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The
following articles all first appeared in Game Developer magazine.
August 2001
Postmortem: Lucas Arts' Star Wars Starfighter by Chris Corry [08.01.01] For a game originally slated for release on PC, moving the project to Playstation 2 midway through development was a daunting procedure. With the help of some inspiration from the successful Star Wars games that came before it, Star Wars Starfighter finally flew onto the scene. January 2001
December 2000 Postmortem:
Ritual Entertainment's Heavy Metal: F.A.K.K. 2 By Scott Alden
[12.20.00] The decision to create a game based in the Heavy Metal
universe started back in the hot Texas summer of 1997. Ritual Entertainment
was in full-blown production of Sin when our concept artist's agent, Russell
Binder, called up one day. Russell mentioned that his client, Kevin Eastman,
was looking to make a videogame based on a new animated movie called Heavy
Metal: F.A.K.K. 2. Kevin told us that the name of the movie was based
on the name of the lead character in the movie and that character was
being based on the image of his wife, Julie Strain. The name of the movie
was later changed to Heavy Metal 2000, but we decided to keep the F.A.K.K.
2 name, due to the fact that we already had two magazine covers and previews,
and we didn't want to create product confusion. AI
Madness: Using AI to Bring Open-City Racing to Life by Joe Adzima
[01.26.01] Angel Studios' Midtown Madness 2 for PC and Midnight Club
for Playstation 2 are open racing games in which players have complete
freedom to drive where they please. Set in "living cities,"
these games feature interactive entities that include opponents, cops,
traffic, and pedestrians. This article provides a strategy for programmers
who are trying to create AI for open city racing games, which is based
on the success of Angel Studios' implementation of AI in Midtown Madness
2 and Midnight Club. November 2000
Product Review: Softimage XSI by David Stripinis [10.18.00] Softimage. For years those three little syllables rolled off the tongues of 3D artists everywhere. But then something happened. 3D Studio became 3D Studio Max. PowerAnimator became Maya. And Softimage … well, Softimage remained the same. But a word began to spread across studios and art departments around the world: "Sumatra." Sumatra was Softimage's oft-delayed next-generation 3D production tool, and it has finally arrived in a big way. Sumatra, now known as Softimage XSI, is definitely going to turn a few heads. October 2000
The Art of Noise: Game Studio Recording and Foley by Robert Stevenson [09.22.00] Do you wish you could get Hollywood-quality sound on you game developer budget? Robert Stevenson shares tips for making the most out of your recording session, including techniques for creating and recording your own Foley sound effects, how to select the right equipment, and why not to go into the studio on an empty stomach. Physics Engines, Part Two: The Rest of the Story by Jeff Lander and Chris Hecker [09.20.00] In Part One of their physics engine review, MathEngine's Dynamics Toolkit 2.0 and Collision Toolkit 1.0, the Havok GDK from Havok, and Ipion's Virtual Physics SDK all made their way through the 12 tests with varying levels of success. In Part Two, Lander and Hecker take a broader look at what each package offers. September 2000
Physics Engines, Part 1: The Stress Test by Jeff Lander and Chris Hecker [09.13.00] In the first of a two part series looking at physics engines, Jeff Lander and Chirs Hecker have created a series of tests that stress the capabilities of the simulations in difficult-to-solve situations where physical simulations typically break down. MathEngine's Dynamics Toolkit 2.0 and Collision Toolkit 1.0, the Havok GDK from Havok, and Ipion's Virtual Physics SDK are put to the test. August 2000
Game AI: The State of the Industry, Part Two by David C. Pottinger and Prof. John E. Laird [11.08.00] The second installment of Game Developer magazine's annual investigation into game AI presents two more experts discussing this ever-evolving field. First, David Pottinger looks down the road at what AI techniques the next generation of games will likely employ. Then, Professor John Laird talks about ways that game developers and academia can share information about AI to their mutal benefit. July 2000
Profiling, Data Analysis, Scalability, and Magic Numbers, Part 2: Using Scalable Features and Conquering the Seven Deadly Performance Sins by Herb Marselas [08.16.00] Ensemble's Herb Marselas concludes his two-part series on game optimization. Learn how to improve your game's performance by using optimization tools and desiging scalable features, as his team did on Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings. June 2000
Postmortem: Sierra Studios' Gabriel Knight 3 by Scott Bilas [10.11.00] Redesigning a game engine midway through a project is never a task a team wants to undertake. But when the situation dictates it, you bite the bullet, just like the brave souls at Sierra Studios did. Learn how their development team overcame three years' worth of engineering tribulations and personnel trunover, and pumped out a massive three-disc adventure title. Profiling,
