The Purposes and Functions of components of Game Engines

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: Paulina
Kucharska
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 software is a trial version of a
software program which allows people
to use i t for free while they decide
whether or not to buy i t.
wi segeek.com
Demo s tands for ‘demonstration’, it
conta ins all the vi sual aspects of the final
vers ion of the game, but we can play only
a l i ttle of i t, usually one or few
mi s sions/events which occurs at the very
beginning. It is available for free, so
people can try the game and decide
whether to buy i t or not.

IG2 Task 1
2
Beta A pre-release of software that is given
out to a large group of users to try
under real conditions. Beta versions
have gone through alpha testing in-hous
e and are generally fairly close in
look, feel and function to the final
product; however, design changes
often occur as a result.
pcmag.com
Beta versions resemble the final game,
but people testing them still can advice
l i ttle details which may make the final
vers ion a bit more enjoyable.
Alpha Alpha software is computer software
that i s s till in the early testing phase. It
i s functional enough to be used, but i s
unpolished and often lacks many of the
features that will be included in the
final version of the program.
techterms.com
Alpha version becomes released before
the fi nal ve rsion. It doesn’t contain all the
aspects of the game, but have just enough
to try the game and decide whether to
buy i t when game will be complete.

IG2 Task 1
3
Pre-Alpha A development status given to a
program or application that is usually
not feature complete, and is not usually
released to the public. Developers are
usually still deciding on what features
the program should have at this status.
Thi s status comes before the alpha
vers ion, and is the first status given to a
program.
wiktionary.org
The most early s tage in game
development. It used to show potential
cus tomers a game and help to imagine
how i t wi ll l ook like when i mprove d. It’s
brief and the major decisions take place.
Gold In software and application
development, a gold version is the final
s tage of software development and
fol lows the alpha and beta testing
cycles of software development. The
gold version i s the final version of the
software as i t will be released to the
public. Mos t or all known bugs prior to
release are fixed, and all intended
functions for final release are
implemented.
webopedia.com
When the game goes gold, i t means its
completed and i t will be released but
ha s n’t been ye t.

IG2 Task 1
4
Debug To find and remove errors (bugs) from
a software program. Bugs occur in
programs when a line of code or an
ins truction conflicts with other
elements of the code
webopedia.com
Simply to just remove bugs you noticed
during the game testing and repairing
them.
Automation Automated software testing is a
process in which software tools
execute pre-scripted tests on a
software application before i t is
released into production.
searchsoftwarequality.techtarget.com
benefits of automated testing
Peopl e let machines do the testing, as
they work faster than a human, and can
al so spot the imperfections people
omi tted.

IG2 Task 1
5
White-Box Testing It i s a software testing method in which
the internal
s tructure/design/implementation of
the item being tested is known to the
tes ter. The tester chooses inputs to
exerci se paths through the code and
determines the appropriate outputs.
Thi s method is named so because the
software program, in the eyes of the
tes ter, is like a white/transparent box;
ins ide which one clearly sees.
softwaretestingfundamentals.com
It’s one of the testing methods alongside
with black- and grey box testing. It deals
with internal parts of the game and
checks if they work.
Bug A defect or imperfection, as in a
mechanical device, computer program,
or plan; glitch
dictionary.reference.com
It occurs when some aspects in a game
col l ide with each other. Some of them are
seem funny, but most serious ones can
affect the gameplay.

IG2 Task 1
6
GAME
ENGINES
GAME
ENGINES
Vertex Shader A programmable function in display
adapters that offers a graphics
application programmer flexibility in
rendering an image. The vertex shader
i s used to transform the attributes of
vertices (points of a triangle) such as
colour, texture, position and direction
from the original colour space to the
di splay space. It allows the original
objects to be distorted or reshaped in
any manner.
pcmag.com
It al lows the programmers to give their
creations/assets different textures.
Pixel Shader The pixel shader is another
programmable function that allows
flexibility in shading an individual pixel.
Pixel shaders are used to change the
appearance of the pixels.
pcmag.com
They create the colour appearing on
objects and take care of each
independent pixel.

