Game Development

6:02 AM

I know most methods I use on a daily basis, espescially in my own code base

The killer is when I'm learning a new framework or something... in a text editor I have to tab over to some docs, scroll through, find what I want

Chris

:D

yeah

Vaughan Hilts

In an IDE, I just start typing and see it all listed

Part of the reason dynamic languages drive me a bit nuts.. but I'm working on that. :)

Chris

aye
I guess for me, having used Unity for over 2 years now and not much else, am able to home in on what I know

haha

Vaughan Hilts

When you really know your language, I think it's another story :)

Good luck memorizing the whole .NET framework, though. ;)

MickLH

After spending half a week trying to track down a bug....

Chris

6:05 AM

yeah... nah. :p
most-used .nettish thing I use are Lists, love List

MickLH

I find out I typed Log instead of log one time..... Glad that's over

Chris

half a week? damn :(

Vaughan Hilts

@MickLH How does that even happen?

Chris

if I mispelled like "Debug.Log" as "Debug.log" accidentally, unity would alert me from the get-go

Vaughan Hilts

Yeah, static typing is good for that..

MickLH

6:07 AM

Because I thought the bug was in my script engine, I thought it was failing to resolve the symbol for some reason

Vaughan Hilts

Ah scripting engines.. I have to implement one soon :(

MickLH

So I was digging all through the object hierarchy code, thinking it was related to all the Math APIs being inside an object

Vaughan Hilts

I think I might just write mine in C# since the backend is already C# anyway :D

Chris

heh

MickLH

But I was just being silly, it could not resolve Log because Log is not a function....

Turns out there was no bug at all, it works great :D

Chris

6:08 AM

least you got there!

Vaughan Hilts

@MickLH Nice. :P My path-finding ALMOST worked my first compile... except I accidentally had a sign flipped -_-

Spend 30 minutes stepping through to figure that out

MickLH

lol man it's always so close, but so rarely spot on the first try

although! a week or two, I got that holy satisfaction

Vaughan Hilts

Every time I complete a feature, I hit compile to test it out.. cringe and then have to solve like 4-5 bugs and then it all works

I should unit test more and maybe these problems would go away.. :)

Chris

Unit tests... I just play through all scenarios I can think of and cross my fingers lol

usually works well =D

Vaughan Hilts

lmao

That's what a unit test is for... except to cover your ass when you lose track of them all. ;)

MickLH

6:10 AM

Oh it was the Sine solver, I wrote a full page of hardcore-ish code and it worked flawlessly

It was quite a beautiful feeling man, I want more of it lol

Chris

It's good when it all works first try :)

Vaughan Hilts

I've had that happen a couple times... but alas, rarely do things go that way.

Or they do, and I spend 30 minutes trying to break shit because I'm convinced there's no way I got every case

MickLH

Haha yeah I still spent at least that long trying to break it

Chris

@VaughanHilts I guess for my game, most everything is singled-out on their own and rarely influenced or affected by other things in the game, everything's pretty straight-forward

haha

Vaughan Hilts

>.> I always start a project convinced I'm going to isolate and abstract everything

And then... shit starts getting tangled and I stop giving fucks

Chris

6:12 AM

lol...

Vaughan Hilts

I finally killed the habit last year. :D

Chris

I've got like, 320 individual scripts/components, and maybe only a handful of set/get methods, everything's public lol

nice

Vaughan Hilts

Everythings public? lol

Oh god

I can only imagine how badly you could fux stuff up if you tried :p

Chris

yeah, ease of use, and again, hardly anything interacts or affects each other, apart from 1 or 2 scripts that I keep a strict eye on

Vaughan Hilts

heh, well that's a plus then

I try to break my stuff up into systems that don't really interact

Chris

6:15 AM

just a matter of making sure I call things consistently
If I were in a team, I'm sure it would be done much differently :p

Vaughan Hilts

They just manipulate properties, then hand off to the next 'system'

process, rinse, repeat

Chris

yep yep, that's a good way of doing it

Vaughan Hilts

It works okayish, the problem is breaking down systems

Like right now, I have a 'CombatSystem' which feels way too broad

But I really don't know how to break it down, so

That reminds me, actually. Does anyone know of any decent books on designing clean game code / patterns?

