Simulation Engines TDA571 DIT030 Course Introduction. Staffan Björk

Transcription

1 Simulation Engines TDA571 DIT030 Course Introduction Staffan Björk

2 Course Brief Develop an interactive simulation engine Focus on software engineering Not just game programming Use the paradigm that the engine acts as middleware

3 Learning Outcomes Understand the typical structure of simulation engines and the requirements of specific parts of such engines Understand what public libraries and programs can be combined with simulation engines to provide the required functionality of an interactive simulation Analyze existing simulation engines to determine functionality and extendibility Plan several parallel extensions of a simulation engine while minimizing dependencies Extend existing simulation engines to augment functionality while maintaining stability and having predictable consequences on resource use Present extensions of a simulation engine through demonstrators and public presentations 3 / 41

4 Course Rationale The games industry grows at a tremendous rate Bigger than Hollywood Large demand on software engineers with formal education in games programming Modern game development requires good software engineering skills and no longer allows for the old hacking styles Technical complement to the course Game Design 4 / 41

5 Teachers Involved Main teacher Markus Larsson Travelling until week 46 Supervisor Tommaso Piazza Examinator Staffan Björk Programme Manager Olof Torgersson 5 / 41

6 Administrative Stuff Roll call Fill in the form handed out Student representatives 3 people All information about the course in available on the course webpage Check the webpage frequently! 10/27/08 6 / 41

7 Grading Information Examination in this course consists of a group project. The course has no written exam. A passing grade requires the following: An approved written suggestion for an individual extension of the simulation engine A passing grade on your group's project report A passing grade on your group's project presentation A passing grade on your personal project report A verbal presentation of a course subject The course is divided in two parts. One part is 3 points and represents each student's individual effort and the other is 4,5 points and represents the project group's collaborative effort. Possible grades are failure, 3, 4 and 5 at Chalmers or U, G and VG at Göteborgs Universitet. Grading is individual and is based on the above mentioned subjects as well as the project supervisor's judgment. 7 / 41

8 Important Dates Wed, 12 Nov Extension suggestions should be handed in to project supervisors Mon, 17 Nov Approval of extension suggestions Week 2-7 Individual presentations of themes from project members Mon, 12 Jan Group reports and individual reports should be handed in Exam week Project presentations Failing to keep a deadline without a proper explanation in good time before the deadline will result in a failing grade! 8 / 41

9 Example Quake & Doom Engine Developed by ID software One of the first commercial engines Games act as advertisement for the engine Old engines are released as Open Source Price example for Jedi Knight II Q3A: $ / 41

10 Example Quake & Doom Engine 10 / 41

11 Example Unreal Engine Developed by Epic Games Multiplatform Xbox360 PS3 PC Popular engine UT07, GoW, Lineage 2, Splinter Cell, etc. Unreal 3 has been used in the development of more than 600 titles 11 / 41

12 Example Unreal Engine 12 / 41

13 What is a Game Engine? A game engine is the underlying software behind a game. It provides the functionality which is common to all games. A 3D game engine is a game engine that is designed specifically for 3D games (basically, any game that can benefit from a 3D card)... [it will] provide such functionality as rendering models and worlds, network communications, and interfacing with the player. By using a preexisting game engine, game developers can skip most of the work that goes into programming a game and instead focus on the content of their particular game / 41

14 Definition Game Engine A game engine is a top-down framework of reusable components geared towards computer game development and implementing common concepts and functionality found in most (or all) games for a specific genre 14 / 41

15 Definition Component A component is an independent unit of deployment with contractually specified interfaces and with explicit context dependencies to other external components only 15 / 41

16 Definition Game Component A game component system is a bottom-up framework of reusable components geared towards computer game development and implementing common concepts and functionality found in most (or all) games for a specific genre 16 / 41

