Game Development - 2017-10-24

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12:02 AM

@StephaneHockenhull glad to hear it's working on other devices! Good luck with the remaining cases. :)

@AlexandreVaillancourt I thought it was a very good answer. A lot of things can shift / be subject to debate (eg. exactly what percentage of players will absolutely not buy a sequel if it doesn't add more features), but the point you raised about staffing is pretty near an inevitable concern unless the studio is huge enough to juggle many projects.

BTW, I'm exploring that sensitivity issue I raised earlier a bit further on Twitter, before trying to cover it in a more structured Q&A. ;) twitter.com/D_M_Gregory/status/922613442934079488

Alexandre Vaillancourt

@DMGregory Yeah, I do think it's a valid answer, I'm just surprised that it's been the one accepted :P

@TheMattbat999 Yeah, most people try to help. Now I'm not sure if I'd prefer give a crappy answer, or no answer at all.

Stephane Hockenhull

@TheMattbat999 well, there's something to be complained about when someone has no clue and still tries to help.
at the extreme example: someone shouldn't "try to help" doing surgery.
No life-or-death situation on Arqade but... :P

@AlexandreVaillancourt well, answers that say "well, you can't do this" even though it turns out you could or I showed a reliable source that says you can, but not in specifics is worse than no answer to me.

Chris McFarland

ok posted, now to answer those questions from the template

Stephane Hockenhull

12:22 AM

@ChrisMcFarland don't you mean the generic? Working in C# and all...

Badum-tss

Alexandre Vaillancourt

@TheMattbat999 Well, if you can educate the ones posting answers to your questions, it's even better!

Chris McFarland

user image

Alexandre Vaillancourt

I haven't read the text of other nominees yet. You know, trying not to get too much influenced :P

Stephane Hockenhull

user image

12:46 AM

Too lazy to type the password to my computer so I took a pencil and typed it

Alexandre Vaillancourt

12:59 AM

Oh, my text is too long.

3x too long. Lol. I'll have to cut apparently!

Stephane Hockenhull

Vote Alex! He's not afraid to cut apparently!

Man, I got this political campaign thing down!

Alexandre Vaillancourt

Haha :p

Ok, two characters left.

Oh well, no room to write "Punch and pie" at the end of my nomination text....

1:21 AM

@StephaneHockenhull slogan he's the only man for the job. I could do this stuff!

(No insult intended)

(Me watchin out for poe's law)

Alexandre Vaillancourt

1:40 AM

I'll most likely post my nomination tomorrow, and I'll answer the questions at the same time.

Good nite!

G'night!

4 hours later…

6:05 AM

Alright, got my nomination and answers up. Nervous as heck, but hey, there's an edit button so I can fix it even if my first draft's awful, right? ^_^;

6:40 AM

@DMGregory I think it's ok

5 hours later…

user92578

11:19 AM

good day everyone

Chris McFarland

hello

Alexandre Vaillancourt

11:41 AM

Hello hello!

user92578

So currently I display the halloween content just on the 31st, but I started wondering if it'd make more sense to maybe have it on for longer?

Chris McFarland

yea, have it like a week before and then a few days after or something

user92578

ah yeah sounds good

Alexandre Vaillancourt

@Tyyppi_77 I'd go for the whole month of October :)

(and a few days after)

user92578

well that's a little late now

user92578

11:47 AM

but that actually doesn't sound too bad

Kevin van der Velden

Week both ways?

Alexandre Vaillancourt

Yeah, you'll have to work on your Christmas theme like, now :P

I played an MMO where the seasonal theme was spanning 3-4 weeks.

user92578

good call on the Christmas theme, I've added that to my Trello board :)

Alexandre Vaillancourt

Then there's Valentine's day, then there's Easter :P

You could do something Thanksgiving related too. It's a big thing for some people.

user92578

naw I won't get on the US holidays train

Alexandre Vaillancourt

11:53 AM

Sure :)

@Tyyppi_77 Halloween doesn't count as a US holiday anymore?

Kevin van der Velden

Do canadian thanksgiving

@nwp it really doesn't

It is basically everywhere (for certain values of everywhere)

user92578

I'd maybe count certain parts of Halloween as US things, but not the whole thematical death thingy

Alexandre Vaillancourt

Canadian thanksgiving is in a bit less than a year, you have time ;)

But where I live, with people I know, it's just a day off, not a big thing. This may not be the case for everyone around, though.