I feel like someone has probably pain stakingly already done this before.. :)

Chris

some of my classes have heaps of variables.... other times I'll fork them off into their own class for the sake of simplicity, just comes down to how bothered I can be, or my rough prediction of how confusing it might get

programming books... I have never read one D;

Vaughan Hilts

If it takes more than a minute to figure out what's going on, I try to refactor

I figure if I can't remember \now\, I'm defintely not going to remember \late\

user92578

6:25 AM

Can't get even collision to work =(

user92578

6:39 AM

I just implemented my first pixel perfect collision ever

Icy Defiance

whoo

user92578

but now my player disappears when the window is resized...

user92578

or maximized

user92578

or moved

Chris

good ol' bugs

user92578

6:43 AM

Now I have 15 minutes to implement jumping

BlueBug

OTL

have anyone used pygame with thread?

user92578

Once

user92578

What's up?

BlueBug

while gtk.events_pending():
gtk.main_iteration()
this piece of code won't run on thread

user92578

What's gtk?

user92578

6:46 AM

a GUI

BlueBug

aye.

Vaughan Hilts

pixel perfect is over-rated.

long live the bounding box.

user92578

Why GTK?

Chris

@VaughanHilts haha, amen.

user92578

I use only bounding boxes to achieve the collision @VaughanHilts

user92578

6:47 AM

And some math

Icy Defiance

bounding boxes for pixel perfect collision?

one bounding box for each pixel?

user92578

No

Icy Defiance

aww

Vaughan Hilts

If you're using bounding boxes, you be doing it wrong

BlueBug

hmmm that's a good question maybe I should abandon GTK. I am just using GTK since original dev of this project was using GTK.

user92578

6:47 AM

I guess it really isn't pixel perfect, but it looks like it

Vaughan Hilts

Unless you did like Icy said, and if so, I suggest you re-evaluate

I assume he's just using bounding boxes

Is it just a rectangle around your player?

Chris

I love Unity's 2D polygon collider... lets me add points and resize the points/bounds in the editor, soooo quick and easy

user92578

Basicaly what I do is when the entity collides, I move the collided entity to a coordinate from the other entity's bounding box...

user92578

if deltaX > 0:  # Moving right; Hit the left side of the entity
    rect.right = entity.getRect().left
if deltaX < 0:  # Moving left; Hit the right side of the entity
    rect.left = entity.getRect().right
if deltaY > 0:  # Moving down; Hit the top side of the entity
    rect.bottom = entity.getRect().top
if deltaY < 0:  # Moving up; Hit the bottom side of the entity
    rect.top = entity.getRect().bottom

user92578

This is really all I need

Vaughan Hilts

6:49 AM

So.. bounding boxes

Icy Defiance

yep

user92578

I've never done anything like this advanced before, I've before used only if collision -> Don't move

user92578

wich causes the player to hover on a platformn when jumping

MickLH

I ran one of those code cost estimators on my engine for fun

Vaughan Hilts

@MickLH Those things are a joke, some of my projects come out in the millions >_>

Icy Defiance

6:50 AM

@VaughanHilts obviously you're very highly skilled

Vaughan Hilts

@Tyyppi_77 You've implemented a fully working bounding box system.

user92578

Okay

user92578

But it looks pixel perfect :DDDD

Chris

lol

user92578

atleast with rectangular objects

Vaughan Hilts

6:51 AM

I imagine your box fits around your sprite well, which is why bounding box is usually.. enough

Now, do it with a circle and watch it fail

user92578

I DONT NEED YOUR CIRCLES

Icy Defiance

there are always bounding spheres

MickLH

@VaughanHilts that's what it tried to do

Chris

unless you have a big pointy-out bit, or a large missing gap, call it good enough

Icy Defiance

err, bounding circles in 2D

Vaughan Hilts

6:52 AM

@IcyDefiance Get out of here with your naysay

user92578

no really, it's a tile based game

user92578

who uses circles anyway?

Icy Defiance

or if you're really ambitious, bounding ellipses

MickLH

Actually that's always what happens I think, unless you tune it to skip all the non-code stuff

Vaughan Hilts

I do... but only when I have a physics engine handy. :)

Chris

6:52 AM

I use circles for small items, or for invisible checks

user92578

I'M A STRAIGHT MAN! (get it? rectangles are straight?)

Vaughan Hilts

... only if they're axis aligned. ;D

Icy Defiance

lol

user92578

@BlueBug What do you need GTK for? Wasn't this about pygame and threads?