Data Analysis, Scalability, and Magic Numbers, Part 1: Meeting the Minimum
Requirements for Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings by Herb
Marselas [08.09.00] This is the first of a two-part article that describes
the tips, tricks, tools, and pitfalls that went into raising the performance
profile of Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings. All of the techniques
and tools used to measure and improve AoK are fully capable of improving
the performance of other games. May 2000
Postmortem: Epic Games' Unreal Tournament by Brandon Reinhart [06.09.00] Epic Games' follow-up to Unreal had an unusual development cycle and a very loose development process. Working between two countries, the teams at Epic Games and Digital Extremes survived stiff competition as they struggled to evolve a single-player game into a deathmatch-oriented design. April 2000 Postmortem: Turbine Entertainment's Asheron's Call by Toby Ragaini [05.25.00] Creating a massively multiplayer game from the ground up with a team of uninitiated game designers sounds like a crazy idea. Teamed with Microsoft, the start-up crew at Turbine made modular architecture and dynamically load-balancing servers work like magic in Asheron's Call. March 2000 Postmortem:
Surreal Software's Drakan: Order of the Flame February 2000 Implementing
Subdivision Surface Theory by
Brian Sharp [04.25.00] Brian
Sharp expands his introduction to subdivision surfaces Postmortem:
Westwood Studios' Command and Conquer: Tiberian Sun by
Rade Stojsavljevic [04.04.00] Working
on a sequel to a wildly successful game is usually a quick lesson in "you
can't please all of the people all of the time." Rade
Stojsavljevic details how the team at Westwood pooled
their talent and experience in the real-time strategy genre to come up
with a winning sequel to Command and Conquer January 2000 Playing for Keeps: Developing Casino Games by Steve Boelhouwer [04.24.00] Electronic gambling devices have long remained cordoned off from the rest of the game development industry, but technology in casino games is finally catching up. As Steve Boelhouwer explains, one thing is certain about the future of these devices-- there's money in them. Subdivision
Surface Theory by Brian Sharp [04.11.00] A relatively new,
up-and-coming technique for implementing scalable geometry, subdivision
surfaces have emerged as a compelling contender among scalability solutions.
Postmortem:
Ensemble Studio's Age of Empires II: Age of Kings by
Matt Pritchard [03.07.00] How do you
follow-up a multi-million-selling, runaway hit? Very carefully, as Matt
Pritchard explains December 1999 The Cabal: Valve’s Design Process For Creating Half-Life by Ken Birdwell [12.10.99] While Half-Life has seen resounding critical and financial success (winning over 50 Game of the Year awards and selling more than a million copies worldwide), few people realize that it didn’t start out a winner — in fact, Valve’s first attempt at the game had to be scrapped. This article by senior designer Ken Birdwell is about the teamwork – or "Cabal process" — that turned the initial, less than impressive version of Half-Life into a groundbreaking success. Postmortem: Heavy Gear 2 by Clancy Imislund [12.08.99] Heavy Gear II allows game players to suit up in a giant, high-octane, humanesque battle tank called a "Gear," outfit a wily band of squadmates, arm them to the teeth, and prepare for battle. Clancy Imisland, a programmer on the game, talks about the rights and wrongs of the development experience. November 1999 The Blobs Go Marching Two by Two by Jeff Lander [05.22.00] The challenge of accurately modelling organic shapes and the they way they slop, splash, waddle and plop has caused many game artists to crumple under the pressure of recreating such phenomena. Jeff Lander shows how to use meta-goop to create and manipulate organic objects. Special Section: Game Audio Technology 2000 by Mark Miller [11.02.99] This special section, which initially appeared as a Game Audio Supplement in Game Developer, consists of eight different articles examining current trends in game audio, new tools and technologies, and speculations about the future, as well as interviews, product resources, and more. Postmortem: System Shock 2 by Jonathan Chey [12.07.99] The story of System Shock 2 is one of inexperienced developers, missed deadlines, technological obstacles and a small budget, and yet despite it all, it's a game that turned out to be a worthy sequel to the original. Read all about it from Jonathan Chey, the project manager and programmer. October 1999 Using Bitmaps for Automatic Generation of Large-Scale Terrain Models by Kai Martin [04.27.00] As game worlds (especially online, persistent ones) get larger, game development teams need efficient ways of creating large expanses of terrain without having to build it manually. Kai Martin introduces a bit-map based technique that helps automatically generates