Game development and production Foreword .........

文件名称: Game development and production

所属分类: iOS

开发工具:

文件大小: 6mb

下载次数: 0

上传时间: 2009-12-29

提供者: os***

下载 (6mb)

不能下载？报告错误

详细说明： Foreword ............................... xvii Preface ................................xix Acknowledgments ..........................xxi Part I—Introduction to Game Development Chapter 1 What Does This Book Cover? ............3 How to Make a Game..........................3 First Have a Plan ............................3 Organize Your Team Effectively ....................4 Game Development Is Software Development............4 Where to Turn for Outside Help....................4 How to Ship a Game ..........................5 Post-Re lease ..............................5 Success and the Long Race ......................5 How to Use This Book.........................6 Chapter 2 Why Make Games? ..................7 To Share a Dream............................7 Games Teach ..............................7 Game Genres Satisfy Different Appetites ..............8 Gambling, Puzzle, and Parlor Games................8 Military and Sports Simulations..................10 Role-Playing Games ........................12 Youth Making Games .........................13 On Money ...............................13 Why Make Games? ..........................14 Chapter 3 What Makes Game Development Hard? ......15 The Importance of Planning .....................15 Very Few Titles Are Profitable ....................15 500,000 Units to Break Even? ..................16 Employee Compensation and Royalties .............17 What Are the Financial Expectations for Your Game? .......17 The Scope of the Game Must Match Financial Parameters...17 Why Your Game Should Profit ....................18 Feature Storm ...........................18 If the Game Is Worth Making, Make It Excellent ........19 iii iv Contents Excellence in Spades .........................19 Game Making Is a Long Race of Many Game Projects .......20 A Brief History of Software Development..............21 Overly Long Game Projects Are Disastrous ............21 What Late Games Do to the Publisher ..............22 Our Project Plan Behind Starfleet Command ............22 The Vision for Starfleet Command ................23 Constraints Give Much Needed Focus................24 On Bugs Shipped in Starfleet Command...............24 Well-Met Goals Enable Future Successes..............25 Strong Game Developers Have Strong Foundations ........25 The Tension between Preproduction and Production........25 The Power of the Console ......................26 Why Aren’t All Publishers Using Preproduction?..........27 The Process Is Changing .....................27 A Strong Plan Makes Game Development Easy ..........28 The Gravitational Pull of Feature Creep...............28 Task Visibility for Team Motivation and for Progress Tracking . . 29 Use Your Core Competencies and Outsource the Rest.......29 A Pitfall of Success—Fan-Requested Features and Changes....29 The Relentless Pace of Technology .................30 The Art of War and Games ......................32 Chapter 4 Game Project Survival Test .............33 The Game Project Survival Test ...................33 Game Requirements........................33 Planning...............................33 Project Control...........................34 Risk Management .........................35 Personnel..............................35 Calculating Your Project’s Score .................35 What Does My Score Mean? ...................36 Part II—How to Make a Game Chapter 5 What Is a Game Made Of? ..............39 The Extended Development Team..................39 Game Production Parts ........................39 Design Parts ............................39 Where Do Lead Designers Come From? ...........40 How Do You Nail Down the Game Mechanics? ........40 Who Are the Level and Mission Designers?..........40 Story and Dialogue Writers Are Writers for Interactivity...41 Coding Parts ............................41 Lead Programmers and Technical Directors..........42 Game Mechanics Programmer .................43 Contents v 3D Graphics Programmer ...................43 Artificial Intelligence Programmer...............43 User Interface Programmer ..................44 Audio Programmer .......................44 Tools Programmer .......................44 Mission/Level Editor Programmer...............44 Network, Server, or Client Programmer? ...........45 ArtParts..............................45 Art Director ...........................46 Concept Artist..........................46 2D Artist/Interface Designer..................47 3D Modeler ...........................47 Character Modeler .......................47 Texture Artist ..........................48 Animator/Motion Capture Studio ...............48 Storyboarder...........................49 Audio Parts .............................49 Voice-Overs ...........................49 Sound Effects ..........................49 Music ..............................50 Management Parts.........................50 Line Producer ..........................50 Associate Producer .......................50 Studio Head/Executive