A very generic term referring to visual part of a game. Thus try to avoid unrelevant usage and instead tag for specific grapics type (2D, 3D), API, framework or a library you are using if possible.
6
votes
2answers
989 views
Looking for an example of glass with XNA or DirectX 9
Any good pointers on how to get the refractive look of glass? I'm looking to create a think piece of glass type of look, sort of the type that you'd have on bathroom shower doors.
6
votes
2answers
597 views
How do I load chunks of data from an assest manager during a loading screen?
I'm developing an Android game. Basically I want to pre-load all graphics/sounds when the app is first loaded. But I also would like to show a progress bar as this is happening. Here is a snippet ...
6
votes
2answers
786 views
Getting the number of fragments which passed the depth test
In "modern" environments, the "NV Occlusion Query" extension provides a method to get the number of fragments which passed the depth test. However, on the iPad / iPhone using OpenGL ES, the extension ...
5
votes
6answers
1k views
Algorithm for drawing asteroids from, er… Asteroids game?
What would the algorithm be for generating/drawing the asteroid shapes from the original Asteroids game? Is it even an algorithm? Or would they be hard coded shapes?
Here is a screenshot to jog your ...
5
votes
3answers
972 views
What features does D3D have that OpenGL does not (and vice versa)?
Are there any feature comparisons on Direct3D 11 and the newest OpenGL versions?
Well, simply put, Direct3D 11 introduced three main features (taken from Wikipedia):
Tessellation
Multithreaded ...
5
votes
4answers
779 views
How to make game appear to run faster?
I believe I read somewhere that there is a technique which will make games appear more smooth than they are. I believe it is some visual trick, but I don't remember which one. (It is be something like ...
5
votes
2answers
1k views
How to create life-like sprites from photo or video capture like was done for games like Mortal Kombat 1?
I know they digitized actors but how can I get those same results? How to take a photo or video of someone and digitize it for a 2D game? Digitized sprites were used in several video games through the ...
5
votes
3answers
1k views
Draw contour around object in Opengl
I need to draw contour around 2d objects in 3d space. I tried drawing lines around object(+points to fill the gap), but due to line width, some part of it(~50%) was covering object. I tried to use ...
5
votes
2answers
2k views
Moving an object in a circular path
I want to move one object (dot) in a circular path. How should I change the X and Y coordinates to accomplish this?
5
votes
2answers
2k views
How to handle pixel-perfect collision detection with rotation?
Does anyone have any ideas how to go about achieving rotational pixel-perfect collision detection with Bitmaps in Android? Or in general for that matter? I have pixel arrays currently but I don't know ...
5
votes
2answers
611 views
XBOX + Xna != DirectX?
I'm a bit confused. The question is: when I'm developing a XNA game for Xbox (or Windows), is it possible to use DirectX (to make use of the GPU)? Or is everything getting calculated by the CPU?
A ...
5
votes
2answers
240 views
How are 3D images drawn?
When A computer is to draw a 3d model, does it use maths similar to vector projection? Like when a 3d model is drawn and rotated, does it use vectors/and maybe some other math to know where to draw ...
5
votes
2answers
262 views
Help my graphists sharing their work
As a developer I'm used to Subversion for source control and I think it's great for sharing source code between developers.
Now thinking about my graphists and game designers, they need to have a ...
5
votes
2answers
625 views
what options do I have for rendering “large” terrains?
I am trying to design a game with some interesting features but one question I have is regarding terrain. I want a terrain that will make for a very large game world, and I want to be able to have ...
5
votes
4answers
349 views
Sharing data between graphics and physics engine in the game?
I'm writing the game engine that consists of few modules. Two of them are the graphics engine and the physics engine.
I wonder if it's a good solution to share data between them?
Two ways (sharing ...
5
votes
1answer
410 views
Creating graphics at different angles for sprites
I am developing a Java game that uses sprites for the graphics. It's just a top down shooter and our ship sprites look like the following:
These work fine, but they're hard to create and the artist ...
5
votes
4answers
670 views
Anyone know of an online resource with spritesheets from classic games? [closed]
I'm looking for spritesheets for classic retro games, and old home computer games (c64, amiga etc.) Does anyone know of a source online?
