Y1 gd engine_terminology

Salford City College
Eccles Sixth Form Centre
BTEC Extended Diploma in GAMES DESIGN
Unit 73: Sound For Computer Games
IG2 Task 1
1
Produce a glossary of terms specific to the methods and principles of Video Game Design and Video Game Terms. Using a provided template,
you must research and gather definitions specific to provided glossary terms. Any definitions must be referenced with the URL link of the
website you have obtained the definition.
You must also, where possible, provide specific details of how researched definitions relate to your own production practice.
Name: Neil
Rogero
RESEARCHED DEFINITION (provide short
internet researched definition and URL
link)
DESCRIBE THE RELEVANCE OF THE
RESEARCHED TERM TO YOUR OWN
PRODUCTION PRACTICE?
IMAGE SUPPORT (Provide an image and/or video
link of said term being used in a game)
VIDEO
GAMES /
VIDEO
GAME
TESTING
Demo It i s my opinion that a demo in games is a
demonstration of how the game is played. It
wi l l normally tell you about how to go about
playing in the game in detail and will normally
take you through several boards of the game;
thi s is normally used to give you a feel for the
game and weather you might l ike the game
and how i t is played i f you are purchasing it.
Source:
https ://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qi
d=20090423022627AA9nGkS
Thi s shows the audience what the game is
about and how you play i t. An example of a
video game demo that you are able to play
some parts of the game but you are not
abl e to play the full game.
https ://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FcMRkyoHKeA
Beta A beta is kind of like a teaser. Companies will
release beta's to get people excited for a game,
or to tes t a game (Like what Halo did a couple
months back), and to see what people think
about it before they mass produce i t. Some
beta s are easy to get, others you may have to
pre-order a game or know someone special.
Source:
d=20100805174050AAuioAp
A beta is used to show other people an
early teaser about a certain type of game
and i t shows the audience what the game
wi l l be like, some people might get access
to some beta but not all people games
companies do this to get the people hyped
and excited on the game coming out.
https ://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9D3jH964oY

IG2 Task 1
2
Alpha Wel l, an alpha test is performed by the
programmers themselves to ensure they got
everything right in their eyes.
Source:
d=20110119184650AAfwy7x
Game alpha i s to test the performance of a
certa in game and they make sure that the
ga me that they made is right a nd there ’s
nothing wrong with technical difficulties.
Pre-Alpha Pre-alpha refers to all activities performed
during the software project before testing.
Thes e activities can include requirements
analysis, software design, software
development, and unit testing. In typical open
source development, there are several types of
pre-alpha versions. Mi lestone versions include
specific s ets of functions and are released as
soon as the functionality is complete.
Source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_release
_l i fe_cycle
Pre-Alpha is like a mega early vers ion of
the game and tests the game, before
everything is finalized.
https ://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n0vpbQTRpQ0
Gold In software and application development, a
gold version i s the final stage of software
development and follows the alpha and beta
tes ting cycles of software development. The
gold version i s the final version of the software
as i t will be released to the public.
Source:
http://www.webopedia.com/sgsearch/results?
cx=partner-pub-
8768004398756183%3A6766915980&cof=FOR
ID%3A10&ie=UTF-8&q=gold
Gold is a beta-testing and it has been
successful and passed, therefore allowing
the game to be duplicated, produced and
published around the world for retail sales.
https ://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXRyhGQ1OQo

IG2 Task 1
3
Debug Debug mode usually lets the user change many
aspects of the game if you know how to use
them properly.
Source:
http://www.answers.com/Q/What_is_debug_
mode_in_gaming
Debug versions of games aren't just early
vers ions. When you're actually developing
the game, you typically have two main
options every time you want to build the
code into an executable program a Release
bui ld, which is as close to the final copy as
you can get, and a Debug build, which is
as sembled in such a way that lets
developers and designers step through
portions of the code easier, to figure out
problems de-bug remove bugs from the
game.
Automation Automation i s a tycoon-style game which put
the player in control of their own auto
company.
Source:
http://www.giantbomb.com/automation/3030
-37803/
Automation shows that you can see
another person playing the game and what
i t’s l ike a nd what are the good and bad
things about i t.
White-Box
Testing
Al so known as glass box, structural, clear
box and open box testing. A software testing
technique whereby explicit knowledge of the
internal workings of the item being tested are
used to s elect the test data. Unlike black box
tes ting, white box testing uses specific
knowledge of programming code to examine
outputs. The test is accurate only i f the tester
knows what the program i s supposed to do. He
or she can then see if the program diverges
It’s where a couple of people i n a room
when they test a certain type of game and
i t’s l ike a test data if the game i s acceptable
or not.
https ://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3bJcvBLJViQ

