Game Development - 2014-10-17 (page 1 of 6)

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12:48 AM

@Pip he's reselling an already existing device. he did literally zero work, except maaaybe tweaking a couple software settings. the hardware is also NOT open source, even in China. and finally, the configuration is so bad, "The device has BACKDOOR root password, OPEN wireless network (so anyone can connect to it) and is shipped with SSHD!!! This means that anyone can take control of the device!"

so even if the software on the thing is customized, he actually made it worse than a normal router.

np.reddit.com/r/privacy/comments/2j9caq/…

Eyy

wezah!

MICK

Long time no see pal

<3 whats good bruvadah

o/

12:50 AM

Got my license today, that's cool.

\o

Ah very gangster, now you'll be posting it up in the whip, riding true next to some homies I presume?

Yeh, get the subs pumping

<shameless-plug>

soundcloud.com/full-synthetic/falling-into-the-sun

</shameless-plug>

DUDE WHO MADE THIS FRESH BEAT

MA HOMIE MC-MICK

I think I got my engine importing skeletal animation today

But I haven't written a shader to render the data yet, so I don't know if it works right

12:54 AM

Do you have to write shaders for each individual component of your engine?

I don't know a ton about graphics programming.

There's 2 basic methodologies

1. You write a shader for every task you might ask the GPU to do

2. You write a shader that does every task you might ask the GPU to do (and use the shader preprocessor to remove the stuff you don't need, and compile it a million times for each task)

Okay.

but basically yes, the whole idea with the programmable pipeline is that it doesn't know how to do anything without explicit instruction

(therefore it's flexible enough to do any of the things without having built-in special cases)

I see.

Theory is so beautiful

1:02 AM

I agree.

I'd appreciate anyone's input, I'm trying to dream up some nice renderer for my project and I think I'm leaning towards my old standby deferred shading ideas

1 hour later…

2:11 AM

@IcyDefiance . soon

sure, I'm here

just playing skyrim right now

2:27 AM

I need to play that game again.

@IcyDefiance ok, I have something to do in 15 min. will play a quick dominion, deal with that, then come back for RANQED

Christian Frantz

Has anyone created a 2d lighting system?

2:42 AM

user image

It's precomputed radiance transfer with the tables trimmed by a dithering algorithm

looks nice :D

@IcyDefiance ok

2:58 AM

okaaay logging in now

@MickLH I'll say it again. that's fucking cool

thanks, I hope I get back to that project one day, lol it was supposed to be a LIERO clone

3:15 AM

:D

BTW: the extended edition of Sucker Punch is way better. Still not a great film (perhaps not even really good, I'm still unsure), but the restored scenes really help.

3:37 AM

@Almo It's like transformers but worse

I don't know man i tried to watch dark of the moon

i was so bored i quit

less than an hour in

i could at least finish sucker punch

Michael Bay is just an unbelievably awful director

Zack Snyder isn't a great director, but I feel he's got some talent, and I like that SP tried to deal with a really unpleasant subject.

I hear ya... but not much time was actually spent on said unpleasant subject

Of course I could have missed the hidden deep meaning behind each fantasy

I'm not saying it was a great film, which would have had hidden deep meaning.

But Transformers is just bad. Like, two bots standing either side of an intersection. they're talking at each other. The voices are close miced, and sound like they're in a small sound-proof room.

the action sequences in SP were too long, to be sure. But for some reason they didn't bore me like the Transformers ones did.

The moral ambiguity of killing the baby was a nice touch

stuff like that

3:55 AM

I hear ya

The obvious big complaint about SP was it was really all tits

On the surface anyway

Meh... we'll just say they both weren't great

4:20 AM

:D

4:58 AM

huh, I answered a question and then only afterwards I realized he hadn't used any googling

meh, whatever

2 hours later…

user92578

6:39 AM

Morning

@ChristianFrantz yes

user image

user92578

I feel like doing some really programming heavy stuff today.

