The new C++11 standard includes a nice new feature called range-based for. The syntax allows for simple and quick iteration over ranges, such as containers. Usage looks like so: for (int& x : my_container) { do_something_with(i); } Pretty handy. Unfortunately, this new feature is not supported in MSVC 2010. In fact, very few C++11 [...]
String libraries have been a frequent topic of conversation lately. There’s a lot of things wrong with the C++ standard’s implementation, a lot of missing functionality, and a lot of discussion about the best ways to fix it or work around it. I’m going to go over a few suggestions that I and my fellow [...]
I have written a small demo (tested in GCC 4.6) showing how to get compile-time hashing of a string literal in C++0x.
Just a few years ago, we had it easy. Optimizing a game engine was all about low-level code. Machine optimizations. Instruction counts. Black magic mathematics. As technology rolled on, however, things got more complicated. CPUs got faster while memory stayed slow, invalidating many optimization techniques relying on tables and pre-computed values while new optimizations involving [...]
To say that the object-oriented programming paradigm is the most popular and widely supported method of creating software today would be an extreme under-statement. Not only entire sets of tools but entire organizational development processes are built around the object-oriented model. The popularity of languages like C++, Java, C#, and other object-oriented languages has skyrocketed [...]
I’ve lately been working on a few projects which — sadly — are just a reinvention of the wheel. A large reason for this is that the code quality of a number of Open Source projects I could have used are very low, or the project libraries are massive in size and harmful to game [...]
Over the last few days, an instructor and I have been discussing the merits of Lua, Python, JavaScript, and a few other popular scripting languages for their use in game engines. The predominant king of the field right now is certainly Lua, as can even be evidenced in part by my prior posts on the [...]
As a quick suggestion, I recommend that anyone interested in game design and mechanics with familiarity with D&D 3E take a look at Bad Axe Games’ Trailblazer PDF. The crew at Bad Axe has done a very thorough breakdown of the core mechanics of D&D 3E with a focus on what makes the system tick [...]
I just wrote my first Windows installer for our Sophomore game project using Inno Setup. Inno Setup is a free scriptable installer builder. You will need to edit the install script to get the desired behavior, unlike some tools that can do just about everything with a GUI interface, but the script is quite easy [...]