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Intro To Game Architecture: Jeff Ward Associate Programmer Bethesda Game Studios

The document discusses principles for game architecture, including: 1. It introduces concepts like encapsulation, inheritance, polymorphism, and design patterns like singleton, observer, and MVC that can help with stability, reusability, and code organization. 2. It emphasizes that architecture helps with maintainability, code ownership, performance, and stability by reducing coupling and increasing reliability. 3. The document provides examples of applying architectural principles and design patterns to a game engine to improve its structure and organization.

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Manoj Manduva
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214 views29 pages

Intro To Game Architecture: Jeff Ward Associate Programmer Bethesda Game Studios

The document discusses principles for game architecture, including: 1. It introduces concepts like encapsulation, inheritance, polymorphism, and design patterns like singleton, observer, and MVC that can help with stability, reusability, and code organization. 2. It emphasizes that architecture helps with maintainability, code ownership, performance, and stability by reducing coupling and increasing reliability. 3. The document provides examples of applying architectural principles and design patterns to a game engine to improve its structure and organization.

Uploaded by

Manoj Manduva
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PPT, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Intro to Game Architecture

Jeff Ward
Associate Programmer
Bethesda Game Studios
My Talk

 Your first engine


 Why architect?
 Principles of OOP
 Design Patterns
 Best Practices
Your Talk

 How can architecture help us with:


 Concurrency
 Maintainability
 Code ownership
 Usability
 Performance
 Stability
Disclaimer

Sorry.
Your First Engine

Renderer Creature
Player
3DObj AI
2DObj
Items Bullets

Sound
Input File Loader
3dSnd

psst… this isn’t real UML…


Why is that bad?

 Bad architecture creates problems


 Produces side effects
 Hard to follow
 Hard to debug
 Hard to reuse
 Spend more time finding a way around the
architecture than fixing the problem
 OMG HAX!
Why Architect (Design)?

 Stability
 Reusability
 Cohesion
 Orthogonally
A well architected system is
easy to understand, change,
debug, and reuse.
Principles of OOP
 Basics
 Encapsulation
 Inheritance
 Polymorphism
 Principles of good design
 Reduced coupling
 Increased reliability
 Increased reusability
 $10 word - orthogonality
Encapsulation

 “Encapsulation is a programming mechanism


that binds together code and the data it
manipulates, and that keeps both safe from
outside interference and misuse.” – Schildt
 Encapsulation is not just data hiding!
 Implies each object should be a cohesive whole.
Instance Encapsulation

 Accessing elements between instances


 It’s a convenience feature, not a good idea
 “Always Design for Concurrency” – Tip 41 in The
Pragmatic Programmer
 Even if you don’t need it, a cleaner architecture results.

Creature Creature
Inheritance

 Key overused concept of OOP


 “ Inherit not to reuse, but to be reused.”
 “Is a” vs. “has a” vs. “needs to used as a”
 Degrades performance
 Prefer components over inheritance
 Cleaner architecture
 Faster execution time and overhead
 More flexibility
 More encapsulated
Polymorphism

 Important as it relates to inheritance…


 Just realize that polymorphism goes two ways
 Readable
 Unreadable
Intro to Design Patterns

 Book Design Patterns by “The Gang of Four”


(Gamma Helm Johnson Vlissides)
 The same problems keep coming up in CS
 We keep solving them in the same (or similar)
ways.
 Is there a pattern here?
Singleton
Or “Patterns Don’t Solve all Problems”

 Creational pattern
 Only one instance of the object exists
 Private constructor with public accessor (usually
Class::Instance())
 Really nice name for a global
 Often overused, and often not a real solution
 Singletons translate well to factories
Singleton Example

 Singletons (or factories) welcome…


 Renderers
 Resource managers
 Memory managers
 Message queues
Observer / Listener

 Behavioral pattern
 Inform multiple dependant objects of changes
 Usually implemented as Subject and IListener
objects
 Listeners add themselves to subjects
 When a subject changes, all listeners are notified.
 Great for message queues
Message Queues

 Built of one queue with multiple listeners

Player Creature Player Creature


Vs.
Queue
Items Bullets Items Bullets

NPCs
MVC
Model View Controller

 Architectural pattern
 Keeps data and representation separate
 Model = data, view = representation
 Controller is what sends messages to the model and
view.
 Advantages
 One data, multiple views
 Data manipulates data, and doesn’t care if its being viewed
 Change renderers without changing anything else
MVC Example

 Separate view from everything else


CreatureRadarView

Renderer Creature Model


Renderer
Creature
CreatureView
3DObj
Vs. 3DObj
Advantages of MVC

 Complete decoupling of logic from display


 Easier to test, since you can watch just the logic
 Easier to change (both the display and the logic)
 Can run the view without the logic
 Can run the logic without the view
 Can distribute the logic
 So long as instances are encapsulated
Other Quick Patterns
 Command
 An object that represents stuff that should be done,
as an object
 Only needs to understand “Execute” and “Undo”
 Great for input handlers, macros, and undoable
operations
 Façade
 Encapsulate an entire system by providing a single
coherent interface
 Proxy
 A stand in for a concrete object.
Engine Improvements

Renderer Player View Player Model

Creature View Creature Model


3DObj AI Queue
Bullet View Bullet Model
2DObj
Item View Item Model

IResource

File Facade
Sound
Input File Loader
3dSnd
Best Practices
 Management idea
 That there is a technique that is more effective than any
other technique at delivering positive results.
 Something you don’t have to do, but it’s a good idea.
 They’re like design patterns on a small scale.
 Two books:
 Pragmatic Programmer by Andrew Hunt and David Thomas
 C++ Coding Standards: 101 Rules, Guidelines, and Best
Practices by Herb Sutter and Andrei Alexandrescu
Examples of Best Practices
 Management Best Practices
 Use version control
 Do automated testing
 Have automated builds
 Coding Best Practices
 Prefer compile / link time errors to run time errors
 Give one entity one cohesive responsibility
 Prefer composition to inheritance
 Always code for concurrency (in terms of
architecture)
Best Practices

Are key to your survival as a coder…


… and key to your code’s survival
Final Thoughts

 Know when to refactor


 Know when to rearchitect
 Know that both are going to break everything
else
 Code, Test, Refactor, Test Cycle
 Try to automate this
 Code is better at testing code than you will ever be.
Summary

 Architect for cleaner, more stable, more


reusable, and more understandable code.
 Use the principles of OOP to your advantage,
not your detriment
 Utilize design patterns to avoid common
problems
 Understand best practices and apply them.
 Make great games.
Questions?

[email protected]
http://www.jeffongames.com

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