Path: chuka.playstation.co.uk!news From: James Burns Newsgroups: scee.yaroze.freetalk.english Subject: Re: 3rd Year Project Reseach - please help!!! Date: Thu, 17 Nov 2005 08:54:58 +0000 Organization: PlayStation Net Yaroze (SCEE) Lines: 103 Message-ID: References: NNTP-Posting-Host: jamesb2.tg.scee.sony.co.uk Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.12) Gecko/20050923 Thunderbird/1.0.7 Mnenhy/0.7 X-Accept-Language: en-us, en In-Reply-To: Matt Verran wrote: >>I think most developers abstract the game mechanics from the specific >>platform mechanics. So parts of the renderer are similar and other parts; >>lower level are written independantly for the target platform. > > > Yeh definately. The places I know about tend to have a lead platform then > several port teams that work on the others, rather than 1click>xbox to > 1click>playstation builds all from the same source. Maybe I just know people > at shoddy devcos? :) > Is that not the old way it was done? If this were the process, I don't think EA could ship the new Harry Potter game on PS2, PSP, Xbox, GBA, DS, GC & PC all on the same launch date. I do understand that potentially the portable versions of the game could have been handed to a 2nd party developer for EA that would work very closely with the main team, thereby creating a game for an architecture that cannot be supported by the main asset toolchain. For example, creating the GBA version of the game. This is where communication with a devco such as EA or even Sega could give an in depth view on how they handle multiple platform development. You will most likely find that some developers are very pleased to provide information that can help in the education of potential talent for entry into the industry. > >>Also with regard to target compilation, you maybe basing your question of >>"Do all consoles start with GCC?" from your Net Yaroze experience. If you >>think about that one a little bit more, Xbox and Xbox360 will both be >>using Direct X. > > > Hey, DX is an API James! You knew the oxboxes use Microsofts own C/C++ > compilers. > Yeah, I know that, sometimes when I ramble I mix my thoughts together and it comes out confusing :) > >>For the other consoles, and in Sony's case, GCC is easy to begin with for >>a non-software company, as the toolchain is already available and can be >>tuned for the target platform. Microsoft have a head start as they are a >>software company with many years experience in developing IDE's, mature >>SDK's, other tools, etc. They suffer from the lack of being an full scale >>hardware development company, so they have to make the console from parts >>off other companies, such as ATI and IBM for Xbox360. > > > Yeh, the losers! We'd never do that ;) > > >>However, there are third party middleware and tools vendors who do provide >>other compiler options. Metrowerks and SN Systems are the two biggest >>names in the business. SN Systems has been aquired by Sony to develop a >>compiler and tools for PS3. > > > I read somewhere recently that Metrowerks were getting out of the console > dev system biz. But yeah, pretty much everywhere now will be using a fully > WIMPED up dev environment like Visual Studio, with IDE, debugger, compiler, > analyser etc all integrated. James will probably tagteam in now and list off > hundreds of devs he's been to that still hardcore it in linux command lines > :) > *Tag - I'm in * Matt, you know I can't talk about my developer visits. I can generalise on stuff I heard outside of work... Japan devs seem to favour Linux, although some are coming round to Windows based development. I once heard that some Japanese dev team ported the Linux toolset, for some platform, to work on Macs... some people eh! Some devs use the windows toolchains but use buildfarms that rely on the Linux architecture. This is either through performance, the-way-its-always-been-done, or there is some hardcore programmer that favours BSD and doesn't trust Microsoft :) > >>Other things im interested in would be: how comercial racing games define a >>'race track' in code. >>Methods used in network code, client server, peer to peer etc. >>Collision methods most commonly used in 3D games. > > > Thats a big list of stuff :) To define a race track I'd guess you'd have > something like a 3D mesh to display it and a set of collision data thats > simpler and defines the track logically. The collision data might just be a > set of lines that define the edge of the track or it might be a complex mesh > with every crack in the road modelled. The 3D mesh might be streamed and > LODed ir it might just be dumped in its entirety to the GPU. Depends on what > the game needs to do. > > -MattV > BTW, there are some good articles on www.gamasutra.com from many years back regarding this topic, so that should enhance your research! Regards, James