What do you do with "Player Start" and "Pawn" objects when setting up the default VR game in Unreal? I followed the setup tutorial provided by Unreal from here but after setting up the pawn and the VR GameMode you don't do anything with them. They are never added to the scene or anything and the default game comes with a "Player Start." Is the "Player Start" object supposed to be removed? If you remove that then running the VR Preview shows the game from wherever your camera is in the viewport and there is no game location. Adding the pawn to the scene doesn't seem to do anything. The final image they show doesn't have the "Player Start" object in the scene at all and they never mention it so I'm unclear about how to complete this process. Adding the pawn to the scene seems to have no noticeable affect on how the game is run in VR Preview. What's the proper last step? After following the instructions exactly as is the floor is way below the current start point and modifying the Z values as instructed has no affect on the floor. Moving the "Player Start" does, but this could have been done from the very beginning without doing any of the setup with the pawn or the GameMode.


How do I expose a variable from a class in Unreal Engine 4 to blueprints? I would like to expose to blueprints the variable CurrentTouchInterface in the class APlayerController, just like the method APlayerController ActivateTouchInterface. So, I'm guessing I have to change the header file PlayerController.h from this The currently set touch interface UPROPERTY() class UTouchInterface CurrentTouchInterface To something like this The currently set touch interface UPROPERTY(BlueprintReadOnly, Category "Game Player") class UTouchInterface CurrentTouchInterface The point is, what do I need to do for the engine's editor to start showing the exposed variable CurrentTouchInterface in blueprints? I'm working with UE 4.9 downloaded from the Epic Games Launcher application.


Modular weapon in UE4 editor I want to create a modular weapon system. I already got most of it working, but I wonder how to make an improvement. Weapons in my game have different firing modes (semi and auto) and "bullet" modes (projectile and hitscan). Each weapon is it's own blueprint, and there I can select proper one in editor, so for example an Uzi would be auto histcan, while a rocket launcher would be semi projectile. (the firing mode actor gets created at spawn from the class selected in editor). I want to make it easier to edit by giving the weapon some variables, like spread and projectile blueprint. But not all of the variables apply to all the types of weapon... TLDR Can I create show different variables in the editor, depending on other variables? If I choose projectile type of weapon, can I also select the projectile type, but not show the option if I chose hitscan?


What interchange format should I use for e.g. subtitles and UI texts? Are there any standard formats that can be used as the source material for game texts (i.e. subtitles, UI texts, etc.)? I can think of the following constraints at least some style effects (e.g. bold, italics) at least some format string support (e.g. you found d gold, you found count gold) be translator friendly either easy to grasp, or standard enough that translation companies may already have experience with it I know about the following but none of them appear to support format strings. Are there any industry standards for that or does every game or engine roll their own format? UE4 uses a custom rich text format (example Hello lt RichText.Emphasis gt everyone lt gt !) Unity uses its own HTML like format (example Hello lt b gt everyone lt b gt !) the srt format uses HTML like syntax, too (example Hello lt b gt everyone lt b gt !) BBCode is another popular format (example Hello b everyone b !)


zoom to cursor calculation I want to be able to zoom in and out of the map using the scroll wheel. I want to zoom towards the cursor like google maps does but I'm completely lost on how to calculate the movements. so far, all I have is the resizing but I now need to change the map position. What I have map x and y map width and height cursor x and y. Any help would be most welcome.


Mapping decibel range to linear audible intervals I am working in an engine that encodes sound as decibels (dB). Let's assume the decibel range of human hearing is 60dB to 0dB. Audibility is not linear across this range. So my question is... How does one map a decibel range to a set of numbers (for example, 1 10), such that each number corresponds to (roughly) one linear step up in audibility?


What is a GUI element with a filling up rectangle shape called? After every game of StarCraft 1, the statistics screen shows up. The part I like on this screen is the points counter. It starts from zero and then it counts up to the points you have achieved, with a filling up rectangle shape based on the number it represents. What is this type of counter called? For example, the Units bar for Alpha Squadron counts from 0 to 4975.


What is the specific name of this UI component? Is there a specific name for this kind of ui component? Sometimes it only renders a symbol (without text) so using name like TextComponent is imo not very fitting.


Immediate GUI yae or nay? I've been working on application development with a lot of "retained" GUI systems (below more about what I mean by that) like MFC, QT, Forms, SWING and several web GUI frameworks some years ago. I always found the concepts of most GUI systems overly complicated and clumsy. The amount of callback events, listeners, data copies, something to string to something conversions (and so on) were always a source of mistakes and headaches compared to other parts in the application. (Even with "proper" use of Data Bindings Models). Now I am writing computer games ). I worked with one GUI so far Miyagi (not well known, but basically the same Idea as all the other systems.) It was horrible. For real time rendering environments like Games, I get the feeling that "retained" GUI systems are even more obsolete. User interfaces usually don't need to be auto layouted or have resizable windows on the fly. Instead, they need to interact very efficiently with always changing data (like 3d positions of models in the world) A couple of years ago, I stumbled upon "IMGUI" which is basically like an Immediate Graphics mode, but for user interfaces. I didn't give too much attention, since I was still in application development and the IMGUI scene itself seemed to be not really broad nor successfull. Still the approach they take seem to be so utterly sexy and elegant, that it made me want to write something for the next project using this way of UI (I failed to convince anyone at work (...) let me summarize what I mean by "retained" and "immediate" Retained GUI In a separate initialization phase, you create "GUI controls" like Labels, Buttons, TextBoxes etc. and use some descriptive (or programmatical) way of placing them on screen all before anything is rendered. Controls hold most of their own state in memory like X,Y location, size, borders, child controls, label text, images and so on. You can add callbacks and listeners to get informed of events and to update data in the GUI control. Immediate GUI The GUI library consists of one shot "RenderButton", "RenderLabel", "RenderTextBox"... functions (edit don't get confused by the Render prefix. These functions also do the logic behind the controls like polling user input, inserting characters, handle character repeat speed when user holds down a key and so on...) that you can call to "immediately" render a control (doesn't have to be immediately written to the GPU. Usually its remembered for the current frame and sorted into appropiate batches later). The library does not hold any "state" for these. If you want to hide a button... just don't call the RenderButton function. All RenderXXX functions that have user interaction like a buttons or checkbox have return values that indicate whether e.g. the user clicked into the button. So your "RenderGUI" function looks like a big if else function where you call or not call your RenderXXX functions depending on your game state and all the data update logic (when a button is pressed) is intermangled into the flow. All data storage is "outside" the gui and passed on demand to the Render functions. (Of course, you would split up the big functions into several ones or use some class abstractions for grouping parts of the gui. We don't write code like in 1980 anymore, do we? )) Now I found that Unity3D actually uses the very same basic approach to their built in GUI systems. There are probably a couple of GUI's with this approach out there as well? Still.. when looking around, there seem to be a strong bias towards retained GUI systems? At least I haven't found this approach except in Unity3D and the original IMGUI community seems to be rather .... .. quiet. So anyone worked with both ideas and have some strong opinion? Edit I am most interested in opinions that stem from real world experience. I think there is a lot of heated discussions in the IMGUI forum about any "theoretical weakness" of the immediate GUI approach, but I always find it more enlightening to know about real world weaknesses.