Producer................51 Producer.............................51 Quality Assurance Parts .......................52 Publisher QA Parts.........................52 QALead.............................52 Main Team............................53 Multiplayer Team ........................53 Fresh Teams...........................53 Compatibility Team .......................53 Localization Team........................53 Beta Testing ............................54 Beta Testers...........................54 Beta Testing Program Manager ................54 Business Parts.............................55 Business Development Parts ...................55 Business Development Executive ...............55 Publisher CEO and President .................55 Studio Heads ..........................55 Lawyers .............................55 Licensing Parts...........................56 Promoting, Buying, and Selling Parts...............56 Sales Executive .........................56 vi Contents Sales Force and Retail Purchasing Agents...........57 Press Relations Manager ....................57 Trade Shows...........................57 Other Trade Shows and Events ................58 The Marketing of a Game....................59 Hardcore Fans..........................59 Manuals and Strategy Guides ...................60 Manual..............................60 Strategy Guide .........................60 Manufacturing Parts ........................61 Hardware Manufacturer Parts...................61 Console Manufacturers .....................61 Hardware Representatives ...................61 Post-Release Parts ..........................62 Chapter 6 Business Context First ...............65 The Project Triangle .........................65 Implications of the Project Triangle................66 Various Games and the Project Triangle .............67 Questions for You to Answer.....................70 What to Do with These Answers .................70 An Ultra-Low Budget Game ..................70 Fixed Budget, Fixed Deadline .................72 High-Profile/High-Quality Projects ..............73 WalkAway...............................74 Chapter 7 Key Design Elements ................75 Business Context Shapes Design, or Does Design Shape the Business Context? ........................76 Reconcile the Business Context and Game Idea Early .......76 The Effects of a Slipped Game .................77 Methods and the Unified Development Process ..........81 What Is a Development Method? .................81 Why Use the Unified Software Development Process? .....81 Requirements Capture.......................82 Use Cases .............................82 Case Studies..............................87 Case Study I—Diablo .......................87 Use Cases of Diablo.......................88 Quick Analysis of the Use Cases of Diablo ..........89 Case Study II—Gran Turismo...................90 Use Cases of Gran Turismo...................92 Quick Analysis of the Use Cases of Gran Turismo ......93 The Key Design Elements of Your Game ............94 The Battle of the Counterterrorists Games ...........94 The Key Design Elements of Rainbow Six ..........95 Contents vii Are We Playing a Mission or Planning a Mission?.......95 The Key Design Elements of Counter-Strike .........96 Most Popular Multiplayer Game ................96 Of Intersecting Sets and Elite Forces .............97 Some Straight Questions to Ask Yourself ..............99 What Genre or Genres Does Your Game Feature? ......99 Will the Game Be Single-Player, Multiplayer, or Both?....99 What Is the Platform?......................99 What Is Your Target Market? .................100 What Major Technologies Are You Using? ..........100 Now What? ..............................100 Chapter 8 Game Design Document ..............101 What Is a Game Design Document and What Does It Do? ....101 What About the Proposal Document? ...............102 When Do You Write the Game Design Document? ........103 What Should Go into a Game Design Document? .........105 Section One: Defining the Game ................106 Articulate What the Game Is as Clearly as Possible.....106 Set the Mood..........................107 Section Two: Core Gameplay ..................107 The Main Game View .....................108 Core Player Activity......................108 The Controller Diagram....................108 In-Game User Interface ....................108 Section Three: Contextual Gameplay ..............109 Shell Menus ..........................109 The Nuts and Bolts of Game Mechanics ...........109 Tutorial Mechanics.......................109 Multiplayer Mechanics ....................110 Section Four: Talk Story .....................111 World Backstory ........................112 Character Backgrounds ....................112 Level, Mission, and Area Design ...............113 Cut Scene Descriptions ....................114 Section Five: Cover Your Assets ................115 2D Sprites or 3D Models ...................115 Missions, Levels, or Areas ..................115 Voice ..............................116 Key Framing and Motion Capture ..............117 Sound Effects .........................121 Music..............................121 Special Effects .........................125 Stepping Back a Bit .........................127 viii Contents Chapter 9 The Technical Design Document .........129 Object-Oriented Design.......................129 Purpose of the Technical Design Document ............130 Why Have a Software Development Process? .........132 The Unified Software Development Process ..........133 Core Workflows of the Unified Process............134 Phases of a Workflow in the Unified Process.........134 When Should the Technical Design Document Be Written?. . 