Emergent s Gamebryo Game Tech 2009 Casey Brandt Technical Account Manager Emergent Game Technologies
Questions To Answer What is Gamebryo? How does it look today? How is it designed? What titles are in the market? What s s in Gamebryo? What tools does it provide? What runtime features does it provide? How does it work with other technologies? What is KickStart? How is it related to Gamebryo? What need is KickStart designed to satisfy? How do you get it? Who is building and using KickStart?? (WMD Case Study) Where is Gamebryo going? What needs do all game developers share? What features matter most and how are we maximizing rapid development capabilities?
What is Gamebryo? Powerful, Flexible, Proven
Gamebryo Today Gamebryo is a complete platform (runtime and tools) for creating nextgeneration games, visual simulations and other 3D experiences Gamebryo helps studios reduce development time and costs, while empowering developers to create more spectacular, immersive game environments Gamebryo is proven in over 200 titles, more than a dozen genres, and with hundreds of additional projects in development Gamebryo is the most implemented commercial solution for any game project
Gamebryo Design Principles Extensibility We understand that each game is unique and fully anticipate the customization needs of developers Gamebryo allows you to build your game your way Multiplatform Gamebryo is a foundation spanning the PC, Xbox360, PS3, and Wii Maximizes return while reducing risk Multicore Take full advantage of your target hardware out of the box Prototyping Begin rapidly building proof of concept demos with the KickStart prototyping kit Artists, Designers, and Programmers can start experimenting on their first day with Gamebryo Rapid Iteration Real-time previews for Artists; Data driven tools for Designers; Engineers can focus on purely game-specific programming supporting the other two disciplines
Gamebryo Titles Used in hit titles on all platforms all over the world Atlantica Online Civilization IV Defense Grid Divinity II Fallout 3 Jeopardy! Shadow Harvest TES IV: Oblivion Warhammer Online Future hits currently being developed at 2K Games Atlus Bottlerocket Disney Interactive Electronic Arts Gameloft KingsIsle NetDevil Square-Enix Ubisoft many, many more
What s in Gamebryo? Tools, Runtime, and Partnerships
Gamebryo Tools Empower artists with their DCC tools of choice Max/Maya/XSI Exporters Rapidly create game-specific assets with Gamebryo s intuitive tool GUIs AssetViewer AnimationTool Have designers prototyping immediately SceneDesigner KickStart
Gamebryo Runtime Hierarchical Scene Graph representation Flexible rendering, sorting and culling methods (and rendering system debugger) Extensible Shadow system for automatically generated shadow maps (supports PCF, VSM) Asynchronous processing options including Floodgate stream processing engine for cross- platform multi-core development Static and Dynamic Collision Detection and Ray Casting Bounding Volume Generation (OBB/ABV) StandardMaterial support for all common texture maps Flexible Material and Shader systems make it easy to use custom (FX/L, Cg) or generic shaders (NSF) Particle systems LOD representations Optimized animation system for maximum resource sharing and performance Supported integrations with Emergent Partner runtimes/tools
Gamebryo Partner Integrations
What is KickStart? One way to rapidly prototype in Gamebryo
KickStart And Gamebryo KickStart was born from the need to rapidly prototype on Gamebryo Prove concepts Secure funding Quickly iterate to build better games KickStart is not Gamebryo! KickStart is a game framework that utilizes core Gamebryo features and exposes them to Stackless Python scripting Built by a real game team to meet real game needs
KickStart Design Principles Direct Gamebryo Integration KickStart s GameObject system is directly integrated with SceneDesigner s Entity system Utilizes core Gamebryo runtime systems for rendering, scene management, input, platform support, and more Rapid Gameplay Creation and Iteration Stock triggers, cameras, AI behaviors, game and player FSMs,, character models, structure assets, and much more Flexibility The GameObject system is easily extended and ships with custom C++ objects as examples Python scripting through SWIG enables designers to rapidly create/augment e/augment game mechanics and flow A Functional Beginning for New Gamebryo Users KickStart is available to all Gamebryo users (including evaluators) It is a focused starting point complete with Tutorials and high quality game sample to orient new Gamebryo users with the engine Agile Development New releases every month Community Driven Enhancement Gamebryo users are encouraged to contribute features to the initiative iative Constant user feedback considered for every release
How To Obtain KickStart Get an Evaluation copy of Gamebryo 2.6 All Gamebryo Evaluators have the option to use KickStart KickStart available via Subversion source control server Maintain close contact with your Technical Account Manager when using KickStart Submit feature requests Make recommendations for your work flows
Case Study: White Moon Dreams Studio Profile New studio founded by industry veterans Employees from Interplay, Disney, DICE, KAOS, Insomniac, EA, and more Studio pipeline and Gamebryo KickStart genesis and on-going development Recognized Gamebryo s core tech value Needed streamlined workflow for funding Artist, Designer, and Programmer input/collaboration Development efforts yield reusable functionality and art First of many studio partnerships giving back to the Gamebryo community
Case Study: White Moon Dreams (cont) [Testimonials to be added from President, Game Director, Creative Director]
KickStart Demo KickStart functionality (as instructed in the tutorials): Create a simple test scene Trigger a GameObject event Associate a Python script with a scene Use Python to manage behaviors Creating and modifying GameObjects Creating a SceneDesigner component In-Engine Toys (HDR, DoF, SSAO, Soft Particles)
Where is Gamebryo going? Changing the future of game development
Addressing Future Needs Of ALL Game Teams All game teams have fundamental needs Rapidly develop prototypes and games A core system defining entities and properties for driving gameplay Robust tools for interfacing with the engine and game
What Game Teams Need: Rapid Development Rapid Prototyping Stand up Proof of Concepts faster Rapid Iteration More gameplay development and polish Better quality == Better games!
Comprehensive Entity System New Features! Entities are collections of properties and behaviors (scripts) Can be concrete or abstract PC/NPC, game objects, triggers, zones, etc. Anything that can be defined in a game Built-ins ins allow behaviors to call low-level level functionality (i.e. animation, input, PhysX,, etc.) Entities are at the core of a complete simulation this brings game logic natively to Gamebryo
Sophisticated Tool System New Features! New Common Tool architecture Consistent framework for building custom tools Complete game solution environment Entity/Behavior modeling Create and modify game content without recompiling Run-time game editing Game changes detected and reflected in running game Local and remote Real-time WYSIWYG DCC tool editing
Parting Words Key take-aways Gamebryo is an ideal solution for any type of game WE are the trusted core tech team for hundreds of studios Professional software build for customization Unrivaled support infrastructure 100% customer focus KickStart will get your prototype running on Gamebryo fast
For more resources Casey.Brandt@Emergent.net www.emergent.net