Josh

Josh · May 4, 2011

To make an entity appear on all clients, you would call this:

entity->Sync(server)

That entity will be sent to all clients, and whatever happens on the server is reflected on all clients.

Entities within maps get a little tricky. You'll have stuff like a door you put in the scene you will want the server to control. I am thinking we'll have a checkbox that makes an entity in a map networked when checked.

Partial syncing of a single entity isn't possible; the server controls synced entities, and a given entity is either synced or it isn't.

April 23, 2011

I think InMotion is competing with, and in the same league as, GoDaddy and the other cheap hosts. Like GoDaddy, they have more expensive options, but their primary focus is on expanding and getting people to open up their $6 hosting for their blog. They're very well-rated, and probably the best of the bottom-of-the-barrel competitors, but I think their reputation is probably based on affiliate link sites. Our service with them was not cheap, but the fact they even offer budget hosting means they are focused on low-quality expansion. It would be like if Mercedes started selling an economy car.

I'm leaning towards WiredTree at the moment. They don't do any low-cost hosting, which presumably means real businesses are their primary focus, and the speed tests we tried are giving good results.

I appreciate the offers from several members here for hosting, but I would prefer to keep that separate. Things often go wrong so I'd like to keep the web hosting company a separate entity that can be ditched if need be.

April 21, 2011

I'm just waiting for the next formulaic response so I can ask them what they think of having a backup system with a 100.0% failure rate (3 out of 3, so far).

April 21, 2011

The robotic responses I get are maddening. "we're sorry but this backup does not contain any databases. If you have any other backups you would like us to restore we'll be happy to try them".

April 21, 2011

It's InMotion Hosting. They're a very well rated host that is supposed to specialize in business hosting, which is why I chose them. I'm paying $75 a month for a virtual private server. The speed and everything else has been great, until now. Got a call this evening, but it doesn't sound like they have anything else to try. I don't know if anyone is working on the problem or what they are attempting. I think they just look at it as "oh well, that's only one customer that might not renew, no big deal". If their normal protocol is to only run daily backups, and only on sites with less than 10 gb, and all the backups I saved don't actually contain the data in question, then there is nowhere that data could be retrieved from.

April 20, 2011

Thank you Herbert. I am aware of this option. I chose full website backups because I thought it would give a better snapshot of the server at any particular time, the description says it includes MySQL databases, and tech support told me it would include those. I know how to save individual databases, but I didn't know the full website backup didn't actually work. If I had known that, it would have been simple to just save the database individually.

April 20, 2011

Well, sometimes this sort of thing just happens. Data is lost and that's it. Hopefully this serves as a reminder to rest of us to backup our stuff.*cough* stuff... I really must set up my own backup system.Hmm, what is a good way to backup mysql stuff?

You should be fine if you just create a backup of the individual database. CPanel full website backup obviously can't be trusted. If it's really important, I would do a test restore on a second server just to make sure the data you are saving can actually be restored.

April 20, 2011

Why is the documentation lost? Was there only an online copy?

It was created and edited online, but I've been making lots of backups. The problem is the backups don't do what they say they do. There are no options in CPanel to include only parts of a full backup. It's explicit about what it includes, and tech support assured me on two separate occasions the databases would be saved. So I felt pretty good about using it. Even if one archive somehow got corrupted, I had full backups going back for months.

The user data lost is very important. This isn't just a forum. People rely on it to host a lot of images, files, and their writing. I hope the protocols I enact will convince them to trust the site again with their data. I'll talk to my uncle about what steps should be taken.

My hosting company is actually very highly rated and not cheap, and they've done everything else very well. I won't mention their name for now, but they seemed remarkably unconcerned about this. Their reaction was "Hmmmm, that's interesting, I don't know why the databases aren't being saved."

April 20, 2011

I am copying files off a USB hard drive right now. It will take hours, and it is 1 AM in California, so I am going to sleep. If I am able to locate any copy of the database it will be good, but it seems very likely to me the CPanel full site backup has been failing to save databases this whole time.

April 20, 2011

Thanks, but they're all slow. The files are 12 gb each.

April 20, 2011

Yes. I have the files that were uploaded, but they take some effort to identify because they are just randomly named with no extensions. The application is reinstalled and I can set everything back, but the data in the system is gone. I know, when I realized what had happened I was shocked and devastated. Now you guys are all feeling that.

I am looking through the backup archives, but since the most recent two did not contain databases, it seems likely CPanel just never saved them.

If anyone can recommend a fast .tar.gz viewer, I'd appreciate it. I'm using WinRAR to view them and it's really slow.

April 20, 2011

You should be able to restore the sql databases through phpMyAdmin with your full backup. Create blank database the same name and import the .sql file for the database from the mysql folder in your full backup, also import the mysql.sql from the root of the backup this adds the user privileges.You may be able to import into the the current databases your using now but I have always started from and empty one.

I should, but the full backups aren't full backups. They are all missing the databases, even though they are supposed to include them. Otherwise this would be no big deal.

All developers' accounts have been reinstated. Email support at leadwerks dot com if you cannot log into your account using your registration key as the password (you can change this to whatever you want).

April 20, 2011

It's really my fault. For something this important, I should have assumed the backup system would fail.

