Game Development

12:59 AM

4v4 mineral dump to one guy is amazingly effective in SC2 it would seem

5:51 AM

@ToddersLegrande if that guy is hyper efficient running all those units, I would guess so. Less spent on infrastructure.

oh... unit sharing. that's right

just the unit cap then.

BaSha

8:57 AM

hellou, can any one help me out to set property of my scene before replacing it on current scene?? like...

CCScene *scene=[CCScene node];

scene.myproperty=myValue

but when , [CCScene node] calls init method where i have to use my property which is not been set yet :(

Blue

9:13 AM

Just to get some info, what language and framework are you using there?

BaSha

sorry i forgot to mention...its objective c and COCOS2d

Blue

Ok

You can use a customer initializer to get the value into the new node. Is the CCScene your own custom class?

Rank

9:37 AM

@Blue Hi Blue , I am Android developer and Good exp on android ,but do'nt have good hold on Gaming part, How i can start Gaming stuff , As i little bit good in OpenGl ..
Can you tell me ,which language and Framework should learn that make me a good Game Programmer .

BaSha

no, CCscene is Cocos2d's class...

Blue

@Rank That is an incredibly broad question. A comment put up yesterday by @ShotgunNinja has a few good links: chat.stackexchange.com/transcript/message/8915494#8915494

@Rank as Android id a platform derived from Java, you need to learn the android Canvas classes and learn how to compile those into your android views

@Rank once you have done that you generally follow the general standards of game development to create your game, the links I provided in that chat message are a great starting point.

Rank

@Blue Thanks

Blue

@Rank no problem. @BaSha Do you have any example code for the initialisation function?

visDEVion

12:24 PM

i wonder what is a good way to tell GLSL what effects to use

at the moment i pass a boolean uniform for the only effect i have (specular lighting)

but now i want to add more effects

and i'm searching for a better solution

can anyone give me a tip

or some keywords for google

Blue

1:23 PM

@visDEVion custom enum

visDEVion

are there any sites that provide a list of cool shader effects?

Blue

Not sure man, lmgtfy.com?q=cool+shader+effects+in+GLSL

Bogdan Marginean

dang I always ask broad questions that don't seem broad to me at first lol

Blue

lol Example?

Bogdan Marginean

the last question I deleted

was asking what kind of benchmarking console manufacturers do

to know just how much performance is required to achieve a given degree of quality in future games

also if there are other things involved

to me yeah it seemed the benchmarking was the only important thing

was curious after noticing both Dissidia and Crisis Core look pretty awesome on a hardware with just 2MB of VRAM

William 'MindWorX' Mariager

1:55 PM

Hello Mister Chat

Bogdan Marginean

(Chat)BogdanMarginean -> Hello Mister William

William 'MindWorX' Mariager

:P

I got your mail @Todders. <3

ToddersLegrande

2:09 PM

@William'MindWorX'Mariager awesome

William 'MindWorX' Mariager

And I've successfully connected to the SQL db and the FTP.

ToddersLegrande

huzzah

William 'MindWorX' Mariager

And uploaded a modified page.

Which also works. :D

Yay for working stuff. :P

I guess it's time to learn some ASPX then.

ToddersLegrande

MVC man

cshtml

William 'MindWorX' Mariager

That's Razor right?

VS2012 has support for that.

What version of Razor does it support?

Stack Exchange

2:13 PM

0

Q: Is this a separate site from gamedev.se?

I notice I have all the rep from my gamedev account, but none of the badges...? I'm confused. Is this (meta.gamedev) a separate site or not? Is the rep linked all into one?

Bogdan Marginean

@Gajoo I finally managed to download your game. Only took me 1 day or so. lol

ToddersLegrande

I believe you should be able to use MVC 4 with it as the server is running .NET 4

Blue

2:49 PM

@ToddersLegrande @William'MindWorX'Mariager tips double hat

ToddersLegrande

A double hat? Fancy

William 'MindWorX' Mariager

That IS fancy. :P

Blue

Double the Mentlegen.

