Game Development Megathread

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Serious Hardware/Software Crap > The Cavern of COBOL > Game Development Megathread

No Safe Word: Feb 26, 2005

IcePotato posted:

XNA is driving me crazy; I can't seem to use the right namespaces outside of my main game file to get the classes I need. For example, I am trying to write a class that takes a Vector2d, defined in Microsoft.Xna.Framework namespace, but even though I have
code:
using Microsoft.Xna.Framework;
up top, I can't loving compile without getting "The type or namespace name 'Vector2D' could not be found (are you missing a using directive or an assembly reference?)" on this line:
code:
        public [b]Vector2D[/b] moveTo(Coord dest)
        {
            return new Vector2D(x,y);
        }
I had the same problem with Content.Load in another class file. I've looked at definitions, I've looked at documentation, nothing seems to mention why you can't use this poo poo outside the main game class even when you copy-paste every single "using" directive from the header into your other class file. This is killing me, help plz.

e: Full disclaimer: I'm a Java programmer. Packages make sense to me. Namespaces mostly make sense to me... As far as I can tell, there's no super-huge difference.

Did you add a reference to the XNA stuff in your project? In your little Solution Explorer sidebar under References, right click and choose "Add Reference..." and find the XNA stuff and add it. That should probably fix it (disclosure: never done XNA stuff, just plenty of stuff in Visual Studio)

edit: oh yeah, that would be the other half of "are you missing a using directive or an assembly reference?" :downs:

But it's easy to just say "yeah, I've got the using directive, what gives?" :v:

# ¿ Feb 6, 2008 17:24

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# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 13:24

No Safe Word: Feb 26, 2005

Very interesting slideware from Valve on their AI/Procedural Generation stuff in Left 4 Dead that they released on the Team Fortress blog today:

http://www.valvesoftware.com/publications/2009/ai_systems_of_l4d_mike_booth.pdf

# ¿ Dec 22, 2009 10:00

No Safe Word: Feb 26, 2005

Avenging Dentist posted:

Also Game Maker is bad.

Um, anything that can produce Barkley Shut Up and Jam: Gaiden is good in my book

# ¿ Apr 27, 2010 00:49

No Safe Word: Feb 26, 2005

Relax guys, it was a joke

# ¿ Apr 27, 2010 03:06

No Safe Word: Feb 26, 2005

SuicideSnowman posted:

One of the cool things about procedural generation is you normally need something as a seed for the generation. I imagine one could make a pretty fun game by allowing the player to enter a specific seed and also have his buddies use the same seed for competition purposes.

You mean like /r/minecraftseeds?

# ¿ Mar 14, 2012 19:08

No Safe Word: Feb 26, 2005

Shalinor posted:

It didn't get archived back then for whatever reason - it isn't my place to question the mods of that time period or their calls.

... seriously, just get archives access, because that thread is worth it.

A great teaser nugget from the OP that I got just from quickly scanning a few pages:

bestow posted:

Q: Who will code this?
A: The community. After the game design document is completed, several months from now. And there is some more art. There should be enough to attract a few programmers. Once I find a programmer that is fairly experienced, and is willing to stick around they will become the programming representative. They will help make the game, but also help manage and direct the rest of the programming community. Controlling overlap, making sure everything everyone makes cooperates will with unity, moderating code to fit the program better. This position should go to the best programmer that joins the project (there will also be representatives for the other disciplines, art, music etc.) As many of you have mentioned I'm not good enough at any individual discipline (except maybe design) to do it all.

Q: How will they get 25 years of experience in 8 years starting from literally no knowledge of coding?
A: The programming representative ideally will have some experience with games behind them. There are people out of work that have experience in this field, and there are people that have made their own projects, and had advanced schooling in this field. I just have to find them, and convince them to join the project. Once the design document is complete, and the art and style of the game is more fleshed out, I feel this is very much a possibility. So, to answer your question, not every programmer will be learning as they go, I just need to find several with some good experience (this task isn't any different than starting a small project).

