Game Development

Simple Transforms...

bobg2009 — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 12:02:52 GMT

Hi Guys,

I'm not sure if this post is in the right place, but because it involves animation and transforms I figure the games section might not be a bad place to ask.

I am trying "stack" or put into a carousel some tab controls I have. So the user can just click on one and it moves to the front. Similar to the following, but with tab controls.

http://samples.msdn.microsoft.com/Silverlight/SampleBrowser/index.htm#/?sref=AnimatedPerspective

I've been looking for the source code for this example, because I thought it was a good place to start.

If anyone can assist. It would be very much appreciated.

Thank you.

New Silverlight high score service for Silverlight Games

APIJunkie — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 21:14:10 GMT

Hello all,

I’ve seen several posts regarding how to build and use a high score system in a Silverlight game. I Just wanted to give you a heads up that we are starting a free high score/in-game event service for Silverlight games. The service is currently in early adopter beta stage. If you are interested in more information or wish to participate in the early adopter program check out the official forum announcement post at http://www.mashooo.com/forumpage.aspx?g=posts&m=581

Bevel pixel shader effect?

Timmy G — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 01:38:16 GMT

Hi all, I've been all over the web looking for a pixel shader that would create a bevel (like the BevelBitmapEffect bitmap effect in WPF) and have concluded that there isn't one *yet*. Next step of course is to write my own.

But before I start, can anyone think of a reason why it would not be technically possible? I found a blog post about how the WPF effects are being replaced by Effects explaining that "certain effects from the old pipeline will never be accelerated in the new pipeline. These include BevelBitmapEffect, OuterGlowBitmapEffect, and EmbossBitmapEffect."

... that makes me worried that maybe there's something about a bevel that makes it technically not possible to do in a pixel shader. Does anyone know one way or the other? Or better yet, does anyone know of a bevel pixel shader that I missed?

How to increase performance of drawing a multitude of UI elements?

Grey Matter — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 23:25:07 GMT

Hi!

1. Now my application operates with 2513 polygons (25321 points for all of these polygons) and it takes about 0.4 second to change their coordinates (for moving or scaling). A similar application written in C++ that uses GDI API makes the same operation within 10-20 milliseconds. So, it's a great difference and it'll be even greater if the amount of objects is increased. But I'm not trying to complain about Silverlight performance, I just have a very slim hope that there may be any trick to get it just a little faster.

2. But it's only a half of my trouble that it may take too much time. The second half of the trouble is that it causes my user interface to stop responding for all of the operating period. I was trying to solve it with a background thread but it didn't help because any UI element cannot be created beyond UI thread, and it returned me to the same trouble with UI freezing.

If someone has any ideas about question 1 or 2, I would be very grateful for it.

Framerate is strange from EnableFrameRateCounter

Grahf — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 20:39:11 GMT

I am confused about the FPS counter that appears when I set enableFrameRateCounter to true. I have 1 rectangle on the screen and it says 1.6/60. I added a character and moved him around and I could push it up to 600/60. Does it not calculate when it has nothing to redraw? This makes it difficult to use the FPS counter for performance debugging.

Collision detection... again.

drnomad — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 23:50:24 GMT

Hi, I'm doing some experimenting and research on pixel-based collision detection. Ofcourse I came across Andy's article on this, using WriteableBitmap. As I was afraid of a performance drain, so I started implementing some optimized variant, based on the same idea.

But with any optimization, you loose something. It doesn't work with images which have a rotationtransform working on it. My guess is, that Andy's algorithmn could still work if you use Writeable bitmap for UIElement and use the rotatetransformed image as input. I have not tested this though.

I also came across an article of Mike Snow, stating in bullet number 4, that he uses polygons to represent collision areas. Does anybody know more about this?

I've used polygon-to-polygon collision before in Avios. I coded this, for actually the reason that I wanted the collision area to rotate along with the player. But in Avios, I created the collision areas manually. Does anybody know about an algorithm, which automatically detects the outline of an image? I've already been studying how to do it myself, but I don't want to reinvent the wheel if I don't have to.

Best way to load animated and non animated images?

Grahf — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 18:31:17 GMT

What is the best way to do the following?

