Game Development

9:52 AM

The new year will start in 1:30 (Jelali calender)

10:38 AM

Morning

What is all this talk of oil today?

@Blue simcity

AH I get it now.

10:59 AM

Happy new year everyone!

2:00 PM

Incoming terrible joke Why do programmers always mix up Chrismas and Halloween?..

I feel like i see this coming but I'm not getting it.

Because Oct 31 equals Dec 25.

???????

Oct (base 8) 31 = Dec (Base 10) 25

oh jesus

2:02 PM

:d

stationv3.com/d/20121024.html

Friend of mine just emailed me that. Had to share.

it's a good one

Hehehe.

image not found?

2:12 PM

Bizzare... it works for me..

http://i.imgur.com/y7KMj7l.jpg

i starred it and got it that way

oh i think it's an anti-hotlink thing

ah

ok one more LoL then time to sleep

sup folks

nada

as in, nada damn thing

2:16 PM

Hey @ShotgunNinja

What time is it for you @Almo

?

one more level to ranked play in LoL

10:15 am

Howdy @Almo, @Blue

been up almost all night. can't sleep

@Almo Go to bed, damnit

i get like this when i don't have a job

tired of this tech industry lay-off shit

:(

2:17 PM

@Almo Reminds me of my friend AJ. He's silver ranked, with over a thousand wins, and he hasn't had a job in years.

haha

I'm only out of work for a couple weeks

should have a new one soon; maybe a month

Ubisoft, CAE are possibilities

Sweet. If you get in at Ubisoft, you'll have to put in a good word for me (if I ever apply there).

:)

you mean get BACK in. I left there in april 2011

Oh, cool.

:D

I know some people there, one is the chief of all programmers in the studio, so that's a good friend to have. :)

2:21 PM

Yeah, totally. I'm assuming this is Ubisoft Montreal?

yup

they checkin for an appropriate position this week

What would you be doing there, if you were re-hired?

either gameplay programming, or generalist programming

Not being a bad ass at LoL at the very least

Sweet. One more question: How's the pay?

2:23 PM

decnt

listens intently

good benefits

Would it justify a move to Montreal in a few years?

What I wouldn't do to get work in a games company.

I think it porbably would

I moved here for it

and it's a cool place to live

draft picking done; in LoL till further notice :)

2:28 PM

Just as long as I never have to meet Mr. Caffeine.

Coffee abstained?

aaronpriceman.com

The motherfucker who embarrassed the fuck out of Ubisoft at E3.

►

Oh dear, I've not seen this.

I'll need to check it after work. Just finishing up my lunch break

ok'

It was at E3 2011, which was the year after I went.

During Ubisoft's press conference, they started with a nice little demo of Rayman Origins, then followed up with this douche.

3:06 PM

who the hell is that guy?

uhhhhhhhhhhhhh

Unless this guy is really high up (maybe he is) I would assume that someone would have had to review his presentation prior to him giving it.

Though whether or not he gave the presentation he said he was going to give... who knows

@Almo Apparently, according to his website, he's a "professional host and seasoned on-air talent with more than fifteen years of experience."

Experience doing what, I have no idea. Probably sucking corporate-television dicks.

If I had to guess he studied internet trolls thinking them as typical gamers and as a result really made an ass of himself.

"Offering unmatched depth and versatility, Aaron effortlessly works a room " giggity " and skillfully motivates an audience to action. His energetic stage presence and natural poise have allowed him to command audiences from an impressive client list."

@ShotgunNinja how you be so quick with the diagram?

3:17 PM

"So, when you’re ready to roll out your new campaign or launch your product into the marketplace, you can rely on Aaron Priceman’s expertise in translating your business strategy into a meaningful customer experience."

@RobCurr Which, this one: gamedev.stackexchange.com/a/51402/18568?

"BUY THIS!"

@ShotgunNinja yeah heh

A: Normal, tangent and binormal vectors

1

Generally speaking, a Normal vector represents the direction pointing directly "out" from a surface, meaning it is orthogonal (at 90 degree angles to) any vector which is coplanar with (in the case of a flat surface) or tangent to (in the case of a non-flat surface) the surface at a given point. ...

@RobCurr MS Paint, and being bored at work.

Damn you work boredom!

@ShotgunNinja you must work where I work

3:19 PM

@RobCurr Nope.

Unless you also happen to work for a prominent sheet music publishing company.

Here's the part I have had a hard time understanding about vectors (my vector math skills are awful. I seem to grasp calculus much better for some reason) - how can a set of two numbers have a length or a direction, etc. It seems just like a point to me?

