Game Development Toolkit
From EQUIS Lab Wiki
To develop games, a wide array of tools are required. These include tools for
- Fast and flexible graphics rendering
- Modeling objects
- Modeling terrains
- Modeling building interiors (or levels)
- Fast, scalable and fault-tolerant networking
- AI
- Physics
We have been assembling our preferred list of compatible tools to support game development. So far, we have been aiming for tools that are open-source.
- Ogre, a graphics rendering engine. Ogre is C++-based, and has bindings for Python, Java and Lua. Ogre strikes a nice balance between high-level support for rendering and low-level extensibility to allow custom behaviour. Read about Ogre on Slashdot.
- XSI, a 3D modeling tool from Montreal-based SoftImage. XSI is a professional tool, and has been integrated with Ogre.
- NVIDIA's Windows Texture Viewer is a useful utility for examining DDS (Direct Display Surface) files.
We performed a survey of Ogre users to determine what tools are commonly used. This led to a far more comprehensive list of tools.
Other Useful Sites
Here are some other assorted interesting sites related to game development.
- Arbaro is a tool for creating models of trees. The models are very impressive. It's not clear how to get these models into a format the Ogre can understand.
- Sun's Java Games Technologies Group, a group at Sun whose job is to further the development of high-performance games in Java.
- Java Games Development Community, the central Java games community site, hosted by Sun. There is a wealth of info here regarding Java game development tools, both open-source and proprietary.
- Maya, a commercial modeling tool that is much easier to use than Blender and is extremely feature-rich. If Blender is the emacs of modeling tools, this is the entire Microsoft Office suite. A free learning edition is available, but this version does not allow model export, so really is only useful for learning Maya. Maya is produced by Toronto-based Alias.
- Blender, a modeling tool. Blender is the emacs of modeling tools. The learning curve is horrendous, but the tool is very powerful once mastered.
- Alice, a remarkable reseach project at Carnegie Mellon University, headed by Randy Pausch. Alice started as a tool to build interactive 3D worlds and was targeted for use as a learning tool for middle school aged girls. It has now been expanded to be a more general learning tool for people of all ages who are interested in learning how to program. Alice is also a great prototyping tool for 3D worlds, as it facilitates extremely rapid development for experienced programmers.
