Computer Related – Panda Mallet

September 4, 2020

VR Random Dungeon

It has struck me recently while diving deep in TLS RFCs that it would be kind of fun to build a VR random dungeon generator inspired by the old AD&D dungeon master’s guide random dungeon generator.

It would be comparatively simple to code and would be a blast from the past and provide an interesting sense of scale to some of those old ten foot wide corridors and massive rooms.

Not sure I’ll ever get around to putting the necessary effort in, but who knows I might one day be able to walk the halls of an old school random dungeon of my own creation 🙂

August 23, 2019

Game of life

Thinking that a VR game of life implementation might be fun and relatively straightforward. Perhaps on a sphere would be even more interesting…closed universe.

Also wondering whether a three dimensional version could be jugged together.

More of a fun toy than a real game, but perhaps fun to play with.

Need to think about how to map the quantized grid from a flat version into spherical layouts. Might make sense to do something with continuous placement with volumetric cells that bump aside any too close and attract cells that are near enough to aggregate. Would be similar but a bit different.

Orbital Simulation

Playing with a setup where masses could be placed in three dimensional space and then items released and run the simulation forward.

Could be fun to play with looking at the orbital mechanics issues .

Could move forward to a game where orbital combat is run through. Place vessels with real-ish engines and weapons. Implement UI and interaction to manage motion and allow planning and execution of maneuvers .

August 23, 2019

Missile Command Inspired VR

Interesting way to play with VR UI approaches if taken moderately seriously

The player is standing on the ground with a dark sky overhead. Controllers are used to cue weapons fire.

Inbounds are shown with location, trails showing previous track and various information attached as they move…possibly current velocity and acceleration vectors attached.

Player points at desired target and cues in a weapons system on that target (or targets sensors perhaps to gain more information)

Could be a fun thing to play with.

July 10, 2019July 10, 2019

Cluster – RESTful APIs

As part of building the front-end to the shared web side aspect of the cluster game, I’m starting to lay out the RESTful interface to the database at the back-end of the server side.

I’m looking at several main categories using query parameters to filter results on aggregate areas.

players
Returns a list of player names and ids. Details of a specific player can be retrieved (and changed) by accessing the player by player id as a sub-resource. Permissions do apply here…a normal player can only view or edit the details for their own information. An administrator can view and change information for any player.
- id (immutable after creation)
- name – Unique, human readable user name
- email
- is email public
- password (settable only)
- active
- date joined
- date last activity
games
Returns a list of games in the database. With query parameters this can return games containing only a selected player or players, games that are in progress and perhaps other subsets of all stored games. Details of a specific game may be retrieved by game id. For normal players, only the details that their player identity has access to may be retrieved. For developers all details are visible and subject to modification.
- id
- player ids
- turns
  One entry for each turn in the game so far. All open if the game is completed otherwise only information visible to this user is present.
  - turn number
  - units list
    - unit id
    - unit type
      ship type, planetary resource type, population
    - location type
      space or system or planet
    - location
    - player id
  - technology list
    - players
      - player id
      - technology id
      - level
      - investment
  - moves list
    - players
- current turn
- moves submitted
  (may be part of the turns container)
- active
- created
- completed
- final scores if completed
- stars
options
Options that relate to new games being started. Global lists (start information, admiral information and such). Generally these will only impact newly created games. Selected items may affect all games.
audit
Audit log recording changes made using administrative privileges.

July 9, 2019July 9, 2019

Cluster Game Moves

Overview

Turn based multi-player
Internet based shared state
Once all player moves for a turn are complete, the turn is executed
Strategic level
Non-interactive combat resolution a the end of the turn

Units

Scout ships
Small, unarmed vessels with unlimited range used to gather information.
Colony transports
Large vessels that only exist to transport a group of colonists to a new star. Once the colonists debark, the transport ceases to exist as its parts are used to support the new colony.
Escort
Small interstellar armed vessel
Assault ship
Medium sized interstellar armed vessel
Capital ship
Largest interstellar armed vessel
Defense platform
Small defense system dedicated to the defense of a single planet. Combat equivalent to an escort.
System defense boat
Medium sized system defense vessel. Equivalent to an assault ship in combat. May be used in defense of any planet in a single system.
Factory
Production facility on a given planet. Increases output of one unit of population based on the level of factory technology that has been developed.
Robotic Industry
Production facility that operates without an accompanying population unit.

Basic Turn Mechanics

Spend on building ships
Spend on building facilities
Transfer population to colony transports
Form ships into fleets and break ships out of fleets (if at a star)
Spend on technology buys

Movement Mechanics

Scout ships can move independently and over unlimited distance
Unarmed ships that are not escorted may be destroyed on entry into a new system
Without hyperwave technology, fleets always continue to their destination system
Fleets never encounter each other in open space
Fleets move at the current guidance velocity for their side
Fleets are destroyed if they move beyond guidance range of all of their side’s beacons
Ships that aren’t scouts can only move as part of a fleet
Every fleet must have an admiral assigned to it
One ship with an admiral can be a fleet
When a fleet enters its destination system it ceases movement

Combat Mechanics

If fleets from different players are at the same star then combat will occur
Combat ends when a system contains only ships from one side in a system
Planets with defense platforms may be reduced by attacking and destroying those platforms or interned.
Production on planets that aren’t interned becomes available to the controlling player after some delay
The owning player may perform planetary bombardment to reduce planetary population. This eliminates one unit of population capacity for every unit of population removed. Likely only relevant if you expect the enemy to reclaim the system soon.

April 5, 2019April 8, 2019

Experimenting with Commercial MoCap

Configuring Eye cameras here.

Playing with the evaluation version of this.

Malcolm and I spent part of Friday experimenting with an evaluation version of a commercial motion capture package. I now have six PS3 Eye cameras and my VR machine has enough USB-3 ports and controllers installed to run them.

Our initial setup had three or four cameras attached and used the room lighting (pretty bright, ceiling mounted LED lights) for illumination. Initial results weren’t great but over the rest of the day we learned a few things.

Need a more contrasty background and a less cluttered background. The bookcases behind the area we were using were better when covered with a piece of white fabric. The tan rug on the floor was less of a problem when the model put on black socks.
Hands really aren’t handled by the package. No big surprise here as hands and fingers are rather small targets for these cameras.
More lighting is better. I added two diffused studio lights I have around and a high intensity three light halogen light bar and things became more precise.
A larger and more diffuse calibration target seemed to work better.
Sliding the calibration beacon along the floor with periodic stops seemed to work better than touching it to the floor. This makes all floor level reference spots about equal (when I was touching it down, it took a little work to make sure we had the lowest spot in each arc).
Aligning the reference person with the human figure in the images at the start helped quite a bit. The tool didn’t seem to do a very good job of this without manual help.

By the end of the session, we seemed to be getting a pretty good capture of arms and legs. Feet could still be a bit twitchy.

Malcolm is going to look at 3D printing mounting clips to attach the PS3 Eye cameras to light stands for more stability.

I ordered a couple of spare cameras to ensure that we don’t come up short if any of them fail and a couple of PCIe USB-3 cards to supplement USB controller availability.

Overall things turned out pretty well and I think we learned a bit more about making motion capture without dedicated beacons work decently. The price of the package is high enough that even a short time license would need us to have some substantial amount of motion capture to get done in order to make things make sense.

Blender

Unity

Game of life

Orbital Simulation

Overview

Units

Basic Turn Mechanics

Movement Mechanics

Combat Mechanics

System Data

Player Data

Game Data

Turn Data