AntTweakBar doesn't register SFML mouse events I'm trying to add GUI for easier level editing in our game engine. We're using SFML for all the basic stuff (window management, input events etc). I've chosen AntTweakBar because it is a well known library with a few examples around. I was following the tutorial at AntTweakBar's website I was able to draw a simple bar with those example codes. However, mouse events received by SFML are not registered by AntTweakBar's TwEventSDL() function. Here is an example code for Input sf Event event while ( pWindow gt pollEvent(event)) Check if the event should be handled by AntTweakBar int handled TwEventSFML( amp event, 2, 3) for SFML version 2.3 if (!handled) switch (event.type) case sf Event MouseButtonPressed To check whether SFML received mouse button events properly if (event.mouseButton.button sf Mouse Button Left) std cout lt lt "Left button pressed" lt lt std endl std cout lt lt "x " lt lt event.mouseButton.x lt lt std endl std cout lt lt "y " lt lt event.mouseButton.y lt lt std endl else To check whether TwEventSFML received events std cout lt lt "FINALLY!" lt lt std endl When I press buttons, I can see "FINALLY!" showing up. I can also see that my mouse clicks are received by SFML. However, when I click on an AntTweakBar element (be it a button or help section) it doesn't register it. (Also, I can't see "FINALLY!" when I use the mouse). Any help or ideas will be appreciated.


Interfaces 101 Making it Pretty I've made a few games which I've actually released into the wild. There's one particular issue I run into over and over, and that's the issue of the interface theme of the game. How can you make non arbitrary, consistent decisions about the look and feel and interface of your game? For example, in version one of my Silverlight chemistry based game, I made a (bad?) decision to go witha natural, landscape style look and feel, which resulted in this UI Then in a later iteration, I got smarter and went with a more "machiney," grungy look and feel, which resulted in this (final UI) I will definitely say that my taste in UI improved through iteration. But it was a result of a lot of initially arbitrary decisions followed by a lot of tweaking. Is there a better way to figure out how to theme your game? To give a parallel in writing, when you're writing a fantasy sci fi novel, there are a lot of elements you need to describe. While you can arbitrarily invent objects creatures places etc., you get a much more consistent world when you sit down for a few minutes and design the area, region, planet, or universe. Everything then fits together nicely, and you can ask yourself "how would this work in this universe? Edit It seems like I didn't explain this well. Let me simplify the question in the extreme when I need to lay out a title screen (with background, fonts, skinned buttons) how do I decide how they should look? Green or blue? Grunge or not? Rounded or flat? Serif or sans serif? Take that question and explode it into your game as a whole. How do you figure out how things should look? What process do you use to make them consistent and non arbitrary? Look at the screenshots again. I could have stuck to grass sky rocks, but metal seemed more fitting to the idea of chemical reactions and atoms.


How can I model a "weapon overheating" mechanic? I want to create a weapon overheating system very similar to the plasma rifle in Halo. You can watch a video of the plasma rifle firing. What I want to do is to create a flexible logic that can be used for multiple weapons for different in game feelings. Here is my proposed system Create a bar that is split from 0 100. Each bullet has a heat value as an integer. Every bullet adds this value to the bar. The bar has a cooldown set as some value per second. If the bar goes over 100 with any bullet fire the bullet still shoots but then the weapon is deactivated for a period defined as it's "cooldown." Now this system is very simple but visually it will be very linear, with a simple growth and decay. I wanted to try to create a more exponential system that would mean the bar would jump quickly to the middle then remain and hover near the top hot bit of the bar for a long period to create a sense of anticipation just before it overheats. What would be a good formula to achieve that result?


Godot Get button node in click event not working How we can get the button reference on the event function that is connected? My connect signals never works extends PanelContainer onready var hbox container ScrollContainer HBoxContainer var btn func ready() createbutton() func createbutton() btn Button.new() btn.set name("button 1") btn.text "button 1" hbox container.add child(btn) btn.connect("toggled", self, "button toggled", btn ) func button toggled(toggled, target) print("which button ", target.get name()) if toggled true print("Button ist pressed") else print("Button is released")


How to redraw the node canvas when the zoom changes on the Godot editor? I have an addon that extends EditorPlugin and a companion script attached to a node. The companion script draw a rectangle with a size stablished by an exported property that can be edited from a gizmo on the editor. The general idea is that the plugin shows a handle that allows to drag the visual representation of the exported property, but is the companion script the one that draws its representation on the editor. The only problem is that the node won't redraw itself when zoom changes. Is there a way to fire a redraw event when the zoom changes instead of using process(delta), since doing it every frame would increase CPU consumption dramatically for the Godot editor on a MacBook Air laptop. This video shows the issue I'm describing https youtu.be wv382kOCKHY


Why isnt setting the global position working? Previously my items were relative to the player by node hierarchy. But for items like bombs this is not ideal so i tried to add the items to the world scene, but when i try to adjust the position of the item to the players position it doesnt work and i see the sword in the top left corner of the screen the worlds origin. Entity Script func use item(item) var newitem item.instance() newitem.own self newitem.global position global position not setting the position of the item correctly newitem.add to group(str(newitem.get name(), self)) get node( quot .. quot ).add child(newitem) if get tree().get nodes in group(str(newitem.get name(),self)).size() gt newitem.maxamount newitem.queue free() Sword Script func ready() type own.type anim.connect( quot animation finished quot ,self, quot destroy quot ) anim.play(str( quot swing quot ,own.spritedir)) if own.has method( quot state swing quot ) own.state quot swing quot func destroy(animation) if own.has method( quot state swing quot ) own.state quot default quot queue free() It seems like it should work but with an engine like godot there could be several reasons why a certain thing is not working. https github.com MonkeyToiletLadder wendingo could it be that in my animation player i set the sword positions as key frames and thats why its not working?