135 What Goes into the Technical Design Document?.........136 Requirements Capture ......................136 Reverse Engineering .....................143 Nonobvious Requirements ..................143 Requirements Analysis......................144 Class Diagram...........................145 Relationships..........................146 Drawing “is a” and “has a” Relationships and Ordinalities...........................146 Adding Annotation.......................147 Other UML Diagram Types ...................147 Dynamic Modeling.......................148 Architectural Diagrams ....................149 Large-Scale Planning and the Evil of a Long Build Time ...150 Refactoring...........................150 Insulation............................151 Forward and Backward Code Generation with a Modeling Tool...........................154 Testing Plan............................154 Unit Testing and White Box Testing .............154 Black Box Testing .......................155 Beta Testing ..........................155 From Use Cases to Test Cases ................155 Chapter 10 The Project Plan...................157 What Is the Project Plan? ......................157 How Do We Create the Project Plan? ...............157 Gantt and PERT Charts for Organizing Project Tasks .....158 Focusing on the Gantt Chart .................160 Using the Technical Design Document............161 Task Granularity and Task Leveling .............163 How Long Will That Task Take? ...............163 Short Time Estimate Possibilities ..............165 Estimating Research Tasks ..................165 Task Prioritization .......................166 Resource Leveling.......................171 Task Dependencies ......................172 Contents ix The Top Ten Risks Document ..................174 The Non-Zero Chance of Delivery .................175 Chapter 11 Task Tracking ....................177 Production Begins—Now What? ..................177 Task Visibility ............................177 TheWall...............................177 Journals................................179 The Cult of the Yellow Notebook ................179 Walk Around .............................180 Milestone Orientation Meetings ..................180 Praise People Publicly ......................180 Maintain the Gantt Chart ......................181 Update the Risks Chart .......................182 Chapter 12 Outsourcing Strategies...............183 Why Outsource? ...........................183 When to Think About Outsourcing .................184 What to Outsource..........................185 Do Not Outsource Programming—Exceptions Noted .....185 On Outsourcing Art........................186 Movies, Cut Scenes, or Full Motion Video..........186 3D Models—Modeling.....................187 Animation and Motion Capture ................187 User Interface Art .......................188 Audio................................188 Music..............................188 Sound Effects .........................189 Voice-Over ...........................190 What Else to Outsource .....................190 Chapter 13 Shipping Your Game ................191 Shipping Is a Phase .........................191 How Do You Ship a Great Game?..................191 Alpha—Feature Complete......................192 What Is Feature Complete? ...................192 Additional Content.......................192 Feature Trimming .......................192 Testing Plan .............................193 Publisher QA ...........................193 Team Testing ...........................194 Project Leader Testing ......................195 Automated Testing ........................195 Focus Group Testing .......................195 Beta Testing............................196 Open or Closed Beta Test? ..................196 x Contents Manufacturer Testing.......................197 Licensor Testing .........................198 How Do You Balance a Game?..................198 Final Candidate Cycle ........................200 Transition, Ship, and Point Release.................200 Part III—Game Development Chapter 14 The Vision Document................205 Write the Vision Document Twice................205 So Is the Vision Document a Proposal? .............206 Only 1 Percent Catch the Eye ..................206 What About the Precious Game Secrets? ..........207 Visuals .............................207 Tactile .............................208 What About the Words? ....................208 Contact Information ......................209 Chapter 15 Requirements Gathering ..............211 The Flavors of Requirements ..................211 Creative/License