GameDev.net -- Feature

Book Excerpt: Mastering Unreal Technology Volume 1: Introduction to Level Design with Unreal Engine 3
[Added: 9/21/2009]

Jason Busby, Zak Parrish, and Jeff Wilson

This excerpt is taken from Chapter 9: Introduction to Kismet

Game Design Round Table 0
[Added: 4/22/2009]

Trent Polack

No More Health: This forum round table discussed the impact of regenerative health and such questions as: does this mechanic simplify action games in a good way? Is the reduction in manageable health resources a boon or detriment to players? The full discussion is summarized within.

Game Design Round Table 1
[Added: 5/25/2009]

Trent Polack

The Death of Death: This forum round table discussed the pros and cons of failure cases in games and how it relates to challenge. Overview of the discussion inside, and link to the complete thread

Game Design Round Table 2
[Added: 6/9/2009]

Trent Polack

Achievement Unlocked: This forum round table discussed the use of achievements in game design. Overview of the discussion inside, and link to the complete thread

Game Design Round Table 3
[Added: 9/17/2009]

Trent Polack

Observing Open Worlds: This round table discusses both the narrative and gameplay benefits of the open world game structure

Learning From The 3000 "Classics"
[Added: 4/1/2008]

Ben Garney and Eric Hartman

A few key design lessons gleaned from the 3000 games available for play on MAME that are still relevant in today's market

Magic Stones Postmortem
[Added: 12/5/2007]

Celso Riva

A look at some of the good and bad for the game by Winter Wolves's principal developer

MAME Mine: Wacky Sports
[Added: 7/1/2008]

Ben Garney and Eric Hartman

Ben and Eric take another foray through hundreds of MAME games to see what makes the genre of wacky sports tick and come away with some key designs to keep in mind

Postmortem: “Orient: A Hero’s Heritage”
[Added: 4/8/2008]

Babak Kaveh

When a project goes bad, there's a lot that you can learn. When a project goes bad in Iran, there's even more lessons to pick up. Learn from the lead developer about developing games in Iran and how it affected the demise of the promising "Orient: A Hero's Heritage"

Rage of the Elements Postmortem
[Added: 7/23/2008]

Lori Cerchio

The producer of a student team from Bloomfield College in New Jersey goes over what went wrong and what went right on the year-long project for their degree's coursework.

Small Scale Development, Grand Scale Ideas
[Added: 4/24/2006]

Vernon Dunmore

A summary of the lessons learned by a FullSail student, accompanied by his developer diaries.

Some Game Playing Styles, and How Games Match One Style or Another
[Added: 1/25/2010]

Lewis Pulsipher

A big obstacle for beginning game designers is the common assumption that everyone likes the same kinds of games, and plays the same way, that they do. Sometimes the nature of the traditional video game obscures all the different things games can be. The author relies on 50 years of playing games of all kinds to describe several quite different points of view

Space War Commander: Re-Thinking Real-Time Strategy
[Added: 4/7/2009]

Alex Kutsenok

This article on game design discusses the ways in which the real-time-strategy genre can be improved, using a recently published RTS as a case-study in novel development. Specifically, the paper argues against traditional resource gathering in favor of true diversification of that experience. Furthermore, this article discusses the benefits of removing base-building and puts forth some valid replacements for that gameplay component

10 Tips for Better Playtests
[Added: 11/22/2007]

Bruno Urbain

Learn 10 ways to make the experience of play testing your game better for the people involved, both game players and team members alike

A Case for Flexible Milestone Deliverables
[Added: 7/31/2007]

Tom Buscaglia

addresses the fallacy of detailed “Static Milestone Deliverables” and discusses a preferred methodology involving “Flexible Milestone Deliverables.”

Am I In the Wrong Degree Program?
[Added: 3/11/2008]

Tom Sloper

Are you a student who's unsure about the path you've chosen to get into the games industry? Wondering whether a gaming school or a normal school is the right choice? Well you're not the only one who has these questions, and there's no time like the present to get some answers.

An Overview to Game Development
[Added: 6/15/2007]

Nathan Madsen

Covers many problems and pitfalls new developers and freelancers encounter and how to deal with them

Become a Video Game Designer: Everything You Need to Know
[Added: 1/20/2009]

Tony Huynh

More so than any other discipline in the video game industry, the game designer is the most outwardly glamorous position. The game designer is the linchpin that holds animation, art, and programming together. So, how do you become one?

Business Planning Part 1
[Added: 5/6/2008]

Mona Ibrahim

Learn all you need to know about the basics of setting up a business entity to self-publish your games or start your own studio, from the people on your business team to the type of business entity you need to create to best suit your needs.