ToddersLegrande

3:12 PM

Double the fun

visDEVion

3:34 PM

sorry for asking questions so often, but i want to be sure what i do

i made a system that adds data of models to vbos

Blue

Not a problem @visDEVion that's the point of this place.

visDEVion

if the vbo does not have enaugh space in it

it creates a new one and the add data to it

the size of a vbo is 4mb

i shouldnt get any issues by using this system right?

Bogdan Marginean

is the VBO an OpenGL only feature?

visDEVion

if not, than i want to improve it, so that if the model is too big for a vbo, it would split the model and put parts into seperate vbos

i guess not

Bogdan Marginean

wikipedia says it is and I was wondering what's the DX alternative, never went so low with anything graphics

visDEVion

3:40 PM

msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/…

i don't know if this link will help

because i never touched DX

Bogdan Marginean

so the whole thing that's OpenGL's in VBO

is the name itself

@visDEVion thanks :D

now, time to read about them buffers

used to follow a book showing how to make a simple RPG in Visual Basic 6.0 and DX 8.1 I believe. or was it 8.0?

that was the only time I touched DX

and it was also all about 2D graphics

Code Assassin

eez ugly ;_;

Bogdan Marginean

@CodeAssassin it would look legit in Minecraft

Code Assassin

haha. Thanks ^_^b I'm actually thinking about removing the eyebrows. I actually plan on having these things scattered across my levels(end boss = cyclopes).

Bogdan Marginean

what's the whole game about? sounds interesting

Code Assassin

3:54 PM

I'm not entirely sure yet. All I know is that you solve puzzles, go through runner-type levels, and beat up bosses lol.

I picked a cyclopes because:

1. It freaks me out.
2. I hate being watched :P
3. Big Brother(jack-london fan)

Bogdan Marginean

lol it's like fighting your fears while developing

a nice game with focus on combat sounds good to me

it would be interesting to see a game with bosses only

sort of like...

shadow of the colossus

but more arcade-ish

ToddersLegrande

Could be cool

Kikaimaru

4:28 PM

when you have tokens from some language (context free version of javascript) how do you parse binary expression - like plus operator?

Blue

5:09 PM

<3 chat

I'm home my lovelies.

Bogdan Marginean

5:23 PM

@Kikaimaru can you explain a bit further what you mean?

ToddersLegrande

@Blue WE MISSED YOU SO MUCH! cries

Jimmy

I'm going to ignore the "context-free javascript" part because I don't understand that

ToddersLegrande

Ok so this is a weird question for anyone who is not @ShotgunNinja. If I said I had Culvers for lunch would anyone know what I was talking about?

(without googling it)

Jimmy

yes

there's one like 10 minutes from my office

but I'm possibly too close to Wisconsin to be a meaningful data point

@Kikaimaru shouldn't your associativity rules decide which is the "current" operator to parse?

ToddersLegrande

Could be. I hadn't checked on their locations in a while so I just looked now. Like a bajillion and a half in Wisconsin and a significant drop off as soon as you leave the state.

culvers.com/locator/view-all-locations

Bogdan Marginean

5:52 PM

does anyone happen to have used some sort of metal screeching thingy sound effect in a personal project? I'm looking for a free (public domain or creative commons or something as permissive) sound effect that could go with a metal spike trap and I'm not sure what to search for. "metal screeching thingy" doesn't find me anything good.

ToddersLegrande

squeaky hinge / gate?

Bogdan Marginean

sort of like that, but if the player can tell it sounds like a gate, it might not work

maybe I can make the player's character shout or something

because of the damage

and cover part of the trap's sound

Jimmy

I think a metal spike trap sound has to have a "click" in it to distinguish it from a gate-screech.

