Video Game Developer WIP

So, I've taken almost a year off from any serious work in the video game developer's inner circle, instead doing stuff for web and print. I guess since it's been a long time off, I'm starting to feel that little itch stronger than ever - the one that means the seeds of creativity are starting to bloom again. I wanted to do something completely different than what I am used to, so I thought I'd share what I'm working on recently.

This is a 3-D model that I created that is so far hovering around 6500 polygons. In any game, a single object at 6+k polygons is much too expensive for the GPU to handle properly in real time when summed up with all the other objects being drawn in the game world. Toss two or three of these models in, add foreground, background, a few character models, etc, etc and you get a very pretty slide show instead of a dynamically changing virtual world.

So the idea is to find a shortcut to represent the 6500 polygons using as few as say, 40 polygons. We do this by generating something called a normal map, an image file that captures the vectors of the high polygon model and projects them onto the low polygon model. In effect, we can simulate all the details of the high polygon model that will be used exclusively within our modeling program, onto our low polygon model that will be actually used in game, resulting in some 6460 spare polygons that we can use elsewhere.

Some interesting things happen when we add lighting, the low polygon model can actually self-shadow, that is, cast virtual, dynamic shadows on itself generated from the small bumps and grooves of the high polygon model.

For the uninitiated, this probably all sounds really confusing, so as I get further down the workflow, I'll post some comparison images that will illustrate the effect. The point I'm trying to get across is that what you see in a video game, a heck of a lot more goes on behind the scene than most people realize, especially when it comes to optimizing everything so that your computer/console won't play back a slideshow.