# Collision: Basic 2D Collision Detection + Jump Physics

This post will cover some various collision techniques for use in 2D games. Types of collisions to be covered in this article are:

• Static point to static circle
• Static circle to static circle
• Static point to static rectangle
• Static rectangle to static rectangle
• Static circle to static rectangle
• Jumping physics (optimal equation technique)
Static Circle to Static Point
In order to detect whether or not a point is colliding with a circle there are only a few very simple checks required. Luckily a circle is simply a radius and a point. Find the distance from the center of your circle and your colliding point, and check to see if it is larger, greater, or smaller than the radius. Larger means that the point is outside the circle, the same means the point is directly on the edge, and smaller means a collision is occuring.

// Given that CP is the center of the circle, P is the point, // and R is the radius if dist( CP, P ) is equal to R: Collision or Non-Collision (you choose) if dist( CP, P ) is greater than R: No collision if dist( CP, P ) is less than R: Collision

Static Circle to Static Circle
This collision test is going to be the exact same as Point to Circle, with one difference: you will be comparing the distance from the center of the circles to the radius of the first circle added with the radius of the second circle. This should make sense since the only time two circles will intersect is when their distances are smaller than their radii. Just be sure to avoid this scenario:

 Internally tangent intersection.

This internally tangent intersection can be avoided by checking for whether or not the distance between the circles’ centers is smaller than the radii combined before checking to see if the distances are equal.

Static Point to Static Rectangle Collision
This algorithm is extremely straightforward. Think of a rectangle as four values: top, left, bottom and right. Here are the checks required to see if a point is within a square or not (it shouldn’t require much of any explanation):

// B is bottom of the rectangle // T is top of the rectangle // L is the left side of the rectangle // R is the right side of the rectangle // P is the point // Perform the following checks: if(P.X < L) and if(P.X > R) and if(P.Y < B) and if(P.Y > T) then no collision

All of these conditions will fail if there is a collision. To check for a tangent point, check to see if the point’s X value equals the left or right side, while being under the top and above the bottom. Vice versa for the top and bottom tangents. This algorithm is going to be very similar to the ActionScript hittest function.

Static Rectange to Static Rectangle
Rectangle to rectangle collision is very simple as well. This should be quite similar to the point to rectangle, except we just use some basic logic to make sure none of the sides of the two rectangles are between each other’s sides.

// Given rectangles A and B if(leftA > rightB) or if(leftB > rightA) or if(topA < bottomB) or if(topB < bottomA) then no collision

Circle to Rectangle Collision
Circle to rectangle collision is going to be the most complicated algorithm here. First consider a circle to consist of only a point and a radius. The way we detected two circles colliding was by checking the distances from the centers to their radii. Sadly, a rectangle does not have a radius. However, given the closest point on the rectangle to the center of the circle, we can apply the same algorithm as the Static Point to Static Circle collision detection. All we need do now is find out how to find the closest point on the rectangle to the circle’s center.

To find this point, clamp a copy of the circle’s center coordinate to the edges of the rectangle:

// "Clamping" a point to the side of a rectangle
// Given left right bottom and top are sides of a rectangle
// P is a new variable created and assigned the value of the
// circle's center -- do not modify the circle's coordinate Point P (new copy of the circles center) = Circle's Center if(P.X > right) then P.X = right else(P.X < left) then P.X = left
if(P.Y > top) then P.Y = top else(P.Y < bottom) then P.Y = bottom then no collision

After the above code is run point P will be somewhere on the edge of the rectangle and will also be the closest point along the rectangle’s sides to the center of the circle. Now compare the distance from these two points to the radius with the Static Point to Static Circle algorithm. Results will be the same.

Optimization of Distance Formula
By using some simple algebra one can remove the sqrt function from the distance formula for the purpose of checking two values:

This allows one to compare the distance squared with another distance squared; multiplication is much faster than a sqrt function. This should be applied to all of the above collision algorithms that require a distance function between two points.

Jumping Physics Technique
There are a few different ways to have a character jump in a game. I’m going to share a singular way that I find very efficient and effective. As detailed here in my article on simple physics integration, in order to move something along the screen you are required to use the following equations:

pos.x += vel.x * dt; pos.yx += vel.y * dt; vel.x += accel.x * dt; vel.y += accel.y * dt;

This works just fine for moving images around! In order to simulate a jump you suddenly add a large value to the image’s y velocity, and then apply a negative acceleration on it each timestep. Like I said, this works just fine. However as a designer this is a headache. How are you going to tweak the jumping height? Just apply random values to the velocity and guess/check to see how high the character goes? It would be best to be able to set how high you’d like the character to jump, and use some form of automation so solve for the necessary velocity.