Business Planning Part 2
[Added: 5/12/2008]

Mona Ibrahim

So you've learned how to set up your business but what about financing? Product Insurance? Working this all into an actual company? Get it all laid out along with a guide to setting up your LLC

Can Mobile Payments Help You Get Paid?
[Added: 6/16/2010]

Kevin Spector

Top 6 mobile payment considerations for online and social network game developers from the CEO of Mobile First.

Demo Night VI
[Added: 8/30/2007]

Drew Sikora

social gaming, 8-bit adventure, classic remake - just three of the six types of games demoed at this bi-annual NYC event

Developer Spotlight: Dave Eberly
[Added: 6/5/2007]

Emmanuel Deloget

We interview Dave Eberly about his views on the game industry

Developer Spotlight: Jonathan Blow
[Added: 5/21/2007]

Emmanuel Deloget

We interview Jonathan Blow about his views on the game industry

Developer Spotlight: Wolfgang Engel
[Added: 9/25/2007]

Emmanuel Deloget

We interview Wolfgang Engel about his views on the game industry

FlashGameLicense.com Interview
[Added: 8/25/2009]

Oluseyi Sonaiya

We talk to the people behind FlashGameLicense.com about the services they have to offer to Flash game developers

Game QA & Testing Chapter 3
[Added: 11/3/2009]

Luis Levy and Jeannie Novak

This chapter goes into detail about what kind of testing a game goes through, and the various stages of testing

Games Middleware in a Changing Market
[Added: 2/22/2010]

Eric Schumacher

This article takes a retrospective look at game development in 2009, and investigates the trends that are defining the market in 2010

IGF 08 Interviews Part 1
[Added: 2/6/2008]

Drew Sikora

Insights and advice from the IGF finalists behind Audiosurf, Battleships Forever, Clean Asia!, Noitu Love 2: Devolution, and The Path

IGF 08 Interviews Part 2
[Added: 2/11/2008]

Drew Sikora

Insights and advice from the IGF finalists behind Snapshot Adventures: Secret of Bird Island, Tri-Achnid, Goo!, Fret Nice, and Cinnamon Beats

IGF 08 Interviews Part 3
[Added: 2/13/2008]

Drew Sikora

Insights and advice from the IGF finalists behind Crayon Physics Deluxe, Hammerfall, Iron Dukes, OokiBloks, and World of Goo

IGF 08 Interviews Part 4
[Added: 2/15/2008]

Drew Sikora

Insights and advice from the IGF finalists behind Synaesthete, Fez, Globulus.com, Axiom: Overdrive, and Gumboy Tournament

IGF 09 Interviews: Part 1
[Added: 2/25/2009]

Drew Sikora

We talk to the developers from the IGF finalist games "The Graveyard", "Cletus Clay", "You Have To Burn The Rope" and "Zeno Clash" to get their insight into game development and learn more about their entries into the IGF

IGF 09 Interviews: Part 2
[Added: 3/11/2009]

Drew Sikora

We talk to the developers from the IGF finalist games "Osmos", "Mightier", "Brainpipe", "The Maw" and "Retro/Grade" to get their insight into game development and learn more about their entries into the IGF

IGF 09 Interviews: Part 3
[Added: 4/11/2009]

Drew Sikora

This compiles the rest (but sadly not all) of the finalists interviewed for this year's IGF - IncrediBots, FEIST, Snapshot, Cortex Command, Musaic Box, Dyson, Machinarium, CarneyVale Showtime, and Coil

IGF 2010: Dejobaan Games
[Added: 2/15/2010]

Oli Wilkinson, Drew Sikora

We talk to Ichiro Lambe, founder and president of Dejobaan Games, makers of AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!! -- A Reckless Disregard for Gravity, which is nominated for Excellence in Design

IGF 2010: Jamie Cheng
[Added: 6/18/2010]

Drew Sikora, Oli Wilkinson

We talk to Jamie Cheng, co-creator of the IGF finalist game Shank, nominated for Excellence in Visual Art

IGF 2010: Krystian Majewski
[Added: 2/24/2010]

Drew Sikora, Oli Wilkinson

We talk to Krystian Majewski, creator of the IGF finalist game TRAUMA, nominated for the Seumas McNally Grand Prize, Excellence in Visual Art and Excellence in Audio

IGF 2010: Lazy 8 Studios
[Added: 5/27/2010]

Drew Sikora, Oli Wilkinson

We talk to Rob Jagnow, creator of the IGF finalist game Cogs, nominated for Excellence in Design

IGF 2010: Loren Schmidt
[Added: 3/4/2010]

Oli Wilkinson, Drew Sikora

We talk to Loren Schmidt, creator of the IGF finalist game Star Guard, nominated for Excellence in Design

IGF 2010: Marc ten Bosch
[Added: 6/14/2010]