I work a clothes customer services center as a project developer. Trust me I could do a day without seeing people spending over 4000USD on clothes in one sitting.

It's a set of two points.

Not neccessarily numbers

you can also have a planar vector which gives an angle and velocity (or magnitude)

@ToddersLegrande They're relative, not absolute. Relative change in X, Y, and Z from any given point.

So if I point down the street and say "Go that way for 1 mile" that's could be a vector represntation from here to there

Yep

The vector can have a magnitude... which is the square root of the sum of the components squared and a direction

3:23 PM

So like... in XNA I can do new Vector2(X,Y)

@ToddersLegrande Yep. Now, how would Pythagoras find the magnitude of that vector?

So in your case, assuming a cartesion coordinate system, you would have your start (x,y) and end(x,y). The magnitude of end-start would equal 1 mile and the direction would be (end-start)normalized

Is it all relative to 0,0 unless you involve a second vector?

not neccessarily

it's completely relative to the object it belongs to

@ToddersLegrande No, it's relative to anywhere. Points represent a location, but vectors represent a change in location.

3:25 PM

Vectors don't exist in their own space so to speak they are a property of something else

while I guess I meant a "relative" 0,0

In physics its like force

They can be assosicated with a point tho

So, for example, if you have a velocity vector of (1, 3), then you move +1 unit in X, and +3 units in Y, every second.

Right

3:26 PM

It's like the difference between DateTime and TimeSpan in C#.

Ok... I think what I'm thinking about 0,0 is right just not "right"

I personally love vector math... dont understand why other people have difficulty with it and resort to using cos/sin/tan

Ah

pressed enter too early!

DateTime represents a single point in time, and TimeSpan represents the difference between two arbitrary points in time.

I thought tuple was 3 components

3:27 PM

@RobCurr I prefer vector math as well as it produces much cleaner results and code. I just haven't taken the time to understand the logic behind it all

@RobCurr Technically, a tuple is just an ordered collection of values.

Tuple

In mathematics and computer science, a tuple is an ordered list of elements. In set theory, an (ordered) n-tuple is a sequence (or ordered list) of n elements, where n is a non-negative integer. There is only one 0-tuple, an empty sequence. An n-tuple is defined inductively using the construction of an ordered pair. Tuples are usually written by listing the elements within parentheses "(\text{ })" and separated by commas; for example, (2, 7, 4, 1, 7) denotes a 5-tuple. Sometimes other delimiters are used, such as square brackets "[\text{ }]" or angle brackets "\langle\text{ }\rangle". Bra...

Hah... I was just reading that article after you posted

@ToddersLegrande If you want really clean, but mind-boggling code, learn how matrices work.

Internal dictionary updated.. thank you sir

Once you know, you'll be able to understand very abstract and complicated compositions of transformations.

3:29 PM

@ShotgunNinja I like the DateTime - TimeSpan comparison. @RobCurr If you have Euclidean Space (X,Y or X,Y,Z) the vector is the equivillent of a transform between to points

@ShotgunNinja very true.

So how many units of X,Y (and Z) do I move to get from A to B

(that's a really basic generalisation)

@Blue that is one usage

Yep, a common one in basic 2d/3d game engines is to use Vectors for simple physics forces

(x,y,z) (0,-9.8,0

@Blue vectors are used alot in physics which is where I first learned them. But then I took a bunch of graphics courses in university and then really learned the power of them

@Blue sorry responding to the wrong person apparently

3:31 PM

lol

np

@RobCurr <aside> I've only just noticed your display picture is upsidedown...</aside>

@Blue are you sure its not your monitor?

Its on purpose I assure you. I like to walk to the beat of my own drum... even if I lack rythm sometimes

@ShotgunNinja I upvoted your answer for being prettier

So have any of your created a head to head mobile game which utilizes a server to handle the lobby?

oh wow, how a simple change made my game look much better!

on the menu screen at least...

melak47

what was the change?

That seemed like a leading statement intended for us to ask what you did... :p

Seemingly it's a secret...

3:50 PM

I can't tell you my idea. You might steal it.

:O

(I might be trolling)

@Madcowe YOU CAN'T HOLD US IN ANTICIPATION FOREVER!!! shakes fist

@ToddersLegrande I bet he can... or maybe hes just waiting for the right moment in order to build the suspense.

Oh god. No. That can't be possible. No one is that cruel.

You'll never guess what happened!

it's so amazing...

O_O

I've always had problem with open line of letters... :|

3:58 PM

@RobCurr Your application compiled with not a single error?