How to get an autotile in Godot 3.1? I wonder if there's a way to get an autotile just like a single tile using a get autotile() GDScript function or something like that.


How should bullet reflections be implemented? Im working on a tank game where bullets are relected off of walls. The formula for a relfection is r d 2d n n 2n where d is the incoming vector and n is the normal of a wall. My bullets stick to the walls and then quot bounce quot off at the corners an undesirable effect. Im honestly questioning my formula implementation at this point. func collision() for i in get slide count() var collision get slide collision(i) if collision.collider.is in group(globals.wall group) var normal collision.normal velocity velocity ((2 velocity.dot(normal)) normal.length squared()) normal rotation velocity.angle() PI if i use the is on wall function and simply negate the velocity this does produce a bouncing effect but not a correct one. I still need the normal. I orignally used rigid bodies as seen in the image. But i have switched to kinematic bodies.


Select a block of tiles from tilemap by click and dragging I'm creating my first game in Godot 3.1, a top down 2D sim game where you can build rooms on a space station. I am using a tileset I created inside a TileMap node. I placed a script inside the node that checks for the mouse position in the world, converts it into a tilemap coordinate, then loads a tile into that tilemap coordinate. func input(event) if (event is InputEventMouse) var button event.get button mask() if (button 1) var tile pos world to map(event.position) var name tileset.tile get name(0) set cellv(tile pos, tileset.find tile by name(name)) Works like a champ! As long as the left mouse button is held down, any tile the mouse pointer touches is filled with the tile from the tileset. Now I am trying to expand this function so that I can click the world and drag across several tiles to form a rectangle or square, then have all of the tiles inside the selected area filled with the selected tile. func input(event) if (event is InputEventMouse) var button event.get button mask() if (button 1) var tile pos world to map(event.position) if (dragStart Vector2( 1, 1)) dragStart tile pos var name tileset.tile get name(0) if (dragStart ! Vector2( 1, 1) amp amp dragStart ! tile pos) var newX dragStart.x tile pos.x var newY dragStart.y tile pos.y while (newX ! 0 amp amp newY ! 0) var next Vector2( 1, 1) if newX gt 0 next Vector2(dragStart.x 1,dragStart.y) newX newX 1 elif newX lt 0 next Vector2(dragStart.x 1,dragStart.y) newX newX 1 elif newX 0 if newY gt 0 next Vector2(dragStart.x,dragStart.y 1) newY newY 1 elif newY lt 0 next Vector2(dragStart.x,dragStart.y 1) newY newY 1 print(next) set cellv(next, tileset.find tile by name(name)) else dragStart Vector2( 1, 1) However, it seems to only load some of the tiles and functions sporadically. Am I not understanding how the system iterates through the while loop or am I missing something else?


How do I remove the window border in Godot? I want to show my Godot engine game in a borderless window, but not fullscreen. I want to just have the game view visible on screen with no title bar or window chrome.


Why does the kinematic body move in opposite direction after I interpolate its movement, and how do I fix it? I have added some basic movement and some manual interpolation to a cube that is a kinematic body in Godot. extends KinematicBody var speed int 10 var slowdown buffer 0.2 var movement Vector3(0,0,0) func ready() pass func interpolate() if movement.x gt 0 movement.x slowdown buffer elif movement.x lt 0 movement.x slowdown buffer else movement.x 0.0 func physics process(delta) if Input.is action pressed( quot left quot ) movement.x speed elif Input.is action pressed( quot right quot ) movement.x speed else interpolate() move and slide(movement) The problem is that when I move the cube using A and D, after the cube stops after the interpolation, it starts moving in the opposite direction with a non increasing speed. How can I fix this?


Godot Engine Why is baking light making my scene darker? I have an interior scene with some windows. The light is from an OmniLight near the ceiling, default environmental light from outside, and a desk lamp with emission. Without baking light, the scene looks like this Consistent with the documentation for emission, the desk lamp is not affecting the surrounding objects. I want to bake the light to see the lamp's effect and to support low end hardware. I followed the baked lightmaps tutorial and set the BakedLightmap's extents to encompass the entire room. After baking, the scene looks like this I can see the lamp's light, as expected, but now everything is too dark. It is unclear to me from Godot's documentation if scenes include indirect light without baking. I have tried this with the OmniLight set to bake quot all quot and only indirect light. What am I missing here? UPDATE 10 April 2021 The problem seems to be that baking environmental light isn't working as expected. I was using Godot 3.2.3 now I'm using 3.3rc8. That gives the BakedLightmap options for environmental light, but the problem remains. I began troubleshooting by shuttering all the light sources as follows Hid the OmniLight, and set its quot Bake Model quot property to quot disabled quot Unchecked quot use in baked light quot for the desk lamp Set the default environment's background and ambient energy to 0 Set the BakedLightmap's quot environment mode quot to quot Disabled quot , verified quot Min Light quot is set to pure black, and cleared the quot Light Data quot When I run the game, I get exactly what I expect a black screen. If I bake light under these conditions, I continue to get a black screen, as expected. Here's where things get screwy. When I set the BakedLightmap's quot environment mode quot to quot Scene quot with the environment still without any light I get dim illumination.


How do I convert degrees to radians and vice versa in Godot? In a game I'm toying with in Godot engine I have angles given in degrees in some places and angles given in radians in other places. Sometimes I need to mix both angles (ie. add them). What built in function allows me to convert degrees to radians (and the other way around)? Or is there none? P.S. I realize that converting those is not rocket science and I could code something on my own, but Godot is already doing such conversions internally, so I would venture a guess that such function already exists.


Elegantly transition from 4 grid to 6 grid and back I find in general map creation that I prefer hex grids for natural environments, but square grids for interior and urban constructed environments. Is there a smooth or elegant way to transition between these that doesn't require a scene break? Most importantly, is there an intuitive way? As long as they don't differ too vastly, the ratio of sizes between the two cell types is largely irrelevant to me. I'd also happily use several rows of transitional tiles if their borders can be procedurally determined. I also have no inherent preference for up point or side point hexes... I'd show some things I've already tried, but they are genuinely all varieties of the same eldritch mess...


