Ultimate Game Design : Building game worlds

Building Game Worlds
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U L T I M A T E G A M E D E S I G N
Just as a reminder, “first person” refers to viewing the game from your character’s
own eyeballs, and “third person” refers to viewing your entire character’s body as if
disembodied (for example, the common “chase” camera view that follows your
character around).
Here’s a summary of the design factors for first- and third-person titles:
� Modeling- and texturing-intensive
� Level detailing requirements increasing
� Require heavy bot and script refinements
� Performance-intensive
Plenty of modeling is required for the large number of characters and props that
populate most first- and third-person games. Depending on the complexity of the
in-game models required (all optimized into low-mid polygon versions) and how
your engine handles level of detail implementation, there is a considerable amount of
custom modeling work to be done for these games. They also require plenty of texture
work to make eye-popping characters and environments. Level of detail (LOD)
implementation is the process of displaying a higher-resolution model of a character
when the camera is close to a subject, and a lower-resolution version at a greater distance
from the camera.
In some of the current titles, animated textures and multitexture surfaces are helping
to create effects like light bouncing off a pool of water in motion. You can also see
some bump-mapped surfaces that give depth to a surface area (for example, wall
etchings or the unevenness of a brick wall surface).
Level detailing requirements are increasing regularly. There is more emphasis on
complex lighting and animated lighting. There are much more sophisticated props.
Many of these “landmark” props require custom particle-effect elements, too. For
instance, it used to be enough to have a statue of Horus as a landmark in your Egyptian
city level. Now, Horus needs lightning emanating from his eyes at regular intervals,
burning the floor before the player’s very eyes. Chances are, you’ll have to play
around with both the look and the behavior of the lightning effect for some time before
it works right and looks fantastic.
Bots, computer-controlled players, have improved their “abilities” in recent
years. This is due to the hard work on the part of developers in building complete behavior-scripting
systems, and then working with those systems to try to “replicate”
some of the more advanced playing styles of advanced first-person shooter players.
While not perfect, the results are very impressive.
Many of the operations that help build gameplay in these titles depend on triggers
and scripts. It regularly takes very long hours and many work passes to achieve the
kind of prop behavior or action element you desire. This affects design, because