Latest posts of: Juriy - Java-Gaming.org

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1	Games Center / Archived Projects / Re: Multiplayer Pool/Billiards Site	on: 2009-03-10 11:11:46
Unfortunately I coudn't play your game. It seems to be a connection problem: I'm behind a firewall that cuts your game traffic (making alternative HTTP connection would be a nice feature for users like me). One more thing that I've noticed is look and feel: better invest some effort in changing standard LaF with something more game-related (I've done this on my current project that is not yet published and I'm happy with results). I've used synth and it took about 15 man/days (including designer's work) to make really good-looking skin for my games.

2	Games Center / 4K Game Competition - 2009 / Re: Help spread the word around...	on: 2008-12-03 11:55:24
I've written an entry to my blog a few days before your post. If you're interested here's the link: http://voituk.kiev.ua/2008/11/27/the-power-of-4k. It's in Russian so I guess most of readers will find this entry an amusing sequence of senseless characters

3	Games Center / Archived Projects / Re: Curling4k	on: 2008-12-03 09:21:39
Thanks for great replies! They are very helpful. BTW that's my first ever entry to 4k contest so that's pretty important for me to make nice game. Quote EDIT: By the way, I'd been thinking of doing Couronne4k - but now it feels too similar to this Believe me or not last year I had an idea to create a game similar to thief4k (but instead of stealing diamonds I planned to let player kill guards to escape from prison). I even started to write code (but never finished) Quote EDIT2: Also, I agree with kev - post in the 4k forum instead. Could an admin move this thread to the 4k 2009 forum please? Agree. Sorry for misplacing post.

4	Games Center / Archived Projects / Curling4k	on: 2008-12-02 10:55:16
Hello everybody. I'm making a game for this year 4k contest. It's 80% finished and I'm just wondering what you think about it. The goal of the game is to place tokens as close to the target of the same color as possible. The closer you put it - more points you get. http://voituk.kiev.ua/demo/curling4k/curling4k.jnlp Here's the controls: LMB - fire (the power is proportional to how long you hold button pressed) RMB, cursor left-right - change current token, n - next level r - replay level Actually I've stolen the idea from the flash game. But flash game has also "borrowed" idea from the Curling (that game with ice and granite disks you know). So I'm not feeling guilty.

5	Games Center / 4K Game Competition - 2009 / Re: Minimal JRE version this year	on: 2008-11-28 14:28:00
Quote from: Morre on 2008-11-28 13:05:48 I don't think targetting 1.6 is such a good idea, since many users apparently do not run JRE6. True. That's the bad thing about Java. You can use "latest hot" features of new version only after two years. I guess we'll finally move to 1.6 when Sun release stable 1.7. Quote bosses cannot tell If I'm working in the company's projects or mine. True, that's why I often give "strange" names to classes: "Feature" instead of "Game" or "ActiveEntity" instead of "Enemy"

6	Games Center / 4K Game Competition - 2009 / Re: Minimal JRE version this year	on: 2008-11-28 09:27:29
Quote from: rdcarvallo on 2008-11-27 20:25:40 I use and will continue using 1.4.2 for the development of J4K games. Do you have some metrics that prove that 1.4.2 gives smaller output then 1.5? Or it's just a matter of personal preference?

7	Games Center / 4K Game Competition - 2009 / Re: Minimal JRE version this year	on: 2008-11-27 18:33:25
Why not 1.6? It's not really _too_ important but in 1.6 there are some nice improvements like radial gradients. Besides, it's the latest stable version. Why use 1.5 then?

8	Games Center / 4K Game Competition - 2009 / Minimal JRE version this year	on: 2008-11-27 14:16:16
Hello everybody. What is the planned minimal JRE version this year? Will it be 1.5 as before, or we can move to 1.6? I guess that 1.6 is acceptable.