ToddersLegrande

maybe try looking up "bear trap"

or just generic metal crashes

or something

Bogdan Marginean

6:09 PM

bear trap

thanks a lot

that should point me in the right direction :D

Jimmy

the problem with bear trap is that spike traps wouldn't have the SNAP at the end

ToddersLegrande

I don't know what a spike trap is lol

But what I would do... is find two separate sfx and try to join them in audactity or something

Bogdan Marginean

@Jimmy true, but maybe I'll find something nice. worst case scenario: I replace my spike trap with a bear trap though I'm not sure i'd find something cool for free

@ToddersLegrande a spike trap is a rectangle platform; when the player touches it, some spikes get released

some traps launch spikes like missiles; others just raise them slightly so the player may get hurt

I can cut parts of this in Audacity as Todders said: soundcloud.com/therecordist/bear-trap-metal-sound-effects

in case the license is fine and I can actually download it

damn this internet connection, it takes ages to load a webpage

ToddersLegrande

Maybe mix a little sword sheath ring in there :P

Bogdan Marginean

Price: $20.00 US

ooooh

nah, I'll pass, I'll find something else

I'm really trying to just make a proof of concept gameplay video

but it wouldn't hurt for it to sound nice

ToddersLegrande

6:19 PM

Got metal stuff and a microphone? :P

Bogdan Marginean

got the mic, need the metal stuff

but good idea lol

actually I wonder if I can't do something with two knives or spoons or something

hmm

ToddersLegrande

the real tricky part is getting rid of the background noise and truly isolating the sound effect

Bogdan Marginean

the mic is also nothing to write home about so it will probably not help either

damn, the lack of assets hurts. I don't have any combat or dialogue system implemented, but I have full player->level interaction (examine/activate/use item with), quests, character stats & effects, item combination recipes, crafting system and so on

so naturally, I should highlight things like puzzles for now

but no matter what I think of, I lack the assets

I should just pause and resume the search once I get home and I'll be able to actually load a page in less than a minute.

ToddersLegrande

^ Story of my game dev career (lacking assets)

Bogdan Marginean

I do have assets for what would be required for dialogues and combat though

which is even more annoying

ToddersLegrande

6:31 PM

I should try and make the best of it... but I lose motivation :(

Jimmy

Story of my game dev career : lacking motivation

ToddersLegrande

lol

visDEVion

anyone knows how to update vbo using glMapBuffer?

ToddersLegrande

lack of assets is my poor excuse for lack of motivation

But motivation really is the root of all the problems i have

Bogdan Marginean

in the end, if I can't find anything, I fire up Blender and do something myself. but it won't work now

I can't make anything nice enough to show in a video

I think I'll ditch the whole player-gets-on-trap idea and make some sort of invincible monster that has to get on that trap in order to die

hmm

no need for combat

it will be a puzzle-ish combat

like the black beast in Arx Fatalis if anyone played it

Bogdan Marginean

6:47 PM

wonder if I can use yieldprolog with unity

would be interesting to try and prototype my AI in prolog; apparently if one were to judge from their benchmarks

it's pretty fast

Kikaimaru

@Bogdan @Jimmy I was searching for this
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operator-precedence_parser
just didnt know the name

and i think that what i am doing is really overkill i write my own language just to tell game that Attack is calculated like "Strength + WeaponDamage" (and i need something that can evaluate this - js eval would do that, and find dependencies in this)

Bogdan Marginean

if you're doing it like that you can try writing:

sum(Strength, WeaponDamage)

and avoid complex parsers

sum(product(strength, 10.5f), dexterity)

parsing a function's name and its parameters and any eventual recursive parsing is a lot simpler

you don't care about operator precedence

because you take care of it when you write the formula

I mean you do care

but the parser doesn't need to

visDEVion

wow

Bogdan Marginean

you can store some sort of dictionary that maps function names that get parsed to their appropriate functions so you can call funct["sum"](params); or something

visDEVion

i just optimized my game from 80 fps to 300+ fps

:O

Bogdan Marginean

6:59 PM

not sure what data types there are in javascript

Kikaimaru

@BogdanMarginean i could do that, but i think it wont be that hard to write language with operators

Bogdan Marginean

@Kikaimaru good luck! just the thought of actually getting to convert things to polish notation (in the end you'll probably do that) makes me not want to lol

John McDonald

Bah, I'm trying to remember the name of it, but it's essentially a computer friendly way to write math statements, so:
5 * (2 + 3)
becomes
2 3 + 5 *

POLISH

Yes!

