Game Development

user92578

1:00 PM

@MickLH Ah, I love when you call me "kid". That's a great way to bring the fact that you're much smarter than I am up, and that you're always right. (I'm not saying that you aren't, thouhg)

MickLH

I know for fact that you don't matter to me, because I'm the type of programmer that makes a few grand for spending a handful of hours coding. So if you want information from experience, let me know

Otherwise, I am tired of convincing people to stop shooting their own feet

user92578

So, is SDL an engine?

MickLH

I love you either way dude

engine is a broad term

game engine? rendering engine? Pi-calculating engine?

user92578

I suppose it's not, since by making a game with it, I'm building an engine

user92578

@MickLH No how am I shooting my own foot here? By trying to fix a bug, that's caused by not using Unity?

MickLH

1:04 PM

By resisting parts of it lol

Treating OpenGL like hard work turns it into hard work

user92578

I suppose this is an engine too, since it's a simple game that was programmed:

user92578

pastebin.com/dWesPgvr

MickLH

yep,full game engine with a classic mainloop and everything

also MASSIVE bug lol

SDL_Event* e; // no storage allocated for this, but its used later

you most likely meant: SDL_Event e; and then using SDL_PollEvent(&e); later

uninitialized pointer is such a big danger in C lol

user92578

I didn't mean anything, I just happened to found that. And OMG YOU'RE SO AMAZING PROGRAMMING AND PERSON FOR FINDING THAT BUG!

MickLH

hehe

don't worry, I'm "on your side"

user92578

1:09 PM

"don't be so emotionally-defensive"

MickLH

I just barely connect with humans anymore, even the slightest emotions feel so strong to me

user92578

That's probably why everyone is always so emotially-defensive to you

MickLH

I mean, you're defending the relaxed place where you don't have to deal with OpenGL, because it feels better

user92578

@MickLH Where/When did that defending happen?

MickLH

That's emotionally defensive, and now you're not just accepting it was true. More emo-defense.

When you said things like "oh god..."

All the excuses for why you wont use OpenGL directly

I'm doing a lot to keep my patience and try to make sure you've got a good mood before I leave

user92578

1:13 PM

That's actually too late.

MickLH

Can you just get over it instantly anyways?

user92578

Sure

MickLH

cool :)

user92578

I'll probably ignore you. You don't really offer anything to me now

MickLH

sorry if I'm causing you pain lol, you cause plenty to me so don't worry, I'm not mean

user92578

1:14 PM

But thanks for the time-waste :)

MickLH

No such thing as wasted time

user92578

Now that I think of it, I'll probably leave you un-ignored

MickLH

Good luck with life if that's your idea of "got over it"

user92578

Sorry for beeing so annoying

MickLH

same!

user92578

1:15 PM

Now if you were me, would you consider moving to my own OpenGL rendering instead of SDLs one?

user92578

I'd appreciate your opinion

MickLH

I can't explain enough that I'm absolutely not trying to offend people. and sorry but it should be a compliment that I offend you

I only am this way when I'm frustrated, because I know you're smart enough to just get it, without me working so hard to show you anything

user92578

I need to write a script that will like add the text "[NOT TRYING TO OFFEND]" next to your name

MickLH

If I were you, I'd totally go with a 2 pass render

A tile map renderer, and a sprite batch renderer

user92578

Why not just a sprite-batch one?

MickLH

1:17 PM

However you get it done, that's what it looks like your game needs

Because you'll stress out the sprite batch renderer with 10,000 sprites in the background every frame

and its more work when you could save time if you don't have to come up with tricks to make the sprite batch handle so much

@Tyyppi_77 I don't want you to hide your thoughts from me

Almo

anyone done some sql db design here?

not sure how to structure something

MickLH

I've done the basic stuff a bit like normalized schemes and separate tables for separate use cases

I'm actually slacking from a job right now where I need to deliver a scalable DB lol

Almo

heheh

ok, i have a game in dev. people enter a number. lowest number that's unique wins

i want to run daily and hourly contests

how do I mark entries for which contest

just use time stamp, or use an id for each contest?

i'm leaning toward id

MickLH

1:46 PM

I don't see any problem with that unless you have a million people a minute lol

Almo

hahaha

so... how do I pick the ids? the server runs a cron job every hour and sets the current contest id?

and the client submits its numbers for that id?

