@kojack@mastodon.gamedev.place
@kojack@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar

kojack

@kojack@mastodon.gamedev.place

22 years as a games programming lecturer.
Oculus community moderator.
Languages: primarily C++, lot of C#, plus Lua and Ruby. But used MANY over the last 38 years.

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erin_catto, to random
@erin_catto@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar

Box2D version 3.0 beta test has launched!

Code: https://github.com/erincatto/box2c

Documentation: https://box2d.org/documentation_v3/

kojack,
@kojack@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar

@erin_catto I just put 3.0 in my crappy unscientific physics test (drop 5000 circles inside of a box).
It's massively faster than the previous Box2D and is trading blows with PhysX5 TGS solver locked to 2d (tiny bit slower as the 5000 touch, tiny bit faster as they settle). I'm not even using any of the scheduler or stuff, just a quick hack to get it running.

Extremely nice!

(For example, 100 frames in when everything is touching, old Box2D takes 1.69s per step, new Box2D 3.0 is 0.01s)

kojack, to random
@kojack@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar

WTF? Every time I open the Lua operators doc website Vivaldi crashes.

eniko, to random
@eniko@peoplemaking.games avatar

Have they put AI in guns yet

kojack,
@kojack@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar

@eniko Or do you mean ChatGPT? :)
How long before people jail break it by telling it it is a prop gun in a movie if it refuses to shoot at someone non-threatening?

kojack,
@kojack@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar

@eniko Many years ago in the G.O.D. Inc series of books there were AI guns that could take over the muscles in your arm to auto aim and fire at anything that moved in front of you.

Probably not far off from that now, sadly.

aeva, to random
@aeva@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar

ok so it only took me two months of having a new laptop to realize this but I just realized tonight that I finally have a decent portable to use with the realsense camera I got like three years ago and then stuffed into a drawer. Which is to say, that I remembered that I have a 3D camera, and yes

kojack,
@kojack@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar

@aeva I've never had a realsense. But I've got a Kinect 1, Kinect 2 and Zed Mini. 3D scanning is fun.

I've got a 2D LIDAR too, one day I need to mount it on a tilt motor thingy so I can scan a room with it, not just a plane.

eniko, to random
@eniko@peoplemaking.games avatar

idly pondering how hard it would be to convert kitsune tails to an existing 16-bit console despite it being written in C# and using 64-bit float literally everywhere 🤔

kojack,
@kojack@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar

@eniko GBA can be very fun to develop for (as a challenge), but 64 bit floats aren't going to make it happy. Not only does it have no hardware floats (just slow software floats) but it doesn't even have a hardware integer divide.

I still managed to write a rope simulation physics system on one. Lots of fixed point maths. :)

aeva, to random
@aeva@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar

I need to get my mind off the bad. Anything good going on tonight for anyone? Feel free to share things your excited about or happy about or just cool stuff you've come across recently

kojack,
@kojack@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar

@aeva I had gimbap (korean version of sushi) for the first time last night. It was good.
Mmmm, spinach, carrot and bulgogi beef gimbap.

aeva, to random
@aeva@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar

The Leaving Rust Gamedev article resonates with most of the frustrations I've had working on the internals of Tangerine (C++) since I converted it from being largely single threaded spaghetti to aggressively concurrent spaghetti, and that's making me think maybe I'd have a better time if I picked a different language for the hot paths, because necessary non-compulsory refactoring also kills iteration time.

I just don't know what though, because nothing ever seems to fit the bill of what I need.

kojack,
@kojack@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar

@aeva I have to use C# for work, and the thing that drives me crazy is the limited generics (nowhere near C++ templates). Oh, and putting the new keyword everywhere! Otherwise an ok language.

(D can do wasm, but I won't keep going on about it) :)

kojack, to random
@kojack@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar

I feel like making a thread about an algorithm I came up with years ago, called Temporal A*.
But I've never actually tried implementing it, so it's probably garbage. Or its fine but everybody already knows it. :)
It's in my mind again because yesterday I thought of a new use for it: coordinated group pathing through narrow areas.

Maybe today I'll finally implement a test of it.
Or I'll just watch the last 5 episodes of Castlevania Nocturne then stare at the web until I'm too tired to code.

sinbad, to random
@sinbad@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar

I finally got my mining setup to work in Elite Dangerous (by buying a better refinery with more bins, and learning not to direct collector drones but just let them get on with it) and immediately made about 1.6 million credits in 2 runs, which compared to the 30k or so I was making at a time before via trading was very exciting.

kojack,
@kojack@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar

@sinbad I'd sometimes get lazy when my inventory was half full but I was tired of mining, so just log out in the field. Pirates within seconds every time I come back, even if I'm not near a hotspot or resource zone. If my controls aren't messed up (damn you ED) my first instinct when logging in is deploy hardpoints and watch the scanner. :)

kojack,
@kojack@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar

@sinbad Rule one: Never log out of the game while in an asteroid field if you have cargo.
It's pretty much 100% chance when you log in that if you are in an asteroid field a pirate ship will spawn near you and scan your cargo.