terrain, while still giving artists and world builders control over the details. Breaking the Sound Barrier: How to Work With Sound Designers by Aaron Marks [04.20.00] Of all the tasks necessary to a game development project, perhaps the one most commonly outsourced is that of the sound designer. Aaron Marks explains what you need to know before sitting down with a third party sound designer. Postmortem: Outrage’s Descent 3 by Jason Leighton and Craig Derrick [10.08.99] Come along with Outrage as they develop Descent 3. Share their pain and the ultimate rewards as Leighton and Derrick describe what went right and what went wrong in the process of developing the third installment of the Descent family. September 1999 Physics on the Back of a Cocktail Napkin by Jeff Lander [05.16.00] Pool, like many sports, is dominated by the laws of physics. Good players have an excellent sense of the application of force, the physics of collisions, and the influence of friction on objects in motion. In order to demonstrate how a solid physical foundation can actually create interesting game play, Jeff Lander pulls some of these concepts together into a apool table simulation. Behind the Scenes of Messiah’s Character Animation System by Michael 'Saxs' Persson [09.24.99] Saxs Persson waxes nostalgically philosophical about the trials and tribulations of developing Messiah's game engine. Don't expect to find any code here, but you will encounter some real-world problems, solutions, and nuggets of wisdom. August 1999 The Trials and Tribulations of Tribology by Jeff Lander [05.10.00] The simple force of friction in the physical world is so familiar to everyone in a potential game audience, that any departure from realism can be glaring and yet realistically simulating these simple physical properties is quite challenging. In this article Jeff Ladner discusses the simulation of friction in real-time 3D applications, otherwise known as the field of tribology. Game AI: The State of the Industry by Steve Woodcock [08.20.99] Back for a second look at the state of game AI, Woodcock examines the state of AI in the game industry using input from the 1999 Game Developers Conference AI roundtable discussions. See what other AI experts are saying and find out what's on the horizon for the future. Formal Abstract Design Tools by Doug Church 07.16.99] Setting up a common vocabulary for game design is a formidable task, but this may be the next evolutionary step in game design. Using the construct of "formal abstract design tools," Church proposes a potential framework for this emerging vocabulary. [ Postmortem: LucasLearning's Star Wars DroidWorks by Jon Blossom and Collette Michaud [08.13.99] In the fall of 1998, Lucas Learning emerged from its shell with the offering of its first educational software product, Star Wars DroidWorks. The game combines first-person shooter game technology with solid educational content to create something different: a thoughtful game that's actually fun and helps kids to learn within the game medium. July 1999 Flex Your Facial Animation Muscles by Jeff Lander [04.14.00] Given a nice, short list of the 13 visemes needed to represent speech realisitically, how would you adapt them to a character mesh to enable continuous lip-synching? In the second of two part series, Jeff Lander continues his examination of facial animation techniques by investigating how to construct and manipulate meshes. Dirty Java: Using the Java Native Interface Within Games by Bernd Kreimeier [06.11.99] Game developers are increasingly applying Java in "unpure" ways: using it in conjunction with C/C++ code. See how to implement dirty Java techniques, and learn how developers like id and Nihilistic applied Java to their projects. Postmortem: Thief: The Dark Project by Tom Leonard [07.09.99] Thief: The Dark Project is one of those games that almost wasn't. Tom Leonard, chief programmer on the project, talks about what went right and what went wrong when Looking Glass Studios set out to create a totally different first-person gaming experience. June 1999 Implementing Curved Surface Geometry by Brian Sharp [05.30.00] Back when Quake was first released, consumer-level 3D acceleration was nearly unheard of, and id's software renderer scaled in speed with the clock speed of your Pentium processor. During the few years since then, though, the game market has reached a point of extreme processor stratification. As game developers, it's important to support high-end consumers, and yet we'd prefer not to abandon the low-end players. And from this desire was a new industry trend born: scalable geometry. Article by Brian Sharp. Postmortem: Trespasser by Richard Wyckoff [05.14.99] Almost three years in the making, Trespasser was held up by some as a reason to dismiss physical modeling in games. Richard Wyckoff, a designer on the Trespasser team, disagrees. Read on to find out more about the trials, tribulations - and yes, even triumphs - experienced by the crew at Dreamworks Interactive. Read My Lips: Facial Animation Techniques by Jeff Lander [04.06.00] Until recently most facial animation used in games has been limited to cut-scene movies, but now more and more games have begun to include facial animation in real-time 3D. In the first of a two part series, Jeff Lander examines the basic concepts of facial movement. May 1999 Advanced