Load images for animations

Using a spritesheet and an image brush to fill a rectangle
Using a spritesheet and a clipping region on the spritesheet
Using separate .png files
Other, please explain

Load non-animated images

Using a spritesheet and a clipping region on the spritesheet
Using separate .png files
Other, please explain

How does GPU acceleration affect the techniques above? Should all my images be powers of 2?

Game/Chat Server and Sockets question

ScCrow — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 01:33:26 GMT

I wrote a Windows based Scrabble game that would allow users to play people on other computers over the Lan. I think its kind of cool. I even allow playing in different languages and Klingon.

However I was not able to get this to work so that it could be used over the internet. I used Sockets in this code. However, this soon became an issue with routers and other things. I couldnt get get addressable ipAddresses thru firewalls, etc. So I thought about perhaps having something running, registering people who want to play, and routing the trafic thru the server instead of having the two computers talking directly. I didnt want to do this because it just increases the traffic on the website.

Now Im looking at rewriting it in Silverlight and runnning it in a browser. However, I think that there is going to be a problem with getting a server going. I have an ISP and a website but purchasing a dedicated server is not an option. My previous ISP would not allow me to have a program running to listen on the ports. Im fairly sure I will have this problem with my new ISP.

Ive found samples of chat programs, game servers, etc. But unless Im mistaken, they need to have an exe running to do the listening on the ports.

So at this point Im looking for some direction and perhaps some sample code / links. Or am I just wrong and seeing a problem that doesnt exist?

Thanks

ScCrow

Making money with Silverlight Games Apps?

mrmop — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 21:26:13 GMT

I've been working with Silverlight for a while now. The first app that I created a while back (to get used to Silverlight) was a game (www.battleballz,com - still needs the programmer graphics replacing and a few other bits implementing)

My latest app (still in development) is a social networking tool and is much more ambitious. and has taken me considerable time and money to develop.

Looking around the web I cant seem to see many games / apps being developed with Silverlight. I also dont see much in the way of employment in Silverlight. This to me begs the question, is there any money in Silverlight games / apps? Don't get me wrong, Silverlight is wonderful to use, but that doesnt feed the family.

Has anyone had any success either with developing games or apps in Silverlight?

Need Silverlight graphist for my multiplayer online game

Skyrunner — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 17:06:19 GMT

Hello,

I just created a multiplayer turn-based online game and I'm looking for a Silverlight graphist to realize the design of the game itself and of the hosting website (room, room chat, in-game chat...).

The game is 90% completed, I just need to create the platform around (a players create a game (room) -> players join the game -> the host starts the game / statistics...)

I you are interested send me an email to skyrunner _at_ live _dot_ com

Long Road for My Car racing Game.

Pravinkumar R. D. — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 12:08:47 GMT

Hi All,

I have worked with Behaviors in Silverlight including Physics Behaviors. This is the reference which I took while working - http://physicshelper.codeplex.com/.

I tried below things-

1) I am trying to design a car which will move on the ground by Left key and Right key press events. I did it successfully. Its working fine.

2) I designed a nice ground which is having couple of disturbances. I was able to make it successfully. My car is moving on this ground now.

The things which I am not able to implement are as below-

3) The ground for my car should be long in distance. I don't want scroll bars for this. I saw in one of the video that you can achive this. But I am not able to find the Behavior for the same. It's like Mario game sort of thing. As you can move front and back.

4) When My car starts moving, I want to show speed as well. This I am not able to calculate.

Requesting all of you to help me implement this. and finding a Behavior for the same.

Most importantly - This complete implementation (Applying behaviors ) should be without code. Just a drag and Drop. Whatever I have completed till the time is without code.

Thanks in Advance !!

Reading XML from a PHP script

bluedot — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 03:04:26 GMT

Hi,

I am using Silverlight to display a map and the GUI for small game. I am currently trying to get a dot to move around the map based on X-Y coordinates that are stored and updated in a MySQL database.

