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• Computer Games Technolgy or Software Engineering?

  - by Suleman Anwar

  I'm in the last year of my college and going to university next year. Could you tell me what the difference between Software Engineering and Computer Games Technology is? I know a bit of both but don't know the actual difference. I'm kind off in a dilemma between these two. I want to be a programmer, I'd love to go into gaming but I heard getting a job within a computer games company is really hard.

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• How to update off screen bitmap in a surfaceview thread

  - by DKDiveDude

  I have a Surfaceview thread and an off canvas texture bitmap that is being generated (changed), first row (line), every frame and then copied one position (line) down on regular surfaceview bitmap to make a scrolling effect, and I then continue to draw other things on top of that. Well that is what I really want, however I can't get it to work even though I am creating a separate canvas for off screen bitmap. It is just not scrolling at all. I other words I have a memory bitmap, same size as Surfaceview canvas, which I need to scroll (shift) down one line every frame, and then replace top line with new random texture, and then draw that on regular Surfaceview canvas. Here is what I thought would work; My surfaceChanged where I specify bitmap and canvasses and start thread: @Override public void surfaceCreated(SurfaceHolder holder) { intSurfaceWidth = mSurfaceView.getWidth(); intSurfaceHeight = mSurfaceView.getHeight(); memBitmap = Bitmap.createBitmap(intSurfaceWidth, intSurfaceHeight, Bitmap.Config.ARGB_8888); memCanvas = new Canvas(memCanvas); myThread = new MyThread(holder, this); myThread.setRunning(true); blnPause = false; myThread.start(); } My thread, only showing essential middle running part: @Override public void run() { while (running) { c = null; try { // Lock canvas for drawing c = myHolder.lockCanvas(null); synchronized (mSurfaceHolder) { // First draw off screen bitmap to off screen canvas one line down memCanvas.drawBitmap(memBitmap, 0, 1, null); // Create random one line(row) texture bitmap memTexture = Bitmap.createBitmap(imgTexture, 0, rnd.nextInt(intTextureImageHeight), intSurfaceWidth, 1); // Now add this texture bitmap to top of off screen canvas and hopefully bitmap memCanvas.drawBitmap(textureBitmap, intSurfaceWidth, 0, null); // Draw above updated off screen bitmap to regular canvas, at least I thought it would update (save changes) shifting down and add the texture line to off screen bitmap the off screen canvas was pointing to. c.drawBitmap(memBitmap, 0, 0, null); // Other drawing to canvas comes here } finally { // do this in a finally so that if an exception is thrown // during the above, we don't leave the Surface in an // inconsistent state if (c != null) { myHolder.unlockCanvasAndPost(c); } } } } For my game Tunnel Run. Right now I have a working solution where I instead have an array of bitmaps, size of surface height, that I populate with my random texture and then shift down in a loop for each frame. I get 50 frames per second, but I think I can do better by instead scrolling bitmap.

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• Skip the first RenderTarget when writing to MRT with Opaque blending

  - by cubrman

  I am writing to three rendertargets and whant to know how to tell a GPU not to write to the first RT. When you write a shader you can simply output less data than you have RTs (like output a single float4 when writing to three RTs) and only the first RTs will be affected, but you cannot specify to output this data anywhere else but to COLOR0, then 1, etc. Is there a way to write to several RTs but skip the first target? If I output zeroes, the data in the target will become zeroes, but I need it to remain untuched in the first target and only change in the specified ones. The reason I need this is to prevent data loss when calling SetRendertarget() with DiscardContents RTs. I write to all the RTs at one point and I need to write to only the specified ones afterwards. It must be the first texture as I have a depth buffer linked to it (XNA 4.0). Thanks.

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• Making more complicated systems(entity-component-system model question)

  - by winch

  I'm using a model where entities are collections of components and components are just data. All the logic goes into systems which operate on components. Making basic systems(for Rendering and handling collision) was easy. But how do I do more compilcated systems? For example, in a CollisionSystem I can check if entity A collides with entity B. I have this code in CollisionSystem for checking if B damages A: if(collides(a, b)) { HealthComponent* hc = a->get<HealthComponent(); hc.reduceHealth(b->get<DamageComponent>()->getDamage()); But I feel that this code shouldn't belong to Collision system. Where should code like this be and which additional systems should I create to make this code generic?

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• Basic procedural generated content works, but how could I do the same in reverse?

