daryl bates engine terminology

Salford City College
Eccles Sixth Form Centre
BTEC Extended Diploma in GAMES DESIGN
Unit 73: Sound For Computer Games
IG2 Task 1
1
Produce a glossary of terms specific to the methods and principles of Video Game Design and Video Game Terms. Using a provided template,
you must research and gather definitions specific to provided glossary terms. Any definitions must be referenced with the URL link of the
website you have obtained the definition.
You must also, where possible, provide specific details of how researched definitions relate to your own production practice.
Name: RESEARCHED DEFINITION (provide short
internet researched definition and URL
link)
DESCRIBE THE RELEVANCE OF THE
RESEARCHED TERM TO YOUR
OWN PRODUCTION PRACTICE?
IMAGE SUPPORT (Provide an image and/or video link of
said term being used in a game)
VIDEO
GAMES
/ VIDEO
GAME
TESTING
Demo (Demo (video games)) A game demo is a freely
distributed demonstration or preview of an
upcoming or recently released video game.
Demos are typically released by the game's
publisher to help consumers get a feel of the
game before deciding whether to buy the full
version.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_demo
If we make a demo of our game we can
show others a quick snip-it of our
creation. This will help generate buzz
and hopefully grantee buyers.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgFnJ6Ek7W8
Beta Beta's are just a test for developers.
They want to see how well their game
works when randoms are playing it,
find out if they got anything wrong
before they sell it ect.
Some betas do look at your playing
habits inside the game, and send
details on your playing back to the
developer. It lets them check whether
you’re playing the game the way they
intended. A large amount of beta
feedback is also relayed through
forums and questionnaires. You can
We could place our game into beta and
allow people to play our game and tell
us what they think. This will help with
finding bugs and it will also help us get
an idea of what people think of our
game.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5TuhL2VfIM

IG2 Task 1
2
probably find the relevant forum in
Google if you want to provide feedback
to the developer.
In short, it lets the see if they messed
anything up, or need to make anything
better, and fix it before people actually
pay for the game.
https://answers.yahoo.com/question/in
dex?qid=20110421155200AAjBaBn
Alpha In independent games, or just "Indie"
Games, The alpha stage is a low
cost release to gain popularity before
the game is released as a retail
copy.
http://johngreasygamer.hubpages.co
m/question/228316/what-is-the-alpha-
stage-in-video-games-and-their-
testing
The alpha stage will be useful to test
out our game mechanics and the game
in general.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JvIZUrB92fI
Pre-Alpha Pre-Alpha is a standard term to denote
a number of interim milestones
between prototyping and alpha, each
of which includes new functionality
and/or game
content. http://www.whatgamesare.co
m/pre-alpha.html
This will be used to help us test out the
game engine before we go deeper into
production.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=snAMl0YU-hU

IG2 Task 1
3
Gold Basically, when a game goes "gold", the beta-testing
phase has been successful and passed,
therefore allowing the game to be
duplicated/produced and published for retail
sale.
https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qi
d=20070607052358AAxntHM
The gold stage will be extremely useful
because it would signify the end of
production and tell us that our creation
is a success.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VMaF401505E
Debug Debugging is a methodical process of finding
and reducing the number of bugs, or defects,
in a computer program or a piece of electronic
hardware, thus making it behave as expected.
Debugging tends to be harder when various
subsystems are tightly coupled, as changes in
one may cause bugs to emerge in another.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debugging
This stage is a key stage because it
allows us to play through the game and
fix any problems we come across,
making the game an overall better
experience.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QFwo14_O8bg
Automation The use or introduction of automatic
equipment in a manufacturing or other process
or facility.
https://www.google.co.uk/?gfe_rd=cr&ei=oJUJ
VJf5KeOq8wfb14GYDA#q=what+is+automation
(google definition)
This would be where we add game
mechanics (by the use of scripts), a
very useful procedure in the whole
creation process.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRkO9huYEh0