IG2 Task 1
4
from i ts intended goal. White box testing does
not account for errors caused by omission, and
al l vi sible code must also be readable.
For a complete software examination, both
white box and black box tests are required.
Source:
http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/W/White_
Box_Tes ting.html
Bug Sometimes called a glitch, a bug is just
something wrong with the program.
Sometimes i t might be not s erious and will be
solved.
Source:
d=20080622111127AAsXob5
A bug i s where something is wrong with a
video game and it becomes hard to
respond and something happens with the
game where everything goes weird.
GAME
ENGINES
Vertex
Shader
A Vertex Shader i s also GPU component and is
al so programmed using a specific assembly-like
language, like pixel shaders, but are oriented
to the s cene geometry and can do things like
adding cartoony silhouette edges to objects,
etc.
Source:
http://s tackoverflow.com/questions/832545/
what-are-vertex-and-pixel-shaders
Shaders are most commonly used to
produce l ighting and shadow in 3D
modelling. This image illustrates Phong
shading, one of the first computer shading
models ever developed.

IG2 Task 1
5
GAME
ENGINES
Pixel Shader A pixel shader i s a s et of program codes which
i s usually built into a video graphics chipset
and drivers. Its purpose is to enable more
l i felike lighting effects on 3d models, usually
for gaming.
Source:
http://www.answers.com/Q/What_is_a_pixel_
shader
A pixel shader i s able to put lifelike effects
on a model and that can be used for
gaming some games uses pixel shader to
bring lifelike lighting effects into the game.
Post
Processing
The term post-processing (or postproc for
short) is used in the video/film business for
quality-improvement image
processing (specifically digital image
processing) methods used in video playback
devices, (such as s tand-aloneDVD-Video
players), and video players software
and transcoding software. It is also commonly
used in real-time 3D rendering (such as in
video games) to add additional effects.
Source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_post-processing
Pos t processing is the process of changing
the perceived quality of a video on a
playback that could be used as a loading
image screen on a game.

IG2 Task 1
6
Rendering Rendering is the process of generating an
image from a 2D or 3D model (or models in
what collectively could be called a scene file),
by means of computer programs. Al so, the
results of such a model can be called a
rendering. A s cene file contains objects in a
s trictly defined language or data structure; i t
would contain geometry, viewpoint, texture,
l ighting, and shading information as a
des cription of the vi rtual s cene. The data
conta ined in the scene file is then passed to a
rendering program to be processed and output
to a digital or raster graphics image file. The
term "rendering" may be by analogy with an
"arti st's rendering" of a scene. Though the
technical details of rendering methods vary,
the general challenges to overcome in
producing a 2D image from a 3D
representation stored in a s cene file are
outl ined as the graphics pipeline along a
rendering device, such as a GPU.
Source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rendering_(comp
uter_graphics)
Use a pre-image i t’s usually a complete
sketch and rendering is used that adds a
bitmap textures and procedural texture
l ights.
Normal Map In 3D computer graphics, normal mapping, or
"Dot3 bump mapping", is a technique used for
faking the lighting of bumps and dents – an
implementation of bump mapping. It is used to
add details without using more polygons. A
common use of this technique is to greatly
enhance the appearance and details of
a model by generating a normal map from a
high polygon model or height map.
Source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normal_mapping
A Normal map uses lighting of a surface
and from the shading point to the light
source is dotted with the unit vector
normal to that surface, and the result is the
intensity of the light on that surface.
Entity Enti ty systems are growing in popularity, with An example of an entity system would be is https ://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8FWULdNHqJE

IG2 Task 1
7
wel l-known examples like Unity, and lesser
known frameworks like ActionScript
frameworks Ember2, Xember and my own Ash.
The re ’s a ve ry good reason for this; they
s implify game architecture, encourage clean
separation of responsibilities in your code, and
are fun to use.
Source:
http://www.richardlord.net/blog/what-is-an-enti
ty-framework
tha t i t’ll be used as many sys tems that uses
larger games and renders physics, user
control of a character and non-player
characters.
UV Map Thi s process projects a texture map onto a 3D
object. The l etters "U" and "V" denote the axes
of the 2D texture because "X", "Y" and "Z" are
al ready used to denote the axes of the 3D
object in model space.
Source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UV_mapping
UV texture permits polygons that make up
a 3D object to be painted with colour from
an image. The image is called a UV texture
map.

