archived-code-advanced

[undone coral]

it is going to be something like an off by one error

imo, since you're so close i wouldn't change much

but you probably should have started with something from the literature to do this

meshing a grid of points

vhacd is very fast - https://github.com/Unity-Technologies/VHACD

you would have to modify it for 2d

[long ivy]

I do something similar to what he's doing with my tilemaps, and there's already a library he could use. It's available in the 2d extras somewhere, but you can copypasta it from here:
https://github.com/Unity-Technologies/2d-spriteshape-samples/blob/master/Assets/Unity Technologies/2D SpriteShape/Extras/Scripts/Clipper.cs

[undone coral]

yeah

"a translation of the delphi clipper library"

kind of how this stuff goes

@frail dock bakecollider from here

https://github.com/Unity-Technologies/2d-spriteshape-samples/commit/c554ae3ecd5f50c9a95aa1a8dc42d5c9a960b493

[mortal glen]

i want to remove a property and value from a json string that makes my deserialization puke. How do I do this?

[compact ingot]

you can parse the json string into a JObject, then remove the offending property before deserializing into the final type... or you can make a custom converter that just ignores the offending type. If you can change the original type that got serialized, you can add a [JsonIgnore] property on it.

All this assumes you're using newtonsoft

[mortal glen]

I have spent all day to figure this out, yes I am using newtonsoft, its driving me mad

JsonSerializationException: Cannot deserialize the current JSON object (e.g. {"name":"value"}) into type 'System.Collections.Generic.List`1[TokelToken]' because the type requires a JSON array (e.g. [1,2,3]) to deserialize correctly.

[compact ingot]

seems like you are trying to deserialize an object into an array or vice versa

can you show the source json and target property?

[mortal glen]

its like nested

sure

so, I am grabbing from this endpoint (no worries, its all public data)
https://explorer.komodoplatform.com:10000/tokel/api/tokens?cctxid=bb69cc6d5a16b459f8b3c4c83e74f619b212830adfa331c051694e3604710146

in Unity

Tokels mytokeltoken = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<Tokels>(getTokenData.downloadHandler.text);
                    Debug.Log(mytokeltoken.tokens[0]);

here are my classes

[System.Serializable]
public class Tokels
{
    public List<TokelToken> tokens;
}

[System.Serializable]
public class TokelToken
{
    public string tokenid;
    public string owner;
    public string name;
    public int supply;
    public string description;
    public TokelData data;
    public int version;
    public string IsMixed;
    public int height;
    public string ownerAddress;
    public int blocktime;
    public string blockheight;
    public int syncedHeight;

}

[System.Serializable]
public class TokelData
{
    public string raw;
    public TokelDataDecoded decoded;
}

[System.Serializable]
public class TokelDataDecoded
{
    public int id;
    public string url;
    public int royalty;
    public string arbitrary;

}

@compact ingot

[compact ingot]

The JSON needs Tokels to be this: ```
[System.Serializable]
public class Tokels
{
public TokelToken tokens;
}

And deserialize multiple Tokels, if needed, into a List<Tokels>.... but mind you that the root of the json source you linked is a dictionary/object, and not an array!

[mortal glen]

:S

[fickle inlet]

Hey I am using a new Input System and for some reason if I am going right or left I can't overweight the right and left with up or down buttons, could anyone guess what am I doing wrong?

[elfin tundra]

#🖱️┃input-system

[mortal glen]

@compact ingot I don't understand how to fix it

because a part of it works, except the data property

[compact ingot]

how do you know it works partially?

also you can try https://www.newtonsoft.com/json/help/html/DeserializeMissingMemberHandling.htm

[mortal glen]

@compact ingot

 IEnumerator FetchAndUpdateTokens()
    {
        UnityWebRequest alltokens = UnityWebRequest.Get("https://explorer.komodoplatform.com:10000/tokel/api/tokens");
        yield return alltokens.SendWebRequest();

        if (alltokens.result != UnityWebRequest.Result.Success)
        {
            Debug.Log(alltokens.error);
            yield return null;
        }


        Tokels tokeltokens = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<Tokels>(alltokens.downloadHandler.text);

        for(int t = 0; t < tokeltokens.tokens.Count; t++)
        {
            if(tokeltokens.tokens[t].ownerAddress == myTokelAddress)
            {
                if(!mytokens.ContainsKey(tokeltokens.tokens[t].tokenid))
                {
                    Debug.Log("current tokenid: " + tokeltokens.tokens[t].tokenid);
                    UnityWebRequest getTokenData = UnityWebRequest.Get("https://explorer.komodoplatform.com:10000/tokel/api/tokens?cctxid=" + tokeltokens.tokens[t].tokenid);
                    yield return getTokenData.SendWebRequest();

                    Debug.Log("fetched: " + getTokenData.downloadHandler.text);

// HERE I GET THE ERROR
                    Tokels mytokeltoken = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<Tokels>(getTokenData.downloadHandler.text);
                    Debug.Log(mytokeltoken.tokens[0]);

                }
               
            }
        }

@compact ingot

fetched: {"tokens":{"tokenid":"bb69cc6d5a16b459f8b3c4c83e74f619b212830adfa331c051694e3604710146","owner":"03353ec0e845ab678e8efaa3f50e96163da0eb....

[compact ingot]

first endpoint returns an array, second an object

[mortal glen]

JsonSerializationException: Cannot deserialize the current JSON object (e.g. {"name":"value"}) into type 'System.Collections.Generic.List`1[TokelToken]' because the type requires a JSON array (e.g. [1,2,3]) to deserialize correctly.
...
Path 'tokens.tokenid', line 1, position 21.

[compact ingot]

but you deserialize into the same type... that cant work

[mortal glen]

so I need to create a different one for the next object?

[compact ingot]

second one needs the edit i showed you

first one works with what you had

best just make the edit i suggested and deserialize the first one into a List<Tokels> variable

[mortal glen]

@compact ingot got it working thanks!

[frail dock]

lol! damn where were you two months ago before I started writing all this mess? 😄

ty mate this seems like something i could use

yeah, has to be cause it's only one thread so it should be all executing one after the other, funny thing is i tried drawing the exact shape what i did when i was going slow and that works, but if i try the exact thing fast it bugs out instantly

it's baffling me

[frail dock]

so i think i found the issue

i set it out to print the order of execution

it goes

BUTTON EXECUTE

START METHOD

START PATH

but for some reason button execute is called twice when i draw fast at some point

        if (Input.GetMouseButton(0)) {
            if (finX >= 0 && finY >= 0) {
//                print("PLACE " + wp.x +" "+ wp.y);
                if (tScript.chunks[(finX - finX % blockSize) / blockSize, (finY - finY % blockSize) / blockSize][finX % blockSize, finY % blockSize].type != 2) {
                    print("BUTTON EXECUTE");

                    tScript.chunks[(finX - finX % blockSize) / blockSize,(finY - finY % blockSize) / blockSize][finX % blockSize, finY % blockSize].type = 2;
//                    tScript.squareX = finX;
//                    tScript.squareY = finY;
                    tScript.squareX2 = finX % blockSize;
                    tScript.squareY2 = finY % blockSize;
                    tScript.chunkX = (finX - finX % blockSize) / blockSize;
                    tScript.chunkY = (finY - finY % blockSize) / blockSize;
                    tScript.squareType = 2;
                    tScript.update=true;
                }
            }
        }

how could this execute twice before finishing the rest of it? 🤔

unless that boolean i'm flipping is messing with it somehow

[untold moth]

Check the callstack of each message

Also maybe use GetMouseButtonUp/Down. So that it's not executed twice if you hold it for 2 frames somehow.

[pulsar summit]

is there any directions where I can look at for having place nodes automaticly in a grid like webbing?

I ment like having a nodes automaticly connect when placed on the scene

[frail dock]

hmm, so i had a bunch of booleans i was flipping to trigger each other, i put them all in a single boolean update flip and that seems to have reduced it but it still seems to trigged if i leave print outs there and execution takes too long 🤔

[frail dock]

you mean flip a boolean on up/down?

[untold moth]

No, I mean use GetMouseButtonUp instead of GetMouseButton

[frail dock]

how can that work? i want to draw all the time while mouse button is pressed

[untold moth]

Aaah

Okay

Then maybe you have 2 instances of the script in the scene?

Add this as the second parameter of the debug.log and see if it points to a different object.

[frail dock]

no that can't be it, i only have one map object with one script attached to it

strange, i can't seem to trigger it now even with the prinouts

this is gonna haunt me knowing the possibility is there 🥲

[frail dock]

fixed! i just added a boolean to not trigger if the other code isn't finished 😄

it's so fast i can make my player into a rocket by placing blocks now 😄

[kindred tusk]

fresh

[regal olive]

Does anyone have any best practices or strategies for managing transitions between scenes, like going from a lobby to a match? Seems like there is a lot of info out there on potential ways to solve this, but I'm curious if any have been found to be lacking once a project gets to certain complexity.

[foggy elk]

Good morning all.
I have a need to search for specific fields within a class, retrieve its value (to compare it against another value).
Its a function within the AI that runs when it decides what skills to use in any given situation. The skills on each mob can vary, and so can the conditions set for those skills.
The conditions can be both int values like strength, intelligence, HP, mana but also bools like isKnockedDown or isFloating.

public class MobData : MonoBehaviour, InterfacePersonality, InterfaceDamage
    {
     public Mob thisMob = new Mob ();
    }
//THIS IS THE CLASS I NEED TO RETRIEVE A VALUE FROM
    public class Mob
        {
        public int health;
        public int walkSpeed;
        public int runSpeed;
        public int jumpForce;

        public int baseAttackValue;
        public int attackAccuracy;
        public int attackPhysicalAttackPower;
        public int attackMagicalAttackPower;
        public int atackArmorPenetration;
        public int attackCriticalChanceValue;
        public int baseDefenseValue;
        public int defenseEvasion;
        public int defensePhysicalDefenseValue;
        public int defenseMagicalDefenseValue;
        public int defenseDamageReduction;
        public int Intelligence;
        public int Bravery;
        public int Authority;
        }

======================================
  private bool CheckConditions(ScriptableMobSkill mobSkillData, StateController controller, PlayerCharacter targetCharacter)
        {
       
        foreach (var condition in mobSkillData.SelfConditions)//SEE CLASS BELOW
            {
            //HOW TO RUN THROUGH EACH TRAIT, RETRIEVE THE FIELD AND THE VALUE IN THAT FIELD THAT CORRESPONDS TO THE TRAIT?

            }
}

===================================
public class MobSkillCondition //this is used as an array in an scriptable object (Public MobSkillCondition[] SelfConditions)
    {
    public string CharacterTrait;
    public int CharacterTraitValue;
    }

[hard lily]

If I understood this correctly just add them to a list

Wait, that won't be necessary, I just saw the Mob class

[foggy elk]

let say one of the conditions read
CharacterTrait baseDefenseValue
CharacterTraitValue 5

In the for each loop, I need to run through and retrieve the field "baseDefenseValue" at controller.thismob and then compare the values to know if it should return true or false

was thinking of using controller.thismob.getfield() ? but someone warned against using reflection at runtime?

[hard lily]

I'm trying to think of an optimal way to handle this other than the obvious way of just checking trait by trait like:

...
else if(characterTrait == "baseDefenseValue")
{
    return baseDefenseValue "condition" CharacterTraitValue;
}
...

[foggy elk]

indeed, thats why I am here. Cause I want to do the same with the PlayerClass, and it contains more like 40 different values that it should be checked against xD

[hard lily]

Interesting, now I want to see the solution to this too. I'm not sure how I would do it.