  - by andrew

  My 2D world is made up of blocks. At the moment, I create a block and assign it a number between 1 and 4. The number assigned to the nth block is always the same (i.e if the player walks backwards or restarts the game.) and is generated in the function below. As shown here by this animation, the colours represent the number. function generate_data(n) math.randomseed(n) -- resets the random so that the 'random' number for n is always the same math.random() -- fixes lua random bug local no = math.random(4) --print(no, n) return no end Now I want to limit the next block's number - a block of 1 will always have a block 2 after it, while block 2 will either have a block 1,2 or 3 after it, etc. Before, all the blocks data was randomly generated, initially, and then saved. This data was then loaded and used instead of being randomly called. While working this way, I could specify what the next block would be easily and it would be saved for consistency. I have now removed this saving/loading in favour of procedural generation as I realised that save whiles would get very big after travelling. Back to the present. While travelling forward (to the right), it is easy to limit what the next blocks number will be. I can generate it at the same time as the other data. The problem is when travelling backwards (to the left) I can not think of a way to load the previous block so that it is always the same. Does anyone have any ideas on how I could sort this out?

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• 2D water with dynamic waves

  - by user1103457

  New Super Mario Bros has really cool 2D water that I'd like to learn how to create. Here's a video showing it. When something hits the water, it creates a wave. There are also constant "background" waves. You can get a good look at the constant waves just after 00:50 when the camera isn't moving. I assume the splashes in NSMB work as in the first part of this tutorial. But in NSMB the water also has constant waves on the surface, and the splashes look very different. Another difference is that in the tutorial, if you create a splash, it first creates a deep "hole" in the water at the origin of the splash. In new super mario bros this hole is absent or much smaller. I am referring to the splashes that the player creates when jumping in and out of the water. How do they create the constant waves and the splashes? I am especially interested in the splashes, and how they work together with the constant waves. I am programming in XNA. I've tried this myself, but couldn't really get it all to work well together. Bonus questions: How do they create the light spots just under the surface of the waves and how do they texture the deeper parts of the water? This is the first time I try to create water like this. EDIT: I assume the constant waves are created using a sine function. The splashes are probably created in a way like in the tutorial. (But they are not the same, so I am still interested in how to make this kind of splashes) But I have a lot of trouble combining those things. I know I can use the sine function to set the height of a specific watercolumn but the splashes are using the speed, to determine the new height. I can't figure out how to combine those. Not that I am not asking how the developers of new super mario bros did this exactly. I am just interested in ways to recreate an effect like it. This week I have an examweek so I don't have time to work on the code. After this week I will spend a lot of time on it. But I am constantly thinking about it, so that's why I will be checking comments etc. I just won't be looking at the code since it might be too time-consuming.

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• Can you shade a specific section of a sprite? If so, how?

  - by l5p4ngl312

  I have been working on an isometric minecraft-esque game engine for a strategy game I plan on making. As you can see, it really needs some sort of shading. It is difficult to distinguish between separate elevations when the camera is facing away from the slope because everything is the same shade. So my question is: can I shade just a specific section of a sprite? All of those blocks are just sprites, so if I shaded the entire image, it would shade the whole block. I am using LWJGL. Heres a link to a screenshot from the engine: http://i44.tinypic.com/qxqlix.jpg

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• sprite animation system height recalculating has some issues

  - by Nicolas Martel

  Basically, the way it works is that it update the frame to show every let's say 24 ticks and every time the frame update, it recalculates the height and width of the new sprite to render so that my gravity logics and stuff works well. But the problem i am having now is a bit hard to explain in words only, therefore i will use this picture to assist me The picture So what i need basically is that if let's say i froze the sprite at the first frame, then unfreeze it and freeze it at the second frame, have the second frame's sprite (let's say it's a prone move) simply stand on the foothold without starting the gravity and when switching back, have the first sprite go back on the foothold like normal without being under the foothold. I had 2 ideas on doing this but I'm not sure it's the most efficient ways to do it so i wanna hear your inputs.

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• Sanity checks vs file sizes

  - by Richard Fabian

  In your game assets do you make room for explicit sanity checks, or do you have some generally expected bounds which you assert? I've been thinking about how we compress data and thought that it's much better to have the former, and less of the latter. If your data can exceed your normal valid ranges, but if it does it's an error, then surely that implies you're not compressing the data well enough? What do you do to find out if your data is compressed as far as it can be, and what do you use to ensure your data isn't corrupted and ensure it's an official release? EDIT I'm not interested in sanity checking the file size, but instead, how you manage your sanity checks and whether you arrange the excess size caused by the opportunity to do sanity checks by using explicit extra data, or through allowing the data enough file space (data member size) to be out of valid range and thus able to be checked merely by looking at the asset in memory after loading.

