Game engines are the invisible glue that seems to tie together all the assets that create a game -a decent engine can literally make or break a game long before the user gets to sample any modicum of gameplay. At its most basic level a game engine ties together among other things a 3d renderer, collision detection, sound, scripting, animation, artificial intelligence, networking among many other things. Creating a link from the base level of a computer to the inputs of the user, often via a graphical api like DirectX or OpenGL As far back as Wolfenstein, engines by way of my nerdy legend John Carmack have written ever more and more complex engines adding in feature after feature as the power of pc's have increased the feature set of these engines has in turn increased - in fact game engines and 3d accelerators have an almost symbiotic relationship with the increasing speed of pc's linked to the ever increasing feature set of the engines.
A engines key engine technologies are constantly being updated and up hauled for a new faster technique in fact its rare for an engine to have a feature in one iteration but lack it in the next - game engines seeming to take a kitchen sink approach to features trying to pack in as much as possible.
Nowadays game engines are some of the most complex pieces of software written tieing together countless features to ultimately display and run a game. Because of there overarching complexity and the time it takes to program engines are often licensed out to third parties, the most significant of these are the Unreal and Quake engine games of which the licence for a single game can cost upwards of one million dollars for the latest Unreal 3 engine. These engines now include an entire suite of features and tools to better implement and create there game – merely having the engine is nowadays not enough, developers expecting an entire suite of tools to better implement and create there game.
Subtractive and additive could mean one of two things I’m not too sure which so I'm gonna detail then both – woo! Subtractive and additive editing is relation to how game levels are created, subtractive takes away a predefined block from the ‘void’ while additive editing means adding features to a featureless 'void', such as walls, floors etc much like space. I could write entire essays on why subtractive editing completely sucks simply because of my Quake engine knowledge but they fall on the unreal engine devil side so i'll ignore them. Simply having subtractive editing seems to rely more on blocking out a level then falling back on predefined models to populate the level while additive mapping rely's more on adding further details still in the level editor and allows quick and easy eidit and manipulation
(Think im gonna write a blog about all this actually)
Now the other Subtractive and additive doodad could have meant adding and taking away features of an engine depending upong its end use.
The most obvious examples i can think of are the Doom3 and source engine lighting implementations, the Doom3 engine uses a per pixel lighting engine meaning all lights in the game can cast shadows depending upon the objects surrounding it and is automatically updated if the objects move around, the shadows lenghtening and shifting - this is very demanding on most pc's so the Doom3 engine is limited to a few lights each time and refined to traditional corridor based enviroments while the Source engine relies upon precomputed lightmaps, the map creator places lights around key points in the level editor before compiling it which works out how each light would react and illuminate the surroundings. This is much faster and more suitable for larger expanses of surroundings the only problems is the lighting is entirely static - shooting a light would certainly not have the same outcome as if you shot it in Doom3 and moving or editing a light in the level editor would mean you would have to recompile the entire thing. A game like far cry which features both indoor and outside expanses relies upon both precomputed lightmaps and per pixel lighting to achieve the desired effect, i think developers will be dropping lightmaps almost entirely in future titles as the hardware becomes more powerful and fall back on stuff like soft shadows and the like
Thursday, January 25, 2007
Tuesday, January 23, 2007
Blogger you curr
Goddamnit i hate blogger that or im an idiot it seems not to have posted aload of blogs i wrote mostly over the winter break - ah well there up now all posted on the same day(!) - guh, thats gonna look weird
Machinima hate
So judging by the views of many in the lecture today nobody likes machinima, i can kinda see why in some parts but i disagree with many others. Using stock animations and models for something outside of the scope of the original game is foolish yes - seeing master chief in an embarrasing yet apparently humourful (not sure if thats even a word) social situation as he goes through a looping reload animation is so metally jarring it hurts, but when there used to further extend a games story or ethos it can only be a good thing, right? Much the same way fans write fan fiction for there favourite film or book machinima could be used for games.
Alot of the machinama out there at the moment is based around comedy and lets be honest all of its crap, its about as funny as you'd expect from a 14yr old living in Texas i can see parelles people draw with comics many people expect comics to be funny have some kind of punchline at the end of the three frames, raised on the sheltered antics of the Beano and the Dandy its hardly surprising - i struggle to think of any newspaper cartoon that isnt marely shallow humour and im including those shameful daily mail strips about footballers and girls with there tops off. But dig deeper and comics are a serious genre as grave and adult as there big brother, literature. Anyone who's read through Holocaust inspired Maus will testify to that - all monochrome and tiny frames crammed onto the page the thing oozes depression and dispair.
