Assignment One – Company and Game Engine Research GAM1531 – DirectX Tyler Perin & James Shaw 01.17.2007
PART 1: Companies
Namco Bandai A Brief Introduction Namco was founded in 1955. Originally, Namco had started off producing mechanical children’s toys and rides. In 1974, Namco had started developing for Atari and had their foot in the coinoperated video game market. Bandai was founded in 1950. Just like Namco, Bandai started off as a toy producer and still do produce toys today. On September 29, 2005 Namco and Bandai merged as a single entity but both companies decided to continue developing separately. Namco is a primary developer of video games founded in Japan, while Bandai is still a world leader of toy developing. Range of Products 1. Namco Bandai develops several different genres of video games for a number of different platforms. The platform list includes Nintendo DS, Nintendo Game Cube, Game Boy Advance, PC, Playstation 2, Playstation 3, PSP, Xbox and Xbox 360. Namco Bandai also has decided to re-create the Tamagotchi for the new Nintendo Wii.
Programming Languages and Tools 2. A list of programming languages and tools could not be found. Product Capability 3. Namco Bandai has a massive list of games which include some sequels. Although not specifically stated online, it appears as if they reuse certain parts from previous games to aid in the development of the sequels. Some series games include Pac-Man 3D games, Dead to Rights 1 and 2, Soulcalibur, Tekken, Ridge Racer and Ace Combat. Considering that there are so many series games it is fair to say that the original products contain some extensibility rather than totally rewriting a similar game.
Development Environments 4. Namco Bandai follows industry and in-house standards, and has built a system that facilitates the achievement of higher levels of safety and quality, so that customers can use their products with confidence. Namco Bandai is aggressively implementing forward-looking environmental conservation measures to ensure that they can continue to provide "Dreams, Fun and Inspiration" to people around the world. Namco Bandai is also active in areas outside the provision of products and services, such as museum operations and volunteer activities.
Daily Work Routine 5. Namco Bandai America has a total of only 99 employees. To provide customers with a sense of fun and pleasure through "playing," NAMCO/NAMCO BANDAI Games have amusement facilities and have developed amusement devices and home-use game software. In running an amusement business, they make various efforts on the social front not only giving consideration to the environment but also trying to enhance the quality and safety of the amusement services offered and applying their "playing" knowledge and technologies to social and welfare contribution activities. An entire environmental report can be found at
http://www.bandainamcogames.co.jp/english/corporate/environment/.
Future Development 6. Namco Bandai’s mission is to inspire people around the world and help them enjoy their time to the full. Namco Bandai will unrelentingly seek out and take on new challenges as it aims to become the world's most admired videogame maker, capable of consistently supplying games that deliver happiness, fun and satisfaction. Recently, Namco Bandai has decided to continue development of the famous, addicting, hilarious Tamagotchi. The Tamagotchi will now be for the Wii. It is interesting and exciting to see that the original developers will dive back into an older technology and bring it back to modern day. Namco Bandai has recently teamed up with EA Games to work on the title HellGate: London. The team-up with EA shows that they are taking even bigger steps than before. Namco Bandai has planned to develop for all 3 new age platforms; Wii, 360 and PS3. In doing so, they will work towards their goal of becoming the most admired videogame maker on the planet.
