Adventures in Middleware

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(No Transcript)
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Adventures in Middleware

• Joe Ludwig
• Director of Development
• Flying Lab Software

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We use a lot of middleware
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Order of Operations

• Outline our middleware
• Good and bad points for each package
• Complexity of integration
• Recommendation
• Overview of evaluation process
• What to do that we didnt
• What worked for us

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Picking A Graphics Engine

• Jupiter from Lithtech
• evaluated for delta green
• Unreal
• Tried to evaluate, but were rejected
• NetImmerse (now Gamebryo)
• Salesman told us too much

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Intrinsic Alchemy

• Intrinsic Graphics
• Silicon Valley startup founded by several ex-SGI
  engineers
• Hired nearly 40 engineers and built a new
  graphics engine from scratch
• Was funded by VC until
• They went bankrupt in 2003

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Intrinsic Alchemy

• Still using Alchemy
• Support provided by Vicarious Visions and then
  Activision until a year ago
• Future of Alchemy as a commercial engine is
  uncertain

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PathEngine

• AI pathing
• AI and player motion on Navigation Mesh
• Positive motion space definition
• Includes APIs for runtime and tool use
• Includes content creation tools for Max and Maya

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PathEngine

• Good Stuff
• Fast Runtime
• Improving tool support
• Great documentation
• Excellent support

• Bad Stuff
• Bloated file format
• No Jumping
• Terrible logo

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Programmer Art
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PathEngine

• Price
• No Source - 4000 (5300)
• Partial Source - 8000 (10,700)
• Full Source - 13,000 (17,400)
• Integration size 2886 lines
• Platforms
• Xbox 360, PS3, Windows, Linux
• Bottom Line Recommended
• http//www.pathengine.com

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AGEIA PhysX

• Full physics engine
• Formerly Novadex
• Includes support for PhysX cards
• Free if you include support for PhysX cards

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AGEIA PhysX

• Good Stuff
• Fast runtime
• Full featured
• Stable code base

• Bad Stuff
• API in flux
• Different file formats for Max and Maya
• Standalone installer

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AGEIA PhysX

• Price
• Free if you support the hardware
• 50,000 if you dont
• Size of integration 2538 lines
• Bottom Line Recommended
• http//www.ageia.com

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Miles Sound System

• 3D sound with a variety of mixers
• Surround sound support
• Decompresses MP3s on the fly
• 4,000 games over 16 years

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Miles Sound System

• Good Stuff
• Low Cost
• Excellent Support
• Fast
• Incredibly stable
• Feature rich
• Simple to integrate

• More Good Stuff
• MSS sets the bar that all other game middleware
  should strive toward.
• The quality of this product makes me very
  interested in Granny

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Miles Sound System

• Price 3000 (On sale)
• Size of Integration 2454
• Bottom Line Get Miles right now
• http//radgametools.com

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Lightning Round!
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SpeedTree

• Artists were never satisfied
• Poor Maya support
• Fair amount of work to integrate
• Removing it from game

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SpeedTree

• Price 8495
• Size of Integration
• 1740 lines of code
• 770 lines of HLSL
• 1978 lines of Mel
• Bottom Line Do a serious evaluation before
  buying
• www.speedtree.com

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Promethean FX

• Particle engine
• Performs well with several thousand particles
  active
• Difficult to integrate
• Mostly stable

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Promethean FX

• Price 8000
• Size of Integration
• 1719 lines of code
• Several weeks of time
• Bottom Line Much better than starting from the
  ground up
• www.damentertainment.com

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Cryptic Engine Updater

• Launcher from City of Heroes
• Very easy to use
• Our game was downloading and launching a few
  hours after we got it

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Cryptic Engine Updater

• Price Not generally available
• Bottom Line Why isnt this a piece of commercial
  middleware for anyone?

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Xtreme Toolkit Pro

• MFC component suite
• Useful for property grids and MDI applications
• Stable and extensible

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Xtreme Toolkit Pro

• Price 745 per tool programmer
• Integration Size
• None
• Bottom Line Use it if you have to use MFC
• www.codejock.com

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Zlib

• Fast lossless compression
• Easy to integrate
• Well tested in thousands of applications

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Zlib

• Price Free
• Size of Integration
• 78 lines of code
• Bottom Line The Miles Sound System of
  compression libraries
• www.zlib.net

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MySQL

• Full featured
• Easy to integrate
• Well tested by millions of websites
• Has some client crashes under heavy load
• Costs a tiny fraction of Oracle or SQL Server

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MySQL

• Price 595 and up per server
• Size of integration
• 528 lines of code
• Bottom Line Look at Postgres or SQL Server
  instead
• www.mysql.com

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Evaluation Tips
Get Source!

• Source is more useful for debugging than for
  modifying
• Put source code in Escrow
• Symbols are better than nothing

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Evaluation Tips

• Evaluate the provider too
• Ask how they are funded
• Perform due diligence on them
• Talk to their other customers about support
• Get a copy of their roadmap
• Make sure the provider is going to be there for
  you when you need them

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Evaluation Tips

• Include more than just programmers in the
  evaluation
• Artists
• Sound Designer
• Operations
• Determine your evaluation criteria up front

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Evaluation Tips

• Schedule sufficient evaluation time
• Workflow
• Building content from scratch
• Modifying existing content
• Performance
• Stability under load
• Prototype integration

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Evaluation Tips

• Dont believe the hype
• If a feature you really need isnt in, wait to
  purchase until it is
• License based on whats there, not what is
  promised
• Plans change, and your promised feature may never
  happen

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Evaluation Tips

• Basic Engineering Goals
• You must be able in override all file IO
• You should be able to override all memory
  allocation
• Perform evaluation on a branch

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Evaluation Tips

• Dont be afraid to reject middleware

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Questions?
Slides available at http//programmerjoe.com