IG2 Task 1
8
Procedural
Texture
A procedural texture is a computer-generated
image created using an algorithm intended to
create a realistic representation of natural
elements such
as wood, marble, granite, metal, s tone, and
others .
Usually, the natural look of the rendered result
i s achieved by the usage
of fracta l noise and turbulence functions.
Thes e functions are used as
a numerical representation of the
randomness” found in nature.
Source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Procedural_textu
re
Procedural texture uses solid texturing and
process where the texture generating
functions and evaluated over at an each
vi s ible surface point of a model. Some solid
textures are an alternative to the tradional
2D texture images.
Physics A phys ics engine is computer software that
provides an approximate simulation of
certa in physical systems, such as rigid body
dynamics (including collision detection), soft
body dynamics, and fluid dynamics, of use in
the domains of computer graphics, video
games and film. Their main uses are in video
games (typically as middleware), in which case
the s imulations are in real-time. The term is
sometimes used more generally to describe
any software system for s imulating physical
phenomena, such as high-performance
s cientific simulation.
Source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physics_engine
Phys ics generally i s two classes of physic
engines that uses real-time and high-preci
sion and physic engines require more
processing power to calculate a very
preci se animated or gameplay.

IG2 Task 1
9
Collision Col l ision detection typically refers to the
computational problem of detecting the
intersection of two or more objects. While the
topic i s most often associated with i ts use
in video games and other physical s imulations,
i t al so has applications in robotics. In addition
to determining whether two objects have
col l ided, collision detection systems may also
calculate time of impact (TOI), and report
a contact manifold (the set of intersecting
points). Collision response deals with
s imulating what happens when a collision is
detected (see physics engine, ragdoll physics).
Solving collision detection problems requires
extensive use of concepts from linear
algebra and computational geometry.
Source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collision_detectio
n
Col l ision engine is generally used in
platform games to make the player actually
hi t walls and s tuff and there’s the 2D type
and the 3D type but they all accomplish the
same thing.
Lighting The aim of this thesis was to s tudy and
implement advanced real-time rendering
techniques for complex materials such as
human skin. The project included investigation
on how to adapt and simplify complex skin
rendering models to fit current game engines.
Al so, the task included looking into recent
research on spherical harmonics and wavelets.
The goal was to determine whether they can
be used to represent both diffuse and specular
reflection from environment l ighting in real
time game. Subsurface scattering, Gaussian
shadow mapping and representing l ighting by
the us e of spherical harmonics and wavelets,
are a few of the used techniques in this
project. The results of this thesis show that it is
pos sible to render realistic human skin in real
time at a low cost.
Lighting i s used to make a complex and
s implify a character on a game, for
example making it as real as possible.
With the lighting effects on daylight time
and night-time.

IG2 Task 1
10
Source: http://dice.se/publications/lighting-and-
materials-for-real-time-game-engines/
AA – Anti-
Aliasing
The term Anti-aliasing refers to the level of
image quality in 3D graphics. It is a vi tal
process in producing high quality graphics that
wi l l ultimately be displayed. The main
purpose of anti-aliasing i s to smooth
jagged/stair-cased edges (Jaggies) within pixel
based images and the flickering/strobing of
surfaces in an animation.
Source:
https ://docs.google.com/document/d/1epqrH
Zkudz5X6XRAfpiaRXHpdUv8L0b34f6hlYOzNZk/
edi t?pli=1
Al iasing can occur at any s tage during the
rendering process. The problem stems
from point is a process used in all
computer graphics application that
determines information about it.
LoD – Level
of Detail
In computer graphics, accounting for level of
deta il involves decreasing the complexity of a
3D object representation as i t moves away
from the viewer or according to other metrics
such as object importance, viewpoint-relative
speed or position. Level of detail techniques
increases the efficiency of rendering by
decreasing the workload on graphics
pipeline s tages, usually vertex transformations.
The reduced vi sual quality of the model is
often unnoticed because of the small effect on
object appearance when distant or moving
fas t.
Source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Level_of_detail
The Level of detail concept of a discrete
LOD and i s to provide to various model to
represent the same object. Obtaining those
models requires an external algorithm
which is often a subject of many polygon
reduction techniques.
Animation Animation is the process of
creating motion and shape change i llusion by
means of the rapid display of a sequence of
s ta tic images that minimally differ from each
other. The illusion as in motion pictures in
general is thought to rely on the phi
phenomenon. Animators are artists who
specialize in the creation of animation.
Encompasses a variety of techniques, the
uni fying factor being that the animation is
created digitally on a computer. 2D
animation techniques tend to focus on
image manipulation while 3D techniques
usually build vi rtual worlds in which
characters and objects move and interact.
3D animation can create images that seem
https ://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d83-T-bG2Ck