MickLH

I'd just have a tiny table for bookkeeping

I have a table called "counters" usually, where I do a read-increment-write transaction to generate a next ID reliably

But I'm almost always concerned with cross platform SQL

there are simpler ways if you lock down to a specific server

Almo

this will be mysql on a dedicated server

user92578

I wonder what event I could add an event listener to when this site receives a message?

MickLH

I think MySQL gives you an AUTO_INCREMENT flag which you can set on the ID field for your contest description table

Almo

1:56 PM

yeah it does

MickLH

then every insert will automatically generate a new ID

Almo

my question what sets the current contest id?

a cron job at 1:00 says "new contest" and the clients use that one?

MickLH

If it's so strictly time oriented though, maybe it's reasonable to just round the time to the nearest hour and call it an ID

Almo

so people put in their numbers which get timestamps, and use the timestamp to figure out which contest it's for

i'm wondering about what the client knows about the current contest

MickLH

I'd go with the book keeping table myself, and just explicitly post everything back and forth

Almo

1:59 PM

sorry i'm at the very beginning of building this db so i'm fuzzy on parts of it

MickLH

no worries lol, I'm just bouncing ideas around

Almo

:)

i already built this once, but it wasn't for real consumption, and only had daily contests with people at work, so there were no people submitting near the contest changeover time

MickLH

You could have a ticket system

user92578

Now databases are something that I know absolutely nothing about :)

MickLH

Where you give out an enrty code when the page loads, and that code could be good for one entry, and could last an extra 30 seconds or something after the time expires

Almo

2:02 PM

i like that idea

MickLH

That way if someone opens the contest in the last 2 seconds, spends 5 seconds typing their number,they won't be accidentally entering the new contest

Almo

ok i'll work on that idea and come back with questions if i get stuck

MickLH

good luck! lol the game seems so simple but so impossible to pick a good strategy

how many times can one person enter?

Almo

yeah that's where the interest is. programmer types start analysing data to see what good numbers to pick are

i'll be giving one or two entries free, then pay for more, with a cap so you can't just spam 100 numbers in there

MickLH

hahaha omg that's amazing

Almo

2:05 PM

raw contest data available at the site

client will be mobile device

MickLH

total pay 2 win bro

Almo

:D

casuals can play free, but you get into it, paying will definitely be an advantage.

data download is free though

had originally planned to charge for the data, but it's easy to share that. so that wouldn't work

MickLH

lol so much math to be done analyzing that data

Almo

yeah

it's a niche game I think, but the ones who like it will love it

MickLH

does it include timestamps per entry?

Almo

2:08 PM

I haven't decided the level of detail in the data dump

the webhost claims free unmetered bandwidth and they're not super cheap, so provided I have zipped chunks for DL i think it will be fine whatever i decide

Almo

2:32 PM

@MickLH you can put in multiple guesses for one contest. is that one row with a user id and a bunch of guesses? or is each number a seperate row?

the winner picker needs to coallate every guess by count, order ascending then the one with one count wins

MickLH

I'd put them in a separate row per guess

Like a table with nothing except [ContestID, GuessNumber, UserID], without even a primary key

Almo

ooh right

cause it's just raw data

MickLH

yeah then you can just let the DB do all the hard work flipping the data around

hopefully lol

Almo

that makes sense

:D

thanks

MickLH

no prob dude! hope it works out

user92578

2:42 PM

int playerOffsetInViewPort = (int)(level->GetLevelOffset().X + (m_LastPosition.X - m_Position.X) + m_Position.X);
		if (!playerOffsetInViewPort < 320)
		{
			level->SetLevelOffset(level->GetLevelOffset() + (m_LastPosition - m_Position));
		}

user92578

I use that to stop the scrolling in the left edge of the level until the player is in the center of the screen. How do I mirror this to the right side of the level?

user92578

320 = half of the viewport width

MickLH

hold on... hold on

(m_LastPosition.X - m_Position.X) + m_Position.X

algebra...