Drew Sikora, Oli Wilkinson

We talk to Marc ten Bosch, creator of the IGF finalist game Miegakure, nominated for Excellence in Design

IGF 2010: Pocketwatch Games
[Added: 2/5/2010]

Drew Sikora, Oli Wilkinson

We talk to Andy Schatz from Pocketwatch Games, creator of IGF finalist Monaco, nominated for Design and the Seamus McNally Grand Prize

IGF 2010: Strange Loop Games
[Added: 2/8/2010]

Drew Sikora, Oli Wilkinson

We talk to John Krajewski from Strange Loop Games, project lead on IGF finalist Vessel, nominated for Technical Excellence

IGF 2010: Team Meat
[Added: 2/12/2010]

Drew Sikora, Oli Wilkinson

We talk to Edmund McMillen and Tommy Refenes, the creators of Super Meat Boy, nominated for the Seumas McNally Grand Prize and Excellence in Audio

IGF 2010: Tyler Glaiel
[Added: 6/4/2010]

Oli Wilkinson, Drew Sikora

We talk to Tyler Glaiel, producer of the IGF finalist game Closure, nominated for the Excellence in Audio, Technical Excellence, and Nuovo Award Awards

Interview with Chris Rausch
[Added: 9/29/2010]

Tiffany Smith

We talk to the co-owner/co-founder of SuperVillain Studios about where he's come from and where he's going - especially with regard to SuperVillain Studios

Interview with Dan Paladin
[Added: 9/22/2010]

Tiffany Smith

We have a short chat with The Behemoth's well-known artist Dan Paladin about his influences, artistic style, working at Behemoth and their latest title

Interview with Jamie Woodhouse
[Added: 4/22/2009]

Graham Rhodes

We interview the sole developer of a game that has been ported to numerous consoles over the course of 20 years, such as BBC, Amiga, GBA and now PC. How he has grown and evolved as an indie over this time is revealed.

Interview with PushButton Labs
[Added: 7/1/2009]

Oluseyi Sonaiya

We interview Ben Garney, one of the lead developers behind the new Flash gaming engine being developed by PushButton Labs, many of whom are former employees of Garage Games.

Lessons Learned – Hobby Game Development
[Added: 11/4/2008]

Lloyd Tullues

After creating a game engine to learn and make prototypes, Lloyd has indeed picked up on many good habits he would like to pass along to the rest of the development community, and other hobbyist developers especially

Making Your Game Shine
[Added: 4/20/2007]

Joe Lieberman

Tips on making your game look good to customers from ArcadeTown's head of business development

Managing a Mod Team
[Added: 2/15/2010]

Philip Edwards

This article goes over important topics and practices involved with keeping a volunteer mod team motivated through development of a project, how to handle widely-dispersed teams and how to attract players/developers to your project

Opinion: The 'Virgin Mary' of Video Games?
[Added: 5/31/2010]

Lew Pulsipher

This opinion piece talks about the depictions of violent death in video games.

Practical Tips for Independent Game Development
[Added: 9/1/2009]

Jacob A. Stevens

This article explores various logistical pitfalls of independent game development. By examining topics such as team member selection, iterative development, tool production, and design documentation, the author explains how he broke free from a cycle of unfinished products by creating a streamlined development workflow.

Starbreeze Business Analysis
[Added: 12/19/2007]

Sebastian Rushworth

Case study of Starbreeze Studios (makers of The Darkness), discussing the company's situation from a business perspective

Start to Finish: Publishing a Commercial iPhone Game
[Added: 10/16/2008]

Niklas Wahrman

A motivational story on how a student and part-time developer was able to complete an Android project and a port to iPhone for commercial release in less than a year.

SXSW 2008 Session Picks
[Added: 9/17/2007]

Sande Chen

10 must-vote sessions for the upcoming South by Southwest Interactive Conference and Festival

The 7 Deadly Sins of Startup Companies
[Added: 1/28/2009]

Roman Lembersky

Roman shares what he's learned from being involved with startups and what you should avoid at all costs if you're thinking of starting up a business and want to be successful later on down the road

The Elusive Demo Portfolio
[Added: 9/17/2008]

Lee Winder

After spending years looking over applicants and stressing about his portfolio at one point in his career as well, Lee gives pointers on making your programming portfolio as strong as possible, and reviews existing portfolios as examples

The Price Is Right for In-Game Advertising
[Added: 5/1/2008]

Ran Cohen

Ran has been at the forefront of Eyeblaster's foray into the world of in-game advertising which they have turned into a successful revenue model. Ran explains why in-game advertising works and important things to consider when implementing it in your games

Unity Interview
[Added: 8/20/2007]

Drew Sikora

We talk to one of the founders of the Unity game engine

What A Portal Wants
[Added: 2/21/2007]

Joe Lieberman

ArcadeTown's head of business development gives us his take on what makes a game suitable for an online portal.

