Game Development

my wife sang "The Rose" at the wedding reception for one of her previous boyfriends who was also a good friend. His new wife was not amused. She has one of those voices. :)

Gajoo

►

Alex M.

I just choked on water

man

it's horrible

can barely breathe now

Shotgun Ninja

lolol

Alex M.

6:25 PM

better now

also a very small chunk of ice flew towards my face when I got myself some cubes

but I think it melted in midair

Almo

how fast do you have to throw a snowball that is 0 degrees celcius at a wall to melt it entirely?

one of the more interesting physics problems I've solved

Alex M.

no idea

Jimmy

the force is 1/2 M V^2 right?

Almo

you calculate the kinetic energy and equate it to the heat needed to melt the snowball at that temp and you get it.

Jimmy

and then the latent heat of water is known

Almo

6:27 PM

the kinetic energy is 1/2 m v^2

Jimmy

and is proportional to mass

Almo

yup, so the m goes out of it

so it doesn't matter how big the snowball is, ignoring stuff like heat transfer effects

but we always ignore that kind of thing to make the problems solvable

comes out to about 80 m/s if i recall correctly

so I suppose "throw" is the wrong word :)

Jon

propulse?

Alex M.

raise?

get it? like in raise and throw exceptions?

no one?

damn.

Jimmy

only if you say the wall catches the snowball

Alex M.

6:31 PM

well from the wall's point of view

Shotgun Ninja

or the other guy's face catches the snowball

Alex M.

not sure if it's catching it

but it's sure getting it

ClassicThunder

and then finally you have to clean everything up

Alex M.

yup

Jimmy

it's just water

Alex M.

6:31 PM

or just let it evaporate

it's water

it will be garbage collected by nature

Jimmy

although I guess if you want no water, you can also calculate the speed at which the snowball will vaporize upon hitting an adamantium wall

which you'd have to add the specific heat of water over 100 degrees plus the latent heat of evaporation

Almo

yup

Alex M.

awesome:

opengameart.org/content/space-ship-construction-kit

modular spaceship construction kit

Code Assassin

O:

Jon

That is quite awesome.

Jimmy

6:34 PM

did you guys ever play Tyrian back in the day?

Alex M.

I played a month ago or so

it was way too difficult

Jimmy

Almo

beware... time sink ahead. adarkroom.doublespeakgames.com

6

Jon

Yes

Gajoo

did anyone actually watch that video I posted?

Jimmy

6:35 PM

anyways, the creator has made all the assets available for public use:

lostgarden.com/2007/04/free-game-graphics-tyrian-ships-and.html

Alex M.

@Gajoo wish I could

ClassicThunder

@Almo Is this one of those candie things?

Gajoo

@AlexM. what's the problem?

Jimmy

@Gajoo yes, they are interesting. But like every electronics shop sells quadro kits these days

Almo

no

it's much more interesting

Jimmy

6:36 PM

it's easy to get one for yourself :)

Gajoo

@Jimmy watch the whole video, it's much more than just a quad flying... :|

Jon

@Jimmy Thanks man. I grabbed those assets, you never know.

Jimmy

danc is a fine gentleman. He's also provided a few other 2D asset packs for developers who want small prototype graphics packs

Alex M.

@Gajoo won't load with my speed

Busata

so jon & byte, you both replied a similar thing, but I can only accept one answer!

I propose a fight till death

Gajoo

6:38 PM

@AlexM. you can download it and then watch it

Jon

Might as well give it to me, since byte has like 40thousand points

lol

Gajoo

if you are using chrome there is a youtube options plugin

Busata

I will quote that & tell it to byte!

Alex M.

@Gajoo I'd rather bookmark it and watch it at home in two days than download it

Busata

there you go :-) thanks!

Alex M.

6:42 PM

might as well turn my answer here

13

A: Do you actually use diagrams to model games?

I like to think that everything around us can be represented, one way or another, through a diagram. Even if it is just a linear diagram representing the transition between the states of a particular object throughout time (like a living being, going through a number of states from birth to death...

into an article on my blog

diagrams are pretty important to me <3

Code Assassin

upvoted for no reason. carry on.

Jon

Alex M.

thanks I guess lol

Jon

My artist is awesome :)

Alex M.

