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  • Is there a way to export all the images of my tweening effect in Flash?

    - by Paul
    i'm using Flash to create the animation of my character in 2D (i'm just beginning). Is it possible to make a tween effect of a character, and then automatically export all the images/frames? So far, it's a bit fastidious : i create my tweening effect, then i put a keyframe for each frame i want to copy and paste, then i select the movieclips and shapes and copy and paste them into another flash document, i position those clips at the exact same location as the previous image, then i erase the previous image and export the image... For 30 frames! Is there any faster way? Thanks

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  • Which Open Source Licenses can address concerns for an Open Source Game Engine?

    - by Chris
    I am on a team that is looking to open source an engine we are building. It's intended as an engine for Online RPG style games. We're writing it to work on both desktops and android platforms. I've been over to the OSI http://opensource.org/licenses/category to check out the most common licenses. However, this will be my first time going into an open source project and I wanted to know if the community had some insight into which licenses might be best suited. Key licensing concerns: Removing or limiting our liability (most already seem to cover this, but stating for completeness). We want other developers to be able to take part or all of our project and use it in their own projects with proper accreditation to our project. Licensing should not hinder someone's ability to quickly use the engine. They should be able to download a release and start using it without needing to wait on licensing issues. Game content (gfx, sound, etc.) that is not part of the engine should be allowed to be licensed separately. If someone is using our engine, they can retain full copy right of their content, including engine generated data. Our primary goal is exposure, which is why we're going open source to start with. Both for the project and for the individuals developing it. Are there any licenses that can require accreditation visible to players? While I'd put our primary goal as exposure, for licensing the accreditation is less of a concern. From what I've read through (and have been able to understand) it doesn't seem like any of the licenses cover anything that is produced by the licensed software. Are there any that state this specifically, or does simply not mentioning it leave it open for other licensing? Are there any other concerns that we should consider? Has anyone had any issues using any of these licenses?

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  • Isometric algorithm producing tiles in wrong draw order

    - by David
    I've been toying with isometric and I just cant get the tiles to be in the right order. I'm probably missing something obvious and I just can't see it. Even at the risk of looking stupid, here's my code: for (int i = 0; i < Tile.MapSize; i++) { for (int j = 0; j < Tile.MapSize; j++) { spriteBatch.Draw( Tile.TileSetTexture, new Rectangle( (-j * Tile.TileWidth / 2) + (i * Tile.TileWidth / 2), (i * (Tile.TileHeight - 9) / 2) - (-j * (Tile.TileHeight - 9) / 2), Tile.TileWidth, Tile.TileHeight), Tile.GetSourceRectangle(tileID), Color.White, 0.0f, new Vector2(-350, -60), SpriteEffects.None, 1.0f); } } And here's what I end up with: messed up map Yep, bit of an issue. If anyone could help, I'd appreciate it.

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  • XNA texture stretching at extreme coordinates

    - by Shaun Hamman
    I was toying around with infinitely scrolling 2D textures using the XNA framework and came across a rather strange observation. Using the basic draw code: spriteBatch.Begin(SpriteSortMode.Deferred, null, SamplerState.PointWrap, null, null); spriteBatch.Draw(texture, Vector2.Zero, sourceRect, Color.White, 0.0f, Vector2.Zero, 2.0f, SpriteEffects.None, 1.0f); spriteBatch.End(); with a small 32x32 texture and a sourceRect defined as: sourceRect = new Rectangle(0, 0, Window.ClientBounds.Width, Window.ClientBounds.Height); I was able to scroll the texture across the window infinitely by changing the X and Y coordinates of the sourceRect. Playing with different coordinate locations, I noticed that if I made either of the coordinates too large, the texture no longer drew and was instead replaced by either a flat color or alternating bands of color. Tracing the coordinates back down, I found the following at around (0, -16,777,000): As you can see, the texture in the top half of the image is stretched vertically. My question is why is this occurring? Certainly I can do things like bind the x/y position to some low multiple of 32 to give the same effect without this occurring, so fixing it isn't an issue, but I'm curious about why this happens. My initial thought was perhaps it was overflowing the coordinate value or some such thing, but looking at a data type size chart, the next closest below is an unsigned short with a range of about 32,000, and above is an unsigned int with a range of around 2,000,000,000 so that isn't likely the cause.