17 Example RenderWare Game component framework Open framework Multiplatform Interesting architecture Genre packs 17 / 41

18 Simulation Engines Advantages Simulation engines are a relatively new concept and allow for a few advantages: Shorter development time Focus on gameplay. Performance and stability 18 / 41

19 Simulation Engines Disadvantages Generalized structure: Monolithic design Inflexible design Technical limitations These can be avoided at least to some degree with well planned software engineering 19 / 41

20 Computer Game Components 20 / 41

21 Course Focus Game engines and simulation engines Not games and simulations Software engineering for games Technical knowledge for engine programming Using existing frameworks and engines Read, understand and edit external code Documentation of game engine code Group work in project form Present information both to your group and outside of it 21 / 41

22 Course Focus Not focus on: Game programming Game design Computer graphics The latest in 3D and games How to get a publisher for your game How to start a games company C++ programming Software engineering 22 / 41 But it might contain bits and pieces of all of these things

23 Course Contents 1. Introduction to simulation engines and practical information 2. Software engineering, architecture and design 3. Multimedia and scenegraphs 4. 3D graphics 5. AI and network 6. Physics 7. Input and collision detection, misc 8. Project demonstrations: Project Deliveries Extension suggestion, group project report, individual report Demonstrations Extension demonstration, project demonstration No written exam 23 / 41

24 Course Contents, cont. One theme each week. Two lectures per week (mostly) Monday Wednesday One hour mandatory meeting for every group with their project supervisor. Mondays and Wednesdays Mandatory presentation each week 24 / 41

25 Course Contents, cont. In the course, we want our developed simulation engines to be: Object oriented Component based General Extendable Effective 25 / 41

26 Simulation Engine or Game Engine? For the duration of this course, Simulation engines and Game engines are synonymous. Game engine will refer to middleware that can be used both for simulations and games. 26 / 41

27 Example America s Army Financed by the US military Two purposes: Training platform for groupbased units Advertisement to recruit new soldiers Uses the Unreal engine 27 / 41

28 Game genres There are a lot of different kinds of computer games Hard to find a good definition Categorized from certain design elements Abstract (Tetris, Qix, Arkanoid) Adaptation (Star Wars, Casino, Tic Tac Toe) Adventure (Spy Vs Spy, Superman, Ultima, Tomb Raider) Artificial Life (The Sims, Creatures) Board Games (Backgammon, Battleship, Scrabble) Capturing (light cycles in Tron) Card Games (Blackjack, Casino) Catching (Stampede) Chase Collecting (Pac Man, Spy vs Spy) Combat (Battlezone, Spy vs Spy) Demo Diagnostic Dodging (Frogger) Driving (Indy 500, Night Driver) Educational Escape (Pac Man) Fighting (Mortal Kombat, Tekken) Flying (A-10 Attack, Descent, Flight Unlimited) Gambling Interactive Movie (Dragon s Lair, Space Ace) Management Simulation (SimCity, Civilization, Railroad Tycoon) Maze (Doom, Pac Man, Lode Runner, Descent) Obstacle Course (Frogger) Pencil-and-Paper Games (Tic Tac Toe, Hangman) Pinball (Pinball Dreams, Pinball Fantasies) Platform (Donkey Kong, Super Mario Bros, Giana Sisters) Programming Games (CRobots, RARS) Puzzle (7th Guest, Myst, Tetris) Quiz (Jeopardy) Racing Indy 500, Mario Kart 64) Role-Playing (Diablo, Fallout, Ultima, Interstate 76) Rhythm and Dance (Beatmania) Shoot Em Up (Galaga, Space Invaders, Asteroids, Doom) Simulation Sports (Madden Football, NHL Hockey, SimGolf) Strategy (Monopoly, Chess) Table-Top Games Target Text Adventure (Zork, Planetfall, Hitchhiker s Guide to the Galaxy) Training Simulation (Comanche 3, Flight Unlimited) Utility 28 / 41