@CodeAssassin meant to ask you

didn't get what was up with the backup thingy you posted

Code Assassin

6:45 PM

I am working on Backup Software for some ppl(both my uncle and dad complain about their backup software so I might as well do something about it)

Alex M.

good idea

Code Assassin

@Jon I am going to steal him from you. but yeah.. he's awesome :P

Very hard to find some like him.

Almo

i told rsync to do something on my mac... took forever, 11.5 GB and didn't seem to do anything

over night

Code Assassin

@AlexM. Good thing it's summer and I can actually focus on finishing it :D

Jimmy

@Jon that reminds me of ..... something.

Almo

6:47 PM

though i just found out it's a buggy version of rsync

Alex M.

@Jon my artist is more awesome!

Jimmy

where have I seen a cat in a battlesuit before

Jon

LOL, artist fight.

Code Assassin

@Jon My artist left meh!

DIVORCED

cries in corner

But I mean that was so predictable.

Jon

@Jimmy samurai pizza cats.

Alex M.

6:47 PM

@CodeAssassin if it weren't for the failed exam, I'd start my holiday in a week and a half

but now I can only start it in four

Code Assassin

@AlexM. Gah.. that sucks >:|

Alex M.

yeah

Code Assassin

@Jon NO ITS A DOG

Your artist causes species confusion!

Jon

It is an intergalactic space fox

with mechanical legs

Jimmy

I bet he's good at doing barrel rolls

Code Assassin

6:49 PM

Yes

Jon

he does barrel rolls wearing a monocle and hat.

take that nintendo.

Jimmy

so now he's a foxy Dr. Fetus

Code Assassin

Edmund is not amused.

@Jon How do you find an artist that DOESNT abandon you.

Lulz

Maybe I should just finish minimal on my own.

Jon

@CodeAssassin the project isn't done yet,

Code Assassin

@Jon Oh wow. I seriously hope he doesn't try to jump ship.

Jon

6:55 PM

he has other projects

But he has been hanging out in my chatroom for like a over a year now

Code Assassin

My artist jumped ship when someone bribed him with another project. I was like.. "oh hell naw"

D:

Jon

and I have been bugging him for like a year to help me.

Code Assassin

@Jon Squeaky wheel gets the oil.

Alex M.

my artist ain't stoppin with the help he gives me

@CodeAssassin *the kick

Code Assassin

@AlexM. lucky V_V

Goals for the summer are to finish this Backup App.

and release an IOS application

so I can get some monies

Alex M.

6:58 PM

be sure to have some first

Code Assassin

Of course man

Alex M.

Apple wants $100 per year so you can sell your apps

and takes X% of all of your income

Code Assassin

Does anyone have an exact figure that they can disclose...

if that's possible.

@AlexM. I've heard :(

But hey they own their store so what they say goes... :/

Alex M.

Google does the same

Blackberry do the same

Jon

Its a great business model.

Alex M.

7:00 PM

Microsoft does the same

Jon

You want to sell your app, they take a fee. They provide the store, you provide the content, they make the money.

Code Assassin

Yep

Jimmy

X does the same

where X is any retailer in the history of retail

Code Assassin

Distribution.

Almo

apple take 30%

very reasonable for not having to deal with any of the payment hassle

Jon

7:02 PM

you can always try to distribute yourself. but your market is going to be small... insignificantly small compared to the big guys.

Almo

or different countries

Kikaimaru

how should i write method that will wait in infinite loop until object rotates? :)

public void Turn(float angle)
{
var goalAngle = Rotation + angle;

if (angle > 0)
RotationSpeed = 1;
else if (angle < 0)
RotationSpeed = -1;

while (Math.Abs(Rotation - goalAngle) > 2f)
{
// Rotating...
}

RotationSpeed = 0;

}

this is not a good solution :)

Jimmy

context?

context-less answer #1: "put it on a different thread"

context-less answer #3: "call Turn infinitely with a deltaTime, put the loop outside"

Alex M.

"infinite loop until condition"

those are a bit contradictory

if something loops until a condition is met, it's not infinite

Almo

:D

Jimmy

7:05 PM

oops

Kikaimaru

dont look at that "infinite" loop that works ok, important part is the condition

Jimmy

Context-less answer #2 (again): "use a coroutine"

Alex M.

while (true) { if (condition) break; } is one of the things that grind my gears in programming

Jimmy

well, if you're in radians, 2f is a really large angle

Kikaimaru

its degrees

Alex M.