Bogdan Marginean

was it not *5+ 2 3?

like in LISP?

John McDonald

I've always done it with the operators at the end so you can read tokens from left to right

Bogdan Marginean

7:05 PM

I guess the order does not matter

I think it's a nice notation really :D

it should be taught in schools even if in some secondary lessons

John McDonald

Ah, what I'm doing is Reverse Polish notation, or just Postfix Polish Notation: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_notation

I remember writing a reverse polish notation calculator for a class

But I think converting from infix to postfix was left out of it

Cool:

Shunting-yard algorithm

In computer science, the shunting-yard algorithm is a method for parsing mathematical expressions specified in infix notation. It can be used to produce output in Reverse Polish notation (RPN) or as an abstract syntax tree (AST). The algorithm was invented by Edsger Dijkstra and named the "shunting yard" algorithm because its operation resembles that of a railroad shunting yard. Dijkstra first described the Shunting Yard Algorithm in Mathematisch Centrum report [http://repository.cwi.nl/search/fullrecord.php?publnr=9251 MR 34/61]. Like the evaluation of RPN, the shunting yard algorithm is ...

Kikaimaru

@JohnMcDonald i was just reading this :)

Bogdan Marginean

@Kikaimaru if it helps you, here is a C source that evaluates your everyday math expressions: the site is in romanian, but the source is obviously not infoarena.ro/job_detail/144801?action=view-source

also, with trees, this time in english and in a tutorial-like form: dreamincode.net/forums/topic/…

also unrelated, found it now: infoarena.ro/blog/numbers-everyone-should-know

Kikaimaru

well i think i will just use eval() for now and add dependencies manualy to the list

i already lost a day that i could be doing something game related :)

Jimmy

7:20 PM

why exactly do you need to tell your game that "ATTACK = BASE + WEAPON"?

rather than just having that in a function

like, function resolveDamage(damagesource, damagetarget)

or this.ATK = function() { return this.baseATK() + this.weapon.damage; }

Kikaimaru

@Jimmy because i need to know that if i change weapon i need to change attack

and change needs to be send to client (mmorpg of course) :)

ToddersLegrande

but its javascript... you can dynamically reassign functions (whatever thats called)

When you change weapons, check the type and change functions based on that

or something

Kikaimaru

@ToddersLegrande how would that help?

i increase strength to my hero (on server) - thiw will increase damage

now i need to tell client that his strength and damage has changed

ToddersLegrande

nope

you tell the client his strength has changed, attack is automatically recalculated (events could do this if you are talking about GUI display)

even then

Kikaimaru

i dont want damage to be calculated on client

ToddersLegrande

7:30 PM

if its all client side

just send the number

Kikaimaru

yes but i have to remember what numbers to send, and if i change damage calculation i need to remember all pieces of code that i have to change

and damage calculation could be computed from attributes that client doesnt even see

ToddersLegrande

which is why you just send a number?

The rest is calculated server side.

I think I'm missing something

Kikaimaru

so i should do
str++
sendStat(str)
sendStat(damage)
sendStat(...

Jimmy

I'd calculate that on the client

but even if you don't, you just do a recalc of full stats whenever you change a stat

Bogdan Marginean

would the client not be able to intercept it somehow?

in case you calculate it on its side?

Kikaimaru

7:33 PM

but stats change allt he time, i cant send everything all the time

ToddersLegrande

all the time?

Kikaimaru

yes, buffs, equips...

ToddersLegrande

That's significantly fewer times than all the time

Bogdan Marginean

it's not that often

Jimmy

@BogdanMarginean that's just so the client knows. the server would recalculate the damage anyways for combat resolution

Kikaimaru

7:34 PM

its like once per second...

Jimmy

@Kikaimaru if you get a buff or equip, why do you have to send updated stats?

i mean, you're already sending data from the client to notify that the buff was cast or the equip was changed

Kikaimaru

@Jimmy because strength can change, for example

@Jimmy because i would have to have all logic that i have on server on client too

Jimmy

the client should already know then

Kikaimaru

thats not how mmorpgs work

Jimmy

@Kikaimaru are you sure?