9	Game Development / Newbie & Debugging Questions / Re: Graphics and Threads	on: 2008-10-03 13:33:12
I'm pretty sure that spawning new threads for animation purposes is bad idea. The least you'll have - dozens of synchronization issues and deadlock headaches. To simplify development a bit create separate class that will hold data that is needed for animation (i.e. list of frames, current frame, time till next frame). Then update your animation based on time passed since last update. Quote is there a good way to get different animations to pop up when things happen? Try implementing Observer pattern. Create a list of listeners, then notify them of certain action happened.

10	Game Development / Newbie & Debugging Questions / Re: reading/storing configuration	on: 2008-09-26 16:46:43
Well, properties are generally used for plain data rather then hierarchical. They are much easier to operate though. If you want to use XML anyway you should refer to XStream (http://xstream.codehaus.org/) or Digester (http://commons.apache.org/digester/) (personally I prefer Digester). Try to use those libraries instead of core Java functionality to ease your life a bit.

11	Discussions / Miscellaneous Topics / Re: Help someone with non-Windows	on: 2008-09-25 12:44:54
Ah, yeap. That's due to the second component I use. Change it to Whatever-Other-JComponent and it'll work fine. Currently I'm making a proxy selection dialog for desktop app. There's nothing unusual in this exception in the default WebStart sandbox.

12	Discussions / Miscellaneous Topics / Re: Help someone with non-Windows	on: 2008-09-25 10:17:27
Here they are: http://www.java-gaming.org/topics/bubble-fade-swing-effect/19243/view.html

Game Development / Shared Code / Bubble-fade swing effect

on: 2008-09-25 10:16:41

Well, here's a little Swing effect that I'd like to share.
Brief: Animation effect to smoothly change components on the form.
Motivation: When you're changing components in a usual way (remove, add, revalidate), there's no visual connection between changing components: one of them just disappear, and another appear on its place.

Example: http://voituk.kiev.ua/demo/ws/fade/fade.jnlp
Sources: in post attachment

Explanation.
First thing I do after user presses "Test Fade" key is create a new BufferedImage same size as visible component and render that component to image (we create a "screenshot" of the component):

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tableImage = new BufferedImage(
      scrollPane.getWidth(), 
      scrollPane.getHeight(), 
      BufferedImage.TYPE_INT_ARGB);
Graphics2D g = (Graphics2D) tableImage.getGraphics();
scrollPane.paint(g);
g.dispose();

Now, when we have a screenshot we can apply some effects to it. I've applied Gaussian Blur. I took the code that calculates the Kernel of ConvolveOp from Filthy Rich Clients (great book, BTW).

1	tableImage = getGaussianBlurFilter(3, false).filter(tableImage, null);

Now we have a blurred screenshot. I put a screenshot on a separate component and place it _instead_ of original component on a LayeredPane. On a "lower" layer I put the form that I'm going to show:

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// Settings screen is what appears under the table
SettingsScreen settings = new SettingsScreen();
settings.setBounds(0, 0, scrollPane.getWidth(), scrollPane.getHeight());
layeredPane.add(settings, new Integer(10));
   
layeredPane.add(imageComponent, new Integer(20));
add(layeredPane, BorderLayout.CENTER);
revalidate();

Now everything is ready to start animation. I use TimingFramework to save time writing thread-handling code. You can do the same with plain threads if you don't want to include additional libraries to your project.

Here's what I do in the animation loop. I use AlphaCompolite.Clear to make a transparent "hole" in the image, and then repaint image component. Here's the code:

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   private void drawHoles(Graphics2D g) {
      g.setComposite(AlphaComposite.getInstance(AlphaComposite.SRC_OVER, 1.0f));
      
      g.setRenderingHint(RenderingHints.KEY_ANTIALIASING,
            RenderingHints.VALUE_ANTIALIAS_ON);

      for (int i = 0; i < drops.length; i++) {
         g.setColor(Color.GRAY);
         g.drawOval(
               drops[i].x - radiuses[i]/2, 
               drops[i].y - radiuses[i]/2, 
               radiuses[i], 
               radiuses[i]);
      }

      g.setComposite(AlphaComposite.Clear);
      for (int i = 0; i < drops.length; i++) 
         g.fillOval(
               drops[i].x - radiuses[i]/2, 
               drops[i].y - radiuses[i]/2, 
               radiuses[i], 
               radiuses[i]);
   }

That's it. This was a quick experiment, so there are some more things to consider for production: clear the resources used, think what will happen if user resizes screen during animation (well, the probability of such action is really low, but you know those users), and finally put resulting component directly on the frame (get rid of LayeredPane that was used for animation only).