IG2 Task 1
4
White-Box
Testing
Also known as glass box, structural, clear box
and open box testing. A software testing
technique whereby explicit knowledge of the
internal workings of the item being tested are
used to select the test data.
http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/W/White_
Box_Testing.html
This will be useful to test out our
programming to see if it all works, and
if not. Fix it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3bJcvBLJViQ
Bug Sometimes called a glitch, a bug is just
something wrong with the program.
Sometimes it might be not serious
maybe something like when you prone
on the ground, you might be displayed
incorrectly. And sometimes it might be
serious, like in Call of Duty 4 (recently
fixed) you used to be able to dodge
headshots by leaning, even though a
bullet would hit your face, the game
would register it as a miss.
https://answers.yahoo.com/question/in
dex?qid=20080622111127AAsXob5
Understanding this term will be useful
so that we can understand and identify
problems we experience or is reported
to us during beta testing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5DUTHdavZ68

IG2 Task 1
5
GAME
ENGINES
GAME
ENGINES
Vertex
Shader
A Vertex Shader is also GPU component and is
also programmed using a specific assembly-like
language, like pixel shaders, but are oriented
to the scene geometry and can do things like
adding cartoony silhouette edges to objects,
etc.
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/832545/
what-are-vertex-and-pixel-shaders
This will be useful to us so that we can
make objects in our game look more
realistic (or not), in other words making
objects look like we want.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sbw4DQnzOkI
Pixel
Shader
A Pixel Shader is a GPU (Graphic Processing
Unit) component that can be programmed to
operate on a per pixel basis and take care of
stuff like lighting and bump mapping.
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/832545/
what-are-vertex-and-pixel-shaders
Similar to vertex this will help us make
environments look like we want.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EOBJXxz8h6M

IG2 Task 1
6
Post
Processing
Post Processing seems to be the new GFX eye
candy fad in games.
It the effects you see in games like:
Depth of Field - Blur landscapes in the distance
or close up like Camera Out of Focus.
Motion Blur - Blurs screen movement to give
games a more "movie feel" during fast motion.
HDR - High Dynamic Range Lighting - Lighting
of environment changes according to were the
camera view is (Inside/Outside)
Colour Correction and Clamping - Seems to
limit the range of colours to give a more
realistic feel or washed out feel.
Looks to be all GPU intensive (Shaders) and can
stress graphics cards a lot more at higher
resolutions. Coli McRae DiRT is a good example
of Post Proccesing intensive game which can
chug on even the newest cards at extreme
resolutions.
http://forum.notebookreview.com/gaming-software-
graphics-cards/192383-what-postprocessing.
html
This is helpful to help the game look
more visually appealing and create a
smoother running scene, by creating a
blur on further away textures.
http://www.comsol.com/video/postprocessing-tutorial-creating-plot
Rendering Rendering is the process of
generating an image from
a 2D or 3D model (or models in what
collectively could be called
a scene file), by means of computer
programs. Also, the results of such a
model can be called a rendering.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renderin
g_(computer_graphics)
This will be useful to help us create and
introduce objects and characters into
the game engine.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00gAbgBu8R4

IG2 Task 1
7
Normal
Map
Normal mapping used to re-detail simplified
meshes. In 3D computer graphics, normal
mapping, or "Dot3 bump mapping", is a
technique used for faking the lighting of bumps
and dents – an implementation of bump
mapping. It is used to add details without using
more polygons.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normal_mapping
We can use this to polish over
noticeable imperfections and make the
game look better.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-6Yu-nTbUU
Entity Entity-component-system (ECS) is a software
architecture pattern that implements concepts
from Composition over inheritance using a
database-like structure. Common ECS
approaches are highly compatible with Data-driven
programming techniques, and the two
approaches are often combined.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entity_componen
t_system
Entities will be used to life and
intelligence to in game AI.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwwfTWMrM9k
UV Map UV Texturing is how you texture inside of
Blender. It can be quite difficult, so this tutorial
will help you learn the basics of
unwrapping/texturing simple meshes. You will
also learn the basic techniques in unwrapping
complex textures.
http://bgetutorials.wordpress.com/2007/12/1
8/uv-texturing-mapping/
This will be useful to add textures to 3d
objects.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iIvTUDgaXik