Kikaimaru

7:35 PM

no it shouldnt know anything

yes i am

ToddersLegrande

I call shenanigans

Jimmy

since the MMORPG I'm most familiar with definitely calculate on both server and client

Kikaimaru

@Jimmy take a look at wow, ragnarok, ultima online, diablo

Jimmy

Ragnarok calculates client-side

ToddersLegrande

I think the clients know plenty. The server just acts as the referee and says "Yes you obeyed the rules" or calls "FOUL!"

Kikaimaru

7:36 PM

@Jimmy what does it calculate on client side?

Jimmy

at least for display purposes.

like, if you equip a weapon

your stat display changes

Kikaimaru

ill be right back

ToddersLegrande

So... if the client knows nothing, isn't your only option to send everything to the client "all the time" ?

Kikaimaru

@ToddersLegrande no my only option is send all that has changed and that clients needs to know

and that why i need to know how stats are calculated, so i can know what changes what

Jimmy

what does your packet look like?

Kikaimaru

7:45 PM

@Jimmy list of attribute_id, value

Jimmy

I mean, there's basically no difference between sending a 8-byte packet for "ATK changed" versus sending a 50-byte packet for "stats changed" if it's along the lines of once per second

ToddersLegrande

Well I didn't mean EVERYTHING

Kikaimaru

@Jimmy its json, so its much more then 50 bytes :) and i think that amount of attributes on character will be over 30-40

Jimmy

so keep a dependency table then on the server

Kikaimaru

@Jimmy yes, and i wanted that dependency table to be generated from the formula Attack = "Strength + Dexterity"

and that formula would also be used for actual computation

thus need for my simple language

@ToddersLegrande i would like to send only stuff that changed

Jimmy

7:49 PM

sounds like an overly complex solution is all.

ToddersLegrande

@Kikaimaru I'm not sure which part of "Well I didn't mean EVERYTHING" you interpreted into "You should send everything"

I only used the word everything because you did

obviously you want to send as little as you can

everything implies everything you need to send

Jimmy

anyways, the major reason you have the logic on client-side as well is to reduce UI latency

Kikaimaru

@ToddersLegrande and i told you that i dont want to write code for sending all changed things manually

i need to send only things that changed
i can do it in two ways
write
str++
sendStr()
sendDamage()

// now when i change calculation and damage is no longer dependend on Str, this code is wrong

or i can store that damage depends on strength, and do it automaticaly

which is why i wanted to write that language

ToddersLegrande

No one suggested you do it that specific way

Kikaimaru

@ToddersLegrande do you have a third way?

ToddersLegrande

7:54 PM

You have me incredibly confused my friend

Whats wrong with option two and who suggested option one?

and why do you need a language for option 2?

Kikaimaru

@ToddersLegrande i suggest both options, and nothing is wrong with option two

ToddersLegrande

I think this whole conversation was based on why you didn't need to write your language to implement option 2

Kikaimaru

because i dont want to write

new Attribute("Damage", "function (a) { return a.getAttribute("Strength") + ...; }", "Strength");

when i can write new Attribute("Damage", "Strength + Dexterity"); // which could be stored as data

@ToddersLegrande yes and that ^ is my reason for writing a language

Jimmy

ah, so you actually wanted to write your game in LISP

Kikaimaru

@Jimmy i doubt that

Jimmy

7:58 PM

it's an old joke

the joke is that at some point every programmer (using their language) has to implement a subset of LISP in their own language

to achieve self-referential code

Kikaimaru

@Jimmy .net would do for me too, since i could use M

Jimmy

Greenspun's tenth rule

Greenspun's tenth rule of programming is an aphorism in computer programming and especially programming language circles that states: This expresses the opinion that the perceived flexibility and extensibility designed into the Lisp programming language includes all functionality that is theoretically necessary to write a complex computer program, and that the core implementations of other programming languages often do not supply critical functionality necessary to develop complex programs. Origin The rule was written sometime around 1993 by Philip Greenspun. Although it is known as ...

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