user92578

	// If the content isn't already loaded.
	if (contentLoader->m_Textures.find(contentName) == contentLoader->m_Textures.end())
	{
		// Loads the image and converts it to a texture.
		SDL_Texture* loadedTexture = SDL_CreateTextureFromSurface(contentLoader->m_Renderer, IMG_Load(contentNamePath.c_str()));

		// Adds the loaded surface to the map.
		contentLoader->m_Textures.insert(std::make_pair(contentName, loadedTexture));
	}

	// Sets the last loaded content name.
	contentLoader->m_LastContentName = contentName;

user92578

I use a method like that to load textures.

user92578

Is there a way to reload these textures without every class that has called this method to have to call it again?

user92578

6:50 AM

So basicaly replace the value at the pointer in contentLoader->m_Textures[contentName]?

probably not, you'll need to wrap the pointer in some structure

user92578

this is really where my skills in C++ end

user92578

i don't know much about pointers/references etc

well, you better start reading everything you can find about them

you won't get far without that knowledge

user92578

so basicaly struct TextureStorage { SDL_Texture* m_Texture; }

user92578

6:59 AM

and then if I store these, I can just change the value of m_Texture

if you store pointers to these

user92578

and then everyone who uses the value at m_Texture will update the texture when it changes

you'll need only one instance of texturestorage for this to work

@Tyyppi_77 no, everyone won't touch it

all drawing functions should only deal with the internal stuff

and things like that

not game code

user92578

But basicaly every object that want's it to be drawn, has to create it's own RenderDescription

user92578

that takes in a pointer to a texture, a clipping rect and a position etc.

user92578

7:02 AM

But if I changed the Texture argument into a string representing that texture's content name...

user92578

then I could just clear the loaded textures, and as the renderer loads the texture, it would automatically reload

@Tyyppi_77 that would only work well with custom, interned strings

otherwise there's lots of copying and comparisons

user92578

why?

performance

user92578

I don't think there would be lots of comparisions

user92578

7:05 AM

and I already have a ton of comparisions on my Gui code, that works on string comparision

only if you use a hash map

no idea if that's the case here

also, interning helps to reduce memory usage

you'd have only one instance of every texture name string

user92578

Ah

and because there's only one instance, you can compare them by pointers

user92578

So does this require me to use a class wrapper for strings?

a different string class

with a separate class for the string pool

user92578

7:09 AM

Now that we got into this string comparision stuff, I'd also like to ask how could I improve my Gui callback system, since any time a Gui element is activated the menu calls into it's parent state, and the state runs a ton of these: if (panel->GetName() == "BackButton")

user92578

Basicaly determining the action required by the name of the element that was activated(pressed)

if that's all native code, I'd probably go for custom IDs that specify the types of the GUI items

user92578

I have those, but the thing is that all the Guis are defined in XML

user92578

<GuiButton name="BackButton" text="Back"/>

you could define a name-id mapping there too

but I don't think there's much to improve here

user92578

7:15 AM

But string comparision is slow, right?

depends on length

up to 64 characters it's quite fast, I think

it's just O(n), though

you still wouldn't want to do it often but having a few thousands of <64 char string comparisons in a second is no big deal

user92578

OMG I got like 5 fps with this new string system...

user92578

I guess I'll try the struct thing now

user92578

thank god I use VC

user92578

I can try stupid stuff and then get bad result and just revert a bit

user92578

7:39 AM

maybe I should pick a real task now...

@Tyyppi_77 what?

did you reallocate it for every comparison or something?

user92578

I have no idea

or reloaded textures

@Tyyppi_77 you better have some

user92578

probably something about using strings and such

it's pointless to write code that you don't understand

probably not

user92578

7:42 AM

I did understand the code

apparently not

it's hard to get 5fps from just strings

there's a bug somewhere

user92578

Well probably then something about creating a new SDL_Texture every frame

user92578

that I might have forgotten to delete?

maybe

it's your code, I can't tell

user92578

could that cause slowdowns?