m_LastPosition.X + (m_Position.X - m_Position.X)

x - x = 0

m_LastPosition.X

user92578

lol, whoops :D

user92578

eating, brb

MickLH

2:46 PM

also... I'm almost sure (!playerOffsetInViewPort < 320) means ( (!playerOffsetInViewPort) < 320 )

when I think you wanted it to mean !(playerOffsetInViewPort < 320)

or less confusingly, (playerOffsetInViewPort >= 320)

I have checked, and in fact (!1 > 2) == (1 > 2) lol

user92578

3:05 PM

Aihgt, this: if ((m_LastPosition.X >= 320) && (m_LastPosition.X <= level->GetLevelSize().X - 320))

user92578

Thanks a lot @MickLH

MickLH

np!

Almo

3:26 PM

that's some great advice there :)

Siddharth

any body aware with multiplayer game implementation using facebook

features

??

Joe

archeage just got RACIST, Nuian Elf Firran and Hiranian (NEFH) - server login racial restrictions... some how just seem insane to me

@Siddharth i am not sorry man

Almo

@Siddharth I don't think Facebook figures into it

if you can write a multiplayer web game, then you can host it on facebook

Siddharth

basically I am looking for answer for this question

answers.unity3d.com/questions/794219/…

for this game working on android and ios

Almo

the multiplayer aspect of the game is seperate from facebook. if you can send notifications and things on FB, then you have what you need

our golf game has multiplayer and facebook login, but the facebook login is just to identify people. the game turns and stuff are stored on our own server.

tempted to get Wasteland 2.

sounds like it has more of the bits of Fallout 3 that I liked

have not played a hardcore CRPG in a long time

Siddharth

3:38 PM

are u understand my question?

only suggestion become enough for me

OMGtechy

This is what SE and google are for. Not a chat room really IMO. My advice would be to look for a wrapper that deals with it for you.

That answer is the answer for most API specific things.

Almo

@MickLH so i'm making the contest table. I'm doing contestID and deadline. So a simple query tells me which contests are active, and when they end. game logic just adds a new one with a deadline when necessary.

should i have a table of available contests and move them to past contests table, or the db just knows which are available by finding any contest whose deadline has not passed?

or do I mark them with a bool flag to say it's passed?

MickLH

I would go with the former

Almo

so a table for avialable ones, and move them to a past contest table?

MickLH

Yeah

Almo

3:43 PM

ok

thanks for advice

MickLH

That way you can use a memory table for the active stuff, to keep it responsive under heavy load

Almo

oh right

Nick

Oh... sh*t ... I deleted a months worth of code and I just realised I backed up the wrong directory

Almo

@MickLH so i have ln_compelted_contests with contestid (primary key), deadline, and winner (int, index)

:(

do i need to add indexes for seaches I think will be common?

OMGtechy

@Nick and this is why you should use source control

Nick

3:49 PM

@OMGtechy Its one of those things that everytime I remember it I go "eehhhh not now"

Anko

@Nick Git documentation is so nice I read all of it when I stumbled upon it, without even wanting to learn about version control.

Maybe that's just me though.

OMGtechy

@Nick it's one of those things I do before writing a single line of code

Almo

i even use perforce for my home projects

OMGtechy

@Anko "the stupid content tracker" xD

Anko

The tagline changes when you refresh, but yeah :D

I think they must mean stupid as predictable and "don't try to do anything smart"

OMGtechy

3:53 PM

I just think it's plain awesome

Anko

Yes!

I remember answering to something like "How do I collaborate with friends on a game project" with something like "git is awesome, SVN is objectively horrible"

and got much downvote for having said "objectively"

because hey, it's still good at big binary files

OMGtechy

I like SVN for Tortoise SVN

When explaining source control to people who aren't developers, it's so much easier with Tortoise SVN.

Anko

Is "Tortoise" referring to its speed ZINGG

OMGtechy

oooo

I see what you did there

Anko

aaaa

OMGtechy

3:55 PM

daym

Anko

It's really risky naming projects after animals.

OMGtechy

Lion Git

Because it's the mane source control solution

Anko

I somehow imagine Mercurial as an eel.