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• Simulating Smartphones on PC with Unity

  - by Cengiz Frostclaw

  I want to make a game that depends on the phone orientation (changing shoot direction with tilt), however I need to test this on PC. So is there any tool I can use to simulate the orientation of the phone with mouse or keyboard of my PC? Something like joysticks on the screen. Thanks for any help! Edit : Thanks to @jhocking for his suggestion of Unity Remote. I, however still can accept a solution with using only PC, since I'm afraid of shortening my phone's battery life, for some reason.

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• Order independent transparency in particle system

  - by Stepan Zastupov

  I'm writing a particle system and would like to find a trick to achieve proper alpha blending without sorting particles because: Each particle is a point sprite in a single mesh and I can't use scene graph ability to sort transparent nodes. The system node should be properly sorted, though. Particle position is computed on shader from initial velocity, acceleration and time. In order to sort the system I would have to perform all this computations on CPU, which is something I want to avoid. Sorting hundreds of particles against camera position and uploading it on GPU each frame seams to be quiet heavy operation. Alpha testing seems to be fast enough on GLES 2.0 and works fine for non-transparent but "masked" textures. Still, it's not enough for semi-transparent particles. How would you handle this?

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• Are there any preexisting maps for a Minecraft-like level I could use in my engine?

  - by Rishav Sharan

  I am working on a tiny cube-based engine like Minecraft. I was wondering if there is a way for me to get large blocky terrain in a text format that I can use for rendering on my engine? I don't want to start on procedural generation now, I just want a resource where I can get the coord list for a pretty looking terrain. Alternatively, is it possible for me to parse the Minecraft world files and use that data to generate terrain/buildings in my code?

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• Rotate 3D Model from a custom position

  - by Nipuna Silva

  I have a 3D Model like above in which i want to rotate it from a given location(pointed in red) but I can only rotate it from the middle. How can I rotate it from a custom point. Edit: I successfully able to rotate the model from the below position by getting the radius of the model and applying it to the world matrix Vector3 point = new Vector3(-radius, 0, 0); world = Matrix.CreateTranslation(-radius, 0, 0); But now I cannot change the position of the object and it always centered in middle of the screen. I think that's because i applied the above code. How can I place it anywhere I want?

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• Changing Ogre3D terrain lighting in real time

  - by lezebulon

  I'm looking at the Ogre 3D library and I'm browsing through some examples / tutorials. My question is about terrain. There are a few examples showing how great the terrain system is, but I think that the global illumination and shadows of the terrain have to be pre-computed, which kinda makes it impossible to integrate this with a day / night cycle. Is there a way to change the terrain light sources in real time? If so it is possible to do it and keep a decent FPS?

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• Efficient existing rating system for multiplayer?

  - by Nikolay Kuznetsov

  I would like to add a rating for online version of a board game. In this game there are many game rooms each normally having 3-4 people. So I expect that player's rating adjustments (RA) should depends on Rating of opponents in the game room Number of players in game room and final place of a player Person gets rating increase if he plays more games and more frequently If a person leaves a game room (disconnect) before the game ends he should get punished with a high rating decrease I have found two related questions in here Developing an ELO like point system for a multiplayer gaming site Simplest most effective way to rank and measure player skill in a multi-player environment? Please, let me know what would be the most appropriate existing rating model to refer.

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• Precise Touch Screen Dragging Issue: Trouble Aligning with the Finger due to Different Screen Resolution

