Middleware in Game Development

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Middleware in Game Development
Europe-China Workshop on E-Learning and Games
(Edutainment 2005)

• Mr. Milo Yip (mcmilo_at_polyu.edu.hk)

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Multimedia Innovation Centre

• Research Development
• Games Animation
• Education and Internet Technologies
• Hardware and Software Development
• Traditional and New Media
• Education
• Master of Science in Multimedia and Entertainment
  Technology (MScMET)
• Undergraduate (EIE, SD), High Diploma SPEED
  Courses

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Overview

1. Brief History of Game Development
2. What Why Middleware?
3. Middleware Taxonomy
4. MSMOG Development Platform
5. Q A

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Brief History of Game Development
1.
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Brief History (50s)

• 1958 Tennis for Two
• Willy Higginbotham (Brookhaven National
  Laboratories)
• Analog Computer, Oscilloscope

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Brief History (60s)

• 1961 Spacewar
• Steve Slug Russel at MIT
• PDP-1 (USD120,000)

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Brief History (70s)

• 1972 Pong
• Allan Alcorn at Atari
• Entered home in 1975

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Brief History (80s)

• 1981 Pac-man
• Atari
• Atari 2600/Intellivision
• 1982 Pac-man plus
• Namco

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Brief History (80s)

• 1985 NES/FamiCom
• Nitendo
• Motorola 6502 (8-bit)
• Popular Game Cartridge
• Super Mario Bros.
• Donkey Kong
• Zelda

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Brief History (90s)

• 1991 Wolfenstein 3D
• id Software (John Carmack)
• PC (386 33Mhz), VGA
• 1996 Tomb Raider
• Eidos
• PC (Pentium 133Mhz)
• 4MB Ram
• SVGA, 3D Acceleration
• Windows 95

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Brief History (Today)

• Gaming Platforms
• PC (Pentium 4, Display card with Shader 3.0)
• Consoles
• Sony Playstation 2
• Microsoft XBox
• GameCube
• Mobiles
• GameBoy Advance/DS
• PDA (PalmOS, WindowsCE)
• Mobile Phone (Symbian, J2ME)
• Arcade

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Brief History (Today)

• Development Team Size Growth (estimate)
• Lets see some real cases

Design Technical Artwork
50s-70s 1 1 1
80s 2 3 5
90s 3 5 10
Today 510 1020 2050
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Black White

• By Lionhead Studios
• USD 5.7M budget
• 25 full-time developers
• 3 contractors
• 3 years
• 2M lines of code
• In-house technology

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Neverwinter Night

• By Bioware Corp
• 75 developers at peek (160 man-years of
  development)
• 40 QAs
• 5 sound contractors
• 20 translators
• 5 years
• In-house technology

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Splinter Cell (PS2 version)

• By Ubisoft Entertainment
• 76 full-time developers
• 18 contractors
• 5 months
• Uses UnrealEngine as Middleware

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What WhyMiddleware?
2.
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What Middleware?

• Middleware are software that supports application
  (game) development
• Middleware provide the common functionalities of
  specific domain of applications (game)

Application
Application
Middleware
Operating System
Operating System
Hardware
Hardware
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Why Middleware?

• Prevent re-inventing the wheel
• Game system becomes more and more complicated
• real-time, interactive, networked, persisted,
  massive users, virtual reality system
• Game development requires a vast domains of
  expertise nowadays
• To use technologies with success stories

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Why Middleware? (cont.)

• Developing a game from ground up is
• Expensive
• Need to hire many domain experts
• Train developers with latest technologies
• Slow
• Market changes rapidly
• Publishers want shorter development time
• Risky
• Development of high-end technologies is very risky

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Why Middleware? (cont.)

• However, there are a few disadvantages
• Licensing may be a big investment
• Middleware may not be fully suitable to the
  project, customization may be needed
• Difficult to integrate with existing assets
• Developing in-house technologies makes
• The game having unique features
• Possible to re-use in future
• Possible to sell to third parties (as middleware)

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Middleware Taxonomy
3.
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Middleware Taxonomy

• Graphics Rendering
• Audio Rendering
• Physics Simulation
• Artificial Intelligence
• Multiplayer
• Mathematics
• Special (e.g. Plant, Planet synthesis)
• All-in-one (3D Game Engine)

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Middleware Taxonomy

• Middleware products normally include
• Application Programming Interface (API), normally
  in C/C
• Runtime Components (e.g. DLLs)
• Tools
• Documentation
• Examples
• Some products are cross-platform

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Graphics Rendering

• Visual quality and fluency is very important to
  games
• Most games nowadays requires 3D real-time
  computer graphics
• Famous products
• Criterions RenderWare Graphics

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Graphics Rendering

• Features
• Lighting/Material, Shadowing
• Scene Management (indoor/outdoor)
• Camera Control
• Animation (objects, character, facial)
• Special Effects (particles, lens flare, etc)
• Workflow Tools (e.g. exporting 3D models from 3D
  Studio Max, Maya)

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Audio Rendering

• Audio in games has very important effect to
  gamers emotion
• Famous products
• RenderWare Audio

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Audio Rendering

• Features
• Mono/Stereo playback
• 3D Surround Sound Emulation
• Effect filters (e.g. echo, chorus, reverb, etc.)
• Streaming

