The Early Days ! The very earliest video games (pre-1975) Graphics and Genres were custom built machines. ! Designed/built by engineers (like a TV). Tennis for Two CMPUT 299 (Brookhaven Labs,1958) Finnegan Southey XBox Live GamerTag: Alea CMPUT 299 - Fall 2005 Graphics, Genres, and Design Pong (Atari, 1972) Hardware vs. Software Development of Early Games ! Later games (1975 to present) were built ! Programs written by one individual. using new-fangled microprocessors ! Graphics, sound, controls, rules, AI… ! General-purpose hardware that runs software. …all by one person. ! No need to engineer from scratch for every game. Gunfight (Taito, 1975) CMPUT 299 - Fall 2005 Graphics, Genres, and Design CMPUT 299 - Fall 2005 Graphics, Genres, and Design Development of Early Games State vs. Dynamics ! Games were simple. ! Fundamental distinction in computing (and ! The machines were still quite simple many other things) ! Very limited storage ! State ! no “pictures” or recorded music ! All information that describes the game at a given ! Limited speed moment ! focus on moving small things around on the screen ! Dynamics ! Only so much one could do ! The way one state turns into another ! more people would be a waste of effort CMPUT 299 - Fall 2005 Graphics, Genres, and Design CMPUT 299 - Fall 2005 Graphics, Genres, and Design State Dynamics ! positions of all game entities ! agents moving due to player controls ! walls ! agents moving due to artificial intelligence ! resources: health, magic points, money, fuel, etc. ! agents moving due to “physics” ! points: score, tokens collected, goals achieved ! agents not moving due to “collisions” ! inventories: weapons, magic items, gadgets, food ! updating view of the world ! switches: doors locked/unlocked, levers pulled ! health changes from damage/healing ! velocities of game entities ! special powers/action executed ! character names, stats, description ! much, much more… ! everything that changes one state into another… CMPUT 299 - Fall 2005 Graphics, Genres, and Design CMPUT 299 - Fall 2005 Graphics, Genres, and Design Memory and Processors Memory Size ! Two main parts of a computer ! Memories have a size ! Memory stores state ! in the 70’s, measured in kB (kilobytes) ! in the late 80’s and 90’s, measured in MB (megabytes) ! Processors access and change memory (1 MB = 1000 kB) (dynamics) ! late 90’s to present day, measure in GB (gigabytes) (1 ! The main processor in a computer is called GB = 1000 MB) the central processing unit (CPU). ! Early games had 4 kB ! Games today will cheerfully use several GB CPU Memory ! a factor of one million (1 DVD holds over 4 GB) CMPUT 299 - Fall 2005 Graphics, Genres, and Design CMPUT 299 - Fall 2005 Graphics, Genres, and Design Processors Memory Types ! Processors are rated by how quickly they can ! Memories can be perform calculations on things in memory ! fast or slow ! A program is a set of instructions that tells the ! memory for showing graphics and doing processor what to do with the information in calculations is fast (it can be accessed quickly) memory. ! harddisks and DVDs are much slower but hold ! Programmers write these instructions. much more ! Early microprocessor games were a program + a ! read-only or read/write tiny amount of data ! read-only memory (like a game’s DVD) cannot be changed ! A contemporary game is a program + lots and lots ! read/write memory can be changed of data CMPUT 299 - Fall 2005 Graphics, Genres, and Design CMPUT 299 - Fall 2005 Graphics, Genres, and Design Memory Types Storage for Games ! Another distinction ! RAM chips: volatile, read-write ! volatile: erased when power turned off ! microchips for running game ! non-volatile: retains information unpowered ! part of game machine ! And another ! ROM chips: non-volatile, read-only ! moving parts vs. no moving parts ! expensive per amount of memory ! can affect reliability/portability ! microchips CMPUT 299 - Fall 2005 Graphics, Genres, and Design CMPUT 299 - Fall 2005 Graphics, Genres, and Design Storage for Games Storage for Games ! cartridges ! cassette (magnetic tape): non-volatile, read-write ! ROM chips in a plastic case ! moving parts ! connectors attach chip to game machine ! early personal computers (and some arcade?) ! durable ! not very durable ! cartridges with save memory ! sequential access (have to rewind/fast forward to ! ROM chips + non-volatile, read/write memory chips reach different information) ! allows storage of saved games/high scores ! floppy disk: non-volatile, read-write ! memory cards ! moving parts ! small cartridges with non-volatile, read/write memory ! early personal computers chips ! not very durable ! used to save games when cartridges went out of style ! “random” access (can quickly access any piece of CMPUT 299 - Fall 2005 Graphics, Genres, and Design CMPUTinformation) 