Why Use Scrum?
[Added: 6/24/2008]

Clinton Keith

Formerly of High Moon Studios, Clint was one of the forerunners of the agile movement in the games industry. As project complexity scales higher, management is becoming an increasing issue. Big hits don't always pay back today's huge cost of development. Should you adopt agile? What is agile? How will it help you? Find out!

Working Nowhere and Everywhere
[Added: 7/23/2009]

Christopher Natsuume

Boomzap is a casual games developer that has employed a highly-successful business model of being completely virtual. No offices, lots of outsourcing and daily online communication. See how they pull it off and how you can too!

A Brief Guide to Orchestration
[Added: 12/7/2009]

Steve Kaetzel

A crash course in the basics of classical orchestration for beginner and intermediate game composers

Bigger Than Big: The Game Audio Explosion
[Added: 5/1/2006]

Steve Kutay

This feature covers the entire game audio production process for commercial games.

Improving Communication with Your Sound Designer Part 1
[Added: 3/17/2008]

Kane Minkus

Co-founder of SomaTone Interactive Audio, Kane has years of experience in music composition and design with Platinum record titles and dozens of game and movie credits. He explains to non-musicians the inner workings of this craft to better enable producers to communicate properly with their audio staff

Improving Communication With Your Sound Designer Part 2
[Added: 3/25/2008]

Kane Minkus

Co-founder of SomaTone Interactive Audio, Kane has years of experience in music composition and design with Platinum record titles and dozens of game and movie credits. He explains in greater detail how to talk the talk of the audio professional and get a clear message across to your musicians to ensure clarity of your vision

Interview with Firelight Technologies
[Added: 11/19/2010]

Nathan Madsen

We talk to the makers of FMOD about their current successes, new partnerships and what they have lined up for 2011 and GDC

Making Sound Effects
[Added: 2/8/2010]

Spencer Sternberg

This article explores the recording and mixing processes of making sound effects for martial arts. From the sound of splintering watermelons to the quick movement of ferns through the air, it is clear to see that sound is not what it looks like

Using FMOD designer to create explosion sound events
[Added: 5/21/2010]

Stephan Schütze

A guide to using FMOD tools to generate explosion sound effects in real time for a greater variety of effects to use when raining down massive destruction upon the player

Writing Music for the iPhone
[Added: 12/24/2009]

Spencer Sternberg

How can a composer safely branch out from the norm, to satisfy ones creativity, yet ensure that the music will be received well by the audience? This article explores the process of writing video game music, based on the compositional process for one of the ten levels of music from the iPhone game Plushed

20 issues of porting C++ code on the 64-bit platform
[Added: 10/3/2007]

Andrey Karpov, Evgeniy Ryzhkov

The article observes some questions related to testing the 64-bit software. Some difficulties which a developer of resource-intensive 64- bit applications may face and the ways to overcome them are described

2D Car Physics
[Added: 12/15/2007]

Matt Kincaid

Tutorial on the math and implementation of car physics in a 2D environment

2D Rotated Rectangle Collision
[Added: 2/3/2009]

Eric Meythaler

An explanation of the Separating Axis Theorem and how it can be used to perform 2D collision detection between rotated rectangles.

A Collection of Examples of 64-bit Errors in Real Programs
[Added: 8/4/2010]

Andrey Karpov

This article is the most complete collection of examples of 64-bit errors in the C and C++ languages. The article is intended for Windows-application developers who use Visual C++, however, it will be useful for other programmers as well

A Hobbyist Game Engine Post Mortem
[Added: 10/8/2008]

Paul Coppens

Learn what went right and what went wrong along the path of developing the game engine ex-nihilo

A Postmortem of Game Programming with Digital Mars’ D Programming Language
[Added: 1/18/2008]

Jonathan Breuer

A detailed look at getting set up and started with D, as well as various highlights and pitfalls of the language

A Simple and Practical Approach to SSAO
[Added: 5/25/2010]

José María Méndez

This article presents a simple but accurate screen space ambient occlusion implementation, including HLSL code

A Simple C++ Object Loader
[Added: 10/6/2009]

Francis Xavier

A guide to deserializing objects using Daabli. Demonstrates how easy it is to load objects, enumerations, pointers and STL containers using Daabli. Also discusses Daabli's flexible string conversion mechanism

A Simple Fast Resource Manager using C++ and STL
[Added: 4/24/2008]

Ashic Mahtab, Zinat Wali

This article describes an implementation of a resource manager in C++ using STL. It is simple yet efficient. Sample usage is shown to reflect the ease of use