This equation comes from a conservation of energy. Take a look at the algebraic manipulation:

The equation you start with represents an upward jump. The two sides are equal due to energy being conserved throughout the jump. At the start of a jump (and the end, assuming the start and end positions are the same y value) all of the energy is kinetic, thrusting the object upward. As it slows down energy is converted into potential energy, which is the distance from the ground the object is currently at. Once all kinetic energy is used potential energy is maxed out, which means this is the peak of the jump. We can take advantage of the fact that the kinetic energy is zeroed out and come up with a simple equation to solve for the necessary upward velocity to reach a specific height. Here’s what the final equation can look like in use within code to initialize the y velocity for a jump:

// JUMP_HEIGHT will usually be in tiles. // Example: perhaps to jump exactly 3 tiles, or 4 vel.y = sqrt( 2.f * -GRAVITY * JUMP_HEIGHT );

This technique not only can be used on jumping characters but projectiles as well. I find this equation exceptionally useful in initializing various values! An optimization to this function would be to pre-compute the velocity by hand and assign it to y velocities of objects from a constant. This method would work well in any situation where the velocity of the jumping height is not changing throughout the duration of the game (perhaps turrets shooting bullets in the same path over and over, or an enemy with only one type of jump).

# Windows Console Game: AsciiEngine

I’ve been creating a series of posts about creating a Window’s console game from scratch in C. This post will act as a culmination of many different posts throughout my blog in the form of an open source game engine called AsciiEngine.

AsciiEngine is a game engine for Windows XP, Vista, and Win7 that allows the user to easily create and display images within a Windows console. The engine also automates the tedious task of customizing aspects of the console, such as a font or palette color.

Here’s the link for AsciiEngine (visual studio 2010 project + source files): LINK

 Man with sword!

 Screenshot from older included demo~~

By using AsciiEngine, users can easily construct interactive programs (games!) without the overhead of setting up all of the various system components required to run a game within the Windows console.

 Screenshot of the old AsciiEngine demo. Pressing enter pastes sun images onto random locations.

AsciiEngine is documented heavily in-code and is open source – I want anyone willing to be able to learn from the example code provided.

Features include:

• Complete game loop
• Game loop integrated into Game State Manager via function pointers
• Game State Manager
• Allows for easy management/creation/deletion of game states
• Functioning framerate controller
• Allows the setting of framerate with a #define macro
• Prevents large timesteps from passing through the program with a cap
• Various console related functions for easy customization of the console window
• Complete graphics functions set for drawing 2D images
• Input template complete for simple keystroke detection and mouse event handling
• Complete and very simple PRNG
• Simple image format that allows for variable size
• Integrated hash table for storing images
• Allows for an optimized lookup, e.g.: TableLookup( “ImageName” )
• Extremely simple creation/deletion of images
• Implementation of my simple 2D collision library
• Implementation of my simple 2D vector library
• Highly organised object manager using the factory pattern
• Allows for easy creation/handling/deletion of game objects
• Incredibly simple to create new object types
• Implemented my Tile mapping — Binary Collision library
• Image editor
• file output
• Messaging system Object to object + global messaging system
• Component base game object system (now renamed to game entity)
• New button class for easy UI creation
• Integration of generic Hash Table and Linked Lists
• Simple serialization and deserialization support.

Here’s the link for AsciiEngine (visual studio 2010 project + source files): LINK

Now hopefully I can see some console games created with true Ascii art! Please let me know if anyone creates a console game, or uses AsciiEngine to create a console game. I would be thrilled to see some projects from other people, as I just love Ascii art games, especially ones within the Windows console.

Series on creating a Windows Console game:

How to use AsciiEngine:
Using AsciiEngine is very easy. It’s available here on github.

Almost all code creation you’ll do with AsciiEngine will be in creating/modifying game state files. Since AsciiEngine uses a GameStateManager (GSM) you’ll have to create your own states. More information about what a GSM can be found here. Creating a state is as easy as copy/paste from the example state within the download archive of AsciiEngine. Integrating a new state into the GSM should be straightforward if you examine the currently existing code.

