PhysX
PhysX is an advanced particle system developed by Nvidia. This system will allow a game to have a lot more particles to be on the screen at once, giving the game a more realistic look to it. This has it so more effects can be active at one time without slowing down the performance of game and its running speed. Graphics cards without PhysX support will make the game run at a slower fps than one with it.
World Navigation
World Navigation is becoming more and more popular in games, this is because the game world are ever expanding in size and like in the real world people can get lost and need something to tell them where they need to go and what direction, this is were the world navigation comes into play, world navigation is a small thing in a game that helps the player find the quickest way or to help them to find their way and there are many forms of this, one way is a mini map that will be placed in the corner of your screen, which will follow your character around, this sometimes will have lines on it to show how the player can get to their next objective, another one is a normal map, this is normally triggered when the player press' a certain key normally "M", this will bring up a big map of the area of the game or even the world, and from this you can zoom in and out, this will sometimes show lots of location into which you can do activities, find people and so on. The other one which is very popular is the top mid arrow which points you into the direction into which you need to go, this type of arrow would be find in open street racing games, although they do not show you short cuts but take you the main way in which the AI will be taking.
Anti aliasing
Anti aliasing is an in game feature, this feature will smooth the jagged edges of objects so that they look more natural and look more realistic although this is what players want it also comes with a downside, this is where it lowers the performance of the game and also lowers the frame rate, this created the game to run a lot less smoother and also slows down the overall game making it seem more slow and laggy. Gamers are now given the option in most up to date game weather they want the anti aliasing on or off, in a simple tick box, this gives people with lower ended hardware the opportunity to play the game as well.
Shadowing
Shadowing is something that is quite new into the game world, shadowing creates a better atmosphere within the game and also created depth and size, this could be shown for the size of a cliff, or even the size of a person. Shadow is there to create further realism to a game, although this is a good thing to have it is also an option to have it or to not, shadowing may look good but it will slow down the frames and the performance of the game and you have the option to lower the shadow or even remove it completely.
Level of Detail
Level of detail is a very important aspect of games, especially ones that want to create realism within their games, one game that really takes this to the max is Crysis 3 (Created on CryEngine) everything in this game is so detailed, from the people to even the smallest piece of grass. Although this feature is breathe taking and amazing, it doesn't work at a certain distance, by this I mean that although the closer you get the more detailed it become but the further away you are from a certain object the less detailed it will be, this makes the game run fast and also means the game doesn't have to load unnecessary things that you aren't going to look at or have passed, this makes the game run smoother and faster, and once again you can have the option to lower the detail of the game, not only that but you have the opportunity to lower the distance into which you can see, all this will make the FPS run faster and the overall performance of the game to run more smoothly.
Lighting
Lighting can be seen as one of the most important components to a game, because light can really effect the mood in which the game want you to feel, for example you know when you're in a bright place in a game the chances are you are most likely in a safe area when nothing bad is going to happen, but when you're in a dark area, this creates the atmosphere of being scared and foreshadows what is coming next, such as a monster chasing you or someone trying to kill you. There are many different lights that can create different looks, things such as point light which might be to point at a certain character or coming from a build, to area light which would be seen as lighting in a house or the light coming from a candle.
Fogging
Fogging was quite a big aspect in game a few years again this was because this was the point before you could see everything in front of you, fogging was there to create a wall in front of you where you could not see past, this gave the game a chance to load up any items that you were heading towards, but fogging wasn't only put into games for that purpose but to create atmosphere, a foggy place would create suspicion and tension in a game, because players would not know what could be lurking in the fog.
Graphics rendering is quite an important part in a game, this is where things such as colour, texture, lighting, shading and more are added on while you are playing a game. This includes things such as when you are heading to a certain objective, the game will start to adding the colour, texture and so on while you are heading to this certain point, this can prevent loading screens being seen constantly and can also help the game to run faster, instead of running slow because its trying to render the game when you are in a certain zone.
Collision Detection
Collision Detection is another thing that has been used in games for many years, and this has been used in space invaders, pac man and more. Such as in space invaders, when the invaders start shooting at you and then they hit you, there in a collision happening there where its telling the computer that something has collided with a certain object and that certain object will perform a certain task, so when you get hit in space invader you character get destroyed and you have to start the game again when you lose your three lives. This has been updated a lot now-a-days, such as in car games when you are driving and you lose control of your car and crash into another car or barrier, this collision is the start of the reaction that will be made by the car when you have hit something, so when you hit another or car or barrier you car will have damage done to it, may that be a scratch or you car has become mashed up, this is the reaction to the collision of the car. This has been used in nearly every game that we play now, and it may not just be when something hits you, it can also be when you are playing a war game and you pick up some ammo for your weapon, when you walk over the pack this is counted as a collision and this will be known to the game cause your character to pick up the ammo and adding it to you.