2

Almo

that should be on one line so ican star it

OMGtechy

@Almo what should?

Almo

4:00 PM

lion git and its description

OMGtechy

Lion Git: it's the mane source control solution.

3

@Almo merry easter

Almo

:)

Nick

4:21 PM

java: /var/lib/jenkins/workspace/libgdx/extensions/gdx-box2d/gdx-box2d/jni/Box2D/Colli‌sion/Shapes/b2PolygonShape.cpp:384: virtual void b2PolygonShape::ComputeMass(b2MassData*, float32) const: Assertion

m_count >= 3' failed.`

-.-

OMGtechy

I'd track all assignment to m_count and put the assert there

Nick

@OMGtechy uhh im programming in java atm :p

Thats box2d that just crashed

Anko

What are you calling in Java to produce that?

OMGtechy

^

Somewhere, you're setting m_count to < 3

Nick

Figured it out, forgot to set the mass on one of the objects

Anko

4:27 PM

OK good :)

Nick

I should really start getting better at C/C++

Anko

I think m_count is internal to Box2D. From what I can tell, it's a vertex count.

OMGtechy

@Anko looking at the source location, I'd guess so

Nick

4:48 PM

Anyone has ever used oxygine.org ? Thinking of trying it out

3

OMGtechy

Never heard of it, but it does look pretty

Jon

demo doesn't seem to work in firefox

it loads, but a lot of the features don't seem to work

Icy Defiance

5:48 PM

just started a server for starbound at starbound.icydev.net if anyone wants to play. no username or password.

not sure who here owns the game, but it's open to anyone that does, at least for now

Lokkij

6:05 PM

@IcyDefiance client-server connection no longer valid :(

Icy Defiance

lol yeah you crashed the server :P

Lokkij

Well damn :P

Icy Defiance

let me check the logs, see if I can figure out what happened

Lokkij

Maybe because I joined with an existing character?

Icy Defiance

not likely.

I mean that used to work fine. this isn't the first server I've started.

okay, try connecting again

Lokkij

6:08 PM

It crashed as soon as I teleported down to the planet

Yep, it's working now :D

Lokkij

6:43 PM

Argh

Server crashed again @IcyDefiance

Icy Defiance

odd...

it might be running out of memory. didn't think it would with only two people, but I'll try to figure out a way to check that.

oh yeah, definitely the problem. the server is only using some 90 MB of memory, but the OS itself is using the rest and it's hovering with about 6 MB left with no one logged in.

let me upgrade the droplet, get another 512 MB. that should fix it.

Lokkij

Heh wow

Icy Defiance

okay it's not cooperating. this might take a little while.

@Lokkij okay, upgrade complete. got a different IP address, so DNS has to propagate for the icydev url to work again. until then, you can use 104.131.22.103

Lokkij

7:05 PM

@IcyDefiance Awesome!

@IcyDefiance it crashes when I try to connect :(

Icy Defiance

LOL yeah the program just froze. won't even let me restart it.

okay NOW it's online

Jon

7:19 PM

now its ON..line

Almo

8:28 PM

@IcyDefiance where's my lol partner

Icy Defiance

playing starbound :D

Almo

wtf kind of shit is that

;)

in for a lol game?

i hope to hit silver by the end of the season, which is approaching :(

Icy Defiance

hmm

sure

Almo

designed my DB (just 3 tables; simple game) and now have to motivate myself to program some stuff

Icy Defiance

nah that's too productive

Lokkij

8:35 PM

@IcyDefiance client is crashing on connect again. I'm going to play some LoL as well so no need to fix it right away though.

Icy Defiance

wtf stupid server

I think the software is just glitchy

I'll check later if there's a way to fix it

Lokkij

Probably

TheMuffinCoder

9:01 PM

the arduino editor just said to me "How very Borges of you"

I dont get it...

Outlaw Lemur

web.archiveorange.com/archive/v/flZ6A741PUTGPgyj5DuL

TheMuffinCoder

thanks Outlaw

Now i can understand when the Arduino ide is making fun of me XD

Outlaw Lemur

9:15 PM

@OMGtechy Can you think of any way to store a vector of a class with different template arguments?