Collision Detection Techniques by Nick Bobic
[03.30.00]
Collision detection in 3D becomes ever more complicated as gaming
worlds become ever more realistic, but many games still exhibit collision
problems. Because today’s players demand increasing levels of realism,
developers will have to do some hard thinking in order to approximate
the real world in their game worlds as closely as possible. Devil in the Blue Faceted Dress: Real Time Cloth Animation by Jeff Lander [03.27.00] Cloth animation is tricky, and even in the world of high-end computer graphics, it’s difficult to get right. Jeff Lander wanted to create realistic cloth in his environments and on his characters, so with his hardware accelerated graphics rasterization freeing enough processor power necessary to make it possible, he set set about creating a real-time cloth simulation. Postmortem: Redstorm's Rainbow SIx by Brian Upton [01.21.00] This project had everything going for it: an eager and talented development team and an endorsement and license from a well-known celebrity. But sometimes ambition and technology can conspire against a game project. Find out how Red Storm overcame unseen adversity to release this fast paced tactical shooter. April 1999 Online
Justice Systems by
Derek Sanderson [03.21.00] .As soon
as Ultima Online went live, its online universe was immediately
infested with homicidal player killers, illustrating one of the biggest
challenges to successful community building in online role-playing games:
tempering the problems caused by players Lone Game Developer Battles Physics Simulator by Jeff Lander [02.15.00] Jeff Lander documents one of game development's less glamorous battles — the battle of the physics simulator. According to Lander, it’s not always going to be fun. In fact, it’s going to be a bit bloody. However, if you ever hope to achieve a realistic and interesting physics simulation, it’s a battle that must be fought. Postmortem: Multitude's Fireteam by Art Min [01.05.00] The goal with Fireteam was to create a complete online game experience. The Internet gives game designers the ability to take multiplayer gaming one step further by creating a community, something that wasn’t possible before online games came about, and Multitude hoped to create a game that would make people say, "Wow, this is what I’ve wanted from an Internet game." March 1999 Collision Response: Bouncy, Trouncy, Fun by Jeff Lander [02.08.00] Apply forces and acceleration to particles and you get the big "D" word: dynamics. With the help of a virtual Jello simulator, Jeff Lander investigates how particle dynamics affects collision response. Video In Games: the State of the Industry by Ben Waggoner and Halstead York [02.26.99] Video is one of the most commonly used and least understood elements of modern computer games. When used well, it can create mood, set up game play, introduce characters and foward narrative. When used poorly, it can rip you out of the game faster than a direct rocket-launcher hit during a deathmatch. Postmortem: Sin by Scott Alden [03.05.99] Can you imagine a first-person shooter with a compelling story and realistic characters? Ritual Entertainment toook a heavily enhanced version of the Quake engine a built a new world. February 1999 When Two Hearts Collide: Axis-Aligned Bounding Boxes by Jeff Lander [02.03.00] Most discussions of collision detections for real-time game applications begin with bounding spheres and bounding boxes. While fast, bounding spheres don't generally provide the best approximation of an object's extents. Jeff Lander demonstrates how axis-aligned bounding boxes can be used as a very quick way of determining collisions in 3D applications. Remodeling RPGs for the New Millennium by Warren Spector [01.15.99] Today's computer role-playing games owe their origins to the paper and die based games of yore. But isn't it time developers quit rebuilding last year's RPG hit? Spector believes that this genre is only limited by the imagination, and offers several design tools for creating a new role-playing experience. Implementing Coordinated Movement by Dave C. Pottinger [01.29.99] In this article, the second and final part of Dave C. Pottinger's coordinated unit movement series, Dave takes a look at how to use the systems that were considered in the first article to satisfy the coordinated group movement goal. He also examines how to use coordinated movement fundamentals to solve some classic, complex movement problems. Postmortem: Shiny Entertainment's Wild 9 by Didier Malenfant [01.07.00] Shiny Entertainment is well known for its successful platform games, but the Golden Age of gaming has established increasingly high standards for console games. With this in mind, Shiny launched the development of Wild 9, a game that would be different in every respect. January 1999 