A Super Simple Method for Creating Infinite Scenery
[Added: 9/15/2010]

Gabriel T. Delarosa

Outlines a method of creating simple infinite scenery in both the vertical and horizontal dimensions require no static geometry

A Type-safe Generic Pointer
[Added: 8/17/2010]

Francis Xavier

A safer alternative to void*, any_ptr can point to any type of object and provide type-safe, const-correct access to it

A Verlet based approach for 2D game physics
[Added: 11/19/2009]

Benedikt Bitterli

Illustrates the power of Verlet integration for physics simulations and covers basic 2D rigid body dynamics with collision

Back to Basics: Stacks
[Added: 9/4/2007]

Steven Phung

A short and simple view of the stacks data structure for beginners looking to grasp the basic concepts

Cellular Textures, the light speed approach
[Added: 8/10/2009]

Carsten Przyluczky

Procedural texture generation is a very flexible and powerful technique, and the results are awesome looking textures that only require a few hundred bytes. Cellular textures is one such method. This article will describe how they are generated starting with a simple but slow algorithm. Then it will look over an advanced algorithm that takes linear time and provides some nice extra features

Clock Synchronization of Client Programs
[Added: 4/14/2008]

Pablo Marquez

Describes a straight-forward technique to synchronize client and server programs over the network in order to monitor latency and decrease the likelihood of player lag during gameplay

Common Misconceptions of Intel® Integrated Graphics
[Added: 12/17/2007]

Chuck DeSylva

Examines some of the common assumptions about integrated graphics (specifically the Intel X3000) and provides insights otherwise ignored by the trade press

Computation of Bounding Primitives on the GPU
[Added: 11/12/2008]

Philip Rideout

Nowadays it's becoming fashionable to use GPU's for purposes other than pure graphics. Learn a sneaky trick that leverages the GPU's horsepower to efficiently compute an axis-aligned bounding box. Includes sample code for DirectX 10, but this method can be used with other API's as well

Continuing GameMonkey Script: Advanced Use
[Added: 8/4/2009]

Oli Wilkinson

The long-awaited continuation of the Introduction to GameMonkey Script series, covering advanced aspects of the GM language, the virtual machine API, and threading

Continuous Collision Detection for translating Ellipsoid
[Added: 10/25/2007]

Chandan Pawaskar

We know sphere sweep test can provide accurate collision detection for fast moving objects. However a sphere is a loose fit in most practical cases. This article provides information for sweep testing Ellipsoids.

Creating a GLSL Library
[Added: 10/29/2007]

Don Olmstead

covers creating a shader library and writing a texturing and a lighting shader as a next step after reading through the Orange Book

Cube Map Rendering Techniques for Direct3D10
[Added: 2/1/2010]

Vincent Prat

Unlike DirectX 9 which allows you to only render cube maps in 6 passes, DirectX 10 offers different ways to do it more efficiently: geometry shaders & improvements in the geometry instancing API offer single pass alternatives to cube map rendering. This article presents 3 algorithms as well as their drawbacks and advantages

Cubic Shadow Mapping in Direct3D
[Added: 2/5/2008]

Ehsan Miandji

This tutorial will focus on implementing the cubic shadow mapping algorithm using Direct3D and HLSL and provides you with some optimization ideas.

Deferred Rendering Demystified
[Added: 3/1/2010]

Noam Gat

Deferred Rendering is an alternative rendering approach that has many advantages. The theory behind it has been discussed to great detail, but implementing a deferred renderer is still a puzzling task. This article discusses the technique from a design standpoint, suggesting how a graphics engine can be structured to easily integrate a deferred rendering approach, and is accompanied by an open source implementation of one using the Ogre 3d engine.

Designing a Flexible Vertex Element System for XNA Using Attributes
[Added: 12/2/2008]

Michael Popoloski

This article outlines a safer and more flexible system for defining and creating vertex declarations in XNA, using several high-level C# features such as attributes and reflection to make the resulting solution elegant and concise.

Developing iPhone Games for Longer Battery Life
[Added: 7/20/2010]

Ed Welch

The team for the iPhone turn-based strategy game Armageddon Wars explores a frame throttling technique to decrease hardware usage during gameplay and noticeably increase battery life

Development of Resource-intensive Applications in Visual C++
[Added: 4/18/2008]

Andrey Karpov, Evgeniy Ryzhkov

The article will familiarize developers of application software with tasks set before them with the mass introduction of 64-bit multi-core processors. It will also touch upon the problems of effective use of hardware resources for solving everyday applied tasks within the limits of Windows x64 operating system.