A.I.
Artificial Intelligence is becoming more and more popular in games to this day. A.I. is intelligence that is made and put into a specific thing to make it do certain tasks, some can maybe predict a move like the computer game of chess where it predicts what moves that you will take so that it can out smart you and win the game against you, and an A.I. was made for the chess game, and this A.I. had to out perform the world chess champion and in the end the A.I. got the chess player to check mate.
A.I. agents
A.I. agents are used throughout most game now-a-days, one use can be seen in the game on Witcher where you can see how the characters in the village react to what weather is happening, so when its raining all the villager go inside the house but when its sunny they go out of the house and this also works with the time of day as well day and night. A.I. have a quick interaction and therefore can out do the human abilities in most game so in an FPS game such as Call Of Duty the NPC ability to aim would be much faster and more accurate than the human ability. A.I. can help a gamer learn the rules and techniques of a game, which will help them out when they come across something that they need to do during the game, such as practising shooting or learn certain button bring up certain things.
AI Behaviours
Another thing that an A.I. contains is something called Bodily behaviour, and these things are of high priority, this contains such things such as resting, sleeping and eating, and these would be chosen at random throughout the game, so an A.I. could be eating in the middle of the day or at the beginning. When these fail the root selector falls back to a thing called active behaviours, these are the simpler actions such as walking or running, but if this behaviour fails then we come to the final one called passive behaviours, this contains actions such as sitting or standing, but after this one there are no more fall backs for the A.I.
Physics
Physics in game has always been there in some way or another, even in such a simple game as space invaders when the invaders started to shoot at you and then would head to the ground, to the game of Doom 3 where barrels can be launched across a room and then suddenly hit the ground due to gravity. The main thing about physics is that it is a software that tries it best to produce the laws of physics in a game. Creators will use physics in their games to make the game as real as they possibly can but they also have the change to do what they want with the physics so they can have things falling slowly, rapidly and even just floating around. A game such as quick will use the physics of gravity to make the weapons that you pick up, the weapons will hover in mid air. But this will depend on the environment in which the game is based, or where they player is e.g Different planet/universe. But as all things they do have their limitations, these can be things that have set paths that get caught up in other things and therefore get put out of place, but these things we can enjoy and laugh about. And no matter how good we get it, no one has perfected the gravity system and there will always be muck ups, but from the point where it was very simple it has progress a vast amount and has improve a lot.
Sound
Sound plays an important part in games today, sound started out very simple and would just be a sudden burst of sound like a breaking noise from a car, to the shooting laser from space invaders but as time went on sound became every better, sounds became longer and more clear, and now sound has improved so much, we can now start hearing distance sounds at a very low volume and as we get closer to our objective the sound becomes louder and more clear, and this starts giving the game a more realistic atmosphere. But as we get better and better at producing sounds for game, people are starting to find new ways to tell the story of a game just through sounds and music and containing no dialogue one such game is Limbo, the tells the story of a boy and the way that it uses it sounds is quite amazing a really captures the audiences attention One game that has come out was battlefield 3 and this game contain a lot of different sounds, from simple music, to complicated explosions and this gives the game a very real atmosphere, and this type of sound that makes the game seem more realistic, really drags the players into the game and become more engrossed.
Networking
Networking is when multiple computers are connected to a network that can send and retrieve data from each other. Some use Ethernet which is a wire from port to port which gives a clear and fast connection without any disruptions and some may use wireless connection, this can either be an internal device or external and this connects through that, this give you the ability to use the device that you have any where in the area in which the connection can reach. In games, networking would be used for the multiplayer option, where people can join one another to either help or compete.
Animation
Animation is what brings a game to life, what makes it a game and what makes it appealing to the player, an animation is a short cycles of a series of different images that when combine create motion.
Path Based
Path based animation used different frames onto a fix background, and this creates the animation of movement within an object. The main point of the path bases is that the animation follows a fixed path that it has to follow, until it reaches the end. These types of path based animation is use mostly in games for the NPC's this could be the movement in the mouth of a character or even the path that it has to walk on.
