The game engine provides calculations for all the potential display and content action options throughout game play, as inputted by the game player.
The engine partners with hardware components and game content to create an effective and enjoyable experience for the game player. The hardware components perform the tasks set out by the game engine and displays the game content to the screen.
The code of a game engine makes it possible for things such as collisions, particle events, and Inverse Kinematics to occur at game time. It is also largely responsible for issues ranging from display to methods of keeping track of player's high scores.
The Maya Real Time SDK is a set of C++ code libraries for implementing 3D rendering, dynamics, Inverse Kinematics, animation, and particle systems, for authoring game and simulation applications. The RT SDK improves efficiency and enables artists and level designers to create elements such as dynamics and particles within the art system that will then be automatically and accurately reproduced within the engine.
The Game Viewer |
| The RT SDK includes a viewer that allows art assets to be viewed directly inside the game engine. This viewer includes the familiar Maya camera controls as well as first person and terrain following cameras. Because the viewer contains all the same code, any simulations such as dynamics, particles, and animation can be seen within the viewer and the artist can be assured that their assets will be drawn in the game properly. |
| Object Libraries |
| Throughout the production, the game content team develops various data sets including object libraries, character libraries and levels. The objects make up the components of the levels which include geometry, animation, texture data and collision data. The character library has the various characters and the animation cycles that control the character's movement. The levels are the general environments (walls, river, etc.) but are missing all the object and character library data. |
| The Final Game |
| Object libraries and levels are combined and tested in the engine for any scene bugs. Bugs can be engine related or art related and their origin determines who fixes them. Once no bugs can be found, refining features are added and worked out such as special lighting effects and camera controls. The final levels are combined together with the character libraries into the game engine, creating the final game. |
| Next Generation Game Development |
| Looking towards the future of game production, and the enhancements of next generation consoles, Alias|Wavefront is focusing on The Maya Real Time SDK (RT SDK). This solution provides multiple avenues for connecting the game artist much more closely to the game programmer and game design process. The Maya Real Time SDK is a modular real-time developer's toolkit, which mirrors Maya's next generation Dependency Graph architecture in an optimized scene graph, that is initially targeted specifically for the next generation PlayStation 2 from Sony Computer Entertainment. In the future, other next generation consoles will also be considered. |
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