So why can't machinima try this approach? Get rid of all the damn linkin park music video covers and making something truly dark almost artistic? It was also mentioned in the lecture how using compuer models will never be as good as the real thing, well no they won't, thats uncanny valley territory there humans are very good at identifying a real human from a fake be it a real model or onscreen , even the very finest pixar models which take days to properly render look stiff and wooden which is why they often go for a more stylised cartoony look, think Incredibles. Look at the latest iteration of team fortress its clearly take a leaf out of the incredibles design book somehow the models look MORE realistic when they follow the design rules commonly used for more traditional cartoons.
If someone would take the time to create custom models for a given role, never seen before only used for the role in which you first see them with the props and enviroment matching the same design and visual look with an intelligent story and direction would it still be crap? I can see machinima becoming gamings equivalent of claymation - some of the more arty one's you never see in the mainstream are positively evil, brief visions that takes months sometimes years to create rather than constalty trying to twist gaming and the tool set that comes with it into something its not, in this case mainsteam films why can't they be something on there own?
Alot of the machinama out there at the moment is based around comedy and lets be honest all of its crap, its about as funny as you'd expect from a 14yr old living in Texas i can see parelles people draw with comics many people expect comics to be funny have some kind of punchline at the end of the three frames, raised on the sheltered antics of the Beano and the Dandy its hardly surprising - i struggle to think of any newspaper cartoon that isnt marely shallow humour and im including those shameful daily mail strips about footballers and girls with there tops off. But dig deeper and comics are a serious genre as grave and adult as there big brother, literature. Anyone who's read through Holocaust inspired Maus will testify to that - all monochrome and tiny frames crammed onto the page the thing oozes depression and dispair.
So why can't machinima try this approach? Get rid of all the damn linkin park music video covers and making something truly dark almost artistic? It was also mentioned in the lecture how using compuer models will never be as good as the real thing, well no they won't, thats uncanny valley territory there humans are very good at identifying a real human from a fake be it a real model or onscreen , even the very finest pixar models which take days to properly render look stiff and wooden which is why they often go for a more stylised cartoony look, think Incredibles. Look at the latest iteration of team fortress its clearly take a leaf out of the incredibles design book somehow the models look MORE realistic when they follow the design rules commonly used for more traditional cartoons.
If someone would take the time to create custom models for a given role, never seen before only used for the role in which you first see them with the props and enviroment matching the same design and visual look with an intelligent story and direction would it still be crap? I can see machinima becoming gamings equivalent of claymation - some of the more arty one's you never see in the mainstream are positively evil, brief visions that takes months sometimes years to create rather than constalty trying to twist gaming and the tool set that comes with it into something its not, in this case mainsteam films why can't they be something on there own?
Dance Dance Immolation!
Just seen this in the newest PC Gamer, called Dance Dance Immolation its what I think should be outfitted to all dance rhythm games frankly - rhythm based games and pyromanicacy go so well together I find.
Take a normal Stepmania powered machine and attach several propane flamethrowers to it, if you shuffle you booties correctly it fires jets of flame harmlessly into the air if you don't it fires them into your face. Of course what would be a pretty short one-time type of game is made replayable by the inclusion of a fire suit normally used in chemical spills and raging infernos.
I can't help but think of the Saw series of films, with the main adversaries making ever disgusting machines of disfiguration if you succeed in the task of self perversion you can free yourself if not, bam! That’s what the audience came to see etc
I can't help but think there could be a series of gaming related machines - fail to come top in a multiplayer last man standing game and you really won't be respawning again.
More here: interpretivearson.com/ddi
Take a normal Stepmania powered machine and attach several propane flamethrowers to it, if you shuffle you booties correctly it fires jets of flame harmlessly into the air if you don't it fires them into your face. Of course what would be a pretty short one-time type of game is made replayable by the inclusion of a fire suit normally used in chemical spills and raging infernos.
I can't help but think of the Saw series of films, with the main adversaries making ever disgusting machines of disfiguration if you succeed in the task of self perversion you can free yourself if not, bam! That’s what the audience came to see etc
I can't help but think there could be a series of gaming related machines - fail to come top in a multiplayer last man standing game and you really won't be respawning again.
More here: interpretivearson.com/ddi
Gears of tried and tested
So thanks to my 360 owning friend I’ve played and completed Gears of war, good grief is it short but overall very good the context sensitive control system overall works pretty well with you slapping your back against walls with aplomb but I found as with most things that are over simplified to a single action the game often caused me to jump out into fire when I just wanted to move into cover - a word on cover, every object in the game be it a chest of drawers a wall or a pillar is recognized as cover with the areas in the game being broken down into competitive puzzles more than anything else, simply rushing head first into the enemy will get you killed with the game taking a more tactical edge, something that surprised me coming from Epic a developer who previously worked on Unreal Tournament a fps as gristle headed as you get.
