How to set up a vector for a projectile to move along

This isn't that hard, I just felt like writing a blog on the subject.

You are going to need several things.

You need the point you are firing at, they point you are firing from, and trig.


Pseudo code written in java.  


I'm using this code to calculate the trajectory that my lasers need to take on my ship on a case by case basis.
This allows all the bullets to converge into one point in space.

Leave a comment if you have any questions.

New update

This week I've primarily worked on making it easy to build custom ships. In the future I'll make the ship building process more rigorous. Here's the YouTube video.

I muted my mic so there is no sound. Tough luck for you guys wanting to hear my wonderful voice.


Here is the download: No guarantees on how stable the game is. It'll prolly crash.

Game Download

Can't Sleep So You Guys Get an Update

A big new feature that I'm adding to this game will be the ability, or requirement, for you to build your own ships.  I'm in the process of making a ship builder.  Here are some screen shots of my progress.
I'll add more ship parts once I get the ship moving around the map.  It shouldn't be too hard.

You'll be able to make the ship as big or small as you want so long you have the parts!
I'm gonna have to figure out how to render these mofo's though... Gonna be a pain when I try to rotate the ship.

EDIT: figured it out. You have 2 for loops.   each going the length of the of the array that holds the individual blocks.  That part wasn't hard.  The hard part was figuring out the offsets.

RayCasting

I've been pretty busy this week with family over for my brother's high school graduation and haven't had a chance to upload many videos or work on my game.

I'm running into a problem with my game and collision detection.

From what I've I can tell is there are a few main ways of detecting collisions.  Up until this point I've been using discrete stepping.  Move objects from group A  at a certain speed along a certain vector.  Then check to see if objects from group A overlap objects from group B.

This is fine Unless the bullet moves more than the object's width in 1 frame.

The problem is with the second case. This happens frequently with projectiles in games eg: bullets In FPS games, or in any game with fast moving projectiles in that case.

Another way to to is to look at two trajectories and see if the objects would ever intersect,  Basically fire, calculate if they are going to hit, wait a certain time then proc a hit. This method is very processor efficient because the only thing you need to keep track of is a timer (if they are going to hit), but it does not account for objects that change their trajectory.

The final method I've found is raycasting.

"This uses linear algebra to determine whether a line representing body A's trajectory is intersected by another line representing the boundary of some other solid body B. "

http://gamedev.stackexchange.com/questions/22765/how-do-i-check-collision-when-firing-bullet

I need to use some modified form of raycasting to determine if the objects intersect.  Instead of ray's I need to use spheres,  although I may be able to get away with using a ray for the bullet instead of a sphere.

http://www.realtimerendering.com/intersections.html

Gotta read that site up.

I'll post a video next week when I have more work done.   Wish I paid more attention in calculus,  lol fml. Bet you didn't think video games were so hard to make.

Guess it's a good thing the courses didn't transfer..

Precisely

I ran into some problems with losing precision on my floats. Float is a data type for numbers.

When you deal with really large numbers using floats it gets converted to scientific notation.  so you end up losing some precision.  The top numbers are correct, but the lower numbers are wrong, or simply not accounted for. This has given me some trouble with the math I am using to move entities that are far away from the (0,0) point.  To counter this I'm going to use separate coordinate system for each area that the ship enters.

My goal is to turn this game into a massive exploration, rpg, rts.  You'll have to protect your home planet from ever increasing threats which will culminate in some sort of boss battle.  You'll collect upgrades along the way for your ship and home planet.  Once your system is safe you'll venture out to other systems to defeat the civ that started the attack on your planet in the 1st place.   Or something like that.  I'll hash out a better story once I get the game engine working better.

I'd like to add pvp and pve multiplayer, that be fun.

I still need a name for this game if anyone has any suggestions. (You'll get your name in credits as well as .001% of profit from this game.)

LMAO

For a while I thought i was doing my coding wrong, then i looked at the numbers and relied i wasn't.  The universe is bigger than i can honestly comprehend.  It's baffling to find out how much empty space there is in the solar system.

Look at this post

I'm planning on doing a scale system of the solar system for the game.  I'll just have to scale the distance between planets back by a lot.

I scaled it back by 20 and that helped significantly, but damn the solar system is so large,   I'm going to run into rounding errors working on this game.  I'm going to have to figure out a way to handle it.

I'll have a semi working solar model by this Friday for you guys to play with.

I have my finals in a few hours,  then I'm done with school for this summer,  I'll look for a summer job, but I honestly hope I don't find one so I can devote all my time to this game and to Minecraft plugins,  I'll be able to make some money off of that once we get rolling.

Thanks for your support.

Version 2

Java game Version two.

Change-log:
Ship controls
Victory condition: survive for 60 seconds.
defeat conditions: hit comet or let 20 comets hit earth.
various internal code clean up.

Game Preview

Download Link:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/6j1bnott4ycu8v5/PlanetDefender2.jar

This game might turn into a RPG RTS.

I'm doing homework,  I posted another minecraft video to my youtube channel.

I'm pretty much stuck on the homework.

Millions of copies already sold!

I'm no where near done with this game, however I do have a "playable" version that you guys can download and try out for freeeee.  

You move with wsad, and you aim and fire with the mouse.  Try to protect "earth" from the asteroids until your population is high enough. Don't let to many asteroids hit the earth or you lose!

Video preview!