5
votes
3answers
1k views
The pros and cons - DX9 moving to DX11 render?
We are a "nano" game dev company working on REFUSION.
DX9 renderer is almost done and question is: Should we move it to DX11 or not?
Anyone have experience with this?
Here are some videos from dev ...
5
votes
5answers
2k views
Non-destructive way to edit alpha channel in Photoshop/Gimp image
Looking to make textures for Unity3d, and I'm stuck at what seems to be a simple stage. My goal is to create an RGBA image, with color information for every pixel, and a separate alpha channel. These ...
5
votes
1answer
214 views
Rendering scaled-down card images
I have high-quality SVG card images, but they drastically lose their quality when I downsize them. I have tried two ways of rendering cards (using Inkscape and Imagemagics):
1) Render SVG to high-res ...
5
votes
2answers
353 views
Most efficient method to render 1,000s of unique space scenes?
I'm an artist with a concept, not the developer, and I'm trying to wrap my head around the approach I should be taking for the following scenario, namely whether to model in Photoshop or 3DS Max.
Say ...
5
votes
3answers
267 views
Drawing the same mesh or drawing the same material?
I was wondering. Suppose I have a 1000 grass meshes. They all have the same material, but I create them separately, because they look slightly different, because they have different heights.
Does my ...
5
votes
2answers
977 views
top down game - checking, drawing enemy's line of sight area with obstacles
Examples of what i'm going to need:
I'm using cocos2d to draw a CCTMXTiledMap, on those tiles i'll have to draw the LOS cone.
How would i test if the player is within that cone, taking obstacles ...
5
votes
1answer
221 views
What are the rest of the blending functions used for?
In general, I know of five ways to make use of blending functions (these are for OpenGL, but replace glBlendFunc() with SetRenderState(D3DRS_SRCBLEND) and SetRenderState(D3DRS_DESTBLEND) for DirectX):
...
5
votes
1answer
255 views
What is actually drawn when glDrawArrays and glDrawElements are called?
In my journey out of immediate mode I've come across a snag that I haven't been able to find a decent answer for in any tutorial or API, namely: Which data structures are actually invoked when I make ...
5
votes
1answer
403 views
Difference between the terms Material & Effect
I'm making an effect system right now (I think, because it may be a material system... or both!). The effects system follows the common (e.g. COLLADA, DirectX) effect framework abstraction of Effects ...
5
votes
4answers
807 views
Is there a sprite sheet creator that satisfies these requirements?
I'm looking for a decent sprite sheet packer.
Features:
Command line interface for Linux.
Effective packing algorithm.
Configurable padding between sprites in the sheet.
Configurable fixed sprite ...
5
votes
1answer
284 views
Is it okay to release a playable, but not graphical, game to the Android Marketplace?
I'm working on my first simple game for release. I'm going to have it to a point of being playable, interface complete, but very few if any graphics, and no overall style aside from the basic Android ...
5
votes
3answers
2k views
How do I fix this weird lighting problem?
I'm making a small game in Unity, and some models are displaying very ugly shading. The shading usually looks funky along the edges between triangles. I'm pretty new to working in 3D; I bet this is ...
5
votes
3answers
864 views
Small 3D Scene Graph
I'm looking for a 3D graphics library (not a complete game engine). Preferred a scene graph. Something small (unlike jME, XNA or Unity), that I can easily expand and change.
Preferred features:
...
5
votes
3answers
817 views
Random generation of realistic human faces
What would be a practicable way of generating huge numbers of realistically looking human faces? Randomizing 3D-models and rendering them would require a lot of computing power, especially as I'm ...
5
votes
1answer
301 views
Does a game have to explicitly support SLI/Crossfire to take advantage of it?
This is more of a general curiosity question than a howto question. Just as the title says, do games have to explicitly support SLI/Crossfire to take advantage of multiple graphics cards or are they ...
5
votes
2answers
312 views
Draw and update order in 3d graphics
In all of the code samples that I have looked at, the game loop looks something like this:
while(true)
{
InputAndUpdate();
Draw();
SwapBuffers();
}
However doesn't this destroy ...
5
votes
1answer
891 views
How do you activate multisampling in OpenGL ES on the iPhone?