@Chunk-e-Yamani Like.... "Dear sir or madame" or "To whom it may concern" ?

I guess I should announce again: Happy new year everyone!

Happy new year!!! :D

@ToddersLegrande what about asking something from "info@insode.org"?

Well... whats the nature of the email?

3:59 PM

@Blue nah just being facetious

@ToddersLegrande 3 questions about registration process...

I would just go with "Greetings," or "Hello," and then your first statement just clearly say what the whole email is about

@ToddersLegrande lol, later I will upload the pics from before and after... or maybe I can do it now

@Madcowe Do it now. :P

@Madcowe OOOOOH the suspense is KILLING ME!!!!!!

4:01 PM

@ToddersLegrande and I was thinking single word openings are awkward :| so it's as simple as that?

> Hello, <whoever>. I'm writing this email to inform you of the doom about to befall upon your creation.

@ShotgunNinja shouldn't it be whomever?

@Chunk-e-Yamani yeah if its a fairly informal inquiry there is really no reason to sweat over it.

@Chunk-e-Yamani if it was like... a job inquiry or something else professional related I would do something else. Like @ShotgunNinja said, I would use the person's name if I knew it, etc.

that is the old menu, the yellow one is how the button looks when you click

if you over, the colors are reversed

@ToddersLegrande To whom it may concern.

4:04 PM

I mean, the text is black and the filling is white

I like cherry filling personally

@ShotgunNinja Yup. But I only do that if its formal. Otherwise I find formal greetings more awkward than "Hello" or "Greetings"

@Madcowe so is the hover effect the change or is there something more?

this is how it looks now

Nevermind :)

the help button has 2 ? on each side inside a circle

4:05 PM

@ToddersLegrande What about "Dear Homie" ?

the clear button has 2 sad faces

and the shop 2 tears on each side

@RobCurr Perfect. Wouldn't change a thing.

:P

and when you click, a small semi-transparent rectangle will cover the text :)

I'm really happy with the change

@Madcowe looks much cleaner imo

@Madcowe cool! Definitely an improvement.

4:07 PM

yea, last night I remember an acronym a friend of mine taught me long ago: KISS

Keep It Simple Stupid!

so I simplified it

the gameover screen needs a lot of work as well now... but first things first :)

oh tell me what you think about this... at first, I was thinking about making that blank space show text or something when you hovered one of the buttons or so

but then I thought it might look weird or something, specially when you roll out or so...

so I thought, the buttons of the left don't actually take you anywhere... but instead make the relevant info appear on the blank space

for the "Play" button for example, I could show some text and all, and below buttons with the game modes, like "normal game" or "bonus candy frenzy mode" or something xD

of course one would be locked and you'd have to go to the shop :P

might work out...

oh and also, @RobCurr and @ToddersLegrande Thanks you guys ^^

Well if you aren't putting anything to the right then it might look a bit odd, you might just consider centering it in that case.

oh of course I will put something, I was just thinking what would be the best way to do it and what to put there :P

I gotta go now though... thanks guys ^^

That's great then. Look forward to updates as it progresses!

me too... but I've been a hell of a lot lazy!

but on monday I put an alarm on my cellphone to play every tuesday and friday saying "Go WORk B1tCH!"

so hopefully I will work more now xD

Whatever gets you motivated.

4:18 PM

@Madcowe that could work provided you only have a single page's worth of information for each menu item. You'll probably want some sort of graphic or animation for when nothing has been clicked yet

@ToddersLegrande yea of course... I also though if it would work well to put like a watermark behind it... like really transparent that would always be there, it would decorate a bit and if you don't press anything there is still something to look at :)

@ToddersLegrande and also, for example the instructions, if I needed more pages I could either make forward and backward buttons on what will appear when you click it... or maybe press Help again to cycle through...

but probably the next and back buttons would work well, with a 1/2 on the bottom or so

wasn't cobol kinda out of league?

@Chunk-e-Yamani wat

I mean it seems like too much old for anyone to care about it anymore...

bye then, later :)

4:22 PM

Lots of software still written in cobol apparently

Same with Fortran and other older languages

:O

I actually got to look at some Fortran that is being used in a c library that is being used by my java program

I've just recently noticed there is such a thing as "Visual Cobol"

In the past Cobol was all done in braille

and people are actually developing and improving it's functionality.

what's wrong with them?

4:24 PM

I didn't need to know that

hahah

microfocus.com/products/micro-focus-developer/visual_cobol/…

Epic

Well let me put it this way... sometime 30+ years ago an accountant wrote a very very complex algorithm that calculated some crap that only accountants would want and it got used over and over and over such that it permeated the very core of some financial program that is used by some bank. Now they want to rewrite it... do they try and understand this algorithm so they can rewrite it in a modern language?