Chris

apply rotation... crookedness intensifies

user92578

6:53 AM

oh right

Vaughan Hilts

Pft, who writes their own collision anyway

user92578

I also need to implement z-indexing

user92578

I would have loved to use Box2D, but there's no wrapper for Python3

Vaughan Hilts

Wait, is this for ludum dare?

user92578

no

Vaughan Hilts

6:54 AM

Okay, good.

user92578

I don't have time to attend

BlueBug

GTK to handle windows/mouse events

user92578

How is it good?

user92578

@BlueBug Why no pygame events?

Vaughan Hilts

Because rolling your own systems in a game jam is generally a bad idea. :)

BlueBug

6:55 AM

@Tyyppi_77 do you have to have GTK if you move around your windows ?

user92578

Yeah... But Python really doesn't have that much systems

MickLH

So after adjusting everything to be more realistic, the codebase clocks in at 25K LOC counting only the useful lines

user92578

@BlueBug PyGame does not require a GUI-Library to be used, it handles window moving and resizing automaticaly

BlueBug

yeah that makes more sense. GTK he uses, I think, is a bit pointless and just makes project more complicated for no reason at all

user92578

That sounds true

MickLH

6:59 AM

Given that every line is high quality, I think the adjusted estimate is pretty reasonable, a year of work for a team of 6

Vaughan Hilts

So, how much cash should you have raked in?

BlueBug

yeah I got rid of his stupid GTK calls and replaced with pygame builtin calls

works fine

user92578

I have 8 tiles & a player, and my FPS is 18

MickLH

@VaughanHilts somewhere between a half mil. and a mil. according to the app :P

user92578

There might be a performance problem

Chris

7:05 AM

@Tyyppi_77 That sounds a touch low ._.

user92578

There's like an invisible piece of code somewhere in my codebase that does this: if event.type == pygame.MOUSEBUTTONUP: entity.destroy()

Chris

lol

BlueBug

clicks

?!

Icy Defiance

DESTRUCTION!!! WHOOOOHAHAHAHAHA!!!

@Tyyppi_77 I have nothing to do with this bug

but I like it

user92578

Hmmmm, should I trust you...

Icy Defiance

7:07 AM

no

why would you?

user92578

BTW this fixed the performance bug: if self.movement != (0, 0): # Collision test

user92578

Now I only check for collision if the entity is moving

user92578

No, it's actually if MOUSE_BUTTON_WAS_RELEASED_ON_THE_TITLE_BAR: entity.destroy()

BlueBug

what an elaborated trap.

Icy Defiance

@Tyyppi_77 probably a good idea, otherwise with 9 objects you're checking for collisions what, 64 times? O(n^2)? and you cut it to O(n), or 8 checks

user92578

7:10 AM

But anyways I have to go now, I'll be expecting a bug fix for this when I get back.

user92578

@Icy yeah

Icy Defiance

of course this means you'll have problems once you have 60-some things on the screen, lol

Vaughan Hilts

Don't check static objects against dynamic objects

Only check your dynamics against statics

MickLH

spatial partitioning!

Vaughan Hilts

Assuming he's making a block based game

I guess his spatial partition is his map :)

user92578

7:12 AM

I have a list of entitities currently: tiles are also entities

user92578

ill leave you shout me how stupid that is, bye!

Icy Defiance

whoa, random idea. I should change the syntax of my engine from entity.GetComponent("name") to entity["name"]
all my code would be so much more compact! :O

Chris

hehe bye

Vaughan Hilts

That's... pretty much how it goes.

Icy Defiance

this idea just hit me like a ton of bricks, totally out of nowhere

Vaughan Hilts

7:13 AM

@IcyDefiance Why aren't you using generics? :O

Icy Defiance

hmm?

Vaughan Hilts

C#, right?

Icy Defiance

yeah

I'm not sure how generics apply here

Vaughan Hilts

entity.GetComponent<TransformComponent>();

That would win you some strong typing, too

Icy Defiance

oh there's that, but what if I want more than one component of the same type?

Vaughan Hilts

7:14 AM

Does that ever happen?

MickLH

Optional name parameter?

Vaughan Hilts

Optional predicate

Icy Defiance

optional name... actually this can be pulled off.

the only real advantage is the strong typing, but strong typing is pretty good

I'm thinking of cases where an enemy entity might have two int components representing its health and mana, or something like that

Chris

that's the one thing I can't stand with website JavaScript and even PHP these days, having coded with UnityJS and C#... variable types
web code variables feel so naked and wrong

Icy Defiance

lol I'm with you there

right now I just cast whatever GetComponent returns

Chris

7:17 AM

yeah

Icy Defiance

of course casting has a cost of its own, so I can save a small amount there too...

might have to work on this

MickLH

@Chris I am totally inverted on this issue

Chris

It's handy yet it's not

MickLH

I love the free form (lack of) structure in JS

For extremely fast prototyping

Chris

yeah

Vaughan Hilts

7:19 AM

Bah, I can't stand it

I like knowing exactly what I'm gettting..

