Ultimate 3D Game Engine Design and Architecture

by Sherrod, Allen

• ISBN13: 9781584504733
• ISBN10: 1584504730
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2006-12-08
• Publisher: Charles River Media

Summary

Ultimate 3D Game Engine Design and Architecture teaches how to design and create a video game engine that can be used to create gaming applications on the PC. Written for beginning programmers, beginning game developers, and those aspiring to get into the fi eld, the book covers the various systems and processes that go into a complete game engine, with an emphasis on architecture issues. The book focuses on building a complete game engine, including graphics, physics, programming, audio, AI, data structures, memory management, and more. The sample engine is called the Building Blocks 3D Engine and it's designed to give you the basics of each system that you can build from to create your own engines and games. The technologies used include OpenGL, C++, and the Windows XP, MacOS X, and Linux operating systems. This cross-platform approach makes the information and techniques easy to apply to any type of project. The book is broken into five main parts, beginning with introductory material, the engine core, input, sound, and networking systems. Next comes graphics and environments, including the rendering system, the drawing of static models, and more advanced rendering topics such as level of detail, scene graphs, graphical effects, resource management, and scene management for environments in general. In the third part, Physics, AI, and Scripting are covered. The custom physics system is detailed, along with point masses and soft bodies. A variety of AI techniques are covered next, followed by scripting-- command, property, and compiled scripting. In the fourth part the engine is ready to use for the two demo applications you'll create-- a black jack game and a 3D walkthrough using a portal rendering system. In the final part, you'll review what you've done, what you could do, and what resources you might need in the future to enhance your game engine.

