Messages

Thanks mate, I can use this

E: Boy, AGS sure makes simple things look complicated. Here's how I do this in Game Maker (adjusted for looks and minus line drawing)
No defining functions, anything

ft+= 4;
t+= 9;
r = 50 - t/50;
xoff =  round(100 + sin(degtorad(ft))*r);
yoff =  round(100 + cos(degtorad(ft))*r);
x = mouse_x + xoff;
y = mouse_y + yoff;

[Circular/spiral motion]

Okay, I need some programming/math help again:

Circular/spiral motion

I want something to move along circle, or even better, a spiral that moves in a direction and gets smaller.
Imagine smoke clouds or fallen leaves in a wind, as they roll and make smaller and smaller circles as they move away.
Can anyone help me with some pseudocode as what formula would change X and Y of the smoke/leaf/whatever to get such motion?

Since it's pretty clear that trigonometric function (sin/tan/etc) lies in this problem somewhere, I'm at loss.

Epic mspaint to illustrate:


Spiral as described would be awesome but I guess I could work circle (with variable-adjusted radius) to become spiral also.

I think I got it!
Pseudocode:

y += 10*sin(.2*step);

Where step increases by 30 per second (my frame rate) or 1 per cycle, and 0.2 controls speed.
Loop breaking problem happened because I didn't want to overflow step value and reset it at some point.
But resetting to 0 at some astronomical number such as 2592000 (time until 1 day has passed) basically eliminates broken loop, because nobody plays a game 24 hours straight...
and even if so, a sprite making a tiny jump once a day isn't even noticeable.

[math question time!]

math question time!

How do I make a variable that has oscillating value? I mean, going up and down in some range.
I want to use it to offset sprite on y-axis, making it - say - float like a boat (up and down) in the range of 10 pixels.

I can easily do this the "hard way", but I imagine it can be done with sin function, using only a code line or two.
But three math teachers I had - none of them managed to explain understandably what sinusoid does.

This is where I got, thanks to wikipedia

y += 10*sin(time)
where time is abstract value I increase over CPU cycles. But it doesn't return to starting position and feels like a broken loop

Any help with this? If possible, also how to speed up or slow it down?

Thanks Khris. Although you went towards realism (I aim for somewhat cartoonish style, especially since there'll be helluva lot of animation), I'll definitely pick up some tips on color and shading which I needed most. I'll try your eyes too.

Thanks. It seems that original sprite is too small for what I need, so I tried to go 150% of original size, and use less colors.

However, it seems that however I try,  1) I end up with some kind of Disney-ish cartoon mouse
And 2) I'm not sure how to make eyes now to get that same "hey master, I just turned decades worth of family photos into little paper dust. Ain't my teeth awesome?"-kind of naughty trolling-look.

This is where I am right now. it feels that 12 pixels for an eye is harder to use than 6, because I do not get same expression whatever I try.
[imgzoom]http://i.imgur.com/DlVeT.png[/imgzoom]

I want my hamster to look like it's made some trouble while trying to look innocent. Also, a bit wet, messy, uncombed to show like he's been through water, fire and steel pipes in his quest (not literally, just like a fighter).

Meet my new unnamed protagonist. He's a hamster.


1X:



4X:


I'm generally happy with his looks, but shading and contrast needs some work, since it's hard to notice him, being so small and all.
Thanks!

The main reason being was that Opera decided to start crashing every fucking 5 minutes for no apparent reason. It went from no problems what-so-ever to pissing me off on a daily basis.

I have same issue on work machine with Firefox. I'm quite sure it's ATI card problem (and maybe flash player).
Chrome works perfectly.

At home, FF works like wonder (Nvidia card) aside rare closed-but-staying-resident-in-memory issue that has been in Firefox since version 3 or so.

I like both, but I have no love for Safari: It's weird and hard-to-use piece of trash. I wish I could use Chrome or FF on my iPad.

Looks like my isn't ready for publishing yet...

I was hanging out same weekend I thought city was quite quiet. Most of the usual beehives were actually empty, I guess partying starts earlier hours during summer therefore ends sooner too. Eurovision kept people home too.

Taxis might be hit and miss yeah. As I said, knowing a honest company name would eliminate 90% of possible problems. But â,¬30 means you didn't get the worst of em'. Some firms are legimate, but have 4x prices.