MickLH

I hacked together a functioning computer algebra system in about 2 days in JS

Chris

that's why I clicked with UnityJS from the start...
muchly like JavaScript but with ":Foo" added to all the vars

Vaughan Hilts

Although, being able to just tack properties onto an object is handy

MickLH

also wrote a high level C-like language to x86 compiler in about 2 days in JS

Chris

haha

MickLH

7:21 AM

I actually do find myself using it for quick engineering tools

BlueBug

I feel like more loosely typed languages are for the experienced.

MickLH

Even though I have Mathematica, I'm often more comfortable coding in chrome dev. console

Vaughan Hilts

I guess if you have good mental fortitude to keep track of everything..

BlueBug

many of my fellows started with loosely typed language and they struggle when they try to transition to more structured language o_o.

Chris

if the variable is named well, it should read and look straight-forward

Vaughan Hilts

7:23 AM

Well, the trick is...

How do you know what operations an object has?

Chris

comes down to knowing what you're working with?

Vaughan Hilts

I guess if you get passed a calendar, it's probably safe to say it's a calendar

Icy Defiance

I think the worst part of loosely typed languages is there's no way for an IDE to know what type a certain variable is at a certain point

Chris

mmm

Icy Defiance

with C#, I can type a variable name followed by a period and boom, I get a list of everything inside the class

can't do that with php

Vaughan Hilts

7:25 AM

So, Intellisense.

Icy Defiance

right

I was trying to work with MyBB's code last month

Chris

most php things, everything's it's own bloody function lol

Icy Defiance

had to keep switching back and forth between files to be able to use their classes

Chris

less you make your own class

Icy Defiance

with C#, I could just hit period and see whatever's inside the class

BlueBug

7:26 AM

Intellisense++. hails to creators of intellisense

Vaughan Hilts

Yeah, a lot of PHP code I've seen is just functional hell

MickLH

As if I could alienate myself more

Icy Defiance

MyBB is actually pretty good that way. I really like how they designed it.

still a pain to work with though

MickLH

I think intellisense is totally overrated

BlueBug

WUT

Chris

7:27 AM

If it saves you having to alt-tab, it's good

Vaughan Hilts

pffft, code completion is the best things since sliced bread.

MickLH

I can't deal with the tiny lagspikes it introduces while I'm typing if it decides to eat any of my keys

Icy Defiance

oh well that's just your IDE

Chris

lagspikes? only in slow IDEs :D

Icy Defiance

absolutely no issues with that in VS

BlueBug

7:28 AM

I mean I guess yeah, if you know your code, and what you do, you would not necessarily need intellisense.

Icy Defiance

in Eclipse, yeah, that code completion really pisses me off

MickLH

I've never used any IDE ever that I was not slowed down by their code completion

Chris

Eclipse is yucky

Sublime is instant

MickLH

I'm thinking about VS specifically

Chris

(though it's not 100% intellisent)

BlueBug

7:29 AM

I haven't programmed without intellisense. I started my programming with intellisense. I can't imagine my life without intellisense.

Vaughan Hilts

I've never had VS eat my keys

Chris

MonoDevelop's intellisense lags like a snail, fffff

Icy Defiance

can't say I've ever seen that in VS, even on weak-ass school computers running VS2010, and 2013 is a million times better yet

Chris

hehe

Vaughan Hilts

Speaking of VS

Anyone want to share their IDE layout? I'm curious

BlueBug

7:30 AM

I remember reading article about intellisense. Author said it "encouraged" programmers to use ridiculously long type-name and still get by with it since intellisense does the trick for them.

MickLH

VS didn't eat the keys, the auto-complete feature does when it thinks I've pressed Enter to tell it to finish something, but really I've typed exactly what I want and am ready to move on to the next line

Icy Defiance

@MickLH oh there is that, at least if you use variables or function names you haven't implemented yet. there's also a way to disable that so you're forced to hit tab to autocomplete.

