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GameDev: Arena

Kevin Hawkins · 2004-02-04T09:24:37

Our next contest is quickly approaching its start date, but before we actually kick this one off, we're going to let you review the rules and give us feedback in case there is anything we may have missed or needs to be explained in better detail. The next contest is called "GameDev: Arena". The idea will be to develop a bot AI to fight in deathmatch battles against other bots. The last bot standing at the end of the double elimination tournament is the winner. Bots will be programmed in C++ using a predefined bot template provided to you by GameDev.net through a "bot generator". Bots are compiled as DLL's, which are loaded and executed by the GameDev: Arena core executable. The interface specifics will be available at the start of the contest. Please note that we anticipate this to be a difficult contest. Entrants will probably not be able to program their bot AI using "traditional" AI techniques. Please review the rules at http://www.gamedev.net/community/contest/gdarena/ and post any feedback you have here. Do not email us. We will not reply to any emails about the contest. Kevin "Khawk" Hawkins CEO and News Director, GameDev.netSoftware Engineer, Raydon CorporationAuthor, OpenGL Game Programming Contributing author, Game Development: Tricks of the Trade , "Using the UML in Game Development" Developer Diary

GameDev: Arena Contests

Started by khawk July 06, 2003 03:39 PM

538 comments, last by khawk 20 years, 5 months ago

lopatsch

122

July 15, 2003 06:53 AM

Great contest! I''m in!

I don''t know if it was mentioned before, because i didn''t actually read all the 26 pages completly, but how about adding a Save/Load Replay function, so that official matches, like e.g. the final games, can be downloaded and replayed by anyone.

The replay files could be quite small, just saving the commands the Engine recieved, so that the bot''s dlls are not needed to watch a replay.

I think I am not the only one, who wants to see the final duels

.

Good Luck to All!

NatasDM

143

July 15, 2003 07:00 AM

GeForce 4 MX 440 64MB (latest Driver)
Pentium III CPU 600Mhz
256 Megs RAM.
Windoes 98se

Runs fine.

drslush

122

July 15, 2003 07:58 AM

quote: Original post by lopatsch
Great contest! I''m in!

I don''t know if it was mentioned before, because i didn''t actually read all the 26 pages completly, but how about adding a Save/Load Replay function, so that official matches, like e.g. the final games, can be downloaded and replayed by anyone.

The replay files could be quite small, just saving the commands the Engine recieved, so that the bot''s dlls are not needed to watch a replay.

I think I am not the only one, who wants to see the final duels .

Good Luck to All!

Yes, Khawk has already confirmed this several times. There will be replay files released.

My Lame Site

algumacoisaqualquer

170

July 15, 2003 08:32 AM

Didn''t worked at all on mine (Pentium IV 1 Ghz, 256Mb RAM, GeForce2, WindowsXP, err... DirectX at least 8).
I get a white screen and it get''s a while to load. clicking on the menus takes a long time to respond back and show the options. The about and the exit work fine, but the Go(F5) doesen''t work, even if I click F5. The second time i try to click on Go it crashes, but the first time nothing happens. At the bar beneath the program, it allways says ''ready''.

Sly

128

July 15, 2003 08:55 AM

quote: Original post by Sailorstick
Me: sees size of Demo executable and cries
Any chance of having the final version a tad smaller? My 56k modem is wheezing at the thought of downloading that.

I tried to make a smaller zip by reducing most of the textures down to 64x64, but that only dropped it down to 7,138KB from the original of 9,002KB. The primary offender is samjai\lower.md3 with a size of 11,043KB. There must be something majorly wrong with that MD3 model if the lower section of the model needs to be over 11MB. Kevin, can a more suitable MD3 model be found that is download friendly? This may also be one reason, along with the huge texture sizes, that some people are having long load times when starting the demo. I know that my demo startup time dropped significantly after I merely reduced the size of the textures. With a more realistically sized MD3 model, the demo startup time is almost instantaneous on my system.

I found that you can almost drop in any MD3, but the textures will be wrong and animation will be at the wrong speed. I tried it with a nice Gundam robot, though while not correctly textured and animating at the incorrect speed, dropped the zip down to 2,633KB.

Steve 'Sly' Williams Monkey Wrangler Krome Studios
turbo game development with Borland compilers

khawk

3,752

Author

July 15, 2003 09:10 AM

quote: Original post by Sly
quote: Original post by Sailorstick
Me: sees size of Demo executable and cries
Any chance of having the final version a tad smaller? My 56k modem is wheezing at the thought of downloading that.

I tried to make a smaller zip by reducing most of the textures down to 64x64, but that only dropped it down to 7,138KB from the original of 9,002KB. The primary offender is samjai\lower.md3 with a size of 11,043KB. There must be something majorly wrong with that MD3 model if the lower section of the model needs to be over 11MB. Kevin, can a more suitable MD3 model be found that is download friendly? This may also be one reason, along with the huge texture sizes, that some people are having long load times when starting the demo. I know that my demo startup time dropped significantly after I merely reduced the size of the textures. With a more realistically sized MD3 model, the demo startup time is almost instantaneous on my system.

I found that you can almost drop in any MD3, but the textures will be wrong and animation will be at the wrong speed. I tried it with a nice Gundam robot, though while not correctly textured and animating at the incorrect speed, dropped the zip down to 2,633KB.

Yes, it''s being worked on. I wasn''t going to let the final version be that big. Just give me some time....

Admin for GameDev.net.

khawk

3,752

Author

July 15, 2003 10:54 AM

I have created a GameDev: Arena forum, so now I am closing this thread. Any questions, comments, etc.. go to http://www.gamedev.net/community/forums/forum.asp?forum_id=50 under the "Special Interest" forum category.

Admin for GameDev.net.

googlyeyes

268

July 18, 2003 01:50 PM

doesn''t look closed to me

.
why''d it open back up?