Game Development

Madcowe

01:26

hey what is wrong with this?

while using fixed values the code worked just fine

but when I tried to lead the value from the disk and use it it stopped working correctly, here is the "new" code:

if( sharedObject.data.maxSad == null )
{
sharedObject.data.maxSad == 2000;
}

MaxSad = sharedObject.data.maxSad;

sadness = MaxSad;

on the output I have a trace(sadness, "sadness") and I get this on the output:

NaN sadness

what can I do?

wardd

02:37

hey guys, do u guys create a "log" type class for your games, that generates log files and stuf like that? should i bother doing that?

Madcowe

@wardd like, what happens or not?

so far I only have "trace(this, or, that)" so far...

but then again, it's still just a short flash game

but I would say that logs can help especially in debugging and things like that

or, depending on the game, to know what happens

wardd

yea i currently just print stuff to the console

Madcowe

if the game is multiplayer online, lan or something then logs are usually nice

@wardd mind if I ask for a link to the game?

for some reason I like to try new games out

wardd

i dont have much to show.. just my source control lol

Madcowe

still interesting xD

wardd

02:42

all my programming has gone into stuff you cant see when u start the game

Madcowe

always good to boost one's skills xD

ah I see, nice :)

brb

back

Trevor Powell

03:27

I just finished playing The Walking Dead.

Trevor Powell

04:11

Also, I just hit 8k rep. Whee!

Actually, 8k+1. I need to downvote something so I can have a nice round number for my rep. ;)

Ah, there we go. 8k precisely. Now I just need to convince people never to vote any of my answers up or down again. xD

wardd

just downvote ppl whenever you get upvoted

Trevor Powell

04:28

Aw, that just seems mean. :)

(Walking Dead is one of those games that's got me rethinking fundamental game design principles)

wardd

you wont have problems finding bad answers

for every upvote there is an equal and opposite downvote

votes in stack overflow are neither created or destroyed, they only change form between up/down and 0

Trevor Powell

I dunno. Some days I feel like it's heaps easier to find bad questions than bad answers.

And you don't spend rep, downvoting questions. :(

wardd

if you feel you have downvoted a post in error, nature will find a way of restoring the balance

what goes around coems around

karmas a bitch

that stuff

Trevor Powell

Look at the wheel, Frank. Half the time the darn thing's underwater, but still it rises up. It rises up. As high as it can go.

/me makes obscure pop-culture references. Just to amuse myself.

/me is such a hipster.

Siddharth

08:19

hello anybody available in the room

Mr. Beast

10:56

@Siddharth nope

Chorche

@Madcowe yes! :)

nathan

11:10

Mornings.

@TrevorPowell how are handling 3D world in your engine? I mean, how do you store the scenes etc?

I'm always trying to reproduce a GTA-like environment and i'm wondering how to store the 3D world.

The maps...

snake5

@nathan not a good idea

nathan

@snake5 what? x)

snake5

@nathan what I replied to: reproducing a GTA-like environment

nathan

@snake5 ha? why?

snake5

because it's hard to do and time-consuming perhaps?

nathan

11:19

My game use a top down view and i want to have the feeling that the camera is between the buildings of the city, just like the first GTA actually

it's that hard to do?

snake5

depends on level of detail

nathan

This kind of things gtalegende.com/images/gta/gta1.jpg

snake5

this doesn't even have meshes

just some quads

nathan

@snake5 a building is sometimes just a quad no?

snake5

no

nathan

11:22

Is this kind of things hard to do?

snake5

not too hard

but it isn't simple too

nathan

@snake5 so i don't understand what you meant by "hard and time-consuming"

it's gta1

snake5

you don't see what's hard there? loading/rendering things efficiently, for example

nathan

@snake5 i just replied to "not too hard"

But anyway.

snake5

not too hard = hard, just not very hard

nathan

11:25

Yeah ok x)

snake5

there's no 3d character animation for example - that would make things very hard

nathan

Actually i'm wondering about the camera, in the screenshot above, does the camera is just looking down.

i think the perspective is a bit strange

snake5

what's strange there?

seems normal to me

nathan

Don't know, just starting at 3D so...

snake5

well, some of the things are just sprites

nathan

11:27

What would be hard with the fact that there is no 3d anumated character?

snake5

that might make it look odd

the buildings are all correctly rendered, though

@nathan I said that makes it less hard

well, I meant to, at least

nathan

@snake5 sorry that's not what i understood

Yeah in fact i want to use 2D sprites for every interactive entities.