The environments in the game are presented in a linear fashion, clear one section of baddies and the game will proceed to the next often in the form of a cut scene or NPC interaction, the game constantly loads the next segment in the background so your never presented with a loading screen something I want to see more developers doing as it was very effective in immersing me in the story and mood.
Control wise it did remind me allot of Resident Evil 4, it has the same over shoulder view and maps the same context sensitive actions to a single button, tilting and panning the camera around your onscreen avatar.
All in all, gears of war is a more traditional game a huge blockbuster of a game - a world in a peril, boss battles, huge weapons and even bigger characters in a climate that’s constantly trying to be new and fresh its nice to see a game still it touch with its action film roots.
The environments in the game are presented in a linear fashion, clear one section of baddies and the game will proceed to the next often in the form of a cut scene or NPC interaction, the game constantly loads the next segment in the background so your never presented with a loading screen something I want to see more developers doing as it was very effective in immersing me in the story and mood.
Control wise it did remind me allot of Resident Evil 4, it has the same over shoulder view and maps the same context sensitive actions to a single button, tilting and panning the camera around your onscreen avatar.
All in all, gears of war is a more traditional game a huge blockbuster of a game - a world in a peril, boss battles, huge weapons and even bigger characters in a climate that’s constantly trying to be new and fresh its nice to see a game still it touch with its action film roots.
Gah! Intergrated chipset evil!
So I was over a friends house today to play with his spangly new computer, several games underarm I checked the pc's specs everything checked out multicore this gigabytes that but wait! GAH! What was this an Integrated Intel chipset? Something which in some of the more nerdier circles is whispered in hushed tones of revulsion. He would be unable to play most of the games I had brought and the ones he could run would be reduced to 'orrible juddery slide shows of PC gaming's current finest.
Why the hell do Intel do this? They dress up these things to read like the second coming of the electronic messiah in advertisements but when you get down to it there about as powerful as a calculator, like every other sector of the hardware league Intel and AMD are in a constant battle to produce the fastest zippiest processor, even at the budget end of the spectrum there processors are still more than adequate to run a modern game respectably so why are there graphic chipsets so crap?
Of course you could argue that these onboard graphic chipsets aren't really graphics sets but merely something to display windows, perhaps display video and the ever cheeky office game of solitaire, while it falls to dedicated video card makers ATI and NVIDIA to produce something that caters to anybody wanting to do anything more demanding than run Windows but with the recent purchase of ATI by Intel rival AMD this has been put into question.
Microsoft's next iteration of Windows Vista, has a new graphical interface named Aero glass that pretty much demands a card capable of displaying these complex graphical titbits, a bog standard Intel integrated job by simply won't cut it. This coupled with the ever increasing popularity of high definition video endures that the casual e-mail sending, web surfing pc user is going to require something much more powerful.
Of course its the corporations that ultimately control this, PC makers such as Dell concentrate on the more recognisable indicators of a systems power in advertisements when targeting there casual pc using audience the choice of graphic chipsets often seems like second fiddle to the more recognisable representations of a pc's power namely a headline dominating processor speed and ram size these are the numbers the general public understands, so long as it sounds big and flashy its ok.
Additionally its companies like Dell's biggest customers that also effects this the most not the casual pc user but the IT sectors of gigantic corporations if it costs a IT manager an additional $5 to increase the graphics chipset to something approaching respectable speed what’s the harm but increase that over 50,000 pc's and suddenly you see why graphic cards are sill are luxury.
Why the hell do Intel do this? They dress up these things to read like the second coming of the electronic messiah in advertisements but when you get down to it there about as powerful as a calculator, like every other sector of the hardware league Intel and AMD are in a constant battle to produce the fastest zippiest processor, even at the budget end of the spectrum there processors are still more than adequate to run a modern game respectably so why are there graphic chipsets so crap?
Of course you could argue that these onboard graphic chipsets aren't really graphics sets but merely something to display windows, perhaps display video and the ever cheeky office game of solitaire, while it falls to dedicated video card makers ATI and NVIDIA to produce something that caters to anybody wanting to do anything more demanding than run Windows but with the recent purchase of ATI by Intel rival AMD this has been put into question.
Microsoft's next iteration of Windows Vista, has a new graphical interface named Aero glass that pretty much demands a card capable of displaying these complex graphical titbits, a bog standard Intel integrated job by simply won't cut it. This coupled with the ever increasing popularity of high definition video endures that the casual e-mail sending, web surfing pc user is going to require something much more powerful.