Download Link

https://www.dropbox.com/s/w0g5gjzg8fymxal/PlanetDefender1.jar

Also here is a Minecraft video!

I remembered

It was something along the lines of college being overpriced,  but now I don't feel like going into that much detail.  

I have the 1st version of my game "done" I'll post more info on it tomorrow.

For now you can watch this mine craft video.

It takes less time for me to go to school and upload my videos from my laptop then it would be to do it at home.  My upload speed here is atrocious. 

So tired

I was going to write something interesting on here today but then I completely forgot what it was about. So I'm just gonna link a mine craft video.

White Board

One of my friends from school carry's a white board in his backpack. It's super convenient to be able to writ stuff down that big and not have to worry about paper blowing everywhere.  I went ahead and got one cause some times when I'm programming it helps to draw out the problem and the solution.  I can't do everything in my head.  In my future house I'd like a whole room to be painted with dry erase paint.  I't nice to be able to write stuff out.  I'm putting out a mine craft video every weekday,  I might stop linking them here once I start putting out my game videos.

Anyway here is the video,  I'm working on my game, I'll have a free down load and preview posted on Friday.  I bet all my loyal readers will be so excited.

100

I hit one hundred page views some time yesterday.  Including this I will have 12 posts.  I'm averaging about 8 views a post.  I don't really know where my traffic is coming from.  I wouldn't doubt if it's all me.

Anyway I'm not going to fool myself into thinking I can get to sleep at a reasonable hour so I'm going to be productive and work on my game. This Friday I will post a link for a playable demo. I't won't be much but I will improve it.

Also another Minecraft Video.

Super Mega Tired

Ive been up for over 24 hours.

I'm sorry for being late on this video, I promise to start putting other things.  I really want to start on my game. I  have api and workstation set up now I just need to start coding.

Semester Should End Now

Here is a mine craft video...

Tomorrow I'm going to start working on mine craft plugins. Those will be free and open source. Can't wait to start on that.

Scheduling

Trying to figure out my schedule for next semester.  If school didn't cost money this would be so much easier...

Turkey

      Started working on my Game,  It is gonna be open source.  If I get it developed enough I might charge for it. I don't know though.  The tentative title is "Planet Defender."  You are a spaceship that is defending a planet from the foreign objects in space.  Live long enough and you win.

      No concept art for you guys sorry.  You'll have to deal with this minecraft video in the mean time.

Man I love minecraft.  I'm going to be doing co-creating some server pluggins with some guys from ASU, I'm excited to start working on that. I Hope to become famous in the minecraft community.

More Minecraft

Here Is a video.

I'm super tired I'll I want to do is sleep.

New Video Games Inc

So over the summer and also probably starting soon I'm going to be working on a free video game.  I need the coding experience and it will be fun.

Also Here is another video...

Moar Minecraft

I made dis.

Nice Tie

/* rant
I don't like Ties,  not only do I think they look bad I think its stupid to wear one.  When you put a tie around your neck you put a noose around your neck.  Who would purposefully put a noose around your neck.  It is a choking hazard.  I remember hearing stories of businessmen in ties walking into machine shops and nearly dying because they get their nooses stuck in some spinning machines.

Neckties get caught in stuff, they flap around, they take time to put on, and they cost money.  They get in the way the moment you sit down, They reduce productivity and they serve no practical function. Society should seriously reconsider the Neck Tie fad I'm hoping it is something that fades out in my generation or the next.
*/

I had a job interview today for a tech support job on campus.  I'm pretty sure I didn't impress them.  I am terrible at answering questions.  I have a hard enough time talking in coherent sentences about something I'm passionate about, let alone questions I'm not given sufficient time to think through.  *Sigh*  They asked me why I should be hired. I really don't know how to answer that question.  I told them I was a good worker and I was dependable... I really wish I could answer that question again.  Tell them I love working with computers and helping other with their computer troubles.  I would enjoy the job and be great at it.  I really don't know if that would be any better.  Any I have a feeling I didn't get the job because one of the interviews didn't write anything when I answered that question.  I feel like he made up his mind.  I know I'd be great at the job,  I just don't know how to convince employers that... w/e  lstyd.

Here is another Minecraft video.  Like it, Tell your friends about me.

I made these videos.

My Brother and I started playing the agrarian skies mod pack.  It is like a modded version of sky block.  I'll Probably put these videos out daily.  Until the series is done.

I'm playing through mass effect 2, I'm not editing anything out so it there will be a ton of videos for this game. Also this one is a little long and I will try to keep future episodes around the half hour mark. 

If you like these video follow me on you tube and share them with your friends.  Thanks for watching and reading.

Plans

I have a Job interview on Wednesday, Hopefully I'll get the job then I won't feel as bad spending time on this blog if I am making some money.  I Started a let's play on the agrarian skies mod pack with my brother,  I'll be posting several of those video's a week starting tomorrow as well as continuing my mass effect 2 let's play.

I'll try to update this blog 3 times a week with video's thrown in extra days as filler. Follow me for some video's and all my exciting opinions.

Intoduction

Hello my name is Shane Dublin. I'm starting this blog cause I need to do something,  most of my time is spent sitting around doing nothing.  I seem to be unable to get a job and I can't see myself working in retail or fast food.  I'm going to ASU to get a degree in computer science.

On this blog I will post video game video's and whatever else I feel like posting.
So follow And I will post lots of fun stuff.