The Game Asset Pipeline (Game Development Series) - Softcover

Carter, Ben

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1584503424 ISBN 13: 9781584503422

Publisher: Charles River Media, 2004

Synopsis

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 tools 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.

About this title

Review:

1 Introduction 2 Where Do Assets Come From? 3 A High-Level View of Asset Management 4 Building an Asset Management System 5 Texture and Image Processing 6 Geometry Processing 7 Audio and Video Processing 8 Environment Processing 9 Managing Asset Processing 10 Final Data

Synopsis:

As modern game development moves toward creating richer, more detailed worlds than ever before, so do the demands on the systems for managing and processing the vast quantities of digital resources used in these worlds. Digital Asset Management and Processing for Games is a technically-oriented guide to the problems and potential solutions that can be employed to tackle this issue. Each stage of the resource pipeline is examined in detail and practical guidelines are included. Written for engine and tools programmers responsible for the development and maintenance of export tools, asset management, data pre-processing, or packaging, the book begins with coverage of file archival and version control systems. It provides specific examples of asset creation packages such as 3ds max[trademark], Photoshop[registered], etc., and covers current and future storage technologies, including the coming of blue-ray discs, and the proliferation of small, high-density discs such as Sony's UMD standard. From there coverage moves to the critical technology issues facing developers.

Because few commercial solutions exist, programmers have to create their own tools from scratch, and this section covers the basic techniques that are required for most games. The book concludes with a section on compression, cryptography, and storage technology. This is the one book that will guide the production team through the daunting task of managing the vast array of game assets in a structured, practical method.

About this edition

• Publisher: Charles River Media
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 1584503424
• ISBN 13: 9781584503422
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 320