7:43 AM

reloading resources every frame? of course

user92578

i wasnt doing that

user92578

Only acquiring the texture every render call

user92578

hmm, maybe I should write destructors for all classes

user92578

since only a few have one

8:19 AM

Ugh what should I do with this? gamedev.stackexchange.com/questions/85996/… answered the question perfectly, and now its edited that he/she doesn't want to use matrix algebra... Option 1: whine that matrices are the way to go, Option 2: write out 10 lines of algebra deduced from the matrix. Option 3: give up.

I usually lean towards #3

Notice my rep reflects this habit

matrices are really not necessary here

If he can't figure it out on his own he shouldn't be screwing around that low level anyways

matrices aren't really any higher

to use them properly, there has to be some serious understanding

What you just said is quite ridiculous

8:22 AM

that said, he really should've solved it on his own

@MickLH I don't see how

Matrix.CreateFromYawPitchRoll(y, p r); is higher level than "20 lines of trig functions"

I mean however you slice it, one requires a surface knowledge of the concept, the other requires a working knowledge of the implementation

the API may be higher-level

doesn't mean matrices themselves are

In this context, "using matrices" literally means using a matrix API

there is no difference between a bunch of floats and a matrix on the computer side

using an API is generally easier than not using one, obviously

well, if he didn't need to add roll to the equations, the solution would be extremely simple

generally more performant, maintainable and stable too

8:26 AM

Ok, yeah if he/she needs to implement or add a matrix lib that complicates things. I assumed he/she was using a game related framework

Don't get me wrong, I love to roll my own. I'm usually the first to jump on rolling my own at the slightest justification.

same here

I just don't understand how people get the idea that programming and math are two separate fields and you only need one, not the other

for the most part they are separate (business logic, web development)

I'm trying to be open minded here but I'm just getting the idea you're playing devils advocate

8:30 AM

I've just worked in places where programming requires almost no math knowledge whatsoever

that's obviously not true for games

or cryptography, simulations, banking

I do business and website logic professionally...

the two areas I mentioned are mostly about slicing strings into other strings and using prebuilt libraries for date&time/security/... calculations

on the off chance that one had the opportunity to work on statistics, that would involve a bit of database math

I usually get paid to come in after all that and do optimizations and bug fixes

@MickLH sounds like a great job, if the code is ok to work with

It's usually not ;(

8:34 AM

I decided to quit webdev after I got a custom made webshop in front of my eyes. It got comments praising the original coder's leet hax skills and it was done in two god classes.

and the job was "make it work in two weeks"

My "real" point is that just because you can bake a cake without knowing much about oil chemistry, doesn't mean that you're not doing oil chemistry.

@MickLH does it still count as doing if you're unaware of it and basically let someone else do the hard parts?

and the reason they didn't let me install opencarts in one day instead of trying to fix that thing, they said "so much money has been put on that already that it needs to be the thing now"

I mean, by definition, your words have implied that the subject is "doing it" despite being unaware of what they are doing

@Lasse grgergergaega

I had a client like that once

@Lasse it's amazing how hard it appears for many people to find reasonable clients/leads

8:40 AM

But hey, money is money

Most of the clients wishes are stupid ignorant shit anyways

What's the difference.. bill for 2 weeks at max price

they didn't let me see the code before they had me to agree on the price

that's silly

I'd just walk away - if they have something that big to hide, how is it possible to even trust their ability to pay afterwards?

never really seen that horrible code before, and I was kind of glad they broke the deal and I got a reason to not being in contact with them again for anything other than demanding the money they owed me

well I assumed that it wasn't that bad since they said that it had been working before, they just needed "some small changes"

lol insert "clients be like" meme

you can always ask them to show it in action, too

if it doesn't work, should be obvious

8:45 AM

"some small changes", they said

"it had been working before", they said

language: brainfuck

most people can't even use PHP properly, so I doubt that would ever be a problem

if this is what you had in mind: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brainfuck

I've been wanting to ship an application written in that for a while now

you might literally have to ship it, because of its length

that's assuming, of course, that you don't write the code, just generate it from some other language

well of course

9:06 AM

Regarding my website being slow yesterday. Seems there is some strange shit going on.