“Basic Philosophy of Namco Bandai 1. Only supply products that deliver real customer satisfaction
2. Continually aim to create genre-breaking products 3. Work to offer more chances to enjoy videogames (multi-content approach) 4. Work to enhance the gameplay experience (media-mix approach) 5. Actively supply products to overseas customers”
Resource Links
http://www.bandainamcogames.co.jp/english/corporate/environment/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Namco_Bandai http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Namco http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bandai http://www.namcobandaigames.com/corporate http://hotjobs.yahoo.com/Company-Profiles/N/NAMCO-BANDAI-Games-America-Inc-Jobs_44065
Midway Background: Midway started in 1958 building amusement equipment and did not actual make arcade games until the early 70s. They made one early attempt at creating a console for the home consumer market called the “Balley Home Library Computer”, but it was not very successful and they sold the right to another company soon after. They also released North American versions of Space Invaders, Pac Man and Ms Pac Man which were their first real arcade successes. 1. Wikipedia Midway http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midway_Games
Products: Though midway originally started out manufacturing amusement equipment and arcade games, their current focus is on developing games for consoles and home computers. They not only develop games, but also work in the publishing field. The consoles that midway develops for are all current generation systems; Nintendo Game Cube, Sony Playstation 2, Microsoft Xbox as well as all the next gen versions; Nintendo Wii, Sony Playstation3, Microsoft Xbox 360. The current IP that the company develops that is the focus of most of their attention is the Mortal Combat IP. Development: It seams that one of the most common things that almost all jobs look for from Midway is Unreal 3. It is VERY important if you are looking to work their. Art: -After Effects, Premier, Photoshop, Maya, UnrealEd, Action Script, Lingo, 3DSMax, Zbrush, Character Studio,
Programming: -C++, Unreal Script, MFC(Microsoft, Foundation, Class Library ... I think), WxWidget, C, An excellent understanding of OOP principals.
Jobs Available at Midway http://www.midway.com/page/JobsAvailable.html
Extendability: Midway in general likes to make their games mod friendly, meaning that the tools they uses are normally designed to allow average people to create mods for them. The fact that a lot of their next gen games are being developed using the Unreal 3 engine which in its self is a very powerful mod friendly tool is testament to the fact. Environment: Midway produces so many different games for different platforms that they use development environments for the Wii, Playstation, Xbox and the PC. Their primary development environment across all these platforms seems to be the unreal 3 engine for which they purchased a studio wide license. Future: Midways future strategy is to focus on its upcoming next gen titles as well as keep promoting their current big IP such as Mortal Combat. They will focus heavily on the unreal 3 engine as their development platform of choice across all of their studios as well as continue to try and develop new IP for the future. They will continue to use movie licenses to help fuel some of their games as well as develop a more in their children's library though a partnership with the Cartoon Network. Yahoo Article http://videogames.yahoo.com/newsarticle?eid=443174&page=0 Midway release on Unreal 3 engine http://www.midway.com/rxpage/mpr_928.html
Part 2: The Game Engine
Reality Engine Basics: Author: Graphics API: Operating System: Programming Language: Status: Documentation: Owner: Features: Artificial Studio Direct X Windows, Xbox C++ INACTIVE Yes EPIC Studios
General Features: -Object-Oriented Design, Plug-in Architecture, Save/Load System, Other Scripting: -The engine uses .NET framework for scripting and allows the user to code using all the .NET standard coding languages such as C++, C#, even VB8 is accommodated. -Core engine is in C++, the game framework is in C# Built-in Editor: playing through it level through the shadows Physics: Doll, Vehicle and -The editor can switch between editing a level and without compiling -Allows real time views of all the objects placed in a editor as well as lights and -Can create GUI's right in the editor -Basic Physics, Collision Detection, Rigid Body, Rag Volumetric
Lighting: Per-Vertex, Per-Pixel (up to PS3.0), Volumetric, Lightmapping, Radiosity, Gloss map, Anisotropic, full world Day/Night cycles Shadows: Texturing Projected Shaders Scene Management Animation Blending Meshes Shadow Mapping, Shadow Volume Basic, Multi-texturing, Bumpmapping, Mipmapping, Vertex, Pixel, High Level General, Occlusion Culling, LOD Keyframe Animation, Skeletal Animation, Animation Mesh Loading, Skinning, Progressive
Special Effects Environment Mapping, Lens Flares, Billboarding, Particle System, Depth of Field, Motion Blur, Sky, Water, Fire, Fog, Weather, Mirror Networking System Client-Server Sound & Video Artificial Intelligence 2D Sound, 3D Sound, Streaming Sound Pathfinding, Decision Making, Scripted
Rendering
Fixed-function, Render-to-Texture, Fonts, GUI
