Game Development

3:05 AM

d'oh

I broke unity. :(

3:16 AM

Awesome! I'm rendering a cube!

user4704

Let me know when you can draw a hypercube and we'll talk.

Hi, @JoshPetrie, it's been a while!

Have things at your office calmed down any?

user4704

Oh yea.

Q: How do we encourage people to NOT put tags in their titles?

Well, congrats on a successful launch!

It knocked the pants offa Diablo III's

user4704

:)

Stack Exchange

3:43 AM

0

I do rather a lot of editing (I'm not sure how much, but I don't have my copy editor badge yet). By and large the main thing I notice and edit is people putting tags in their titles. On Stack Exchange, that's as unnecessary as signing your posts: everywhere your question appears on the site (barr...

7:29 AM

I don't see anything wrong with putting tags in title and shortening it, since it isn't done automatically (p.s. I don't care about the page title, it's essentially useless)

@snake5 I'm not sure where our communication breakdown is happening, honestly

I'm wondering if you're just completely unaware of the phenomenon I'm talking about.

It's a convention on Stack Exchange to not use: "(C# XNA DirectX) How do I do this shader effect?" for a question title because that's messy, and leads to everyone using their own tag styles. We already have a way to tag your question and express the technologies / category: tags!

People do it sometimes, though, and it gets edited out. "(C# XNA DirectX) How do I do this shader thing?" (which is also tagged with c#, xna and direct-x) gets its title edited to "How do I do this shader thing?" (with the tags right there to say it's a thing that involves C#, DirectX and XNA), or "How do I do this shader thing in XNA + DirectX?" for instance

(bad example because those are probably bad tags for such a question)

A lot of newbies seem to want to put their tags in the question title, though, doing that "(C# XNA DirectX)" thing. Even though the tags are right there. It's the experienced users who don't do that.

and the users like me who are regularly editing such questions.

I'm just wondering why new users do it so often here (especially compared to some other Stack Exchange sites) and what we can do to make them realise it's not necessary

7:53 AM

hmm

I'm checking the google search results again and everything appears to be correct there

so I have an idea

there could be tags displayed right before title

so that when new users do something like that, they would instantly realise that the system adds that data automatically and would thus stop adding it themselves

I'm not talking about google search results. Stack Exchange automatically prepends the question title with the main tag on the question.

I'm talking about the question list, dude.

This one: gamedev.stackexchange.com/questions

er gamedev.stackexchange.com/questions

or this one

It's not a feature request

I'm not suggesting anything about how the system works

just about what people do

yeah, I got it, I'm just thinking how it impacts the way the question looks everywhere

alright good

and what I meant to say is that people feel the need to have tags in front of the title, a feature which the question list doesn't have

But either way it is something that is actually discouraged

8:01 AM

is it discouraged to have tags in question title or is it discouraged to have tags before question title?

Heck, a couple of years ago stack exchange actually received a feature to automatically stop people from doing it

It is discouraged to dump tags in the question title.

(though dumping is my term for it, I don't know another way to express it)

Here's a good question title, which happens to have the tag in it: "How do I make a flexible rope in Box2D?"

Here's a question title with a tag dumped in it: "(Box2D) How do I make a flexible rope? (physics)"

in that case, simply displaying them before the title in the website engine should solve the problem

I wonder if that is something they deliberately do not do

or something they simply haven't considered

There is seriously a lot of prior discussion on this thing.

I expect they don't do it because the tags are right there anyway, and there is never just one tag to put before the title (except in search engines, where you can't afford to have more than one)

(and where you need to have one because it helps with SEO)

I think they usually come from google search with the expectation that there is a standard for questions that involves putting tags in front of the question, so they just try to fit in

I suppose that's quite possible. I always thought it was that they'd see existing questions in the question list, and they'd always see "oh they're mentioning their technology" so they dump it in their title.

Mr. Beast

8:21 AM

Someone should release a book "Learn to code Minecraft in 48 hours"

10

..for dummies :D

@Mr.Beast You mean the game, or a mod for the game? Because the first one could be hard.

Mr. Beast

the first one.

because there is a bunch of questions related to that on gd

Yeah ... without much of the networking stuff, maybe.

8:37 AM

Why? Why?? Why?!?

That's nothing, Martin.

IIRC the Furcadia isometric engine had the Y zig-zag back and forth

oh

hey that is the Furcadia isometric engine

I'm going to bleed from my eyes now

@MartinSojka intelligent design...

I've heard about even worse isometric coordinate systems

not sure why people can't handle such simple problems though

or perhaps they want to create new ones

8:55 AM

@snake5 What're the even worse ones like? I'm in the mood for a horror story

there were some systems with uneven stepping (like +2,+1 would equal some adjacent cell)

not sure about the exact setup though, it was a long time ago when I heard of it

9:11 AM

That sounds as inconceivable as an eldritch horror

jeez

1:52 PM

I seem to recall an isometric indexing scheme that used three parameters instead of two...but now I can't seem to find it. Anyone know what I'm talking about?

William 'MindWorX' Mariager

it should stay hidden for all eternity :D

(unless you're talking about a basic x/y/z scheme, in which case it's okay)

2:05 PM

I'm having the weirdest issues here.

William 'MindWorX' Mariager

@TreDubZedd It kinda makes sense for hex-based tiling: (x, y, even/odd-row)

For some reason, everything related to java just stopped getting mouse input.

Everything else works, except java.

Keyboard input works just fine too.

... or even/odd-column if that's your thing.

@MartinSojka Maybe that's what I was thinking: an isometric hex grid.

