1. Game Engines Non-game specific technology Game: Engine
Assets (models, animations, sounds, AI, and physics)
Code (AI, Scripting, etc.)

2. Game Engines: Rendering Pipeline
Application/Scene
Scene database update/traversal
Object/Camera Movement/Animation
Visibility/LOD/Culling
Geometry
Transforms: Model/World/View
Viewport & Backface Culling
Triangles
Scan-line conversion
Rasterization
Shading
Texturing/Fog/Alpha
Depth
                                                                                                 

3. Game Engines: Shading Flat Vertex (Gouraud) Pixel (Phong) Light Maps
Programmable (Vertex & Pixel Shaders)
                                                                                                 

4. Game Engines: Memory Management
Cache Thrashing
Group Primitives by Textures?
Hardware T&L
Compression
Card Memory
Why isn’t 32 bit color (16.7M) enough?
1280x1024x12 (Front,Back,Z)= 15MB
                                                                                                 

5. Game Engines 3D Engine 3D Languages Authoring System
Specialized Authoring (first or third person shooters)

6. Game Engines 3D Engine library of 3D graphics functions.
free, $50-$100 up to $250,000 for commercial use.
Require programming with an external delevopment system, normally Microsoft Visual C++.
maximum of flexibility
maximum of experience, work and time required.

7. Game Engines 3D Languages
DirectX/OpenGL interface with a scripting language
especially designed for 3D games
Simpler than 'real' programming.
Many based on Basic
easy to learn
not very well suited for large or complex games
Alternatives: C- or Javascript-based languages.

8. Game Engines Authoring System 3D engine and a visual
very fast 'clicking together' a game prototype.
only simple games can be created without any programming.
scripting language for programming or customizing the game.

9. Game Engines Specialized FPS (first or third person shooters)
offer no or limited scripting.
good alternative if you don't want to script and are not interested in publishing a game commercially.

10. Engine Considerations
Platforms
Performance
Data
Rendering/Features
Animation
Physics & Environment
Scripting
Authoring
I/O
Save/Load

11. Performance Occlusion Culling LOD Adaptive NURBS/Patches
Cell Based: BSP tree, Portal, Octree
Other: Potentially Visible Set, HOM
LOD
Adaptive NURBS/Patches
Polygon Reduction
Terrain Primitives

12. Data Import/Export 3D file formats Texture/Image Formats
X, 3DS, MDL, MD2, MAP, WAD
Texture/Image Formats
Models/Animations:
Maya, 3D Studio MAX
Levels
WorldcraftT or MilkshapeT
Plugins

13. Rendering Features OpenGL vs. DirectX Shadow Maps (Lightmaps) Shaders
DX6-9
OpenGL ,2.0
Shadow Maps (Lightmaps)
Shaders
Dynamic Shadows
MIP Maps/Multi Maps/ Bump Mapping
Effects

14. Animation Keyframe Bones (Skinning) Facial Animation Vertex Animation
Inverse Kinematics (IK)
Dynamics
High-level Authoring

15. Physics & Physical Environment
Visibility
Collision Detection
Terrain Following
Gravity
Physics
Rigid & non-rigid bodies

16. Scripting
Scripting languages add logic for controlling actors or objects
Languages:
Javascript
Luo -
Python
Basic
Custom:UnrealScript, C-Script, etc.
Script Compilers for performance

17. Save/Load System allows the end user to save a complete game state.
'freezes' all running scripts and all objects and variables of the game and writes them into a file
Without such a system:
a script has to be written which stores the state of every variable and object and the position within every script function

18. Authoring/Editing Level Editor Model Editor Script Editor Terrain
Logic

19. Sample Engines Specialized Authoring (FPS, 3PS) 3DGM, RF Authoring
Quest, Radish, Virtools, Gamestudio/A6, Alice, Adobe Atmosphere, Blender
3D Languages
Jamagic, DarkBASIC, Blitz
3D Engines
TV3D, Irrlicht, Torque, Nebula, Crystal, Cipher, PR, Jupiter, Quake3, Unreal2
Standards-based Engines & Tools (VRML/X3D)
Internet Scene Assembler, Cortona, Blaxxun,OpenWorlds, VizX3D

20. Game Engine Resources http://www.devmaster.net/engines
(->Software->Development and ->Software->Graphics)