I guess you really did look/act different from local folk if you attracted prostitutes, we don't have street girls in its classic meaning around, just less-dressed party girls who offer to continue party later... As I said, Estonians are calm and reserved so anything beyond that is what it seems :/ Maybe same thing you got with waitresses -- they didn't want to bother you instead and you should have acted ruder to catch their attention. But as I said, general chaos during weekends makes security/service personnel tired and fed up also.

For brothels, I had no clue any of those bear a nightclub sign. Usual giveaway is "Bar & Sauna" because saunas and bars don't mix really. And such places are usually outside biggest activity centrals, otherwise cops would raid them endlessly.

Baltics trip I'm not sure. In Latvia you probably see cheaper prices, less makeup on girls, more blondes and a bit different temper. Latvians I know are more open, like more to have fun playing pool or whatever and even though they drink even more, they can hold their drinks better. Latvian women are cuter but a bit blander and not so flashy I guess. Riga looks like Tallinn gone through a coktail blender so architecture isn't so specific to city district, but a mix of everything everywhere. I have been to Riga only few times so I know little. I instantly got lost though.

About Lithuania I don't know much at all. General conception is that Lithuania means rugged, bearded men living in endless spruce forests. In reality, it's just more slavic and poorer version of other two Baltic countries. In any case, I would rent a car and drive the Baltics, because nature is quite stunning, especially in summer. There's also nature reserves and old fortresses and such along the road if you're into some sightseeing. Because aside womenfolk, drinking is same everywhere, I wouldn't travel half of EU just for this.

[acting]

...Perhaps that looks "gay" or "mentally retarded" to some of the more crass users here, but I honestly couldn't give less of a f#*k.

You misunderstood. Emphasis on word (over)acting. You don't see such effort imitating happy-walk even in Tom & Jerry cartoon.
But whatever - it's critics' lounge.

Sorry to come on hard, but I totally hate hand movement on main (?) character. It's overacted.
He feels like he's not using arms to compensate on body movement nor balance himself, but trying to act carefree.
Way more than needed. So he seems either mentally retarded or trying to look gay.

Uhfgood posted good pencil sketch animation of - I'd say - the extreme limit of normal/natural-feeling hand movement. Anything beyond this is insane and borderline and you pretty much crossed it with yours.

Even if acting most enthusiastic walk, hand shouldn't raise above crotch. And if so, you've just created a new meme.

Jefmajor is my most favourite letsplayer ever. He's got the voice, humor AND skill.
Just see: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-5qDNcvqFSU&feature=relmfu

Don't I need to know hemisphere I'm on and the directions of east and west to read the moon?

I was thinking how to tell exact time within 10 minute accuracy if I'm in the middle of nowhere and have a some sort of clock, but have no idea which way is which (no compass).
What I came up with is this:

Suppose it's a sunny day
I stick a pole into ground.
Use something - cord or sticks to measure shadow of the pole
Set clock to 12:00
After every 10 minutes I repeat measurement (12:10 on my clock) and if shadow is shorter than previous measurement, set clock to 12 again
The moment I don't have to reset, It's noon + around 10 minutes

Is it logical? Daylight saving can offset this by hour but generally, it should work?

[such an a-holes]

A friends of mine play Heroes of Newerth (HoN) alot.  Tried to pull me into game. Fun, social game and what else.

This is basically a real-time strategy without buildings and units, every player has single warcraft3-style-hero-type unit which aquires skills over levelling.
And it's horrible, horrible game to learn. Players were such an a-holes, they started immediately flaming and quitting midpoint in every game when my character wasn't as high level as everyone else. It's mathematical game alright, if a team member falls behind in levelling, defeat for this side is quite likely, but such acting is outrageous and how the hell are you supposed to learn?
It's not like people born with game skills, you gotta play it to learn it. But noo--'
After 10 or so tries (even though I specifically picked servers that were labelled as "newbie friendly, noobs welcome" - they were NOT) I simply gave up.

I will never play any DotA clone again. Fun, social game my arse.