  - by David Dimalanta

  Please, I need your help. I'm trying to make a game that will drag-n-drop a sprite/image while my finger follows precisely with the image without being offset. When I'm trying on a 900x1280 (in X [900] and Y [1280]) screen resolution of the Google Nexus 7 tablet, it follows precisely. However, if I try testing on a phone smaller than 900x1280, my finger and the image won't aligned properly and correctly except it still dragging. This is the code I used for making a sprite dragging with my finger under touchDragged(): x = ((screenX + Gdx.input.getX())/2) - (fruit.width/2); y = ((camera_2.viewportHeight * multiplier) - ((screenY + Gdx.input.getY())/2) - (fruit.width/2)); This code above will make the finger and the image/sprite stays together in place while dragging but only works on 900x1280. You'll be wondering there's camera_2.viewportHeight in my code. Here are for two reasons: to prevent inverted drag (e.g. when you swipe with your finger downwards, the sprite moves upward instead) and baseline for reading coordinate...I think. Now when I'm adding another orthographic camera named camera_1 and changing its setting, I recently used it for adjusting the falling object by meter per pixel. Also, it seems effective independently for smartphones that has smaller resolution and this is what I used here: show() camera_1 = new OrthographicCamera(); camera_1.viewportHeight = 280; // --> I set it to a smaller view port height so that the object would fall faster, decreasing the chance of drag force. camera_1.viewportWidth = 196; // --> Make it proportion to the original screen view size as possible. camera_1.position.set(camera_1.viewportWidth * 0.5f, camera_1.viewportHeight * 0.5f, 0f); camera_1.update(); touchDragged() x = ((screenX + (camera_1.viewportWidth/Gdx.input.getX()))/2) - (fruit.width/2); y = ((camera_1.viewportHeight * multiplier) - ((screenY + (camera_1.viewportHeight/Gdx.input.getY()))/2) - (fruit.width/2)); But the result instead of just following the image/sprite closely to my finger, it still has a space/gap between the sprite/image and the finger. It is possibly dependent on coordinates based on the screen resolution. I'm trying to drag the blueberry sprite with my finger. My expectation did not met since I want my finger and the sprite/image (blueberry) to stay close together while dragging until I release it. Here's what it looks like: I got to figure it out how to make independent on all screen sizes by just following the image/sprite closely to my finger while dragging even on most different screen sizes instead.

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• Starting out with OpenGL when most tutorials are out of date

  - by AUTO

  I'm sure there are already a bunch of questions like this asked, but the constant updating of the OpenGL library throws them all away, and in a month or two, the answers here will be worthless again. I am ready to start programming in OpenGL using C++. I've got a working compiler (DevCpp; do NOT ask me to switch to VC++, and don't ask me why). Now I'm just looking for a solid tutorial on how to program with OpenGL. My assistant found the tutorial provided by NeHe Productions, but as I've come to find out, it's WAY OUT OF DATE! (although I did pull together a basic window to support an OpenGL canvas) Then I went online, and found the OpenGL SuperBible, which apparently uses freeglut? But what I'd like to know is whether or not SuperBible 5th edition is up to date any longer. The suggestion to freeglut I found said the latest version was 2.6.0 but now it's 2.8.0! Is the OpenGL SuperBible still a good, and fairly up-to-date place to start? Is there a better place to go to learn OpenGL? Am I allowed to simply store freeglut in the DevCpp include directory (maybe in GL), or is there some important procedure? Are there any comments or suggestions that I didn't think to ask since I'm only just beginning? @dreta cleared some things up for me, so now I have a better idea of what to ask: I think I'd like to start out with OpenGL using a wrapper library instead of directly accessing OpenGL.I just think that, for a beginner, it would be easier for me to program and get good results, while I don't yet have to understand all the grimy details (as @stephelton mentioned). The problem is, I can't find any library that doesn't have undefined references to no longer supported functions. Freeglut sounds operational, but it still uses GLU.Does anyone know what I can do?Also, I tried compiling the first SuperBible's source, but I got errors since GLAPI is not being defined as a type, the error originating in the GLU library. I'd like to use the SuperBible, but I don't know how to fix this.

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• Designing a flexible tile-based engine

  - by Vee

  I'm trying to create a flexible tile-based game engine to make all sorts of non-realtime puzzle games, just as Bejeweled, Civilization, Sokoban, and so on. The first approach I had was to have a 2D array of Tile objects, and then have classes inheriting from Tile that represented the game objects. Unfortunately that way I couldn't stack more game elements on the same Tile without having a 3D array. Then I did something different: I still had the 2D array of Tile objects, but every Tile object contained a List where I put and different entities. This worked fine until 20 minutes ago, when I realized that it's too expensive to do many things, look at this example: I have a Wall entity. Every update I have to check the 8 adjacent Tiles, then check all of the entities in the Tile's List, check if any of those entities is a Wall, then finally draw the correct sprite. (This is done to draw walls that are next to each other seamlessly) The only solution I see now is having a 3D array, with many layers, that could suit every situation. But that way I can't stack two entities that share the same layer on the same tile. Whenever I want to do that I have to create a new layer. Is there a better solution? What would you do?

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• Calculating an orbit and approach velocties

  - by Mob

  I have drones in my game that need to approach and orbit a node and shoot at it. Problem is I want to stay away from a real physics simulation, meaning I don't want to give the node and drone a mass and the drone's thrusters' a force. I just want to find the best way to approach and then enter orbit. There was a pretty good answer about using bezier curves and doing it that way, but that is essentially a tween between two fixed points. The nodes are also moving as the drones enter orbit.