I'm pretty sure VS's C++ environment is that way by default, actually

C# is not though

MickLH

I think intellisense is great for many people

Chris

@BlueBug This sounds very true... tbh I hate using abbreviated variables, except for little int vars in for loops

End of the day, if you can code in a timely fashion, you're doing well :D

BlueBug

mine, GraphVisualizerEventHandler

Vaughan Hilts

7:35 AM

Okay, VS users

I have the plugin for you

Icy Defiance

@VaughanHilts simple, pretty much all code: i.imgur.com/bb9pk8e.png

dark theme is important. cannot program without dark theme.

other than that, I don't care about much

Vaughan Hilts

visualstudiogallery.msdn.microsoft.com/…

Chris

CutsceneRigidbodyJumper
FireMageFlameBallExplosion
GoGetLaxativeFromTownCCTrigger lol
LevelCreatorRoomSequence

some of my longer ones

Vaughan Hilts

ImmediateRadiusSkillAction

for me

Icy Defiance

I keep pretty much all my variable and class names to two short words, maaaaaybe three

Chris

7:37 AM

heh

Vaughan Hilts

And with this, I think it's time to sleep.

Chris

a lot of mine are like extensions of another class, but not inherited, just a separate component for ease of inclusion

cool!

BlueBug

@VaughanHilts UR GAME?!

Vaughan Hilts

EVIL SERVER PATHFINDING

MickLH

@Chris The worst offender in my codebase is HyperArcCotangent but it's not bad at all because I have an alias for it called acoth

BlueBug

7:39 AM

Chris

@MickLH hahaha. Mine's probably PassageFadeToBlack, which makes almost no sense and is just as badly abbreivated as pftb

Vaughan Hilts

You know what really pisses me off about C# these days

Braces taking up their own line

@VaughanHilts wat

hahaha

u wan fite

7:40 AM

loool

BlueBug

my theme, I don't like too dark, or too bright, grey and red color to highlight "names" most fit me.

Vaughan Hilts

INLINE NAVIGATION IS GOD

No longer will I ever fiddle through my solution looking for a class

MickLH

I just do that Java style

Icy Defiance

find variable with type of said class.
click on variable.
press F12.
click on variable type.
press F12.
???
profit.

Vaughan Hilts

I just control + click

MickLH

7:42 AM

Except not strict at all, all the helper / support classes go into the main implementation file too

BlueBug

@VaughanHilts just make your class name ridiculous long, so long that it tells you where in folder it will be located.

Vaughan Hilts

Oh wait, I think that's a Resharper thing..

Chris

BlueBug

#SWAG_CLASS_NAME

Chris

Look at my pretty MonoDevelop color scheme for Sublime lol

Vaughan Hilts

7:42 AM

^ See, he knows whats up with the braces

Icy Defiance

@Chris white background!! my eyes, they burn!!

Chris

@IcyDefiance I know, right

I find I can't stand dark themes

BlueBug

too... too bright.

Chris

and all these colours

too distracting

Vaughan Hilts

Icy Defiance

7:43 AM

and the K&R braces

BlueBug

I like that, except that blues and green.

Vaughan Hilts

It's called "Son of Obsidian"

MickLH

I just can't understand why people use themes that are not the Solarized color scheme

Vaughan Hilts

I'll have to check that one out

Chris

I tried it.. colours pop too much

Icy Defiance

7:44 AM

@MickLH solarized...this one? ethanschoonover.com/solarized

MickLH

yep

Icy Defiance

actually I could use that

even the light version

MickLH

@Chris That's the whole point, it's calculated to optimize between highest visibility and lowest contrast variance

Vaughan Hilts

.. I suppose I could give this "solarized" a try.

Chris

@MickLH but I like my stark white ;_;

MickLH

7:46 AM

@Chris I really used to just use stock colors whatever they were on every editor, until I tried using solarized with a large bold font

Chris

hmm

MickLH

I no longer have a headache at the end of the day every day lol

BlueBug

it's too colorful, but I like color choices. Maybe if I could like saturate it to dull out a bit?

MickLH

@VaughanHilts Heh, they call it the one true brace style for a reason :P

Chris

like for me, the colours are opposite what I'd probably prefer (obv I could tweak, but.)
"var" is all blue, stands out more than the actual variable itself -_- not good when I'm trying to read

operators and types stand out more than the names I've chosen lol, not very helpful

MickLH

7:48 AM

That's the theme, which I didn't make any suggestion on

I just brought up the color scheme

Chris

right right

MickLH

I personally switched the layout around too, but the colors themselves are easy to tell apart

Chris

I'm lazy :D

Vaughan Hilts