Can custom maps in Starcraft 2 automatically enable certain unit upgrades? If I create a custom map with the Starcraft 2 map editor, how can I specify that some unit upgrades are already researched? For example, if I want all the units to already have the weapons upgrade 1 at the beginning of the game, can I specify this in the editor? I've looked through the menus but didn't find anything that looked like it would relate to unit upgrades.


Good basemap generator I am currently making a board game and cannot seem to find any vector world map creators where I can select a region of the world to capture and have it download that section. I just want a base map so no city names and preferably no borders. The map doesn't have to be vector if it is of good enough quality.


What are the most common ways of closing an open world? In many open world games, there are several ways to limit them. From original ones such as Desynchronisation(Assasins' Creed) to invisible walls. What are the most common ways to close open worlds?


How can I handle a transition into building interiors? I am trying some stuff on Unreal Engine to make something approching games like Commandos series. But for now, I'm stuck with something I can't figure how it is done How are building interior handled ? Here's a screenshot to illustrate what I say When you enter a building, everything become black, except the building's interior. The interior is isolated, there is no "communication" between the interior and the exterior, and between linked interiors. For exemple if you shoot with a weapon and there is an enemy outside just behind the door, he can't hear you. Sometimes biggest buildings are divided in many parts, and each floor are a different "section" that are isolated from each other (you have a transition and can't communicate between). Here is an image that explain it well Commandos 2 interior Teleport I first thinked that you were teleported to a different portion of the map, or a different small map, but it is unlikely. If you look at a window, you are at the same time outside (you can see your character outside at the window) and inside (you character is leaning out the window). Teleport would cause many sync issue. Section toggle Then, I thinked that the interior is already handled in the exterior map, but completely hidden, and when you enter it, it "deactivate" the exterior by hidding everything outside and displaying interior. Again, this is unlikely since map are full 3D (you can rotate 360 ) and exterior are 2D. How can I create this kind of transition? I've specified that I am on Unreal, but I'm more searching the theorical way rather than Unreal specifics.


how large should a map be in blender I'm learning blender and am wondering what size(blender units) I should be making my characters and maps. should i consider 1 blender unit as 1 inch, foot, meter or does it not not matter?


How to make a map (game world) based on a real world place or city? As a disclaimer before my real question, I have little experience in game development, only basic Unity knowledge. I noticed a lot of games are based on real world places and cities, for example GTA 5 on Los Angeles and Watch Dogs. What is the process of making such a virtual version of a real world place or city? Or at least, what is a good starting point? I imagine you could get some sort of map data or satellite images and import this in a tool, from which you can start modelling the buildings etc. But if this is the case I don't know how to do that.


Where can I find real world map data for a game? I want to build a game with a concept similar to Ingress, where the game map is overlaid on a real one. Where can I find map data for an app like that? How (generally) do I integrate my own game objects into that map? Game objects need to move in real time, so having them as static markers on the map isn't sufficient. I thought I could use Google Maps but as far as I can tell it would be impossible to create my own graphical style (like Ingress has done) with the official API provided by Google.


Fair spawning of players on a 2D grid As new players enter a game, they are given a location on a large grid. The first player is given the location in the center. Now, how should the second player be placed? Then, the third and so on? New players should be placed reasonably near some other players, but not so close as to cause bunching. My current thinking is to trace a clockwise spiral around the first player, gradually moving further and further out from that initial point. But I keep thinking this must have been done before and that a general solution must exist. This is for a strategy resource game (similar to CoC or Throne Wars etc). How do I do this?


Using a permutation table for simplex noise without storing it Generating Simplex noise requires a permutation table for randomisation (e.g. see this question or this example). In some applications, we need to persist the state of the permutation table. This can be done by creating the table, e.g. using def permutation table(seed) table size 2 10 arbitrary for this question l range(1, table size 1) random.seed(seed) ensures the same shuffle for a given seed random.shuffle(l) return l l see shared link why l l is a detail and storing it. Can we avoid storing the full table by generating the required elements every time they are required? Specifically, currently I store the table and call it using table i (table is a list). Can I avoid storing it by having a function that computes the element i, e.g. get table element(seed, i). I'm aware that cryptography already solved this problem using block cyphers, however, I found it too complex to go deep and implement a block cypher. Does anyone knows a simple implementation of a block cypher to this problem?


How to make hard to hack leaderboards Okay, someone tasked me to make a leaderboard for their game. However, the one I have right now is really insecure. All it does is check if someone is in the top 100, and if they are, post the score to the server, where the server will completely trust the client to give a real score. My question is How would I make it harder, or better, impossible, to send a fake high score, because right now they can just post a value to an easy to find endpoint. Clarifications The game is running in an interpreted environment, therefore obfuscation is not practical, and the game has a lot of input (an hour's worth at least), so sending that to the server is also impractical.


save player achievements in local device As an indie developer with zero dollar budget for servers and backend i wonder if there are ways to store the player achievements on his mobile device ?


Running multiple game servers on single host I want to use a vps dedicated server for game hosting. I expect hosting a lot of servers on that. For the connection, should I assign a unique port for every server or change IPs for every server. And how would these 2 options impact on the game, if I had multiple vps dedicated servers.


How can one add a level to an already published ios android unity3D game on a daily basis? How can one add a level to an already published iOS Android Unity3D game on a daily weekly basis? I know this probably isn't feasible but it won't harm if I just made sure of it. Our game requires to allow access to just one level a day week. You may access levels that were released on previous days and play to your heart's content but all players will get access to a new level every day week. I know this may sound crazy but the concept requires it so just roll with me. Is there anyway to achieve this for iOS Android games built with Unity? Of course, we could package a whole game with 10 levels and allow access to each level after a set time, but the game will need to talk to a back end CMS all the time to allow login and verification of users, make sure they aren't cheating, etc, etc, over proper security and https (proper anti cheat solutions are a must and that's why maybe HTML5 route is better). We are now moving towards doing all this in HTML5 and completely bypass Unity, but was hoping to find a solution with Unity because 3D is better than 2D depending on the situation, and some levels could be 3D while others 2D. Patching updating everyday to upload new levels won't go down well with anyone, the app stores or the users.