Once a state is created all that is left to do for the user is to simply write code within the state! Almost all code written will be within the Update function. During the Update function all game logic will occur. Drawing specific functions should occur only with the stat’s Draw function – this allows for easy implementation of the Painter’s Algorithm.

To switch states there are three global variables within the GameStateManager.c file. These are nextState, currentState and previousState. In order to switch states simply change nextState to the desired state to switch to. The main loop will then call the Unload and Free function automatically of the current state you are in, and then load and initialize the next state automatically as well.

Creation of Game Objects can be handled any way by the user, I’ve written documentation on a very simple way of creating and handling Game Objects here, and it works extremely well with the GSM organization throughout AsciiEngine. I’ve implemented my own method of handling objects with the Factory pattern! Using the ObjectFactory within AsciiEngine it’s very easy to handle game objects, as well as create new ones. See code for documentation — it should mostly be copy/paste to create a new object. UPDATE: Game objects are now called Game Entities. As such, all game entities are now component based! Please see the source on github for details. A post in the future about component-based architecture will likely be written.

Creating Images:
Creating images in Ascii art will require a good tool for more complicated images. Here‘s an interesting thread on a few different programs for such. Perhaps it might be a good idea to create your own tool in the Windows console with AsciiEngine! Here’s some additional documentation to pursue the idea of creating your own drawing tool: link.

Updating AsciiEngine
I’m completely open to most all suggestions on AsciiEngine. I’ve never written anything open-source before, so there may be good insight that’d help the project out! Feel free to contact me about questions on how to use AsciiEngine, or for feature requests, or just to talk/show off thing you’ve made :)

# Hash Tables: Introduction

I’ve just set up my first hash table after a bit of studying; it’s time to write about it! Docendo discimus ~

Wikipedia has a nice definition of what a hash table is: LINK.

In computer science, a hash table or hash map is a data structure that uses a hash function to map identifying values, known as keys (e.g., a person’s name), to their associated values (e.g., their telephone number). Thus, a hash table implements an associative array. The hash function is used to transform the key into the index (the hash) of an array element (the slot or bucket) where the corresponding value is to be sought.

The idea of setting up a hash table is that by using a hash function you can index an array without actually knowing what the index is.

For example say you have an array of structures that look like this:

typedef struct _ASSETFILE {
  char *fileName_;
  assetFile *asset_;
 } ASSETFILE;

This array holds structures that represent asset files for some sort of project (images, sounds, data, etc). Imagine you want anyone to be able to access any asset file in this array by using a function like so: FindAsset( “filename” );. How would you go about creating this FindAsset function? The easiest way would be to use a linear search starting at the beginning of the array. Simply compare the string of the parameter passed to the FindAsset function with the string within the ASSETFILE structure until a match is found.

This can be a slow search. Perhaps the next optimization would be to order the entire list alphabetically from lowest to highest. This would allow a binary search through the array by using strcmp from the standard library. There wouldn’t be any faster search method than a binary search in this scenario. Inserting into an ordered list would require a binary search as well.

However by using a hash function you can achieve even faster searches. By using a hash function you can convert the filename provided to the FindAsset function directly into an index to index the array of ASSETFILE structs. The filename is what is called a key. By hashing a key an index to the hash table is generated, and the corresponding ASSETFILE struct can be accessed very quickly. It’s important to note that the order in which the entries are stored into slots is random. A good hash function will randomly map keys to indices with an even distribution (avoids clustering).

The relationship between keys and indices is not a one to one ratio however. Keys to indices is of a one-to-many ratio -that is multiple keys can resolve to the same address. Each key must be unique, however, in order for the hash table to function properly.

In short, using a hash table allows for indexing of an array by some other type of data than simply an integer. There are many different hash functions available on the internet, and a simple google search will yield many results.

I’ve set up a demonstration program to show the usage of a hash function here. I handle collisions with something called linear probing. A collision is whenever a key maps to a location in the table that already contains an entry (two or more keys are resolving to the same slot). A collision can be resolved in many different ways, though the way I chose in my sample program was linear probing. Linear probing is simply moving down one slot in the table until a free slot is found. The entry to insert is then placed. Each time the index is incremented (or decremented, direction doesn’t matter as long as your are consistent) to find an empty slot it is called a probe. This means that for each lookup you’ll need to compare the key to the entry being looked at and check for a match, as when you get a hashed index it doesn’t necessarily mean that the key you have had been placed into that entry; a previous key may have inserted a value there already. When attempting a lookup first check the slot the hash resolves to. If no match is found, check the next slot (using the same direction as before) until you find a key match, or an empty slot. If you find an empty slot then that means your lookup concluded that no entry matches in your table.

