A game engine provides the core technology, tools, and infrastructure needed to develop games. It handles hidden tasks like rendering, physics, loading assets, multiplayer functionality, and more. Game engines also provide tools for creating levels and tweaking assets efficiently. Additionally, a game engine's infrastructure ensures its various components work well together for fast iteration, cross-platform support, and unified workflows. Unity in particular aims to make game development accessible by addressing these needs and exposing much of its functionality through scripting.

1. Why you need game engineWhat actually is game engine,and why Unity is so successful ;-)

2. DisclaimerThe views expressed here are my personal views and do not necessarily reflect the thoughts, opinions, intentions, plans or strategies of Unity

3. What is game engineYour call

4. What is game engineLet me guess:RenderingPhysicseven more stuffTechnology in short

5. What is game engineWelcome to the real worldYOU ARE WRONG

6. What is game engineWhen talking about technology you forget:Not so cool-looking technology most of people thinks engine=renderingHow to get meshes/textures/... in thereHow much time to wait if texture was changedHow do you create levelslots more

7. What is game engineTechnologyToolsInfrastructurewell, nothing lives in isolationhow well pieces fit

8. What is TechnologyMultiplatform unless platform holder pays youunless you don't need moneyunless you are doing smth impossible elseor you are wrongor platform holder will pay you

9. What is TechnologyExample:Renderingif you didn't try consoles - you will failif you didn't try gl/dx/gles you will failif you don't know your hardware you will failif you don't read RTR you will failif you don't know/have constraints you will failyou need more? ;-)

10. What is TechnologyHidden TechnologyWhat about:leaderboardsachievementssaving/loading, checkpoints etcmultiplayerquick loadingupdating and DLCyou name it

11. What is TechnologyYou don't need it if you create old-school lines/tetrisyou need reality checkYou don't need all of this if you are careful about constraintsYou will need this as you try to scale down from mac to ipad

12. What is TechnologyWe'll be back when talking about infrastructureThere is more hidden in thereFar more important then you think

13. What are ToolsYou will need to create your levelseven for something like zuma time-managementnon-standard match3you name it

14. What are ToolsYou will need to tweak lots of stuffAsset PipelineconditioningparamsMaterialsObject Properties And do it fast and see the results

15. What are ToolsYou will need a lot of stuffManaging your contentwhere was that texture/shader for this treeCreating additional dataachievementslocalizationReusing stuffi want this tree in another levelYou name it

16. What are ToolsYou don't need it if you use xml/json/inis - just type hereyou need sanity checkif you hate artists/designersif you have all the time on earthYou don't need all thisUntil you need it yesterday

17. What is InfrastructureHow does it all fit togetheriteration timeinteroperabilityworkflow fitunificationeverything elsethe "feel"

18. What is InfrastructureIteration timeYou change somethingtexturemesh locationscriptobject params (e.g. movement speed)How much time is needed to see it in gameThis might be the difference between shipping in one month and in 3 months less-polished

19. What is InfrastructureInteroperabilityHow well parts works with each otherDCC tool plugins Asset importing and Level editingConflictsCoupling changing drawed mesh params shouldn't result in physics fidlingchanging texture on tree shouldn't result in whole world re-import/rebuild

20. What is Infrastructureworkflow fitartists vs programmerssound engineer might look differently unificationhow much tools/steps is needed for objectdraw paramsphysics paramsscripting

21. Still want to create in-house?Create engine in-house is awesome!if you have cool experienced programmersif you have up-front timeif you need specific technologyyou can argue about "specific" partif you can do it betterif it is your first game ever - you can'tif you want to know how engines worksFor hobbyist learning project - awesome exp

22. Still want to create in-house?For AAA game - unsolved problemdiff credits for UE3 game and in-house techbig games have source licence ;-)

23. Still want to create in-house?For smaller games - even more interestingios: $0.99meaning: you need to be *very* fastios vs androidfragmentation even on ios on android - almost desktop-likedriver-bugs and harware "features"

24. Still want to create in-house?generally mobilethey *are* underpoweredunless you know how to use hwwelcome back FFP tricksor earlier-days shader oprimizationswelcome back assembly

25. Still want to create in-house?generally mobilea lot of stuff to integratedifferent platform apidifferent featuresachievementsleaderboardsin-game purchasesaccelerometer/gyroscopeetc

26. Still want to create in-house?More power to you (really)

27. UnityWell, as i am working in Unity... ;-)Was created to help inexperienced teamsThe very first customer was team of 2 artistsyes, they succeeded ;-)The idea is to open gamedev to massesLots of platformsmac/win/web/ios/android/x360/ps3/others (NDA)Lots of guidance

28. UnityProgramming: JavaScript, Boo, C#Thinking about othersArtFBXmeaning almost everythingAutodesk, Modo, Blender, Sketchup, Cheetahand some more [too much to remember]PSD, JPG, PNG, TGA, TIFF, and more

29. UnityOperates on high levelComponentsMeshRenderer, MeshCollider, etcAssetsMesh, Texture, Soundyou will get this automagically

30. UnityPrefabsYou can save object at full and reusewith componentsmeaning everythingScenesLevel editingMeaning one place to place objects and edit props

31. UnityMultiplatform:Select platform and buildThat's allalmost ;-)

32. UnityMaterials/ShadersAll power to youpreset shadersyou can write your own

33. UnityUnity Editor is written on C# mostlymeaning we expose almost everythingmeaning - write your own tools if neededmeaning - lots of plugins are already there

34. Unityin-Editor Play buttonplay your game ;-)while having all Editor power right herechange texture and see thischange script, wait for compile, and see that

35. UnityRuntimewe did lots of hard-liftingskinning on NEON? Been there done that ;-)driver bugs on XXX? Ah yes, we have workaroundonce again - lots exposed to c# plugins: lots

36. UnityBells & whistlesBeast lightmapping? checkBeast point clouds? working in itUmbra occlusion? checkcool LOD system? almost thereprofiling? checkrun on target hw, collect data in Editorrandom stuff? you will be surprised ;-)

37. Questions?