Kevin van der Velden

@Tyyppi_77 Yeah the pagan things are basically all over europe

user92578

11:57 AM

user image

user92578

when your custom character shows up in a cutscene :D

Alexandre Vaillancourt

Nice!

Chris McFarland

meow

user92578

does anyone happen to have tips on how to make a virtualbox running ubuntu actually usable? I get like 20FPS and a 2 second delay on input

Alexandre Vaillancourt

2:15 PM

Err... I think there is a bug in VS2013.. :/

Hmm, it's in the reporting of the error.

user92578

3:02 PM

lol I fiddled with my VM date to see if the seasonal event ends correctly, and now I have a commit in my repo that happened "-1 week ago"

ok my answers are up

@Tyyppi_77 :D

I once got an email that Outlook said came in "Tomorrow"

user92578

lol

I thought it was pretty funny the software handled the date "correctly"

user92578

3:14 PM

I just ran my Steam build uploading script, which reminded me of that one time when I was watching a dude on Twitch working on his game, and he managed to reveal his Steam password twice while running the upload tool (which for some reason displays one's password in plaintext)

user92578

Which also reminds me: Are you still working on the Cognizer Steam port Almo?

@Tyyppi_77 Which is why you should always input passwords off the captured screen. lol

user92578

IIRC you have to write it in the file that gets run

No idea, I've not done anything with steam.

(In terms of submitting a game, I've played on it of course)

3:29 PM

@Tyyppi_77 I haven't worked on it for a while, but I still plan to

I'm having trouble submitting a score :(

I'm using facepunch.steamworks, which works really well. but when I submit scores they don't show up in the steam leaderboard dashboard

4:01 PM

...I'm personally not a fan of question 8 on the questionnaire.

Experience designing a game != a good moderator.

user92578

"This might include soft skills dealing with people..."

Right, but the second half of the question...

It shouldn't be relevant to the election at all.

user4704

I agree, but it got asked and voted on and there weren't enough questions to cut any, apparently.

user4704

It's open-ended enough it could be interpreted as asking about other moderation experience, but it seems like most people took the game development route. shrug

I took both

Stephane Hockenhull

4:06 PM

Does wet work counts as "skills dealing with people"? Asking for a friend.

user4704

As far as moderation goes? Probably more than actually making games does ;)

Stephane Hockenhull

HAHAHAHA

so true :D

user4704

Sometimes you really just want a pesky user to go away...

@StephaneHockenhull Good luck with your next flight though

user4704

Stay off private yachts.

4:15 PM

There should be a world record on how fast you can get on the no-flight list if there's even one

You could say that "I only need 3 minutes", then you get 3 minutes in front of a computer and if you can't fly the next day, then the world record is yours

Stephane Hockenhull

HAHA. I'll pass ;)

Alexandre Vaillancourt

5:02 PM

In c++, is the vtable residing in memory with the code, or is it with the instance data?

Or with the static data?

Stephane Hockenhull

It's technically up to the compiler

Alexandre Vaillancourt

Let's say VS?

Stephane Hockenhull

But usually the class has a pointer to the v-table which resides in a read-only data segment.

Alexandre Vaillancourt

Because how I understand it, it's going to be the same for every instance, so there would be memory wasted by sticking it with the instance..

Stephane Hockenhull

yes. all instances can share the v-table.

Alexandre Vaillancourt

5:05 PM

That makes sense!

Stephane Hockenhull

Except DLLs will likely have their own version

Alexandre Vaillancourt

That's also understandable.

Stephane Hockenhull

because there's no guarantee the main app has the required copy of the vtable. Unless the class itself is externally linked and contained only in the main app...

Alexandre Vaillancourt

I have not worked a lot with DLLs, but yeah, they can't assume a lot from the using app.

I guess :)

Stephane Hockenhull

In theory it's possible to have the class in the other module (dll or main app) and sometimes that might be what you want.
Especially if the class has a magic list pointer to all the instances of that class or the base class.

Like a list of all textures currently loaded.
That would break if the DLL plugin has its own private list.

So in that case you'd want the base class code & static member data to be in the main app only, that the DLL plugin can still derive from.