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  • Sharing VBO with multiple objects and fixed size buffer data

    - by Mark Ingram
    I'm just messing around with OpenGL and getting some basic structures in place and my first attempt resulted in each SceneObject class (just contains vertex information right now) having it's own VBO inside it, however I've read that it might be better to share VBOs across multiple objects. Also, I read that you should avoid resizing a VBO (repeated calls to glBufferData with different size parameters), and instead choose a fixed size for a VBO, and just try a range from the buffer. I don't think changing the size of the buffer data would happen too often, but surely it would be better to only allocate the data you need? Choosing an arbitrary value seems risky. I'm looking for some advice on working with individual objects in a scene and their associated buffer data.

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  • Is it normal to these Xcode prompts/errors when you deploy to IOS Simulator from Unity?

    - by Greg
    Just trying out the IOS build process.... Is it normal to see: Q1 - "upgrade to latest project format - project currently in Xcode 3.1 format, this will upgrade to 3.2" - just click OK and let Xcode do it's stuff? Q2 - same as Q1 but this time for the message "Remove obsolete build settings - will remove the build setting PREBINDING" Q3 - also when deploying to "Lastest IOS Simulator" you get the Simulator target produced, but also a non-simulator target which has lots of errors. So I assume you just ignore this target and not use it in Xcode correct? (i.e. just use the simulator target that is produced) Q4 - get a lot of warning after the simulator target is built? program works ok however.... Images For Q1 and Q2: For Q4: Settings used in Unity: Errors I see in XCode:

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  • glGetActiveAttrib on Android NDK

    - by user408952
    In my code-base I need to link the vertex declarations from a mesh to the attributes of a shader. To do this I retrieve all the attribute names after linking the shader. I use the following code (with some added debug info since it's not really working): int shaders[] = { m_ps, m_vs }; if(linkProgram(shaders, 2)) { ASSERT(glIsProgram(m_program) == GL_TRUE, "program is invalid"); int attrCount = 0; GL_CHECKED(glGetProgramiv(m_program, GL_ACTIVE_ATTRIBUTES, &attrCount)); int maxAttrLength = 0; GL_CHECKED(glGetProgramiv(m_program, GL_ACTIVE_ATTRIBUTE_MAX_LENGTH, &maxAttrLength)); LOG_INFO("shader", "got %d attributes for '%s' (%d) (maxlen: %d)", attrCount, name, m_program, maxAttrLength); m_attrs.reserve(attrCount); GLsizei attrLength = -1; GLint attrSize = -1; GLenum attrType = 0; char tmp[256]; for(int i = 0; i < attrCount; i++) { tmp[0] = 0; GL_CHECKED(glGetActiveAttrib(m_program, GLuint(i), sizeof(tmp), &attrLength, &attrSize, &attrType, tmp)); LOG_INFO("shader", "%d: %d %d '%s'", i, attrLength, attrSize, tmp); m_attrs.append(String(tmp, attrLength)); } } GL_CHECKED is a macro that calls the function and calls glGetError() to see if something went wrong. This code works perfectly on Windows 7 using ANGLE and gives this this output: info:shader: got 2 attributes for 'static/simplecolor.glsl' (3) (maxlen: 11) info:shader: 0: 7 1 'a_Color' info:shader: 1: 10 1 'a_Position' But on my Nexus 7 (1st gen) I get the following (the errors are the output from the GL_CHECKED macro): I/testgame:shader(30865): got 2 attributes for 'static/simplecolor.glsl' (3) (maxlen: 11) E/testgame:gl(30865): 'glGetActiveAttrib(m_program, GLuint(i), sizeof(tmp), &attrLength, &attrSize, &attrType, tmp)' failed: INVALID_VALUE [jni/src/../../../../src/Game/Asset/ShaderAsset.cpp:50] I/testgame:shader(30865): 0: -1 -1 '' E/testgame:gl(30865): 'glGetActiveAttrib(m_program, GLuint(i), sizeof(tmp), &attrLength, &attrSize, &attrType, tmp)' failed: INVALID_VALUE [jni/src/../../../../src/Game/Asset/ShaderAsset.cpp:50] I/testgame:shader(30865): 1: -1 -1 '' I.e. the call to glGetActiveAttrib gives me an INVALID_VALUE. The opengl docs says this about the possible errors: GL_INVALID_VALUE is generated if program is not a value generated by OpenGL. This is not the case, I added an ASSERT to make sure glIsProgram(m_program) == GL_TRUE, and it doesn't trigger. GL_INVALID_OPERATION is generated if program is not a program object. Different error. GL_INVALID_VALUE is generated if index is greater than or equal to the number of active attribute variables in program. i is 0 and 1, and the number of active attribute variables are 2, so this isn't the case. GL_INVALID_VALUE is generated if bufSize is less than 0. Well, it's not zero, it's 256. Does anyone have an idea what's causing this? Am I just lucky that it works in ANGLE, or is the nvidia tegra driver wrong?