Requirements ...............211 Technical Requirements....................212 Fiscal and Temporal Requirements ..............213 Use Case Diagrams........................213 Chapter 16 The Design Document ...............215 What Does the Game Design Document Do? ...........215 The Game Design Document as a Process.............216 Game Concept ..........................216 Brainstorm...........................216 Delegate Design ........................217 Managing the Design Document ...............218 60 Seconds of Gameplay....................218 Core Gameplay.........................219 The Walkthrough .......................220 Asset Lists ...........................221 Use of Other Games......................222 Menu Design..........................222 Game Mechanics Detail ....................223 Write the Manual? .......................223 Concept Sketches and Art Style Guide............224 On Completeness and Uncertainty ..............224 Cut Features Even Before Considering the Schedule .....224 Maintain the Game Design Document .............225 On Fulfilled Expectations ......................225 Contents xi Chapter 17 Unified Modeling Language Survival Guide ...227 Use Cases Deliver Requirements..................227 Class Diagrams Are the Keystone of Design............228 Detailed Syntax of the Class Diagram ...............230 Associations............................231 Attributes .............................232 Operations.............................232 Forward and Reverse Engineering of the Class Diagram .....233 The Other Seven Diagrams of UML ................238 Static Diagrams..........................238 Dynamic Diagrams ........................240 Chapter 18 Technical Design ..................245 Nominate Functional Leads .....................245 Synthesize Use Cases and Nonvisible Requirements .......247 Start with the Use Cases.....................247 Casual, Frequent Design Review ...............247 Nonvisible Requirements ....................247 Measure Twice, Cut Once ....................249 Specify Tools, Languages, and Processes............250 Goals for the Architecture ....................251 Identify Areas of Likely Change .................252 The Quality Assurance Plan.....................252 Defect Tracking..........................252 Defect Tracking Software ...................253 The Testing Plan .........................253 How Many Bugs Are Left to Find? ..............254 Defect Pooling .........................254 Defect Seeding.........................255 Political Resistance ......................255 Automated Testing.......................256 Beta Testing ..........................256 When to Release the Game ..................257 Chapter 19 Time Estimates ...................259 Two Ways to Estimate a Task ....................260 Time Boxing ...........................260 Task Estimating..........................261 Art...............................261 Design .............................261 Programming..........................262 Each Shall Estimate Thy Own Tasks ..............264 Save Your Plans and Compare ..................264 Making the Plan ...........................264 xii Contents Chapter 20 Putting It All Together into a Plan .........265 Let’s Create a Schedule for FishFood! ...............266 Create a New Project File ....................266 What Is a PERT/Gantt Chart Anyway? .............266 Start Entering Tasks .......................268 Tasks Are Performed by Resources...............269 Where Does All of This Task Information Come From? ....269 Organizing Tasks .........................270 Task Granularity .........................270 How to Account for Vacation and Sick Time ..........271 Remember Odd Tasks ......................271 Time Leveling in Project.....................271 Let it Jell .............................273 How to Distribute the Schedule to the Team..........273 Chapter 21 Measuring Progress ................275 On Leadership ............................275 Know What Your Goal Is at All Times..............275 Set Goals, Not Hours.......................277 Task Tracking ............................278 Only Visible Tasks Are Completed ...............279 The Daily Journal .......................279 TheWall............................282 Team Meetings ..........................285 Of Leaves and Gutters ......................286 Chapter 22 Controlling Feature Creep .............287 Great Games Satisfy Player Expectations .............287 Feature Creep Occurs During Design..............288 Primary, Secondary, and Tertiary ................288 Feature Walking..........................288 Publisher-Suggested Features..................289 Push Independent Tasks to the End...............290 Regularly Practice Feature Cutting ...............290 Chapter 23 Alpha, Beta, Go Final! ...............293 The Test of Well-Laid Plans.....................293 On Alpha..............................294 On to Beta.............................294 The Finale.............................295 Chapter 24 Point Releases vs. Patches ............299 Software Complexity and the Fragility of Computers .....299 How About Those Console