Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
FIGURE 4.10
A shootout in The
Godfather II
DETAIL
Every designer must decide how much detail the game world needs—that is to say,
how richly textured the world will be and how accurately modeled its characteris-
tics will be. To some extent, your answer will be determined by the level of realism
that you want, but technical limitations and time constraints will necessarily
restrict your ambitions. No football game goes to the extent of modeling each fan
in the stadium, and few flight simulators model all the physical characteristics of
their aircraft. Detail helps to support the fantasy, but it always costs, in develop-
ment time and in memory or disk space on the player's machine. In an adventure
game, it should, in principle, be possible to pick up everything in the world; in
practice, this just isn't practical. As a consequence, the player knows that if he can
pick up an object, it must be important for some reason; if he can't pick it up, it
isn't important. Similarly, in god games, it's common for all the people to look
alike; they're often male adults. Bullfrog Productions once designed a god game
with both male and female adults, but there wasn't enough time for the artists to
model children as well. People simply were born into the world full grown.
Lionhead's Black & White , on the other hand, managed to include men, women,
and children.
The camera model you choose, and the way that the player moves through the
world, may influence your decisions about the level of detail. For example, in a
small stadium such as the Wimbledon tennis courts, the athletes may be conscious
of specific people in the crowd, so it makes sense to model them in some detail. In
motorsports, however, the spectators will flash past in a blur, and there's no point
in putting much effort into their appearance.
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