This document discusses how Nonstop Games achieved 60 frames per second for their 3D real-time strategy mobile game prototype. It introduces the studio and describes the technical requirements for the naval combat tech demo. Key techniques used include an ocean simulation with displacement mapping and normal maps, multi-threaded rendering optimized for mobile hardware, and animation exported from a Maya plugin to reduce draw calls. The document concludes with details on the tech demo's performance running over 100,000 triangles per frame on an iPad 2 at 26-44 FPS.

1. How We Did 60fps
In Our 3D RTS Mobile Game
Daniel Sim - Senior Developer
Nonstop Games - A King studio
Oct 2014

2. ● Quick Intro
● 3D RTS on Mobile
● Q&A
● Hands-on + Lunch
Overview

3. About Me
● Started Game Programming in 1987
● Was a “3D Artist” in a previous life (7 years)
● Made game that hit #23 What’s Hot Role
Playing Games for iPad (U.S. App Store)
● MMO Gamer - WoW, EVE Online
● 2009 Singapore Champion - Radio
Controlled Helicopter Aerobatics

6. ● Founded in 2011 - Teemu, Henrik, Juha,
Henric
o 17 of us - Passionate about Making Games Gamers
Love
o Encourage Innovation, Individuality
About Nonstop Games

7. ● Real-time Map Strategy War Game (2D)
● App Store Feature (> 100 countries)
Heroes of Honor

9. About the Kingdom
● Maker of Candy Crush, Farm Heroes, Pet
Rescue, and more!
● 6 Studios in Europe
● Nonstop Games is King’s 1st Studio in Asia!
● Bi-annual Infomarket

10. ● Induction in Europe (Berlin)
● Brand New Office in the City
● Access to network of artist and developers
(Platforms to Share Knowledge)
● And more!
Kingdom Perks

11. Global Kingdom of Fun
● 345 Million Monthly UNIQUE Users
● 1.2 Billion Average Daily Game Plays
● Truly Free-to-play

12. Nonstop Games - A King Studio
● Independent Studio
● Fun, Innovative Games
● Beyond Traditional Casual Genre
● Bring Best of East to the Global Market
● Amazing Games in the pipeline

13. Introducing Our Tech Demo
● FLEET - Naval RTS Prototype
o Current Mobile RTS Examples
o What Might Happen in The Near Future
o Requirements for the Tech Demo
o Ocean Simulation
o Tech Details
o Rendering Techniques

14. Current Mobile RTS On Mobile
● Clash of Clans
● Boom Beach

15. In The Near Future...
● High Fidelity 3D Graphics
● Silky Smooth Framerates
● More Complex Battle Mechanics
● Lots of RTS games on mobile
● Many “entry-level” smartphones in use

16. Tech Demo Requirements
● Naval Combat Game (with Vikings!)
● Hundreds of Units (3D Character Animation)
● Particle Effects for Explosions and Water
● WOW! Ocean Simulation+Effects
● Real-time Physics+AI for Units
● < 100MB Memory Usage (Core Runtime)

17. Ocean Demo
Video time!

18. Ocean Simulation
● Try for “Never seen before”
● Works on “all” phones
● Complex Problem
● Techniques apply to any “ground”

19. Pieces of an Ocean
Detail Normal Maps
Reflection Map
Displacement+Normal Maps

20. Displace+Normal Animated Blend
Map A moves
Map B is faster
● RGB is Normal, Alpha is Displacement
● 8x Over-sample over U axis
● Same Technique for Detail Normal Maps

21. Detail Normal Maps
● Inexpensive “Close-up” Detail
● 4 Normal Map Layers in total

22. 3D Normals into 2D Texture Coords
Reflection Map (Fresnel Mimic)

23. Challenges (of Oceanic proportions)
● Displacement and Normal Map Size
● Reflection Mapping
● Texture Look-up Bandwidth
● Artist deliver the “Punchline”
● Particle Projection Mapping
o Pre-render Noise
o Generate Projected Mesh
o Minimize Overdraw
o A Whole Topic on its own

24. Epic Naval Battle
Another video!

25. Tech Details (Entities)
● Fleet Prototype @60fps (iPad 4)
o 4k Bone Animated Tris (4 skin weights per vertex)
o 23k Transform Animated Tris
o 42k Static Tris
o Above Tris are with normals and lit with 2 lights,
ambient + directional
o Box2D physics with 30 dynamic bodies and 28 static
bodies

26. Tech Details (Ocean + Effects)
● Full scene displacement animated Ocean
Mesh
o 32k tris
o 3.9k tris with particle billboard animation projected
on Ocean Mesh (Ship Wakes)
● Particle Effects
o 1.6k particle billboard animated sprite tris
o Smoke, Explosions and Spells
● Grand Total
o 107,000 Triangles Per Frame

27. Tech Details (AI, Sound)
● AI + Physics
o Nearest target fire and movement
o AI controls 30 ships
● 16 concurrent sound channels
o 3D spatial processing

28. 32 Ships and a Base on an iPad 2
Brand X (3D Engine)

29. 26 FPS

30. 44 FPS

31. 3D Rendering (1 of 3)
● SIMD capable Vector Math
o GLM - Second fastest library, most portable
● Vertex Buffer Objects (VBO)
o Pre-load vertex data to GPU
● Vertex Array Objects (VAO)
o Pre-configure rendering programs on GPU

32. 3D Rendering (2 of 3)
● Multi-thread Ready (WIP)
o Entity Render States are Thread Safe
● Future Proof
o Apple Metal Ready
o UBO and Geometry Instancing will be quick to
integrate (OpenGL ES 3.0)
● Vertex Cache Optimized Mesh Export

33. 3D Rendering (3 of 3)
● Particle Animation
o Export Baked Animation from Maya
o Animated Attributes Per Particle:
 Sprite Frame
 Opacity
 Twist
 Scale

34. Shaders
● Right Shader for the Right Job
o Optimize where it matters
o Easy to write, use and benchmark custom shader
● Shader Uniforms
o Aggressive use
o 400% faster than glBufferData (selected use case)

35. Animation
● Export from C++ Maya Plugin
o Skeleton Animation
o Quaternion Rotations
 Record and Interpolation
● GPU based mesh deformation

36. File Formats
● Mesh, Animation, Collision, Particle and Font
● No-fluff Binary
o Depends on Artist/Content Tools to pull-it together.
● Memory dump of GPU buffer
o As fast as it gets
o Not possible all the time
o Amazing with Apple Metal

37. Questions Please!

38. ● Know Each Other Better
● Seen how we make a naval RTS game
● Went through rendering techniques
● Try the Tech Demo for yourself
o Lunch!
Recap

39. nonstop-games.com/jobs
linkedin.com/in/danniesim
Thank You!