Getting Your Game Engines On

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Proprietary consoles, graphics cards and licencing issues mean that the average cost to develop a major console computer game is an incredibly expensive affair, and is set to increase to match the next generation of consoles. ( And really – how much must it have cost Electronic Arts to recently hire Steven Spielberg to work on 3 games? ) There’s a wealth of DIY gaming options going on though…

Lua Player enables beginners to create their own PSP games using the Lua programming language. No need to compile any code, simply edit the text file, drop your graphics and sounds into the folder and copy to the PSP. Non-programming PSP users can also browse games and software available from the galleries.

www.jharbour.com/gameboy/default.aspx – hosts a free e-book for programming The Nintendo Game Boy Advance – a highly-anticipated book not released in book stores due to legal problems with Nintendo. (via makezine.com)

www.machinima.com – use game engines to create virtual sets for making your own movies.
via selectparks.net – sonichima ( games as real-time sound production tools, coined by avant-garde digital artist Julian Oliver (not Victor Todorović as I’d mistakenly taken from the select site b4 >>thanks, marta below)
www.hlcomic.com/view.php?date=2005-05-01 – Comic Strip made using screenshots from the Half Life game.

And while on the game-engine-as-artistic-tool tip – let’s remember what they are good at – optimising the use of your graphics cards rather than your CPU ( meaning better performance), and they offer the chance to play with physics, animation, textures, shadows, lighting controls, camera paths & angles, perspective, artificial intelligence and gameplay.

UnReal Tournament 3 is a popular game engine for tweakers, and the Quake III game Engine Open Source was recently released ( go build an app). Open source 3D software like Panda 3D or Blender is also great for 3D work, and Pilgrim 3D offers much of the game engine approach pretty effectively within a real-time VJ package ( PC only).

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2 Comments

  1. marta says:

    It’s a good selection, indeed!

    Just one minor correction: “sonichima” was coined by avant-garde digital artist Julian Oliver, in Selectparks.

    mxxx!!

  2. psp says:

    I have just seen the blog i felt I must leave a positive message to inform that I believe it was great to read. Keep up the good work

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