I have a 8 buttons on my GUI, 1 for each direction when one of the buttons is pressed the something like following function is called:

 private void North_Click(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
        {
            WebClient wc = new WebClient();
            wc.DownloadStringCompleted += (s1, e1) => txtResultPar.Text = e1.Result + Environment.NewLine + txtResultPar.Text;
            wc.DownloadStringAsync(new Uri("http://myurl.com/phpSLparse.php?move=" + N.Name, UriKind.Absolute));
            
        }

The php script that is called looks something like:

 if($_GET['move'])
{

*code to query a characters current X-Y location on the map and then some math to determine the new X-Y and update the characters location in the MySQL database*

 echo "You have moved to $newX - $newY<br>";

 }

The text that is echoed by the php script is then displayed in a textblock in the Silverlight gui.

What I would like to do is have the php script write XML, and have the C# read the XML and be able to store the X-Y values in variables that can be manipulated by the C#.

Having the PHP write XML is easy enough, it is the C# reading the XML that I run into problems. I would greatly appreciate some help. I have gone through some tutorials however, my limited experience with C# has caused me to constantly run into problems.

Thank you!

Store information - database, datagrid, array or?

HenrikSkov — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 15:38:17 GMT

Im working on a Silverlight multiplayer game. What would be the best way to handle all the dynamic data. I might have 100 objects with 50 properties on each. I need to have fast access to these information all the time, as this is a real time game.

Here are my thoughts:

Database:
Always get data from database each time a function needs it. I think this will be way to slow and the application will need to query the database all the time.

DataGrid:
All needed information is loaded from the database to an invisible DataGrid. The gameloop will then query the datagrid and update the data in it. An other function will then query and submit from the database or send/receive data through the socket service, but only every 5 seconds.

Array:
The same method as with the DataGrid, but temp data is stored in an array insted of DataGrid.

Other option:
Maybe it need to use a 4th option?

I hope you can understand what i mean. :)

Simple 2d layer drawing problem

Grofit — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 08:34:20 GMT

Hey,

Similar to one of my old posts but this one is a bit simpler a problem... but i still cant think of a *decent* solution without having to do LOTS of checks and nasty things...

In the above example you can see there are 3 elements in the *imaginary* scene, 2 characters and 1 element in the level. You can for all intents and purposes think of the level item as a tree bark, so the blue player is standing in front of the tree, the red player however is standing behind the tree...

Now currently my level is split up into 3 layer, underfoot layer which contains all ground sprites. Player layer, which contains all players/characters and can also contain sprites that should react as shown above, then finally an overhead layer which is always displayed overhead...

Now in a similar game i did with XNA (although never finished) i did a simple y axis check every time i drew something to the screen, so each object that was within this *player* layer was assigned a layer based on its y value, so the blue player may be at 30,100 and the bark is at 30, 30 so it would give the bark a layer of like 3 or something like that, and the player would have a layer of like 10 which would display it over the static entity, however the red player would have a layer of about 2 or similar so he would be displayed behind the tree bark.

Thing is in XNA im pretty sure i could use decimals so there was no chance of me running out of layers, but im not sure if silverlight is as flexible in this department, and as it doesnt render things per frame, i would need to keep cycling through active elements in the scene updating their layer somehow, and im not sure how slow that would be....

Anyone had anything similar to this and solved it with a *nice* solution?

Make your own games

Glenlake — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 12:28:00 GMT

The following paragraph was posted yesterday to a different thread:

I'm not (yet) a game programmer, although I once wrote a Scrabble program using Delphi (single computer, option to play against the computer). Here is my 2 cents on this issue: I believe Silverlight is potentially an excellent platform for making a game-creation system (end-user programming). There are over 200 game-creation system projects hosted by SourceForge.net, and very few of them, if any, target the Silverlight platform. My own project, Pyxelation, lets you use IronPython as a scripting language for creating Silverlight multiplayer games. (I haven't started implementing it yet.) If anyone wants to contribute to my project, I already contacted TheNut (nutty.ca) about Pyxelation (a couple of hours ago), so he has first crack at it. I intend to use C# to implement Pyxelation (and maybe IronPython as well). I know Delphi, C, Python, and Java, in descending order of competence, so it won't be hard for me to learn C#. Learning how to program games will certainly be a challenge, though. In case my Pyxelation project proposal gets a lukewarm reception in this forum, I intend to continue plugging away at it as an open source project in my spare time.