Games—They Don’t Patch!? ...301 Online Games—the Perpetual Beta? ..............302 Point Release as a Sugarcoated Term for Patch.........302 Fan Requests ...........................303 Contents xiii The Publisher-Developer Post-Release Relationship .......303 Tools for Creating Patches .....................304 User Extensibility—The Magical Patch ..............305 Chapter 25 Garage Development Spans the Internet .....307 Silver Creek Entertainment.....................307 Part IV—Game Development Resource Guide Chapter 26 Getting a Job in the Game Industry........313 Who Is Trying to Get into Games? .................313 You Want Me to Do What? Oh, I Would Rather Do This .....314 Hours of the Game Industry ....................314 You Did Not Scare Me—I Love Games AND I Want In! .....315 How to Get a Job as a Programmer.................316 Artists and Their Portfolios.....................317 How Do I Become a Tester? ....................318 I Have a Great Idea for a Game—I Want to Be a Designer!....318 So You Want to Be a Producer ...................318 Go to GDC—Free!..........................319 What About Those Recruiters?...................320 Resumes, Demo Reels, and the Interview .............320 Honesty vs. Modesty.......................320 Chapter 27 Starting a Game Development Company .....323 FindaPath..............................324 I Have a Plan; Now How Do I Get Started? ............324 Rounding Out Your Development Team ..............325 Where to Locate Your Game Company...............326 Lawyer and Accountant .......................328 Deciding on the Type of Company .................329 Non-Corporation .........................329 Corporation ............................330 Taxes ...............................331 Buy-Sell Agreements.......................331 Insurance...............................332 Workman’s Compensation ....................332 Liability Insurance ........................332 Employee Compensation Programs ................332 Medical/Dental/Optical/IRA ...................334 401K/IRA/Retirement Benefits .................335 Project Bonuses .........................335 Milestone Bonuses ........................335 Royalties..............................335 Stock Options...........................335 Trademarks and URLs........................336 War Chests ..............................336 xiv Contents Chapter 28 Outsourcing Music .................339 Music for Games...........................339 When to Think About Music...................339 Music Formats ..........................340 What Is Better Than MIDI? ...................341 Digitized Sound Formats.....................342 How Do You Break Down the Music Bid? .............343 Score Music for Triggered Events................344 Exploration and Ambient Music .................344 Chase/Battle/Hunting Music...................345 Jump Lists.............................345 Menu Music............................345 How Many Minutes Do You Really Need? ...........345 Live Performance? ........................346 Chapter 29 Outsourcing Voice .................353 Interview with Chris Borders....................353 Voice-Over Script for the Orc Peon from Warcraft III.......360 Chapter 30 Outsourcing Sound Effects ............363 Interview with Adam Levenson...................363 Chapter 31 Outsourcing Writing ................369 Computer Game Writing ......................369 Know Your Game; Know Your Business ............369 Brevity is Bliss ..........................370 Speak the Speech I Pray You...................370 On Dialogue Trees ........................371 Use Story as a Reward ......................371 The 80 Percent Stereotype Rule.................371 Hint, Hint, and Hint .......................372 Expect Schizophrenia.......................372 If You Have Time in a Bottle, Don’t Uncork It .........373 Chapter 32 Outsourcing Cinematics and Models .......375 Interview with Mark Gambiano...................376 Chapter 33 Outsourcing Motion Capture and Animation...381 Animation in Games .........................381 Key Framing ...........................381 Motion Capture ..........................382 How Does Motion Capture Work? ..............382 Cleaning up the Motion Data .................383 Planning Your Motion Capture Shoot ..............384 Best Use of Motion Capture ...................384 Contents xv Chapter 34 Fan-Generated Material...............387 Game Development with Your Fans ................387 Design Critique..........................387 Levels and Missions .......................388 3D Models.............................390 Other Potential Activities to Outsource.............390 Legal Matters When Working with Fans ............390 Appendix A Suggested Reading.................395 Project Management.........................395 Game Industry ............................396 Software Development .......................398 Appendix B The Art Institute of California— Orange County ...................401 Background..............................401 Game Art & Design Bachelor of Science Program ........402 Index ....................................405 ...展开收缩

(系统自动生成,下载前可以参看下载内容)