Image File Formats – Knox Game Design, April 2021

April 19, 2021Meetings and Presentations, PodcastKnoxville Game Design

Comparison of file types for holding image data for textures and sprites in games. File types include BMP, GIF, PNG, JPEG, SVG, TIFF, TGA, PCX, HEIC, and WebP. Properties include transparency, compression, lossy vs lossless, and file size. Demonstration of how to programmatically decode and encode PNG files. Compatibility of image files with four game engines (Unity, Unreal Engine, Godot Engine, GameMaker).

Ruby code for PNG analyzer / generator – https://github.com/levidsmith/ImageAnalyzer

Upcoming Events

Ludum Dare 48 is Friday April 23-26, 2021. Meet with us at The Kitchen at Crafter’s Brew in Oak Ridge for a Ludum Dare kickoff at 7pm Eastern Time on Friday April 23, 2021. For more information on Ludum Dare see ldjam.com. If you make a game, let us know on our Discord channel and we will add it to the website!

Updated Games by Knox Developers

Roguely by Frank – https://github.com/frankhale/Roguely

Gomen-Nasai by Levi – https://levidsmith.com/games/gomen-nasai/

Links and Notes

BMP specification at File Format – https://docs.fileformat.com/image/bmp/
BMP specification at Library of Congress – https://www.loc.gov/preservation/digital/formats/fdd/fdd000189.shtml
GIF specification at W3C – https://www.w3.org/Graphics/GIF/spec-gif89a.txt
PNG specification at W3C – https://www.w3.org/TR/PNG/
Zlib compression – https://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc1950.txt
JPEG specification at JPEG.org – https://jpeg.org/jpeg/index.html
SVG specification at W3C – https://www.w3.org/Graphics/SVG/
TIFF specification at Adobe – https://www.adobe.io/open/standards/TIFF.html
TGA specification at File Format – https://docs.fileformat.com/image/tga/
Gimp – https://www.gimp.org/
Aseprite – https://www.aseprite.org/
Inkscape – https://inkscape.org/
Image file format comparison at Gimp – https://www.gimp.org/tutorials/ImageFormats/
Theme music – Ride by Pocketmaster

Hosted by Levi D. Smith

Knox Game Design

Image File Formats - Knox Game Design, April 2021

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Sorting – Knox Game Design, March 2021

March 21, 2021Meetings and Presentations, PodcastKnoxville Game Design

Overview of comparison of data types, sorting algorithms, and run times. Demonstration of sorting in Unity with C#, GameMaker with GML, Godot with GDScript, Unreal Engine with C++, and Pico-8 with Lua. For each game development environment, examples are shown for sorting integers, character strings (words), and a custom object type.

Example code – https://github.com/levidsmith/SortingDemos

Links and Notes

Sound of Sorting – https://panthema.net/2013/sound-of-sorting/
Big Theta – https://stackoverflow.com/questions/10376740/what-exactly-does-big-%d3%a8-notation-represent#12338937
C# IComparable – https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/api/system.icomparable-1?view=net-5.0
GML array_Sort – https://manual.yoyogames.com/GameMaker_Language/GML_Reference/Variable_Functions/array_sort.htm
Godot Array – https://docs.godotengine.org/en/latest/classes/class_array.html
Unreal Engine TArray Sort – https://docs.unrealengine.com/en-US/ProgrammingAndScripting/ProgrammingWithCPP/UnrealArchitecture/TArrays/index.html
Pico-8 table sorting – https://www.lexaloffle.com/bbs/?pid=50453
Introduction to Algorithms by Cormen, Leiserson, and Rivest – https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/introduction-algorithms-third-edition
Unity – https://unity.com/
GameMaker – https://www.yoyogames.com/en/gamemaker
Godot Engine – https://godotengine.org/
Unreal Engine – https://www.unrealengine.com/en-US/
Pico-8 – https://www.lexaloffle.com/pico-8.php
Theme music – Ride by Pocketmaster

Hosted by Levi D. Smith

Knox Game Design

Sorting - Knox Game Design, March 2021

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Mazes – Knox Game Design, February 2021

February 22, 2021Meetings and Presentations, PodcastKnoxville Game Design

How to generate mazes using Prim’s and Kruskal’s algorithm. Example implementations in Unity with C#. Methods for solving mazes. Demonstration of maze generators available on the web.