Coordinated Unit Movement by Dave Pottinger [01.22.99] While pathfinding is a hot industry buzzword, it's only half of the solution. Movement, the execution of a given path, is the other half of the solution. For real-time strategy games, movement goes hand in hand with pathfinding and is a critical aspect to intelligent NPCs. Here's a lesson from one of the programmers of Age of Empires. Crashing into the New Year: Collision Detection by Jeff Lander [02.10.00] Collision detection is a huge issue and an active area of research in graphics simulation. Using techniques such as the dot product and cross product, Jeff Lander investigates some common problems that can be important to a variety of game applications. November 1998 Run-Time MIP-Map Filtering by Andrew Flavell [12.11.98] Texture maps can suffer from several unfavorable visual effects. This math-heavy but computationally efficient method of generating MIP-maps can filter and scale textures for sharp-looking texture maps at varying LODs. September 1998 Multitexturing in DirectX 6 by Jason L. Mitchell, Michael Tatro and Ian Bullard [10.09.98] One of the gmes in Microsoft's Directx 6 API is support for multiple texture mapping. Learn how to implement this feature, along with a fall back tecnique for handling out-dated silicon. June 1998 Postmortem: Zombie's SpecOps: Rangers Lead the Way by Wyeth Ridgeway [02.01.00] This third-person combat sim had to deliver up to 10,000 polygons per frame at real-time frame rates all while upholding rigorous standards of realism. Lead programmer Wyeth Ridgeway discusses the features of the Viper engine created for SpecOps as well as what went right and wrong in development. April 1998 Architecting a 3D Animation Engine by Scott Corley [08.21.98] The interface to a 3D animation system can be very simple or very complex. If you've written one, you know what I mean. If you haven't written one, you probably will someday soon. Here is a set of C/C++ interface guidelines for an animation engine. March 1998 Hiring Game Developers by Arnold Hendrick [03.20.98] Hiring a game designer can be more challenging than filling other positions on a game development team. The skill set of designers is often a bit softer than, say, a programmer, so assessing the strengths of a particular candidate can be difficult. Verteran game developer Arnold Hendrick explains what to look for. February 1998 Rotating Objects Using Quaternions by Nick Bobic [07.05.98] Implementing a floating camera that tracks and rotates about a real-time 3D character is just one of the many reasons you should understand the importance and implementation of quaternions. November 1997 Cop A Feel...With Haptic Peripherals by Chuck Walters [12.19.97] As Force-feedback input devices are now hitting store shelves. Learn how the internals of these joysticks and steering wheels work, and see how you can implement force effects using DirectInput. July 1997 Octree Partitioning Techniques by Mike Kelleghan [08.01.97] Using Octree Space Partioning correctly can make all the difference between just another game and a beatiful work of art. Mike Kelleghan shows how it's done. June 1997 Programming Digitized Sound on the Sound Blaster by Erik Lorenzen and Keith Weiner [06.19.97] In this Game Developer magazine article, Erik and Keith use the Sound Blaster 1.5 model as the base for developing killer sounds across all levels of audio hardware. February 1997 3D Hardware Acceleration Demystified, Part II: The Benchmarks by Brian Hook and Andy Bigos [06.01.97] 3D graphics accelerators from 3Dlabs, ATI Technologies, Cirrus Logic, Diamond Multimedia, Intergraph, Matrox, Number Nine, and Rendition are put to the test. October 1996 Smart Moves: Intelligent Pathfinding by Bryan Stout [08.01.97] An in-depth study of the challenges programmers face as they try to ensure that game vehicles find their way from point A to point B in the fastest, most efficient way possible. August 1996 Optimizing CD-ROM Performance under DOS/4GW by Dan Teven and Vincent Lee [06.01.97] You're building the coolest, most realistic game with a half hour of gorgeous full-screen video and a phenomenal soundtrack featuring famous voices...there's just one problem...flicker...flicker... June 1995 A C++ Platform Class for Cross-Platform Double-Buffered Graphics By Jon Blossom [06.01.97] Learn how to write 32-bit graphics applications that compile and run without changes on Macintosh System 6.0.7 and 32-bit Windows (including Win32s and Windows 95). August 1995 Building Brains into Your Games by Andre LaMothe [06.01.97] Several examples for building up the AI in your next project. September 1994 A Whirlwind Tour of WinG by Chris Hecker [06.01.97] A vintage Game Developer Magazine article from from way back in 1994.
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Postmortem:
Raven Software's Star Trek: Voyager—Elite Force
Game
AI: The State of the Industry, Part One
Postmortem:
Nihilistic Software's Vampire: The Masquerade -- Redemption
How
to Hurt the Hackers: The Scoop on Internet Cheating and How You Can Combat
It.
Buliding
Character