Should I share classes on the server with the client? I am fortunate being able to use the same programming language on both the server and client (javascript). I would therefore like to share my code and classes between server and client, like Half Life (and possibly others) did. To make things simple, suppose I have an MMO with a Player and an Enemy class, with a position, velocity, and health. var Player function() this.health 100 this.x 0 this.y 0 var Enemy function() this.health 100 this.x 0 this.y 0 I know ideally these should inherit from each other (or use a CES system). But my question is as follows Since these classes will be used on the client and server (since both client and server needs to know about these entities) with some but not all shared logic, would it not be crazy to define two separate classes on both the server and client? What are the advantages and disadvantages of sharing classes between server and client? Are there any helpful websites with tips tricks for this approach?


Is there a turn based game service (like GKTurnBasedMatch on iOS) for desktops? Game Center's GKTurnBasedMatch seems to provide a pretty robust service for handling turn based games, and OpenFeint appears to have something similar. The problem is, I'd like something like this for the desktop. I was thinking of rolling my own REST based service on Rails, but after looking at the GameKit documentation, I realized it would take longer than I'd like to make it solid. I don't suppose something like this already exists that I missed in my searches?


nodejs game server timer I'm new to game server develop. I'm developing a card game server. How could I make nodejs server wait for few seconds then push data to client after an event fired ? Example in poker game, one player have about 20 seconds to make a move, after 20 seconds server will auto fold and then push a message to another player. How could I make server wait for 20 seconds and then do next action ?


How to achieve game server redundancy? The game I'm developing has a simple game server which stores inventory and hero data for each user, as well as deciding the outcome of some random events. The server interacts with PostgreSQL and responds to HTTP queries. It runs on EC2 and Microsoft Azure, but these hosts sometimes become unreachable for a few minutes, and one week the EC2 server froze every day. What are the strategies to make sure a server is always available? Non solution Multiple servers with their own databases, and the client will try to connect to a different server after a timeout. Of course, their data will be absent if it's a different server. Solution 1 As above, except whenever player data changes, that change is stored, and each player's data is replicated to the other servers (bidirectionally). The disadvantage is that this solution is "home grown" and prone to mistakes. Solution 2 One primary server (let's leave sharding for later), and one or more backup servers, with the database being replicated. When the primary server becomes unreachable, a backup server is made into the primary server. Problems this needs additional technology for directing queries to the right server, and also to decide when a backup server needs to be promoted to primary. Can this "manager" also hang? It sure can if it's on AWS! That would bring the whole system down. Solution 3 We could pay for database hosting with some guarantee of reliability, and have multiple servers but just one database. We would assume the database is reliable (but still back it up). The user could connect to any reachable server, and the servers would not need to worry about having stale data, since there will be only one database. (Again, sharding is a separate problem, and we could just multiply the whole setup without fundamentally changing its architecture.) So how is reliability achieved when individual servers aren't reliable? I like solution 3 for its simplicity, if a 3rd party database can be relied upon.


Gameserver travel time checks I'm making a little RPG multiplayer game where each player can travel long distances. Traveling from point A to B can take up to 10 minutes and once initiated is an automatic process. Now, I am not quite sure how to go about this on the server side, the server has to be the one telling the clients that the traveling player has arrived or not. Do I have to run some sort of timer where I check every X seconds milliseconds if all the traveling players have reached their destination in order to update the DB? (the characters are saved on the server to prevent cheating). The way I imagined it was simply to capture the timestamp at the start of travel, then use the distance to calculate what the time should be when the player will arrive, and then run some sort of timer that checks each traveling players "start time" , "actual time" and "destination time", but since I have never done this before I'm not sure if this is a good way of doing it?


Serverside libs examples for html5 WebSocket in .net? Hey guys, I wanted to know what libraries or examples exist for WebSockets in .NET


Event Based Entity Componenty System So, I'm new to ECS. The concept is very interesting in contrast to traditional OOP and heavy inheritance. I'm working on a game right now that is open sourced, but does not actually have a game loop. It works by sending and receiving packets, and acting upon those received packets. In that case, what would I be looking at in this relationship between Systems and Components? Let's say I have an incoming Movement packet that is telling me to move Player A 5 units to the right. And let's say I have a lot of different types of packet types (let's say up to 100), each for different stuff, like maybe making a purchase at an NPC store. Another one for purchasing at a player store. Or maybe inviting and expelling players from a party. Or inviting and expelling players from a guild or alliance. At that point, I start getting a little confused. I can definitely see similarities in .. Adding Expelling people from a party, guild, alliance But each of those packets contain different information at their core. I'm tempted to write a component that Guilds, Alliances, and Parties can use (like AddRemoveMemberComponent), but the information coming in from the packet makes me hesitant. How would those components handle specifically? Maybe I'm just entangling myself in traditional inheritance, so it's hard for me to see the uniqueness of data. Would I have unique systems for explicitly handling Party, Guild, Alliance expulsions and invitations? And how would I dynamically know what to do with these different packets coming in (different packets for alliance, guild, party).


How does Component Entity System Manages Game Mode? I would like to create a simple game fire and shoot game using Component Entity System (CES). This game has two game modes(1) play mode and settings mode. The play mode is the actual game itself whereas the setting mode is where the player updates his sprite's settings, like type of weapon, inventories, etc. Now, how does one implement game modes in CES? How would one switch to different game modes? (1) The game mode i refer is something like the one implemented in Final Fantasy I, where it has four game modes (http en.wikipedia.org wiki Final Fantasy (video game) Gameplay)