[foggy elk]

think I got it

    private void CheckConditions(ScriptableMobSkill mobSkillData, StateController controller, PlayerCharacter targetCharacter)
        {
        MobData mobData = controller.gameObject.GetComponent<MobData> ();
        foreach (var condition in mobSkillData.SelfConditions)
            {
            int retrievedValue = GetPropertyValue<int> ( mobData.thisMob, condition.CharacterTrait.ToString () );
            if (retrievedValue >= condition.CharacterTraitValue)
                {
                Debug.Log ( "retrievedValue for condition  " + condition.CharacterTrait + " " + retrievedValue );
                }
           
            }
        }

    public static T GetPropertyValue<T> ( ClassData.Mob mobData, string propName )
        {
        Debug.Log ( propName );
        var type = mobData.GetType();
        Debug.Log ( type.ToString() );
        var field = type.GetField ( propName );
        Debug.Log ( field.Name );
        var valu = field.GetValue (mobData  );
        Debug.Log ( valu.ToString () );
        return (T)mobData.GetType ().GetField ( propName ).GetValue ( mobData );
        }
    }

all the debugs can and will be removed, that was for me understanding how it worked.

[compact ingot]

rule of thumb: reflection is about 100 times slower than idiomatic methods. if you "need" reflection outside compilation/code-ceneration/init/serialization/build-scripting/optimization you need an architecture change... reflection is like replacing C# with the safety of JavaScript and the efficiency of a python REPL

Since this is an AI thing, i'd suggest you look into the Blackboard Pattern

The Blackboard is just a shared collection/database that can contain multiple types (i.,e. your class fields), stored as anonymous object references together with their type such that getting a value from the Blackboard can be handled by a Strategy pattern, common, type-safe interface and casting instead of reflection... you can however use reflection for initializing/building the blackboard... or you can build GUI inspectors for all blackboard properties and consumers that handles the type safety at design-time with everything stored as plain objects in a dictionary. Or you can just ignore type safety and live with cast-exceptions.

If you really want to use reflection you can create value-getter delegates for each specific member when you first search for it, those are then on subsequent use much faster than using relfected member name lookup. You can combine that with the blackboard pattern.

Also relflection produces the ugliest code possible.,

[tiny anchor]

hi, i have these 2 scripts https://pastebin.com/2Cdm2FNx (shader), https://pastebin.com/p4bNBkRR (mesh c#) that uses a compute shader to generate a grid mesh just as a test. I want to end up doing marching cubes on the gpu but i cant figure out why my mesh loooks like this.

[compact ingot]

triangle indexes are wrong

[tiny anchor]

i realised lol, do you know how i could fix it?

[compact ingot]

double check your understanding of the datastructure for meshes

also mind that vertex order in a triangle matters

could also be that your vertex order is different than you assume

i.e. x/y flipped in a for loop or something like that

off by 1 error

stuff like that

[tiny anchor]

ye ive done a lot of mesh systems before using the unity job system and c#. I understand the math but the exact same math i used in the shader is what i use in the job system. Im stuck on why it dosent work. and also im not seeing massive performance gains. that could be because im useing unity meshes instread of draw procedural but idk.

ill see if i can implement your advice

thanks

[foggy elk]

Thanks for your reply. Balckboard structures are a new concept for me yet, so diving right into it! thanks alot! 🙂

[compact ingot]

do you think it could be a shared data issue, since you are building the tri indexes together with the calculations in separate threads? doesn't seem likely though.

could just do the pos-calc in threads and the triangles after a join... i don't see an issue in your code... maybe a rounding error between gridDetail and gridWidth?

[agile yoke]

hm, I might be missing something, but I think your indexing is wrong in some places

e.g. where you write to TriangleIndices in the shader

You write to everything from ThreadIndex to ThreadIndex + 5

But the thread for one cell over in the y direction is going to write to most of the same indices (because its index is ThreadIndex + 1)

Missing a * 6 I guess

[compact ingot]

that makes a lot of sense

[tiny anchor]

yep fixed it, basically the issue was that the triangle indicies and the vertex indicies are supposed to be different. the triangle indicies corrolate to the amount of triangles that have been added while the vertex indicies are indipendednt of eachother.

[compact ingot]

🥰 concurrency bugs are the best

[kindred tusk]

If you want to avoid reflection you could just do a big switch statement like this...

ref int GetField(FieldType type) {
  switch (type) {
    case FieldType.Attack: return ref attack;
    case FieldType.Defence: return ref defence;

GetField(FieldType.Attack) += 2;

I think you can return ref in the new versions of C#

Otherwise you can do a Set/Get separately

[foggy elk]

yes, that is my backup solution. One of the classes contains up to 40 different values it could be checked against, so Id thought to try and avoid that 😉

[kindred tusk]

I guess so... but passing strings around isn't great either.

The other option is to not have fields at all

And instead do this:

enum FieldType {
  Attack,
  Defence,
  Speed
}

class Attributes {
  int[] fields[Enum.GetValues<FieldType>().Length];
  ref int Field(FieldType type) => ref fields[(int) type];
}

@foggy elk ☝️

That way there's no duplication

You'd just always use the Field accessor instead

It might make defining inital stats a bit uglier though.

[foggy elk]

interessting approach. Would be some work restructuring parts of the code, but I am already using an Enum for the charactertraits.

[kindred tusk]

You can make a custom inspector for the Attributes class

so that it shows up in the editor like a normal struct

Hard to know whether this would be a help or a hindrance without knowing exactly what you're doing with it.

But it's an option!

[foggy elk]

this might be a newbie thing, but the class I want to retrieve values from, is a class created with updated variables when you start a new "game".
and then this class are updated each time a change is made. So everything in my code that needs information on the player variables, retrieves it from this class. A bit unsure if deleting it and making an enum out of it would be wise

that switch thing aint looking so stupid anymore xD

[abstract geyser]

So I have an issue with the voxel graphics where the landscapes are highly detailed and after optimization (combining cubes on the same plane etc) the resulting triangle count and vertex count is drastically reduced but still too high for oculus quest. At certain points in the game the vertex count exeedes 400k which is 4X the recommended by oculus.

The landscape is created in MagicaVoxel and imported with the MagicaVoxel Tool from the asset store that converts and optimizes the mesh. Problem is that this isn't enough. Is there a way to have highly detailed Voxel landscapes (or voxel graphics in general) where I could optimize the tris and vertex count into acceptable levels without having to let the artist reduce the detail level?

Currently landscapes come in chunks that have anywhere from between 5k-30k verts and 4k-15k tris give or take. About 12-15 chunks are visible at the same time. It seems that Voxel graphics (albeit nice looking) is very demanding performance wise.

[untold moth]

How about a LOD system that uses lower quality meshes the farther they are from the camera?

[abstract geyser]

The viewing distance is already greatly reduced to 8 units already. Wouldn't the lodding be very noticeable at that distance?

[untold moth]

Donno. Depends on many factors. Are the voxels cubes?

[abstract geyser]

Yes cubes that build the different landscapes

[untold moth]

I can't give you any advice about the visual side of things. I don't even know how it looks like now. 😅

[abstract geyser]

After importing from MagicaVoxel and using the Importer Asset that also optimizes the mesh, the tris and vert count is drastically reduced. So from the looks of things, it is as optimized as the algorithm that has been used could do it (e.g combining cubes on the same plane to create one giant cube or rectangle etc)

[abstract geyser]

The issue mainly is that because the landscapes are built with voxel graphics, there is no easy way to reduce the tris and verts count without reducing the level of detail on the landscapes. Every voxel that sticks out creates an additional set of tris and verts and with a high detail level, it seems to scale exponentially.

[untold moth]

According do my rough math, if you have around 400k vertices a worst case scenario with unoptimized meshes, it should still be around 150 meters of view distance assuming your field of view is 90 degrees.🤔

Probably even more

[abstract geyser]

One landscape module is about 3x3 units of lenght.

[untold moth]

And how many vertices do they have?

[abstract geyser]

between 5-30k

[untold moth]

in 3 * 3 units? With cube blocks?

[abstract geyser]

yes

[untold moth]

are you kidding me?

6 vertices per face * 5 faces exposed in the worst situation * 3 * 3 = 270 at most.

How does a module like that look like?

Unless I'm misunderstanding something..?

Are the blocks smaller than 1 unit in length?

[abstract geyser]

I think you are, One landscape module contains say 15k verts. The entire module is about 3x3 units in size. The landscape module is built with voxels. So it could be a small house and a bridge and say a few trees that make up one landscape module.

[untold moth]

So the voxels are smaller than 1 unit?

[abstract geyser]

Just to give an example^

Yes the actual voxels are very tiny

[untold moth]

Can you take an example screenshot?

[untold moth]

Well, then there's not much you can do. It's kind of a technological limitation. And you're trying to fit it on a platform that has even more strict limitations.

It's like creating a nuclear reactor in your backyard with tools from the garage.

But maybe using lower quality blocks(increased length) for far away chunks could be a decent solution.

[abstract geyser]

I cant share an actual screenshot but I can show you how a module might look like

https://www.twodoodles.com/assets/img/portfolio/modals/voxel-03.png

The player is seeing like maybe 10 of these modules at most

at the same time.

This with a viewing distance of 8 units

[untold moth]

Does that picture actually correspond to the view in game?

Is it top-down game?

[abstract geyser]

Its a VR game

[untold moth]

ah

[abstract geyser]

So you have a birds view kinda

[untold moth]

Then yeah. A LOD system for the meshes is the only thing I can think of. It can actually introduce a certain artistic effect imho. Where far away chunks have bigger blocks. Although, I imagine it will create more problems in terms of object placement and stuff...

Anyways, you should probably profile the game on the actual device, before making any conclusions about the performance.

[abstract geyser]

I've already done that and after optimizing everything I can think of, I am getting a stable 72 fps, as long as there are not too many dynamic objects on screen at the same time. Like enemies and such that move around. At a certain point the fps could drop below 72 and get back up again. However this just shows me that I'm currently pushing it with the tris and verts count. If there was a way to reduce it or optimize the landscape to give me say 5-10% performance improvement, I could then add more enemies or more dynamic stuff in the scene.

[untold moth]

Are you sure that the bottleneck is actually the geometry? What did you see in the profiler?

[abstract geyser]

Rendering is eating most of the performance

[untold moth]

If GPU is the bottleneck, then yeah, it's either vertex count or complex shaders.

If it's CPU, then it's not related to the geometry: probably set pass calls or draw calls.

Rendering is not 1 big thing. It has a lot of parts to it.

[abstract geyser]

Its the GPU yes. Profiling with the OVR Metrics tool, the App GPU T is going above 13700 microseconds at certain points which is telling me that the gpu is bottlenecking

[untold moth]

If you can't reduce the vertex count any more, try reducing the complexity of the shaders or making the gpu draw less objects.

[abstract geyser]

I am using URP Baked Lit shaders for the landscape, and simple lit for the dynamic objects

I am trying to use GPU instancing and such to reduce the drawcalls

Static batching, Dynamic Batching etc

I've pretty much ticked every box that should improve performance afaik

[untold moth]

Can you actually provide a screenshot of a frame from the profiler?

[abstract geyser]

At this moment no

Maybe later today if I have any time left, but from what I can tell from the profiler, the framedrops happen when there are too many dynamic objects in view. But reducing them could be a solution but gameplay would suffer

[hidden locust]

Would anyone know what's up with this error? I keep getting this for no reason and the code refuses to stop

from what I can find it's something to do with a DLL, but I'm not loading any.

Would be helpful as well if it said what type failed to load.

Types i'm using in the class where the error happens (and the one it calls) are pretty normal

[untold moth]

the error is in EnemyPathFinder line 30. What's on that line?

[hidden locust]

It's calling a static function from a static class.

[untold moth]

Is that your script?

