How to make game programming and development

1. What are the main aspects of game program development?

Program development in game development mainly consists of the following aspects:

1. Graphics engine

2. Sound engine

3. Physics engine

4. Game engine

5. Artificial intelligence or game logic

6. Game GUI interface (menu)

7. Game development tools

8. Development of a network engine that supports LAN battles

9. Network engine development to support Internet battles

The following introduces each part one by one:

1. The graphics engine mainly includes scene (indoor or outdoor) management and rendering in the game, character action management and rendering, special effects management and rendering (particle system, natural simulation (such as water texture, plant simulation, etc.)), lighting and material processing, LOD ( LevelObjectDetail) management, etc., in addition to the development of graphics data conversion tools. These tools are mainly used to convert models and motion data produced by artists using DCC software (such as 3DSMax, Maya, SoftXSI, SoftImage3D, etc.) and use tools such as Photoshop or painter. The textures are converted into resource files used in the game program.

2. The sound engine mainly includes the playback of sound effects (SoundEffect referred to as SE), voice (VOICE), and background music (Backgroundmusic referred to as BGM). SE refers to those that are frequently played in the game and have a relatively short playback time, but are required to be played in a timely manner without delay. VOICE refers to the voice or human voice in the game. This part has relatively high requirements for sound quality and is basically used. Record and playback sound at the same sampling rate, but like SE, it requires timely playback without delay. SE sometimes may reduce the sampling rate without affecting the effect due to memory capacity issues, but VOICE requires lower sampling due to memory capacity issues. The sampling rate has a greater impact on the effect, so generally VOICE does not use the method of reducing the sampling rate. BGM refers to a long period of background music that is played in a loop (sometimes it does not loop and is only played once) in the game. It is precisely because of this characteristic of BGM that the background music of games is generally played from a disk (compact disc or hard disk). There are also some advanced sound effects, such as EAX, digital cinema system (DTS5.1), digital Dolby surround, etc.

3． The physics engine mainly includes the mechanical simulation of collisions between objects in the game world and between objects and scenes, as well as the mechanical simulation of the skeletal movement of objects after collision (the more famous physics engines include gamedynamicssdk of havok company, and opensource ODE—OpenDynamicsEngine).

4. The game engine mainly integrates the graphics engine, sound engine, and physics engine to create a game system for a certain game. It includes a game level editor. Its main purpose is to visually adjust the scene, lighting effects, fog, etc. Effect adjustment, event settings, prop placement, NPC settings, and a character editor, which is mainly used to edit character attributes and check the correctness of action data. Generally speaking, Japanese game companies will integrate the level editor and character editor directly into the game. All parameter adjustments are edited in the game through the debugging menu, so generally they only use this part of the debugging menu function. It is very powerful and displays some important information on the screen in real time. The advantage of this is that the effect of the level editor adjustment is directly the effect of the game, but it may not be very good for the reusability of the program. For example, if In another game project, it is more difficult. Unless the two game types are the same, as long as the scene and character data are changed, there will be no problem in making the next generation product. Just add the debugging menu function according to the style.

5. Artificial intelligence and game logic development, this part of the game development model in Japan and Europe and the United States is also very different. The use of script language development is very common in European and American game companies, so this part of program development is mainly written in script language, and script programs and games The coupling of the program is very low, and there is a separate editing, compilation and debugging environment. This is more conducive to the separation of game program and level design development and parallel development, so they generally have programmer positions dedicated to level design. The scripting language of Japanese game companies is generally highly coupled with the game. Generally, a simple script system is completed through the macro functions of some languages ????and the specific functions of some compilers, so generally these script programs can only be debugged in the game program. , and cannot be developed in a separate script editing and compilation environment.

6． Game GUI interface (menu) mainly refers to the user interface design in games. Some are complex and some are simple. The simple ones are the 2DGUI interface, and the complex ones are the 3DGUI interface.

7. Game development tools mainly include level editor, character editor, resource packaging management, DCC software plug-in tools and other development.

