Gameenginearchitecture (1)

• Game team
  • The roles of AI and audio programmers outside China are still very important, while domestic AI is working on servers, and there is basically no effort on audio.
  • Art is becoming more and more important, and 3D game development is indispensable.
  • In addition, project management is also very important, and programmers do not have enough energy to focus on these things.
• Game Engine
  • Three features of the engine: data-driven, reusable, and scalable
  • Genre
    • First person
      • Realistic effects, with the highest technical requirements. Real rendering, High Frame Rate, physical simulation, animation and high intelligence AI, multiplayer game support
    • Third Person
      • Cartoon effects, rich movements, and interactive scenarios
    • Fighting games
      • A large number of actions, attack determination, role rendering, skin/cloth/hair rendering
    • Racing games
    • Instant strategy
      • Terrain support. Complex AI
    • Multiplayer Online
      • Servers with low image Performance Requirements
    • Others
  • Middleware
    • Game development is increasingly using middleware, and no engine can achieve the ultimate in all parts
    • The current engine is more like a container, and various third-party plug-ins are integrated
    • As for the current situation in China, commercial engines generally purchase several middleware Products, otherwise the functions are incomplete. self-developed engines are either open-source or self-developed.
    • Typical middleware:
      • Lighting: Beast/enlighten
      • Physics: Havok/physx/bullet
      • Animation: Granny/Havok/naturalmotion
      • AI: kynapse/xaiment/Havok
      • Ui: scaleform/awsomium/cegui
      • Video: Bink/scaleform/CRI movie
      • Audio: fmod/xact/miles
      • Network: raknet/gamespy
  • Gameplay
    • Many engines lack this layer. Maybe the popularity of ogre makes most people think that the rendering engine is a game engine, right?
    • In addition to rendering, such as object systems, event systems, script systems, and AI, it is also an indispensable part of a game engine.
  • Pipeline
    • This is where an engine is competitive, because it is directly related to the development efficiency of a game.
    • Although image effects are important for an engine, pipeline is more important than image and efficiency.
    • Game development is a process of continuous iteration, so improving the iteration speed also means reducing costs.
    • An engine is centered around "resources ".
  • Tools
    • Version Management
      • SVN was first introduced. Of course, it is undeniable that this is the best representative of open source free of charge, and it is good to manage Code. However, using it to manage art resources is undoubtedly a very inefficient choice.
      • Git/HG, which is easier to use than SVN. tortoisegit is my first choice. tortoisehg has been used for a while, and the operation habits of tortoisesvn are too different. Besides, the interface is still Python and it is not used to it.
      • Perforce, commercial solutions. the efficiency is indeed high (especially the art binary resources), and the plug-in (Vs/max/Maya/PS) is also good. after I transfer it from SVN, I always feel a little uncomfortable with some of its details, because it does not actively Compare file differences, which is why it is faster -_-
    • Profiling
      • Vtune/codyanalyst is a tool used by two programs. Recently, it was found that vs2010 is also quite useful in self-generation, and it is enough without assembly-level analysis.
      • Perfhud/pix/GPA: NV now feels less support for perfhud. if the program writing method is not standard, it cannot be analyzed. GPA is becoming more and more useful now. It would be better if some features of the PIX are also absorbed.