Demo project in Unity and C# – https://github.com/levidsmith/MazeDemo

New and Updated Games by Knox Developers

Untitled game by Matthew

BlazorRogueLike by Mythik

Enfield by LocksmithArmy and Kendra

Gomen-nasai by Levi

Links and Notes

Mazes for Programmers by Jamis Buck – www.mazesforprogrammers.com
Maze Generator – www.mazegenerator.net
Prim’s Algorithm Maze Generation – www.integral-domain.org/lwilliams/Applets/algorithms/primsmaze.php
Maze Algorithms – www.jamisbuck.org/mazes/
Example maze generation with Prim’s in Unity – www.youtube.com/watch?v=ucWX34Vrel8
Prim’s algorithm – www.tutorialspoint.com/data_structures_algorithms/prims_spanning_tree_algorithm.htm
Dijkstra’s algorithm – www.geeksforgeeks.org/dijkstras-shortest-path-algorithm-greedy-algo-7/
Theme music – Ride by Pocketmaster

Hosted by Levi D. Smith

Knox Game Design

Mazes - Knox Game Design, February 2021

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Animation in Blender – Knox Game Design, January 2021

January 23, 2021Meetings and Presentations, PodcastKnoxville Game Design

Demonstration of how to create a simple humanoid armature in Blender to be used in a game development environment. Explanation of how to assign a mesh to an armature and weight painting. How to create simple walking and standing animation by adding key frames. The model and animation are exported into FBX format and imported into Unity, Godot, and Unreal Engine. C# script for switching between animations in Unity.

Demo projects and models – https://github.com/levidsmith/BlenderAnimation

New and Updated Games by Knox Developers

Unlock Fred’s Markers with Journals by Zachary

Disc Connect by Levi

Links and Notes

Blender – www.blender.org
Unity – unity.com
Godot – godotengine.org
Unreal Engine – www.unrealengine.com
Mixamo – mixamo.com
Theme music – Ride by Pocketmaster

Hosted by Levi D. Smith

Knox Game Design

Animation in Blender - Knox Game Design, January 2021

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Allegro – Knox Game Design, December 2020

December 30, 2020Links & Notes, PodcastKnoxville Game Design

Overview of the Allegro game programming library. Compiling a legacy Allegro game with DJGPP through DOSBox. Installing and building a game with Allegro 5 in Visual Studio. How to use event and polling based methods for handling keyboard and gamepad input. Explanation of how to create a “Hello World”, Number Guessing game, and simple space shooter. Comparison of C++ to C, Java, and C#. Explanation of how to load music, sound effects, font, and bitmap files. Review of the Allegro drawing primitives.

Source code for examples – https://github.com/levidsmith/AllegroExamples

New and Updated Games by Knox Developers

The Cursed Office by Matthew – https://matthewbringledev.itch.io/the-cursed-office
H3D Christmas by James – https://locksmitharmy.itch.io/h3d-christmas
Polyglot Pelican by Levi – https://levidsmith.com/games/polyglot-pelican/

Links and Notes

Official Allegro site – https://liballeg.org
Allegro community – https://www.allegro.cc
Allegro 5 API reference – https://www.allegro.cc/manual/5
Delorie Software (DJGPP) – http://www.delorie.com
DOSBox – https://www.dosbox.com
Visual Studio – https://visualstudio.microsoft.com
C++ reference – https://www.cplusplus.com/reference
W3Schools C++ Tutorial/Reference – https://www.w3schools.com/cpp/
Strike of the Centurion (Allegro) by Frank – https://frank-griffin.itch.io/strike-demo
DJ Delorie blog at Red Hat – https://developers.redhat.com/blog/author/djdelorie/
Theme music – Ride by Pocketmaster

Hosted by Levi D. Smith

Knox Game Design

Allegro - Knox Game Design, December 2020

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Raspberry Pi Arcade – Knox Game Design, November 2020

November 22, 2020Links & NotesKnoxville Game Design

Overview of building a Raspberry Pi arcade system. First build was a Raspberry Pi (1) Model B and the second build was a Raspberry Pi 3 Model B. Explanation of what components and tools are needed. Installation the RetroPie operating system and configuration of Retrogame software to convert joystick movement and button presses into simulation key presses.

Links and Notes

Labyrinth by James, early access on Steam – https://store.steampowered.com/app/1456900/Labyrinth/?beta=0
Adafruit, Retro Gaming with Raspberry Pi – https://learn.adafruit.com/retro-gaming-with-raspberry-pi
Building Raspberry Pi arcade – https://levidsmith.com/my-raspberry-pi-arcade/
Raspberry Pi arcade update – https://levidsmith.com/raspberry-pi-arcade-update/
RetroPie – https://retropie.org.uk/
Retrogame keyboard simulation – https://learn.adafruit.com/retro-gaming-with-raspberry-pi/adding-controls-software
Joystick – https://www.adafruit.com/product/480
Buttons – https://www.adafruit.com/product/474
Theme music – Ride by Pocketmaster

Hosted by Levi D. Smith

Knox Game Design

Raspberry Pi Arcade - Knox Game Design, November 2020

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Ludum Dare 47 Recap – Knox Game Design, October 2020

October 24, 2020Meetings and Presentations, PodcastKnoxville Game Design

A recap of the Ludum Dare 47 game jam plus a post mortem. Also what others on the Knox Game Design Discord have been developing.