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Physics Simulation

• Traditional games have little use of physics
  simulation
• Collision Detection (preventing penetration among
  objects and environment)
• Physics become more important in game development
  recently
• Physics simulation add realism to games
• Famous Products
• Havok
• Novedex
• Open Dynamics Engine

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Physics Simulation

• Features
• Collision Detection
• Kinematics Simulation
• Rigid-body Dynamics Simulation
• Hinge, ball, slider joints
• Special domains
• Vehicle simulation
• Ragdoll simulation

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Artificial Intelligence

• Artificial Intelligence (AI) adds behavior to
  Non-Playable Characters (NPCs)
• Behavior can be low- or high-level
• Low-level behavior such as finding a path from
  current position to target is vital to games
• High-level behavior such as decision making adds
  realism to human (or human-like) NPCs
• Famous Products
• Renderware AI

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Artificial Intelligence

• Features
• World/Perception Modeling
• Mobility (Where NPCs can move through)
• Visibility (What NPCs can see)
• Audibility (What NPCs can here)
• Path-Finding
• Behavior Modeling
• Finite-State Machine (FSM)
• Artificial Neural Network (ANN)
• Rule-based Systems
• Team Collaboration

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Multiplayer

• Multiplayer games continue to grow
• Lobby Games
• Massively Multiplayer Online Game (MMOG)
• Multiplayer games are complicated to design and
  implement (relative to single player games)
• In research, it is Networked Virtual Environment
  (NVE)
• NVE can be applied on military simulation
• Famous Products
• Net-Z/Eterna
• Terazona
• Butterfly.net (Distributed Architecture)

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Multiplayer

• Features
• Communication
• TCP/UDP, Encryption, Compression
• Session Management
• Object
• World Management, Transaction, Persistency
• Remote Method Invocation (RMI)
• Synchronization Management
• Optimistic/Pessimistic
• Dead-Reckoning Models
• Interest Management (reduce synchronization
  traffic)
• Lobby and User Management

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Special - Plant

• Plant simulation and rendering
• Famous products
• SpeedTreeRT
• RealNAT

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Special - Planet

• Planet synthesis
• Terrain, water, atmosphere, satellites
• Very huge and detailed game worlds
• Famous Products
• MojoWorld (not yet provide as middleware for
  public licensing)

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All-in-one (3D Game Engine)

• 3D Game Engines provide all-in-one solutions to
  game development
• Normally 3D Game Engines contain integrated
  workflow tools
• Famous Products
• Unreal Technology (Unreal Tournament)
• Source Engine (Half-life 2)
• Jupiter (No One Lives Forever)
• Renderware Studio
• NetImmerse

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All-in-one (3D Game Engine)

• Features
• 3D Graphics/Audio Rendering
• Input Handling
• Graphical User Interface (GUI)
• Physics Simulation
• Artificial Intelligence
• Script Engine
• Integrated Tools
• Multiplayer (for lobby type only)

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MSMOG Development Platform
4.

• http//micn.polyu.edu.hk/msmog/

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MSMOG Development Platform

• Mini-Scale Multiplayer Online Game Development
  Platform (MSMOG DP)
• Funded by SME Development Fund (10/2003 - 3/2005,
  18 months, HKD 2M)
• Developed by MIC, PolyU
• Aimed at enabling game companies to develop
  MSMOGs in a more rapid, efficient, secure and
  affordable way

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MSMOG

• Types of online game nowadays
• 2-16 players lobby game
• 1000-10000 players Massively Multiplayer Online
  Game (MMOG), persist world
• MSMOG is a new type of online game for
• lt200 players in controlled network environment
  (e.g. Cyber café)
• Fast interaction games (e.g. fighting, racing,
  sports)

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MSMOG

• Rationales for MSMOG
• Asia have a huge number of cyber cafés
• No games are designed for this market
• New opportunity for Hong Kong game industry!

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MSMOG

• MSMOG DP is an all-in-one middleware for game
  development
• MSMOG divides into two products
• 3D Game Engine
• Multiplayer Network Engine

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MSMOG - 3D Game Engine

• 3D Game Engine provides
• 3D Graphics/Audio Rendering
• Input Handling
• Physics Simulation
• Artificial Intelligence (AI)
• Graphical User Interface (GUI)
• Mathematics
• Workflow Tools
• All of them are tightly integrated

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MSMOG Multiplayer Network Engine

• The Multiplayer Network Engine supports
• World Management
• Interest Management
• Communication
• Synchronization
• Persistency
• Transaction
• Current performance profile
• 400 concurrent users at 20Hz sync.

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MSMOG DP - Applications

• Benefits of using MSMOG DP
• Latest high-end technologies
• Reducing development cost, time and risk
• Local support and training
• Applications
• Single player, Multiplayer games
• Education/Edutainment software
• 3D Simulation
• Virtual/Mixed Reality applications

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• Auroral Snare Prototype
• - 3D Multiplayer Action Game
• - 3 MScMET Students FYP
• 3 Months of Development
• Using MSMOG Development Platform

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Q A
5.
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Thanks!
http//micn.polyu.edu.hk/msmog/

• Welcome to visit MIC!
• Please contact me or Ms. Cindy Yu
  (mccindy_at_polyu.edu.hk)