[hidden locust]

public static Path<Vector2Int> Solve(Maze maze, Vector2Int start, Vector2Int end, int limit = 10_000)

Yeah it is

this is the signature

Path is also a class defined in the same file

ive never in my life encountered this error

[untold moth]

What's the deal with this:
int limit = 10_000?

[hidden locust]

ah it enters a while loop somewhere, so that is a safeguard

always do that with while loops

[untold moth]

what's with the underscore?

[hidden locust]

basically a comma

easier to read

[untold moth]

Hmmm... Seems to be a new feature in C# 7...

Did you try without it?

[hidden locust]

been a thing since c# 4

ill try it just to be sure

[untold moth]

Not according to c# docs

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/csharp/language-reference/proposals/csharp-7.0/digit-separators

[hidden locust]

oh

thought that was added way back

[untold moth]

I wonder if that's the problem though

[hidden locust]

removed it, but didn't help

I think there's something wack going on with the assemblies somewhere but Unity is not telling me which type is failing

[untold moth]

What about Maze is it your class too?

[hidden locust]

yeah, that's just a struct with pure data

[untold moth]

And Path?

[hidden locust]

Path is just a Stack wrapper basically

lemme try without path

[untold moth]

Are there details to that message btw?

[hidden locust]

nope

[radiant wave]

Is there a way to encode a string into a decimal number?

[hidden locust]

its just this

[untold moth]

@hidden locust are you using assembly definitions in your project?🤔

[hidden locust]

no, not even

that's why im so confused

really wish it'd just give a better error message

[untold moth]

Well, try eliminating parameters of that function and return type one by one to see which one is the culprit.

@hidden locust Also, what's the path to the Solver script and what namespace is it in?

[radiant wave]

I want to hash a string and convert the hash into a numerical value.

byte[] sha256 = Sha256Managed.ComputeHash(Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(ID), 0, Encoding.UTF8.GetByteCount(ID));
int value = Convert.ToInt32(sha256)```

That last part doesn't work.

[hidden locust]

The path, you mean the actual directory path? It's in Assets/Scripts/Solver.cs and the namespace is QTea.MazeGeneration

It's a partial class too, but that should work right

[untold moth]

Ah, that might be relevant.🤔

[hidden locust]

that would be odd...

[devout hare]

SHA-256 is 256 bits. It won't fit in a 32-bit int.

[kindred tusk]

nah, that's perfectly valid. You'd get a compile error if it wasn't supported.

[radiant wave]

Yeah - I realize I've drifted apart.
I kinda want to create a checksum of a string, but it should be decimal not hexadecimal.

[kindred tusk]

Checksum is usually a number.

Hexadecimal or decimal are two different string formats for displaying the number.

But it's stored in binary like anything.

If you want to wrap the checksum into 32 bits just use a modulo

@radiant wave you could also just do this: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/api/system.string.gethashcode?view=net-5.0

[devout hare]

Truncate the byte array into 4 elements and convert that, if it needs to be an int specifically

[kindred tusk]

Although it's probably not a good checksum...

[radiant wave]

Great! that looks like exactly what I need

[radiant wave]

that's fine. As long as it's deterministic

[kindred tusk]

Ah, it's not.

[kindred tusk]

The hash code itself is not guaranteed to be stable. Hash codes for identical strings can differ across .NET implementations, across .NET versions, and across .NET platforms (such as 32-bit and 64-bit) for a single version of .NET. In some cases, they can even differ by application domain. This implies that two subsequent runs of the same program may return different hash codes.

See the "remarks" section

[tiny anchor]

hi, i have been using a vertex and triangle array to generate meshes, but now that i am using compute shaders i want to know how i can use graphics.draw procedural or somthn to generate meshes straight on the gpu. i dont need collisions or nothing as its just a test. does anyone know how i can use my 2 arrays to draw a mesh?

[radiant wave]

damn!

[hidden locust]

@untold moth omg, i might've found the issue and it's all on me lol. I had a layout cycle somewhere in a struct

[untold moth]

layout cycle?🤔

[hidden locust]

within a struct you cannot have the same struct referencing itself

but i did that

expected the compiler would give an error about that but it didn't..

[radiant wave]

Got it, thanks for your help.

[untold moth]

Aaah. I see. Interesting.

[kindred tusk]

Otherwise it would be an infinitely large struct!

No compile error?

[untold moth]

That makes sense. Didn't think of the implications. Although I guess unconsciously I was thinking of it as a reference.

[kindred tusk]

If I have a mystery build freeze (seemingly an infinite loop), and I attach my debugger, how can I determine where it is? When I pause execution I just get a bunch of stack traces with thread handling stuff and no actual current line in my C# code. (I haven't actually tried pausing during the infinite loop yet because it takes 20 minutes, just experimenting with debugging a build for the first time)

[leaden jungle]

Hey I was wondering if someone here could help me identify a pattern. I first encountered it in this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tAbBID3N64A&t=2988s
I'm talking about their bark system. In it they call it a self branching dialog tree, but also state it can be extended to do other things.. I made my own implementation in unity, I simplified and allowed it able to run multiple states/behaviours at the same time. The behaviours can also be updated in runtime so you can add and remove behaviours dynamically. In the video they call it a self branching dialog tree so I was wondering if extending it to control behaviours would make it a self branching behaviour tree? It also resembles utility function, but the conditions are all bools rather than floats and rather than analyze all cases then compare them, it returns the 1st match. In my research I have found the Fuzzy State Machine (FuSM) which might be a fit.. I'm trying to write about the pattern, but not sure how to label it.. Thanks.

[granite lion]

is there a way to make all of the objects be the same size even when theyre further from teh camera relative to another object ?

[granite lion]

or appear to be the same size

[plain abyss]

They are the same size. If you don't want perspective, use an Orthographic camera

[granite lion]

idk what that is

[sly grove]

it's the "projection" setting on your game camera

change it from "perspective" to "orthographic"

[granite lion]

k

its even worse XD

[sly grove]

looks right

they all look the same size on screen now

that's what you asked for

[granite lion]

no , i mean i want them all to look the same size

[sly grove]

they do...

[granite lion]

they now look completely different , for example the white looks way smaller than the green 1

[sly grove]

it looks exactly the same

[granite lion]

am i blind ? XD

[sly grove]

you might be getting confused by the outlines

[sly grove]

I made these two 'H's the same size

[granite lion]

well , ty man , idk why i think the red 1 looks way bigger

am asking a friend for their opinion

[compact ingot]

its a well known optical illusion

[merry robin]

also Stereo Blindness is a thing

@granite lion might want to get checked 🙂

[undone coral]

what's your objective?

to make video game dialogue?

[undone coral]

build freeze, you mean, a freeze during the build of your project in the unity editor?

[compact ingot]

haven't watched the full video but i get a strong feeling of logic programming (i.e. prolog)... which basically takes facts and infers possible world states by constructing and solving horn clauses. That can be combined with fuzzy and other modal logic operators to create all kinds of extremely fancy symbolic AI systems... theorem provers, action planners and the like... its the brainiest branch in academic artificial intelligence research, in Uni, 80% ultimately failed that class 😉

[kindred tusk]

All good. It turns out that I'd just been a silly and had an endless loop. I got it!

[arctic robin]

Hey!
I want to make a small, loop-based music creation tool in Unity. Any tips on how to visualize audio/enable on and off on a grid type system to enable/disable sounds?

[undone coral]

can you give an example of what you're aspiring to do, and what is the smallest version of what you want to do?

[sly grove]

Like a midi editor?

[undone coral]

i would start by looking at the asset store 🙂

[leaden jungle]

I already used it for dialog and extended it for character behaviour, but I mostly I'm trying to figure out what to call it 😛 in the video they called it a self branching dialog tree..

[arctic robin]

I'm testing out development for the Hololens 2, and want to test out a loop based audio creation surface, similar to this: https://youtu.be/7Ki27CK5Je0?list=PLpyotFCx2oS9XNAFHB13V0xe7KcQzROPo&t=21

Just curious where I'd start in creating something like that. Any tips at all are appreciated!

[undone coral]

what's your experience with unity?

[leaden jungle]

I'm actually learning about prolog now too 😛 but I implemented this system with abstract base classes of Acts that each have a list of Conditions, that each return a bool, and if all conditions are met the Act executes. It similar to a utility function, but a lot simplier

[arctic robin]

Medium, have done five projects in it before so I know the ins and outs.

[undone coral]

when you say character behavior?

you mean like a screenplay?

are you familiar with Ink?

you should probably use Ink for Unity if you want to write a dialog-and-action screenplay

like a screenwriter would

[undone coral]

you can use UGUI or Runtime UIElements to build a UI, VFX Graph to visualize things in 3D, and an audio mixer or sequencer from the asset store

@arctic robin for example https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/tools/audio/stepp-69113

[arctic robin]

Awesome, thanks! What do UGUI and VFX Graph add that base Unity doesn't have?

[undone coral]

i'm concerned you're at "medium" and you don't know that UGUI is the name for unity UI 🙂

[leaden jungle]

I have finished the whole system and works well, but I really don't know who to categorize it.. the basic pattern, I made it in unity with scriptable objects, the main core of it is a loop through a list of acts that are sorted by the number of conditions, all the condition must me met for an act to be executed and acts can be run in series or parallel, which makes me think Fuzzy State Machine possibly..

[arctic robin]

Hahah whoops

[undone coral]

so have you looked at ink?

[arctic robin]

I haven't developed in it for a couple of months tbf

[undone coral]

have you looked at unity timeline too?

[leaden jungle]

I have looked at it before. But this does a lot more than dialog it's a whole dynamic behaviour pattern, I used it as a character controller, that controls Players and Ais

I was thinking of writing an article about it, but then I'm not sure what it is called or classified as..

in the video they use have a list of dialogs that have conditions and the number of conditions is also a condition.. but I simplified this by sorting the list by the number of conditions. Then it selects the first to match all conditions using simple fuzzy pattern matching. Acts them selves are coded to run one at a time or concurrently, which fits Fuzzy State Machine(FuSM), but if it is set up to only run one at a time I'm not sure if it would still qualify as a FuSM.

[arctic robin]

What is the best tool for working on a Unity project on multiple computers?

[compact ingot]

Does Task.Run(async () => ...); called in unity use the UnitySynchronizationContext or the default one (ThreadPool) as it would in a regular .net app?

[undone coral]

i have no idea**, but its implementation is toxic

[compact ingot]

as in "not allocation free"?

[undone coral]

no

[compact ingot]

but?

[undone coral]

UnitySynchronizationContext always Thread.Sleeps(1) on the main thread which has toxic behavior in unity, whereas UniTaskSynchronizationContext uses SpinLock which has better behavior (it sleeps 0 most of the time)

this is why people report really weird super slow performance with UnitySynchronizationContext

in some cases

[compact ingot]

right, was thinking there was a problem with Task.Run

[undone coral]

i think it's because it uses unitysynchronizatoncontext

whereas UniTask.Void (a kind of run) doesn't have to

[smoky glade]

Have u tried amplify impostor?

[smoky glade]

I have around 150 different stats, and i just keep them in a dictionary with an enum StatType as key
GetStat(StatType stat) => return stats[stat]

Conditionals are done with making formula. >=1 results is true, else false

[foggy elk]

Will keep this in mind. 🙂 Thanks!

[zenith ginkgo]

Materials saving as black (default colour)

[graceful forge]

Is anyone able to help with rotating a 2d array in C++? I am doing doing a blit function on pixels on the screen, and I have reference to the original sprite sheet and when I blit it to the screen I need to be able to perform an x rotation on the sprite when copying

[shadow seal]

C++? This is the Unity Discord

[tropic lake]

haven't you heard? unity and unreal have merged now

both c++ and c# are fully supported

[shadow seal]

👀

[graceful forge]

I mean doing it in c# would be fine I just am trying to understand the theory

Of copying a 2d array to another while performing a rotation

[sly grove]

It's really not complex. Just swizzle the indices. I can't be bothered to think about what the effects would be but output the indices differently and you'll get a rotation

e.g.:
[y, x]
[xMax - x, y]
[x, yMax - y]
[xMax - x, yMax - y]
etc

[graceful forge]

Would that be able to support all rotations or only like 90, 180. 270?