Somehow one of my pages accounts for 10GB of traffic per month: its just a silly blog post, only text, no files. And still it attracts about 20.000 visitors this month. Though not real people

chinese spammers perhaps

probably

It was on a second wordpress install, that I never updated :P

Old temp website for a project

Probably hacked to shit

Creating a back-up now and then deleting it

Though cant trust it :P

automated hack bots are attacking my site regularly

no idea why, they don't get what they came for

I hope my host doesn't send me a fat bill

I used almost 3x the data limit

Even though they throttled me

data-based bills are dangerous

9:18 AM

Oh man

throttling would be less expensive

I dropped all the tables of the hack database and instantly my site is fast again

WTF where they doing there

It wasn't throttling tha tmade it slow

there should be no throttling with data-based bills

not sure how table count helps with anything, though

Yeah, no idea

Anyway the old wordpress isntall tables + files is gone, and its fast again

(or well, not super slow)

I'm a web noob though

WOw this WP Super Cache plugin rox

Now it is actually fast

2 hours later…

11:40 AM

@SethBattin I tried your game on my mac at work with a gamepad and it works fine

A little sluggish, but it's playable.

Xbox 360 gamepad on OS X using Chrome, just incase you need to know :]

user92578

12:10 PM

I've been trying to draw a proper looking helicopter for my game, and I've failed like 10 times... how hard can it be?

user92578

:D

[user killed for copyright infringement]

user92578

I really need a helicopter for both the level enter cutscene and the level end cutscene

user92578

helicopters everywhere

user92578

oh oh I need a helicopter fight scene!

12:16 PM

Hella Copters

user92578

BTW How should I do cutscenes?

Probably by doing them

user92578

Program them? Use XML or some other way of describing the scene? Pre-render some stuff somehow?

what kinds of cutscenes?

no snake. damnit

12:19 PM

what? :D

haha I'm just having fun

:D

lol I feel bad for Tyyppi_77 because he always catches me when I'm twisted

in a silly mood not getting straight to the point

user92578

@snake5 like I'll need a helicopter flying, and then other one where the player jumps to the helicopter and the helicopter flies

@Tyyppi_77 You should do a cutscene editor lol

user92578

12:21 PM

I guess so

user92578

I've been dreaming about creating my own set of GameDev tools

Welcome to gdse lol

@Tyyppi_77 so basically camera position/target/angle paths and specifying animation playback for characters?

user92578

yeah, and moving objects etc

and timing screen shakes...

user92578

12:23 PM

yeah

user92578

totally

user92578

and maybe some explosions

fuck yes motherfucking EXPLOZHINNNNZZZZ BAAAAATSH!

user92578

Do you guys have like your own custom level editors and such?

@Tyyppi_77 yes, I'm actually building another one

12:24 PM

I don't want to admit it but yes

user92578

and other cool stuff like some advanced builtin entity editors for your awesome engines?

user image

user92578

Now would C# + WinForms be the way to go if I needed a Gui application?

@Tyyppi_77 I don't need entity editors when I can specify entity descriptions in a scripting language

user92578

Ah

12:25 PM

@Tyyppi_77 I used forms for my tools, worked out great saves a lot of time over custom GUI

@Tyyppi_77 one of ways

user92578

I've dreamed also having an entity editor that exports into XML that my game can load

user92578

Can you style Forms?

user92578

Like make a dark theme?

user92578

I need to have dark themes

12:26 PM

I've seen it before in nooby Visual Basic apps

user92578

Or do I have to use something like Qt?

winforms should be able to do anything qt can do

user92578

okay

and windows forms has been debugged more thoroughly than anything that's written fresh today

user92578

Now it's probably going to take a while to build such an editor but I guess I can then use it with my other projects later?

12:27 PM

supports all the weird edge cases like unicode input, etc

@MickLH iirc, that's not really an edge case

hehe

There are 2 languages in this world: English and Wrong

in winapi, translatemessage actually generates wm_char and such messages that support unicode character input

so any basic application can in theory support unicode

@MickLH and C

at least by my religion.... all languages are either a dialect of English or a dialect of wrongness, hence unicode being an edge case

I'd consider C a dialect of english, like "English for people who deserve a chance at life"

oh, good

12:32 PM

WOW

I seriously fixed my performance problem

Wardy On Wardy 64

eh ?

lol

you know? C:\windows\SysWardyOnWardy64\

yeh ?

user92578

Now I have no idea what I need for this...