If you are interested in attending a Knox Game Design meeting either virtually or in-person, let us know!

Links and Notes

Ludum Dare 47 keynotes – https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/47/$212263/welcome-to-ludum-dare-47-ps-we-start-early
Circuitus Infinitus entry – https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/47/circuitus-infinitus
George Rhoads ball machine – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_UaWaZYjcE
George Rhoads interview – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OM3NWMr2l10
Time lapse maker – https://github.com/levidsmith/timelapsemaker
Unity Helper – https://github.com/levidsmith/UnityHelper
Theme music – Ride by Pocketmaster

Time lapse development videos

Hosted by Levi D. Smith

Knox Game Design

Ludum Dare 47 Recap - Knox Game Design, October 2020

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MonoGame – Knox Game Design, September 2020

September 25, 2020Meetings and Presentations, PodcastKnoxville Game Design

An overview of creating a game with MonoGame. Installation of MonoGame development environment using Visual Studio. Handling input devices such as keyboard, gamepad, and mouse. How to load assets such as sound effects, music, fonts, and sprite images. Examples of simple number guessing game and space shooter in MonoGame and C#. How to convert an XNA game to MonoGame.

Hosted by Levi D. Smith

MonoGame source code – https://github.com/levidsmith/MonoGameExamples

Links and Notes

MonoGame – https://www.monogame.net/
XNA to MonoGame guide by Levi D. Smith – XnaToMonogame.pdf
XNA Game Studio Redistributable Font Pack – https://github.com/SimonDarksideJ/XNAGameStudio/wiki/Redistributable-Font-Pack
Beginning MonoGame – http://www.geekswithblogs.net/cwilliams/archive/2017/02/06/232974.aspx
MonoGame Tutorial – https://gamefromscratch.com/monogame-tutorial-series/
Theme music – Ride by Pocketmaster

Knox Game Design

MonoGame - Knox Game Design, September 2020

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BBS Games, VT100, and ANSI Graphics – Knox Game Design August 2020

August 21, 2020Meetings and Presentations, PodcastKnoxville Game Design

An overview of BBS (Bulletin Board System) games from the 1990s. How to connect to a telnet BBS to play DOOR games. Creating ANSI graphics with ACiD draw in DOSBox. VT100 color codes explained. A simple telnet server created in Ruby, which displays system time, counts to ten, displays an ANSI file, and has a number guessing game.

Hosted by Levi D. Smith

Ruby source code – https://github.com/levidsmith/SimpleRubyServer

Links and Notes

Telnet BBS Guide – https://www.telnetbbsguide.com/
VT100 codes – http://ascii-table.com/ansi-escape-sequences-vt-100.php
VT100 codes – http://www.climagic.org/mirrors/VT100_Escape_Codes.html
VT100 codes – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ANSI_escape_code#CSI_sequences
Old School Font PC Resource – https://int10h.org/oldschool-pc-fonts/download/
Telnet protocol – https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc854
ACiD Productions (ACiDDraw) – http://www.acid.org/
PuTTY – https://putty.org/
DOSBox – https://www.dosbox.com/
Ruby – https://www.ruby-lang.org/en/
Theme music – Ride by Pocketmaster

Knox Game Design

BBS Games, VT100, and ANSI Graphics - Knox Game Design August 2020

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Color – Knox Game Design, July 2020

July 24, 2020Links & NotesKnoxville Game Design

An overview of color for game developers. How various colors are made on the computer using RGB and HSV formats. The color spectrum and the ROY G BIV order for colors. Where visible color exists on the electromagnetic wavelength scale. Color displays on CRT (Cathode Ray Tube) and LED (Light Emitting Diode) devices. Converting between color representation in float, decimal, and hex formats. Difference between hue, saturation, and value. Various modifiers in the Gimp image editor such as Colorize, Posterize, Color Balance, and layers. Console color palettes and historical video modes. Color pickers and other tools for making color themes.

Links and Notes

Color wheel from Adobe – https://color.adobe.com/create/color-wheel
Color Picker – https://www.w3schools.com/colors/colors_picker.asp
Theme music – Ride by Pocketmaster

Knox Game Design

Color - Knox Game Design, July 2020

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