Programming, graphics, games, media, C++, Windows, Internet and more...
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# IGK 2013 - My Photos
Thu
11
Apr 2013
IGK 2013 @ Google+ - here is the gallery of my photos from the IGK 2013 conference.
Comments | #igk #events #warsztat #gallery Share
# After IGK 2013
Mon
08
Apr 2013
Today I came back from 10th Polish Game Engineering Conference - X jubileuszowa Ogólnopolska Konferencja Inżynierii Gier Komputerowych IGK2013, which took place at Uniwersytet Przyrodniczo-Humanistyczny in Siedlce, Poland. See also Facebook page and topic on forum.warsztat.gd.
It was fun :) Maybe papers were not the highest possible quality in scientific terms. I also noticed complete lack of presentations from any companies producing "big" PC or console games. There were only talks about mobile and web-based games, as well as serious games - simulation and training for military.
The presentation I liked the most was "Desert Tycoon - Gra stworzona na piasku" by Konrad Rodzik and Jarek Potiuk from Polidea. They talked about their first iPhone game - Desert Tycoon. It's a game like Farmville, but taking place on Arabian desert. I was amazed by the openess they present when talking about what went good or wrong and all the technical details of their work. It was very interesting to hear about e.g. the quirks of rendering text in Arabic language.
My second favorite talk was "Testowanie rozproszonych aplikacji mobilnych opartych na Unity3D" by Marcin Korniluk and Piotr Duda. It's not the most interesting subject for me, but I liked the structure of this talk. They showed what they are talking about and what problem they want to address and then they presented the solution they are working on.
The big name of this conference was probably Sos Sosowski with his talk "It's not a bug, it's a feature". This indie game developer, author of McPixel, has great talent for speaking in funny and engaging way.
I'm glad we managed to organize the quiz. Congratulations artpoz for winning! I will publish the application we used along with all the questions we asked in the following days and link it from here. Meanwhile please leave your comments about any ideas, what you liked or not liked about this game, how we could improve the rules, the app and what kinds of questions would you prefer to see next year.
Of course on Sunday there was also game development competition. 12 teams participated this year. The theme was: "Artiller game - multiple ways of destroying map, hp & mp - at least 2 kinds of energies - achievements - multiplayer". We took 4th place. I will publish our entry soon. I think the level this year was quite high. Almost all compo entries looked like nice games. My favourite game was the one from team "Kryzys". They made a game for two players with top-down view about tanks shooting each other with different kinds of weapons and destroying the map. Tanks were controlled by... smartphones with Windows, using touchscreen and accelerometer.
There were around 70 participants this year. The possibly biggest groups were people from Polygon (game programming interest group at Warsaw University of Technology), Warsztat community, Vexillium group, Ganymede (game development company, one of the sponsors). Here is a group photo.
Some additional links:
Comments | #competitions #warsztat #igk #events Share
# Handling Multiple Mice with Raw Input
Thu
21
Mar 2013
When you connect second USB mouse to your computer, you don't have second cursor to move on the screen and click on things. Instead you can move and click the single cursor with both mice. What if you want to distinguish messages from multiple mice in your program? I found the solution here. I downloaded and looked at the source code of MouseParty.zip linked from this page.
Handling multiple mice is possible using part of WinAPI called Raw Input. If you have <Windows.h> included, have your WinAPI window and message loop, you only need to initialize Raw Input like this:
RAWINPUTDEVICE device;
device.usUsagePage = 0x01;
device.usUsage = 0x02;
device.dwFlags = 0;
device.hwndTarget = 0;
RegisterRawInputDevices(&device, 1, sizeof device);
You then start to receive WM_INPUT message, which should be handled this way:
case WM_INPUT:
OnRawInput(
GET_RAWINPUT_CODE_WPARAM(wParam) == RIM_INPUT,
(HRAWINPUT)lParam);
// Must call DefWindowProc!
break;
# Aero2 - Free Internet in Poland
Tue
19
Mar 2013
Did you know that in Poland there is free access to the Internet available for everyone? It's called Aero2 and it works through 3G. To use it, all you need to do is:
1. You need a 3G modem. Not every modem works though. List of compatible modems is here: Aero2 – zestawienie zgodnych modemów. I have ZTE MF821. It costs about 200 PLN.