7:06 PM

while (condition) { } to me looks like "keep on driving until you reach home"

Jon

@AlexM. I used a while(true) in my server network loop.

Kikaimaru

but sometimes the loop doesnt stop

Alex M.

while (true) { if (condition) break; } looks to me like "keep on driving forever, unless you reach home. then you stop."

Jimmy

@AlexM. sometimes it's the cleaner way

depending on when you need to check the condition

Jon

end thread. loop stops.

Alex M.

7:07 PM

@Jimmy can you show me an example?

Jimmy

sure, gimme a sec to abstract it out

Jon

:D

Jimmy

A();
while(cond()) {
	B();
	A();
}

while (true) {
	A();
	if (cond()) break;
	B();
}

Kikaimaru

this works :)

Jon

Grinding @AlexM. gears big time today.

Jimmy

7:10 PM

2 my examples are equivalent. Showing that sometimes the choice is between repeating the setup code outside the loop, or using a while(true) and a break

Kikaimaru

Fun fact, did you know that Math.Abs(float) is not implemented in c#? its actually an internal call to CLR

Alex M.

I find the first to be more readable though

Jimmy

as @Jon mentioned, especially in networking, where A() represents reading data into a buffer and translating it into a message, cond() represends checking for quit messages, and B() represents further processing

@AlexM. that's a preference. Personally, I don't like the duplicate call to A() because it's not how I tihnk the loop logically works

Alex M.

the first is "do A; while (condition) do A and B"

the 2nd is "indefinitely do: A; if (cond) stop else do B"

to me the 2nd requires more thought at first sight

Jimmy

the first is Do A: while (condition) do B and A. the problem for me is that logically A preceeds B

like, I'd prefer to say my loop is "{ read data; if data = 'quit' then break; process data }"

since in my view, "read data" is the first part of the process

Jon

7:17 PM

►

Alex M.

might be looking at it from a different point then, since the first seems simpler to grasp to me

if turned into a flow diagram, yours is simpler to comprehend though

it is also structurally simpler

Jon

This is why i hate charts.

Alex M.

you'll hate this then lol

vanillacodesnips.wordpress.com

Code Assassin

@Jon THATS U JON. JON in... SURVIVAL INSTINCT

Jon

These diagrams look vaguely familiar

Alex M.

7:21 PM

yes, I turned the answer into an article, naughty me <3

Jon

lol wut?

Alex M.

$18 per year from wordpress to get your own domain is decent

definitely cheaper than buying your own domain and hosting if you just want a blog

Jon

buying hosting is typically if you have multiple domains and sites

or you want more control over your content

ClassicThunder

@AlexM. I'm pretty sure thats what a lot of people do.The best XNA blog (Hargreaves') basically just answers commonly asked questions on SO/GDSE.

ToddersLegrande

@Jon I'm a fan of the control factor. Which is why I want to get VPS hosting :(

So expensive

In other news, still only 2 answers to the election questionnaire :(

Jimmy

7:28 PM

do you want VPS to host an application server?

ToddersLegrande

Looks like I'll be voting on the last day

Jimmy

I dont' see the need for isolation for running a python/PHP/Rails based personal site/blog really

ToddersLegrande

@Jimmy I want VPS so that I know when I want to do something I won't be limited by what I can upload and put in the bin folder

Jimmy

so you want eventually to be able to deploy applications other than websites or blogs

I guess I just consider web hosting and application hosting to be separate beasts

Alex M.

ToddersLegrande

7:31 PM

Makes sense

Something like SharePoint is kind of a grey area though

Code Assassin

@AlexM. Terrain O:

Jimmy

@AlexM. I swear I have a level that looks very much like that

Alex M.

@Jon my artist did this in a couple of hours

Jimmy

lol

Code Assassin

@jimmy Sue him!

Alex M.

7:32 PM

how fast can yours do it

ToddersLegrande

Game servers and SharePoint are things that come to mind as things I'd like to potentially host if I wanted to

Almo

Sharepoint is definitely a gray area

Code Assassin

@AlexM. 0.1 milliseconds

Alex M.

