
The hidden story of the 3D engine - flashingpumpkin
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/gamesblog/2009/dec/14/games-gameculture
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teamonkey
Tim Sweeney raises some PL flamebait: \-- "Are games at the forefront of
physics and computer science research or forever lagging behind academia?

Sweeney reckons it's a bit of both: "Game development is at the cutting edge
in many disciplines. The physics in modern games includes rigid body dynamics
and fluid simulation algorithms that are often more advanced than the
approaches described in research papers. Over the past 15 years, games have
caught up with 40 years' of graphics research and are now leading the charge
in some domains, such as practical lighting and shadowing techniques.

"In other areas, we're still stuck in the Stone Age due to ingrained
technologies. The C++ programming language, used in all modern games, was
hastily conceived in the 1980s as an extension to the 1970s C programming
language. Many of the problems that plague computers today - security
vulnerabilities, viruses, and so on, can be traced to problems in this
language."

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TrevorBramble
Not even a nod toward id Software. Sad.

Also, I have to know, what is "Scottish indenting"?

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clavalle
If I had to guess I would say one space for each level of indention.

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anigbrowl
Super article. The only thing it left out was the fact that the unreal 3d
engine is now freely available for non-commercial use.

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zokier
The article seems to assume somehow that photorealism would be the pinnacle of
game engines. But I disagree. I feel that games are steering more and more
away from photorealism towards more artistic direction. Same way that painters
realized that creating photorealistic picture wasn't the point when painting,
game developers will realize the power of nonrealistic graphics. That doesn't
mean that future engines wouldn't continue to advance technically, but rather
that engines will allow artists/designers to express themselves more easily
and freely.

But who will be the Picasso of game development, that shall be seen. Somehow I
just doubt (s)he will come from the EA creating yet another annual Madden or
"Generic Shooter 3: More brown lens flare".

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modeless
Photorealism is technically difficult to achieve, yet easy to judge. That's
why it's commonly used as a graphics benchmark. Also, photorealism and
artistic direction are not mutually exclusive. After all, photography is an
art form too.

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derefr
I wouldn't quite say that a 3D engine is "beautiful," in the normal sense of
the word. _Raytracing_ is beautiful—a 3D engine, meanwhile, is eminently
_practical_ , an exercise in complex, layered optimization.

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dtf
The naïve ray-tracing algorithm that you can sketch on a napkin and write in
20 lines of Haskell? Practical ray tracers - those used for real-world
applications such as rendering movies - have much in common with game engines.
Both are large and complex systems of many, many modules and employ an array
of cutting-edge algorithms (some modern game engines incorporate ray tracers,
and today's renderers employ much more than ray tracing). Both are designed
with a focus on performance and robustness, while incorporating the large
toolbox of features demanded by content creators. They are machines that have
gone through many, many revisions of architecture, and have decades of
performance tuning and wisdom embedded in them. And they are beautiful in the
sense that they have tamed a real problem and exposed its solution in a simple
manner, in spite of the complexity they must encompass.

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derefr
The former, actually :) Having not looked at the field in a [large] number of
years, I hadn't realized that there _were_ "practical" ray tracers; I was
trying to use them as an example of something that is pure, naive, elegant,
simple, and completely _im_ practical; the opposite of a game engine in all
respects. (Pretend this is 1995; it would make more sense then.) A practical
ray tracer is, for all intents and purposes, just another 3D engine, in the
way I was using the term.

What you have said, I completely agree with. However, your conclusion, though
correct on its own, doesn't validate the text of the article. Let me quote it
again:

> But here is the minor tragedy at the heart of modern games: no matter how
> astonishing they look, players will never see one of the most beautiful
> components: the 3D engine.

This line implies that it is the _internals_ of the 3D engine which are
beautiful, not their exposed API (because the user may well run into that, in
the course of, for example, writing a mod.) As I understand aesthetics,
"beauty" is the quality of a work that allows it to be appreciated by those
unversed in the art or craft that created it. No one but those versed in the
CS, maths, and engineering of a solid 3D engine would dare to call the
internals of one "beautiful" upon inspection, so I believe my previous
statement holds: a 3D engine is not beautiful.

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wlievens
Why _unversed_ in the craft? Is that a common definition of beauty? That way,
no code can be beautiful, right?

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wallflower
The article raises the tantalizing possibility that an Unreal descendant
running on future hardware could be the basis for something like The Matrix.