[sly grove]

90 degree rotations

or reflections

if you want anything else you'll need to do some kind of multi-pixel sampling

[elfin tundra]

it's not possible to rotate the indices of an array say 15.7 degrees bc the indices are stored in a grid formation

[graceful forge]

Right, but they are pixels so some loss is expected, the same if you rotate an image in photoshop the pixels distort a little but keep the same scale and general shape

[elfin tundra]

i thought we were talking about switching indices in an array, not rotating an image

[graceful forge]

The issue I'm having is I need to rotate one matrix by n degrees when copying it into another matrix

[elfin tundra]

right but if it's not a visual representation that you're rotating, it's impossible to rotate an arbitrary number of degrees bc arrays are stored in memory in grid-based rows

[sly grove]

it gets a lot more complex if you need n degree rotation. The result won't even fit into the same dimension matrix because the diagonal rectangle will need a bigger rectangle to circumscribe it

[graceful forge]

I shouldn't be rotating the source image, only performing a rotation in the process of copying each element

[elfin tundra]

i'm still confused, are we talking about an image or an array

[graceful forge]

I have an image that has been converted into a 2d array of pixels, and I need to copy that to a bigger array and perform a rotation in the process

[elfin tundra]

oh i see

why don't you just copy normally then rotate the image component

why do you have to rotate the array representation of the pixels in memory

just rotate the final image

[sly grove]

Maybe this will be helpful? https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/computer-science/image-rotation

[graceful forge]

This rotates the source then copies, I need to copy and rotate at the same time. If you do what this article suggests, it will lose the corners because they will go outside the bounds of the array before copying

[sly grove]

it's a starting point though

[elfin tundra]

you can't do two operations at the same time, there has to be an order

[sly grove]

also that

[graceful forge]

What I have set up is a sprite sheet, which is a 2d array of pixels, and I have a 2d array of pixels on the screen. I need to take a specific chunk of the sprite sheet, copy it to the screen while performing a rotation.

Would a solution be to cache the image I need to copy, expand the array in both dimensions and then do this rotate you linked Praetor, then copy?

[undone coral]

what's your objective?

gameplay objective*

[leaden jungle]

you can if you use concatenation

[leaden jungle]

have you looked into matrix concatenation? There is a chapter on it in one of my old programming books, but you can combine many matrix operations into one operation.

[graceful forge]

The goal is that I am copying pixels over using blit. I need to be able to blit the sprite from the spritesheet with any given rotation

[leaden jungle]

I got all the info from this book

[graceful forge]

I'm not too familiar with it, what is the book?

Thank you for that resource

[elfin tundra]

ah good point

i'm still learning linear algebra so i forgot about that lol

[leaden jungle]

it's old from the 70s, but it has all the math for combining 2d or 3d matrix operations, such as rotation, translation and scaling into one matrix operation.

[graceful forge]

I'll definitely check that book out, thank you so much for that.

[undone coral]

what's the gameplay objective?

[graceful forge]

This is not for gameplay, its for a pixel graphic rendering engine

[undone coral]

sorry what i meant was, for like a retrocomputing thing?

if you need to transform graphics efficiently you should use a material and the methods in Graphics

the material can rotate, flip, etc.

everything you need

[undone coral]

using a shader

[graceful forge]

Its making this image from a console application

[undone coral]

is this unity?

[graceful forge]

Yeah exactly

No this is console application

[undone coral]

okay

everyone has things they say no to. for me, it's NFTs and retrocomputing

[urban warren]

Does anyone happen to know a good BVH implementation? I mostly just care about built time and test time. I don't need it to support dynamic objects.
I have implemented most of one my self, but it doesn't quite work and I have looked at the code so many times and can't figure out why.

(Mine uses binning and SAH, but it will always split on the first bin for some reason)

[undone coral]

what are some of the things you want to achieve?

have you seen https://github.com/nobnak/FastConst-SAH-BVH

i'm not sure how realtime CSG package represents geometry

which is way more general than BVH

and maybe that's interesting to you

@urban warren https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRkFezG-uno

[urban warren]

I am going to make a BVH of my mesh terrain and use it to generate heightmaps.

*terrain and object meshes.

I am making a pseudo procedural vegetation placement and rendering system.

[undone coral]

what's the big picture algorithm here

for how to use this datastructure to help you

[urban warren]

I would use it to generate height maps for the terrain and objects(large rocks, cliffs etc) on the terrain and then use the height maps in compute shaders to generate points to place the vegetation.

[undone coral]

how is the terrain generated?

isn't the terrain already a height map?

[urban warren]

Manually. Mesh terrain.

[undone coral]

got it

so spell it out for me a bit more, just so i can help you

it'll be helpful

because it sounds like you can do

1. generate mesh terrain
2. generate a height map by applying a shader that shows world y height at the uv coordinate
3. ...

you can use a triplanar material that renders y at xyz

or use a uv projection

[urban warren]

Ehh, no, let me explain.

[undone coral]

at y = -1

is the terrain concave?

and you want to like, fill in concave space?

and your goal is to "voxelize" the terrain so you can sample this concave space?

you have an overhang or whatever, and you want to spawn vegetation under the overhang

or it's just a cliff that's concave

[urban warren]

There will be a 'master' component that has a list of terrain meshes, it will generate a BVH for them and then shoot down rays at set intervals in order to get the height of the terrain and generate the height maps.
Those height maps would then be passed to Compute Shaders that would generate points (using the height maps to get the y position for the point) and meshes would then be rendered at those points.

[undone coral]

okay, so you're trying to do LOD for terrain?

[urban warren]

No... I am trying to spawn vegetation.

[undone coral]

is the mesh concave?

[urban warren]

Just so we are on the same page, do you know what a Compute shader is?

[undone coral]

yes

are you trying to place the vegetation using e.g. vfx graph?

[urban warren]

It can have overhangs and such, I already have a plan on how to solve this though.

[undone coral]

and you'd like to sample positions on the mesh, that happens to be a terrain mesh?

[urban warren]

No, I am doing it my self with Graphics.DrawProcedural

[urban warren]

I basically just need to cheaply get the height of the terrain at a given xy position.

[undone coral]

the cheapest way to get the height of terrain at world xz is using a shader that renders world position y

using whatever camera you want

it would be basically instantaneous

[urban warren]

You mean like a camera facing down?

[undone coral]

yep

it would look like

camera.targetTexture = yourUtilityRenderTexture;
camera.Render(heightMaterial);

that's it

if you use vfx graph to place the vegetation you can get this directly using https://docs.unity3d.com/Packages/com.unity.visualeffectgraph@13.0/manual/Operator-SampleMesh.html

which, btw, vfx graph uses Graphics.DrawProcedural under the hood

so it's basically exactly the same

you can also use the same thing VFX graph uses to get the mesh

which is in the Graphics namespace

you can also look at its source for how shader graph will render a triplanar world xyz material

if you just want to use that

but that might be a waste of time

render textures are used as "utilities" all the time

consider you'd just need to get the texture once

you could certainly run it in real time if you needed

[urban warren]

Hmm, I would need to put the terrain on a separate layer.... maybe I would need to move the camera from location to location to get the height for multiple terrains... it wouldn't support overhangs...

[undone coral]

well, so that's why i asked

in that case, use VHACD to generate a group of approximate concave collision meshes, or as accurate as you'd like

https://github.com/Unity-Technologies/VHACD

because your real problem is that spooky warning about convex meshes having a limit of 256 polys

you can definitely just make a convex mesh collider at runtime using the built in physics collider, and you'd just be Done

[urban warren]

Interesting to know, I don't think it supports things like occlusion culling, or lods and what not, but it may be worth looking in to.

[undone coral]

it won't work with collisions

you need concave colliders to work with collisions, which VHACD creates for you

imo this BVH thing sounded like it was off the mark 😦

it doesn't help you advance your goals

of course, if you only need to spawn stuff from the player's point of view

you can add a render pass in URP / HDRP that does world xyz

with your material, then spawn, and then it's occluded and LOD automatically

and simply look at that render pass from time to time and add in vegetation on demand

VFX graph already supports occlusion though

[urban warren]

It lets you do overhangs which is what I like about it. And you don't need to mess about with layers (physics and rendering both using the same layer system... just why...) But maybe it is worth giving up/working around that for the camera system....?

[undone coral]

but a regular physics collider will

let you do this

like if you add a mesh collider

and leave convex unchecked

you can raycast and get the multiple intersection points

you don't need a BVH if you just want to raycast a mesh

[urban warren]

What do you mean raytrace the mesh?

[undone coral]

sorry raycast**

you can raycast against a concave collider

so i don't know, you're talking about sampling this at regular intervals

just do it with a regular unity physics raycast

[urban warren]

Ah, I could just do a bunch of raycasts using the physics system to get the heights and then not touch it again (maybe use Jobs if I need to do something at runtime)

[undone coral]

but it depends what you mean by heights, because the height shader will do this instantaneously

if you don't need cliffs, that is far and away the absolute fastest method

it will be fast enough for realtime

you can also do it from any perspective camera, if you want to do a local effect

you can use a cubic camera if you want

anyway

i think you get it

[urban warren]

I think this for me is a bit of the project having evolved over time and what I actually need and how I am doing things has changed.

Thank you @undone coral this was most helpful! I am going to think over what I need exactly again and how I want to do it. Also reread some of this stuff. Would you mind if I @ you again if I have some questions about some of the things you mentioned?

(Also thanks for the Github link at the start, I had not seen it)

[undone coral]

sure

[compact ether]

I figured I'd ask this in here. I have a super simple game that I wanted to add some simple cosmetic upgrades to. I just want to be able to spawn into a level with a hat, glasses, etc that I selected before loading into the level.
I had 2 ideas, and let me know what you guys think. Idea 1, is just make a character prefab for each costume, because there would only be a handful of costumes, and I could just spawn the prefab in depending on the player selection. I'm assuming I could just apply an int value to the prefab, and spawn it in.
Idea 2 is having one player prefab, but having a script that applies the cosmetic to the prefab at a certain local transform point upon loading in the level. I'm assuming that is possible.
What do ya'll think? Am I over thinking this?

[undone coral]

both work

[smoky glade]

Hi so im also gonna place vegetations soon and using RT to get height map
Mechwarrior mentioned about the layer problem. But i do layer change before certain raycast and restore it all the time. Is it not the same with rendering?
Like, u change the layer right before .Render, then restore it

(And yes the physics n render layer being the same is kinda annoying..)

[ancient sparrow]

Can someone give me code of getting keyboard height in iOS. Thanks 🙂

[undone coral]

is this a regular terrain?

[smoky glade]

It could be. It's anything that's in "Terrain" layer

Yes if it's terrain i can just use the terrain's heightmap

[kindred tusk]

If it's mix-and-match then go with version 2 I think

Managing prefab variants sucks

[dusk gyro]

how would i make 2 objects snap together if they're close enough to each other through code? been trying to figure this out for a while now but couldn't find an answer

[untold moth]

@dusk gyroSomething like that..?

if( distance < some distance)
{
  tempPos = objec1Pos;
  object1Pos = object2Pos;
  object2Pos = tempPos;
}

[dusk gyro]

wouldn't that just mean the 2 objects will swap positions?

[untold moth]

Yes. But you can also add rotation and what not.