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  • Unity3D : Retry Menu (Scene Management)

    - by user3666251
    I'm making a simple 2D game for Android using the Unity3D game engine. I created all the levels and everything but I'm stuck at making the game over/retry menu. So far I've been using new scenes as a game over menu. I used this simple script: #pragma strict var level = Application.LoadLevel; function OnCollisionEnter(Collision : Collision) { if(Collision.collider.tag == "Player") { Application.LoadLevel("GameOver"); } } And this as a 'menu': #pragma strict var myGUISkin : GUISkin; var btnTexture : Texture; function OnGUI() { GUI.skin = myGUISkin; if (GUI.Button(Rect(Screen.width/2-60,Screen.height/2+30,100,40),"Retry")) Application.LoadLevel("Easy1"); if (GUI.Button(Rect(Screen.width/2-90,Screen.height/2+100,170,40),"Main Menu")) Application.LoadLevel("MainMenu"); } The problem stands at the part where I have to create over 200 game over scenes, obstacles (the objects that kill the player) and recreate the same script over 200 times for each level. Is there any other way to make this faster and less painful?

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  • Trying to figure out SDL pixel manipulation?

    - by NoobScratcher
    Hello so I've found code that plots a pixel in an SDL Screen Surface : void putpixels(int x, int y, int color) { unsigned int *ptr = (unsigned int*)Screen->pixels; int lineoffset = y * (Screen->pitch / 4 ); ptr[lineoffset + x ] = color; } But I have no idea what its actually doing here this is my thoughts. You make an unsigned integer to hold the unsigned int version of pixels then you make another integer to hold the line offset and it equals to multiply by pitch which is then divided by 4 ... Now why am I dividing it by 4 and what is the pitch and why do I multiply it?? Why must I change the lineoffset and add it to the x value then equal it to colors? I'm soo confused.. ;/ I found this function here - http://sol.gfxile.net/gp/ch02.html

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  • Detecting extremely fast joystick button presses?

    - by DBRalir
    Is it usually possible for the player to press and release a button within a single frame, so that the game engine doesn't have time to detect it? How do programmers usually handle this situation? Is it even necessary to handle it? Specifically, I am asking about GLFW's joystick input capabilities. I am currently using GLFW to make a game, and I've noticed that keyboard and mouse have callback functions, while joysticks do not. Also, it does not appear to be possible to enable "sticky keys" for a joystick. (I have only recently started using GLFW, so please correct me if I am wrong, as having either of those would solve the problem.)

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  • Deferred Rendering With Diffuse,Specular, and Normal maps

    - by John
    I have been reading up on deferred rendering and I am trying to implement a renderer using the Sponza atrium model, which can be found here, as my sandbox.Note I am also using OpenGL 3.3 and GLSL. I am loading the model from a Wavefront OBJ file using Assimp. I extract all geometry information including tangents and bitangents. For all the aiMaterials,I extract the following information which essentially comes from the sponza.mtl file. Ambient/Diffuse/Specular/Emissive Reflectivity Coefficients(Ka,Kd,Ks,Ke) Shininess Diffuse Map Specular Map Normal Map I understand that I must render vertex attributes such as position ,normals,texture coordinates to textures as well as depth for the second render pass. A lot of resources mention putting colour information into a g-buffer in the initial render pass but do you not require the diffuse,specular and normal maps and therefore lights to determine the fragment colour? I know that doesnt make since sense because lighting should be done in the second render pass. In terms of normal mapping, do you essentially just pass the tangent,bitangents, and normals into g-buffers and then construct the tangent matrix and apply it to the sampled normal from the normal map. Ultimately, I would like to know how to incorporate this material information into my deferred renderer.

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  • Continuous Movement of gun bullet

    - by Siddharth
    I was using box2d for the movement of the body. When I apply gravity (0,0) the bullet continuously move but when I change gravity to the earth the behavior was changed. I also try to apply continuous force to the bullet body but the behavior was not so good. So please provide any suggestion to continuously move bullet body in earth gravity. currentVelocity = bulletBody.getLinearVelocity(); if (currentVelocity.len() < speed|| currentVelocity.len() > speed + 0.25f) { velocityChange = Math.abs(speed - currentVelocity.len()); currentVelocity.set(currentVelocity.x* velocityChange, currentVelocity.y*velocityChange); bulletBody.applyLinearImpulse(currentVelocity,bulletBody.getWorldCenter()); } I apply above code for the continuous velocity of the body. And also I did not able to find any setGravityScale method in the library.

