CH1 3D Engines and Game Programming

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CH1 3D Engines and Game Programming
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Outline

• Buzzword Engine
• A Kind of Magic
• The Development Process of a Video Game

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Buzzword Engine

• SpeakerStephen
• GAME Lab./CSIE/NDHU

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Buzzword Engine

• Why to use the term engine ?
• What is the engines job?
• To do all the nasty low-level stuff.

Stephen
Buzzword Engine
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Engines versus APIs

• SpeakerStephen
• GAME Lab./CSIE/NDHU

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Engines versus APIs

• APIs are not 3D engines.
• Its better to call APIs 3D pipelines.
• Input 3D data ,output 2Ddata

Stephen
Engines versus APIs
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What Exactly Is an Engine

• SpeakerStephen
• GAME Lab./CSIE/NDHU

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What Exactly Is an Engine

• No single definition of engine
• General principles
• Manage all data
• Compute all data
• Accept and pass on data
• Independent of the project
• reusable

Stephen
What Exactly Is an Engine
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Example
Stephen
Buzzword Engine
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A Kind of Magic

• ???2008/2/27

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A Kind of Magic

• Nostalgia and Modern Times
• The Problems of Modern Times
• Wizardry and Art Creating the Magic

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Nostalgia and Modern Times

• Wing Command I
• Doom
• pixel-pulp

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The Problems of Modern Times

• The faster the hardware is, the more effects
  gamers want to see in the video games they buy.
• The challenge today is not to optimize every
  single detail at the lowest level you can reach.
• The challenge starts with distributing the
  workload evenly between the two processors at
  your disposal.
• you need to look at the traffic between the two
  processors
• Be friend with your enemy , No more Rambo-Like
  strategies.

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Wizardry and Art Creating the Magic

• Two Kinds of Programmers
• Difference between Game and other Programs
• Game is not only an art (a video game is an
  interactive form of art.)

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Wizardry and Art Creating the Magic

• You Are The God

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The Development Process of a Video Game

• Roy2008/2/27

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Outline

• Proposal

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Proposal

• Game treatment
• Competitive analysis
• Design document
• Team introduction
• Budget
• Schedule

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Proposal

• Game treatment
• Summarize the project
• Viewed by manager

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Proposal

• Competitive analysis
• Competitive advantage
• Why should customers buy your game?

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Proposal

• Design document
• Implement every thing on it
• Implement nothing that is not on it
• Lead designer is crucial

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Proposal

• Team introduction
• Who you going to work with
• Let manager know that your team is reliable

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Proposal

• Budget

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Proposal

• Budget

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Proposal

• Schedule
• Milestones

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Proposal

• Minimum system requirement
• Other important things

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Outline

• Proposal

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• The ones doing most of the work are the ones who
  gain the least profit from it. And there are no
  guarantees of anything.
• Publisher and retailer gets most of the revenues

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• Distribute it online alternatively, maybe?
• Game development is a very normal job with a
  little bit more of fun.

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