Note that when you use C++ and DLLs you can only use DLLs built with the exact same compiler VERSION.
If you need to allow different compilers / different versions you need to create the entire interface through C and/or C-equivalent constructs and make your own "v-table" with function pointers "by hand".

struct MyVTABLE { void (*my_destructor)(); void (*my_virtual_function)(int param_whatever); }
struct MyClass { MyVTABLE *my_vtable; int some_member; ... }

user92578

5:20 PM

I've started to get frustrated with my excessive commenting
My whole codebase is filled with unnecessary & probably outdated comments on members and methods
I guess I should spend a weekend somewhere getting rid of those and maybe doing some other cleaning like that, removing old and bad coding habits that noobish Tyyppi though were great ideas

Stephane Hockenhull

@AlexandreVaillancourt because different compiler versions can mangle the function names differently and can change the vtable structure. So if you need long-term support you'll have to create all the v-table by hand like i've shown and provide a C++ interface that's make it "convenient" again.

I'm getting random upvotes on one of my older answers again

Stephane Hockenhull

struct MyClass { MyVTABLE *my_vtable;
inline void MyVirtualFunction(int param_whatever) { my_vtable->my_virtual_function(param_whatever);}
}

To essential entirely redo what a C++ compiler does behind the scene to make sure the compiler doesn't change it in a newer version...

Alexandre Vaillancourt

@StephaneHockenhull Yeah, most of c++ exposing stuff I've seen in DLL is through an extern c interface. I guess it makes it a bit more compatible.
But I'm far from there yet :P

The Mathematics SE gets LaTEX in the chat

Why can't we get it on the main site?

user92578

5:26 PM

They don't get it in the chat

user92578

It's a script that users need to run themselves

user92578

Or has that changed?

I don't know

I just assumed it's a chat feature, the message was deleted before I went there

Alexandre Vaillancourt

@Bálint sounds like a bad plan.. :P

Which one?

Ok, this is amazing

Alexandre Vaillancourt

5:28 PM

Integrating LateX in chat, looks easy to abuse.. :P

It was actually the reason for the most recent flag

Someone posted something that made the chat laggy

Alexandre Vaillancourt

I validated it :)

Stephane Hockenhull

@AlexandreVaillancourt You can create a C++ interface class that's just an empty shell wrapper of inline functions doing the vtable lookup like this. There's no (or should be no) performance difference compared to direct C++ but it's a pain in the butt to write and maintain.
So you can rebuild the C++ interface from the extern "C" interface to your internal C++ classes.
*sigh*

Alexandre Vaillancourt

@StephaneHockenhull The first thing I'll try is render an OSG app in a c# window.

(Or Ogre3d, not sure yet.)

Let me test something

$e^{i\pi}+1=0$

Yeah, this works

user92578

5:37 PM

yeah since it's a client side script, that only renders if one activates the rendering script in their browser

I might reach 6k today

6:10 PM

sweet

Stephane Hockenhull

6:20 PM

It's a delicate proposition to answer a question with essentially "you're doing it wrong" and "you're going to have to rework the entire thing"...

Alexandre Vaillancourt

@StephaneHockenhull Yes. That's why you make a second game when your first is out :P

Stephane Hockenhull

HAHAHA

Alexandre Vaillancourt

If the issue is too deep, change the design, release the game, make some money, and fix it for the next one. At least that's how I see it!

Stephane Hockenhull

definitely.

7:22 PM

0

Q: MSP430 LED Not Blinking At All

I've been trying to turn on the LEDs on my MSP430G2553 and it just doesn't work. I've tried the code examples from TI, the pre-generated code composer studio LED blinking project, and even previous code that worked on an MSP430 from the past. None of them seem to work. What could be the problem? ...

c hardware led msp430 code-composer

That's just purely amazing

Quality code right there

@Bálint yeah, it's a user script

@Bálint if you make a meta post requesting it, and compile a significant list of questions that would be improved by having MathJax, they can turn it on

@Mithrandir Are you sure?

I mean, we did that a month or two ago

33

Q: Can we enable MathJax on GDSE? (revisited)

This has been discussed before in math markdown on this site, but I'd like to have some fresh discussion of this matter. Circumstances have changed in the meantime. The discussion of 2011 seems to consider it a foregone conclusion GDSE can't & won't get MathJax, but sites such as RPG Stack Exchan...

feature-request formatting

The further I go down this Android rabbithole the more I hate it.

3

That's the way to go about requesting such a feature. It's not always successful, but...

