The Game Asset Pipeline

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ISBN: 9781584503422 | 1584503424
Cover: Paperback
Copyright: 9/3/2004

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Many of today's computer games are mega productions with huge teams and budgets, vast quantities of content, and crunched schedules. Getting these games to market is not an easy feat. Just managing the creation of content and getting that content into the right place at the right time is an enormous challenge. Hundreds of development hours are lost dealing with asset and pipeline issues, so the need for a working system is immense. The Game Asset Pipeline is written for programmers, producers, and managers who need to know how to create such a system. The solutions and ideas presented in the book cover current technology and methods that can be used to design and implement an asset management system.

Acknowledgments

Preface

xvii

Introduction

(16)

Offline Processing

(1)

Beating the RAM Barrier

(2)

Streaming

(1)

Other Factors

(1)

The Asset Pipeline

(1)

The Asset Feedback Loop

(2)

The Structure of Game Assets

(2)

Builds

(1)

Version Control

(1)

Asset Dependencies

(1)

Data Validation

(2)

Error Handling

(1)

Workflow

(1)

Conclusion

(2)

Where Do Assets Come From?

(24)

Tool Integration

(1)

Adding Features

(3)

Naming Conventions

(1)

Additional Data Fields

(1)

Plug-in Objects

(1)

Custom Export Tools

(1)

Data Formats

(6)

2D Bitmap Data

(2)

Audio Data

(1)

Video Data

(2)

3D Object Data

(1)

Custom Intermediate File Formats

(10)

Text or Binary?

(2)

File Structure

(2)

Wrapper Formats

(3)

XML

(2)

Conclusion

(2)

A High-Level View of Asset Management

(22)

Why Asset Management Is Not Source Control

(5)

Differences in Data

(1)

Handling Very Large Files

(3)

Asset Identification

(3)

Metadata

(1)

Change Tracking and History

(2)

Broken Data

(3)

Dealing with Broken Assets

(2)

Local Changes

(4)

Asset Building Shortcuts

(1)

Unrepresentative Previews

(1)

Runtime Editing

(1)

Synchronizing Code and Data

(3)

Integrating Code into the Asset Pipeline

(2)

Building a Distribution Package

(1)

Automated Testing

(1)

Conclusion

(2)

Building an Asset Management System

(48)

Storage Systems

(9)

Native Filing Systems

(2)

CVS

(1)

Subversion

(1)

Bitkeeper

(1)

Perforce

(1)

Alienbrain

(2)

Databases

(1)

Transactions and Locking

(3)

Operation Queues

(1)

Record Locking

(1)

Separating Metadata and File Locks

(1)

Client/Server Architecture

(4)

Clientless Architectures

(1)

The Client/Server Boundary

(1)

Using File Sharing Protocols

(1)

Intelligent File Updating

(1)

Client Tools

(1)

GUI Tools

(1)

Command-Line Tools

(1)

Shell Integration

(1)

Managing the Local Repository

(2)

Preventing Unwanted File Modifications

(1)

Handling Temporary Files

(1)

Client Tool UI and Functionality Considerations

(12)

Hierarchies and Views

(2)

Separating Projects

(1)

Sharing Files between Projects

(1)

Searching

(1)

Unique Identifiers

(1)

Linking Files

(1)

Metadata

(2)

Workflow Control

(2)

Preview Functionality

(2)

Showing Asset Modifications

(1)

Access Controls and Security

(2)

Using Views to Control Access

(1)

External Security

(1)

Providing an External API

(3)

Single and Multiple Client Models

(1)

Interface State

(1)

High-Level APIs

100

(1)

Scripting Support

100

(5)

Change Notification Handling

101

(1)

Caching Strategies

102

(3)

Archiving and Purging Data

105

(4)

Choosing Which Asset Revisions to Remove

105

(1)

Deleting Files

106

(1)

Archiving Files

106

(2)

Manually Purging Assets

108

(1)

Conclusion

109

(2)

Texture and Image Processing

111

(26)

Textures

112

(1)

Texture Swizzling

112

(3)

Texture Compression

115

(1)

Performing Texture Compression

115

(1)

Texture Quantization

116

(13)

Texture Resizing

117

(3)

Conforming Textures

120

(1)

Color Reduction

121

(8)

Dithering

129

(3)

Ordered Dithering

129

(1)

Error Diffusion Dithering

130

(1)

Dithering Textures

131

(1)

Using Alternative Color Spaces

132

(3)

The YUV Color Space

133

(2)

Conclusion

135

(2)

Geometry Processing

137

(72)

Mesh Data

138

(3)

Indexed Vertices

140

(1)

Model Hierarchy Information

141

(1)

Mesh Geometry Processing

141

(1)

Stripification

141

(13)

Building Triangle Strips

142

(1)

The Greedy Algorithm

143

(2)

The SGI Algorithm

145

(1)

Back-Face Culling and Winding Order

146

(2)

Merging Strips

148

(1)

Making Use of Draw-Cancel Flags

149

(2)