Oh wait

I thought you said "swap" lol

If you want them to snap... Well, how do you want them to snap? Just get close enough so that their colliders collide? Snap certain vertices? There is more than 1 way to snap things together.🤔

[dusk gyro]

so im making a script where you can place down objects, but before you place down the object there would be a silhouette of the object you're trying to place wherever your mouse is, but i want the silhouette to snap to the ground instead of hovering wherever your mouse is

its in 2d btw

[untold moth]

Cast a ray down from the mouse(optionally with some vertical offset) and instantiate the silhouette object at that position maybe?

[dusk gyro]

how would i do that

[untold moth]

Are you sure it's a question for #archived-code-advanced ? 😛

look up Physics2D.Raycast in the docs.

[dusk gyro]

i mean i know how to cast a ray but i dont know how to make it actually snap to the object

[untold moth]

You get the position of the hit and use it to set the position of the silhouette object.

[dusk gyro]

wouldn't that snap the center of the object to that position?

[untold moth]

@dusk gyro Then add some offset.

Or change the pivot point of the silhouette prefab/object

[dusk gyro]

it works, thank you

[final kindle]

How should you handle unit tests designed to give an error? For example if you were to test that giving a grid class a negative size log errors? For me the log is making the test quit and fail.

[fresh salmon]

Depends on your unit test library. For NUnit I remember being an Assert.ThrowsException<T>() method where T is the exception you expect to be thrown

[final kindle]

Ah. Thank you. I was expecting to have to silence the logger or something. I'll have a look at that.

[fresh salmon]

Otherwise making your own generic version of that method wouldn't be hard, a try-catch block where you attempt to catch catch (T) (don't forget the where T : Exception constraint), and after that catch (Exception) if it threw anything else

[final kindle]

Maybe, though I don't like the idea I'm having to change the code to do the testing like that.

[urban warren]

I would either just manually set it, or just set it right before the raycast and then reset it. Are you planning on handling overhangs and such?

[plush lion]

Hey, what would be an elegant way to access prefabs during tests in play mode? Best I could find is AssetDatabase.LoadAssetAtPath, but it stops working whenever the object is moved

There's no way I'm the only one that had this issue

Yet google finds nothing :(

[bleak steppe]

I use addressables for that, works pretty well
For editor tests I use AssetDatabase but I use the GUID of the asset as the key for that (so it won't matter if the path changes, only if the actual asset is destroyed and created again, which is a valid reason to update the test script)

[plush lion]

How do I know the guid of an asset ?

[bleak steppe]

open its .meta file and the guid will be there

[plush lion]

Thanks!

[hot linden]

Hey there. How would you handle mirroring horizontally a 3d character for a 2d platformer ?

1. duplicate the whole animations tree for a right and left version (seems tedious)
2. mirroring everything programmatically

I suppose 2. is the best way but if someone has a reference for that, I'll be glad to know about it, right now I can't seem to find a solution

For reference something like Ori 2 does

[sly grove]

what's wrong with rotating the character 180 degrees on the y axis?

[hot linden]

it is angled

so it is no more readable

maybe Street fighter is a better reference

the character is in a fighting stance, when rotated 180, his face is hidden and strong arm is no more visible

nvm found a way => if I invert the z scale of the parent transform it seems to work ... animation is doing strange things though

[undone coral]

i forget the technical term for that kind of scaling, but you shouldn't use it

[hot linden]

so I need to duplicate every animation ?

[undone coral]

no

[hot linden]

I've tried something else and animation is less weird : inverted x axis scale and rotated on y by 180

[undone coral]

i think you need to bake a mirrored version of your character

or look up if an asset does this for you

in maya you can do this

it supports a real mirror operation on bones and geometry

[hot linden]

Can you explain a bit more about that or point some ref ?

[undone coral]

yes, there's an operation in maya called Mirror, which mirrors the geometry instead of scales it

then for bones animation, you need it mirrored too

[hot linden]

but then I would need to duplicate every animation still isn't it ?

[undone coral]

yes

[hot linden]

hmmm ...

[undone coral]

what do you mean animation

is this a 3d character?

[hot linden]

yes

elseway I would just have to negate the scale on x

[undone coral]

so far

a lot of things may glitch with whatever that kind of scaling is called

[hot linden]

well ... I'll keep on digging then

I'm pretty sure there's a way to handle that without duplicating every animations

my DRY sense is in high alert

[formal kayak]

hello

https://hatebin.com/tzddacplco

got this code

[elfin tundra]

what's the issue

[tropic lake]

think they're gonna say that

[formal kayak]

how to set notepad into foreground?

[elfin tundra]

idk if you can do that in unity

why do you want to do that anyway

[formal kayak]

it's very important, not with notepad, but another software wich is running

[elfin tundra]

what is the software

and again, why are trying to do that

[formal kayak]

because I'M developing a non-game experience and I need to change between windows

[elfin tundra]

don't develop a non-game experience in unity

unity is for making games

[tropic lake]

https://www.codeproject.com/Questions/279441/Bring-Process-to-the-front
you can try this out

no guarantee it will work in unity

[formal kayak]

thanks

[tropic lake]

generally i don't think unity is the best for non game experiences

something like a wpf app could work better

and it also uses c#

[elfin tundra]

agreed, that's what i was saying

[formal kayak]

my program has to display 3d graphics

[elfin tundra]

use c++ then

[formal kayak]

I'm more familiar with unity 🙂

[elfin tundra]

ok so get more familiar with c++

at some point you weren't familiar with unity and now you are

so you can get familiar with the tools you need

[harsh grotto]

not true at all

[elfin tundra]

i don't think i've seen a single normal application made in unity

give me a few examples and i'll take back everything

[harsh grotto]

pretty sure wallpaper engine runs on unity

[tropic lake]

https://dis-da-moe.itch.io/ulina
here's a map i made

[elfin tundra]

that's bc it allows you to turn a unity project into a wallpaper right?

[harsh grotto]

yes, which implies some sort of unity integration

[elfin tundra]

right so that doesn't count as a normal application that has nothing to do with unity

[harsh grotto]

regardless, there are plenty of non game companies that use unity for non game related things, no point gatekeeping how people use it

[elfin tundra]

yeah i guess

i just hadn't seen any, and regardless, c++ is much more widely used for everyday applications

[plain abyss]

My literal job is making an architecture visualization tool in Unity 😅

[elfin tundra]

oop

i am very sorry

i will point out that unity was made in c++ tho

[harsh grotto]

my job uses it for visualization too

[elfin tundra]

damn

[plain abyss]

C++ scares me

[elfin tundra]

i like it more than unity for a lot of things but c# is a better general-purpose language imo

just not as flexible for applications all the time

[plain abyss]

But I'm totally fine using Java to convert an AutoCad drawing into a GLTF model and dynamically loading that into a Unity scene at runtime for realtime 3D visualization of a blueprint 👍

[compact ingot]

https://www.world-creator.com/

[compact ingot]

https://quadspinner.com/ (uses unity for the 3d view)

[elfin tundra]

thanks but i've already been disproven lmao

(but btw both of those apps relate to games)

[compact ingot]

so you mean don't use unity for apps that do not leverage media... i'd agree

[elfin tundra]

yeah

like idk a text editor or something

you wouldn't make that in unity

[compact ingot]

but i know a company who wanted to just do that.........

[elfin tundra]

oof

[compact ingot]

yeah..

took them a year to realise it is hopeless

the guy who initiated it now has 1 year of unity experience

[urban warren]

Quixel Mixer.

[elfin tundra]

guys i got the point

i'm sorry

i made an assumption, now i have learned

[urban warren]

Sorry, didn't mean to pile on.

[undone finch]

I have made own developer console in my game (I needed it because it is multiplayer game), is there some way to catch Debug.Log functions executing and "redirect" it for my own console logging?

[unkempt nova]

Yeah, there's a callback you can hook into, lemme find it

https://docs.unity3d.com/ScriptReference/Application.LogCallback.html

@undone finch

[undone finch]

nice! thanks

[unkempt nova]

https://docs.unity3d.com/ScriptReference/Application-logMessageReceived.html

Example

[kindred tusk]

Oh I didn't know about that!

I thought you need to use this guy https://docs.unity3d.com/ScriptReference/ILogHandler.html

[sturdy edge]

i'm a little confused on what this has to do with this https://docs.unity3d.com/ScriptReference/Application-logMessageReceived.html
Is it that you dont actually need to call your delegate LogCallback? you just need to match the signature?

[unkempt nova]

Yeah, first link wasn't what I used, but looks like you just need to match the signature