Just use 3D for buildings

And use a camera to make the player feel like his point of view is within the buildings of the city.

Also, what about the ground, just a plain texture or there are more efficient ways to render it?

snake5

how much of it?

looks like you will have to render textures or tile maps there

nathan

@snake5 using big textures for ground will create size issues no?

snake5

obviously

you'll have to render one small piece of the ground at a time

nathan

11:38

@snake5 also you pointed me fbx and collada, thanks for it. However, after reading about it, i'm having troubles understanding the point of them in my case. Why i could not only use a basic XML that would give the position of my models?

relative to the origin

snake5

you can

as I said, a custom format is best

nathan

Ok, thanks again, i will try to work about it :)

melak47

13:06

but...if you go with a custom format...why XML? ;_;

nathan

@melak47 why not?

My format would only specify where the models have to be positioned relatively to the origin. I though to XML because it's a generic syntax and it's easy to parse

tigrou

i was wondering : how are portals rendering in valve portal game blogs.aerys.in/jeanmarc-leroux/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/… ?

snake5

@melak47 if he uses C# or Java, he won't have to make a parser for it

tigrou

at first i was thinking some scenes could be rendered in a texture, but its not blurry at all

snake5

but that's about the only reason

melak47

13:19

@tigrou you could do it just as well with rendering to textures

however

I believe valve uses a stencil mask to draw directly into the frame buffer

so there are no intermediate render targets involved for the portals

snake5

there should be

there's a depth limit

tigrou

forget that stencil buffer, reading some stuff about it

snake5

it would be easier to fill the portals that are too deep with a RTT

melak47

I could be wrong, this is just what I heard someone say about what they say in the dev commentary in the game.

snake5

well, they can still use the stencil buffer

it's just that RTTs are probably also used

melak47

13:25

@tigrou a very simple way not to have any blurriness with render targets would be to simply have a texture the same size as your frame buffer and render the portals' contents into that

tigrou

if using stencil buffer will it be ok like this ? : 1) render a quad in stencil buffer, with same size as "portal hole" 2) render what is supposed to be viewed inside portal with stencil buffer enabled (thus will only fill the quad) 3) render scene as usual

melak47

13:43

you may need to repeat the first two steps for as long as a portal sees another portal, or you reach a limit you define

tigrou

yes. i was first thinking of a simple case with only one portal , and no "recursive view"

for your suggestion with textures : is it possible to create a texture with a custom size eg : 1024x768 ?

i believe it was only possible for power of 2 (or at least recommanded)

snake5

it should be possible these days

depends on platform though

for PC - possible, mobile - impossible/pointless

tigrou

ok thx

Siddharth

14:09

hello anybody free to answer my question

please ping somebody I am waiting

nathan

@Siddharth don't ask to ask. Ask and wait for someone to answer

Siddharth

ok sir

nathan

It's not an hotline here

Siddharth

currently I am developing tower of defense game and I am stuck in situation that become adverse for me

weapons continuously fire towards enemy but that thing happen that when bullet reach to the enemy it change its place so the bullet can not hit him

nathan

@Siddharth actually if you have such a precise question, ask it on the current website

Siddharth

14:18

which website sir

nathan

but questions about debugging are not welcome... it's your job to debug your code

Siddharth

game.stachexchange

nathan

@Siddharth of course.

Siddharth

what stretagy I have to use to hit enemy

nathan

"Here is my code find my problem" is not a type of question you want to ask here

better try gamedev.net or other forums

Siddharth

14:20

ok I will get my solution from other person

nathan

@Siddharth do detection collision between tower projectiles and ennemies?

@Siddharth get your solution from yourself

Siddharth

that thing I am already doing

nathan

@Siddharth it works?