IG2 Task 1
8
Procedural
Texture
A procedural texture is a computer-generated
image created using an algorithm intended to
create a realistic representation of natural
elements such as wood, marble, granite, metal,
stone, and others. Usually, the natural look of
the rendered result is achieved by the usage of
fractal noise and turbulence functions.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Procedural_textu
re
This will be useful to help the game run
a lot smoother by only generating
complex images when required.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_8CmR_5KXFo
Physics Computer animation physics or game physics
involves the introduction of the laws of physics
into a simulation or game engine, particularly
in 3D computer graphics, for the purpose of
making the effects appear more real to the
observer. Typically, simulation physics is only a
close approximation to real physics, and
computation is performed using discrete
values.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_physics
Physics will be useful to implement real
life aspects into our game such as
gravity.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H4ACKAUU3O0

IG2 Task 1
9
Collision Collision detection typically refers to the
computational problem of detecting the
intersection of two or more objects. While the
topic is most often associated with its use in
video games and other physical simulations, it
also has applications in robotics. In addition to
determining whether two objects have
collided, collision detection systems may also
calculate time of impact (TOI), and report a
contact manifold (the set of intersecting
points). Collision response deals with
simulating what happens when a collision is
detected (see physics engine, ragdoll physics).
Solving collision detection problems requires
extensive use of concepts from linear algebra
and computational geometry.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collision_detectio
n
Collisions will be useful to stop objects
passing through each other and
allowing hit boxes to be created so that
game mechanics will work.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTDcR4smi5A
Lighting Lighting is one of the most important and
influential elements in environments. It
has the power to make or break the
visuals, theme and atmosphere.
http://www.moddb.com/tutorials/lightin
g-in-game-environments-the-hows-and-whys
Lighting is one of the most useful
aspects of creation. Applying lighting
can make mediocre textures look high
end, with no lighting high end textures
look mediocre.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5DNkxkXBeI

IG2 Task 1
10
AA – Anti-
Aliasing
Anti-Aliasing is a term used lots when
selling graphics cards, but what exactly
is Anti-Aliasing? We look deeper into
the reasoning behind Anti-Aliasing and
why we need it in the first place. There
are varying types of anti-aliasing
producing different results and different
levels of performance hit.
http://www.pantherproducts.co.uk/inde
x.php?pageid=antialiasing
This will be useful to fix broken
textures that may appear due to
insufficient or incompatible aspect
ratios.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_0do0jo5yY
LoD – Level
of Detail
In computer graphics, accounting
for level of detail involves
decreasing the complexity of a 3D
object representation as it moves
away from the viewer or according to
other metrics such as object
importance, viewpoint-relative speed
or position. Level of detail techniques
increases the efficiency of rendering
by decreasing the workload
on graphics pipeline stages, usually
vertex transformations. The reduced
visual quality of the model is often
unnoticed because of the small effect
on object appearance when distant
or moving fast.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Level_of_
detail
This will be useful to allow the game
engine to run smoother since it is
loading less detailed images for the
further away objects, AI or landscape.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hX-9ofr2D5w