I've logged in, found my control mappings messed up and almost lost my Anaconda to a pirate before I rebound enough to either fight back or run away.

demofox, to random
@demofox@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar

My son got a 3d printer for his bday. The wall plug was bad so I am using my bench power supply. The print is going well so far though!

image/jpeg

kojack,
@kojack@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar

@demofox Have it in the car and make it print 3d maps of where you are using GPS and OpenStreetMap data.
Maybe a bit inconvenient for real time navigation. :)

aeva, (edited ) to random
@aeva@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar

I'm helping a friend diagnose some strange behavior with her new gaming rig, and I can't help but wonder how many low hit rate post launch mystery crashes are just defective memory or overclocked hardware. She's got gigabyte GPU that's overclocked out of the box, random stuff is crashing when its at load, and it seems to also be interfering with bluetooth lol.

edit for the curious: de-overclocking her GPU fixed the problem

kojack,
@kojack@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar

@aeva It's working now, so not needed, but one other cause of bluetooth problems can be usb flash drives. USB 3 flash drives can to emit interference at around 2.4GHz, which will mess with bluetooth, most proprietary wireless dongles and some wifi networks.

My favorite though is that the cushions in office chairs can make an electrostatic discharge when you start or stop sitting on them that can cause monitors to flicker. The ESD Association published a paper on it. :)

aras, to random
@aras@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar

0x2B or 43

kojack,
@kojack@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar

@aras Or 053.

kojack, to random
@kojack@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar

I have an urge to do some OpenStreetMap mapping. I'll just start up JOSM...
Why won't it open? Oh, Windows is blocking it because it considers Java insecure.
Ok, added an exception for JOSM. No, now my Java is out of date.
Now oracle webstart is considered bad so I need an open source alternative.

Actually, I feel like watching TV instead. Damn you Java.

kojack,
@kojack@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar

It really doesn't like circles. :)

image/png
image/png

kojack, to random
@kojack@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar

I heard a noise from outside of my bedroom.
"I wonder if that's the possum coming back?"

Nope. 8+ feet long python going for a wander. :(

I'm now watching it while waiting for a snake wrangler to arrive.

kojack,
@kojack@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar

@aeva The possum came back.

kojack, to random
@kojack@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar

I'm just not vibing with Darksiders 3 at the moment. I like the characters, the story, the graphics, but not the combat.
So I installed Darksiders Genesis.
DS1 is a metroidvania thing. Collect special items that unlock the ability to explore previous areas.
DS2 has a Diablo loot mechanic, you collect tons of random stat weapons and keep the ones you like.
DS3 goes the souls-like route, gather souls, use them to level up or buy stuff, enemies respawn, etc.
DSG is an overhead dual stick shooter.

kojack,
@kojack@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar

Similarly, I had to google for what the little purple boxes are that I've collected tons of.
They have no visible effect on any of the hud or stat screen. There's no message or anything.
Turns out they are ammo for Strife.
If you have War active, they do nothing.
But if you are Strife, they are ammo for your secondary guns. For the first half an hour you only have an infinite ammo gun (well, pair of guns), so all the ammo pickups do nothing.

kojack,
@kojack@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar

One issue with DSG: I'm about 53min in. I've collected a heap of souls (over 4600) and boatman coins. But so far they serve no purpose.
I know they are used as currency with Vulgrim (like all the DS games). But going an hour collecting stuff without being shown its purpose seems like a game design flaw. Players might not care about collecting everything possible if they don't see a use, maybe think its just a score.

kojack,
@kojack@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar

Think Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light.

I've finished DS1 and 2 many times. Love them.
I've finished DS3 once.
I got 2 hours into Darksiders Genesis and stopped.
Now I'm back, 1 hour in and enjoying it.

DSG is designed for two player coop (local or network). But it has single player too, where you can toggle between two characters with different abilities: War (sword, close combat) and Strife (guns).

kojack,
@kojack@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar

I'm so used to games telling you something like "Are you sure you want to quit? Unsaved progress will be lost".

Darksiders Genesis says "Quick game and return to desktop? Progress will be saved".
I like that.
(If I wanted to exit without saving, I'd hit alt-f4)

kojack, to random
@kojack@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar

I wish usb cables were labeled with their speed and power rating.
I bought some new cables the other day and I've printed labels for them like:

  • USB2 3A 60W
  • USB3.2 Gen1 5A 100W PD
  • USB3.2 Gen2 12V 3A
    Otherwise I'll never remember which is which.

It was easier when you just needed to remember white, black and blue USB sockets/plugs. Then that got all fucked up.

(The Raspberry Pi 5 requires a 5A supply and cable to run at full performance)

kojack,
@kojack@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar

@sinbad Although we did have to deal with 9 pin, 25 pin and null modem cables. :)

kojack,
@kojack@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar

@rubenwardy It didn't matter as much in the past, but we're now pumping up to a hundred watts through USB to charge laptops or fast charge phones.

Especially with newer USB-C cables, the cable can be part of the negotiation of voltage and current, it can contain an e-marker chip.

There's been issues with cheap cables (like from aliexpress) melting because they can't handle what they are rated for.

kojack,
@kojack@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar

@sinbad Been a LONG time since I used a null modem. I used to use them for Amiga to Amiga multiplayer in Falcon. :)

Ah, the days of huge ports. 25 pin RS232, SCART, Centronics, PATA IDE, whatever the hell the floppy cable was called.

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