Street Fighter IV:
Mostly for other human players. Those crazy, twisted people are counting frames and damage percentage, worked out insanse schematics for combos and basically totally perverted what should be two 60-second matches of people bashing buttons.
Arcade fighting games should be fun, not insane mathematical ballet. Also, every capcom game ever turns into a projectile battle, where you can pin your opponent down by doing million dumb fireballs which shouldn't be in the game to begin with.

Same goes for chopper/jet pilots in Battlefield 4: There are some crazy people out there boasting $4000 set of trackIRs, high-end joysticks, pedals etc flying peripherals just to fly - no- not in a precise simulator - but in a lousy first person shooter. Well, fine, but it totally ruins the game for everyone trying to compete with mouse+keyboard like a normal person.

Sure, mastery at something is nice. But what about people who don't want to invest months and years into game to learn it? Actually, I'm fed up with multiplayer games. When will single-player come back? *khm*half-life3*khm*

Thinking about this, I'm not really raging about games, like ever. It's always the human factor that ruins the experience. That, and quick-time events. Ruined Fahreinheit: Indigo Child for me.

Firstly, if there had been an equal number of female leaders in history, then your challenge might make sense.

This I agree. Those women could aswell say -- we didn't create the country we rule -- It got handed over like this from previous male leader. And since countries generally improve, they can even show progress during their rule compared to last.

Well, I don't base my opinion from stereotype, but on what occured to me from history (on which I actually make my own stereotype ).  Not read The Book of Absolute Truth yet, therefore not entirely sure if I'm right. But from few female leaders in history, from Cleopatra to British Queens, I feel like they can rule alright, but not a single rainbow and pot of gold more than from men, and wars have been likely even more bloody.

[cannot]

Like creationism, or that women can't be leaders.

I'm not saying they cannot just that in my opinion sucks to have one (based on how much I know history).
Okay, Tarja Halonen succeeded and she's a smart woman but <erased>

In everyday life, based on past experience, female bosses are the worst.
Name a successful, highly loved female leader who didn't sell out/oppress her peers or ended on a burning stake/prison/whatever?

Spoiler

Edit: I've been warned! Edited for clarity as much as I found actually 'over the line'. Looks like mysterious mod asks me to remove like half of the post. What has happened to our gen-gen...! :'(
Wholly deleting those parts is pointless, since they're 1) quoted and 2) totally okay in General Discussion since 2003 at least and 3) Forum nazi

[close]

[politician]

Jumping into WHAM boat again... Minority-president is a dumb idea.  One shouldn't make an issue of it all.
People shouldn't base their vote on stupid shit at all I think.

For example, in every interview, someone asks Ron Paul if he believes in evolution or creationism. What kind of stupid question is this?

First, he's a politician and would never give straight answer because politician who dismisses half of his voters by taking a pointless stand on issue is a bad politician. Why do interviewers expect him to answer such question if big part of US is religious?

Second,
...say you have your own made-up religion and believe in say... TEAPOTS. Hey, and so does Ron Paul!
Should you vote for the man who's as stupid as you are because he believes in same stupid shit?

...say you're disabled and in wheelchair...
...you have a foot fetish
...you are an eskimo by descent
...etc


President should be chosen only for his qualifications as a leader and politician, not how twisted he is, what he kneels before, what his skin color is or who he sleeps with. So this whole thread is dumb. "Are people ready"... what do you mean ready? If his political views match the majority of people and he's good at being a leader, that's all one should worry about.

Democracy is based on majority, so it would be nicer if president looked and lived like that majority. That's why average US president is small-time businessman or careerist, white, in 50s and has a nice smile. 
BUT
I don't think life of americans would be much different if Michelle's name was Mitchell.

And I think cries of some rednecks get muted in big picture. Wasn't Obama opposed alot, being black and all?

Female leaders I oppose though, just for international history. Tarja Halonen was okay I guess, but nothing important. Angela Merkel is a traitor and corruptant. Catherine killed and more than male leaders before him her, etc
I think that women cannot grasp nature of violence so well, so most leaders in history have been either too kind of incredibly cruel. But leading a country has always portion of violence-based decisions in it.

I tried to read some Hungarian websites and could understand like 1-2 words only. They are quite different aside vowel structuring in words. And Estonian/Finnish language uses simple S or two in words, none of the szch-stuff, unlike Russian, as I pointed out earlier. So Hungarian feels alot more slavic or even arabic.