Now here the problem is, that some videos are corrupted at the beginning. I think this is because the fact, that i do not necessarily cut at keyframe. Questions: What is the best way to fix the index of an avi "inline" so that every tool can again work as expected with it? How can i split at the keyframes? Is there an mencoder-option for this? Are Keyframes coming in a frequency? How to find out this frequency? (So with a bit of math it should be possible to calculate the next keyframe and cut there) Is ther perhaps some completely other way to split this movie? Doing it by hand is no option, i've to cut out 1000+ chunks ... Thanks a lot!

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• Sudden issues reading uncompressed video using opencv

  - by JohnSavage

  I have been using a particular pipeline to process video using opencv to encode uncompressed video (fourcc = 0), and opencv python bindings to then open and work on these files. This has been working fine for me on OpenCV 2.3.1a on Ubuntu 11.10 until just a few days ago. For some reason it currently is only allowing me to read the first frame of a given file the first time I open that file. Further frames are not read, and once I touch the file once with my program, it then cannot even read the first frame. More detail: I created the uncompressed video files as follows: out_video.open(out_vid_name, 0, // FOURCC = 0 means record raw fps, Size(640, 480)) Again, these videos worked fine for me until about a week ago. Now, when I try to open one of these I get the following message (from what I think is ffmpeg): Processing video.avi Using network protocols without global network initialization. Please use avformat_network_init(), this will become mandatory later. [avi @ 0x29251e0] parser not found for codec rawvideo, packets or times may be invalid. It reads and displays the first frame fine, but then fails to read the next frame. Then, when I try to run my code on the same video, the capture still opens with the same message as above. However, it cannot even read the very first frame. Here is the code to open the capture: self.capture = cv2.VideoCapture(filename) if not self.capture.isOpened() print "Error: could not open capture" sys.exit() Again, this part is passed without any issue, but then the break happens at: success, rgb = self.capture.read() if not success: print "error: could not read frame" return False This part breaks at the second frame on the first run of the video file, and then on the first frame on subsequent runs. I really don't know where to even begin debugging this. Please help!

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• event listener says NetStream.Play.Start but I see no video

  - by Curtis

  I'm trying to test out the Adobe Media Server, and I'm following some tutorials in order to stream a video. I have a NetConnection which successfully connects to the application on the server, then I have the code below. It looks like it's supposed to play a video, but it doesn't. It creates the video object as a black square in the top left corner, and the event.info.code says NetStream.Play.Start, but I don't see the video playing. case "NetConnection.Connect.Success": var v:Video = new Video(); v.width=200; v.height=200; v.x=0; v.y=0; v.visible=true; v.opaqueBackground=false; stage.addChild(v); var ns:NetStream = new NetStream(nc); ns.addEventListener(NetStatusEvent.NET_STATUS,netStatusHandler); v.attachNetStream(ns); ns.play("mp4:polymorphics.f4v"); I can also try ns.play("rtmp://localhost/vod/mp4:tests/polymorphics.f4v"); but that gives me a Stream Not Found error The lines that begin with "ns" means that they're generated by my NetStream listener, as opposed to my NetConnection listener. Connecting... connected is: true event.info.level: status event.info.code: NetConnection.Connect.Success onReply recieved value: Hello, World! ns connected is: true ns event.info.level: status ns event.info.code: NetStream.Play.Reset ns connected is: true ns event.info.level: status ns event.info.code: NetStream.Play.Start

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