All Reality Engine features were retrieved from: DevMaster Reality Engine page http://www.devmaster.net/engines/engine_details.php?id=26 Artificial Studios home page http://artificialstudios.com/features.php Tech Demo form GameTrailers.com http://www.gametrailers.com/umwatcher.php?id=32199 http://www.gametrailers.com/umwatcher.php?id=32204 Availability: Unfortunately though the Reality Engine showed an enormous amount of promise and the ability to compete with the larger more expensive engines at a fraction of the cost, it is no longer a viable alternative. On May 11, 2005 Epic Games the makers of one of the hugely overpriced engines Unreal 3, in a microsoftesk move decided that rather than try and compete with the new up and comer and try and match their product specs or create a more competitive price they would simply buy them out and absorb its content. The engine and all of its part are now owned and pretty much discontinued by Epic a quote from their site “Epic has purchased the Reality Engine outright, including intellectual property rights, trademarks, and copyrights. Epic does not intend to continue sales, development, or support of the Reality Engine, but will review its technologies for inclusion into Unreal Engine 3.”. The unfortunate people who had already purchased the engine “... will be offered Upgrades to Unreal 3 for a significantly Discounted price”. Though from one of the quotes on the DevMaster.net by gardon the price for the Reality engine was in the 5 digit range where as unreal 2, not even their newest product is being licensed at 350,000 plus 3% in perpetuity Epic Games Press release http://www.epicgames.com/press_releases/press_reality.html Games: Reality Engine being a next gen game engine does not currently have any games that have been released for it, but has 2 games that are currently under development by Artificial Studios that original creators of the engine. Cell Factor: Revolution: -Is a first person shooter that is heavily based on the Ageia PhysX engine. The game was originally developed as a tech demo to show the power of the Ageia PhysX card, but after an extremely warm welcome a developer signed on and the team at Artificial Studio started full scale development.
-Even though the engine was sold to EPIC they are still using it to create the game, though the game has been scaled to the point were its more of a budget FPS. -In the game the engine is being used to power the extensive amount of physics and effects that the game uses. Apparently even with the large number of thing being done on screen the game engine is able to maintain a very good framerate.
Monster Madness: -Is a party game meant to target the casual gamer. It scheduled to be released on the PC, XBOX360 and the PS3 through the PS3 is not confirmed. In the game the player takes the role of a group of kids who have to fight off a monster invasion. -The game is meant to be fairly simplistic an accessible to a wide audience and thus does not focus a specific advanced thing like physics for Cell Factor. -The game from what I have read at least started out using the Reality Engine. After Epic purchased the engine the game was switched over to use the unreal 3 engine in stead, it is still being developed by Artificial Studios. Monster Madness using Unreal 3 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_Studios Their will most likely be no more games made using this engine because of its purchase by Epic and their intent to Integrate it and its technologies into the unreal 3 engine. Usability: -The Engine used the DirectX API and was intended for systems using a windows interface though it can be run on both Xbox and Xbox 360. -With reference both to the home site of Artificial Studios and some of the comments left on the DevMaster.net site the engine works fairly well on both high end and low end systems. Multi-Purpose: -The engine is primarily designed for gaming applications, but its feature set is also applicable for 3D architecture work as well as 3D test that require some physics calculations Start-Up:
-The engine was designed to be both powerful and easy to use. It has a couple basic examples that come with it that can be adapted for the users game or can simply be used as reference. The fact that you can do almost all programming required in C# with is a fairly easy language to learn and use is a bonus. Unfortunately because the engine was only publicly available for a very short time I was unable to find any code or information on creating even the most basic game using the engine. Costs: Though the engine is no longer being licensed, their was one quote on the DevMaster site which hinted at a 5 digit price tag which though not cheep would have been an absolute steal for a next gen AAA game engine when compared to the price of other AAA engines.
RealmForge GDK by Dan Moorehead
http://www.devmaster.net/engines/engine_details.php?id=68
A Brief Introduction The RealmForge GDK is a cross-platform game development framework and toolkit written in Mono/C# and powered by the Axiom 3D engine. It will allow for the rapid development of cutting-edge software and massive multiplayer online role playing games with advanced graphics, audio, and networking capabilities. Games Developed With RealmForge 1. A list of games and applications developed with RealmForge could not be found. OS Compatibility 2. RealmForge is a very flexible open-source engine that works with several operating systems. These include Windows, Linux, MaxOS, Solaris, HP/UX and FreeBSD. Although RealmForge does not mention what the computer system requirements should be, it appears as if specifications should be somewhat high from the introduction paragraph and features mentioned:
“…allow for the rapid development of cutting-edge software and massive multiplayer online role playing games with advanced graphics, audio, and networking capabilities.”