29 Game genres and simulation engines The genre is mostly interesting for the design team, but also for the developers How does the genre affect the demands on the engine? Is it possible to create a game engine that allows for any genre? Is it practical to create a game engine that allows for any genre? 29 / 41

30 Choice of Platform Large amount of platforms Anything from portable to stationary Console games are more popular than PC games This course focuses on PC/Windows Standard: Good and easy to come by development tools Comfortable: Available in classrooms and most students have a lot of experience Variation: The PC is a constantly changing platform, which challenges our skills Performance: A modern PC has a lot of horsepower 30 / 41

31 Choice of Language Productivity vs. performance Games contain worlds Object orientation represents this very well Games are huge The games of today are extremely complex and require a lot of design Games require performance, but not all the time Focus on optimizing the inner loops and use a reasonable language for the rest 31 / 41

32 Choice of Language - C ANSI C Industry standard Advantages C is one of the most effective high level languages C is available in the same standard for most platforms which allows for multiplatform development. There are also plenty of libraries and tools C allows access to low level functionality Disadvantage Hard to work with modern complex systems Does not inherently support large software structures 32 / 41

33 Choice of Language C++ Advantage High level language with access to low level functionality Object orientation Abstraction Encapsulation Inheritance Polymorphism In this course we use C++ Unless you already know it, start now! 33 / 41

34 A Simulation Engine Dissected Documentation Well written documentation of all aspects of the engine Technical support In practice, necessary to enable third party usage. Rarely present in free engines Content creation pipeline A good engine must have a well defined pipeline for creation and usability of all game content Core functionality The engine must, at least, handle all components required for building a game or be possible to extend into a game with a well defined interface Extendable A third part developer must be able to add functionality and content that separates their product from other products 34 / 41

35 Example UnrealEngine 3.0 Visual Features (state of the art 3D engine) Physics (rigid body physics) Animation (skeletal animation system) Game Framework (object oriented gameplay framework for game objects) Artificial Intelligence (multilevel AI system) Content Creation Tool (UnrealEd, WYSIWYG) Sound (output, Visual Sound Tool in UnrealEd) Networking (high-level network architecture) Programming Features (example source and engine source code) 35 / 41

36 Summary In this course we examine the development of simulation engines. Not games development A simulation engine is the middleware which is designed to allow for a higher level of abstraction for games development Simulation engines is a lucrative business! We will use the Windows platform. We will use the C++ language for implementation. 36 / 41

37 Project Scenario Your project group is a newly started game studio with the ambition to develop groundbreaking 3D-simulations for the PC-platform. You have the competence, but at the moment you lack the financial resources to fully develop the next blockbuster title. In order to be able to achieve this, you need to establish collaboration with a publisher who is interested in financing your next game. Publishers are notoriously hard to impress and you need to prove your technical expertise to sign a deal. To your aid, you have basic development tools and an existing 3D-simulation engine (Ogre3D). Your task for the next seven weeks is to learn the simulation engine, integrate necessary components, extend it with technical features to impress the publisher and to implement a tech demo which shows what your modifier 3D-engine can do. The project supervisor you have been assigned to has two tasks. Partly to act as an ordinary supervisor and mentor in your work and to act as the publisher and evaluate your work. 37 / 41

38 Project This course is based on the group project 6 small groups Individually Responsible for their own theme Suggesting an extension to the simulation engine within their theme Implementing their extension Verbally present their theme and extension to the rest of their group Write an individual report and project diary Groups Design and implement a tech demo that utilizes all of the extensions that have been created by the group members Write a project report Verbally present the project to the rest of the class 38 / 41

39 Project Group We will form groups of 5 people Based upon the forms handed out Themes Software Engineering 3D graphics Multimedia AI and network Physics (Misc) First individual presentation week 3! 39 / 41

40 Project Tips! This is a large project Roughly 20h/week Begin work immediately Get to know the simulation engine Do not expect perfect documentation Do not forget your individual diaries Start immediately 40 / 41

41 Thank you! Questions?