Game Development Tools

"This book brings the insights of game professionals, DCC creators, hardware vendors, and current researchers together into a collection that focuses on the most underrepresented and critical part of game production: tools development. The first gems-type book dedicated to game tools, this volume focuses on practical, implementable tools for game development professionals. Topics range from asset tracking to improving remote version control performance to robust and efficient IO. Technical artists, as well as game play, audio, and graphics programmers will find new tools to improve work flow and help build games faster"-- Provided by publisher 1 1 Contents 7 Preface 13 2 16 I. Philosophy and Methodology 16 3 18 1. Taming the Beast: Managing Complexity in Game Build Pipelines 18 1.1 Introduction 18 1.2 The Asset Build Pipeline 19 1.3 Dependencies 23 1.4 How to Determine Dependencies 23 1.5 How to Use Dependencies to Your Benefit 24 1.6 Advanced Techniques 26 1.7 Minimizing the Impact of Build Failures 29 1.8 Conclusions 31 Bibliography 31 4 34 2. Game Streaming: A Planned Approach 34 2.1 Introduction 34 2.2 Integrating Streaming from Day One 39 2.3 Passive Requests: The Art of Asset Streaming 40 2.4 Bluer Skies 41 2.5 Conclusion 41 Bibliography 42 5 44 3. Workflow Improvement via Automatic Asset Tracking 44 3.1 Introduction 44 3.2 Historical Drawbacks of Manual Asset Tracking 44 3.3 Automatically Building an Asset Database Using the Xbox 360 45 3.4 Rapid Development of the MATT Tool Using Python 46 3.5 Automating In-Game Search with the BugViewer 50 3.6 Lessons Learned 51 6 54 4. Continuous Integration for Games 54 4.1 Introduction 54 4.2 Build Pipelines: How Do They Work? 54 4.3 Using CCNet andMore! 57 4.4 Conclusion 67 Bibliography 67 7 68 5. Persistence Management of Asset Metadata and Tags 68 5.1 Introduction 68 5.2 Usual Metadata 69 5.3 Tags 71 5.4 Other Considerations 74 5.5 Conclusion 76 Bibliography 76 8 78 6. Real-Time Tool Communication 78 6.1 Introduction 78 6.2 Integrated Editors 78 6.3 Real-Time Communication 79 6.4 Properties 79 6.5 Robust Data 80 6.6 Null Checking 81 6.7 Copying Data 82 6.8 Complicated Assets 83 6.9 Conclusion 83 9 86 7. Robust File I/O 86 7.1 Introduction 86 7.2 Existing Technologies 86 7.3 Object Databases 87 7.4 Disk Image 88 7.5 Conclusions 91 10 93 II. Buildable Tools 93 11 94 8. Real-Time Constructive Solid Geometry 94 8.1 Introduction 94 8.2 The CSG Algorithm 96 8.3 Mesh Optimization 107 8.4 Conclusions 110 Bibliography 111 12 112 9. A COLLADA Toolbox 112 9.1 Introduction 112 9.2 Conformance Test 113 9.3 Schema Validation 115 9.4 Editing a COLLADA Document 119 9.5 Coherency Test 122 9.6 Patching XML Notepad 125 9.7 Unique ID, Name versus ID 127 9.8 XPath 129 9.9 Absolute versus Relative Paths 132 9.10 Refinery 133 9.11 XSLT 136 9.12 Conclusion 139 Bibliography 139 13 142 10 Shape-Preserving Terrain Decimation and Associated Tools 142 10.1 Introduction 142 10.2 The Decimation Algorithm 143 10.3 Processing the Lofted Roads 152 10.4 Variations in the Content Pipeline 155 10.5 An Example 158 Bibliography 159 14 160 11. In-Game Audio Debugging Tools 160 11.1 Introduction 160 11.2 Tools to Debug Sound Systems 160 11.3 Conclusion 182 15 184 12. Pragmatic XML Use in Tools 184 12.1 Introduction 184 12.2 XML Specification 184 12.3 Parsing XML 186 12.4 Enter Stage: XML Serialization 191 12.5 Minimaxima: A Case Study 202 12.6 Conclusion 204 Bibliography 205 16 208 13. Low Coupling Command System 208 13.1 Introduction 208 13.2 The Most Basic Command 208 13.3 Low Coupling 209 13.4 Improvements to the Command System 213 Bibliography 216 17 218 14. Object-Oriented Data 218 14.1 Introduction 218 14.2 Data Inheritance 218 14.3 Constants 222 14.4 Conclusion 224 18 226 15. Improving Remote Perforce Usage 226 15.1 Introduction 226 15.2 Remote Reality 226 15.3 Productive by Proxy 227 15.4 Here Comes a New Challenger 227 15.5 A ParallelApproach 228 15.6 Putting It All Together 229 15.7 Conclusion 230 19 232 III. Third-Party Tools 232 20 234 16. Vector Displacement in the Sculpting Workflow 234 16.1 Introduction 234 16.2 Overview: Vector Displacement 235 16.3 Creating Vector Displacement Maps: A Workflow Example in Mudbox 237 16.4 Vector Displacement and the Art Pipeline: Further Applications and Considerations 241 16.5 Conclusion 244 Bibliography 244 21 246 17. Optimizing a Task-Based Game Engine 246 17.1 Introduction 246 17.2 From Threads to Tasks 247 17.3 Profiling a Task-Based Game Engine 251 17.4 Task, Task, Task 263 22 264 18. Efficient Texture Creation with Genetica 264 18.1 Introduction 264 18.2 Genetica's Workflow and Philosophy 265 18.3 Principles for Efficient Asset Creation 269 18.4 Conclusion 280 23 282 19. Reducing Video Game Creation Effort with Eberos GML2D 282 19.1 Introduction 282 19.2 Reducing Effort 291 19.3 Conclusion 292 Bibliography 293 24 294 20. YAML for C++ : Applied Data-Driven Design 294 20.1 Introduction 294 20.2 YAML Ain't Markup Language 295 20.3 Seamless C++ Integration 296 20.4 Applying DDD to Real-World Scenarios 297 20.5 Conclusion 300 Bibliography 300 25 302 21. GPU Debugging and Profiling with NVIDIA Parallel Nsight 302 21.1 Introduction 302 21.2 Debugging a Full Direct3D Frame with the Graphics Inspector 303 21.3 Debugging an HLSL Shader 310 21.4 Profiling a Direct3D Frame using GPU Hardware Counters 314 21.5 Tracing Activity across Your CPU and GPU 319 21.6 Conclusion 323 26 324 22. FBX Games Development Tools 324 22.1 Introduction 324 22.2 Exporting and Importing Game Assets 324 22.3 Extracting the Information from the .fbx File 331 22.4 FBX for QuickTime as a Game Development Tool 332 27 334 About the Contributors 334 28 340 Index 340 A 340 B 340 C 340 D 340 E 341 F 341 G 341 H 341 I 341 J 341 K 341 L 341 M 341 N 341 O 341 P 341 Q 342 R 342 S 342 T 342 U 342 V 342 W 342 X 342 Y 342