Q: How will you pay for servers, server maintenance, and storage?
A: It's going to be quite a while before we need to pay for servers. And once we do I assume will have a couple more followers, and general community interest in playing the game. If people want to play the game, they will donate, and that will pay for the server. If they don't, the server goes down, and the player base is reduced to those working on the game. Ad revenue on the site and possibly in the installation file (check this box to make ask.com your homepage, check this box to install open office etc...) will also help the server fees, once they exist. And maybe if the game gets popular enough, another company will host the site and the game. The game however, will never be pay2play, as the way it's built simply won't allow for that from a legal perspective, this has been my stance from the start. Storage for the download and patches will probably come from sourceforge as this will be an open source project (as soon as it has some source hurr hurr)but I'm also considering using bit torrent for this, basically the apex of the internet community. As for which OSS to use I wouldn't mind some suggestions.

Q: Why do you deserve credit for leading this when you have no development skill or talent to speak of?
A: I can draw, I can write, I can 3d model, I can rig, I can animate. I'll grant you that I'm not as good as industry professionals, in any of these regards, but I can do many of them "good enough". Ultimately the low poly barrel prop I made in Maya, isn't any better or worse than a barrel somebody on blizzard's staff made for WoW. There are diminishing returns on how "good" someone can be, especially in regards to the art style they are working with. And making something really good is more or less a matter of time, I've never spent a solid 2 weeks 8 hours a day working on a single model, and thus they don't look as good as god of war 3 Kratos, I can accept this. If I worked on the model as long, I honestly feel I could produce something close, or at least better than I ever have. Although people are born with more "talent" in certain fields, everyone can learn everything, I'm a firm believer in this, saying "I'll never learn to sing, gently caress it." is just sealing the deal. And getting back to your question, I don't plan to profit off of this in any way besides maybe getting a job. The only credit I'm taking is for the idea itself, the designs I come up with, and the work I do. I'm not some kind of rich publisher at the top of the pyramid telling the artist to do awesome stuff, and then taking credit because I found them. I helping do everything that artist is doing, I'm involved.

# ¿ Jan 18, 2013 18:21

No Safe Word: Feb 26, 2005

xzzy posted:

vim.

VsVim, best of all worlds, plus it keeps grubby coworker hands off your code during code reviews :owned:

# ¿ Apr 5, 2013 00:41

No Safe Word: Feb 26, 2005

SlightlyMadman posted:

Wait, are you serious, does this exist, and is it any good?

it does exist and it is good

Back in Ye Olde Visual Studio 2003 (and 2000 and 6...) days, there was one that used some OLE embedding crap where it literally embedded vim as the editor in editing areas but now there's this one and it's actually quite good. The one thing that I miss from the Eclipse analog that I used (vrapper) is that you can't toggle it off and on easily for when others do need to do edits (I actually don't shun my coworkers from using my editor :v:

# ¿ Apr 5, 2013 04:00

No Safe Word: Feb 26, 2005

Abalieno posted:

I use Vim myself

Is that your setup or someone else's? If it's yours I may have to ask about it in some other appropriate thread or via PM

# ¿ Apr 25, 2013 19:56

No Safe Word: Feb 26, 2005

poemdexter posted:

Dota 2 stuff

You made me think I was in the wrong thread

# ¿ May 8, 2013 14:57

No Safe Word: Feb 26, 2005

roomforthetuna posted:

I would like this license to actually exist. But I can't imagine what it would say other than "gently caress you, licenses are boring", which wouldn't really convey any "I'm not going to sue you later for using my poo poo." I suppose you could add that too.

I mean there is the WTFPL which is kind of in that same spirit

# ¿ Jun 4, 2013 18:37

No Safe Word: Feb 26, 2005

Besesoth posted:

the kind of thing I would nominally hate and then spend hours and hours playing.

This should probably be the unofficial subtitle of every SA GameDev Challenge.

# ¿ Jul 29, 2013 17:51

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# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 13:24

No Safe Word: Feb 26, 2005

OneEightHundred posted:

AAA games have to fit into main memory, shared with the operating system, on the 256MB-main-memory PS3. BF4's executable on Windows is 36MB. A 600MB executable means they either made something 15x as complicated as top-end AAA titles, or did something terribly wrong ~~or they're using Boost~~.

Including debug tables is on the pretty deep end of terribly wrong, why isn't that poo poo in PDBs that don't get shipped?

It's in beta.

# ¿ Dec 7, 2013 01:55

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