IG2 Task 1
7
Post Processing Final touches done after completing a
map. These are the special effects
making the game looks better, film-al
ike. It may include intensifying a
colour, adding the depth to a scene,
showing light strokes, etc.
Applying l ittle details (such as
sunlightning, mist/fog, the weapons’
glow etc.) to the final work what makes
the game feel like a film.
Rendering In 3-D graphic design, rendering is the
process of add shading, colour and
lamination to a 2-D or 3-D wireframe in
order to create life-like images on a
s creen. Rendering may be done ahead
of time (pre-rendering) or i t can be
done in on-the-fly in real time. Real-time
rendering is often used for 3-D
video games, which require a high level
of interactivity with the player.
whatis.techtarget.com
Rendering is a process with which an
arti st creates graphic images step-by-step
for a game.

IG2 Task 1
8
Normal Map Rather than having a colour range of
black to white, like a bump map uses,
normal maps consist of red, green, and
blue. These RGB values translates to x,
y, and z coordinates, allowing a 2D
image to represent depth. This way, a
3D application is able to fake lighting
deta ils based on the colour associated
with the 3D coordinate.
gamedevelopment.tutsplus.com
It i s applied to the 3D objects so the light
and shade will appear on them more
realistically.
Entity An enti ty i s something that exists in
your game world. Again, an entity is
l i ttle more than a list of components.
The entity i s an implicit aggregation of
the components tagged with i ts ID. If
you want, you can allow components to
be dynamically added to and removed
from enti ties.
www.gamedev.net
Every object (and non-objects) in the
game is classified and has a role given.
Thi s and the special object’s
name/number help with identifying it by
the game.

IG2 Task 1
9
UV Map It i s the 3D modelling process of making
a 2D image representation of a 3D
model's surface. The letters "U" and
"V" denote the axes of the 2D texture.
wikipedia.org
Every three dimensional object in the
game has a thin upper layer which i s first
separated from i t and flattened, so we
can access every part of it and add colours
and shades.
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,
s tone, and others.
wikipedia.org
Procedural textures are easy to make, as
we don’t need artistic s kills to ge nerate
them – we are s electing commands in
special programmes. Making them this
way of them is definitely fasted than
pa i nting them digitally, i t’s also easy to
change the size of an object and it will still
have the right looking pattern.

IG2 Task 1
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Physics The subject most applicable to realistic
game content is the subject of
me cha nics, which is re ally what’s
me a nt by “re al physics.” By de finition,
mechanics is the study of bodies at rest
and in motion and of the effect of
forces on them. The subject of
mechanics is subdivided into statics,
which specifically focuses on bodies at
res t, and dynamics, which focuses on
bodies in motion.
books.google.co.uk
By adding physics, even the cartoonish
game feels more realistic. They indicate a
motion, how the character falls, what will
happen if someone gets smashed.
Wi thout the physics the ga me wouldn’t
be interesting at all and confusing.
Collision A col lision hull is usually some form of
s implified duplicate mesh of a 'parent'
object, a simple cyl inder that surrounds
a complex Gothic pillar for example.
Thi s reduced version acts on behalf of
i ts parent object, which in turn is used
by game engines for the detection of
impacts, collision and physics - in effect
optimising the amount of prioritisation
a computer has to do to calculate
player and user interaction within the
game environment.
katsbits.com
Col l ision is used to prevent objects and
characters wander out of the map level or
going through the walls like a ghost
(unless you intend to do that) .

IG2 Task 1
11
Lighting Lighting i s one of the most important
and influential elements in
envi ronments. It has the power to
make or break the vi suals, theme and
atmosphere. It creates atmosphere. It
makes places look s cary/cosy or
warm/cold. It augments the three
dimensional feel of objects and i t
creates composition and balance to
lead the player's eyes around.
moddb.com
Good use of lightning can improve the
gaming experience. If the light would be
the same during the night or in the
dungeon (or place radiating evil force) i t
would be just boring and not convincing
enough.
AA – Anti-Aliasing Anti -aliasing is a technique of blending
bitmap-based images and text to
reduce the stair-stepping or jagged
appearance. In areas of transition, the
edge pixels are blended to give a
smoother appearance.
graphicssoft.about.com
Anti aliasing soothes the overly pixelated
look of graphics by adding shades
inbetween the colour borders.
LoD – Level of
Detail
It i s a general design term for video
game landscapes in which closer
objects are rendered with more
polygons than objects that are farther
away.
techopedia.com
Level of Detail s ets how much the object
i s s implified while being at the certain
di s tance from our character. Object far
away of us appear more angular, since we
are not focusing on them. It helps with
better game performance.