William 'MindWorX' Mariager

@William'MindWorX'Mariager java never works >_>

2:19 PM

Yeah, I actually much prefer Mono/.NET over java. :P

ufo

2:39 PM

Hi all! Do you think COCOS2D-html5 is old enough to be safety used in a brand new project? I'm starting my first game and I'm already having quite big problems:
http://gamedev.stackexchange.com/questions/40057/cocos2d-html5-moveby-doesnt-work

2:54 PM

Sorry, I never used any of the Cocos2D libraries, no opinion there.

Gajoo

3:33 PM

@William'MindWorX'Mariager good choice

4:05 PM

hey guys =)

Heyo

wow it's been like two years sinice I've been to stackexchange

hey can anyone give me a hint on a part of as3 I'm having trouble with?

@Madcowe What's the issue?

it's like this, I've just finished creating the base for my first game following a tutorial, it's not interesting yet, but it is playable

kongregate.com/games/Madcowe/depressing-maria here is the current version

anyway, what I wanted to do it save the tear value to a sharedObject class

and then create a label called total tears which would be the tears gained on a level added to the ones already on the shared object class

but the thing is, when I tried to code it I just got a bunch of letters where the total tears should be

tried a lot of things and changes, even the sharedObject.clear(); but not luck...

can anyone give me a few pointers?

Without seeing any code, I'm not entirely sure what you're trying to do.

4:13 PM

just a ssec

So I'm totally going to be Zapp Brannigan for Halloween.

Thought you all should know how awesome I am.

ClassicThunder

lol nice

ufo

@ToddersLegrande, you are!

@ToddersLegrande, dottor zoidberg would be even better!

public function setFinalTears( scoreValue:Number, clockValue:Number ):void
{
finalTears.text = Math.ceil( (scoreValue / 500) + (clockValue / 2000)).toString();

if (sharedObject.data.totalTears == null)
{
sharedObject.data.totalTears = finalTears;
}
else
{
sharedObject.data.totalTears += finalTears;
}
totalTears.text = sharedObject.data.totalTears.toString();
sharedObject.flush();
}

@ufo Too much face paint otherwise I'd be on board

4:16 PM

probably it's because finalTears isnt a number per se... but not entirely sure what to do

tried about creating a public var like tearValue, putting the Math.ceil... in there, and then finalTears would be = tearValue but couldnt make it...

ufo

@ToddersLegrande Yes, I know...

Q: How do I add shadow mapping?

also if it helps, what shows in the totalTears text box is this: "oect Oectoect Teteld" always

user4704

-2

How do I add shadow mapping? I don't care if it uses GLSL it just has to work. I have been searching on stencil shadows and shadow mapping, all the examples given did nothing, if you don't understand that it means not even a single shadow is even being rendered. If you know how to add stencil sha...

opengl lwjgl shadow-mapping

user4704

Paragraph two, before my edit, made me chuckle.

I like it

lol

Don't even dare pressing close!

user4704

4:31 PM

I dared!

user4704

I closed, downvoted, commented and edited. There's nothing more I could do.

can someone give me a hand on my question?

@JoshPetrie Is that really a how to get started question though?

The scope is far narrower than most how to get started questions.

Wouldn't a high level answer of typical strategies be an appropriate answer?

@Byte56 I think the problem is that the only sign of a "problem" that he is having is where to begin.

@TreDubZedd sorry but do you have any idea about my problem?

4:44 PM

We've had questions like that before. The FAQ shows the "Where to get started" question as off topic for "how to get started making a game"

user4704

That's a fair point. I'm pretty sure we've closed other questions on the basis of them being "how do I get started doing X?"

user4704

But even so, I still think it's closable due to being too broad.

For example: gamedev.stackexchange.com/questions/23355/…

@Madcowe finalTears isn't a numeric value, right? So using the "+=" operator won't behave like you want it to.

Or Josh this one: gamedev.stackexchange.com/questions/18756/…

Granted they were a little further along there.

user4704

4:45 PM

Both of those provide a specific example.

user4704

This guy says "I tried a bunch of stuff it didn't work SHOW ME CODE"

I suppose that's true. I think it could be edited slightly to make it more appropriate.

I would say if he included what he tried and the question was more geared to where he went wrong it would probably work out

user4704

I commented in reply to you; for reference:

user4704

That's a fair point, I could see an argument for the subject itself not being a "how to start" question, but I still think the issue is too broad/vague to constitute a valid question. The question itself implies that providing a high-level overview of techniques is insufficient given that the OP has been "searching on stencil shadows and shadow mapping" and "the examples given did nothing." There isn't a specific problem to solve here.

4:48 PM

@TreDubZedd yea but should a make a public var for tear value and then put the calculations on that andd final tears would be the tear value?

it would probably include code examples and links to tutorials he tried and specific descriptions of what results he is getting versus what he is expecting

I've turned it over to the OP to save his own question.

We'll see how they proceed.

user4704

Yeah. "It didn't work" and "nothing showed up" are almost equivalently useless problem descriptions.

^^

I agree.

4:51 PM

@Madcowe You could make it a local variable to setFinalTears().

newLocalVariable = Math.ceil(...); finalTears.Text = newLocalVariable.toString();  sharedObject.Data.TotalTears += newLocalVariable;

People don't follow this part of the FAQ often enough:

When you post a new question, other users will almost immediately see it and try to provide good answers. This often happens in a matter of minutes, so be sure to check back frequently when your question is still new for the best response.

user4704

Oh hey.

user4704

This thing is going on now: arena.net/blog/…