P.S. Don't look at the components functionality (those "detect proxy"). I've taken the first component that was suitable to show the idea.

14	Discussions / Miscellaneous Topics / Re: Help someone with non-Windows	on: 2008-09-25 09:02:52
Quote are you willing to give us some insight and/or share a code sample! Yeap sure, I'll put this sample on "Shared Code" in a few hours.

15	Discussions / Miscellaneous Topics / Re: Help someone with non-Windows	on: 2008-09-24 15:11:57
Ah, great. This wasn't MacOS, this was Java 5. I've compiled with target JVM 1.5 and still it didn't warn me that I'm using method that is available from 1.6 only. Well, how could compiler know that. Just in case: the method was AlphaComposite.derive. Anyway, have a look at my bubbles-fade-out effect :-)

16	Discussions / Miscellaneous Topics / Help someone with non-Windows	on: 2008-09-24 14:27:19
Hello guys, I've made a nice component-change effect with swing, using only Java (no natives or smth). Works good on Win, but behaves as if nothing happened on Mac (didn't test it on Linux). Could someone please run it on Mac and tell me if there any exceptions? BTW, if i works and you like it, I can share the code. http://voituk.kiev.ua/demo/ws/fade/fade.jnlp

17	Games Center / Showcase / Re: Robombs - multiplayer bombing fun	on: 2008-09-23 09:31:48
When I press "single player" it hangs, displaying state "Looking for Servers". I'm not sure if this might help: I'm behind pretty restrictive firewall that blocks everything. If you detect system proxy under the hood and use it later - this might be a reason. PS: waiting for sources to come

Games Center / Showcase / Re: Mini 3D FPS in an Applet Update 4

on: 2008-09-19 20:00:12

I've ran out of memory :-((

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Exception in thread "Thread-18" java.lang.OutOfMemoryError: Java heap space
   at net.dzzd.core.an.d(Unknown Source)
   at net.dzzd.core.an.a(Unknown Source)
   at net.dzzd.core.an.run(Unknown Source)
   at java.lang.Thread.run(Unknown Source)
Exception in thread "Thread-19" java.lang.OutOfMemoryError: Java heap space
   at net.dzzd.core.w.buildMipMap(Unknown Source)
   at net.dzzd.core.w.build(Unknown Source)
   at net.dzzd.core.an.build(Unknown Source)
   at net.dzzd.core.an.a(Unknown Source)
   at net.dzzd.core.an.run(Unknown Source)
   at java.lang.Thread.run(Unknown Source)
Exception in thread "Thread-17" java.lang.OutOfMemoryError: Java heap space
   at net.dzzd.core.w.buildMipMap(Unknown Source)
   at net.dzzd.core.w.build(Unknown Source)
   at net.dzzd.core.an.build(Unknown Source)
   at net.dzzd.core.an.a(Unknown Source)
   at net.dzzd.core.an.run(Unknown Source)
   at java.lang.Thread.run(Unknown Source)

19	Discussions / Business and Project Discussions / Re: Open Source or not?	on: 2008-09-11 14:50:19
Disagree. GPL is about software that is "based on", and there is no restrictions for the soft that comes "along with".

20	Discussions / General Discussions / Re: How many is Low Poly	on: 2008-09-11 08:49:55
Quote Take the max polys that your 3D engine can handle at playable framerates & divide this by the max number of objects that might all appear at the same time I guess it's a bit hard-to-do metrics since engine won't display only human models. Anyway, I guess that around 2-3k polys per model will be quite good for a game model. Thanks for your help, guys.