Siddharth

but when bullet reach at target, the target move to some other place

because of time given to the bullet

nathan

@Siddharth yep, you have to predict where your tower have to fire

Siddharth

14:23

I have establish manual grid structure for the game

nathan

this is the tricky part of TD

or you can do the EZ solution and simply make the projectiles lock a target and follow it

Siddharth

and based on the grid data provided the enemy moves on the fixed path

nathan

if the projectile move fast, it'll not even be noticeable

Siddharth

but I want to show the bullets are firing

I give less time to the bullet and my thing got happened

but I want to show bullet was moving

melak47

14:54

you need to lead your shots if the target is moving

Siddharth

but in grid structure how to find ahead position

melak47

?

Siddharth

enemy move based on the grid data

I store all the grid position in the xml file in which enemy has to move

how to code for me to detect ahead situation before it change its direction

melak47

do your units decide where to go every time they move, or do they find a path once, and adjust it only if the world changes?

Siddharth

the path of each created enemy was fix

so that thing become easy for me

Madcowe

15:12

hey guys

if( sharedObject.data.maxSad == null )
{
sharedObject.data.maxSad == 2000;
}

MaxSad = sharedObject.data.maxSad;

sadness = MaxSad;

why does this code say that sadness is NaN

and this
MaxSad = 2000;

sadness = 2000;

works perfectly?

nathan

because sadness = MaxSad

and MaxSad = NaN?

Madcowe

I even tried to made the MaxSad = 2000;

because I will need to use something like that because those values will change as the player buys upgrades

oh wait... if MaxSad is 2000; it does work...

the problem is with the shared object

but even if I remove the ifs....

sharedObject.data.maxSad == 2000;

MaxSad = sharedObject.data.maxSad;

sadness = MaxSad;

this doesnt work...

oh god of course

I used a == instead of a =

Siddharth

15:30

currently I am developing tower of defense game and I am stuck in situation that become adverse for me
weapons continuously fire towards enemy but that thing happen when bullet reach to the enemy it change its place so the bullet can not hit him because time applied to the bullet to reach at target position

Madcowe

@Siddharth can you send me a link so I can see when it happens?

melak47

@Siddharth we already told you, you need to lead the target

this question: gamedev.stackexchange.com/questions/4995/… has links to quite a few questions about that, and they all have answers.

Madcowe

dammit I have to go, cya later guys

melak47

one of them is even about a tower defense game.

@Madcowe later

Kikaimaru

17:46

@Madcowe are you using javascript? dont do that :) or use jslint or better typescript

Joseph Weissman

any thoughts on refactoring symmetrical code? in particular, around x and y coordinates -- code that's identical except for the direction (south or east)

also nested loops -- i have a lot of "for each -- for each" patterns in my code and i'm trying to think of better ways to express these

github.com/deepcerulean/minotaur/blob/master/lib/minotaur/…

Joseph Weissman

18:08

will probably post on codereview in a bit but since it was gaming specific i thought folks might've run into similar refactoring questions

nathan

19:10

It's what happen when i try to render a quad on top of a 2D image

The image is supposed to be transparent. When i try to render the image after the quad, it works well.

Chorche

21:12

hmm

i get the password from a text field as a char buffer, and send it to server as a char buffer

can i convert the char buffer to string in the server?

i mean is it safer

nathan

21:38

That would be any reason that glTexImage2D alter my 3D projection? I'm trying to load a 2D image and the method i use itself uses a method called glTexImage2D. The problem is the call to this method, my quad is not rendered anymore

i commented the line calling this method and everything worked fine again. Is there something to do when using this method with 3D?

snake5

22:08

did you set the texture and enable mipmap interpolation on a texture without mipmaps?