IG2 Task 1
11
Animation Art and animation in video
games refers to how things
physically look, which includes
everything from the packaging
on a retail video game, to the
texture of the skin on each
character, to the graphical user
interface, to the way a character
rolls her ankle when she walks.
It does not include how the
game-playing device or
controller (the hardware) looks.
http://www.gamecareerguide.co
m/features/413/game_art_and_
animation_an_introduction.php
This is useful to help finish off the
games visual appeal, textures and
landscapes may look beautiful but
without animation the movement of
the AI and, possibly, objects will ruin
the game.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KWC6Pw63BAY
Sprite 1. In computer graphics,
a sprite (also known by other
names; see Synonyms below) is
a two-dimensional image or
animation that is integrated into
a larger scene. Initially including
just graphical objects handled
separately from the memory
bitmap of a video display, this
now includes various manners
of graphical overlays.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sprite_(computer
_graphics)
Sprites are useful if we would like to
create a 2D sidescrolling game, so that
the game engine doesn’t struggle
loading complex 3d models.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LzqltQ3vEtg

IG2 Task 1
12
Scene Scenes contain the objects of your game. They
can be used to create a main menu, individual
levels, and anything else. Think of each unique
Scene file as a unique level. In each Scene, you
will place your environments, obstacles, and
decorations, essentially designing and building
your game in pieces.
http://docs.unity3d.com/Manual/CreatingScen
es.html
This will be useful because this is the
area where the objects and
characters/AI will live. Without the
scene, there is no game.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQoTGXTn25M
Library In computer science, a library is a collection of
non-volatile resources used by programs on a
computer, often to develop software. These
may include configuration data,
documentation, help data, message templates,
pre-written code and subroutines, classes,
values or type specifications. In IBM's OS/360
and its successors they are referred to as
partitioned data sets.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Library_(computi
ng)
A library will be useful to help us keep
all of the game files together and
organised in one place.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8jKebCBSr4

IG2 Task 1
13
UI User interface design in games differs
from other UI design because it
involves an additional element --
fiction.
http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/An
thonyStonehouse/20140227/211823/
User_interface_design_in_video_gam
es.php
This is the first place the player comes
into contact with the game. This will be
useful to us so that we can create an
appeling interface that keeps the
player playing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EOX6itCuKOc
Frames Frame rate, also known as frame frequency
and frames per second (FPS), is the frequency
(rate) at which an imaging device produces
unique consecutive images called frames. The
term applies equally well to film and video
cameras, computer graphics, and motion
capture systems. Frame rate is most often
expressed in frames per second (FPS) and is
also expressed in progressive scan monitors as
hertz (Hz).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frame_rate
These are used to help us monitor the
speed the game is running at. We hope
to achieve a solid 60FPS or above.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEtiNxlTJ8I

IG2 Task 1
14
Concept In game theory, a solution concept is a formal
rule for predicting how a game will be played.
These predictions are called "solutions", and
describe which strategies will be adopted by
players and, therefore, the result of the game.
The most commonly used solution concepts
are equilibrium concepts, most famously Nash
equilibrium.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solution_concept
This is useful to allow us to generate
ideas on how we would like the game
to play, without this the gameplay
would be choppy and incomplete.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmMXXC_TdU0
Event So, what are events? Basically, these are
discreet moments in the game loop where
things are made to happen based on what you
have programmed for them. You see
GameMaker: Studio works with cycles of these
events - from the moment a room is started to
the moment it is finished there is a game loop
running where every step (a step is a moment
in game time, governed by the room speed
setting) a series of events are run, and you can
choose to place code or DnD actions in your
instances that respond to these events.
http://docs.yoyogames.com/source/dadiospic
e/000_using%20gamemaker/events/index.htm
l
Events are useful to keep the game
running smoothly, by activation events
it triggers certain bits of code/script to
allow/make the game continue instead
of doing nothing or maybe crashing.
(Allowing a constant flow)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CjXlC-rrdDc

IG2 Task 1
15
Pathfinding Pathfinding or pathing is the plotting, by a
computer application, of the shortest route
between two points. It is a more practical
variant on solving mazes. This field of research
is based heavily on Dijkstra's algorithm for
finding the shortest path on a weighted graph.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pathfinding
If the game scene is a complicated
layout, the AI is going to require a
complex pathfinding in order for it to
smartly move around the map.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XvVcIpAGLRk

daryl bates engine terminology

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