Intersystem communication in a ECS game Apologies if this question has been answered before, but after relentless searching I couldn't find anything. As many, I've recently jumped on the ECS bandwagon, and I am currently killing some time by making a modest ECS game. The game is a somewhat simple 2D platform game. It is programmed in plain JS. The layout of the game is essentially as following The core of the game is the Engine, the Engine runs the game loop and holds an EventManager, responsible for raising events, and an EntityManager, responsible for containing all components of all entities. All logic is done by systems. The systems registers event handlers (i.e. member functions) with the EventHandler for specific EventTypes, which gets called when an event of that type is raised. For example this.eventManager.registerHandler(EventType.EVENT RENDER, this.render, null, this) I recently switched from calling all systems relevant functions explicitly in the Engine to this pattern. But over to my problem and question. For rendering I have a RenderSystem. This system contains references to several type of drawable animatable components which it, you guessed it, renders. Until recently, this system also contained a reference to another system, MapSystem, which spatially indexes all entities. The reason for this reference was to be able to call a function along the lines of mapSystem.search(frame bound) effectively pruning away all entities not needing to be rendered. So I have a couple of questions regarding this Is it very bad practice for systems to communicate directly? Something about it just doesn't smell right to me. I see how it might severely complicate your code if you have say 100 systems, and each system holds references to many of the other systems. Hello O(n 2). If I am not to hold inter system references, how do I perform communication like described above? My initial thoughts was to create an entity whose primary purpose were to hold the necessary information (i.e. all entities currently in the frame). Then let MapSystem write to and RenderSystem read from this entity. But this also seems to be rather unclean to me. Especially as MapSystems search function might be useful to call in many different contexts. Creating an entity per calling context doesn't really seem like a good way to go about it either. TL DR Is it bad for systems in a ECS game to communicate directly and hold references to each other?


How do I best solve multiple component modifications via a single event? I'm trying to solve multiple component modifications via a single event. Is there a better way of handling this? I have an a label entity that cares about when a shield entity's hitpoints component is modified (damage, regeneration, etc). The label will need to change its text to display the current of shield remaining. its text color to display the severity of shield remaining. When my ShieldSystem resolves the hitPoints component, the below code runs. For eah type of modification I plan to listen for, I need to add a new if statement to the for loop. This means I have a bunch of duplicated code between systems if more than one wants to modify any listening text component, sprite component, etc. for(int i 0 i lt listeners.size() i ) if(listeners.count(MessageType CHANGE TEXT) 1) std vector lt Entity gt entities listeners MessageType CHANGE TEXT for(int j j lt entities.size() j ) Entity e entities j MessageInfo messageInfo new MessageInfo(MessageType CHANGE TEXT, e, "Some Text") MessageCenter Dispatch(messageInfo) Add an If(listeners.count(MessageType CHANGE TEXT COLOR)... Add an If(listeners.count(MessageType CHANGE SPRITE RECT)... etc


Should I load scenes from files, or hard code them? In a game engine I'm working on, I'm using scenes similar to what you would find in Unity. The entities, in my game, are composed of reusable components and custom data which is linked to those components. Entities have children, and one parent. This is shown, below class Entity ...custom data here... let parent Component var children Component var components Component ...methods... If the entities did not have custom data, then creating a scene would be described by the following steps Loading a file into memory. Creating a tree of entities. Adding components to them, with parameters listed in the file. However, this does not leave room for custom data. My other alternative is to create a scene by creating a scene object, then hard coding the entities in. It would look something a bit like this var opening scene Scene() opening scene.addEntity(Player()) opening scene.addEntity(Car()) opening scene.addEntity(Terrain()) ... The downside to this is that everything is hard coded. What can I do to create scenes in a game more efficiently?


How do I go about creating the "Watcher" component? Last weekend, I spent several hours writing a basic entity component model, in JavaScript. I was largely referencing the Ash Actionscript game engine. I successfully worked out how the systems, components, nodes, and entities all link up, but one thing that eludes me is how to implement the "watcher" that checks the entities for their components, creates nodes for them, adds those nodes to the various systems automatically, and watches for any changes in the components on an entity. I was a bit confused by the way it works, in Ash, and all of the posts and tutorials on the subject that I have read seem to forgo the details of that part of the implementation. Right now, I currently have the following Entity, which is assigned components. Engine, which keeps a track of the systems and entities. Node, which contains references to the components in an entity that we want the system to modify (I am currently creating these, manually, and adding it to the system). Component, which contains the data to be modified by the system. System, which operates on the nodes, which in turn change the data in the entity. I also have various other classes, dedicated to holding lists of the various objects. How do I go about creating the "Watcher" component?


How do we coordinate which order the systems get processed within an ECS? If I knew all of the systems at compile time, I could order them myself. However, I intend on having user defined mods. This adds a level of complexity, in that I (as the framework developer) don't know which mods will be developed, or installed on a particular user's machine. I've thought about adding some sort of execution ordering within core code systemRegistrar.register(PhysicsSystem.class).before(RenderingSystem.class) within third party mod systemRegistrar.register(ModSystem.class).before(PhysicsSystem.class) I've thought about an incidental ordering using some sort of message or event bus within core code PhysicsSystem public void update() do physics y stuff eventBus.send(new PhysicsSystemUpdatedEvent()) RenderingSystem public void handle(PhysicsSystemUpdatedEvent event) do rendering stuff eventBus.send(new RenderingSystemUpdatedEvent()) But this blurs the line between what will happen, and what could happen. Another thought that came into my mind is that we can be a little bit dirty and not care too terribly much about what order the systems get executed in, because even if we render before the physics are applied, the next frame will then render the physics update that was made in the previous frame. It's consistent, but it blurs the line between what happens within a frame.


Central logic in entity component architectures I've build a architecture based on the entity component system idea. So I got Components Just store Data Systems Operates isolated on Components Scripts Which are just objects from type Script and attached to a ScriptComponent. A ScriptSystem will execute the init() and update() functions on the scripts then. However, I'm wondering where to place the central game logic since the I have to check a few things about the overall game process, holding the map, counting the points, checks the points if they are enough for the end screen, etc. ... Should I create a single entitiy with just such a script attached to it or are there better solutions out there?


Collision Response in Entity Components Systems This question seems to be a duplicate of mine, but I don't think it is. I'm trying to build a game using an ECS, but I want this ECS to be as simple as possible, therefore I am eschewing messages. My question is where should the the behaviours go for collision responses. Not physical responses, but logical response (e.g. bullet hurts player, player picks up health, explosion destroys enemies). Is there a big HandleCollisionsSystem, or does each type of collision have it's own system or should the logic be in one or both of the colliding entity's components (but a component is just data, right?) I'm sure there are several approaches, but for the moment I would like to err on the side of simplicity.


Game engine with good Lua entity creation management I'm looking for an engine that constructs it's entities using Lua or other scripting language. This is in order to find inspiration and do it in my own engine as well. I know that CryEngine does use Lua to make their entities, but I wanted to know if there are some other alternatives that I can look up. Thanks!


