Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
reasons for that, which depend on how computers manage and process data which
we won't explain here. Remember that computers only understand zeros and ones.
It is important to stick to this rule!
Though textures don't necessarily need to be square images, still their size must be
in the range of 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, 512, 1024, or 2048 (though we suggest, for
most mobile devices, to make small use of textures above 512 or 1024 pixels in size,
to save system memory. Small screens don't need extra detailed textures.).
Baking
A technique to save computational power to calculate real-time lights for game en-
vironments is called baking. It consists of "printing" the shadows generated by the
elements which populate a game environment in real time directly on the textures
which cover floors and walls and then apply the texture with the baked shadows to
the game environment. This way, they can be put in the game engine as objects that
don't generate real-time shadows, thus saving power to keep the frame rate of your
game as high as possible.
It is important to remember that, to use baking, the objects with baked shadows must
be static objects. If you move a crate with a baked shadow, the trick will be revealed
to your players and will result in a poor and inconsistent visual experience.
Animations
The techniques to animate 2D and 3D characters are similar and very different at
the same time. They both require breaking up each animation in a given (hopefully
small) number of key frames and then inserting each frame into a sequence.
The difference is that in 2D animation, the brain of the player fills in the blank spaces
between two successive frames at a typical rate of 24 frames per second, creat-
ing the illusion of continuity in the animation, while in 3D animation, a tool, usually
provided with the modeling software, takes care of interpolating the positions of each
part of the model according to a set of rules and parameters between two subse-
quent positions.
To animate a 3D model, you first need to make its bones, which are the part of the
model that is actually animated. Once the model is provided with bones, the mesh of
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