Game Project Tuesday Sept 18, 2007

 Game Idea  Team  Understanding available engine options  Understanding the Pipeline  Start the process Cycle Steps Today

 Game Idea  Team  Understanding available engine options  Understanding the Pipeline  Start the process Cycle Steps 10/2

Teams Roles  Identify your skills  Identify your time commitment Categories:  Design  Programming  Art  Audio  Production

Design  Game Design  Level design  Writer/script writer

Programming  Tools Programmer  Graphics Programmer  AI programmer  Network programmer

Art  3D Modeler  2D Concept Art  3D Cutscene  3D Character Animation  Level Builder  Art Director  Art Technician

Audio  Sound Engineer/Designer  Composer  Audio Engineer/Programmer

Production  Producer  Project Manager  QA

Steps  Game Idea  Team  Understanding available engine options  Understanding the Pipeline  Start the process Cycle

Game Programs – Example Games Created by Students

What do they use?  Unreal Tournament 2003/4: Spawns Of Deflebub won best Mod IGF 2007

What do they use?  Half Life 2: Dystopia won best best Mod IGF 2006

What do they use?  Torque 3D (example games)

code Tools

Architecture of Engines

 Scene Management  Memory Management  Event Handling  Rendering  Collision Detection

Architecture of Engines User Specific:  Importing in Graphics: –Models –Animations –Texturing –All in specific format and standards  Tools: Creating Levels, Adding Triggers  Scripting tools

A look at Engines  Rendering Engines –Licensed: C4, XNA; Open Source: Irrlicht, Ogre 3D  3D Game Engines –Unreal, Half Life, Torque, Never Winter Nights  2D Game Engines –Game Maker, Torque  Differ: Language, Flexibility, tools for visual design and scripting

Warcraft III  Tools included: –Scripting environment –Level Editing tools –Can program in functions  Simple Programming  Inflexible –Interaction model –Art content

What you need to know?  Essential Concepts –Parallel processing –Event programming –Co-ordinate system for camera movement  Design Concepts –Level design –Color, contrast, etc.

RPGMaker  Tools Included: –Scripting environment –Level Editing –Can program in Ruby  No Programming knowledge required  Flexibility: –Inflexible: Interaction Model –art content

What you need to know?  Essential Concepts –Object programming –Event programming –Co-ordinate system  Design Concepts –Level design –Statistical concepts for battle system

Game Maker  Tools Included: –Scripting environment –Level Editing  No Programming knowledge required  Flexiblity: –art content –No interaction model imposed

What you need to know?  Essential Concepts –Object programming –Co-ordinate system –Physics –Sprits and 2D animation  Design Concepts –Level design –Adding interaction model

Unreal Engine  Tools Included: –Scripting environment –Level Editing  Programming knowledge required  Flexible: –art content, Unreal content supplied –Interaction model, but requires a large effort to change

What you need to know?  Essential Concepts –Object programming –Event Based systems –Threading –Navigation –Good Coding styles –Inheritance, Reuse, Object Oriented Programming –Understanding someone else’s code –Code Maintenance –Pipeline

What you need to know?  Design Concepts –Architecture design –Cinematics –Level design –interaction model

C4  It is a library, C++  Tools Included: –Level Editing  Programming knowledge required  Flexible: –Some art content supplied –No Interaction model supplied

What you need to know?  Essential Concepts –Programming C++ –Object programming –Event Based systems –Threading –Navigation –Good Coding styles –Inheritance, Reuse, Object Oriented Programming –Understanding someone else’s code –Code Maintenance

What you need to know? –Pipeline –Engine Programming  Design Concepts –Architecture design –Cinematics –Level design –Adding interaction model