Not sure tbh

But since it's a delegate, you can use

private Application.LogCallback myLogCallback;
void Awake() {
         Application.logMessageReceived += myLogCallback;
}
``` to simplify things

Better example: ```cs
public class LogTest : MonoBehaviour
{
private Application.LogCallback myLogCallback = (condition,trace,type) => {
Debug.LogFormat("Condition: {0}, Trace.Length: {1}", trace.Length, type.ToString());
};

void Awake() {
    Application.logMessageReceived += myLogCallback; 
    Debug.LogFormat("Test!");
}

private void OnDisable() {
    Application.logMessageReceived -= myLogCallback;
}

}

@sturdy edge

[undone finch]

Hell yeah now debbuging on multiplayer will be easier

[sturdy edge]

Was wondering what business I had in #archived-code-advanced 🤣

[unkempt nova]

There are a couple free in game console assets on the store btw, might be worth looking into if for no reason but to look into how they did things

One I used made it very easy to make your own commands too

[undone finch]

I dont even try to find something on asset store because when I want to make something I am just doing it to learn my self

I think this is the best way to learn

But maybe I am wrong

[unkempt nova]

I've learned A LOT from tearing free (and paid) assets apart. Often discover things you'd never even think to look into

[undone finch]

Maybe I should try this method

thanks anyway

[unkempt nova]

I highly recommend it

[undone finch]

I am just doing some game without intention releasing it to public, I very like gamedev and this is not my job. It is just so satysfing and its the way I spend my almost all free time 😄

[unkempt nova]

Same. GL HF

[silent dagger]

👋 any good math brain can help me with some calculation?

I'm trying to convert world position into pixel position

I've a custom splatMap, and I need to convert object position into corresponding pixel inside the texture

    {
        if (pos < 0) pos *= +1; // Convert value to positive

        var p0 = Mathf.RoundToInt(pos);
        var p1 = p0 %terrainSize;
        var p2 = p1 / terrainSize;
        var percentage = p2 / terrainSize * 100;
        return Mathf.RoundToInt(textureSize / 100 * percentage);
    }```

this is the non-working code 😕

🙏 PLEASE

the idea was to run the method for each axis

[compact ingot]

something like this maybe (pseudo-code):

// for a flat texture facing World-Y
Vector3 worldPosInSplatSpace = Vector3.ProjectOnPlane(worldPos, Vector3.up) * texelsPerUnit + splatWorldOrigin;

// or more generic, if splatOrigin has/is a transform/TRS-matrix
Vector3 worldPosInSplatSpace = Vector3.ProjectOnPlane(
    splatOrigin.transform.worldToLocalMatrix.MultiplyPoint(worldPos),
    splatFacingNormal
) * texelsPerUnit;

results are vec3, so you have to ignore whichever component is orthogonal to your tx.plane

[silent dagger]

WOW that's looks nice 😄
thanks 🙂

I guess the former should work, appreciation 🍻

[compact ingot]

simplified

[silent dagger]

Working great 😄

[misty glade]

Best practice question. I have a game object which may be disabled in a screen by default. When it's "initialized" (not Instantiated(), but rather initialized by me when I know some details about the object), I get the Image component using GetComponent<Image>() and then set the image accordingly. I can't do the GetComponent<>() call in Awake() since Awake doesn't get called on inactive game objects (I didn't realize that, so this was a fun bug to find 🐛 ).

Where do you typically, or best practice make this call to GetComponent? I don't want to create external dependencies on the object to initialize it before initializing it, if that makes sense.

See below. I can just set the "Person" of this display gameobject and everything "works", unless the gameObject is inactive - in which case Awake() isn't called first and I get the null reference exception as commented..

        private Person _person = null;
        public Person Person
        {
            get => _person;
            set
            {
                if (_person != null)
                {
                    _person.OnPersonUpdated -= UpdatePersonIcon; //unsub from the old person event
                }
                _person = value;
                _person.OnPersonUpdated += UpdatePersonIcon;
                UpdatePersonIcon();
            }
        }

        private Image _icon;
        private void Awake()
        {
            _icon = GetComponent<Image>();
        }

        private void UpdatePersonIcon()
        {
            ... etc ...
            _icon.overrideSprite = Resources.Load<Sprite>($"Graphics/Sprites/People/{iconName}"); // null reference exception if the game object is inactive while trying to set this
        }

[drifting galleon]

OnEnable()

[misty glade]

I mean, I could make an Initialize() method that gets called in Awake() and before UpdatePersonIcon() i suppose, but that feels sloppy

that's the same as the Awake() problem, though - I can UpdatePersonIcon() before that's called

(in fact, that's my workflow - Create this game object, set the Person, then enable it)

Actually - better (and maybe simpler) question - is there any script activity at all on a monobehavior that's inactive?

like, I could just do:

private bool _isInitialized = false;
private void Initialize()
{
  ... blah blah blah...
}

// and then anywhere I need an element:

if (!_isInitialized) Initialize();

but this doesn't feel great/clean to me, I suppose?

[long ivy]

why do the GetComponent in Awake at all? Make _icon a serialized field. Alternatively, making UpdatePersonIcon a no-op unless icon is set, and call UpdatePersonIcon inside Awake

[misty glade]

I guess I was hoping there was an Awake() analog that got called when the actual game object was created/instantiated/whatever

I could make it a serialized field, but I generally try to keep the public/serialized fields to a minimum unless something else in the app needs to set it

[long ivy]

you can make it private and serialized

[quasi granite]

Okay, this is very, abstract.
I Am creating a fighting game. Near the beginning I was convinced that using Unity Colliders for the hitboxes and hurtboxes would be innefficient because of the sheer number of frames and hitboxes displayed each second by each player would make it irrealistic to instantiate all the different Collider Components exactly when I need to, and also the hit detection would be handled by the physics system, which would make hit detection not be handled percisely with update and would be hell to manage both locally and through network.
I ended up creating my own hitbox and hurtbox system which is purely numbers with min and max coordinates to a origin transform position. Its very efficient, but Im wondering if i was correct in my assumption that using colliders wouldve been less efficient. Am I incorrect?

[misty glade]

In this case, the Icon itself is an internal detail - the only public element of this game Object is the "Person" - the display element displays a whole bunch of stuff, person name, hit points, rarity, and icon

Ideally I only want the Editor to show "Person" in the fields - my understanding is that even private serialized fields show up in the editor? (I haven't really used them before)

I could do that, though.. I mean, I suppose there's no real reason for me to be GetComponent()-ing at runtime, it's not like I'm adding the component programmatically

That's actually probably the best reason to just serialize it and set it in the editor (so I'm not fiddling with bugs/shit like this down the line)

[misty glade]

Potentially, but "premature optimization is the root of all evil" - Using unity's colliders would likely have saved you (or will save you, if you revert) tons of time and effort and may have actually been good enough. I suspect that a fighting game would be totally fine. A physics game with hundreds or thousands of hitboxes might benefit from a roll-your-own approach, but even then, you're gonna be doing a lot of work and ... hard work, lots of debugging physics, etc.

[misty glade]

There's also a number of ways you could optimize your collider calculations within the unity framework - disabling colliders that likely "won't matter" for an interaction - whether they're out of range or whatnot

[quasi granite]

I dont want to use my hitbox system for physics collision though, just player to player hit detection

[misty glade]

Yeah - I mean, same thing - you'd just have a collider but not the physics elements (rigidbodies)

[quasi granite]

would using colliders ensure that I am able to handle hit detection the exact frame that the overlaps happen though?

[drifting galleon]

better use dots for such a use case then 🙂

[quasi granite]

dots? dangit theres still so much i dont know about unity

[misty glade]

don't use DOTS imo :p

[drifting galleon]

for your use case, don't use DOTS.

[misty glade]

https://docs.unity3d.com/Manual/ExecutionOrder.html definitely - collisions happen before Update()

[drifting galleon]

wouldn't say that. DOTS is after all the future

[misty glade]

pardon my emote-french 🙂

I dabbled in DOTS then.... undabbled

[drifting galleon]

it's awesome once you get used to it

[misty glade]

yeah i mean, I might come back to it someday but I'm ... tied to my architecture and haven't written any threadsafe code

ie - I depend on single-threadedness atm

[quasi granite]

I already created my hitbox system, and if i set the framerate to 144 and spam thousands of hitboxes per second with no optimization on which hitboxes will actually be eligible I see no framedrops whatsoever, I think im just gonna stick with what i have regardless of what would have/could have been more efficiet.

[misty glade]

external libraries generating read only lists and passing them around, etc

[misty glade]

Yeah, sorry, to be clear, I meant "more efficient" in terms of your own development time

[quasi granite]

yea this took a whole month and a half, not worth the development time

Good learning project though

[misty glade]

there's a recent post on r/programmerhumor that's like... Computer Scientists write sorting algorithms, Programmers call .Sort(). I want to be a programmer and just call the oncollision events 🙂

I don't want to write any trigonometry - I'm getting too old for that now 😛

I just am not interested in debugging really fiddly details and stuff

[quasi granite]

its purely boxes, I didnt worry about trigonometry

[misty glade]

I'm just coming out of writing some debugging statements that are already kind of gnarly because my game state is .. complex

[quasi granite]

that is a unique hell to live in, good luck to you

[misty glade]

https://pastebin.com/evtzspDK

match-3 meets hearthstone

(each player has a grid instead of a hand, they can match-3 or "play" items to their field)

but the match-3 programming was .. harder than i expected.. and I believe that I'm a quite good programmer (who doesn't, right?)

recursion bugs 🤯

[quasi granite]

i honestly have no idea what tf this is this is terrifying

I am by no means an experienced programmer. I am creating a game and learning as I need to.

[misty glade]

the paste is my server console output for this:

each player gets a grid, can merge-3 more items, play them to their field, and they attack the opponents "crew" (the 3 guys at the top)

pardon the developer art - the art/UI guy is still working on mockups for this

[gloomy nova]

complicated question, but I'm thinking about how I can code behaviors and then use them as pluggable objects in scripts

for example, say I have a "Wander Area" behavior, a "Flee From Target" behavior, and an "Attack Target" behavior. I don't need these as scriptable objects - I just need a way to reference these behaviors in a script or scriptable object, because let's say we have a deer and a wolf, and both use "wander area", but in the deer's case, it will use "flee from target" when the player moves into range, while the wolf will use "attack target" under that same condition.

I've solved things like this in the past ||using reflection to obtain identifiers for each type of behavior at runtime, then defining each unique entity's behavior graph in a markup file, then creating a parser that reads through that markup file (thinking XML in this case, since .NET includes pretty straightforward XML parsing) and creates a behavior controller. ended up extending this to also define other parameters about the entity, so that all information about "deer" and "wolf" is contained within deer.xml and wolf.xml.|| spoilered for the sake of textwall

my thing with Unity is that it supports SOs and prefabs, and I'd like to take advantage of that (much simpler to use a "deer" prefab with a configured behavior controller attached than to just eschew the entire system and use XML to define npcs)

[urban warren]

It sounds like making them just normal C# classes would work, no?

[gloomy nova]

so my question is basically: how simple would it be to load up all coded behaviors to create a behavior graph in-editor? I'm not particularly interested in writing a complex graphical utility - all I really need to do is be able to script a BehaviorController that lets me select a behavior, fill out parameters with property drawers, and define transitions out of that behavior into other behaviors

[gloomy nova]

yeah, all I really need is that chunk of code that defines what the entity should be doing if that behavior is active

delegates would probably be very useful there

what i'm looking at is effectively a scriptable FSM

I could actually probably get away with using a Mecanim animator as a regular state machine graph if I wanted to hack it, tbh, since I plan on using Animancer instead for the actual animation side of things

but the API for the Animator class is uhh

lmao

[urban warren]

FSM aren't that great for AI normally.

[gloomy nova]

depends on what you want to do

[urban warren]

But beyond that I'm not sure what the question is now?

[gloomy nova]

and what kind of AI you're after

[urban warren]

Yeah, that is why I said "normally". It does have it's place depending on what you're doing.

[gloomy nova]

so what I'd like to do is:

• code parameterized behaviors (BehaviorWander, BehaviorAttackTarget, whatever)
• be able to select those behaviors and configure their properties for that instance in a BehaviorController through the editor
• specify transitions into other behaviors from each behavior, if applicable

The alternative to this, which I have experience doing outside of Unity, would just be to define everything in an XML file, parse that, and create templates for entities that are then used when they're spawned.

and iirc you can serialize xml/text file fields, so for something like a spawner, it would be simple enough to just drop in the file

just curious, what do you typically use for AI?

[urban warren]