Linear probing forms clusters of entries, however, since you resolve collision by placing entries into the next available slot. Each entry placed into the table increases the chances of a collision, and as the table fills up a lot of time ends up being spent on probing looking for an empty slot. There are ways of breaking up these clusters like double hashing, or by having each slot point to a linked list of entries. However with a good hash function clusters can be kept to a minimum as long as the table doesn’t get too full.

Load factor is a term that represents the total number of current entries divided by the table size. Once a hash table has a load factor of .7 or so linear probing starts getting dramatically slow.

 Image from Wikipedia. As you can see once the load factor of the table hits around .8 the time spent probing increases dramatically.

In order to retrieve an entry from the hash table (with linear probing, as in my sample program) all you’d have to do is take your key and pass it to your hash function. Once this is done you’ll have the index to start your search. Check to see if the key matches the key within the index. If it does not match then increment (or decrement, whatever direction you probe in you must do here for consistency) the index by one and compare again. Once a match is found the lookup function has done its job! If no match is found and the search function runs into an empty slot, that means that no match had been found. Here’s the lookup function from the sample program:

char *TableLookup( const char *Key, char *table[] )
{
unsigned index = UHashMod( Key, TABLESIZE );
unsigned indexStart = index;

// Only search through clusters, don’t hop over empty entries
while(!IsEmpty( table, index ))
{
// Break from loop if found matching entry
if(table[index] != DELETED)
{
if(strcmp(table[index], Key) == 0)
break;
}

++index;

// wraparound to beginning of table
if(index == TABLESIZE)
{
index = 0;
}

// If searched entire table
if(indexStart == index)
{
return NULL;
}
}

return table[index];
}

In the above example the data stored in the table was the same as the key, so the return type is a pointer to the stored data in this instance. In order to support the deletion of entries you must mark a slot as deleted. This is because if a slot is simply marked as empty, then it can mess up the order of searches! Searching relies on the fact that collisions are resolved with linear probing. If you delete an entry that had previous collisions, the entries next to it will not be found in searches. However if you mark slots as “deleted” with a special value, than you can modify searching to not stop on “deleted” slots, and you can modify insertion to insert values into slots that are marked “deleted”. You can see in the above code that searches hop over deleted slots, but stop at empty ones.

Now lets talk about this hash function. Creating hash functions seems very difficult, but luckily for around 50 or so years research has been put into them, and as such there lots of well documented hash functions and hash libraries all over the place. Here’s the one I chose to use in my demonstration program:

// Hashing function from Program 14.2 in the Sedgewick book
unsigned UHashMod( const char *Key, unsigned TableSize )
{
unsigned hash = 0;      // Initial value of hash
unsigned rand1 = 31415; // “Random” 1
unsigned rand2 = 27183; // “Random” 2

while (*Key)
{
hash = hash * rand1;     // Multiply hash by random
hash = (hash + *Key);    // Add in current char, keep within TableSize
rand1 = (rand1 * rand2); // Update rand1 for next “random” number
Key++;
}

return hash % TableSize;
}

The hash function is simply converting the string into a random (yet consistent) interpretation as an integer. This integer is then modulo’d with the TableSize variable, which is the size of the table to be inserted into to ensure that it is placed randomly within the bounds of the table.

Here’s the output of the sample hash table program I wrote. It creates a table with 157 slots (more on why I chose 157 later -hint: it’s prime), and then reads a text file line by line and inserts each individual line into the table with a hash function. I then run a demonstration with a hash lookup function. I created support for deletion of entries, and the program gracefully handles the entire table being full (this is easily detected when a search goes through the array and ends up where it started by wrapping from the last element to the first):