21	Discussions / General Discussions / How many is Low Poly	on: 2008-09-10 22:14:48
Hello everybody. Currently I'm working over a quite simple 3D game in Java (FPS-type). I need to put some human 3d models in it so I asked my fellow 3D designer to make me a low-poly model. First question he asked: how many polygons is considered "low poly"? Are there any suggestions or hints over quantity of poligons for models in FPS games? Does anybody know how many polygons per model Quake 3 or similar games use? Thanks in advance.

Game Development / Networking & Multiplayer / Re: Multiple Hosts and Security.

on: 2008-09-09 10:43:14

blahblahblahh, you're right. Absolutely. Now I get it.

Quote

Test without Apache commons. You don't know what it does under the hood...

True! That's the reason! But instead of new Socket("www.b.com", 80) you should use

1 2	url = new URL("http://b.com"); URLConnection conn = url.openConnection();

Oh... That's really strange. Thanks for help guys!

Moderators, could you please delete http://www.java-gaming.org/topics/applet-behind-firewall/19181/view.html I thought they're not related but they are.

23	Game Development / Networking & Multiplayer / Applet behind firewall	on: 2008-09-08 15:50:15
Networking through applets is such a pain sigh. I've signed the applet and now it actually tries to connect somewhere, but it is stopped by firewall at once. I just don't get it. The applet itself is downloaded perfectly along with all needed jars. But then applet tries to contact remote host directly as there is no firewall at all. And in Java Plugin settings page I have "use browser settings" selected in a "networking" tab. Even if I manage to detect proxy somehow I need to ask user for proxy password explicitly!!! That's absolutely insecure. Why can't it just use settings from FF or IE or whatever to make HTTP communications? Moreover I've tried to find some "hacky" solutions of this problem and use Ajax to provide my Applet with network access without such an headache. But there's another problem: firefox just don't want to call applet's methods from javascript... Does anybody know if it is possible to establish HTTP communication from applet behind password-protected proxy?

Game Development / Networking & Multiplayer / Re: Multiple Hosts and Security.

on: 2008-09-08 08:33:51

Quote

Are you sure it resolves to a.com? Or did it just fail with 'some' AccessControlException ?

Well, I'm not sure. It just resolves IP and then fails with AccessControlException.

Quote

What is the tracktrace?

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java.security.AccessControlException: access denied (java.net.SocketPermission 77.120.97.138:80 connect,resolve)
   at java.security.AccessControlContext.checkPermission(Unknown Source)
   at java.security.AccessController.checkPermission(Unknown Source)
   at java.lang.SecurityManager.checkPermission(Unknown Source)
   at java.lang.SecurityManager.checkConnect(Unknown Source)
   at java.net.Socket.connect(Unknown Source)
   at java.net.Socket.connect(Unknown Source)
   at java.net.Socket.<init>(Unknown Source)
   at java.net.Socket.<init>(Unknown Source)
   at org.apache.commons.httpclient.protocol.DefaultProtocolSocketFactory.createSocket(DefaultProtocolSocketFactory.java:80)
   at org.apache.commons.httpclient.protocol.DefaultProtocolSocketFactory.createSocket(DefaultProtocolSocketFactory.java:122)
   at org.apache.commons.httpclient.HttpConnection.open(HttpConnection.java:707)
   at org.apache.commons.httpclient.HttpMethodDirector.executeWithRetry(HttpMethodDirector.java:387)
   at org.apache.commons.httpclient.HttpMethodDirector.executeMethod(HttpMethodDirector.java:171)
   at org.apache.commons.httpclient.HttpClient.executeMethod(HttpClient.java:397)
   at org.apache.commons.httpclient.HttpClient.executeMethod(HttpClient.java:323)
   at TestHttp1.testHttp(TestHttp1.java:49)
   at TestHttp1.init(TestHttp1.java:31)
   at sun.applet.AppletPanel.run(Unknown Source)
   at java.lang.Thread.run(Unknown Source)

It fails in both IE and FF. Could it be due to firewall settings. I'm behind pretty "paranoid" proxy.

