Slide-1 (R)Game Design and Techniques© Jay Crossler, George Mason University

Serious Games& Game Design

Lecture 1 : Intro & Game Engines

Jay CrosslerSenior Software Engineer

www.crossler.com

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Serious Games Highlights

Related Knowledge Zones (Informal KM categories):• Modeling and Simulation • Education & Training• Training Technologies • Computing Methodologies• Military Programs & Operations• Military Simulation • Systems Engineering• Human Factors Engineering

Slide-3 (R)Game Design and Techniques© Jay Crossler, George Mason University

Serious Games

– MMOG - Massively multiplayer online games– 1000’s of players simultaneously connecting– (supported by 1000s of self-transforming machine

elves)– Sharing actions and state – millions of objects– In persistent worlds

“Serious Games Initiative is focused on the uses of games in exploring management and leadership challenges facing the public sector …use of games in education, training, health, and public policy”

Seriousgames.org

Ultima Online – 1997Origin Systems

6.5 million registered users

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Ludology – social science analysis of games

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Higher Education is supporting Ludology

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Overcoming Negative Social Stigma

Excerpt from Raph Koster’s Theory of Fun book

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Related Areas: Virtual Economies

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CMU: PeaceMaker - www.peacemakergame.com

Simulation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict– Carnegie Mellon University's Entertainment Technology Center– Aimed at conflict resolution and understanding– Play as either the prime minister of Israel or The Palestinian president

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National Institute of Health games

Nanoswarm: Invasion from Inner Space Escape from Diab (www.ArchimageOnline.com)

– Collaborated with the Children's Nutritional Research Center of Baylor College of Medicine

– Help prevent childhood obesity and Type II diabetes "We want to get into kids' heads. Games are a channel

that reaches children in a way they want to be reached,“ “Players can learn through actual experience as we

deliver positive messages," – To successfully play the game, players must set and achieve

real life diet and exercise goals.

Slide-10 (R)Game Design and Techniques© Jay Crossler, George Mason University

Game Engines

Slide-11 (R)Game Design and Techniques© Jay Crossler, George Mason University

Game Engines

Typically tailored to a particular kind of game– first person shooter (FPS)– massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG)

A few game engines include facial animation toolkits (e.g. Source Engine)

3D graphics toolsPhysics engineAudioAnimationCharacter “AI”

Cost: ranges from open source (CrystalSpace) to $100K+ (Unreal Engine)

Visual3D Architect .NET Screenshot RealmWare Corporation

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Torque and Microsoft XNA

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Current Microsoft SDK Beliefs Visually stunning titles

– Half Life 2, Halo 2, Far Cry, Doom 3 Largest worlds Most detailed levels of realism Not just graphics: AI, physics, animation Longest development times Extensions

– Maya– Max– Photoshop– Windows Shell

Xbox 360/DirectX 10 Integration Increasing geometric detail

– 2K → 5K → 15Ktriangles/character

– More silhouette– More shadow detail

Offload common functions to the GPU

Variable Transparency Mapping

Unsorted Transparency

Tessellation & Displacement

Game

GPUDirect3D

D3DX

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Game Engine List Engines:

– Torque – Low cost set of engines (2D, 3D, 3D+Shaders), large dev community– 3D Game Studio – Hundreds of games, C-script, many libraries of pre-made games– OGRE – Scene-oriented, 3D engine, open source, Basic Physics– Crystal Space – Used for Modeling and Simulation, Physics engine, True 6DOF– Many others at http://www.devmaster.net/engines/

Terrain Tools:– L3DT – “Plugable” Terrain Generation engine, low cost, importing into Torque– Terragen 2 – Amazing photorealistic terrains and terrain imagery – More real than real

“Mod” tools:– Return to Castle Wofenstein / Enemy Territory - Based upon an older version of the

Quake engine.  – Quake III - One of the most heavily modified games ever.  id has announced they will

make the game code open source. – Counter Strike - A great starting point for tactical & law enforcement sims and FPS– Counter Strike: Source - A rebuild of the original but to use the Source engine.

Despite using the Source engine, you can "dial down" the graphics and effects to make this run on a more modest PC 

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Game Engine List More “Mod” tools:

– Call of Duty - COD2 added a smarter AI.  Tool support is really just for the map editor and not really for the program logic.

– Unreal Run-time - This is free and can be downloaded from the Unreal Dev site.  Very well documented - UT/editor documentation can be applied pretty easily as well.

– Medal of Honor franchise - Based on the older Quake engine so modest resource requirements.

– Halo (PC) – Works on a very large number of machines and not just to the hardware extreme.  You can only make levels for an add-in multiplayer environment.

– Empire Earth II - An RTS favorite. Much more modest graphics and physics than Empire Earth III. Has a map tool but no way to re-write the application logic. 

– Rise of Nations - Comes with a map editor and a script editor for editing the logic of the game.  The scripting environment is specific to this platform but uses an event-driven paradigm that is widely used elsewhere - conceptual you get some mileage out of that investment.  You can create scenarios that are modern - good for simulations.

– Warhammer 40,000 -  The game as a very good RTS engine in it and Relic clearly knows its stuff in this genre.  The Relic developer site looks informative and has lots of tutorial and map-making information. 

– NeverWinter Nights - Used for several studies or experiments discussed in journal articles from the IEEE, ACM, etc. If you buy the DVD version you get lots of product for your money. Tools are easy enough for school kids to use.