glBlendFunc and alpha blending
I want to know how the glBlendFunc works. For example, i have 2 gl textures, where the alpha is on tex1, i want to have alpha in my final image. Where the color is on tex1, i want the color from tex2 to be. ...
game-development
Mathematics and Game Programming
I want to program graphical 2D games more complex than the basic 2D stuff I already know. I don't want to do 3D programming. Just more complex 2D stuff. I dropped high school before I could learn a lot of stuff so I walked away with enough algebra knowledge to balance my checkbook and do some light 2D Cartesian programming. Are there an...
Alternatives to Flash Media Server for multiplayer game development
I've used Flash Media Server to create multiplayer flash games, but the cost of deploying a FMS application seems rather high. Are there good alternatives, open source or not, that I should look into to mimic the same functionality? I'm specifically looking at using FMS for the aspect of synching game-play state between users running t...
How do I get rid of the mouse cursor in full-screen exclusive mode?
I'm working on a simple 2D game engine in Java, and having no trouble with FSEM, buffer strategies, and so on; my issue is with the mouse cursor. In windowed mode, I can hide the mouse cursor, no problem, by using setCursor() from my JFrame to set a wholly-transparent cursor. However, after a call to device.setFullScreenWindow(this) to g...
Simple 3D graphics project?
I'm looking for some good ideas for a simple 3d graphics program as my final project for an intro to computer graphics class. As for some background information, we'll be using opengl and will have a little over a month to work on it, so nothing too far-fetched. The simpler and "prettier" looking, the better. It does, however, require...
How do I programmatically calculate Poker Odds?
Hello, I'm trying to write a simple game/utility to calculate poker odds. I know there's plenty of resources that talk about the formulas to do so, but I guess I'm having trouble translating that to code. Particularly, I'm interested in Texas Hold-em ... I understand that there are several different approaches, one being that you can ...
Starting Game Dev in C++
I know the basics of C++, and I am currently working a bit with the Win32 API. I feel the next step I want to take is game development. I have looked around, and I have a basic idea of how I would get started, but I would like to see if any of you guys have resources or suggestions that will help me out. What I would really like to d...
Design: Large archive file editor, file mapping
Hello! I'm writing an editor for large archive files (see below) of 4GB+, in native&managed C++. For accessing the files, I'm using file mapping (see below) like any sane person. This is absolutely great for reading data, but a problem arises in actually editing the archive. File mapping does not allow resizing a file while it's being a...
Java2D Performance Issues
I'm having performance oddities with Java2D. I know of the sun.java2d.opengl VM parameter to enable 3D acceleration for 2D, but even using that has some weird issues. Here are results of tests I ran: Drawing a 25x18 map with 32x32 pixel tiles on a JComponent Image 1 = .bmp format, Image 2 = A .png format Without -Dsun.java2d.opengl=t...
How does one get to work for a video game company?
Hello! I teach an introductory course in Java at a state university. One student asked me if it was possible to major in game design. We may be a big university, but we have very few classes that deal with video games. How does one get to work for a video game company? Is a good education in Computer Science enough? I've seen commercia...
How would you go about implementing the game reversi? (othello)
I have been thinking about starting a side project at home to exercise my brain a bit. Reversi looks like a simply game, where mobility has a profound effect on game play. It is at least a step up from tic tac toe. This would be a single player against an AI of some sort. I am thinking to try this in C++ on a PC. What issues am I l...
How does a game engine that models objects as "collections of components" work at runtime?
I'm writing a lightweight game engine and while doing some research for it I've come across a number of compelling articles advocating the implementation of Game Objects through a "collection of components" model rather than an "inheiritance from concrete classes" model. There are lots of advantages: objects can be composed using data...
How can I check if one game object can see another?
I have an object, that is facing a particular direction with (for instance) a 45 degree field of view, and a limit view range. I have done all the initial checks (Quadtree node, and distance), but now I need to check if a particular object is within that view cone, (In this case to decide only to follow that object if we can see it). A...
openGL SubTexturing
I have image data and i want to get a sub image of that to use as an opengl texture. glGenTextures(1, &m_name); glGetIntegerv(GL_TEXTURE_BINDING_2D, &oldName); glBindTexture(GL_TEXTURE_2D, m_name); glTexParameteri(GL_TEXTURE_2D, GL_TEXTURE_MIN_FILTER, GL_LINEAR); glTexParameteri(GL_TEXTURE_2D, GL_TEXTURE_MAG_FILTER, GL_LINEAR); glTexIm...
Combining resources into a single binary file
How does one combine several resources for an application (images, sounds, scripts, xmls, etc.) into a single/multiple binary file so that they're protected from user's hands? What are the typical steps (organizing, loading, encryption, etc...)? This is particularly common in game development, yet a lot of the game frameworks and engine...
What's the best indie game development environment?
For an experienced application programmer (C++, C#, Ruby) getting into game programming, what are the best toolkits to use for creating a commercial indie game? Unity, GarageGames, and The Game Creators have interesting products, but I don't have enough experience to judge them. Or should I be looking at something more low-level, like X...
What's the difference between game development and business development?
Like most developers, I'm a business developer, which in essence consists of slapping a UI onto some back-end data store. (We all know there's a lot more to it than that, but that's usually what it boils down to.) I understand that game development is very different from business development, but I'm having a hard time explaining it to ...
Reading Guitar Hero or Rock Band Controllers from a PC
The "instruments" that are used with Guitar Hero and Rock Band have USB connections. Is there any documentation or reverse-engineering info out there about how to read the messages they generate? ...
What is the best free cross-platform OpenGL GUI library for a video game?
It must come with source. I've looked at these which look semi-promising: glgooey, guichan, and cegui. I've come across others that look more Windows-y than game-y, but that's not the direction I am looking to go in. I would like some simple functionality of typical controls (lists, dropdown box, etc.) but with support for graphical wi...
Textured spheres without strong distortion
I've seen well-textured balls, planets, and other spherical objects in couple of games, last time in UFO: aftermath. If you just splatter a texture into latitude/longditude as u and w -coordinates you'll get lots of ugly texture distortion to poles. I can think myself an one way to implement a spherical map with minimum distortion. By m...