25	Game Development / Networking & Multiplayer / Multiple Hosts and Security.	on: 2008-09-05 13:48:11
Hello everybody. I've got a little problem running my applet. The reason is: there are several host names registered to a single IP. So, let's say I've got an IP: 77.120.97.100 and there are two hostnames: a.com and b.com. If you're typing http://77.120.97.100 in your browser you'll come to a.com My applet's codebase is in b.com. So here's the problem: when I try to connect from my applet to http://b.com:80/script.php it resolves ip address and goes to a.com, and then denies the connection because codebase is in fact from different host. Any suggestions how to solve this issue?

Game Development / Newbie & Debugging Questions / Re: Sizing a JFrame correctly...

on: 2008-07-17 09:40:38

In other words, pack does not consider the content of your window, but rather the content of the contentPane, so unless something has been added, pack will hide everything but the border and title bar.

How could that be? The code I've posted before creates no additional components. Only the preferred size of a content pane is set. Try it out: the frame is of normal size.

27	Games Center / Showcase / Re: An excellent Mahjong game for MAC and Windows, thanks to JOGL and JAVA 6.	on: 2008-07-15 13:04:10
Tried this one. Looks really nice. Of course having to download 50+ megs to play mahjong is a bit painful... Few more usability issues: get rid of standard look and feel, it's too easy to recognize. You can develop your own L&F with Synth or take some third-party solution like Substance. 2. The timer is counting while I still read the game manual. 3. It would be great to have a way to reduce window size. Some of us are testing your game in office, you know ;-) Generally - cool graphics, nice game. Too bad I don't enjoy mahjong :-)

Game Development / Newbie & Debugging Questions / Re: Sizing a JFrame correctly...

on: 2008-07-15 12:26:54

Try this snippet:

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public class FrameSize extends JFrame {

   public FrameSize() {
      getContentPane().setPreferredSize(new Dimension(100, 200));
      pack();
      setDefaultCloseOperation(EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
      setVisible(true);
   }
   
   public static void main(String[] args) {
      new FrameSize();
   }
}

Quote

but I must be misunderstanding what pack() does

It tries to lay components in the way that every component is of it's "prefferedSize".

29	Discussions / Business and Project Discussions / Re: Open Source or not?	on: 2008-07-04 16:59:06
Okay, maybe I've described project a bit poorly. It's not just about network. It gives ready-to-deploy infrastructure for running online games. But it's a long story, I'll gladly describe all the features when it's finally out. Anyway, let's assume that project has some business value and after I create few products based on it (as proof of concept) I'll find at least somebody who will be interested in purchasing a license. This way I'll have at least some chances to earn money. What opportunities do I have with opensource? Currently I think that it's pretty good idea to publish sources: if project is good, I'll make money on infrastructure around it. If it's not - I won't earn anything either way... But I wanted to hear some other thoughts.

30	Discussions / Business and Project Discussions / Open Source or not?	on: 2008-07-04 11:23:21
I know it's a bit provocative question still I really need to hear the opinion of experienced people. Currently I'm working on a network game-dev platform and a tool set that targets a segment of small to medium multiplayer games. In parallel I'm working on a product (a gaming site) that uses this platform. I've been working on this project for a year and now I'm almost at beta-testing stage. And what is more important: I'm almost satisfied with what I have. I invested some money in it (mainly in art) and I'm expecting it to be good and useful tool. I'm pragmatic: I love writing good software and games in particular, but I really want profit. Now the question: is it a good idea to put the platform open-source? Pro's are: 1. I'm testing my software with the community. I'll have some (or maybe a lot of if I'm lucky) testers for free. If I'm really-really lucky I'll even have few contributors. 2. I still can develop and sell tools and add-ons for money. If it becomes popular I can build good infrastructure and community. 3. Opening sources gives better chances of becoming popular platform. Contra's are: 1. I can't sell it anymore. Well, I can, technically create separate licenses for a commercial and not-commercial people. But I guess that less people will pay for what can be taken for free. At least outside US. 2. If I'm going to work on casual-games-market I'm giving away great tool for business rivals to create products. If someone has any ideas (or links) on how to earn money on Open Source, please share. But don't point on huge project with developed infrastructure like JBoss or MySQL. Hope this won't end up with a holy war.

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