IG2 Task 1
12
Animation A s imulation of movement created by
di splaying a s eries of pictures, or
frames. Animation s tarts with
independent pictures and puts them
together to form the illusion of
continuous motion.
webopedia.com
Nobody l ikes if the game would contain
onl y s till figures (e ven if it’s a board game
played on computer). With animation we
can give objects a life and motion. 3D
animation is made of setting the pose,
s i ze or sometimes structure of a s ingle
object, then allowing to skip from one
onto another creating smooth movement.
2D images are made by drawing an object
in several different poses (depending how
smooth you want i t to move) and placing
them one after another.

IG2 Task 1
13
Sprite A spri te is a single graphic image that is
incorporated into a larger s cene so that
i t appears to be part of the s cene.
Spri tes are a popular way to create
large, complex s cenes as you can
manipulate each sprite separately from
the res t of the scene. This allows for
greater control over how the scene is
rendered, as well as over how the
players can interact with the s cene.
gamedevelopment.tutsplus.com
2D games are made from hundreds of
s pri tes. It’s much e asier to cre ate small
parts and join them together rather than
drawing the same thing again and again
but with few little differences. Sprites of
the same object are put on the same file
ne xt to e a ch other. It’s ca lled a s prite
sheet and i t reduces the amount of
memory used by the game. Sprite sheets
are then combined to create a 2D
animation.
Scene A non-interactive portion of a game. A
Cut Scene normally divides the action
of a video game up a bit, and allows the
s tory l ine to be presented more clearly.
Areas of the game referred to as Cut
Scenes are non-playable segments of
the video game.
vgs trategies.about.com
A short video which appears at the
beginning of a game (introducing shortly
to a world and main character), before
any important events, and at the end
informing what happened after.

IG2 Task 1
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Library A col lection of assets for a game. Folders helping to classify, sort and
manage graphic images as well as
handling every component and game
aspect for 2D and 3D engines. Well
organised library allows us for the easy
access to things.
UI (User Interface) It i s everything designed into an
information device with which a human
being may interact -- including display
s creen, keyboard, illuminated
characters, help messages [etc.]
searchsoa.techtarget.com
It’s what player s ees when playing a
game. User Interface tells him things like a
cha ra cter’s health and mana, l vl; basis the
player needs and wants to be aware of. UI
al so allows him to interact with objects it
sees.

IG2 Task 1
15
Frames Frames per second (FPS) is a unit that
measures display device performance.
It cons ists of the number of complete
s cans of the display screen that occur
each second. This is the number of
times the image on the screen is
refreshed each second, or the rate at
which an imaging device produces
unique sequential images called
frames.
techopedia.com
Larger number of frames per second gives
better quality of an animation.
Concept An idea of something formed by
mentally combining all i ts
characteristics or particulars; a
cons truct.
thefreedictionary.com
Every game starts from a small idea (the
conce pt), then i t’s e xpanded more and
deta ils are put, when people are satisfied
with what they thought of, they can s tart
creating it. The concept is usually a brief
i ma ginary, a nd i t relies on team’s skills
how well the game will be presented at
the end.

IG2 Task 1
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Event Anything that happens when a player
does/interacts with something in a
game world.
Anything that happens in the game world,
whenever a player does something (for
example talking with NPC) or goes to a
specific place (maybe a castle).
Events can affect the storyline either a
l i ttle or completely change the final
outcome.

IG2 Task 1
17
Pathfinding Pathfinding is a game term used to
refer to the way units will move
between to given points in the game
envi ronment.
metaboli.co.uk
It determines which way should a
character go to reach the goal. It also
shows the shortest way to i t (though not
always the easiest).

The Purposes and Functions of components of Game Engines

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