Intro to 3D Game development

1
Intro to 3D Game development

• Chapter 1

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Genres

• Games are broken down into catagories
• Action First person shooters and 3rd person
  characters (called an avatar)
• Adventure Quest and exporing games usually with
  an avatar
• RPGs Character development, usually fiction
  based
• Maze/Puzzle problem-solving games
• Simulator High fidelity
• Sports duh..sports
• Strategy order issues

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Platforms

• System on which it runs
• Windows
• Macintosh
• Linux
• Xbox
• Wii
• PDA

4
Windows

• Uses OpenGL or DirectX
• OpenGL is cross-platform
• DirectX is proprietary
• Largest Market for sales

5
Linux

• Best price for results
• Server superiority
• OpenGL or other free APIs
• Smaller market, but steadily growing

6
Macintosh

• Recognized as an Art machine, not a game machine
• Untapped market
• OpenGL or other proprietary software

7
Developing

• Usually a collection of individuals with
  different background that work together toward
  the goal
• Producer
• Designer
• Programmer
• Visual Artist
• Audio Artist
• Quality Assurance (tester)

8
Producer

• Project Lead
• Scheduling
• Budget
• Expeditures
• Interface to the world
• Get it Guy/Gal

9
Designer

• Creates design and layout documents
• Concept creators
• Storyboard writers
• Descriptive text about characters, levels,
  weapons, etc

10
Programmer

• Code!
• Turning ideas, artwork, sound, etc into a
  functioning game
• Divisions
• Networking
• Audio
• Sound
• Game

11
Visual Artist

• Storyboard illustrator
• Texture artwork
• 3D models
• Animations

12
Audio Artist

• Sound effects of
• Terrain
• Character
• Weapon
• Editing

13
QA

• Test
• Test
• Test

14
Game elements

• Engine
• User Input
• Graphics
• Audio
• Networking
• File I/O
• Scripting
• Event processing

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Scripts

• Code for the engine
• Gameplay
• Rules
• Management

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GUI

• Interfaces for information flow
• HUD

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Models textures

• Usually 3d
• Terrain is a special model
• Textures commonly called skins
• Textures enhance performance

18
Support

• Web-sites
• Auto-updates
• Forums
• Admin Tools
• Database

19
Torque

• An engine to do the behind-the-scenes work
• Platform layer
• Console
• Input model
• Simulation
• Resources
• Graphics and Rendering
• Networking

20
Lets get started

• Open Torque and start looking around
• Assignment 1 Identify a game for each genre
  discussed. Be sure to identify platform, genre,
  and producer