I'm experimenting w/ improving the "resolution" of an OpenGL ES based app. Apple mentions here (developer.apple.com) that OpenGL ES in iOS 4 supports multisampling... and this can improve the ...
5
votes
1answer
199 views
Why does my VertexDeclaration apparently not contain Position0?
I'm trying to get my code from calling each individual draw call down to using at least a VertexBuffer, and preferably an indexBuffer, but now that I'm attempting to test my code, I'm getting the ...
5
votes
1answer
291 views
How to flip a BC6/BC7 texture?
I have some code to load DDS image files into OpenGL textures, and I'd like to extend it to support the BC6 and BC7 compressed formats introduced in D3D11. Since DirectX and OpenGL disagree about ...
5
votes
3answers
1k views
Applying Textures to Hexagonal Tiles Seamlessly
I'm doing a tactical game (X-Com / Fallout style) for fun.
I've decided to use a hexagonal map, but I'm having a graphic problem.
My current map display is HUD-like, with only the border of the map ...
4
votes
2answers
351 views
What is this Super Mario shading technique (the edge glow) called?
What is this Super Mario shading technique (the edge glow) called? It can best be seen at the legs.
4
votes
3answers
3k views
Should I use Game Engines to learn to make 3D games?
HI i am a software engineering student in his second-last year.
I am proficient with C,C++,C# and java programming languages, and being a student of engineering I have studied calculus, vectors etc ...
4
votes
3answers
403 views
What are normal, tangent and binormal vectors and how are they used?
I would like to find out the following information:
What are they?
Example usage in game development (the area they are used in)
About the following vector types:
Normal
Tangent
Binormal
A ...
4
votes
2answers
488 views
What does the term 'photorealistic' really mean?
I was wondering about the term 'photorealistic' in regards to rendering and was wondering how this is used.
Is it used to describe a shader (or set of) that have certain quantifiable features? Or any ...
4
votes
1answer
2k views
Rendering 2d sprites into a 3d world?
In opengl how do I render 2d sprites in opengl given that I have a png of the sprite? See images as an example of the effect I'd like to achieve. Also I would like to overlay weapons on the screen ...
4
votes
5answers
612 views
Tools to make icon, icon design
I have two related questions:
What are the tools you use to make icons? (valid for all platforms)
What are the standard sizes and file formats you use? (valid for all platforms too)
4
votes
5answers
2k views
How can I improve the “smoothness” of a 2D side-scrolling iPhone game?
I'm working on a relatively simple 2D side-scrolling iPhone game. The controls are tilt-based. I use OpenGL ES 1.1 for the graphics. The game state is updated at a rate of 30 Hz... And the drawing ...
4
votes
5answers
321 views
How to implement rotating Earth effect in 2D?
I've modeled a photorealistic scene of the Earth rotating in 3DS Max and would like to use it as a backdrop of a menu screen in a 2D game. What would be the appropriate way to implement this effect ...
4
votes
1answer
259 views
Issue with distinguishing levels in isometric game [duplicate]
Possible Duplicate:
How can I change this isometric engine to make it so that you could distinguish between blocks that are on different planes?
I'm working on an isometric game however I ...
4
votes
2answers
220 views
Minesweeper: Mouse listener problem
I have wrote a code for game Minesweeper and there is no problem with the graphics,but there is some problems with MouseListener. Here is my code
/*
* To change this template, choose Tools | ...
4
votes
2answers
554 views
How to do Digital Painting type of graphics art like in Braid?
I'm wanting to create the digital painting type of effect that you see in Braid for a game I'm creating. I was wondering if someone can point me in the right direction? I'm most familiar with OpenGL ...
4
votes
5answers
476 views
XNA Required information to represent 2D Sprite graphically
I was thinking about dividing my game engine into 2 threads: render thread and update thread (I can't come up on how to divide update thread from physic thread at the moment).
That said, I have to ...
4
votes
1answer
319 views
Is there a collection of images (GUI - interface) program or web page available for programmers / developers games? [closed]
I would like to add a GUI in my basic XNA games.
Before starting work on "Photoshop" or "Illustrator". I wanted to ask you the following question:
Do you know of a website or other resource program ...