Outlaw Lemur

9:28 PM

I'd prefer to not use boost too:P

Pip

@IcyDefiance I feel like such a fucki'n asshole atm :/

Icy Defiance

how so?

Pip

I (1) hate to do that, ever, (2) should have kept better track of time, and (3) hate my parents for making me do that

When I left the game yesterday :/

Icy Defiance

ohh that. yeah. team was pissed at you.

if it can't be helped, then it can't be helped

do it too often though and it can get you banned

Pip

Still.... absolutely feel bad about that

yeah

Icy Defiance

9:32 PM

I actually got suspended for a day once when my internet was unstable. too many people reported me.

Pip

That sucks... not your fault

Icy Defiance

was my fault for playing with unstable internet

Lokkij

One could argue that you should not play LoL when your internet is unstable though

Icy Defiance

I report anyone who leaves games now, even if they come up with some excuse about their autistic baby needing a walk or something

John McDonald

@OutlawLemur I want to say it's impossible. The elements of a vector are stored contiguously in memory, so if the T's differ at all, you can't do it

Lokkij

9:34 PM

I report anyone I don't know who leaves a game. If I know them, I know they probably have a good reason

Pip

@IcyDefiance Yeah, I usually do to... that's one of the reasons that I don't like leaving games.

Outlaw Lemur

@JohnMcDonald Ah.... that sucks:P

OMGtechy

@OutlawLemur hello

Pip

I made sure that I have time this time.... going to play a game

Outlaw Lemur

@OMG Hi

OMGtechy

9:36 PM

You called?

Something about vectors and templates

Outlaw Lemur

Yeah... I was hoping for a way to store different template arguments in a vector... @John confirmed I can't, so I might have to use boost

But even that may not work...

OMGtechy

Why do you want to do that?

Outlaw Lemur

If I have matrices of varying sizes in a single array

OMGtechy

Well, you can make an abstract class (like a C# interface) and derived from that

And then store base pointers

Why do you want to do this? That might be the real problem here

Pip

@IcyDefiance or @Almo want to play a game now that I actually have time?

or both :)

Almo

9:42 PM

I don't have time right now

working on my game

programming some php :)

messing with cron jobs

Pip

:)

now to wait for Icy's response

Icy Defiance

and I really need to get some homework done. already been gaming for 5 hours, should stop now.

Pip

who else here plays League? @Lokkij?

kk :)

Icy Defiance

he plays, but on EU servers I think

Pip

ah, kk

Lokkij

9:43 PM

@Pip Yep! I'm on EUW though :(

Pip

:(

Lokkij

And my Ezreal game is really, really rusty

Outlaw Lemur

@OMG Another class requires the matrices to interact with each other in specific ways, which require different sizes of matrices... I may just scrap the whole template idea

OMGtechy

@OutlawLemur Well, if there's a common interface, you can do it quite simply.

I'll make a small example

Icy Defiance

starbound server is online again

Outlaw Lemur

9:45 PM

@OMG Great thanks

Lokkij

@IcyDefiance Awesome. I might play some more later tonight, but now I need to get some programming done.

Icy Defiance

yeah I'm not gonna touch it right now either

Lokkij

Starbound is really fun though. Does anyone else here play it?

Pip

Starbound... the game kinda like Terraria, or something else?

If it's something else, please permit me to say "What the fuck is Starbound?"

OMGtechy

@OutlawLemur ideone.com/aLwlH9

welcome to polymorphism

Lokkij

9:54 PM

@Pip it's the space terraria-like.

Pip

ah, yeah. I know what that is, played it a bit

didn't like it quite enough to buy it though

Icy Defiance

think terraria, but instead of one world, you have some quadrillions of them, and a whole lot more variety in content too

Almo

anyone messed with cron jobs to run php files?

/usr/bin/php /ln-game/cronjob.php -- argument

i have that as the argument to cron, and it says the .php file doesn't exist

but it does

maybe path is wrong, but that's the path that was autofilled by the host

Lokkij

And hey, the flesh caves we discovered are pretty cool. And gross. You can harvest large organlike things for chunks of slightly overcooked flesh. And there's decorative flesh pillars, so that's nice.

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