It turns out that TheNut is too busy to help me implement Pyxelation. My original plan was to make Pyxelation open source. However, if I make it closed source and pay a Silverlight game programmer to develop the game engine for me, while I work on the Pyxelator (game editor), then I can get this product to market much sooner. Being the first is all-important in this business. If you are interested in developing my game engine, please send me your resume. If I feel that you would be a good candidate for this position, we can negotiate your remuneration (a fixed price contract). For more info, please visit my web site at pyxelation.com and click on Pyxelation Wiki. Feel free to critique my Pyxelation idea by replying to this post. Thank you.

Can this game be done in Silverlight?

ksleung — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 22:41:38 GMT

I didn't write the game and I don't know the author so this is not an ad. Click the link next to the colorful spaceship in the following link to get to the game (but you can read the Reddit comment posted by the solo author):

http://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/a0yn3/hey_reddit_i_made_a_2d_flash_shooter_game/

It's a 2D shooter game, but it has very good graphics, actions, and choice of sound. The solo developer developed this game in 2 months in his free time. I want to know, among our SL game developers, how hard is it to develop this game in Silverlight?

Well, actually, I expect a popular answer would be, of course, this can be done in SL. The key flash concepts required to develop this game (graphics, vectors, frame-based game loop, WriteableBitmap for the display, math) are all available in SL. If this is the case, can something actually develop something like this game, just so once and for all make a convincing argument as such? I mean, come on, so far all the games posted here (that I've seen) are of the category of "Hello World" or "Gaming 101". Can someone do something that is a bit more impressive, like what the author of this game did?

Currently I assume that the lack of high quality game is a matter of economics -- the return on investment (ROI) is simple too low for Silverlight-based games. This reasoning, however, can only be used for so long, unless we are all collectively saying SL is not going anywhere. That aside, is there any technical roadblock that makes developing a game like this difficult in SL, like UIElement too heavy, sound API broken, bitmap functions too slow, etc? This game is by no mean a stretch goal... After all, it was doable in Flash. In 2 months. By one person. Under moonlight.

Curious to see what you guys think. PM me if you like to say something private or want to make it anon. Thanks.

Home Page for Silverlight Application.

Furukoo — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 09:15:28 GMT

Hello ... I try to developp game application on www.furukoo.fr

Have you some sample of Home page (html code) for Silverlight Application ?

Many peoples comes on my same site, but don't enter on the site.

Perhaps, they think they are nothing to see ?

I want to clarify the home page for helping persons.

I need suggest and or html code sample for building one better home page.

Give me link of sample home page.

Thanks a lot

Yvan

Adding animation to a web application

Chamster — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 21:21:05 GMT

I've been kindly asked to repost this question here.

I created a Silverlight application, consisting of two projects - TheCoolest and TheCoolest.Web. The current functionality is (the coolestly possible) dragging and dropping a rectangle within a canvas. So far, so good.

Now, i'd like to make the rectangle pulse shifting colors while dragged (or just hoovered upon). After several hours of different approaches, all of which resulted in failures (run-time crashes with different error messages, no pulsing nor dragging etc.), i realized that my ratio of patience to competence doesn't bear this anymore.

So, i'm going to restart and i'd like someone to hold my hand on this. My best (still not working) attempt is as follows.

In the XAML i add the event of mouse entering.

<UserControl ...>
  <Canvas>
    <Rectangle ...
      MouseEnter="Rectangle_MouseEnter"
      Name="Rectumangle"
      ... /> 
  </Canvas>
</UserControl>

In the code behind, i add a Storyboard object as a private field and in the constructor i create and add a ColorAnimation object to it. Also, i configure the rectangle and its property to be targeted by the storyboard/animation.

1    public partial class MainPage : UserControl
2    {
3      private Storyboard _storyboard;
4      ...
5    
6      public MainPage()
7      {
8        InitializeComponent();
9    
10       ColorAnimation animation = new ColorAnimation
11       {
12         From = Colors.Blue,
13         To = Colors.Yellow,
14         Duration = TimeSpan.FromSeconds(5),
15         AutoReverse = true,
16         RepeatBehavior = RepeatBehavior.Forever,
17       };
18   
19       _storyboard = new Storyboard();
20       _storyboard.Children.Add(animation);
21       Storyboard.SetTargetName(animation, Rectumangle.Name);
22       Storyboard.SetTargetProperty(animation, new PropertyPath(SolidColorBrush.ColorProperty));
23     }
24     ...
25     private void Rectangle_MouseEnter(Object sender, MouseEventArgs eventaArgs)
26     {
27       _storyboard.Begin();
28     }
29   }
30   ...