IG2 Task 1
11
Source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animation
real to the viewer and animations can be
recorded on either analogue media, such
as a motion picture film, video tape, or a
digital media and used to display it from a
computer or projector.
Sprite In computer graphics, a sprite (also known by
other names; see Synonyms below) is a two-dimensional
image or animation that is
integrated into a larger scene. Initially
including just graphical objects handled
separately from the memory bitmap of a video
di splay, this now includes various manners of
graphical overlays.
Source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sprite_(computer
_graphics)
The sprite engine i s a hardware
implementation of s can line rendering. For
each s can line the appropriate scan l ines of
the sprites are first copied the number of
pixels is limited by the memory bandwidth
and the length of the horizontal retrace
into very fast, small, multiple l imiting the
number of sprites on a line, and
cos tly caches the size of which limit the
hori zontal width and as the pixels are sent
to the s creen, these caches are combined
with each other and the background.
https ://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fh4pTz1Lb9I
Scene A Scene graph contains all of the geometry of
a particular s cene. They are useful for
representing translations, rotations and scales
(along with other affine transformations) of
objects relative to each other.
Source:
http://s tackoverflow.com/questions/5319282/
game-engines-what-are-scene-graphs
Use of a scene graph for 2D may be useful
i f your content is sufficiently complex and
i f your objects have a number of sub
components not rigidly fixed to the larger
body. Otherwise, as others have
mentioned, it's probably overkill. The
complexity of affine transformations in 2D
i s quite a bit less than in the 3D case.

IG2 Task 1
12
Library A game engine is made up of class libraries.
They do not s top being class libraries simply
because they are within a game engine. A
l ibrary i s a useful framework to tackle a specific
need within a game engine. A framework that
enta ils the needs for a complete game is a
game engine.
Source:
http://gamedev.s tackexchange.com/questions
/10770/whats-the-difference-between-a-l
ibrary-and-an-engine
Library i s a class of game engines like for
example, Novodex (Physics),
UI The us er interface, in the industrial design field
of human–machine interaction, is the space
where interactions between humans and
machines occur. The goal of this interaction is
effective operation and control of the machine
on the user's end, and feedback from the
machine, which aids the operator in making
operational decisions. Examples of this broad
concept of user interfaces include the
interactive aspects of computer operating
sys tems, hand tools, heavy machinery operator
control s, and process controls. The design
cons iderations applicable when creating user
interfaces are related to or involve such
di s ciplines as ergonomics and psychology.
Source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_interface
The term of UI (user interface) i s often
used in the context of personal computer
sys tem and electronic devices.
Frames In computer networking and
telecommunication, a frame is a digital data
transmission unit that includes frame
synchronization, i .e. a sequence of bits or
symbols making i t possible for the receiver to
detect the beginning and end of the packet in
the s tream of symbols or bits.
Source:
In computer networking a frame i s a data
packet on a layer of the OSI model, a frame
i s the unit of transmission in a l ink layer
protocol and consists of a link layer header
fol lowed by a packet.

IG2 Task 1
13
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frame_(networki
ng)
Concept Every video game s tarts as a concept. From
Super Mario Bros. to Half-Life, al l of the
worl d’s most successful ga mes s tarted as pen-and-
paper ideas. Before you can s tart
des igning levels, you need to prepare a rough
concept for your game.
Source: https://www.udemy.com/blog/make-a-
video-game/
A Concept is the type of concept that you
wi l l need is to prepare the type of video
game that you are interested in and
developing and planning on what type of
game it i s.
Event A Game Event (will just call them Events) is
anything of interest that happens while a
Game is running. An explosion going off, the
player being sighted by an enemy, an item
being picked up – this is all events.
Games often need some way to notify
interested Game Entities when an event occurs
and also make i t possible for those entities to
react to events of their interest in various
ways . When this happens, we can say that a
Game Entity is handling an event. The way a
Game Entity handles and reacts to different
events becomes a crucial aspect of that Entity
behaviour.
Source:
https ://nicolasgoles.com/blog/2010/12/game-event-
handling-part-1/
Game events are interesting things while
you’re i n a mi ddle of a game something
el se happen for example like something
you di dn’t e xpect that got you surprise or
maybe an explosion on the game some
events could make a game interesting and
maybe good for the audience.

IG2 Task 1
14
Path finding One of the greatest challenges in the design of
realistic Arti ficial Intelligence (AI) in
Computer games are agent movement. Path
finding strategies are usually employed as
The core of any AI movement system. Path
finding strategies have the responsibility of
Finding a path from any coordinate in the
game world to another. Systems such as this
take in a s tarting point and a destination; they
then find a series of points that together
Compri se a path to the destination. A ga mes’
AI pathfinder usually employs some sort
of recomputed data s tructure to guide the
movement. At i ts simplest, this could be
Jus t a l ist of locations within the game that the
agent is allowed move to. Path finding
inevitably leads to a drain on CPU resources
especially i f the algorithm wastes
Valuable time searching for a path that turns
out not to exist.
Source: http://gamesitb.com/pathgraham.pdf
Path Finding is a design of a realistic
arti ficial intelligence in a computer game.
Path finding usually requires a system. This
wi l l be presently be in games and
especially when dealing with real-time.

Y1 gd engine_terminology

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