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  • Implementing top view physics using box2D

    - by humbleBee
    How can top view physics games be done in box2D? One idea I have is to set the linear velocity of an object manually or to alter the linear and angular damping as my object moves over different surfaces. For example if my object is over a wet surface it'll have less linear damping and if it is over rough surface it'll have more damping. And to see if my object has fallen over an edge I'll try to use an AABB and check if its still inside or manually see if object.x > boundary.x etc. Is there any better way?

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  • Dynamic Dijkstra

    - by Dani
    I need dynamic dijkstra algorithm that can update itself when edge's cost is changed without a full recalculation. Full recalculation is not an option. I've tryed to "brew" my own implemantion with no success. I've also tryed to find on the Internet but found nothing. A link to an article explaining the algorithm or even it's name will be good. Edit: Thanks everyone for answering. I managed to make algorithm of my own that runs in O(V+E) time, if anyone wishes to know the algorithm just say so and I will post it.

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  • Zelda-style Top-down RPG. Storing data for each tile type

    - by Delerat
    I'm creating a Zelda-style RPG using Tiled, C#, and MonoGame. When my code parses the .tmx file, it will get a number to associate with each tile type based off of their position in the tile sheet. If I ever need to change my sprite sheet, this number will change for many of the tiles. How can I guarantee that when I parse my .tmx file, I will be able to know exactly what tile type I'm getting so that I can associate the proper data with it(transparency, animated, collision, etc.)?

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  • Efficiency concerning thread granularity

    - by MaelmDev
    Lately, I've been thinking of ways to use multithreading to improve the speed of different parts of a game engine. What confuses me is the appropriate granularity of threads, especially when dealing with single-instruction-multiple-data (SIMD) tasks. Let's use line-of-sight detection as an example. Each AI actor must be able to detect objects of interest around them and mark them. There are three basic ways to go about this with multithreading: Don't use threading at all. Create a thread for each actor. Create a thread for each actor-object combination. Option 1 is obviously going to be the least efficient method. However, choosing between the next two options is more difficult. Only using one thread per actor is still running through every object in series instead of in parallel. However, are CPU's able to create and join threads in the granularity posed in Option 3 efficiently? It seems like that many calls to the OS could be really slow, and varying enormously between different hardware.

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  • Power Distribution amongst connected nodes

    - by Perky
    In my game the map is represented by connected nodes, each node has a number of connected nodes. The nodes represent a system in which players can build structures and move units about. If you're familiar with Sins of a Solar Empire the game map is very similar. I want each node to be able to produce power and share it with all connected nodes. For example if A, B, C & D are all connected and produce 100 power units, then each system should have 400 power units available. If node B builds a structure that consumes 100 power units then A, B, C & D should then have 300 power units available. I've been working on this system all day and haven't been able to get it working quite the way I want. My current implementation is to first recurse through each nodes's connected node adding up the power, I keep a list of closed nodes so it doesn't loop, it's quite similar to A* actually. Pseudo code: All nodes start with the properties node.power = 0 node.basePower = 100 // could be different for each node. node.initialPower = node.basePower - function propagatePower( node, initialPower, closedNodes ) node.power += initialPower add( closedNodes, node ) connectedNodes = connected_nodes_except_from( closedNodes ) foreach node in connectedNodes do propagatePower( node, initialPower, closedNodes ) end end After this I iterate through all power consumers. foreach consumer in consumers do node = consumer.parentNode if node.power >= consumer.powerConsumption then consumer.powerConsumed += consumer.powerConsumption node.producedPower -= consumer.powerConsumption end end Then I adjust the initial power for the next propagation cycle. foreach node in nodes do node.initialPower = node.basePower - node.producedPower node.displayPower = node.power // for rendering the power. node.power = 0 end This seemed to work at first but then I came into a problem. Say two nodes A & B produce 100Pu each, it's shared so both A & B have 200Pu. I then make two structures that consume 80Pu each on A (160Pu). Then the nodes power is adjusted to basePower - producedPower (100-160 = -60). Nodes are propagated, both nodes now have 40Pu (A: -60 + B: 100 = 40). Which is correct because they started with 200Pu - 160Pu = 40Pu. However now node.power >= consumer.powerConsumption is false. Whats worse is it's false for any structure that uses more that 40Pu, so the whole system goes down. I could deduct from consumer.powerConsumption but what do I do if power is reduced elsewhere? I don't have the correct data to perform the necessary checks. It's late so I'm probably not thinking straight but I thought to ask on here to see if anyone has any other implementations, better or worse I'd be interested to know.