299 - Fall 2005 Graphics, Genres, and Design Storage for Games Storage for Games ! hard-disk: non-volatile, read-write ! magnetic strip cards: non-volatile, read-write ! moving parts ! arcade for saving stats/games (Initial D, F-Zero AX, ! later personal computers and XBox Tekken 5) ! much larger storage and faster access than floppy ! very limited storage ! expensive ! very cheap ! laser disc: non-volatile, read-only ! CD-ROM: non-volatile, read-only ! moving parts, tons of storage ! moving parts, lots of storage ! able to store full screen video ! cheap to mass produce ! expensive (videophile technology) ! arcade (Killer Instinct) and later personal computers ! arcade (Dragon’s Lair, Mach 3, Space Ace) ! consoles (3DO, Saturn, Playstation) (N64 still cartridge!) CMPUT 299 - Fall 2005 Graphics, Genres, and Design CMPUT 299 - Fall 2005 Graphics, Genres, and Design Storage for Games Software-Based Games ! DVD-ROM: non-volatile, read-only ! Once microprocessors were used for games, ! moving parts, tons of storage programmers took control. ! cheap to mass produce ! personal computers ! The advent of personal ! consoles (XBox, Playstation2) computers (~1976) opened ! Custom disc formats (Dreamcast, Gamecube) up the field to “amateurs”. Gunfight (Taito, 1975) ! Coming up: DVD-HD and BluRay (PS3) ! bigger DVD ! Basement game programmers ! Piracy! (arrrr…) CMPUT 299 - Fall 2005 Graphics, Genres, and Design CMPUT 299 - Fall 2005 Graphics, Genres, and Design Cathode Ray Tubes (CRT) Diagram of CRT ! Braun (1897) - CRT oscilloscope ! Zworykin (1929) kinescope (early TV) ! Du Mont (1931) first commercial TV tube Tennis for Two (Brookhaven Labs,1958) Diagram courtesy of Wikipedia CMPUT 299 - Fall 2005 Graphics, Genres, and Design CMPUT 299 - Fall 2005 Graphics, Genres, and Design Very pretty, but where’s the gamepad? Video courtesy of the University of Illinois, Dept. of Chemistry Diagram courtesy of Williamson Labs CMPUT 299 - Fall 2005 Graphics, Genres, and Design CMPUT 299 - Fall 2005 Graphics, Genres, and Design Games with Vector Graphics Vector Graphics (no more after 1985) ! Use CRT’s beam like a pen. ! Asteroids (Atari, 1979) ! Turn beam on and off to draw lines. ! Lunar Lander (Atari, 1979) ! Use magnets to guide it. ! Battlezone (Atari, 1980) ! How many lines you can draw depends on ! Red Baron (Atari, 1980) ! how fast you can move the beam around ! how long the image stays on the fluorescent ! Tempest (Atari, 1980) screen ! Space Fury (Sega, 1981) ! Draw all lines for one frame… repeat. ! Star Wars (Atari, 1983) CMPUT 299 - Fall 2005 Graphics, Genres, and Design CMPUT 299 - Fall 2005 Graphics, Genres, and Design Cool Things About Vector Issues with Vector Graphics Graphics ! Time to draw frame depends on complexity ! Wireframe (3D) of frame ! Smooth lines (even diagonals) ! Beam moves in arbitrary pattern ! It’s all green and glowy and stuff… ! different patterns possible for same picture ! Makes me feel like I’m in a submarine or ! what’s the best (fastest) pattern? something… ! Directly control beam with game CMPUT 299 - Fall 2005 Graphics, Genres, and Design CMPUT 299 - Fall 2005 Graphics, Genres, and Design Raster Graphics Raster (aka Bitmap) Images ! Basis of TV and almost all graphics today ! Treat screen like a “grid” ! Move beam in fixed pattern lighting up the screen in little dots ! These dots are called pixels 0 0 0 0 ! Change beam intensity to make pixels 0 1 1 0 brighter or darker 0 1 1 0 0 1 1 0 CMPUT 299 - Fall 2005 Graphics, Genres, and Design CMPUT 299 - Fall 2005 Graphics, Genres, and Design Rendering the Screen Grayscale 0 0 0 0 Video Hardware 0 1 1 0 Screen Image 0 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 0 0 100100 0 Image Buffer 0 50 50 0 0 10 10 0 Game Software CMPUT 299 - Fall 2005 Graphics, Genres, and Design CMPUT 299 - Fall 2005 Graphics, Genres, and Design CRT Screen Refresh Colour Pixels 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 0 0 1 1 0 0 1 1 0 CMPUT 299 - Fall 2005 Graphics, Genres, and Design CMPUT 299 - Fall 2005 Graphics, Genres, and Design Diagram of Colour CRT RGB Images 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 100100 0 0 100100 0 0 100100 0 0 50 50 0 0 50 50 0 0 50 50 0 0 10 10 0 0 10 10 0 0 10 10 0 CMPUT 299 - Fall 2005 Graphics, Genres, and Design CMPUT 299 - Fall 2005 Graphics, Genres, and Design How many pixels? How many colours? ! If we make pixels smaller, we can fit more! ! Fineness of grid called resolution (width x height) ! Suppose we’re using grayscale. ! Typical television resolution ! If we have 10 different values for ! grid of 648 x 486 (~300,000 pixels) brightness, then we get black, white, and 8 ! Computer screens, HDTV shades of gray. ! 1024 x 768 (~780,000 pixels) ! ! 1280 x 1024 (~1.3 million pixels) If we have 10 different values for each of ! 1600 x 1200 (~1.9 million