Dynamic 3D Scene Graphs
[Added: 12/10/2008]

Andrew Top

Scene graphs used in most games today are actually scene trees, defined offline by artists. Interesting features can be achieved by instead defining offline a set of rules that explain how to generate a scene tree. By dynamically building the scene tree from a set of rules at run-time, we can support true scene graphs (scene graphs with cycles in them) as well as the ability to host environments with objects of drastically different scales (such as leaves, trees, solar systems and galaxies).

Excerpt from OpenGL® Programming Guide 6th Ed.
[Added: 4/4/2008]

Shreiner, Woo, Neider, and Davis

A complete chapter excerpt from the latest edition of the popular OpenGL Programming Guide

Excerpt from OpenGL® SuperBible: Comprehensive Tutorial and Reference, 4th Edition
[Added: 4/28/2008]

Wright, Lipchak and Haemel

Chapter 9: Texture Mapping: Beyond the Basics

Exploring Metaballs and Isosurfaces in 2D
[Added: 9/3/2008]

Stephen Whitmore

Ever wondered how the classic 'metaballs' effect worked? This article covers an overview and explanation of metaballs, as well as a simple implementation, some examples, suggestions for optimizations, and a meta-playground demo

Exporting C++ functions to Lua
[Added: 5/5/2009]

Magnus Österlind

This article shows a way to achieve type safe interaction between C++ and Lua. By utilizing the Boost::FunctionTypes library, we’re able to automatically detect the number and types of the parameters in the exported function, making the procedure for registering a C++ function as simple as a single function call with a name and a function pointer

High Dynamic Range Environment Mapping On Mainstream Graphics Hardware
[Added: 3/21/2008]

Lake, Northrop, Freeman

This white paper discusses the use of High Dynamic Range Imagery rendering utilizing Reinhard’s tone mapping calculation and floating point textures on the Intel® 965 Express Chipset and Mobile Intel® 965 Express Chipset family.

Hosting a C++ D3D engine in C# Winforms
[Added: 6/17/2008]

Ryan Villamil

Describes a sequence of techniques for hosting an unmanaged C++ graphics engine in a C# Winforms or WPF application.

Image Space Lighting
[Added: 6/11/2009]

David Maletz

An explanation of the theory behind and implementation of image space lighting, a technique that utilizes deferred lighting and rasterization to efficiently and accurately render hundreds of light sources in real time. This technique allows for complex lighting environments found in scenes with lampposts, lanterns, cities at night, light-emitting particle effects and other scenes with many light sources.

Integrating Your XNA Engine With XSI ModTool
[Added: 8/11/2008]

MJP

Learn how to use XSI|ModTool's XNA integration features to create a content authoring pipeline for your engine

Intro to the Flex SDK
[Added: 6/20/2007]

Andy Fischer

Covers how to download and install the Flex SDK, and walks through all the steps (including writing source code) to create a simple game

Introduction to Debugging
[Added: 6/19/2006]

Richard "superpig" Fine

An extensive introduction of the debugging process including the tools used.

Introduction to GameMonkey Script Part 2
[Added: 3/11/2006]

Oli Wilkinson

This part covers embedding GameMonkey in your game or other application.

Java Games: Active Rendering
[Added: 9/27/2007]

Tim Wright

Covers a rendering technique that allows you to focus on developing a game and spend less time worrying about which paint method to override

Java Games: Keyboard and Mouse
[Added: 11/30/2007]

Tim Wright

Covers building a polling interface for detecting input states

KJam - a new build tool for game development
[Added: 10/5/2006]

Rafael Baptista

Introduction to an extremely fast build tool designed to support very large software projects

Learn to Tango with D Excerpt: Chapter 2
[Added: 6/5/2008]

Bell, Igesund, Kelly, Parker

What is D to C? Come learn about D's declarations, basic data types, pointers, arrays, looping and decision structures, functions and error handling

Learning iOS Game Programming
[Added: 10/20/2010]

Michael Daley

Excerpt from the book centered on the main game loop in an iOS game

Leveraging Inheritance and Template Classes for Asset Tracking
[Added: 11/5/2007]

Christopher Harvey

Presents a method for tracking assets that should only be loaded once during the lifetime of an application using templates and abstraction in C++

Linux Game Development Part 1
[Added: 6/28/2007]

Troy Hepfner

Introduction to Linux and a high-level overview of Linux game development so you can get started

Linux Game Development Part 2
[Added: 7/17/2007]

Troy Hepfner

Learn how to create a binary executable that will run on almost any Linux distribution.