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  • DX11 - Weird shader behavior with and without branching

    - by Martin Perry
    I have found problem in my shader code, which I dont´t know how to solve. I want to rewrite this code without "ifs" tmp = evaluate and result is 0 or 1 (nothing else) if (tmp == 1) val = X1; if (tmp == 0) val = X2; I rewite it this way, but this piece of code doesn ´t word correctly tmp = evaluate and result is 0 or 1 (nothing else) val = tmp * X1 val = !tmp * X2 However if I change it to: tmp = evaluate and result is 0 or 1 (nothing else) val = tmp * X1 if (!tmp) val = !tmp * X2 It works fine... but it is useless because of "if", which need to be eliminated I honestly don´t understand it Posted Image . I tried compilation with NO and FULL optimalization, result is same

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  • What happened to .fx files in D3D11?

    - by bobobobo
    It seems they completely ruined .fx file loading / parsing in D3D11. In D3D9, loading an entire effect file was D3DXCreateEffectFromFile( .. ), and you got a ID3DXEffect9, which had great methods like SetTechnique and BeginPass, making it easy to load and execute a shader with multiple techniques. Is this completely manual now in D3D11? The highest level functionality I can find is loading a SINGLE shader from an FX file using D3DX11CompileFromFile. Does anyone know if there's an easier way to load FX files and choose a technique? With the level of functionality provided in D3D11 now, it seems like you're better off just writing .hlsl files and forgetting about the whole idea of Techniques.

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  • using heightmap to simulate 3d in an isometric 2d game

    - by VaTTeRGeR
    I saw a video of an 2.5d engine that used heightmaps to do zbuffering. Is this hard to do? I have more or less no idea of Opengl(lwjgl) and that stuff. I could imagine, that you compare each pixel and its depthmap to the depthmap of the already drawn background to determine if it gets drawn or not. Are there any tutorials on how to do this, is this a common problem? It would already be awesome if somebody knows the names of the Opengl commands so that i can go through some general tutorials on that. greets! Great 2.5d engine with the needed effect, pls go to the last 30 seconds Edit, just realised, that my question wasn't quite clear expressed: How can i tell Opengl to compare the existing depthbuffer with an grayscale texure, to determine if a pixel should get drawn or not?

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  • Logic that can traverse all possible layouts, but not checking every combination of identical pieces?

    - by George Bailey
    Suppose we have a grid of arbitrary size, which is filled by blocks of various widths and heights. There are many 2x2 blocks (meaning they take a total of 4 cells in the grid) and many 3x3 blocks, as well as some 5x4, 4x5, 2x3, etc. I was hoping I could set up a program that would look at all possible layouts, and rank them, and find the best one. Simply it would look at all possible positions of these blocks, and see what setup is the best rank. (the rank based on how many of these can be connected by a roadway system of 1x1 road blocks, and how many squares can be left empty after this is done. - wanting to fit the most blocks as possible with the least roads.) My question, is how should I traverse all the possibilities? I could take all the blocks and try them one at a time, but since all 2x2 blocks are equal, and there are a couple dozen of them, there is no point in trying every combination there, as in the following AA BBB AA BBB CCBBB CCEEE DD EEE DD EEE is exactly the same as CC EEE CC EEE AAEEE AABBB DD BBB DD BBB You notice that there are 2 3x3 blocks and 3 2x2 blocks in my two examples. Based on the model I have now, the computer would try both of these combinations, as well as many others. The problem is that it is going to try every single possible variation of my couple dozen 2x2 blocks. And that is sorely inefficient. Is there a reasonable way to take out this duplicated work, somehow getting the computer program to treat all 2x2 blocks as equal/identical, instead of one requiring rearranging/swapping of these identical blocks? Can this be done?

