Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
Chapter 2
There are tons of reasons programmers get attracted to games: graphics, physics, AI,
networking, and more. Looking at all of the awesome games that have been released
over the past few years, such as Halo, Grand Theft Auto, Gears of War, and others,
you might first think that all of the major technology advances have been in the area
of graphics or physics programming. There is certainly more than meets the eye, and
after seeing for myself how some games are architected, I often wonder how they
even function.
When building a game, programmers will typically start with a DirectX sample,
import some of their own miserable programmer art, put an environment map or a
bump map on everything in sight, and shout
“
Eureka! The graphics system is fin-
ished! We
”
By the time the next weekend rolls around, the same newbie game programmers will
have a long laundry list of things that need to be done, and there are a number of
subtle things that they will have completely missed
'
ll be shipping our game by next weekend!
like how to manage memory
and game processes properly. These hidden systems are usually the heart of every
game, and you
'
re never aware of them when you play games because you
'
re not sup-
posed to be aware of them.
This topic is about more than just the visible parts. It is primarily about how to glue
all these parts together in a way that won
—
t drive you and your programming
colleagues insane. This chapter takes the first step, and it shows you a high-level
view of how commercial games are (or should be) architected.
'
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