Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
certainly less than grabbing resources from the local hardware. Predicting what the
player needs, and finding ways to stream those bits, is a key part of any nontrivial
game that runs over the Web.
Both of those subjects are beyond the scope of this topic to present detailed solutions,
but you will be introduced to basic ideas behind resource caching so you can become
familiar with the basic concepts.
Requirements
Modern games have gigabytes of data. A single-layer DVD can hold 4.7GB, and a
single layer of a Blu-ray disc can hold up to 25GB. For PC games, you can browse
the install directories and get an idea of what they store and how much storage they
need. I
ll go over the big stuff and give you an idea of how the data is stored, what
formats you can use, how you can compress it, and what that does to the final prod-
uct. I
'
'
ll cover the following game data file types:
n
3D Object Meshes and Environments:
This usually requires a few tens of
megabytes and stores all the geometry for your game.
n
3D Mesh/Object Animation Data:
This is much smaller than you
'
d think, but
lots of in-game cinematics can blow this up to many tens of megabytes.
n
Map/Level Data:
This is a catchall for components like trigger events, object
types, scripts, and others. Together, they take up very little space and are usually
easy to compress.
n
Sprite and Texture Data:
These get pretty big very fast and can take many
hundreds of megabytes, even on a Wii game.
n
Sound, Music, and Recorded Dialogue:
Recorded dialogue usually takes more
space on games than any other data category, especially when the games have a
strong story component.
n
Video and Prerendered Cinematics:
Minute-per-minute, these components
take up the most space, so they are used sparingly in most games. They are
essentially the combination of sprite animation and stereo sound.
3D object and environment geometry takes up a lot less space than you
d think. A
3D mesh, whether it is for an object, a character, or an environment, is a collection
'
