What is a game engine?
A game engine is a piece of software that allows you to design and create a game simply without going through the trouble to hard coding it. A game engine allows you to add models and objects into the engine which will then allows you to use them in the game. They still have to code some of the game but it is not all coding and can do it to their liking. A game engine allows you to create high quality games, and also game engines have may different tools to use so the possibilities of making objects and maps and endless. The Unreal Development Kit allows to create all different kinds of genre games and and has updated technology which allows you to create industry standard games.
Different gaming aspects?
There are many types of tools and aspects in a game engine. Graphics rendering, Animation systems, AI, Physics and Sound. These are the main aspects in a game engine and these are basically the core features for making a game without these you can not make a high standard and quality game.
Graphics rendering
Graphics rendering is a tool in a game engine that allows you to add objects and images, and turn them into pixels which allows you to see them when playing a game. When you are playing a game you can change the resolution, this means that graphics rendering takes place and depending on what the settings are the rendering will take place and make a certain amount of pixels. The more pixels there are the more high quality and detailed the image will be. When rendering a object in a 3D software you need to make sure that all the faces of the polygon is selected so you can UV map it and start to unfold the mesh.
Animation Systems
Animation Systems is a tool within a game, that allows you to make a rendered object move in the way you programmed it. you can move individual parts of an object to make it as realistic as possible. If there was no animation involved in a game engine you would not be able to move different parts of the character in the game. The software Maya is great example for animation because you have to move the model/rig and set a frame for a certain amount of seconds. It is not
AI
AI stands for Artificial intelligence. This means that AI is used to stimulate human like intelligence such as the behavior of a human. AI is a robotic copy of a character in a game. This allows the game to come to life and make you feel like you are in game with a real life person. Without AI's in a game there would be not campaign which is the filling of the game. You also need AI's to test certain things with a game such as seeing if the bullet will destroy a certain objects.
Physics
Physics engine is a computer software that allows you to create object to do certain thing that would happen in reality, such as adding a collision to a object to you can't go through it. Also Physics engine focuses how a person moves and makes decisions. This is where physics engine allows you to do that to an object and bring it to life to make the game look as real as possible, such as when making a character's arm move, move it so it looks like it has a bone structure such as a elbow or shoulder.
Sound
Sound is a key feature in a game engine. Sound brings every game to life a makes you feel like you are the character in the game. There are many types of sounds you can add into a game to make it come to life. When creating a game in a game engine, you can add sound to individual aspects such as, the sound of the movement, the environment of the game and so on. Without sound i think that you would not get the same thrill and enjoyment as you would without sound.
There are many types of game engines such as 3D, 2D and mobile game engines.
3D Game Engines
3D game engines are more advanced and have more features than any others. Games these days are mostly done on a 3d game engine. 3D game engines are the most popular type of game engines such as UDK Frostbite and the Cry engine are all 3D. These are used to create high resolution games and also provides the best game graphic quality. A lot of console and pc games are made form 3d game engines.
2D Game Engines
2D game engines are mainly used to create most platform games such as the mario games and sonic. They have not as many tools and features but still do the job. The graphics are not as great because they are not in three dimensional and don't need as much quality. 2d game engines and generally used to create most indie and arcade games. Mario and other platform games come under these types of genre.
Mobile Game Engines
Mobile game engines can be 2D or 3D, however they are used to create most of your apps for your phones and tablets. The mobile game engines allow you to create many different types of game but wont be up to the high quality standard as most pc and console games. They are still done on a computer. Udk is a great example for this because udk can be used for a 3d and mobile game engines software which is a bonus and has many features.
All of these features i have spoken about are extremely important because without them you would not be able to create a game. They are all linked together so for example if one of though element is not in the game engines it would not combine together and create a full potential game.
Red= Improvements
Collision Detection
Collision Detection usually refers to the computational problem of when two or more objects collide with each other. While it is most often associated with its use in Video Games and other Physical Simulations, it also has applications in Robotics. For example in a game you have to have collisions on certain items because if you don't the player could just walk out of the map and crash the game, so when the game company's are going to release a new game for retail they have game tester that will test certain points over and over again to make sure the collision of each object is correct and that there are no bugs.
These are to examples to explain how collision works in reality and in a computer generated game.The first image shows that in game collision have to be precise and programmed to not allow certain object pass through another object at certain speeds. As shown on the first image, in one frame the object has skipped the collision detection because of how quick it was travelling so they need to be more precise in creating the collision and not set it to default for certain objects and test/evaluate each fault. I looked into the software i am going to use which is UDK and i found out that the model which is going to have the collision has to be created in Maya and imported into UDK because it allows a much more precise collision and will stop all objects passing through each other at certain speeds,movement and much more.
However i the second image i have chose, is a group of snooker balls. This is a good example to show how collision works, because when to balls get hit together they bounce of each other and don't pass through other object if solid. So when creating collisions on a game engine they need to make sure that everything is precise and acts like it would in reality.
Culling Methods
There are many different kinds of culling methods within game engines however the main ones that are constantly used when creating game are Occlusion culling, Back face culling, View Frustum culling and Portal based culling. Culling means to not render anything that is not necessary to optimize the full potential
Occlusion culling
Occlusion culling is when you are rendering an object but it cant be seen because they have been obscured by other objects so you use Occlusion to disable the process. The Occlusion process will go through the scene by the camera and then camera will show what parts will be seen in the scene so it can be removed and not rendered.
Back face culling
Back face culling is used when there are to many polygons in a scene and it works out which ones are not facing the viewer because they are not necessary if you cant see them. Getting ride of the polygon faces you cant see helps you render the object and gets rid of memory traffic that could build up.
View Frustum culling
View Frustum culling is when objects are left outside of the viewing Frustum so it gets cut of f so the geometries bounding volume is outside the view of what you can see.
Portal based culling
Portal based culling is where a 3d scene can be split up into cells and joined together by portals. portal culling works best in 3D scene where objects are not clear/visible such as a dark cave or a foggy environment. The camera will render a room however because there are visible portals in the room it will start to render the room behind it because of the size of the Frustum.
The importance of game engines and how they have such a big impact in life.
Game engines also have a huge impact on life and many people don't realize. Half of the UK (33 million) play video games on a day to day bases. Game engines allow use to create 3D models and 2D environments which we could never do before. Without game engines there would be less jobs out there, less people on internet because of no games and a lot of people would not be able to be creative and express there thoughts and come up with the latest games out there today.
Game engines can create games to tell a piece of history and let you interact with it. For example 'Call of duty world at war' is a game which is fun to play, however it tells you the history of the second world war and how the Nazi army started to conquer different parts of the world. This example shows me that game engines can create a documentary about history which is not boring and allows younger ages to understand clearer and interact.Game engines are all ways around us because they can make animations and TV adverts which is a big thing in the TV industry because they make money from putting they on TV so they need game engines. Game engines mainly are for creating game but some other things as well.
Billions of pounds goes into new game engines and company's making them because it is such as big trade and it is slowly becoming on of the most demanding jobs to be in out there.
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