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• Facebook Game database design

  - by facebook-100000781341887

  Hi, I'm currently develop a facebook mafia like PHP game(of course, a light weight version), here is a simplify database(MySQL) of the game id-a <int3> <for index> uid <chr15> <facebook uid> HP <int3> <health point> exp <int3> <experience> money <int3> <money> list_inventory <chr5> <the inventory user hold...some special here, talk next> ... and 20 other fields just like reputation, num of combat... *the number next to the type is the size(byte) of the type For the list_inventory, there have 40 inventorys in my game, (actually, I have 5 these kind of list in my database), and each user can only contain 1 qty of each inventory, therefore, I assign 5 char for this field and each bit of char as 1 item(5 char * 8 bit = 40 slot), and I will do some manipulation by PHP to extract the data from this 5 byte. OK, I was thinking on this, if this game contains 100,000 user, and only 10% are active, therefore, if use my method, for the space use, 5 byte * 100,000 = 500 KB if I use another method, create a table user_hold_inventory, if the user have the inventory, then insert a record into this table, so, for 10,000 active user, I assume they got all item, but for other, I assume they got no item, here is the fields of the new table id-b <int3> <for index> id-a <int3> <id of the user table> inv_no <int1> <inventory that user hold> for the space use, ([id] (3+3) byte + [inv_no] 1 byte ) * [active user] 10,000 * [all inventory] * 40 = 2.8 MB seems method 2 have use more space, but it consume less CPU power. Please comment these 2 method or please correct me if there have another better method rather than what I think. Another question is, my database contain 26 fields, but I counted 5 of them are not change frquently, should I need to separate it on the other table or not? So many words, thanks for reading :)

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• Blender - creating bones from transform matrices

  - by user975135

  Notice: this is for the Blender 2.5/2.6 API. Back in the old days in the Blender 2.4 API, you could easily create a bone from a transform matrix in your 3d file as EditBones had an attribute named "matrix", which was an armature-space matrix you could access and modify. The new 2.5+ API still has the "matrix" attribute for EditBones, but for some unknown reason it is now read-only. So how to create EditBones from transform matrices? I could only find one thing: a new "transform()" function, which takes a Matrix too. Transform the the bones head, tail, roll and envelope (when the matrix has a scale component). Perfect, but you already need to have some values (loc/rot/scale) for your bone, otherwise transforming with a matrix like this will give you nothing, your bone will be a zero-sized bone which will be deleted by Blender. if you create default bone values first, like this: bone.tail = mathutils.Vector([0,1,0]) Then transform() will work on your bone and it might seem to create correct bones, but setting a tail position actually generates a matrix itself, use transform() and you don't get the matrix from your model file on your EditBone, but the multiplication of your matrix with the bone's existing one. This can be easily proven by comparing the matrices read from the file with EditBone.matrix. Again it might seem correct in Blender, but now export your model and you see your animations are messed up, as the bind pose rotations of the bones are wrong. I've tried to find an alternative way to assign the transformation matrix from my file to my EditBone with no luck.

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• How can I easily create cloud texture maps?

  - by EdwardTeach

  I am making 3d planets in my game; these will be viewed as "globes". Some of them will need cloud layers. I looked at various Blender tutorials for creating "earth", and for their cloud layers they use earth cloud maps from NASA. However I will be creating a fictional universe with many procedurally-generated planets. So I would like to use many variations. I'm hoping there's a way to procedurally generate cloud maps such as the NASA link. I will also need to create gas giants, so I will also need other kinds of cloud texture maps. If that is too difficult, I could fall back to creating several variations of cloud maps. For example, 3 for earth-like, 3 for gas giants, etc. So how do I statically create or programmatically generate such cloud maps?

