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    Module 2

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    Sandip Das
    This document provides an overview of the architecture and components of a typical game engine runtime. It describes the layers from low-level components like hardware drivers to high-level systems like animation, physics, and gameplay. Key parts of the engine include the resource manager, rendering engine, scene graph, visual effects, and tools for content creation and management. The runtime is designed in layers to avoid dependencies and maximize reuse and testability.

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    Module 2

    Uploaded by

    Sandip Das
    16 views36 pages
    This document provides an overview of the architecture and components of a typical game engine runtime. It describes the layers from low-level components like hardware drivers to high-level systems like animation, physics, and gameplay. Key parts of the engine include the resource manager, rendering engine, scene graph, visual effects, and tools for content creation and management. The runtime is designed in layers to avoid dependencies and maximize reuse and testability.

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    This document provides an overview of the architecture and components of a typical game engine runtime. It describes the layers from low-level components like hardware drivers to high-level systems like animation, physics, and gameplay. Key parts of the engine include the resource manager, rendering engine, scene graph, visual effects, and tools for content creation and management. The runtime is designed in layers to avoid dependencies and maximize reuse and testability.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    16 views36 pages

    Module 2

    Uploaded by

    Sandip Das
    This document provides an overview of the architecture and components of a typical game engine runtime. It describes the layers from low-level components like hardware drivers to high-level systems like animation, physics, and gameplay. Key parts of the engine include the resource manager, rendering engine, scene graph, visual effects, and tools for content creation and management. The runtime is designed in layers to avoid dependencies and maximize reuse and testability.

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    Game Engine Architecture

    Chapter 1
    Introduction

    Dr. S. Graceline Jasmine, SCOPE

    Vellore Institute of Technology, Chennai


    Runtime Engine Architecture
    • Consists of the tools suite and runtime
    components
    • Large
    ▫ Spans hardware to high-level application
    • Designed in layers
    ▫ Avoids circular dependencies to maximize reuse
    and testability
    Runtime Engine
    Runtime Engine
    • Low level components
    • 3rd Party SDKs
    • Platform independence layer
    • Core systems
    • Resources manager
    • Rendering engine
    • Profiling/Debugging
    • Collisions and Physics
    • Animation
    • Human Interface Devices
    • Audio
    • Gameplay foundation system
    Low level components

    • Hardware
    ▫ This is the system that the game is to run on
    • Device Drivers
    ▫ Shield the OS and upper layers from low level device
    communications details
    • Operating System
    ▫ Handles the execution and interruption of multiple
    programs on a single machine
    ▫ Very thin on a console
    3rd Party SDKs
    • Data Structure and Algorithms
    ▫ STL – C++ standard template library data structures, strings, stream-based I/O
    ▫ Boost – powerful data structures and algorithms
     Boost libraries are intended to be widely useful, and usable across a broad spectrum of
    applications. For example, they are helpful for handling large numbers having range
    beyond the long long, long double data type (264) in C++.
    • Graphics
    ▫ OpenGL and DirectX
    • Collisions and Physics
    ▫ Havok, PhysX, ODE, Bullet
    • Character Animation
    • Artificial Intelligence – Kynapse
    Platform independence layer
    • Allows the engine to be developed without
    the concern of the underlying platform
    • Provides wrappers to common target
    specific operations
    • Include things like primitive types,
    network, file systems, etc.
    Core systems
    • Assertions – error checking code
    • Memory Management
    • Math library – vector and matrix
    math, numeric integrators
    • Custom data structures
    Resource manager
    • Provides a unified interface for accessing assets
    • The level of complexity is dictated by need
    ▫ Often the game programmers must do resource loading
    directly
    ▫ Engines like UT do unpackaging and complex
    manipulation of assets in the engine
    Rendering
    Rendering is the process of computing an image from contents of a
    scene.

    The renderer is responsible for gathering everything that should be


    on the screen, and how it should look and getting it there.

    Creation:
    ➢ The creation of 3D and 2D images use different principles.

    ➢ To make a 2D rendering, you need to have a firm grasp of


    geometry, because a 2D model uses lines, shapes and symmetry.

    ➢ To make a 3D rendering, you need to use mathematics.


    Rendering engine
    • Low-level
    • Scene graph management
    • Visual effects
    • Front end
    Low-level Renderer
    • Focuses on rendering primitives as quickly and richly as possible
    ▫ Does not consider visibility
    • Graphics Device Interface
    ▫ Access and enumerate the graphics devices
    ▫ Initialize the GD
    ▫ Setup buffering
    • Others
    ▫ Representation of the geometric primitives
    ▫ Abstraction of the camera interface
    ▫ Material system
    ▫ Dynamic lighting system
    ▫ Text and fonts
    Graphics Objects
    • Gameobjects- Anything to which components are attached
    ▫ Aggregation of other game objects

    • Canvas – It is user interface which is normally the top most layer displaying
    the game scores
    • Layer – The various layers that hold gameobjects together
    ▫ Layer 0 has the full visibility
    ▫ Other layers may be occluded(hidden) based on the objects in other layers

    • Sprite-are simple 2D objects that have graphical images (called textures) on


    them. Whenever Unity makes a new sprite, it uses a texture. This texture
    is then applied on a fresh GameObject, and a Sprite Renderer component
    is attached to it.

