Part 6 (final part) of “Building World-class Art Tools” from Develop 08
The more you’ve invested in a tool, the more projects you want to use it on, to recover that investment. This means in turn that it’s harder to anticipate everything the tool must do: each project will be different. You want to try and [...]
Archive for the ‘Tools’ Category
Extensible tools
Posted in Develop 08, Software development, Tools on September 6, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Model View Controller is Extinct
Posted in Develop 08, Software development, Tools on August 30, 2008 | 1 Comment »
Part 5 of “Building World-class Art Tools” from Develop 08
Today’s post has been a particular pleasure: one of those special times when writing changed my mind. At my original talk at Develop, I said “use Model View Controller”, loud and clear. I even made it key message number 8:
In the talk, I was short of [...]
The case against C++
Posted in Develop 08, Software development, Tools on August 10, 2008 | 3 Comments »
Part 4 of “Building World-class Art Tools” from Develop 08
This post boils down to one simple headline: don’t use C++ for game tools development. But nothing is ever quite that simple – so if you have time, read on
Think
That headline is deliberately provocative, but all I really want you to do is think. [...]
Procedural content generation
Posted in Develop 08, Tools on August 5, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Part 3 of “Building World-class Art Tools” from Develop 08
Last time round I argued that it’s increasingly worth investing in content creation, and before that I pointed out that your first solution should always be to buy the best that money can buy (and secondly to extend an existing commercial product). Today, however, I want [...]
Optimising content creation
Posted in Develop 08, Tools on August 3, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Part 2 of “Building World-class Art Tools” from Develop 08
I’d like to take you back in time momentarily, to older games. The further back you go, the less significance content creation held – far enough, and the very term “content creation” presumably didn’t exist. Limited storage space on the hardware must have played a role, [...]
Why not to build in-house tools
Posted in Develop 08, Software development, Tools on August 2, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Part 1 of “Building World-class Art Tools” from Develop 08
Before I talk about how to build great in-house tools, I want to talk about why to build in-house tools, or looked at another way, why not! Understanding the motivation and reasons behind doing your work, whatever that work may be, is always of critical importance. [...]
