@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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eniko, to random
@eniko@peoplemaking.games avatar

torn between making a sandboxy ultima 6 like game or making a sci-fi version of a sandboxy ultima 6 like game

not that i have the time or energy to make either but i like to daydream, its just im torn about which to daydream about

kojack,
@kojack@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar

@eniko I've never played Ultima 6.
My dream is to make an Ultima 7 style AI sandbox, I just love how the cities felt alive with NPC actions.

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 If I was going to move away from C++, my next choice would be D. I haven't played with its concurrency stuff yet, but almost everything else I've done in it I liked. Garbage collection, but its optional. C and C++ interfacing. Inline assembler. Compile time function evaluation. Looks mostly like C++.
It's the only language I've found that can match the features of my freaky C++
vector maths library (and do it easier). :)

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

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

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

do you think there's regular spooders in the zelda games or does link sometimes find a skulltula in the shower

kojack,
@kojack@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar

@aeva @TomF I'd gladly let one of the water dragons lounge around on top of my head. They don't like getting that close though, and their claws look sharp.

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

WTF is an "AI-capable chip". It's either Turing-Compatible or it's not. Everything else is just a question of performance.

kojack,
@kojack@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar

@aeva @TomF @Farbs From what I remember of Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs, the AI The Chinese Room put in there wasn't particularly noticeable.
The 1980's Chinese Room thought experiment however...
:)

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

So... Horizon Forbidden West.
The steam forums have people complaining about performance. Like 20fps on a 4090.
I'm on a 2080ti. No idea what the fps is, it feels fine to me.

But this is another game that every 10min or so my gfx card resets both monitor outputs. The game screen goes black and I have to alt-tab out/in of the game to restore it.

Dragon's Dogma 1 does it every couple of minutes, so I wonder if DD2 will as well?

Only some games do it, most don't.

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

math fact:

the dual of an octopus is eight more octopuses

kojack,
@kojack@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar

@aeva I thought I understood it, but then a few days ago I read the algorithm again and realised I was thinking of something else.

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

have you ever held on to an old computer because you wanted to use it to "build a beowulf cluster"?

kojack,
@kojack@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar

@aeva Been a long time since I've seen megatokyo mentioned anywhere. :)

If Beowulf ran on them, I probably have enough Arduinos to almost match a single Raspberry Pi 1. :)
(Although I could just use my Raspberry Pi 1 instead)

kojack,
@kojack@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar

@aeva Oh. I always thought it was a specific software framework, since I only ever heard people mention it around Linux/Unix systems.

I guess I had one when I made my distributed network 3D rendering system at college (I'd take over a whole classroom to do network renders). :)

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 It would definitely like to meet the possum. Or the birds. Or the water dragons.

kojack,
@kojack@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar

@aeva Eastern Water Dragons. There's one in the banner of my account here. :)

Lots of native birds, lizards and spiders here. Very rare to get snakes. But when we do get them its one of two kinds:

  • coastal carpet python (huge, but non venomous and fairly relaxed)
  • brown snake (second most venomous land snake in the world, can outrun a sprinting human, VERY DANGEROUS)

There's nothing as big as a coyote in the suburbs. Maybe dingos out in the bush areas.

kojack,
@kojack@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar

@aeva Lots of drunks though. LOTS of drunks. (Kind of an australian passtime)

kojack,
@kojack@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar

@aeva That it is.

Oh, and I'd LOVE to have squirrels here. And raccoons. I'd befriend them.
Australia has no rabies, so relatively safe to be around stuff.

kojack,
@kojack@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar

@aeva The possum came back.

kojack,
@kojack@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar

@aeva Thermal cameras do tend to make things look a bit creepier. :)
But that's what I had on me (I'd heard a noise and went out to check if it was another snake).

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

Another alternative is Rapid. It's a javascript online editor. It's made by Meta and uses Microsoft AI to auto map buildings.
I'll try it...

Slow as hell.
The AI mapped buildings suck. (A lot are kind of acceptable, but most are off by at least a bit)

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kojack,
@kojack@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar

It really doesn't like circles. :)

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

Just an average day for suburban Australia, having to break up a fight between two Eastern Water Dragons.

The one on the left is a newcomer, the one on the right is defending its territory (my yard) where its lived for a couple of years.

kojack,
@kojack@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar

@upmultimedia Definitely the one on the right. He suns himself on our deck and will eat out of my hand (once he learned that my fingers weren't part of the deal).

I'd like the new one to hang around, but 2 males in one area don't get along.

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

I used Visual Studio for many years before I discovered the New Window command which lets you have two views on the same file. Very useful.

kojack,
@kojack@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar

@erin_catto Another way is to drag the split window icon (above the vertical scroll bar) down to get 2 views of the one file. Drag the split back up to merge the views together again.

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.

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

So Unity seems untrustworthy with all this TOS changing and conflicting communications. But you know what else makes me not trust a company/product? Having a price of "Contact Us". I'm looking at you Unigine!

The free version of Unigine looks really cool. I watched a tutorial on it, seems pretty good. But the non free versions are listed as "Contact Us".

My standard assumption for "Contact Us" products is they are trying to milk customers for every dollar they can, not having a fixed price.

kojack,
@kojack@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar

@AngryAnt It always surprises me when free things put limits on install counts. I can understand Mathematica or Lightburn, which cost money, having a limit (think its 2 installs at once for each). But the free edition of Unigine? :)

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