Madcowe

hey guys

I have a problem

I made a square named InfoBox

the Idea is that it would be above the mouse so that when you hover over a menu item it appears and explains what those buttons are

but when I do this:

public var infoBox:InfoBox;
infoBox.x = mouse.x;
infobox.y = mouse.y;
//infoBox.visible = false;

I get these errors

C:\Users\Utilizador\Documents\Flash 2012\Madcowe-avd\Classes\ShopScreen.as, Line 16 1120: Access of undefined property infoBox.
C:\Users\Utilizador\Documents\Flash 2012\Madcowe-avd\Classes\ShopScreen.as, Line 16 1120: Access of undefined property mouse.
C:\Users\Utilizador\Documents\Flash 2012\Madcowe-avd\Classes\ShopScreen.as, Line 17 1120: Access of undefined property infobox.
C:\Users\Utilizador\Documents\Flash 2012\Madcowe-avd\Classes\ShopScreen.as, Line 17 1120: Access of undefined property mouse.

well the problem is not the mouse obviously, I still haven't completed the imports on that one, but the infoBox doesnt react

not the best choice of words there...

anyways, now I even imported the flash.ui.mouse as it should be and did everything the same as on the other screen but it doesnt seem to work...

Chorche

22:25

hi

can you show me your game now?

Madcowe

22:53

@Chorche me? uhm sure

@Chorche dropbox.com/s/3sjgm24hulxc5l9/avoider.swf

also, it has an easter egg

kind of

Kikaimaru

@Chorche you shouldnt send password to server, just hash of it

Chorche

@Kikaimaru well i dont know what exactly do you mean by "hash", but i'm sending the password as a char array

@Madcowe is it possible to play it in browser?

Kikaimaru

23:09

@Chorche well thats not safe at all, when you send it like that anyone who has access to network between client and server can see that password and just retype it

Hash function

A hash function is any algorithm or subroutine that maps large data sets of variable length, called keys, to smaller data sets of a fixed length. For example, a person's name, having a variable length, could be hashed to a single integer. The values returned by a hash function are called hash values, hash codes, hash sums, checksums or simply hashes. Descriptions Hash functions are mostly used to accelerate table lookup or data comparison tasks such as finding items in a database, detecting duplicated or similar records in a large file, finding similar stretches in DNA sequences, and so...

Madcowe

@Chorche sure, it's a swf, so you can right click and open using, IE( yuck), firefox, chrome, whatever you use

assuming you have flash player of course, but nowadays who doesnt?

snake5

I'm moving away from it as often as possible

it mostly serves as an annoyance in forms of banners

Madcowe

have to go guys

Chorche, tell me what you think by mail please, [email protected]

Oliver Schöning

Ehm.. Arrays.. Can I only set an Array to Another Arrays Enteties in a Loop or Manually?
This is the Tutorial, Just wondering if there is no way to set the entire array instantly.
http://img7.imageshack.us/img7/1158/arraytoanotherarray.png

Kikaimaru

@OliverSchöning dont know what language that is, but what you probably need is to make a copy of array. doing stuff like var contacts = [alice, bob]; var secondContacts = contact; works, but when you do secondContacts.add(carol) it will ad it to contacts as well

Oliver Schöning

23:20

javascript

It did work :p Haha ! I tried that first of course.. but I failed because:

Kikaimaru

well in that case you can do var arrayCopy = contacts.splice(0)

that will create a copy

Oliver Schöning

var 1 = [x,x,x]
var 2 = [var 2]
That was my fail

var 2 = var 1; worked fine ^^ dooh

Kikaimaru

well that should work too but it would create array of arrays

but beware this will not create another array, you still have one array, but two references to it

Oliver Schöning

Yeah good thinking. If var 1 is changed, var 2 is also

tereško

@OliverSchöning most of those tutorials are bad . bordering on incompetent ..

tigrou

23:27

Hi there (and good night for some). i'm looking for a tool that create combine several skyboxes (6 differents files) into one picture (as a cross). any idea ? (i know i could do it in ps but took too much time if you have several files)

Oliver Schöning

@tereško Really ? :p I found them neat for the basics so far.. Whats up with em

tereško

the further you get , the more annoying and pointless the exercises become

Oliver Schöning

@tereško
No worries :P I use other pages too, But I need tutorials and stuff so I dont forget it instantly ! And I am addicted to achivements

tereško

i really hope the "other pages" does not include w3schools =/

Oliver Schöning

@tereško

Nah

:p

Although W3Fools looks very nitpicky for a beginner

Oliver Schöning

23:59

thx all, gnight

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