This doesn't work, because the storyboard hasn't any knowledge about the rectangle Rectumangle. I understand i should register it somehow BUT the examples i've seen refer to methods and classes in WPF application (e.g. NameScope in PresentationFramwork.DLL), which i can't add as a reference to the project.

Should i register it in an other way? If so, what way? If it's correct to use NameScope - how do i get to make it available? (I've installed SL3, latest version on the site and i'm using VS2008SP1.)

Suggestions?

A single DoubleCollection for a number of StrokeDashArrays causes an exception

Grey Matter — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 02:09:54 GMT

Hi!

Could anyone explain it to me?
If I create a single SolidColorBrush for a great number of Shapes it works OK, but if I create a single DoubleCollection for a number of shapes and set it to their StrokeDashArray it causes an exception or a strange behaviour. What it depends on?

How to invert superimposing colors?

Grey Matter — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 23:11:56 GMT

There are text lines over a picture. I need to make these texts be well visible for any picture with any palette. Usually I saw a technique like inverting a text's color depending on a picture's color laying under the text or IOW inverting text's pixels depending on picture's pixels superimposed on them. How it may be done in Silverlight?

Has anyone read "Foundation Silverlight 3 Animation" book?

Grey Matter — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 22:22:39 GMT

Are there significant differences from previous edition "Foundation Silverlight 2 Animation" to learn about?

Game Related Graphic Artists?

Grofit — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 13:59:24 GMT

Not the ideal place to post, but thought i would give it a try anyway...

I have been working on a silverlight game for a while in my spare time, and ive got to the point where i could do with someone who is fairly decent with UIs and design work in general to possibly help me out with either sprucing it up a bit or providing images and i would just dump them in at the relevent places...

The project is fantasy based, and i would mainly be after someone whos good at drawing the UI art and make it all fit in place well... i will admit that im awful at art related activities so the current prototypes i work with look like someone has thrown random tilesets at the screen and prayed they stuck there... The UI itself is just a lot of stand-in controls which are waiting relevent art/design goodness...

Anyway as its a *spare time* project, im unfortunatly not paying for anyone to help out, but if i get it finished you can put your name in the credits and use anything you create for me elsewhere... Doubt there will be any takers but thought it would be worth a try...

My project: Silverlink

Trojan_56 — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 04:40:51 GMT

Basically, i am re-creating a game which came out a while ago. Here is a preview: Silverlink Video

I have been working alot on the GUI to start off with and have managed to get some pretty kool effects:

The App resizes as the browser resizes, but keeping the aspect-ratio of the App(600x480). The App can be fullscreened, which resizes the App (keeping aspect-ratio) and makes it central.

I develop mainly in VB.NET, and this is my 1st big grasp on XAML, which at 1st i was a bit confused, but now i have picked it up and working quite well with it. If anyone is interested in certain parts of this project, i may be willing to release part of the source.

If anyone with graphical expertise is interested, i am looking for someone to create some of the GUI graphics, like buttons, backgrounds, borders, icons, etc.

Also, near the end of the development, i may be looking for someone to do some music, so bare that in mind if you would like your music featured(mainly soft techno, trance)

How to add or insert png or emoticon in a textbox ?

Furukoo — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 21:57:22 GMT

I develop chat box for my project.
I want add support for emoticons (like msn) to mu chat box.
Can you tell me simple way to add or insert image (png) in textbox ? (VB code if possible ? or xaml ? )
Thanks a lot

try chat here : UserName : guest / Pass : guest

http://www.furukoo.fr/furukoov2/TestPage.html

Thanks a lot

Yvan

where i can learn about visual state manager ?

hardy — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 10:14:51 GMT

hello everybody..

i want to learn about visual state manager in blend 3..

but i am trying in http://blogs.developpeur.org/raptorxp/archive/2008/06/20/silverlight-2-petit-coup-d-il-au-visualstatemanager.asp is confusion..

it's difficult for understand it..

i want the tutorial using video tutorial..

where can i download it?

thx..