8． The development of a network engine that supports LAN battles mainly solves the problems of LAN network packet sending and delay processing, and communication synchronization. There are two methods of synchronous communication and asynchronous communication. Asynchronous communication is used for games that require relatively high running frame rates, while synchronous communication is relatively Asynchronous communication is relatively inefficient, but the programming model of synchronous communication is simpler than asynchronous communication.

9． Support the development of network engines for Internet battles. At present, most online games have a C/S structure. Server-side software configuration management, optimization of server programs, game halls, team formation, game logic processing, prop management, charging systems, etc. . In addition, there are some network systems that are a mixture of C/S and P2P structures, such as XBOXLive, etc.

2. What are the positions related to programmers in game companies?

The positions of programmers in game companies are somewhat different between Japanese game companies and European and American game companies. Japanese game companies Programmer positions mainly include technical supervisor (Director), main programmer (Main Programmer), and programmer (Programmer). Programmers responsible for game project development in Japanese game companies generally do not divide programmers specifically according to work content. In addition to the independent system research laboratory and sound system production department (these two departments are relatively independent and often serve several projects at the same time), the programmers responsible for the development of each game project may have multiple hats at any time, such as the main In addition to being responsible for the entire game system, programmers may also be responsible for graphics or sound engine development, etc. In addition to artificial intelligence, programmers are also responsible for menu production, etc. This situation is relatively rare in European and American game companies. They have a relatively detailed division of labor. They generally have graphics programmers, sound programmers, artificial intelligence or game level programmers, and physics programmers. There may also be a Leader in each group.

3. How game companies generally recruit programmers

This is also somewhat different between Japanese companies and European and American companies. Japanese companies generally like to recruit some outstanding recent graduates from some universities. On the one hand, the cost is lower than recruiting experienced people. On the other hand, newcomers are a blank slate and are easy to train. SEGA, KONAMI, etc. all use this method. This principle recruits employees, so if you want to enter a Japanese game company, you must study your software courses well. European and American companies hope to recruit people who can immediately enter the development of the project, so they generally hope to recruit people with work experience, even if they are not in the industry, they can work in related industries for 2 or 3 years, so they want to enter European and American games. Your work experience is very important to the company.

4. What conditions should be met if you want to become a game development programmer?

I think the minimum requirement for a game software programmer is to be proficient in the computer science undergraduate major. Knowledge, mainly including C language or C language, data structure, compilation principles, algorithms, etc. In addition, linear algebra, calculus, and Newtonian mechanics are also widely used in graphics and physics engine development. If you want to improve, it is necessary to understand hardware related Knowledge such as computer architecture and assembly language are very beneficial to us in learning a new hardware platform, writing optimized code, and improving the competitiveness of our own games. In addition, it is also very important to maintain a mentality of perseverance, not being afraid of hardships (such as working overtime all night), and being passionate about the game. For those who want to enter the game industry but lack software development knowledge, they can do so by participating in game development training

5. What are the good ways to learn game programming

Nowadays, many people, I graduated with a bachelor's degree in computer science and learned a lot about software development. However, when it comes to actual project development, I feel like I don't know where to start. This is mainly because there are too few opportunities to apply knowledge in school. Therefore, the best way to learn game programming is to actually participate in a good game project and develop games with people with rich development experience. You may learn a lot of knowledge and skills that you cannot learn from books. But sometimes you don’t have the opportunity to participate in a good project or enter a good game company, but you have a passion for game development and really want to learn game development skills, then you should go to a specialized game company Development training, because the teachers in the game development training class are all teachers with rich development experience. They generally have five years of rich project development experience. Listening to their classes is actually sharing so many years of development experience with them. , In addition, some projects and topics will be specially designed in the game development training courses, which can be directly used in game development. In this way, you do not need to enter a famous game company, but you can learn some common development skills in these companies. There is another cost-effective method, which is to participate in some open source projects of online volunteers. These projects are good or bad in terms of quality. It is very important to choose a good project. In addition, many of them are industry insiders. Originally, you You have to enter their company to learn from their experience, but through open source projects, you have the opportunity to learn from them. Maybe one day you will enter a well-known game company, but the current open source complete game projects are better There are not many, and there are some very good open source projects in graphics engines and physics engines, but if you want to join, your foundation must be good. Some open source teams are not just for anyone to join.