Linux Game Development Part 3
[Added: 8/11/2007]

Troy Hepfner

Learn about the different install builders that are available for Linux, and how to create an easy-to-use installer that will run on any Linux distribution

Linux Game Development Part 4
[Added: 9/11/2007]

Troy Hepfner

Learn about testing your game on Linux, and some of the issues involved

Linux Game Development Part 5
[Added: 10/15/2007]

Troy Hepfner

Discover some tips for how to market your Linux game

Microsoft XNA Game Studio 3.0 Unleashed
[Added: 5/29/2009]

Chad Carter

Chapter 22: Creating a 3D Game

Moving Noise
[Added: 5/27/2009]

Dan Nielsen

This feature introduces a drop-in Perlin noise variant useful for quickly generating organic procedural functions that change over time. You can use it to create scenes, textures, animations, and sounds. If you modify it or do something interesting with it, the author would love to know

Nature in computer graphics
[Added: 9/7/2007]

Shaun Kichenbrand

A research paper outlining various graphical techniques and advancements in rendering natural objects

Nintendo Wii Flash Game Creator's Guide: Chapter 5
[Added: 6/26/2008]

Todd Perkins

Demonstrates using the Wii remote to make a game where you use a hammer to pound down a nail, with realistic motion

OpenGL Frame Buffer Object 101
[Added: 11/22/2006]

Rob 'phantom' Jones

An introduction to the Frame Buffer Object extension to OpenGL

OpenGL Frame Buffer Object 201
[Added: 12/14/2006]

Rob “phantom” Jones

Shows how you can use a single FBO to cycle through a number of textures to render to as well as using the OpenGL Shading Language to render to multiple textures at the same time via the Draw Buffers extension

Pathfinding With the C4 Game Engine
[Added: 10/10/2007]

Jon Watte

Discusses and includes code for a complete art path for authoring navigation meshes (networks) and doing A-star pathfinding throughout levels.

Programming Vertex, Geometry, and Pixel Shaders
[Added: 1/8/2009]

Wolfgang Engel, Jack Hoxley, Ralf Kornmann, Niko Suni, Jason Zink

This book, published for free to the GDWiki, covers DirectX 10 techniques and is intended for DX 8 & 9 users to upgrade their knowledge. The authors are open to comments and suggestions as the prep the DirectX 11 print-only version

Real-Time Dynamic Fur on the GPU
[Added: 10/14/2010]

Dzmitry Malyshau

Leveraging the GPU and particles to create real time dynamic fur

Rendering Water as a Post-process Effect
[Added: 6/4/2009]

Wojciech Toman

This article presents a screen-space approach to water rendering. The technique makes water look realistic by focusing on aspects rarely taken into account like colour extinction. It is based on observation rather than on mathematical model.

Shaders and Metaprogramming
[Added: 7/3/2007]

Promit Roy

Discusses how to robustly expose shader constant parameters from a .NET 2.0 application using the reflection and metaprogramming abilities of managed code

Shadow Map Aliasing
[Added: 7/12/2007]

Dave Bookout

Discusses techniques to reduce the aliasing problem associated with using shadow maps

Shaving Ping
[Added: 5/11/2006]

Doug Helbling

Discusses optimization techniques for getting the most out of your game server.

Terrain System for Circuits
[Added: 1/12/2010]

Diego B.S.

This article presents a solution for games - mostly car racing titles - in which the characters - cars - move along a racetrack. The proposed terrain system manages the physical information of the track, building an internal data structure and applying an spline algorithm to get an smoothed continuous surface

The C++ Standard Library Part 1
[Added: 5/18/2006]

Howard "SiCrane" Jeng

The first installment in this series covers language features related to the standard library that may be unfamiliar to new programmers.

The C++ Standard Library Part 2
[Added: 9/13/2006]

Howard "SiCrane" Jeng

Introduces the basics of the std::vector class.

The Essential Guide to Flash Games: Chapter 2
[Added: 5/17/2010]

Jeff Fulton, Steve Fulton

This chapter takes you through the creation of an AS3 game framework and a simple test case

The Future of PC Gaming – The Possibilities of Direct3D 10
[Added: 4/28/2006]

Oluseyi

We sat down with ATI to discuss what Direct3D 10 and the next generation of hardware will offer for game developers.

The Game Maker's Companion
[Added: 12/10/2010]

Jacob Habgood, Nana Nielsen, Kevin Crossley, Martin Rijks

This book excerpt contains the first chapter of the book that introduces beginning game developers to the Game Maker program

The Visual C++ Exception Model
[Added: 3/27/2008]

Howard Jeng

A brief introduction to SEH, a high level overview of how MSVC implements C++ exceptions on top of SEH, some implications of this implementation and some ways to exploit the internals of the exception handling model.