12:35 PM

a hammer

@MickLH i am now confused

I've heard it's a tool for every problem

@Tyyppi_77 I heard someone say C# + Winforms

@Wardy You're welcome

lol

12:36 PM

lol I used to do that one in school so often

Anytime someone got confused with me, I'd just say "You're welcome" and leave it at that

I approve of this game

user92578

So what kind of editor I need for cutscenes?

@Wardy you better put a rush on things with your engine! lol I started again last night and I've got it loading models with skeletal animations already :D

user92578

and more importantly, how do I style the boxes that appear when a menu bar item is selected?

@Tyyppi_77 depends on your needs. Could be something simple... could end up reinventing flash editor :P

12:40 PM

Flash is actually really nice to work in IMO

And I meant to say earlier "Motion Tween", @Tyyppi_77, is probably gonna cover like 80% of your needs

I really haven't used flash since "Macromedia Flash"

so no opinion, basically

lol I literally have the Macromedia Studio MX box on my desk

That's the last version of flash I used

Haha nice

@MickLH im backing out of the idea of building an engine

Wow man, 2004, a clean decade ago

12:42 PM

focusing more specifically on worlds using voxels

I've got Adobe Creative Cloud so I technically own flash... I just haven't bothered picking it up and using it

@Wardy This could form into a nice relationship

Ascendion was meant to be handling the engine side of things but he's gone quiet on me for the last couple of weeks so im currently in the market for a new engine / platform

i can't rely on an engine builder i can't get hold of

@MickLH sounds like you're making pretty good progress though ?

lol well my clients all eventually learn that you can always get ahold of me and I'm usually high as a kite

if unity could handle simple things like "tasks" I would go back to it

right now i'm not convinced its up to the job I need it to do

12:46 PM

I'd screw with Unity if it were FOSS lol

FOSS ?

free open source software

I'm a slacker and would never use Unity's full potential

@SpartanDonut so dont buy unity pro

lol

TRY AND STOP ME

12:48 PM

@Wardy Why don't you use voxel farm again?

I have a horrible feeling something is going to drive me to do it one day and it will be one of the saddest purchases I'll have made

@MickLH again? ... i would love to try voxelfarm I even asked

@SpartanDonut lol

they basically told me to go fuck myself until I had a £1 million in the bank

ok I figured lol

12:49 PM

in much politer terms of course but that was the jist of it

What kind of license did you ask them for?

the bare minimum toolset to allow me to programmatically build my own virtual world

sounds pricky

I've never bothered talking to them

their attitude at the moment is more about making big money with projects like Everquest Next

that's their own loss

12:54 PM

it pisses me off because Miguel ... the guy that started it all is always banging on about the indie developer and how important they are

I've found it's pretty common for programmers to think their shit is worth a million dollars, well I tell them good luck and leave it at that.

if you read the comments ... especially when they have made it perfectly clear the engine works in unity

Their website speaks for itself: 0 games

Everquest Next is the second or 3rd project i believe

the first was pretty much some unknown game

so good no1 plays it

I have paid for beta access in to landmark just to see if its really up to all the hype

I consider my PC to be pretty high spec ... I get at a push 30 to 40 fps whilst playing

that imo is stupid bad

more so when you consider that the game world is not endless open

and it doesnt keep all changes you make only those that you "pay for a pitch" on with a flag

"pay" being in game currency not real world currency

but still

its voxels

i managed to get myself stuck in a very deep cave so i was digging myself a spiral path out of the hole

i got half way and fell down

my path was gone

pissed me right off that did

lol

12:58 PM

stupid stuff like that in a voxel world is just really annoying imo

the tools are pretty powerful though

but often do unpredictable things

but that might be lack of experience in working with them

maybe after a few weeks of playing like half the twitch streamers do it might be less annoying

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Oct '1417

Game Development

Game development and other polite discussion. Game development...

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