Table of Contents

Preface	xvii
About the Author
Acknowledgments	vii
Introduction
PART I INTRODUCTION TO GAME ENGINES	1	(170)
Introduction to Game Engines	3	(42)
Overview of Game Engines	4	(6)
Game Graphics	5	(1)
Physics and Collisions	5	(1)
Input Detection	6	(1)
Audio Playback and Control	7	(1)
Scripting	7	(1)
Artificial Intelligence	8	(1)
Networking	8	(1)
Core Utilities	9	(1)
Tools Used in Game Development	10	(1)
Unified Modeling Language	10	(3)
The Building Blocks Engine	13	(11)
Engine Features	14	(8)
The Building Blocks Engine's Future	22	(2)
Tips and Practices	24	(19)
The Book's Coding Style	24	(5)
C++ Tips	29	(13)
Encapsulating Platform-Specific Code	42	(1)
Summary	43	(2)
Engine Core	45	(52)
Data Structures	46	(21)
Vector Arrays	47	(4)
Strings	51	(3)
Link Lists	54	(1)
Queues	55	(5)
Hash Tables	60	(7)
Additional Data Structures	67	(1)
Memory Allocation	67	(3)
File I/O	70	(9)
Endian Order	74	(5)
Timing Utilities	79	(3)
Archive Files	82	(11)
Building Blocks Engine's Archive File Structure	83	(10)
Additional Topics and Techniques	93	(2)
Compression	93	(1)
Encryption	93	(1)
Application Profiling	94	(1)
Streaming Data	94	(1)
Summary	95	(1)
Chapter Exercises	95	(2)
Input, Sound, and Networking	97	(74)
Game Input	98	(4)
Getting Device Key States	99	(2)
Additional Input	101	(1)
Xbox 360 Controllers and XInput	102	(12)
The Building Blocks Engine XInput System	108	(6)
Game Audio	114	(5)
OpenAL in General	114	(2)
Loading Sounds	116	(1)
Playing/Pausing/Stopping Sounds and Cleaning Up	117	(2)
XACT for Game Audio	119	(12)
Creating Projects	119	(1)
Wave Banks	120	(2)
Sound Banks and Sound Cues	122	(2)
Loading Sounds	124	(5)
Playing Sounds	129	(1)
Cleaning Up	130	(1)
The Building Blocks Engine Sound Systems	131	(14)
The Building Blocks Engine XACT System	137	(8)
Networking with Sockets	145	(6)
Working with Sockets	145	(6)
The Building Blocks Engine Networking System	151	(17)
Networking and Packet Classes	157	(11)
Summary	168	(1)
Chapter Exercises	169	(2)
PART II GRAPHICS AND ENVIRONMENTS	171	(156)
Rendering Systems	173	(82)
Overview to Rendering	174	(4)
Considerations and Obstacles	175	(1)
Design of the Rendering System	176	(2)
Math Library	178	(35)
Vectors	178	(10)
Matrices	188	(6)
Rays	194	(3)
Bounding Volumes	197	(9)
Cameras and Frustums	206	(5)
Planes and Quaternion Objects	211	(2)
Rendering Interface and Systems	213	(12)
Render States and Geometry Types	225	(8)
Geometry Primitives	226	(4)
Programmable Shaders	230	(2)
Texture Resources	232	(1)
Resources from Archive Files	233	(1)
Resource Management	233	(6)
Rendering	239	(14)
Rendering Billboards	250	(3)
Summary	253	(1)
Chapter Exercises	253	(2)
Rendering Scenes and Scene Graphs	255	(72)
Overview	256	(1)
Scene Graphs	257	(14)
Designing the Scene Graph	260	(1)
Working with Nodes	260	(8)
Scene Graph Creation	268	(2)
State Management with Scene Graphs	270	(1)
Level of Detail	271	(1)
LOD on Objects	272	(1)
Geometry Sorting and Culling	272	(11)
Types of Space Partitioning	273	(5)
Partitioning in the Building Blocks Engine	278	(4)
Portals Rendering in the Engine	282	(1)
Effects	283	(32)
Lighting	291	(7)
Bump Mapping	298	(4)
Normal Mapping	302	(2)
Luminance and Sepia Tone	304	(4)
Specular Mapping	308	(2)
Alpha Mapping	310	(2)
Cube Mapping	312	(3)
Models and Meshes	315	(10)
OBJ Model Loading	318	(7)
Summary	325	(1)
Chapter Exercises	326	(1)
PART III PHYSICS, AI, AND SCRIPTING	327	(116)
Physics	329
Overview	330	(4)
Newton Physics	331	(2)
Game Physics	333	(1)
Building Blocks Physics System	334	(1)
Point Masses	334	(7)
Point Mass Design	335	(4)
Point Mass Implementation	339	(2)
Rigid Bodies	341	(1)
Soft Bodies	342	(2)
Collision Detection and Response	344	(9)
Collision Response	344	(1)
Sphere-to-Sphere Collisions	345	(2)
Plane Collisions	347	(1)
Physics Space	348	(5)
Improvements	353	(1)
Physics Demos	354	(46)
Constant Velocity Demo	355	(6)
Gravity Demo	361	(6)
Sphere-to-Sphere Collision Demo	367	(7)
Sphere and Plane Collisions Demo	374	(7)
Cloth Simulation	381	(19)
Summary	400	(1)
Chapter Exercises	401
Artificial Intelligence	103	(316)
Overview	404	(1)
Path Finding	405	(4)
Chasing and Evading	405	(3)
A* Path Finding	408	(1)
Patterns	409	(1)
Finite State Machine	409	(3)
The Basics of FSM	410	(1)
An FSM Example	411	(1)
Scripting AI	412	(2)
Scripting Techniques	413	(1)
Additional AI Techniques	414	(3)
Fuzzy Logic	414	(1)
Neural Networks	415	(1)
Flocking	416	(1)
Summary	417	(2)
Scripting	419	(24)
Overview	420	(4)
Interpreted Scripts	421	(1)
Compiled Scripts	422	(2)
Parsing Tokens	424	(6)
Implementing a Token Parser	425	(5)
Property Scripting	430	(3)
Property Script Implementation	430	(3)
Command Scripting	433	(3)
GameMonkey Script	436	(5)
Summary	441	(1)
Chapter Exercises	442	(1)
PART IV DEMOS	443	(48)
Game Demos	445	(46)
Overview	446	(4)
The Building Blocks Engine	447	(3)
Game Demos	450	(38)
The Black Jack Game	451	(29)
The 3D Walkthrough Demo	480	(8)
Summary	488	(3)
PART V GAME OVER	491	(18)
Conclusions	493	(16)
Additions and Improvements	494	(12)
Additional Data Structures	495	(1)
Memory Management	496	(1)
Support for Additional Input Devices	496	(1)
Streaming Audio	497	(1)
Streaming Data	497	(1)
Enhanced Features for the Networking System	498	(1)
Improved Custom Physics	499	(1)
Graphics Additions and Enhancements	500	(1)
An Animations System	501	(1)
Environment Editing Tools	502	(1)
Exporters	502	(1)
Additional Core Tools	503	(1)
Improved Rendering System and Scene Graph	504	(1)
Improved Resource Manager	505	(1)
Optimized Math Library	505	(1)
Additional Scripting Capabilities	506	(1)
Final Thoughts	506	(3)
Appendix A Additional Resources	509	(4)
Appendix B Additional Tools	513	(12)
Appendix C About the CD-ROM	525	(2)
Index	527