How do game programmers visualize the Maths on their game?

skadush · 2015-03-16T08:47:37

I am currently messing up with the menu systems code I downloaded from MSD page. It was built on XNA. this is the code the makes it pulsate public virtual void Draw(MenueScreen menuscScreen, bool isSelected, GameTime gameTime) { Color color = isSelected ? Color.Yellow : Color.White; double time = gameTime.TotalGameTime.TotalSeconds; float pulsate = (float) Math.Sin(time*2) + 1; float scale = 1 + pulsate*0.05f*selectionFade; ScreenManager screenManager = menuscScreen.ScreenManager; SpriteBatch spriteBatch = screenManager.SpriteBatch; SpriteFont font = screenManager.Font; Vector2 origin = new Vector2(0,font.LineSpacing); spriteBatch.DrawString(font,text,position,color,0,origin,scale,SpriteEffects.None, 0); } This is the math part i dont get on why did the author use, float pulsate = (float) Math.Sin(time*2) + 1; How did the programmer know if he is going to use Sin or Cos? I tried replacing it with cos still the same effects. Sin and cos and tan will be on trigonometry part of math but where will you visualize it on screen? Even If i think that the screen is made up of many triangles or two triangles like this or like this I still dont know what triangle did the author use cause theres a lot of triangle that a rectangle is compose of. and also for the effects i cant figure out what is the connection of using trigonometry on a text to make it smaller and bigger when selected. its really confusing. Is that some random things that the original author use to confuse people instead of just putting a constant number?

For Beginners

Started by LetsDoThis March 14, 2015 01:37 PM

12 comments, last by Buster2000 9 years, 9 months ago

Brain

19,059

March 15, 2015 10:49 AM

Personally I just tend to adjust the game and run again and see what happens. After a while you get a knack for knowing what is going to happen roughly and don't need a graphing calculator or such to visualise your change before you make it.

Rapid incremental builds also help with this.

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alh420

5,995

March 15, 2015 11:20 AM

If you run OSX, it comes with a nice graph visualization tool called "Grapher".

You don't really need it for just tweaking parameters to simple functions like a straight sin, but if you want to make more complex models, combining several shapes, it can speed things up visualizing it first.

cozzie

5,064

March 15, 2015 05:04 PM

Answering the question, I just use oldskool pencil and paper before I write the code down and/or to solve something or try to understand.

Example:
http://sierracosworth.nl/gamedev/OBBwrapup1.JPG

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Buster2000

4,310

March 16, 2015 08:47 AM

If you run OSX, it comes with a nice graph visualization tool called "Grapher".

Cheers Olof I never knew about this. Just had a play with it. Its very useful.

How do game programmers visualize the Maths on their game?

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How do game programmers visualize the Maths on their game?

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