    • A renderer is what makes an object appear on the screen. Use this class to
    access the renderer of any object, mesh or Particle
    System. Renderers can be disabled to make objects invisible (see enabled)
    Scene graph
    • A scene graph is a data structure that arranges a graphical scene.

    • A scene graph contains Node objects in a tree structure.


    Scene graph
    • Limits the number of primitives submitted for
    rendering
    • Uses frustum culling – remove things outside of
    the visible screen
    • Spatial subdivision
    ▫ BSP, quadtree, octree, kd-tree
    Visual effects
    • Particle systems
    • Decal systems
    • Light mapping
    • Dynamic shadows
    • Full screen post effects
    Front end
    • HUD
    • Menus
    • GUI for character manipulation
    • Full-motion video for cut scenes
    Profiling/Debugging
    • Code timing
    • Display stats on the screen
    • Dumping performance stats
    • Determining memory usage
    • Dumping memory usage
    • Record and playback game events
    • Print statement output control
    Collisions and Physics
    • Usually rigid body dynamics
    • Physics engine creation is its own unique
    undertaking
    • Many companies use available libraries
    ▫ Havok
    ▫ PhysX
    ▫ ODE
    ▫ Bullet
    Animation

    • Five types of animation are used


    ▫ Sprite/texture animation
    ▫ Rigid body hierarchy animation
    ▫ Skeletal animation
    ▫ Vertex animation
    ▫ Morphing
    • Skeletal animations still the most popular
    HID
    • Keyboard and mouse abstractions
    • Joypads
    • Specialized controllers
    • Massages raw data into useful
    information
    Audio

    • Often overlooked until the end


    • Varies in sophistication based
    on need
    • Many games use existing tools
    ▫ XACT
    ▫ Scream
    Multiplayer/networking
    • Four main flavors
    ▫ Single screen – multiple players on the same screen
    ▫ Split-screen multiplayer – multiple perspectives on
    the same screen
    ▫ Networked multiplayer – multiple computers
    networked together
    ▫ Massive multiplayer online games – run in a central
    server
    • Difficult to convert single to
    multiplayer, easy to do the opposite
    Gameplay foundation system
    • Most everything that makes the game a game
    • World loading
    • Game object model
    • Static world elements
    • Real-time agent simulations
    Event system
    • Objects need to communicate with one another
    • Easiest to handle this through a common system
    • Objects send messages that are routed to the
    event handler
    Scripting system
    • Allows for the creation on new game logic
    without recompiling
    • Speeds software development considerably
    Artificial intelligence foundations
    • Provides AI building blocks
    ▫ Path planning
    ▫ Nav mesh generation
    ▫ Object avoidance
    • Autodesk has a middleware called Gameware
    that provides many of these features
    Game-specific subsystems

    • All of the specific stuff needed for a game


    • This layer could be considered outside of the
    game engine itself
    Tools and the asset pipeline
    Digital content creation
    • Game engines deal with data in many forms
    • The data has to be created somehow
    ▫ 3D Meshes
    ▫ Textures
    ▫ Sound
    ▫ Animations
    • Often created using outside tools
    ▫ Maya/3ds Max
    ▫ Photoshop
    ▫ SoundForge
    • DCC tools need to be easy to use and very reliable
    Assets conditioning pipeline
    • DCC tools produce a variety of file formats that
    are not optimized for game
    • Game engines usually store the data in an easy
    to read and platform specific format
    • The ACP does this translation
    Conditioning assets
    • 3D Model/Mesh data
    ▫ 3D Models – Must be properly tessellated
    ▫ Brush Geometry – A collection of convex hulls with
    multiple planes
    • Skeletal animation data
    ▫ Must be compressed and converted to properly work
    • Audio data
    ▫ Should convert multiple formats to a single format for
    the target system
    • Particle system data
    ▫ Usually need a custom editing tool within the engine
    Game world editor
    • Usually integrated into the engine
    • Essential to allow game designers to work with
    the engine
    • Many examples
    ▫ UnrealEd
    ▫ Hammer
    ▫ Radiant
    Resource database
    • Need a way to store and manage the vast
    amounts of data
    • Some companies use relational databases
    ▫ MySQL or Oracle
    • Some companies use version control software
    ▫ Subversion, Perforce, or GIT
    • Still others use custom software
    ▫ Naughty Dog uses a custom GUI called Builder
    Approaches to Tool Architecture
    Stand alone Integrated
    Web-based tools
    • Various uses
    ▫ Asset management
    ▫ Scheduling
    ▫ Bug management
    • Easier to build
    ▫ Usually easier to build than a stand alone
    application
    ▫ Easier to update without forcing a reinstall
    • If it just needs to present tabular data and have
    forms – use a web interface

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