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• OpenGLES GLSL Shader attributes always bound to 0

  - by codemonkey

  So I have a very simple vertex shader as follows #version 120 attribute vec3 position; attribute vec3 inColor; uniform mat4 mvp; varying vec3 fragColor; void main(void){ fragColor = inColor; gl_Position = mvp * vec4(position, 1.0); } Which I load, as well as the fragment shader: #version 120 varying vec3 fragColor; void main(void) { gl_FragColor = vec4(fragColor,1.0); } Which I then load, compile, and link to my shader program. I check for link status using glGetProgramiv(shaderProgram, GL_LINK_STATUS, &shaderSuccess); which returns GL_TRUE so I think its ok. However, when I query the active attributes and uniforms using #ifdef DEBUG int totalAttributes = -1; glGetProgramiv(shaderProgram, GL_ACTIVE_ATTRIBUTES, &totalAttributes); for(int i=0; i<totalAttributes; ++i) { int name_len=-1, num=-1; GLenum type = GL_ZERO; char name[100]; glGetActiveAttrib(shaderProgram, GLuint(i), sizeof(name)-1, &name_len, &num, &type, name ); name[name_len] = 0; GLuint location = glGetAttribLocation(shaderProgram, name); fprintf(stderr, "Attribute %s is bound at %d\n", name, location); } int totalUniforms = -1; glGetProgramiv(shaderProgram, GL_ACTIVE_UNIFORMS, &totalUniforms); for(int i=0; i<totalUniforms; ++i) { int name_len=-1, num=-1; GLenum type = GL_ZERO; char name[100]; glGetActiveUniform(shaderProgram, GLuint(i), sizeof(name)-1, &name_len, &num, &type, name ); name[name_len] = 0; GLuint location = glGetUniformLocation(shaderProgram, name); fprintf(stderr, "Uniform %s is bound at %d\n", name, location); } #endif I get: Attribute inColor is bound at 0 Attribute position is bound at 1 Uniform mvp is bound at 0 Which leads to failure when trying to use the shader to render the objects. I have tried switching the order of declaration of position & inColor, but still, only position is bound with the other two giving 0 Can someone please explain why this is happening? Thanks

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• Understanding Box2d Restitution & Bouncing

  - by layzrr

  I'm currently trying to implement basketball bouncing into my game using Box2d (jBox2d technically), but I'm a bit confused about restitution. While trying to create the ball in the testbed first, I've run into infinite bouncing, as described in this question, however obviously not using my own implementation. The Box2d manual describes restitution as follows: Restitution is used to make objects bounce. The restitution value is usually set to be between 0 and 1. Consider dropping a ball on a table. A value of zero means the ball won't bounce. This is called an inelastic collision. A value of one means the ball's velocity will be exactly reflected. This is called a perfectly elastic collision. My confusion lies in that I am still getting infinite bouncing with restitution values at 0.75/0.8. The same behavior can be seen in the testbed under Collision Watching - Varying Restitution, on the 6th and 7th balls. I believe the last one has restitution of 1, which makes sense, but I don't understand why the second to last ball bounces infinitely (as is happening with my working basketball I've created). I am looking to understand the restitution concept more fully, as well as look for a solution to infinite bouncing with the Box2d framework. My instinct was to sleep objects that appeared to be moving in very small increments, but this seems like a misuse of the engine. Should I just work with lower restitution values altogether?

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• How to export 3D models that consist of several parts (eg. turret on a tank)?

  - by Will

  What are the standard alternatives for the mechanics of attaching turrets and such to 3D models for use in-game? I don't mean the logic, but rather the graphics aspects. My naive approach is to extend the MD2-like format that I'm using (blender-exported using a script) to include a new set of properties for a mesh that: is anchored in another 'parent' mesh. The anchor is a point and normal in the parent mesh and a point and normal in the child mesh; these will always be colinear, giving the child rotation but not translation relative to the parent point. has a normal that is aligned with a 'target'. Classically this target is the enemy that is being engaged, but it might be some other vector e.g. 'the wind' (for sails and flags (and smoke, which is a particle system but the same principle applies)) or 'upwards' (e.g. so bodies of riders bend properly when riding a horse up an incline etc). that the anchor and target alignments have maximum and minimum and a speed coeff. there is game logic for multiple turrets and on a model and deciding which engages which enemy. 'primary' and 'secondary' or 'target0' ... 'targetN' or some such annotation will be there. So to illustrate, a classic tank would be made from three meshes; a main body mesh, a turret mesh that is anchored to the top of the main body so it can spin only horizontally and a barrel mesh that is anchored to the front of the turret and can only move vertically within some bounds. And there might be a forth flag mesh on top of the turret that is aligned with 'wind' where wind is a function the engine solves that merges environment's wind angle with angle the vehicle is travelling in an velocity, or something fancy. This gives each mesh one degree of freedom relative to its parent. Things with multiple degrees of freedom can be modelled by zero-vertex connecting meshes perhaps? This is where I think the approach I outlined begins to feel inelegant, yet perhaps its still a workable system? This is why I want to know how it is done in professional games ;) Are there better approaches? Are there formats that already include this information? Is this routine?

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