Of course its the corporations that ultimately control this, PC makers such as Dell concentrate on the more recognisable indicators of a systems power in advertisements when targeting there casual pc using audience the choice of graphic chipsets often seems like second fiddle to the more recognisable representations of a pc's power namely a headline dominating processor speed and ram size these are the numbers the general public understands, so long as it sounds big and flashy its ok.
Additionally its companies like Dell's biggest customers that also effects this the most not the casual pc user but the IT sectors of gigantic corporations if it costs a IT manager an additional $5 to increase the graphics chipset to something approaching respectable speed what’s the harm but increase that over 50,000 pc's and suddenly you see why graphic cards are sill are luxury.
Games for windows
I wandered into a GAME shop the other day, that place is fast becoming the sole reason for my ever increasingly jaded view of the traditional public image of games but more on that later. A quick look around any games shop confirms one thing, the PC section is shrinking skulking and further back into the shadows a sad collection of budget titles and console ports while the shelf space given to console titles seems to be ever increasing - hell the PS2 section in most GAME shops seems to almost dominate half the shop, the things almost dead yet its still given quadruple the space to the PC arguably the birthplace of all games.
While the revenue in things like MMORPG and casual online games are increasing ten fold a 10% drop in traditional titles from last years shows something’s up, with the ever shrinking public image of PC games it’s hardly surprising.
Well its fallen to Microsoft to address this issue, with there unveiling of games for Windows initiative, all console games have a standardised box layout, console name on the top perhaps on the back details of the numbers of players supported that kind of thing; with pc games its different there’s no fully standardised look with each publisher taking a different approach in presenting specifications, genre etc all the things customers look at when deciding a purchase. It maybe purely psychological but having a instantly recognisable banner and look on each pc game would make the pc look more like a viable gaming platform a brand if you will and less like a scary mix of specifications and publisher branded games to the casual gamer.
Addiotnally Microsoft are also tackling the traditional trap of the requirements box to Mr Casual gamer, working with Vista's new PC rating system the pool of numbers and stats are now broken down into a numerical score on your PC, if your PC scores a 3 and the game requires a 3 or lower than congratulations you can run it! Of course there’s bound to be mistakes in this approach but it massively increases the potential of people trying games on there PC's rather than simply being put off at the first hurdle.
Of course you could just argue that Microsoft is doing this simply to control the PC games sector much the same way it does with the 360 make the PC a closed system, they hold all the cards in the same way there trying to do with DRM for multimedia. Only time will tell
While the revenue in things like MMORPG and casual online games are increasing ten fold a 10% drop in traditional titles from last years shows something’s up, with the ever shrinking public image of PC games it’s hardly surprising.
Well its fallen to Microsoft to address this issue, with there unveiling of games for Windows initiative, all console games have a standardised box layout, console name on the top perhaps on the back details of the numbers of players supported that kind of thing; with pc games its different there’s no fully standardised look with each publisher taking a different approach in presenting specifications, genre etc all the things customers look at when deciding a purchase. It maybe purely psychological but having a instantly recognisable banner and look on each pc game would make the pc look more like a viable gaming platform a brand if you will and less like a scary mix of specifications and publisher branded games to the casual gamer.
Addiotnally Microsoft are also tackling the traditional trap of the requirements box to Mr Casual gamer, working with Vista's new PC rating system the pool of numbers and stats are now broken down into a numerical score on your PC, if your PC scores a 3 and the game requires a 3 or lower than congratulations you can run it! Of course there’s bound to be mistakes in this approach but it massively increases the potential of people trying games on there PC's rather than simply being put off at the first hurdle.
Of course you could just argue that Microsoft is doing this simply to control the PC games sector much the same way it does with the 360 make the PC a closed system, they hold all the cards in the same way there trying to do with DRM for multimedia. Only time will tell
Dreamy cast
I bought a Dreamcast today for the princely sum of 20 pounds plus a copy of jet set radio, for many reasons I see the dream cast as something of a forgotten gem and standard setter, the first online console, the first proper current gen console - shudup Atari jaguar your are NOT 128 bit, the first console in which the aspirations of online game play and console to pc connectivity are realised.
There’s nothing quite like a new console even if this one is old hat to the rest of the world, the exotic looking controller, the start up jingle promising so many hours of discovering some of gaming's classics, mentally adding to your internal repertoire of games played and rated seeing where franchises started before becoming muddied by shameless ports and sequels, Sonic Adventure anyone? An opportunity to see first hand exactly what Sega did to ensure this was there last console ever made *Sniff*
I've also discovered thanks to a custom boot disc written some years ago there is absolutely no need for me to buy any of the games languishing in Amazon limbo, a quick download and burn to a bog standard cd ensures I can sample many classics which for whatever reason would be out of my reach be it region or ridiculous rarity coupled with even more ridiculous price - seriously have you seen the price of Shenmune 2? Because its a dead console there’s not the slight twinge of guilt I feel when downloading a game normally either.