Load destructible mesh at runtime Using the tutorial Components and Collision as a guide, to dynamically load a SphereShape the following is done AClass AClass() Create USphereComponent USphereComponent sphere NULL sphere CreateDefaultSubobject lt USphereComponent gt (TEXT("Root")) sphere gt InitSphereRadius(1.0f) sphere gt SetCollisionProfileName(TEXT("PhysicsActor")) sphere gt SetSimulatePhysics(true) sphere gt WakeRigidBody() Create UStaticMeshComponent UStaticMeshComponent mesh NULL mesh CreateDefaultSubobject lt UStaticMeshComponent gt (TEXT("Mesh")) mesh gt SetupAttachment(RootComponent) Load asset from filesystem define ASSET TEXT(" Game MobileStarterContent Shapes Shape Sphere.Shape Sphere") static ConstructorHelpers FObjectFinder lt UStaticMesh gt asset(ASSET) undef ASSET if (asset.Succeeded()) mesh gt SetStaticMesh(asset.Object) RootComponent sphere Now, when I try the same set of steps, but this time for an Actor that has a UDestructibleComponent instead of a USphereComponent AClass AClass() Create our UDestructibleComponent UDestructibleComponent destructible NULL destructible CreateDefaultSubobject lt UDestructibleComponent gt (TEXT("Root")) destructible gt SetCollisionEnabled(ECollisionEnabled PhysicsOnly) destructible gt SetSimulatePhysics(true) destructible gt SetEnableGravity(false) destructible gt WakeRigidBody(NAME None) Load asset from filesystem define ASSET TEXT(" Game MobileStarterContent Shapes Shape Cube DM") static ConstructorHelpers FObjectFinder lt UDestructibleMesh gt asset(ASSET) undef ASSET if (asset.Succeeded()) UE LOG(LogTemp, Warning, TEXT("It worked!")) RootComponent destructible I receive the following errors ConstructorHelpers.h 105 20 error cannot initialize a parameter of type 'UObject ' with an lvalue of type 'UDestructibleMesh ' ValidateObject( Object, PathName, ObjectToFind ) ConstructorHelpers.h 29 19 error incomplete type 'UDestructibleMesh' named in nested name specifier UClass Class T StaticClass() I've also tried adding .Shape Cube DM to the end of the string, similar to how the first asset was imported, but no luck. What is the correct way to load a DestructibleMesh from the filesystem and apply it to the UDestructibleComponent?


Does it make sense to use voxel editors only for meshing? I am a hobbyist game developer. If there is something that I really don't like is 3D modeling, in particular all the work that needs to be put in the "pipeline" for the creation of models, in particular UV mapping. Remembering games like Minecraft or "Little big planet", I was wondering if voxel editors could be used for just modeling let me explain using a voxel editor to make each object I need for my games and then export them singularly as FBX with either marching cubes or even better dual contouring for meshing. Does an approach like this make sense in terms of performance? From what I can tell, I would need a voxel software which allows all of the following criteria. Dual contouring meshing FBX or OBJ export of meshed area Multiple materials Now, it looks like such software doesn't exist, which makes me think that this approach for 3D modeling may be totally wrong. Any heads up on this?


How to quickly create meshes that have cutouts of other meshes? I have a mesh and I would like to quickly create planes (or boxes) that have cutouts in the shape of the silhouette that mesh, but rotated at various angles. I would like to have a system to which I can feed any mesh and it will output these cutout planes, either for random or predefined rotations of the mesh. In the game I'm making, you have a 3D object, like a chess piece, that you rotate and translate to try to fit it in a hole in a wall that has the shape of the object. But the hole can be in the shape of any rotation of that object. For instance, in the case of a pawn, the hole can look like an upright pawn, so you wouldn't have to rotate the pawn at all or it could just be a circle the size of the base of the piece, so you would have to rotate the pawn so it either goes in feet or head first. I want a program to procedurally generate walls with these kinds of holes for any mesh I give it.


Vertex Normals, Loading Mesh Data My test FBX mesh is a cube. From what I surmise, it seems that the cube is on the extreme end of this issue, but I believe that the same issue would be able to occur in any mesh Each vertex has 3 normals, each pointing a different direction. Of course loading in any type of mesh, potentially ones having thousands of vertices, I need to use indices and not duplicate shared verts. Currently, I'm just writing the normals to the vertex at the index that the FBX data tells me they go to, which has the effect of overwriting any previous normal data. But for lighting calculations I need more info, something that's equivalent to a normal per face, but I have no idea how this should be done. Do I average the 3 different verts' normals together or what?


Where can I find free or buy "next gen" 3D Assets? Usually I buy 3D Assets from sites like turbosquid.com or similar. My problem is that I have lately implemented glow, normal maps, specular (and specular power) maps and reflection maps and I can't find any models that use those techniques. So where can I find buy "next gen" assets (at least models items with a normal map)? I have checked for similar posts but those I found are about either free only or 2D or 'ordinary' 3D so I hope this is not a duplicate.


How to make low poly ground look better I'm working in Unity and have created some low poly meshes using blender. Currently, the meshes look good, but the ground seems very lacking. I am not sure how to make it feel natural or even look good in general. Here is a current image The ground needs to remain mostly flat due to the game placing flat objects on the top of the plane and the image shows the exact camera angle we are using. But, as you can see in the image, the ground is extremely lacking and it doesn't look like a ground but instead just a flat background color. I've tried textures but it does not look good with the trees and low poly design. How can I make the ground look better?


How do I import real world models into a game engine? What are the hardware and software tools required to import physical worlds into a game engine? Can I use a HD camera to do that? What do the popular game engines support?