Dump table contents (length 157 char pointers):
* NULL
* NULL
* NULL
Lexicon
Tiger Express
Tiny Tim
Beer cans
Bottle
I LEIK TOITLES
* NULL
* NULL
* NULL
* NULL
* NULL
* NULL
* NULL
* NULL
* NULL
* NULL
* NULL
* NULL
* NULL
* NULL
* NULL
* NULL
* NULL
* NULL
* NULL
* NULL
* NULL
* NULL
Teeter Totter
* NULL
* NULL
test2
* NULL
* NULL
das
Snickerdoodle
So many probes >.<
* NULL
* NULL
* NULL
* NULL
test
* NULL
Baha Blast
* NULL
WTF
* NULL
SC Original
* NULL
* NULL
* NULL
* NULL
Schism
* NULL
* NULL
* NULL
* NULL
asd
Tylanol
* NULL
* NULL
* NULL
* NULL
Contraceptor
* NULL
—>  DELETED
* NULL
* NULL
* NULL
* NULL
* NULL
Dignity
popo
BrooD WaR
* NULL
* NULL
* NULL
* NULL
* NULL
* NULL
Typo
* NULL
* NULL
alphabet
StarCraft 2
Rover Dover
Extra power
phantom
* NULL
* NULL
* NULL
Mountaineous
* NULL
skdjf
a
b
* NULL
Carbon
This is a string!
* NULL
* NULL
* NULL
Alexis
* NULL
* NULL
DIuasplOis
Duplicate
Contraption
* NULL
* NULL
* NULL
Beasty Boys
* NULL
* NULL
* NULL
* NULL
* NULL
* NULL
* NULL
Turdy Nerdy
Meek
* NULL
Plasma
* NULL
asdf
Turtles
Flayva Flave
Bumble Bee
* NULL
* NULL
* NULL
* NULL
OMG
* NULL
* NULL
* NULL
tab
* NULL
LOL
* NULL
<3
Lionheart
* NULL
Nonchalant
* NULL
* NULL
I lover yous
* NULL
* NULL
Digestion
Avalanche

Table lookup demonstration:
Lexicon 3 | Tiger Express 3 | Tiny Tim 5 | Beer cans 3 | Bottle 5 | I LEIK TOITL
ES 6 | Teeter Totter 31 | test2 34 | das 37 | Snickerdoodle 38 | So many probes
>.< 39 | test 44 | Baha Blast 46 | WTF 48 | SC Original 50 | Schism 55 | asd 60
| Tylanol 60 | Contraceptor 66 | Dignity 74 | popo 75 | BrooD WaR 76 | Quadruple
82 | Typo 84 | alphabet 87 | StarCraft 2 88 | Rover Dover 88 | Extra power 90 |
phantom 91 | Mountaineous 95 | skdjf 97 | a 97 | b 98 | Carbon 101 | This is a
string! 102 | Alexis 106 | DIuasplOis 109 | Duplicate 110 | Contraption 111 | Be
asty Boys 115 | Turdy Nerdy 123 | Meek 123 | Plasma 126 | asdf 128 | Turtles 128
| Flayva Flave 129 | Bumble Bee 129 | OMG 136 | tab 140 | LOL 142 | tad 142 | <
3 145 | Lionheart 146 | Nonchalant 148 | Supercalifragilisticexpialladocious 148
| I lover yous 152 | Digestion 155 | Avalanche 156 |

Error count: 0
Probe count: 19
Entry Count: 58
Table size: 157
Duplicate entries: 2

The text file I used is provided in the source. Note that duplicate entries were handled by taking no action. I felt that there wasn’t a need to hold duplicates within a hash table, and simply just reported that duplicates were found. Here are some final notes I took from one of my CS courses:

• Hash tables rely on the fact that the data is uniformly and randomly distributed.
• Since we cannot control the data that is provided (from the user), we must ensure that it is randomly distributed by hashing it.
• Hash tables whose size is a prime number help to insure good distribution. Also, table sizes that are a power of 2 work well if the stride (second hash in double hashing) is an odd number.
• Since the data is not sorted in any meaningful way, operations such as displaying all items in a sorted fashion are expensive. (Use another data structure for that operation.)
There are many different types of collision resolution for hash tables. Using chaining (linked lists) seems to be a great way to store lots of data. The chains can even be ordered to allow for optimized searching (though this is unlikely to be worth the trouble). However for a small amount of keys and a small table, linear probing should work perfectly fine. There are also other probing methods, such as quadratic probing, double hashing, pseudo random probing (seeding with the key). If probing is the collision method chosen, then support for growing the hash table like a vector may need to be implemented, depending on the requirements of the table. Chaining avoids the growing issue altogether.

I will be using the code constructed here for my next large project. It will actually be solving the hypothetical issue described at the beginning of the post! This will be very handy, as nobody will have to manually keep track of any files anymore; I’ll have code traverse a single directory full of assets and then automatically add them as entries to a hash table. Lookups will be highly optimized (which is important, lookups are highly common in a game project).