No, instead they hope that Microsoft has done their due diligence and they plop the code whole into a new Visual Cobol module so they dont have to think about it.

As much as I wish the answer were "yes", I think it could be a mistake

Understanding crap is for wusses that dont want to get the job done quickly :p

4:33 PM

@RobCurr I hate you so much right now, for this statement alone.

@RobCurr that statement just seems.... contradictory?

Understanding crap is for the brave that are given opportunity to be the hero that the wusses couldn't be

Really the problem is the word wuss... because in the end its all about money. Not how brave one is

@ToddersLegrande actually I prefer to understand things but that's not how business works

Right. Hence my last statement :)

@ShotgunNinja I was being cynical

@ShotgunNinja and probably a few other words that I cant think of at the moment because I've just been coding.

jsdo.it/c5h12/dhSg/fullscreen

^ Check dis shit out

(CAUTION Do not open with AMD Mobile GPU)

4:49 PM

A stop button is all I see :(

Ah thankyou Firefox

On a related note... I believe this is awesome though I'm at work and its blocked, categorized as "music" but I'm pretty sure this is right.

ro.me

Looks pretty cool...whole ton o hearts falling like leaves with some post processing happening

or maybe just faked... the distance hearts are blurred as well.

They're supposed to be cherry blossom petals.

The original intention is to mimic the effect of yearly Japanese Sakura viewings.

True but if I said they were cherry blossom petals I'm not sure if most here would be able to visualize them.

@ShotgunNinja it's not supported on either IE10 or WP8 :(

though IE10 managed to render a single frame before showing a blank page

2

4:56 PM

I know a cherry blossom when I see one! :O

I stand corrected.

Thank you Mulan. My hero.

At any rate it looks like a nice effect.

If you are ever bored and interested in cool JavaScript stuff just check on Mr. Doob

3

mrdoob.com/#/129/voxels and mrdoob.com/#/125/multiuser_sketchpad were fun for starters

by the looks of it the multi user sketchpad is lacking in users though

I like his menu

5:01 PM

Best evar - mrdoob.com/#/142/winning_solitaire

He must have used something like the Kinect to generate the 3d video

@ToddersLegrande Hah, nice

I would have done that effect myself but I am camera shy :p

@RobCurr which one?

Still talking about the menu

5:05 PM

right, off home and I expect some LoL action from some of you

this one is nice too mrdoob.com/#/123/water_type

@RobCurr I think you are seeing something I'm not - i.stack.imgur.com/S9Txn.png

Try using Firefox

Could be the graphics on this PC. I know he's done some detection before

Possibly.. either the browser or card

5:09 PM

@ToddersLegrande I don't have any problem seeing them

This is what it should look like: i.imgur.com/19lBgCw.jpg?1

Basically he has about 9 videos of himself recorded with 3d texture data all arranged in a circle that you can rotate. When one of the 3d videos is centered it begins to play

@RobCurr it doesn't play anything, they look like static images.

The 3d data is presented as a small cone for each dot and so you can see the dot on either side which makes it a nice effect in that you can see the 'video' static image from both sides like those inverted busts at the Haunted House in disney land/world

They play a small video that talks about the word below the 3d image

Ah you have to click on the image to make it play

maybe it's caused by my slow connection they don't play.

5:15 PM

Maybe. At any rate, the actual code/tech behind it isn't that impressive, just what he did with it is very novel and effective imo.

@RobCurr this one though is fully animated : mrdoob.com/#/138/kinect

@Chunk-e-Yamani Yes, hah so I was right that he used a kinect.

5:51 PM

@JohnMcDonald thanks for the image

@RobCurr if I had to guess, based on his past 3D stuff, he is using three.js which is where the impressive stuff lies. I don't know how much of a hand, if any, he had in that

@ToddersLegrande yes, I figured he was utilizing something like that. As I said its not (his) tech that is impressive, just how he used it.

		<script src="js/libs/three.min.js"></script>
		<script src="js/libs/tween.min.js"></script>
		<script src="js/libs/stats.min.js"></script>
		<script src="js/libs/system.min.js"></script>

		<script src="js/RGBDVideo.js"></script>
		<script src="js/Text.js"></script>
		<script src="js/Main.js"></script>

@RobCurr For sure

Someday I should play around with that stuff... been meaning plug my kinect into my computer for the longest time

I've been meaning to do a lot of things... lol

speaking of which

One of those is to get a home VM environment set up - anyone got an opinion on what type of hardware I should look into? Is server hardware and dual processors (2 processors, not dual core) over kill or necessary?