Strips versus Lists

151

(1)

Vertex Cache Optimization

152

(2)

Triangle Lists

154

(3)

Depth Sorting

155

(2)

Sanitizing Input Data

157

(4)

Orphaned Data

158

(1)

Vertex Welding

158

(1)

Removing Degenerate Triangles

159

(1)

Non-Coplanar Polygons

160

(1)

Regular Mesh Subdivision

161

(8)

Clipping Triangles

162

(1)

Clipping Polygons

163

(6)

Geometry Compression

169

(3)

Compressing Vertex Positions

169

(3)

Bone Weight Processing

172

(3)

Removing Redundant Bone Associations

172

(1)

Using Pre-Multiplied Bones

173

(1)

Constructing Composite Bones

173

(1)

Subdividing Skinned Meshes

174

(1)

Building Bounding Volumes

175

(18)

Axis-Aligned Bounding Boxes

176

(1)

Bounding Spheres

176

(2)

Oriented Bounding Boxes

178

(2)

Convex Hulls

180

(4)

Interior Bounding Volumes

184

(2)

Transparency and Bounding Volumes

186

(1)

Generating Multiple Bounding Volumes

186

(3)

Bounding Volumes for Animated Meshes

189

(1)

Bounding Volumes for Skinned Meshes

190

(3)

Performing Vertex Compression with Animated Bounding Boxes

193

(1)

Mesh Hierarchy Processing

193

(4)

Collapsing Nodes

194

(1)

Removing Leaf Nodes

195

(1)

Merging Nodes

195

(2)

Level of Detail Simplification

197

(12)

Hierarchy Merging

197

(2)

Polygon Reduction

199

(5)

Generating Imposter Sprites

204

(2)

Using Imposter Geometry

206

(3)

Audio and Video Processing

209

(14)

Audio

209

(7)

Resampling

210

(2)

Looping Samples

212

(1)

Audio Compression

212

(1)

ADPCM

213

(1)

MP3

214

(2)

Scripting Languages

216

(1)

Compiling Script Code

216

(1)

Deriving Dependencies from Scripts

216

(1)

Video

217

(5)

Video Compression

218

(2)

Localizing Video

220

(1)

Subtitles

221

(1)

Video Standard Conversion

221

(1)

Conclusion

222

(1)

Environment Processing

223

(18)

BSP Trees

224

(4)

Building a BSP Tree

225

(3)

Potentially Visible Sets

228

(2)

Portals

228

(1)

Ray Casting

229

(1)

Beam Casting

230

(1)

Routing Information

230

(4)

Accessibility Information

231

(2)

Connectivity Information

233

(1)

Precalculated Lighting

234

(4)

Vertex Lighting

234

(1)

Lightmaps

235

(2)

Volumetric Lighting

237

(1)

Conclusion

238

(3)

Managing Asset Processing

241

(28)

Dependency-Based Processing

242

(7)

Determining Asset Dependencies

245

(1)

Determining When Assets Have Changed

246

(1)

Handling Code Changes

247

(2)

The Make Tool

249

(5)

Descriptor File Syntax

249

(4)

Advantages and Limitations of Make

253

(1)

Output Data Formats

254

(5)

Standardizing Wrapper Formats

254

(1)

Including Metadata

255

(1)

Memory Ready and Parsed Formats

256

(2)

Byte Order Considerations

258

(1)

Handling File Interdependencies

259

(1)

Building Robust Tools

260

(6)

Be Lenient in What You Accept, but Strict in What You Output

260

(1)

Handling Tool Failure

261

(3)

Debugging the Pipeline

264

(1)

Maintaining Data Integrity

265

(1)

Interfacing to Existing Systems

266

(1)

Conclusion

267

(2)

Final Data

269

(28)

File Packing

270

(3)

Packed File Formats

271

(1)

Handling Very Large Package Files

271

(1)

Using Multiple Package Files

272

(1)

Obfuscating Data

272

(1)

Data Layout

273

(3)

Optimizing Linear Loading Procedures

273

(1)

Optimizing Streaming

274

(1)

Audio Streams

275

(1)

Interleaved Streams

275

(1)

Integrity Checking

276

(2)

Digital Signatures

278

(4)

Public Key Signatures

280

(1)

Cryptographic Hashing

280

(1)

Using Cryptography in Games

281

(1)

Encryption

282

(2)

What to Encrypt

283

(1)

Compression

284

(3)

What Can Be Compressed?

284

(1)

Compression Schemes

284

(2)

Other Compression Issues

286

(1)

Distribution Media

287

(3)

CD-ROMs

287

(1)

DVDs

288

(1)

Cartridges

288

(1)

Hard Discs

288

(1)

Internet Distribution

289

(1)

After Shipping

290

(5)

Data Archival

290

(2)

Patching Data

292

(3)

Conclusion

295

(2)

Bibliography

297

(2)

Index

299

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The Game Asset Pipeline

Summary

Author Biography

Table of Contents

Supplemental Materials