There are a lot of examples online and github of SFMs and Behavior Trees (both with and without UI). I wouldn't use XML, and I think this would be better suited for #🤖┃ai-navigation

[gloomy nova]

oh i didn't even realize there was a full ai section lmao

nah I don't need code examples

correction - I understand the concepts and how to code them, it's working with the Unity API that I'm having the issues with

[chrome kraken]

ttrying to learn unirx

i am getting this error, can anyone tell me how to properly assign reactiveproperty?

[royal raft]

anyone know how to convert Player.Realtime.player [] to player[]

[olive totem]

@chrome kraken you might have to pass in a type because from the looks of it that Linq expression returns a ReactiveProperty which seems to be a generic type just going by your public variables

[broken socket]

Looks good to me after a quick glance at the doc https://github.com/neuecc/UniRx#reactiveproperty-reactivecollection

what does the error says ?

[olive totem]

Looks good indeed except on the website they use actual properties, not sure how much that should matter however

Not familiar with this framework

[broken socket]

me neither 🤷‍♂️

[chrome kraken]

so i tried to use same as gitbut ex to use property isntead of memebr variables

i also tried to cast it

but it crashes after i enter unity

after casting der is no error in IDE.. but once i play the scene.. i get below error

PlayerHealth..ctor (System.Int32 maxHealth) (at Assets/Scripts/Player/PlayerHealth.cs:17)
PlayerController.Start () (at Assets/Scripts/Player/PlayerController.cs:17)```

feeling so dumb... not able to figure out for 2hrs now 😦

[chrome kraken]

i am really dumb.... i looked everywhere expect pressing f12 on ToReactiveProperty() method... forgot i can access source code LOL..

this solved the issue..seems the github readme is not update

[compact ether]

Question. How do I find a game object with a specific tag, if it's a child of a parent object? My script was working when my Camera was just it's own object, but once I attached it to a parent (for other functionality I needed) my script can no longer find the object anymore, and throws a null reference. Mind you, nothing has changed on the Main Camera object, but it's hierarchy.

[sly grove]

GameObject.FindWithTag doesn't care if it's a parent or child or anything

It only cares about the tag

What object are you trying to find and what code are you using to try to find it?

[harsh current]

I'm trying to delay release of addressables, something like:
` private bool _releasing;

public async void Load()
{
  if (_releasing)
  {_releasing = false;}
  else
  {
    _handle = _assetReference.LoadAssetAsync<Sprite[]>();
    _value = await _handle.Task;
  }
}

public async void Release()
{
  _releasing = true;
  await Task.Delay(TimeSpan.FromSeconds(5.0));
  if (_releasing)
  {
    _releasing = false;
    Addressables.Release<Sprite[]>(_handle);
  }
}`

The problem is, I want to kill the previous asynchronous call if it tries to re-release after a short load

like release-load-release fast

it should cancel the previous release and restart the "counter"

any tip?

[midnight violet]

Found this https://forum.unity.com/threads/cancel-async-task-best-practice.805839/ might fit your case

[harsh current]

Cancellation tokens is exactly what I was looking for. I knew about them, just didn't remember. Thanks!

[harsh current]

This did the trick, so it only releases the addressable after 5s.
`private CancellationTokenSource _loaded;

public async void Load()
{
if (_loaded == null)
{
_handle = _assetReference.LoadAssetAsync<Sprite[]>();
_value = await _handle.Task;
_loaded = new CancellationTokenSource();
}
else
{
_loaded.Cancel();
_loaded.Dispose();
_loaded = new CancellationTokenSource();
}
}

public async void Release()
{
try
{await Task.Delay(5000, _loaded.Token);}
catch (TaskCanceledException)
{return;}
Addressables.Release<Sprite[]>(_handle);
_loaded.Dispose();
_loaded = null;
}`

[indigo turret]

using System.Collections.Generic;
using UnityEngine;

public class Mouselook : MonoBehaviour
{
    // Start is called before the first frame update

    public float mouseSensitvity = 100f;

    public Transform playerBody;

    float xRotation = 0f;

    void Start()
    {
        Cursor.lockState = CursorLockMode.Locked;
    }

    // Update is called once per frame
    void Update()
    {
        float mouseX = Input.GetAxis("Mouse X") * mouseSensitvity * Time.deltaTime;
        float mouseY = Input.GetAxis("Mouse Y") * mouseSensitvity * Time.deltaTime;

        xRotation -= mouseY;
        xRotation = Mathf.Clamp(xRotation, -90f, 90f);

        transform.localRotation = Quaternion.Euler(xRotation, 0f, 0f);
        playerBody.Rotate(Vector3.up * mouseY);
    }
}```



what is the problem i can just look up and down and not right and left even if i see the number in the x is changing

[devout hare]

Don't cross-post, and that isn't an advanced code question

[indigo turret]

ok 😦

[misty glade]

Debugging a nasty issue for 2 days, could use thoughts.

I have a data structure called a GridItemDictionary that has a List and Dictionary internally for holding items on a grid (the dictionary is for fast lookups based on (x,y), the list is for enumerating the items on the grid by Id).

I keep this data object in memory on the server and on the client(s). It's a turn based game, and during a turn, many things can happen to the grid (new items get added at new locations, items get upgraded, etc). It's impossible/illegal for two items to exist in the same (x,y).

When the server sends updates to the clients, it does so in the form of a list of "battle actions" (9 types, currently, I expect there to be many more) - some of which are BattleActionNewGridItem or BattleActionUpgradeGridItem or BattleActionDestroyGridItem. When the message is received by the clients, they update their internal data structure, animate the changes and then destroy/change the game objects (since the animations take time - the game objects aren't destroyed immediately when the server tells them to).

Somehow, and very rarely, I'm getting ArgumentExceptions from the Dictionary when I try to add an item that already exists in the dictionary. I cannot figure out how to reproduce the issue, and I am fairly lost in even knowing what the root cause "area" is (animation delay? network issues? actual game object integrity/logic issues?).

I can provide any source code you want to see.. here's kind of a list of the relevant classes:

• BattleManager (client logic manager)
• BattleScreen (client UI)
• DudeGridRenderer (client grid item - yes, the name is awful)
• GridItemDictionary (data object representing all items on a grid)
• Battle (server "battle" object, contains GridItemDictionaries and all battle-specific stuff)
• ServerBattleManager (primary server logic)

Thoughts/strategies welcomed.

I can't even reproduce the issue 100% 😐

Actually I'll just go ahead and start pasting the code from the above classes in case you're bored and wanna have a whack at armchair debugging.. or feel free to just point and laugh at me. 🙂

[long ivy]

are your clients applying updates right away, or do they queue them up and replay them client-side?

[misty glade]

https://pastebin.com/5iy7TQtK BattleManager
https://pastebin.com/26ShQmwa BattleScreen
https://pastebin.com/eGNyZhTd DudeGridRenderer
https://pastebin.com/Dd0Pu72z GridItemDictionary
https://pastebin.com/iV3ukp14 Battle
https://pastebin.com/rrNySJdL ServerBattleManager

[misty glade]

Both - the BattleManager (client logic) maintains the "true" data, but signals the UI to unspool the events (BattleScreen subscribes to the events and enqueues/unspools the coroutine animations)

It's... complicated, unfortunately.. even though I have tried to keep it as simple as possible to avoid bugs like this but... somehow I've stepped in the poo anyway.

[misty glade]

Hm.. I did find one small bug that... may be related? BattleScreen.cs line 150 - I should only start the queued coroutines if the queue was empty before adding one, not if the count is greater than 0 - if I queue a bunch of coroutines at once (which I do) then they all start animating immediately. There may have been situations where the grid items didn't get deleted or something, leading to data integrity issues.. shrug

[blazing osprey]

I'm making (or trying to) make a game where the user can build train tracks/stations and I'm having difficulties figuring out how to
a. spawn a train at the station(I could probably make a script and attach to the train station)
b. make said train follow the tracks, and
c. Check if there's a railway connecting two stations, so that the stations know if they should spawn a train(I don't want the train running out of track in the middle of the map)

Obviously this is a major part of the game, so any help is appreciated. I thought about using A*, but couldn't find a way to do a. and b. with a".

[urban warren]

It really depends on how you construct the tracks. Using something like A* would be really overkill and not ideal for something like this.
You most likely want to use splines, at least for B.
For A. I'm not sure what the problem is exactly.
C. You most likely want to create a 'node network' where each node is a station and keeps track of all the other nodes it connects to.

[blazing osprey]

Ya I guess I solved a while I was typing it

I’m kinda new to unity, so could you point me towards a tutorial about splines?

I have a small understanding about splines, but I don’t rly think it fits in this context

[urban warren]

Sure
https://catlikecoding.com/unity/tutorials/curves-and-splines/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RF04Fi9OCPc

[blazing osprey]

So I have two pieces: straight tail and curved rail 90 degree turn

[sly grove]

You'll definitely want to model your railway network as a graph data structure, and A* or Dijkstra's would be useful if you have a need for calculating a shortest path on that graph.

The splines themselves are a separate but related concern.

[urban warren]

If it is just straight and corners then yeah, splines would be overkill most likely.

[blazing osprey]

The thing is, the user can place tracks anywhere on the plane, except for on top of another track

So how would I tell if there is a path connecting two stations?

[urban warren]

So it is not on a grid?

[blazing osprey]

No

[urban warren]

Well you would need some sort of snapping to connect the tracks anyway.

[sly grove]

If you've modeled your network as a graph these are very easy questions to answer via graph traversal algorithms

[blazing osprey]

I mean it’s precise to 0.25 units

[blazing osprey]

Sorry if I’m being dumb but how would I do that?

I’m really stuck

[sly grove]

I recommend doing some research into graphs and algorithms like Depth first search

And breadth first search

Once you get an understanding of that you can think about how to model your tracks as a graph and it should become pretty easy

You will want to have a strong understanding of that area to pull this kind of game off effectively

[urban warren]

What Praetor said, and for actually connecting the tracks together you will most likely want a sparse matrix. (Someone can correct me if there is a better way)

[blazing osprey]

I have an understanding of dfs but the question is how would I decide where to start it and also when would I do it?

[blazing osprey]

Sparse matrix? Can you link a tutorial pls?

[urban warren]

I assume you would want each train station to be a node.

[sly grove]

Whenever you connect a track you can do a DFS starting from the new track to see what connections you've made

[blazing osprey]

Would that be processor eficcient?

[sly grove]

Yeah

[blazing osprey]

Ok I’ll take your word for it

[urban warren]

Well you don't even need to do it every time you place a track, only when connecting two tracks.

[sly grove]

It's basically O(n log n)

[blazing osprey]

Ye ok

[sly grove]

As long as you don't have 10000 tracks it'll be fine

[blazing osprey]

But how would I tell?

[urban warren]

Sparse Matrix. Basically a 2D array where each cell is a track.

[blazing osprey]

Ok

I’ll google it

Thanks guys you helped a lot

Guys/girls

[urban warren]

Here is something. http://www.blackbeltcoder.com/Articles/algorithms/creating-a-sparse-matrix-in-net

[blazing osprey]

ok I’ll look when I get home

Thx

[urban warren]

The idea is that each time you place a track you convert it's position to a 2D index, and add it in the sparse matrix. You can then do index.x + 1 to get the track (if any) that is next to it.

[blazing osprey]

Huh that’s smart

Also idk about this assumption but would it also be easier to save player progress with sparse matrix?

[urban warren]

Apposed to? Idk what you would be saving so I can't really say. But it would be better than a 2D array.

[blazing osprey]

Well rn I’m just spawning prefabs I guess that’s not really smart in all aspects

So sparse matrix is better than GOs

[urban warren]

You shouldn't/can't save GameObjects really. Just save the info you need.

[blazing osprey]

Ye

Sorry for late response

I guess since I just started making the fame a week ago I haven’t really been thinking long term

[rapid wolf]

you guys is there any way to get access to the network details in unity?

[vestal heath]

What kind of network details

[undone coral]

i would reimplement grid item dictionary

my guess is that you are moving an object without updating its position in the grid

[undone coral]

use C#'s NetworkX

[rapid wolf]

i know how to get the ip but how do i get stuff like network speeds

[undone coral]

maybe there's something in the asset store to do this

but what's your goal?

[rapid wolf]

Im currently working on a unity powered os

and a network reading for certain things would be a nice touch

[undone coral]

if it's on windows you can read the performance counters for many things

[rapid wolf]

yes

[undone coral]

on linux you can stat files

[rapid wolf]

it is

[undone coral]

there's lots of stuff on google for this 🙂 good luck!

[rapid wolf]

thx ill do my research.

[compact ether]

I've been making some phenomenal progress on my current project, thanks to this Discord. I can't thank all of the regulars on here enough for the help.
I had a question regarding level selection/progression. At the end of my level, I have a quit, restart, and next level button. I want the next level button to obviously go to the next level, but what should I do if there is no next level? Should I run a check to see if my string is valid, and then perhaps either grey out the button or return to the menu? I'm trying to make the script modular, so I could plop it in any level, and also work if I expanded my level count.
Edit: And to add on, is there a way to verify if a level name string is valid before trying to open the scene? Would that just be a null check or something?

[misty glade]