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  • XNA C# How to draw fonts in different color

    - by XNA newbie
    I'm doing a simple chat system with XNA C#. It is a chatbox that contains 5 lines of chat typed by the users. Something like a MMORPG chatting system. [User1name] says: Hi [User2name] says: Hello [User1name] says: What are you doing? [User2name] says: I'm fine [System] The time is now 1:03AM. When the user pressed 'ENTER', the text he entered will be added inside an ArrayList chatList.Add(s); For displaying the text he entered, I used for (int i = 0; i < chatList.Count(); i++) { spriteBatch.DrawString(font, chatList[i], new Vector2(40, arr1[i]), Color.Yellow); } *arr1[i] contains 5 y-axis points to print my 5 line of chats in the chatbox Question1: What if I have another type of message which will be added into ChatList (something like a system message). I need the System Message to be printed out in red color. And if the user keeps on chatting, the chat box will be updated according: (MAX 5 LINES) The newest chat will be shown below, and the oldest one will be deleted if they reached the max 5 lines. [User2name] says: Hello [User1name] says: What are you doing? [User2name] says: I'm fine [System] The time is now 1:03AM. [User1name] says: Ok, great to hear that! I'm having trouble to print each line color according to their msg type. For normal msg, it should be yellow. For system msg, it should be red. Question2: And for the next problem, I need the chat texts to be white color, while the names of the user is yellow (like warcraft3 chat system). How do I do that? I have a hard time thinking of a solution for these to work. Advise needed.

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  • how can i move static box2d object.

    - by user5198
    how can i move static box2d sprites. i have tried this tutorial from . http://www.raywenderlich.com/475/how-to-create-a-simple-breakout-game-with-box2d-and-cocos2d-tutorial-part-12. I managed to add another "paddle" object with box2d body, but i can seam to be able to make the code to move the second "paddle" body. Can anyone direct me how to do it? Is there a way to move a "b2_staticBody" box 2d object? i have tried, but i can only move it when i use "b2_dynamicBody" if i used "b2_staticBody" i can move it at all.

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  • List of Open Source Java Games for Android

    - by BluFire
    I'm wondering if there are any more opensource games than the ones that you can plainly see when you search a list of open source games for android on google. Such as, is there a good website that has compiled open source games? I don't want an answer of "go google it" or "en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_open_source_Android_applications" it gets really annoying on posts when people just give lazy answers.

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  • database design help for game / user levels / progress

    - by sprugman
    Sorry this got long and all prose-y. I'm creating my first truly gamified web app and could use some help thinking about how to structure the data. The Set-up Users need to accomplish tasks in each of several categories before they can move up a level. I've got my Users, Tasks, and Categories tables, and a UserTasks table which joins the three. ("User 3 has added Task 42 in Category 8. Now they've completed it.") That's all fine and working wonderfully. The Challenge I'm not sure of the best way to track the progress in the individual categories toward each level. The "business" rules are: You have to achieve a certain number of points in each category to move up. If you get the number of points needed in Cat 8, but still have other work to do to complete the level, any new Cat 8 points count toward your overall score, but don't "roll over" into the next level. The number of Categories is small (five currently) and unlikely to change often, but by no means absolutely fixed. The number of points needed to level-up will vary per level, probably by a formula, or perhaps a lookup table. So the challenge is to track each user's progress toward the next level in each category. I've thought of a few potential approaches: Possible Solutions Add a column to the users table for each category and reset them all to zero each time a user levels-up. Have a separate UserProgress table with a row for each category for each user and the number of points they have. (Basically a Many-to-Many version of #1.) Add a userLevel column to the UserTasks table and use that to derive their progress with some kind of SUM statement. Their current level will be a simple int in the User table. Pros & Cons (1) seems like by far the most straightforward, but it's also the least flexible. Perhaps I could use a naming convention based on the category ids to help overcome some of that. (With code like "select cats; for each cat, get the value from Users.progress_{cat.id}.") It's also the one where I lose the most data -- I won't know which points counted toward leveling up. I don't have a need in mind for that, so maybe I don't care about that. (2) seems complicated: every time I add or subtract a user or a category, I have to maintain the other table. I foresee synchronization challenges. (3) Is somewhere in between -- cleaner than #2, but less intuitive than #1. In order to find out where a user is, I'd have mildly complex SQL like: SELECT categoryId, SUM(points) from UserTasks WHERE userId={user.id} & countsTowardLevel={user.level} groupBy categoryId Hmm... that doesn't seem so bad. I think I'm talking myself into #3 here, but would love any input, advice or other ideas. P.S. Sorry for the cross-post. I wrote this up on SO and then remembered that there was a game dev-focused one. Curious to see if I get different answers one place than the other....

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