Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
CHAPTER 14
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Lasers
L
asers, highly focused beams of energy, have been a standard in movies and games for many
years. The word “laser” is an acronym that stands for Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission
of Radiation. Don't worry what “Stimulated Emission” means right now. We'll go over that later
in this chapter. One of the reasons that lasers can be powerful is that they concentrate light or
other types of radiation into a narrow, concentrated beam. A laser beam can burn through the
skin of an airplane, disable electronic devices, blind enemy soldiers, and lots of other things
besides.
In this chapter, we'll talk about the theory of lasers, different types of lasers, and how
you can incorporate them into your games. Specific topics covered in this chapter include
the following:
•
A brief history of lasers
•
An introduction to atoms
•
How lasers work
•
Types of lasers
•
Military lasers
•
Computing laser damage
•
Creating your own laser systems
•
Laser visual effects
Let's start our discussion with a brief history of how lasers came to be.
A Brief History of the Laser
Although he never built one, Albert Einstein can be considered the father of the laser because
in 1917 he came up with the theoretical framework that made the development of the laser
possible. Einstein and an Indian physicist named S. N. Bose came up with the idea that light
could be described as discrete particles called
photons
, and that these photons behaved in a
certain way that made stimulated emission, the “S” and “E” in laser, possible.
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