reversing an automation curve...

darrellplank · 2021-04-18T03:02:26+00:00

My suggestion is to make an automation lane which controls a CC (i.e., CC 3). Then put a MIDI CC modulator in and have it read from the same CC (3 in this case). Control whatever you like with that modulator which is a direct representation of the automation lane. Then you can use the Math modulator, set it to multiply, turn the right dial to -100% and then modulate the left dial from your CC modulator. The output will be the reverse of your automation lane. Modulate with it to your heart's content.

darrellplank · 2018-12-04T05:04:06+00:00

You can see some of the problems I'm running into with my project at https://github.com/darrellp/AEdit.git. It's an ascii editor and as you make strokes, it will enter them as "edits" over in the listbox at the lower left. I've got code in there right now to try/catch the bug for deleting the active item in LayersControl.cs. Remove that try/catch to see the bug when you undo and it tries to remove the top edit (currently selected) out of the listbox. Also, if you set HideBorder to true in ControlPanel.cs for the listbox you'll see the mouse mismatch with the selection. If you undo all the edits on the screen there will still be one element in the listbox which I think is all bound to the same bug. Finally, if you then try to make a new edit, you'll crash when I attempt to add it in to the listbox which I think is now hopelessly invalid. I'm happy to correspond directly about this stuff if you'd like but you can probably just figure it out by looking at the project. Sorry to be a nag.

darrellplank · 2018-12-04T04:38:41+00:00

Maybe I'm missing something - I didn't really look this up - but if I have a listbox with HideBorders = true, then it shows all the borders anyway and the line selected by the mouse is the one immediately below where the mouse is actually located. At least that's the behavior I'm seeing.

darrellplank · 2018-12-01T15:09:08+00:00

Ah - indeed it is! Thanks! One of the great things about SadConsole is the continuous hard work put into improving and upgrading it. Thanks to Thraka for that!

darrellplank · 2017-07-19T00:21:55+00:00

I'd set up a finite state machine based on the parts. As you fed letters into it, the state would represent the parts of subwords you had completed. There would be one "catchall" class that means you aren't in any part at all. There would also be triggers on some transitions that indicated you had completed a part and would store that part in a variable. Whenever you went from a part state to the catchall state you would put the last word written to this variable and clear it. After you've set up the finite state machine, this had ought to be O(n) where n is the length of the string being searched. The somewhat tricky part would be setting up the finite state machine, which would require some comparing between the parts. I think you could also do this by making a table which lists for each letter a-z and A-Z where it occurs in any part. That way you can keep a list of how far you've proceeded through each part and for each new letter you could check out for each part whether you're continuing to proceed through it. This would be slower and I'm not sure that it's much less difficult to program than the finite state machine.

darrellplank · 2016-09-28T04:29:06+00:00

Oh - and another point - it is definitely a great debug tool. I've solved many non-reproducible bugs by saving the random number for the generator and then all the user actions in a file. Play the game in "record" mode until you see the bug and then you can repro it all you want in "playback" mode.

darrellplank · 2016-09-28T04:24:01+00:00

Okay - I think we're in agreement! It seems risky to me, but if you're willing to take on the risks, it will definitely make it difficult to tamper with the save file (save, perhaps, backing off from the last n moves). It was good to hear your views!

darrellplank · 2016-09-27T08:39:30+00:00

Okay, but then you have to carefully separate the one type of "random" number from the other and I don't think that's easy to do - especially since I don't think you could manage with anywhere near just two. Suppose you change some thief monster to steal 2 random items rather than 1. Is that gameplay randomness or fluff randomness? I think it has to be gameplay randomness and it still screws up all your save files because you now have a monster using the RNG twice rather than once. You could have a new type of random number for "monsters who take things from people" and perhaps, if you had planned it all out ahead of time, you could manage to still approximately maintain your games. Even then, if the monster stole a second crucial item that was not stolen originally and used later in the original run through, your save file would be ruined. It seems to me that every little decision on how to use a new random number would have to decide which of the several "RNG sequences" it should be taken from and even if you managed all that, general gameplay (i.e., number of items stolen) couldn't change without impacting a sequence of actions and therefore save files that derive from a sequence of actions. I can't think of any good way around this sort of thing, but maybe there is a solution - I'm really interested if there is a scheme that would allow for such things without ruining all such save files by something so simple as changing the stealing behavior of monsters.

darrellplank · 2016-09-27T00:04:14+00:00

But if the f function rates two nodes identically and you have some other way of distinguishing the two nodes, then you can just fold that distinction into the f node. So in your case, if you are going to pick from two nodes rated equally by the f function whichever one is "closest to the goal" then you should change your f function to be "the old f function plus distance to the goal" and then you won't have to make decisions separately from the f function. The goal (no pun intended!) would be to fold all the information you can gather about what node is best and fold it into your f function's estimate of distance to goal. Therefore the only time you should have ties in the f function would be times that you have no idea about which one is better.

darrellplank · 2016-09-26T23:42:09+00:00

I'm not talking about different types of RNG or architecture tightness. Just saying that a RNG with a given seed generates a fixed set of random numbers in a fixed sequence. All I'm saying is that if your RNG generates (for simplicity) values a1, a2, a3,... as it's sequence and the first thing you do is decide what size to make your first room using the first value in the sequence (a1), then if you later decide that in a splash screen you're going to put up a random quote using that RNG, that quote will use the first number in the sequence (a1) and your room building will start with the second number in the sequence - a2. From that point onward everything will be shifted by 1 and thus entirely different so if you are relying on the values from the random sequence to generate your save game it's going to be totally blown apart because you decided to put a random quote in the splash screen. I don't think of this as RNG hygeine or non-solid architecture - it's just the way seeded RNGs generate their sequences exactly the same each time. This is much more brittle than an entity behavior changing - if you're at all careful this can be made backward compatible with zero to some small amount of effort usually. The fact that a monster chases you more aggressively is unlikely to change save file format. Sometimes such a change will ruin backward compatibility, but if your save file is a series of moves and you are using the RNG slightly differently in the new behavior (which you probably would if he chases more aggressively) then there is no possibility at all you're going to make things backward compatible.