Ideally I'd like to get a Domain Controller, App Server, and DB Server setup (All Windows Servers)

►

6:00 PM

Nice

@Chunk-e-Yamani Access Denied... damn smartscreen forcing me to do actual work.

@RobCurr don't think of any reason why...

Just jave to watch it at home.

...and yeah there is no reason. I can read reddit no problem... guess they dont know about reddit yet.

6:23 PM

I don't like running servers virtualized on my dev box, if that's what you're asking

but then again, that's also the box I play games on, so I don't want like 4GB of memory dedicated to running VMs

@Jimmy I'm more thinking of a dedicated VM server on my network where I can remote into it to manage it, and otherwise just remote into the VMs to use them

I'd think server hardware is overkill

it costs extra just because it is "server hardware"

The thing that was driving me towards "server hardware" was the dual proc mobos

I guess I haven't done too much looking but it seemed most of them took server processors instead of dual desktop processors

Though I suppose if I was strategic enough in my planning I could probably get away with only spinning up 2 VMs at a time....

why do you need dual proc mobos?

My worst case scenario is a small SharePoint farm wich at the minimum will be 2 servers - Domain Controller and App/DB server. Ideally I'd like to split the App and DB server into separate servers

but I could get away with joining them up

I'm concerned about the processing power that 2-3 servers at a time will require

6:37 PM

oh wait, it's sharepoint :(

If I didn't want to do SharePoint I'd just buy a desktop and run basic VM software on it and spin up one at a time

yeahhhhh okay I don't know how many processors you need to run a SP farm

technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/…

I'd also consider a hosted VM solution that lets me spin up VMs as I need them. Need to research that more. I have a feeling I'm going to be more willing to pay big bucks for hardware up front versus big bucks every month

gafferongames.com/2013/03/20/…

I don't usually kickstart things, but I have a soft spot for anything related to the Best Game Evar

Sweet. I never took the time to learn go. I don't know people locally that would be interested unfortunately

Time to find an online version I guess!

6:48 PM

KGS has a pretty good english-speaking chatroom

have you checked the AGA listings for local clubs?

usgo.org/where-play-go?state=WI#listing

Work is kind of near Green bay but I live a good hour and a half from all three of those cities :)

@Jimmy lol, I'm from Milwaukee. I didn't know Board Game Barrister ran a Go tournament!

Yeah, @Todders, we have to get that game studio planned out eventually.

:P

dunno if it's a tournament

usually the clubs are just casual play, but you do have the option of playing ranked games if you care about Elo

"Did you ever notice how many stupid people surround you?" Try MinusIQ:

►

7:01 PM

Ooh... might get a job working on iOS ports of boardgames....

I HAVE RETURNED MY MINIONS!

@Almo nice. Every time I play a new board game I sit there and try to figure out how I could take the concept and turn it into a fun video game.

Your minions were 3 days overdue. You owe the library $5.75

I'm wondering how to get Pandemic to work over the network. Lots of talk involved... probably need a VOIP connection

@Jimmy dammit! :C

7:10 PM

@Almo Which company, if you don't mind me asking

I'll tell everyone after I know if I am going to get it. :)

yay :D

@Almo Don't want the competition eh? (j/k)

Oh... you Canadians :P

@JohnMcDonald No, it's just bad juju for him to mention a company name while he's still being reviewed by them.

They can look up his name in connection to their own, and if they find this, it'll be highly suspect.

Especially if anything bad is said about them.

I thought that was common courtesy.

7:24 PM

:D

Good evening everyone :)

hi

7:36 PM

morning

My lighting engine is now almost finished, I just have 1 more bug to fix. When I place a light source against 2 blocks on 1 side, the light passes through. See the screenshot: http://i.imgur.com/s2sFd3m.jpg?1

I use ray-casting to each block in-range to check if the face is actually receiving light. What would be the best (nice) way to fix this?

@Basaa if you put a block on top of the light would the result be the same?

Yes, it's simply exactly going through the 2 block edges

@Basaa hm not sure, never worked with 3D nor lightning, but cant you like check if there are 2 adjacent blocks and if there are there won't be light going through?

That would be the solution indeed, question is what would be the fastest / best way to dot his

Screenshot from another angle & position:
http://i.imgur.com/RvBoeAf.jpg?1

7:53 PM

@ToddersLegrande Took me until now, were you laughing at the "eh?"?

Actually no but that's even funnier.

heh