Note that the above was stated, in the engine description, a few years ago when systems were not as powerful as they are today. Other Purposes 3. RealmForge is a great open-source engine with good plug-in architecture. Considering this, RealmForge offers a very flexible game engine, framework and toolset. Although not mention specifically, it appears that RealmForge is designed for game developers. The features listed are all game related; a. Scripting, Built-In Editors, Physics, Lighting, Shadows, Texturing, Shaders,
Scene Management and Tweaking, Animations, Meshes, Terrain, Special Effects, Sound & Video, AI, Rendering, Networking
As mentioned in the description of the engine, RealmForge does offer strong 2D support:
“The framework supports every conceivable game genre (eg. RPG, FPS, MMORPG, Adventure) and even those not often considered for 3D games (ie board, and puzzle)”
Difficulty 4. RealmForge is an engine for speedy creation and editing. Their biggest feature to save time and hassle is their On-The-Fly editing of scripting. This allows for scripts to be added and edited during mid-game testing. Code does not even have to be touched for this. The Built-In Editor has a very great feature which allows content to be modified and retested over and over. The Animation section offers built-in editing of ragdoll characters to adjust weight of certain parts to add to the realism. This saves a lot on physics building and coding. The game editor is built ingame similar to that of Doom III. This allows for speedy creation and testing of new content and code. It appears that the main goal of RealmForge is to greatly cut back on compile times, and to implement a speedier technique such as on-thefly testing. This saves the time that is usually created while compiling, running, testing and closing the engine.
Costs
5.
After several years of development, the RealmForge project has ceased and its team is now partnering Suva Interactive to develop Visual3D Architect .NET (www.visual3d.net) as a runtime framework and integrated visual design environment for Managed DirectX 9 and .NET 2.0. RealmForge is a free open-source engine. According to ratings and reviews the support was rated at around 80% positive. Unfortunately, due to ceased development, live help has been ceased as well because the developers have been placed elsewhere. The engine is equipped with a very thorough and helpful tutorial and help documentation. There is no mention of a student versus a commercial use, but the users and staff do mention that this should be a top pick looked into whether you do commercial or hobby development.
Vs
Midway vs Namco-Bandai Similarities: Both companies have been around in the video game industry since its inception, in fact in the by gone days of video arcade systems they collaborated in several arcade games Midway licensing Namco games for North American distribution. They are both diverse in the different systems that they develop for. They are and will be very active in the upcoming nextgen system development. Differences: Midway has stuck primarily on video games where as Namco-Bandi is also active in other markets such as toys. The location of each company have their headquarters in different countries. RealmForge GDK vs Reality Similarities After comparing both engines, it is fair to say that both are quite similar. The most useful feature that both engines contain is the plug-in architecture that they use. Both engines allow for numerous plug-ins to save from re-inventing the wheel. Another great feature that both engines have is the on-the-fly editing of the game. This saves heavily on compile times. It also allows for real-time
viewing of material. The remaining scripting, texturing, shaders, scene management, animation, meshes and special effects are all nearly identical. Both RealmForge and Reality have ceased production because they have both been purchased by larger companies: RealmForge merged into Visual3d, Reality was bought by Epic (Unreal). Both engines were also developed mainly for game development, but do work for other applications. Differences The first difference noticed is that the Reality engine has a far more advanced lighting engine. Reality has everything that RealmForge has, plus volumetric lights, lightmapping, radiosity, gloss map, and full world day and night cycles. The RealmForge shadow casting is a bit better than Reality. The only difference is that RealmForge offers Projected Planar features. The Reality engine offers 2D, 3D and streaming sound whereas RealmForge does not offer 2D. RealmForge is free and Reality costs in the 5 digit price range. RealmForge, unfortunately, had not completed any mainstream games on the market. Reality, on the other hand, has a list of games including Cell Factor, Monster Madness.