Kinematics
Kinematics is quite a hard thing to explain without including a lot of equations to understand but the main point in Forward Kinematics and Reverse Kinematics is to get an item or object to move forward (Forward Kinematics) and back (Reverse Kinematics), this would be mainly focused on the movement of the arms and legs of a character.
Particle Systems
Some big that is becoming more and more popular in all game is the use of a particle system, this system adds realism and excitement to the game, the particle system is anything that will move for a period of time that isn't a fix object but an object that's meant to be like dust, by this I mean something like fire or an explosion, these particle systems are created through a sprite sheet, a series of still images that create a short animation to put within the game, all of these will have a birth rate and a death rate, these two together determine how long a certain animation will last before its completely gone or has gone to its birth stage again.
Middleware
Middleware allows developers to use a different software from the one they are using and become able to add it to the game engines, so this 3DS Max, an item that you made in this software and then import it into unity. Middleware can be seen as being a way to glue things together.
Ray tracing
Ray tracing is the way that dynamic shadows are made. This reads where the lighting effects are going to be placed and creates a shadow of the object depending on where the light is hitting the object, so if it was from th side of a box at a low a positioning then this would create a long shadow, and this could be applied to any object within a game. This knd of thing would be seen in most game now-a-days, this sort of thing gives a game the realism look.
Culling methods
A culling method is to take away polygons from a model to make a game run smoother. This sort of thing is most commonly used to an object that is not in he players sight, as this causes the game to run slower if it is not lowered, but because it has the culling effect onto it the game will run smoother and will run at a faster rate. Although with the culling effect the game will still look as good at it was supposed to be within the players sight.
Caustics
Caustics is the reflections and/or refraction of light through an object, for example light passing through cracks/gaps with boarding on windows, this created a different (Thinner) light coming through a window, another example would be water, and how the water refracts through the water create unsual shapes on the waters bed.In games this can be applied to make the game feel more authentic and look more realistic, which ingrosses the player more into the game.
Animation
Animation is what brings a game to life, what makes it a game and what makes it appealing to the player, an animation is a short cycles of a series of different images that when combine create motion.
Path Based
Path based animation used different frames onto a fix background, and this creates the animation of movement within an object. The main point of the path bases is that the animation follows a fixed path that it has to follow, until it reaches the end. These types of path based animation is use mostly in games for the NPC's this could be the movement in the mouth of a character or even the path that it has to walk on.
Kinematics
Kinematics is quite a hard thing to explain without including a lot of equations to understand but the main point in Forward Kinematics and Reverse Kinematics is to get an item or object to move forward (Forward Kinematics) and back (Reverse Kinematics), this would be mainly focused on the movement of the arms and legs of a character.
Particle Systems
Some big that is becoming more and more popular in all game is the use of a particle system, this system adds realism and excitement to the game, the particle system is anything that will move for a period of time that isn't a fix object but an object that's meant to be like dust, by this I mean something like fire or an explosion, these particle systems are created through a sprite sheet, a series of still images that create a short animation to put within the game, all of these will have a birth rate and a death rate, these two together determine how long a certain animation will last before its completely gone or has gone to its birth stage again.
Middleware
Middleware allows developers to use a different software from the one they are using and become able to add it to the game engines, so this 3DS Max, an item that you made in this software and then import it into unity. Middleware can be seen as being a way to glue things together.
Ray tracing
Ray tracing is the way that dynamic shadows are made. This reads where the lighting effects are going to be placed and creates a shadow of the object depending on where the light is hitting the object, so if it was from th side of a box at a low a positioning then this would create a long shadow, and this could be applied to any object within a game. This knd of thing would be seen in most game now-a-days, this sort of thing gives a game the realism look.
Culling methods
A culling method is to take away polygons from a model to make a game run smoother. This sort of thing is most commonly used to an object that is not in he players sight, as this causes the game to run slower if it is not lowered, but because it has the culling effect onto it the game will run smoother and will run at a faster rate. Although with the culling effect the game will still look as good at it was supposed to be within the players sight.
Caustics
Caustics is the reflections and/or refraction of light through an object, for example light passing through cracks/gaps with boarding on windows, this created a different (Thinner) light coming through a window, another example would be water, and how the water refracts through the water create unsual shapes on the waters bed.In games this can be applied to make the game feel more authentic and look more realistic, which ingrosses the player more into the game.
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