Now if only I had bought a memory card with this thing I could get a bit further in jet set radio
There’s nothing quite like a new console even if this one is old hat to the rest of the world, the exotic looking controller, the start up jingle promising so many hours of discovering some of gaming's classics, mentally adding to your internal repertoire of games played and rated seeing where franchises started before becoming muddied by shameless ports and sequels, Sonic Adventure anyone? An opportunity to see first hand exactly what Sega did to ensure this was there last console ever made *Sniff*
I've also discovered thanks to a custom boot disc written some years ago there is absolutely no need for me to buy any of the games languishing in Amazon limbo, a quick download and burn to a bog standard cd ensures I can sample many classics which for whatever reason would be out of my reach be it region or ridiculous rarity coupled with even more ridiculous price - seriously have you seen the price of Shenmune 2? Because its a dead console there’s not the slight twinge of guilt I feel when downloading a game normally either.
Now if only I had bought a memory card with this thing I could get a bit further in jet set radio
Console Exclusivity
There’s always one thing that’s irritated me with new consoles as the hype for them reaches fever pitch and all and everything is promised of there capabilities games normally associated with the PC seem to get up and leave or even worse games originally intended for PC suddenly become console only, lured in by the Microsoft or Sony dollar, boasting there title portfolio for shiny console X.
Of course there’s several reasons why this is done, consoles are standardised things, technological snapshots of whatever was the cutting edge when they were made this presents an easy opportunity to push a new game to a consoles maximum capability's and not worry about the balancing act of high and low end pc architecture, when a console is brand new is the only time it will match the average gaming PC displaying a developers vision as well as possible but when publishers take time to port a next generation game say from the 360 to the PS2 a console now nearly 7 years old it makes you wonder why they don't bother with the PC a system arguably more than capable of hosting the 360 version. Of course sales projections come into it why bother porting a game to the pc if only X number of people are going to buy it? While porting it to the PS2 may ensures it has a massive graphical downhaul sales ensures this would be more than worthwhile.
This robbing of titles has been going on for years as far back as Elite moving from the BBC to the NES, if there’s any good from this I believe that the PC is where new games and genes are created and nurtured before they reach a level of recognition and size to be ported to a console, creating room for the next bi g thing, fad or genre all game genres began on the PC with the the possible exception of the dancing game (woo) and I can't see any reason why this isn’t going to continue.
Of course its just as bad as when traditional PC games are 'consolofied' (swish!) then ported back to the PC at a later date, Deus ex 2 while a passable game on the Xbox just doesn’t compare to the PC's original and the PC port of Halo is frankly more than a little lack lustre (sorry Michael it really is) when compared to thorough bred pc fps games.
Still in a few years we'll all be emulating 'Console title smash!' on our pc's so whets there to worry about?
Of course there’s several reasons why this is done, consoles are standardised things, technological snapshots of whatever was the cutting edge when they were made this presents an easy opportunity to push a new game to a consoles maximum capability's and not worry about the balancing act of high and low end pc architecture, when a console is brand new is the only time it will match the average gaming PC displaying a developers vision as well as possible but when publishers take time to port a next generation game say from the 360 to the PS2 a console now nearly 7 years old it makes you wonder why they don't bother with the PC a system arguably more than capable of hosting the 360 version. Of course sales projections come into it why bother porting a game to the pc if only X number of people are going to buy it? While porting it to the PS2 may ensures it has a massive graphical downhaul sales ensures this would be more than worthwhile.
This robbing of titles has been going on for years as far back as Elite moving from the BBC to the NES, if there’s any good from this I believe that the PC is where new games and genes are created and nurtured before they reach a level of recognition and size to be ported to a console, creating room for the next bi g thing, fad or genre all game genres began on the PC with the the possible exception of the dancing game (woo) and I can't see any reason why this isn’t going to continue.
Of course its just as bad as when traditional PC games are 'consolofied' (swish!) then ported back to the PC at a later date, Deus ex 2 while a passable game on the Xbox just doesn’t compare to the PC's original and the PC port of Halo is frankly more than a little lack lustre (sorry Michael it really is) when compared to thorough bred pc fps games.
Still in a few years we'll all be emulating 'Console title smash!' on our pc's so whets there to worry about?
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