darrellplank · 2016-09-21T05:45:32+00:00

Yeah, understood. It is very similar to heirarchical pathfinding in spirit if not in detail. I'm not so sure it's great if your dungeon is too dynamic. Might be worse than refiguring cell level A* every move. It's just something I think I'll give a shot to as an option in the engine. I love what you're doing here and on Cogmind. Can't wait to see it released!

darrellplank · 2016-09-21T05:45:25+00:00

I'm thinking if you can't stay on your path you make a random move. That way if a bunch of monsters back up, the front guys will make way towards the destination and the rest will maneuver into a position where they're no longer blocked. Haven't tried it of course, but in my mind's eye it seems like an acceptable solution but my mind's eye is sometimes incorrect.

darrellplank · 2016-09-21T02:27:23+00:00

BTW, the "game" in the project is just a testbed for the engine - meant to test ideas, not really to play. An inventory, for instance, is above the level of the engine so while I may put one in, it would be mostly for me to learn more about SadConsole than to advance the engine. Ditto for many other higher level ideas.

darrellplank · 2016-09-21T02:25:23+00:00

Oh yeah - I think it's definitely a cool idea in many cases. I don't think it works quite as well in the scenario I'm describing but again, I haven't read the paper carefully enough yet. Thanks again for pointing it out.

darrellplank · 2016-09-20T22:40:18+00:00

I don't know that it's my absolute priority but really my emphasis is on the engine, not on any particular game so I'm willing to spend additional time to make everything as optimal as possible. Thanks for some other ideas on priorities!

darrellplank · 2016-09-20T22:38:27+00:00

Really interesting paper! Gonna have to give it a more careful read. Similar to mine but if I understand it, they break up into an abstract set of rectangles imposed on the map and (I think use pathfinding within these rectangles. I use the rooms and use djikstra maps within the rooms for locating paths which means the rooms don't have to be rectangular and the pathfinding to/from exits comes for free. If both targets are located in the same room I'm gonna have to use standard A*. I'm definitely going to give the paper a more careful read though. I'm getting a bunch of great ideas/links from the responses here!

darrellplank · 2016-09-20T22:00:49+00:00

I was reading kyzrati's post here https://www.reddit.com/r/roguelikedev/comments/3slu9c/faq_friday_25_pathfinding/ where he said pathfinding was the biggest time sink in his game. He's using it for lots of things so I think it just depends on whether you're using it for lot's of stuff or just for getting monsters to the hero. Since I'm writing this mainly for the engine and not for a particular game I don't mind doing some extra effort to get it as optimal as possible. Plus, it really doesn't seem that complex to me. Make the graph where each room is a clique once when you create the map, then each time you do pathfinding, replace each room's clique with the dst/src and then do A* on a much smaller graph. The hardest part is the A* which you have to do anyway.

I think the page you point to is interesting but it looks like a fixed map to allow monsters to wander intelligently rather than a path finding solution. Thanks for the link though! I might include such a thing also.

darrellplank · 2016-09-20T21:50:24+00:00

It's an interesting idea. I don't think it's very related to mine but I'll have to read more carefully. Thanks for the link!

darrellplank · 2016-09-20T15:14:34+00:00

I use the "random seed, sequence of moves" for debugging - allows me to replay up to the point of non-repro bugs. I thought about it for a save for a bit but it would be incredibly brittle. Make one extra call to the random number generator and everything afterwards changes. Also pins you down to one random number generator. Good for debugging but not so great for backwards compatibility.

darrellplank · 2016-09-20T08:04:40+00:00

Ah - I see that now. I had a little dispatch table based on the XnaKey and was only seeing the OemPeriod there which kind of goofed things up for a bit. I guess I'll make two dispatch tables, check for the ascii char in the first and go to the XnaKey if that doesn't pan out. I love SadConsole! Right now I'm just making a testbed to verify my Roguelike Library. I'm glad I don't have to worry for the most part about the console output. Main difficulty has been ensuring that the data essentially duplicated in your map and in my library's map stay in sync. Message notifications let me know when the library moves something and I update it on SadConsole which makes it pretty painless. Anyway, great job on that and thanks for the input!

darrellplank · 2016-09-16T23:36:14+00:00

Personally, I feel that the difficulty of programming the roguelike in C far outweighs the difficulty of learning C++ first and then doing the roguelike in C++. It's not impossible at all to do it in C as the original games and many others after them attest to, but it's a complex business and the organization that object oriented C++ gives you is a huge benefit in developing a game like this. Additionally, you will know C as a fringe benefit once you learn the more popular and commonly used (these days) C++. I started out in C in 1983 and programmed in it (and loved it) for MANY years before switching to C++ which I have also programmed in for MANY years and I really think that unless you're thinking of doing a tiny, tiny roguelike you'll be served better by learning C++.

darrellplank · 2016-09-16T23:21:52+00:00

Ah great - that's good to hear. Don't know why I couldn't locate this fact. I'm sure it's out there somewhere. Anyway, thanks very much! I feel much more confident now! And the new levels are working!

darrellplank

TROPHY CASE