Using Abstraction to Optimize Runtime Polymorphism
[Added: 7/9/2010]

Gabriel T. Delarosa

We take a look at the cost of C++'s virtual function mechanism and how to improve the performance of runtime polymorphism without giving up it's many benefits

Visual Studio Macros for the Game Programmer
[Added: 11/12/2007]

Mike Cline

A look into VS macros, with some examples of useful macros

Walls and Shadows in 2D
[Added: 11/10/2009]

Scott Mayo

This article presents a technique for determining visibility information suitable for arbitrary closed two-dimensional maps at interactive rates (each pass of the algorithm will usually take less than a second); as such it can be most useful in turn-based games, or games where extremely fast visibility recalculation is not required. The technique can also be used to handle illumination and shadow computations for point-based lights

Welzl's Minimum Sphere Algorithm Demystified
[Added: 3/19/2008]

Eli Kara

Explores a solution proposed by Emo Welzl regarding calculating the optimal sphere for use in bounding volumes

White Paper: Procedural Terrain Generation With Fractional Brownian Motion
[Added: 1/21/2008]

Jeffrey M. Freeman

This white paper investigates techniques for leveraging procedurally generated terrain with fractional Brownian Motion on the CPU and multi-texture blending on the GPU.

Why AppUp? A Quick Review of the AppUp Model
[Added: 12/21/2010]

Intel

Intel introduces their solution for apps that extend beyond the realm of smart phones in this sponsored article

Adobe Photoshop Elements 6.0 On Demand
[Added: 4/16/2008]

Steve Johnson, Perspection Inc.

Excerpt from Chapter 3: Importing Photos into the Organizer

Better Programmer Art
[Added: 12/29/2008]

Joel Davis

Better artwork makes a huge difference in the impact of a game, prototype or technical demo, especially among a non-technical audience. Sometimes you don't have the time or resources to find a dedicated game artist. This article presents ten tips for us programmer types to improve the quality of our game artwork and 'fake it' as a game artist.

Building Brawl-Handling Interacting Characters in EA Sport's MMA
[Added: 11/30/2010]

Kelly L. Murdock

We talk to the art and technical designers behind the animation and construction of the fighter models used in EA's latest MMA title

Case Study: Resistance 2 Graphics Tools and Pipeline
[Added: 12/18/2008]

Kelly L. Murdock

A look at Insomniac Games (makers of the Resistance franchise) and how they used Autodesk tools to create the stunning visuals in their games

Creating Efficient Next Gen Environment Art
[Added: 1/2/2008]

Tim McGrath

Discusses several next-gen art techniques such as shaders and normal mapping and how to approach them to create next-gen assets without a huge team

Creating Fire in a Particle Editor
[Added: 2/19/2009]

Bulatov Evgeni

Learn the basics of creating fire effects and working with particles using the editor Magic Particles

Creating Minimal Pixel Art with Photoshop (Part 1)
[Added: 1/29/2008]

Rich Grillotti

Get introduced to the pixel and find out how to take this small dot and create art, learning the basics of creating pixel art in Adobe Photoshop from the man behind Pixeljam Games' visual style.

Creating Minimal Pixel Art with Photoshop (Part 2)
[Added: 2/13/2008]

Rich Grillotti

Rich from PixelJam covers some more advanced aspects of Photoshop as applied to creating minimal pixel images

Creating Minimal Pixel Art with Photoshop (Part 3)
[Added: 3/3/2008]

Rich Grillotti

Rich from PixelJam gives some final lessons and advice such as line drawing, hue/saturation and levels, and image tracing

Easy Atmospheric Perspective in Photoshop
[Added: 5/30/2008]

Jacob A Stevens

This tutorial introduces the concept of atmospheric perspective - the effect air has on image depth - and demonstrates an easy and flexible way to create this effect in Photoshop.

Game Art Creation and Reviewing Requirements
[Added: 7/7/2009]

Galina Kuzminova

What should you keep in mind as an art contractor? How can you work best to satisfy clients with minimum revisions? The Outsourcing Manager of art studio Orange Graphics answers these questions and more with a checklist of things to keep in mind

How To Render Light Maps in XNA
[Added: 12/14/2009]

Rikcuo Akira (Taiwan)

Using 3DS Max 2008 and Panda Plugin - a simple step-by-step guide

Make a Particle Explosion Effect
[Added: 10/13/2009]

Mike McClelland

A step-by-step guide to creating an explosion in a particle editor. While this article makes use of the Vicious Engine 2, the concepts are widely applicable.

MaPZone Tutorial
[Added: 6/12/2007]

Jérémie Noguer

A quick guide showing how to create high-quality textures from procedural patterns using MaPZone 2.5

Using Game Engine Art Tools to Improve Run-Time Streaming in Online Worlds
[Added: 1/5/2010]

Danie Conradie

What tools to take advantage of in game engines in order to improve performance of large environments in online worlds, adapted from a talk given at 2009's Austin GDC