2. You need to pay 20 PLN. It's a deposit and it will be returned if you return your SIM card.
3. You need to fill in the order form and send it, along with printed confirmation of transfer of your deposit and copy of your identity card, to the address shown on their website.
4. After about one month they will send you SIM card. Of course you cannot make phone calls with this card - it is only for data transfer.
5. Enter connection parameters:
APN: "darmowy"
Username and password: empty
IP and DNS addresses: automatic
6. You have free Internet :) It's not very fast and will disconnect you every hour, but still usable for browsing websites. I think it may be useful when you travel e.g. in train or after you move to new house and don't have new Internet connection yet. So if it's so cheap to get it, why not give it a try?
Comments | #shopping #hardware Share
# 10th Polish Game Engineering Conference IGK2013
Sun
17
Mar 2013
5-7 April 2013 the 10th Polish Game Engineering Conference - X jubileuszowa Ogólnopolska Konferencja Inżynierii Gier Komputerowych IGK2013 will take place at Uniwersytet Przyrodniczo-Humanistyczny in Siedlce, Poland. There is still time to register until March 24th.
The agenda doesn't look very impressive, but I'm sure there will be a good vibe as always when people from warsztat.gd from all over the country come together. So me and Krzysiek K. are coming there. Xion will be there as well despite he now lives in Zürich, Switzerland.
Besides talks, there will be also a quiz. Everyone on the conference will have a chance to participate and test his knowledge about game development. Everyone except us because we make the questions :) I can reveal that this time my part of questions will be less about hardcore programming details and more about latest games and news from the gamedev industry.
And of course on Sunday there will be game development competition where teams will have to develop a game in 8 hours. So I'm sure there will be lots of fun :)
Comments | #igk #events #warsztat #competitions Share
# Disabling Custom PDF Browser in New Firefox
Thu
28
Feb 2013
New version of Firefox contains custom PDF files viewer, which is not as good as the standard Adobe Reader. To restore Adobe Reader as default browser for PDF files:
Comments | #firefox #web Share
# CConstantBuffer, CTypedConstantBuffer
Wed
30
Jan 2013
DirectX 10 and 11 have new, redesigned API that has its pros and cons. One can say that it is now more clean and well organized, but on the other hand it requires more (or as those who code in higher-level languages than C++ or use existing game engines would say - *even more*) lines of code than old Direct3D 9. So I created classes that encapsulate some most typical boilerplate D3D11 code. Here is first one - CConstantBuffer, which handles constant buffer, required now to pass any uniform parameters to a shader.
class CConstantBuffer {
public:
CConstantBuffer(
size_t bytesLength,
const void* initialData = nullptr,
bool immutable = false );
~CConstantBuffer();
ID3D11Buffer* Buffer() { return m_Buffer.get(); }
void Update(const void* src);
void SetForVS(UINT slot);
// ...and so on for HS, DS, GS, PS, CS.
private:
size_t m_Length;
unique_ptr<ID3D11Buffer, ReleaseDeleter> m_Buffer;
};
# Global Game Jam 2013 - Our Game Octovirus
Sun
27
Jan 2013
Global Game Jam 2013 came to an end. The local event in Gdańsk, Poland - 3city Game Jam (Facebook page) was organized by playsoft gamedev company in their office. During the jam, a lot was happening on Twitter in hashtag #ggj13 and #3citygamejam. Here are my several photos of the event. The theme this year was "sound of a heartbeat".
I joined a team of 5 playsoft employees. Together we created a 2D game called "Octovirus" about an actopus-like virus swimming inside veins, collecting blood cells and avoiding evil bacteria. We made all the graphics, including fonts and even sounds during the event. As for the code, there were two of us programmers. We developed in Windows, using Visual C++ 2010 Express. We used Cocos2d-x framework and Box2D for physics. I didn't know both of these libraries before GGJ, so I had to learn the basics quickly :)
The game works on Windows using OpenGL, but it's also portable to Android and iOS. Here is Windows binary: Octovirus.zip (6.09 MB).