7:33 PM

@Noctrine You get a star too

@Noctrine yeah, android is a nightmare

I've got the whole of the application working right - now I'm just trying to do the layout stuff. Originally built everything with LinearLayout (since the last time I did Android before this was like 2010)

But it was just a bit off, so now I've switched to ConstraintLayout since everyone's been talking about it. And it looked perfect in the editor, moved to devices / changed around and it's garbage.

@Noctrine Do yourself a favor and just use LibGDX

It gives you a way better control over the layout

No xml bullshit, just pure pixel coordinates

Yes, and is ridiculous overkill for what this particular project is / and will be unmaintainable by the various devs that will take this project after me.

Working on an app for a car

Well, do what you want, I just gave you a tip

8:07 PM

@Bálint okay, I checked with a CM

It's in their list of upcoming things to do

8:27 PM

:D (this makes my day - thanks for the good news @Mithrandir!)

;)

Thanks!

Stephane Hockenhull

8:55 PM

@Almo That is pretty terrible. They should be using a delay function. The compiler can optimize-out empty loops. But I don't know what the delay function is on an MSP430 SDK.

9:25 PM

:D

Stephane Hockenhull

9:35 PM

The guy's LED still doesn't blink... So either the MCU's pin is bad, the LED is fried or he's connected to the wrong pin or backward LED.

Based on the code, possibly the last one

I don't think he was ever able to use that led

Stephane Hockenhull

I've had bad GPIOs before. GearBest is the cheapest source of beat up Arduinos :D

DealExtreme (DX) also a good choice of mostly-working Arduino boards.

I don't go to the Casino. Instead I order from those two stores. Much better odds and just as much fun :D

Why would you play the silicon lottery, when you can waste your money with a far bigger chance of the end result being useless

Also, I want to get into these in the future at some point, which arduino gives you a good start?

Stephane Hockenhull

9:52 PM

Get a $12 Arduino or some $20-$30 kit from GearBest/DealExtreme. I've only had 2 with just two shorted pins out of 20 arduino mega 256 boards. They got >60 pins so it's no big deal :P

It's good to start.

Thanks

Stephane Hockenhull

Or the brand Kuman on amazon. I haven't had a defective part from them yet.

amazon.ca/Kuman-Project-Tutorials-Mega2560-included/dp/…

Wait, that's Amazon.ca (Canada) but you get the idea... that's about $30 USD

30 bucks and it includes a dot matrix, a bunch of sensors, a motor, segmented displays, leds, etc.?

Why the hell do calculators cost more than 10 bucks sometimes?

Stephane Hockenhull

Hrm. This kit doesn't have the analog stick... There's one with a PS1 analog stick and I used the LCD to make a small snake game :P

Check out this kit: amazon.ca/dp/B06XJ1GK37?psc=1

And I thought using aliexpress was cheap

Stephane Hockenhull

9:59 PM

1 LCD and TWO (2) LED dot matrix. Analog stick, stepper motor, DC motor, a few pots, a 4x4 button keyboard matrix

You got months of playing with this stuff learning it :P

This is great, thanks a lot

Hah

Stephane Hockenhull

And it's cheaper than a movie date :D

i just posted this before 00:00 and it says it happened yesterday

I'll need a bank account though

It'll cost me more than this kit

Stephane Hockenhull

Maybe you could use a MasterCard/Visa gift card instead?

Possibly

Wait, the first one is 42 canadian, only 33 bucks?

Stephane Hockenhull

10:04 PM

yes

the 2nd one is 44.17 USD (55.99 CAD)

I thought the second one was $60, but I misread it and it's in CAD too, amazing

Stephane Hockenhull

Once you got an arduino or two you can buy the just-sensors kits.
There's kits with NFC cards too.
I make little projects with my boy. When we did an NFC card project that blinks an LED when you scan the correct card he asked me if we could put an electronic latch on his bedroom door so his 3 year old sister wouldn't smash his craft projects :D

:D

Is there a way to make these threaded?

I recall hearing about these only having a single thread

Stephane Hockenhull

Not really. You got interrupts and the main thread.

You have to build state machines.

Great, thanks again

I have to go to bed noe though

Good night

Stephane Hockenhull

10:17 PM

'night

And now that I'm back in javascript world - I kind of miss Android Studio. I need atom-ide to hurry up.

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Oct '1724

Game Development

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