My implementation has this use case covered (so that any external users of the dictionary to store the GridItems don't need to update both the GridItem and the GridItemDictionary) - the GridItemDictionary treats the X,Y lookup as "bad" and rebuilds the X,Y dictionary if it finds/doesn't find an item - see https://pastebin.com/Dd0Pu72z lines 136-166

[misty glade]

I'd probably just not show the button if there is no next level - with .enabled on the game object.

Er, uh, SetEnabled() I believe - i forget the actual property

Are you doing scenes as levels, and the button basically just loads the next scene when pressed?

[undone coral]

i'm saying you have to implement Move(int id, int newX, int newY) on the class

because it sounds like right now you are doing move as

the caller has to remove a grid item, then add the grid item back in

[misty glade]

No.. the client is free to set the grid items x and y.. the container places no faith in the (x,y) lookup dictionary - if it fails to find on that, then it discards rebuilds that dictionary.. clients don't remove/readd grid items to the container

[undone coral]

well, that's why you're getting exceptions

because it's assuming something is immutable that is not

i assume things can move around in your game

[misty glade]

aye, can and do

I'm ... not understanding your stance though... like, my game doesn't assume anything in the container is immutable - in fact it explicitly mutates them constantly

[undone coral]

a cache key is supposed to be immutable

[misty glade]

the container just provides ... extended functionality than List does

[undone coral]

which is why i am encouraging you not to use a cache

not to do that as the pattern

you shouldn't "rebuildcache"

[misty glade]

cache might be a bad word for the pattern I implemented.. maybe lookup table is better?

[undone coral]

you should just set the dictionary's values on Add, Remove and Move

        /// <summary>
        /// Add a single GridItem to the GID.
        /// </summary>
        /// <param name="gridItem"></param>
        public void Add(GridItem gridItem)
        {
            _gridItems.Add(gridItem.Id, gridItem);
            if (_gridItemLookupCache.ContainsKey((gridItem.X, gridItem.Y))) // cache collision
            {
                RebuildCache();
            }
            _gridItemLookupCache.Add((gridItem.X, gridItem.Y), gridItem.Id); // ArgumentException throw is OK - data is corrupted (can't be duplicate X,Y in a Grid).
        }

this is very dubious

it's also where you're getting the exception

[misty glade]

Hm.. I understand that, I'm just not sure I understand why - since the collision/exception is very rare

[undone coral]

everything points to a bug where the caller is mutating grid item

and not update the lookup cache

because it doesn't have to

i can't see if grid item is a struct

[misty glade]

Right.. I mean, the caller doesn't have any info about the lookup cache..

[undone coral]

is grid item a class or a struct?

[misty glade]

it's a class, but could be a struct

[undone coral]

i think you have to write Move on this class

and rewrite it

it is buggy

[misty glade]

    public class GridItem
    {
        public int Id;
        public int X;
        public int Y;
        public GridSquareContents Contents;
        public int DestroyIntoId;
        public int DestroyIntoX;
        public int DestroyIntoY;
        public int ChainId;
        public int CurrentHP; // 
        public int MaxHP;
        public bool C1; // belongs to C1
    }
}```

[undone coral]

you probably have a bug of the form:```
gridItem.x = newX
Remove(gridItem.Id) // wrong
Add(gridItem) // bad

[misty glade]

GridItem is used extensively through the game - the GridItemDictionary is .. a superset of List<GridItem> where I can perform fast random access on X and Y instead of I

[undone coral]

where the Add's error is a red herring

[misty glade]

Hm.. so I "can't" remove an item by X, can only remove by Id

[undone coral]

yes but you see what i'm saying

you mutate it before you remove it or something

i'm trying to tell you what the bug probably is

you have to implement Move on this class, trust me

[misty glade]

Yeah - trying to think it through

[undone coral]

this class needs to be rewritten

i would do something of the form

int Add(gridItem) {
  assert that the grid item's ID is invalid
  assert the position is unoccopied
  assign it an id
  place it
  mutate the grid item's id field
  return the id
}

GridItem Remove(int id) {
  remove the grid item everywhere
  mutate the grid item's id to -1
}

Move(int id, destination) {
  move the grid item
}

etc. etc.

you can maybe make the grid item's x and y location only accessible to this class too

[misty glade]

Thinking on that - that's a possibility but that would require

[undone coral]

that can be a little more cumbersome though

[misty glade]

yup

[undone coral]

anyway you got it 🙂

[misty glade]

X and Y would need to become private setters on GridItem, which I think might be OK since they don't exist with an X and a Y when they aren't on a grid, obviously

But I'm still struggling with the "you have to rewrite this" because I'm not sure what I would change right now on the GID

[undone coral]

yeah

maybe start with the Move

[misty glade]

I'm not seeing what's buggy (yet)

[undone coral]

that will help

and port all the places you move to use Move

[misty glade]

I also sorta don't want to do that - because there's a pretty big refactoring cost to implementing Move

I'm talking a 40k line codebase across 3 libraries

[undone coral]

that should be evidence that you probably have a bug there

[misty glade]

it's not impossible but.. just a big piece of work and I'm not sure the bug is .. there

[undone coral]

somewhere, something is changing the position before Remove

and then the lookupcache will remove the wrong item

[misty glade]

hm.. it can't, though

[undone coral]

why not?

[misty glade]

it only ever removes on Id

[undone coral]

if (_gridItemLookupCache.TryGetValue((gi.X, gi.Y), out int cacheId) == true && cacheId == Id) _gridItemLookupCache.Remove((gi.X, gi.Y));

i don't know, looks like the Ids might be bad too

i guess, that's what's happening right?

i don't know what to say

[misty glade]

Ids are immutable - i could make them explicitly so

[undone coral]

clearly the grid item is being mutated in a toxic way

[misty glade]

Yeah, I mean, you're not wrong, something smells in this general area

I just .. am not sure what

and the fact that it works 99.99% of the time is what's really getting me

Like I can have a session where I play for hundreds of adds/removes/moves without any issue whatsoever

then randomly get this exception

I mean, I've gone as far as overriding ToString to print out what the grid looks like at any given point in time

ie:

        Grid:
                +-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+
                |       |       |  (4)  |  (1)  |       |
                |       |       | ID 12 | ID 16 |       |
                |       |       | CID 0 | CID 0 |       |
                +-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+
                |  (1)  |       |       |  (3)  |       |
                | ID 20 |       |       | ID 18 |       |
                | CID 0 |       |       | CID 0 |       |
                +-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+
                |  (2)  |       |       |       |  (1)  |
                | ID 11 |       |       |       | ID 13 |
                | CID 0 |       |       |       | CID 0 |
                +-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+
                |  (1)  |       |       |  (4)  |       |
                | ID 24 |       |       | ID 14 |       |
                | CID 0 |       |       | CID 0 |       |
                +-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+
                |       |       |       |       |       |
                |       |       |       |       |       |
                |       |       |       |       |       |
                +-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+

which looks amazing if I do say so myself 🙂 🙂 🙂

but so far haven't tracked down any root cause or issue

[compact ether]

Each level is planned to be it's own scene. Just easier for me to implement, or at least I hope so haha.

[misty glade]

yeah that's fine, no problem with that

https://docs.unity3d.com/ScriptReference/SceneManagement.SceneManager.GetSceneByName.html and check for invalid scene

and if so, disable/make-non-interactive your button, depending on your preference

(maybe make a special glowy button that goes to the credits, or something)

[compact ether]

Hey Sharping, how would you personally set up a function to check the validity of the scene I'm trying to load? I'm searching through Unity's documents and some forum posts with pretty inconsistent or dated results. Could I do IsValid(SceneManager.GetActiveScene().buildIndex + 1); ?

[misty glade]

Scene next = SceneManager.GetActiveScene().buildIndex + 1;
if (!next.isValid())
{
 // set the button to inactive/different button/etc
}

https://docs.unity3d.com/ScriptReference/SceneManagement.Scene.html

sorry - isvalid is a method, not a property

[compact ether]

Ah thank you

[misty glade]

edited to add the ()

[compact ether]

So apparently giving us the buildIndex + 1 returns an Int, and is throwing an error error CS1061: 'int' does not contain a definition for 'IsValid' and no accessible extension method 'IsValid'
Mind you I tried both isValid and and IsValid, just incase, with the same result. This is getting silly at this rate, for just wanting some simple functionality.

[misty glade]

i was just copying your code - i don't know the actual call for getting the next scene.. lemme dig for a sec

Scene next = SceneManager.GetSceneByBuildIndex(SceneManager.GetActiveScene().buildIndex + 1);
if (!next.isValid()) { ... }

should work

[compact ether]

Ah, I'll be totally honest, I didn't think Unity would return a dang int for that function haha. If it worked how we thought, it would be golden haha.

[misty glade]

yup.. as always, consult the API docs 🙂

[austere jewel]

It says index, why would it be anything but an int?

[compact ether]

Why comment if you aren't going to be constructive in the slightest?

[austere jewel]

I'm wondering why you would think it would be anything else, I'm not trying to be antagonistic, I want to know

[compact ether]

Because I'm not a good programmer? Is that a good answer for you?

[austere jewel]

That doesn't have any explanatory power, so no

[compact ether]

Good lord, how are you a mod lol

[austere jewel]

Are you alright? I just want to understand your mindset, you're not being attacked here. It helps me to know why you would think something like that so I can help others

[untold moth]

I'd like to point that "I'm not a good programmer" is not a great excuse to use in #archived-code-advanced 😅

[compact ether]

Here's my thought process. I would think it would return the string name corresponding to the index number. So say index number 10 is "Scene10", so the function would just return that string name, considering you use strings for most of the Scenemanagement API to work. It would just make it easier for both new users and seasoned users to program.

Unity API is either really friendly, or a bit convoluted, and thus far, the scene management is a bit wonky.

[austere jewel]

Sadly that'd make it more difficult, because then you would have to parse the outcome into an int any time you wanted to perform any maths.
The API is certainly a bit fucky though, you would think you could use a SceneAsset to handle all this, but it's an editor-only thing

So you've got to use buildIndex (ints,) or by name (strings,) to get Scene structs (something you cannot construct without the API). It's certainly jank 😄

[broken socket]

He has a website with helpful troubleshooting content for most common Unity misunderstandings. So like he said he tries to genuinely understand people's mindset facing such problems as you had.
No harm intended :)

[static coyote]

What is the best way to do networking these days?

[broken socket]

"Best" way is always related to context. Describe your project in #archived-networking , then maybe you'll get a satisfying answer

[ebon obsidian]

Is this a good place to talk about TextMeshProUG2D?

I tried my question in 2d-code and got crickets lol

I guess I'll try here

[devout hare]

You'll get the same crickets here. People who know most about 2d code are in that channel.

Just be patient, this is a slow time here because it's the middle of the night in US

[ebon obsidian]

this is really about how the text system works and weird rules about setting up fonts. Like the little bit I could find makes it seem like the font system in unity is a bit persnickity

[ebon obsidian]

fair enough

[kindred tusk]

Do you mean TextMeshProUGUI?

[kindred tusk]

The outline is part of the material, you will need to have the right kind of shader applied. But why not set it up in the inspector instead of code?

Then you can just swap the material out as required.

[ebon obsidian]

yes

[ebon obsidian]

because I am modding

[kindred tusk]

Rough. Okay, well I don't know about those methods.

My guess is that that material doesn't support outlines

        /// <summary>
        /// Sets the thickness of the outline of the font. Setting this value will result in an instance of the material.
        /// </summary>
        public float outlineWidth
        {
            get
            {
                if (m_sharedMaterial == null) return m_outlineWidth;

                m_outlineWidth = m_sharedMaterial.GetFloat(ShaderUtilities.ID_OutlineWidth);
                return m_outlineWidth;
            }
            set { if (m_outlineWidth == value) return; SetOutlineThickness(value); m_havePropertiesChanged = true; m_outlineWidth = value; SetVerticesDirty(); }
        }
        protected float m_outlineWidth = 0.0f;

This is the source

But TMP developers are advised to use the mobile shaders which do not have outline support.

If so you fix it by assigning the correct shader to the newly created material/

[cosmic tendon]

Anyone have idea how to make the MathF.Sin to be added to Y transfom because it starts makes Y = 0

when i add the + Y to the amp it just made it go crazy

[flint sage]

Because it's a feedback loop

[junior sorrel]

Hello epic devs
I'm working on a mobile game(In PlayStore) but I want to test the leaderboard without actually uploading it to PlayStore instead I want to test it in my phone when I install it using the APK

The issue I'm going through is when I install the game on my phone using the APK the authentication to google play isn't working, so leaderboard won't work.
I am sure the leaderboard works because when I install the game from play store but won't work from installing it from the APK

How can I solve this problem?
Please tag me onReply