Josh · November 8, 2010

Although...

Since the most complex controls have to be created from scratch to get them to do what I want, it would be fairly simple to code the simpler ones like buttons, and have complete control of the color scheme...

Josh · November 8, 2010

It will use the native GUI on each OS. If you do not like that, your complaint is with your OS, and you should get a Mac.

Seriously though, back in the XP days I thought for sure the next logical step would be more customization so you can make dark themes that actually look good, and allow each window to control its own colors, but then Steve Ballmer came along and blinged the OS up.

Josh · November 8, 2010

Very curious how smooth Leadwerks will make the process in the end. Will the editor detect changes to model/texture/physics/etc files since the window was last active and update the active world automatically? That would be pretty handy.

The editor already detects changes to all asset files in real-time and will reload them automatically.

DaveLee · November 2, 2010

The scene was posted on the forum a while ago.

Josh · November 2, 2010

You are right, early design is very important and can make your life easyer later.

If LE3 code is platform-agnostic it's mainly because of the new driver architecture for opengl, directx, ... right ? This provides flexibility, it's a good thing, so why not do the same for physics and have a 'driver' abstration layer that would allow to implement both newton and bullet ?

The physics is being implemented as an abstract physics driver class as well. I have worked in great depth with Newton, and have done some work with PhysX. I do not know how feasible it is to implement an abstract command set because of fundamental difference in the way the different libraries work. I'm sure it would work well for rigid bodies and simple things, but I won't know how comparable more complex things are until I start working with them. I only want to provide official support for one physics library. If other people want to do their own, that's an option.

Bullet has good features and seems to have better cross-platform support than PhysX. PhysX has GPU acceleration on NVidia cards right now, and brand recognition. Newton is the best for basic rigid bodies, but it seems like progress in its development has stopped. I'll have to research them more before I make a decision.

Josh · November 1, 2010

Microsoft keyboard (and mouse) on the last picture (native mac keyboard in the background). You should upload the picture to mac websites... They'd like it...

Does the keyboard say "Keyboard" on the under side? We had Mac Pros at uni those ones did. They also had the word "Mouse" on the under side of the mouse. Did they really think no one would recognise what they were?

It just has an apple on the back side. So does the mouse, so they match now.

The green light is my Android phone plugged into it.

Josh · October 27, 2010

It's a frightening thing when Pancake's suggestions start making it into the core engine design.

Josh · October 26, 2010

There's a chat system built in with that functionality with whisper, team messages, etc. You can also send raw data you interpret yourself. I intend to support file transfers, although that part I have not tried yet. Everything else has been prototyped.

A context is like a LE2 graphics window or custom buffer. It's a 3D window so you can draw stuff. Instead of calling BackBuffer() to render to a context, like in LE2, the Context class is an extension of the Buffer class. So you can render directly to the Context or to a Buffer. This cleans up the Graphics/Window/Custom buffer scheme and easily allows rendering to external windows:

1. Create a window.

2. Create a context on window (or on any HWND object).

3. Create a buffer.

4. Render to buffer.

5. Draw buffer image on context with post effects.

Josh · October 26, 2010

Networking is as easy as this:

server->BroadcastEntity( Entity )

And then all changes to the entity will be sent out around the network.

Josh · October 26, 2010

My experience from the feedback I have received from a lot of potential customers is that programming has mostly failed as a game design medium. For every programmer out there, there are ten non-programmers who just want to drag some pre-made objects into a scene and watch it go. Furthermore, there is a big difference between being able to type a simple program out and being able to structure a game. Even if you can code the structure of a game so that objects interact with one another in meaningful ways, you have by then specialized your code so much you are alone, and can't share anything with other programmers.

Having said that, I don't think anyone has designed a system yet that gets around this problem without turning into Grandma's Game Maker 3D. That is, when you make things easy, you usually get underpowered cookie-cutter results.

The system I have in mind still allows low-level programming and per-objects scripts, but provides a visual mechanism to connect objects in meaningful ways. It's good for non-programmers because it allows them to make something. It's good for programmers because it allows them to share scripted objects and provide their services to non-programmers for small tasks. For example, you can make a scripted door object, sell it on the site here (soon) and a non-programmer can drop it in their scene and connect the open/close functionality to other objects, like a button. There does not have to be any code-based scheme for making these items interact. Instead there will be an officially supported method of structuring this, so everyone's items will work together.

This means your skills are more marketable, and it is easier to connect people with programming skills to people who want to pay for useful results when they need special items coded. In other words, we can all work together better as a unit to help one another and produce useful results.

The interactions system won't take too much time to implement because it is pretty abstract and simple. The more time consuming part will be creating a library of scripts to attach to entities, but I can hire someone else to do most of that.

If you just want to program a pure C++ game there is nothing to prevent that.

Shard · October 21, 2010

I like the curriculum at Devry. Very strong emphasis on math, and I would like to work with them more in the future.

Josh · October 19, 2010

Ah okay, seems my 9600GT only supports upto openGL 2.1 I need to upgrade XD

Anything above a GEForce 7 series supports OpenGL 3.3, including your card.

That model looks nothing like a citizen

I'm coming up short on puns today.

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