:O

Jimmy

@Alex I am my artist, and about a couple hours :P

Code Assassin

7:32 PM

@AlexM. Procedural Generation Ftw!

Jon

Very nice.

Alex M.

does a cave count as terrain? it will be covered in the end

Jimmy

My topology is less clean, but I have a high-res sculpt I'll be retopo-ing anyways later on

ToddersLegrande

If I had 3DS Max even I could model that in a couple of hours

Jon

yeah :)

ToddersLegrande

7:33 PM

I took one course on 3DS max in college

Kikaimaru

Alex M.

we are looking to clone the new camp's setting more or less

Jon

I've done maya before

Alex M.

Kikaimaru

big update! slightly different jquery theme!

ToddersLegrande

7:33 PM

Once you are actually familiar with the tool it just comes down to practice. The concepts are pretty simple

Jon

@AlexM. is that ars?

Code Assassin

@AlexM. Not yours... it can't be

Alex M.

nope, it's the first Gothic

we are looking to clone that cave

ToddersLegrande

SharePoint comments should never get starred.

Jimmy

@kika yeah, I'd definitely use coroutines for that kind of code :P

ToddersLegrande

7:34 PM

I bring it up way to often and for that I feel bad :(

Alex M.

the current caves I've got will be turned into mines

Kikaimaru

@Jimmy code is written by players, so no chance to explain them why they shouldnt use while (true) {}

Alex M.

so I need some human settlements too - this is where the cave he's working on comes into play

Jimmy

if you keep the ASTs you migth be able to rewrite their loops into coroutine form?

and you can do while(true) in coroutines too

Alex M.

the cave will have three levels: the floor, the first and 2nd levels

there will be houses on the two levels above the floor

I'll place some nice stuff in the middle, on the floor

Kikaimaru

7:36 PM

yes but thats extremly complex, and i would need to solve stuff like

Math.BigMathOperation()
Math.BigMathOperation()
Math.BigMathOperation()
Math.BigMathOperation()
Math.BigMathOperation()
Math.BigMathOperation()
Math.BigMathOperation()
Math.BigMathOperation()
Math.BigMathOperation()

Alex M.

this is the map of the new camp in Gothic

this is the portion we'd like to clone

I need to get something nice and somewhat polished by the 1st of October

I'd like to recruit more people to help then

and hopefully go live

Shotgun Ninja

that looks pretty sweet

Alex M.

I am most happy because I get to see colours other than brown :)

I kinda got bored of the same environment

this is the latest screenshot that I made public from Ars Ignis

I've been staring at that brown stuff for more than three quarters of an year

Jimmy

your screenshots always look super dark. Is in-game gamma different?

Kikaimaru

thats dark

Alex M.

7:43 PM

they look dark enough on my monitor

the point is to be unable to see anything without a torch

just imagine...

going through a tunnel, a strong wind blows

your torch is doused

you hear a growl

you light the torch and a badass boss appears

I'd like to get some bossess a la Shadow of the Colossus in

that is, with very puzzle-ish combat

Shotgun Ninja

You should have some animals that have light-emitting sacs.

Maybe an underground equivalent of a mule.

Alex M.

I just have to make this huge level where there'd be a humongous spider able to only move through some tunnels

Jimmy

I can see by moonlight fairly well.

Alex M.

@Jimmy this is under the ground though

ClassicThunder

@AlexM. I think they have that level in hl2

Shotgun Ninja

7:48 PM

@ClassicThunder ....huh.

Alex M.

@ShotgunNinja a crystal-powered light source might work too

ClassicThunder

I think its an ant though

Alex M.

never played hl2 :(

ClassicThunder

maybe not 2 but one of the half lifes

Shotgun Ninja

@AlexM. Yeah, but bioluminescence is super cool.

Alex M.

7:48 PM

yup, one of my team members came up with an idea about certain light-emitting beings that guide you towards safety and stuff

ClassicThunder

Anyone who does level design needs to look at some of the documentation Valve has realeased about the HL serise. Really solid 101 stuff that a lot of people don't get right.

Jimmy

Or, if you're doing 2D, Egoraptor :P

ClassicThunder

@Jimmy As an artist?

Shotgun Ninja

Egoraptor, you mean.

Jimmy

yah can't spell

@ClassicThunder I mean his Mega Man X video