Game Engine

Gaming
Gaming Technologies

Alexandre Topol
ENJMIN
Conservatoire National des Arts & Métiers

Qui
Qui suis-je ?

Ingénieur (2000) et docteur (2002) en Informatique
Ancien programmeur Ubisoft (en 1996)
Enseignant au CNAM et à l’ENJMIN
Programmation 3D
Langages de shading
Physique
Animation
IHM
…

Chercheur au laboratoire CEDRIC
© Ubisoft – POD - 1997

50
50 years of evolution ...

1961
Spacewar!
Steve Russel
(MIT)

1972
PONG
Nolan Bushnell
(Atari)

1989
Prince of Persia
Jordan Mechner
(Brøderbund)

1993
Doom
John Carmack
(Id Software)

...
... of games ...

1997
Quake 2
Id Software
(Activision)
2004
Far Cry
Crytec
(UbiSoft)
2008
Assasin’s Creed
(UbiSoft)

...
... and programming ...

1960
BASIC

1972
C

1983
C++

...
... methods

1993
Mods

1995
3dfx ASM

1995
DirectX 1.0

2002
Renderware

50
50 years of evolution

Why these evolutions ?
For programming languages: need of more expressive power
For game programming methods : need of less development time

How did we get there ?
To get closer to the heart of the game :

the gameplay

Game
Game Components

Engine
Content
+
Rules
Platform

Content
Content Components sound effects

scripting

story

as well as …
• user interface

lighting
Content

modeling

level design texturing / surfacing animation

visual technologies Content
Content Creation

Method driven for some
Tool driven for others
Combination of tools forms “Art Pipeline”
Character Pipeline
3D Model/Sculpting
Animation/Rigging
Skinning
Texturing
Lighting/Shading

An artist often specializes on one part of pipeline
Some tools in Game Engines (Emergent AnimationTool)

Game
Game Engine Components

AI
Graphics

Engine

Physics

Audio

Networking
+
I/O

Plateforms

as well as …
• installation
• patching
• resource management
• multithreading
• disk i/o
• state save/restore

Game
Game Engines

Game
NPC System

Virtual Agent

Trading System

Fighting System

FX System

Terrain

Character Dynamics Sound FX

Collision

3D Scene Mngmt
3D Graphics API

2D