How to generate AABB, OBB Sphere from polygon soup How can I generate AABB, OOBB and Sphere from a polygon soup, where the bounding volumes are defined as follows AABB should be specified by min(x,y,z) max(x,y,z) OOBB should be specified by min(x,y,z) max(x,y,z) and a quaternion for rotation Sphere is specified as position(x,y,z) and radius


MeshParts Why do they exist? For my current game I'm working on I've decided to implement a custom model class to store my models in. Reasons being is that I want to make adding new models as painless as possible for the rest of the team without needing to go through the XNA Monogame content pipeline (Them having VS Dev framework installed just to compile a few models, or passing them onto me to compile every time a change is made would just get tedious further on, not to mention different timezones when testing slowing things down) To this end I've been looking at the model structure of different frameworks, XNA Monogame, SharpDX and AssImp.NET being the main ones. The structure for XNA MG and SharpDX is Model MeshCollection MeshPartCollection, whereas Assimp only has Scene MeshCollection. From previous experience in XNA, MeshParts seem kinda redundant. None of my meshes ever had more than one, and a lot of the XNA examples I've seen only ever had one mesh part per mesh. From everything I've experienced and seen, MeshParts seem redundant, surplus to requirements and just makes for an extra level of complexity (Should I use a loop, or just hardcode it to use the first element in the collection?). Is there some useful aspect of them that I am not aware of, or a particular use case or scenario where they are actually useful?


How to promote my free javascript game? Possible Duplicate Effective marketing strategies for independent game projects I created a javascript game for browsers. Do you know easy ways to promote it?


Is there a way to make money from indie downloadable games? It appears that there are ways to make money with flash games through portal and aggregator sites and embedded ads. But I do my programming in C and C . I've started a prototype which relies on a few existing C SDK's. The game would have to be downloadable. Is this just a labor of love, or are there any ways to make money from this type of game? Does anyone pay for shareware anymore? What other options are there?


How should I prepare for pitching a game to potential sponsors? We have developed a mobile game, and are preparing ourselves for demo day. We will be presenting our game to potential sponsors, and we are having trouble deciding how to make a quality presentation. Specifically, what are the unique challenges and opportunities in pitching a game, in contrast with product demos generally? Being developers, we are worried we might wrongly focus on elements important to developers, but not to investors. How can we go about identifying them? For demoing game play, in what situation should we consider switching to a separate app, embedding the game in a slide show, showing canned game footage, or something else?


How can I record my vector graphics game without blurring the graphics? A lot of people asked for a trailer for my game, because screenshots do not do it justice. I have tested PlayClaw, Fraps, CamStudio, VirtualDub, and some other minor tools none have produced a viable result. My game uses vector graphics and is designed to run at 60fps, so lossy compression of a regular screen capture video destroys the graphical appeal. How can I record gameplay without blurring my graphics and slowing down the framerate?


Where to find passive advertisements? Imagine a soccer game. While the player is playing a match, he is seeing the billboards all the time. I want to include that kind of advertisements in my game (obviouly, making profit). Just a brand logo, not a banner the user has to click. Does this even exist? Is there any AdMob like which allows this kind of advertisement?


Do I have to ask for permission to use real company logos for advertising props in the world in my sports game? I'm making a simple turn based Android ball flicking soccer game and I was thinking of creating a theme in a sports game, like soccer for example, usually had advertisement banner on walls and a bit realistic but cartoony. It is usually encountered in most sports based game in any gaming platform. I have a question regarding this topic. Is it required to ask a permission to used some recognized ad banner designed walls (e.g. Adidas, Samsung, McDonalds, etc.) to be used as props for the game field like this one for example?


Getting Early User Feedback on Games Disclaimer It may be that I'm already doing all the "right" things, but just don't have enough traffic for it to pay off with people giving feedback. My question is how do you attract early and quality feedback into games, from end users? Ideally, I'm looking at a model where the seed of an idea comes from you (or from them, even) and you build it into a game, molding it along the lines that people tell you are best. Because you're just one opinion. And game developers have a reputation for doing weird and sub par quality stuff, sometimes. I'm currently practicing the following VIP List I have a "VIP" mailing list (mostly friends) who agreed to try out game releases and give me feedback. They seem hesitant to say anything negative, and most of them are not really gamers, just doing it because they know me and like my niche. 2 4 Week Releases I use a form of agile and release iterations every two to four weeks. This means every release is functionally small, but somewhat polished. Press Releases With every release, I also post a small "press release" post identifying the good, the bad, what's next, and screenshots (along with a link to play the latest release version). I'm not getting that much feedback. What am I missing?


Video recording and editing for game promo video I would like to screen record a beta of an RPG I've created. The format will be narration over video with the ability to edit. It's an indie game I'm marketing, so the video quality and narration need to be semi professional. I'm curious as to which video production packages are of good enough quality to accomplish this without breaking the bank (free is the best!). If there are no good packages, then separate software recommendations for screen recording, editing, and narration would be helpful! Notes I have a Mac I would rather do video recording first, then narration later with an overlay I've used Quicktime in the past, not sure if there was something better This video is for my Kickstarter campaign


How to calculate the price for acquisition of a mobile game I searched long and hard thru the Game Dev community here and I didn't manage to find a good enough answer for a situation that I need help with. Here is the deal I've spent about a year to single handedly develop a mobile game which is a mix between MMORPG and idle battle games. Wouldn't like to go into too much depth as to which game we are talking about and who is trying to buy it but, a company I have worked for before reached out to me with a proposal to buy the game from me so they can reap the profit from it and develop it further since they are a professional game dev company while I am a single person and I can't really reach the game's full potential as far as growth and player base goes. Now the game is pretty beneficial for me since I live in a region with a very low income standard so the money I get from the game might not be much for many other people but for me, they are equal to about 1.5 2 monthly salaries (we are talking average salary for this country). That is about 600 Euros of pure profit after I pay for all the expenses. Of course, this number fluctuates depending on different events and sales I release and general user activity. It is a free to play game so the income is mostly from microtransactions for in game rare currency and special event item packs purchases. Now the issue I have is that I am not sure how to set a price for the acquisition. What feels right for me would be to calculate the potential average income from the game in the next 12 months and add to this the average salary per month for a game dev of my qualifications multiplied by the number of months it took me to develop it to its released state. That would round up to about 15k euros. When I think about it 15k euro isn't a small price to pay, but the game will pay that off in the next 1 2 years, and it might even grow much faster after they make investments for advertising and release new features and so on and so on. This means that after the second year they should be on a clean juicy profit from that deal, and that sounds good to me as well since 15k euros for me is a decent sum of money considering that the game has been running for about 14 months. And lets not forget that it has been beneficial for me for the last few months so it hasn't been always uphill. What I need really is an advice as to is this price of around 15k Euro justified and is it a good deal for both sides, since I don't want to shoot way high and blow the acquisition, but I don't want to give the game away for a low price since it really holds a lot of potential, and it is my first fully released game.