Questions tagged [terminology]
Terminology is the vocabulary of technical terms in the game development field.
177
questions
2
votes
1answer
203 views
Shadow cubemapping?
I am working on a game with C++ and OpenGL 3.2. I have successfully implemented directional shadow maps and now I'd like to upgrade them to shadow cube maps (for point lights). I've done some Googling ...
32
votes
4answers
25k views
What's the difference between mesh and a model?
Which one is created first? For example if a team worked on a graphical asset of a car, what would be a model and what would be a mesh of the car?
3
votes
2answers
104 views
terminology: a position and a facing
my units have a function that returns a position (vec3) and a facing (quaternion) for any point in time.
A position and direction is perhaps called a ray or, in some contexts, a line segment; however,...
2
votes
2answers
6k views
What's the difference between a game engine and a physics engine?
What's the difference between a game engine and a physics engine? How do they work together, and what's the meeting point between them?
4
votes
2answers
877 views
What are the properties of “position, velocity, acceleration, rotation” collectively named?
They say naming things is one of the hardest problems in computer programming. They were right.
Given the pseudocode below, what is a more appropriate name for this collection of properties? "Course",...
17
votes
3answers
8k views
What is the technical definition of “sprite batching?”
Platform and language agnostically, how is sprite batching defined? It seems as though there are many different techniques for lessening the amount of work when drawing, and that they are often lumped ...
6
votes
1answer
717 views
Unit selection circle
I do not know whether it's called a circle, or whether it's called a halo or whatever.
But, I do know that I want to know what is the game development world term for this.
So, how do we call it?
23
votes
5answers
16k views
What is the difference between a game framework and a game engine?
What is the difference between a game framework (for example, XNA with C#, SDL for c++) and a game engine?
Do game frameworks use engines? Does a game engine encapsulate sub-engines like physics ...
4
votes
6answers
810 views
Should I refer to browser-based games as HTML5 games or Javascript games?
First of all, I know that there are alternatives to both HTML5 and Javascript, but I worded the question so generally ("browser-based") because if I had said "HTML5" or "Javascript" games that would ...
-2
votes
3answers
74 views
Word for the combination of location and orientation (other than transform) [closed]
I'm trying to come up with a name for a class that encompasses an entity's position and orientation. This class isn't a transformation in the 3D sense- a transformation is something this class might ...
0
votes
1answer
3k views
What are “view frustum”, “focal length” and near plane distance?
I've been reading through "Mathematics for 3D game programming and Computer Graphics" lately. Specifically definition of the view frustum and how the APIs generally process it, author introduces the ...
2
votes
2answers
563 views
What is the proper term for “permanent world”?
How to name the fact that for a MMO game there's one big session, the same things are happening for all the players, you log out and after two days log in to the same place as the same person ?
I'd ...
26
votes
3answers
23k views
What is a “Gameplay Programmer”?
In job descriptions, I often see positions called "Gameplay Programmer." What do people in that position do?
5
votes
2answers
1k views
Are polygon normals really shadeable?
Garry's Mod has a copy-protection trap that shows this error:
Unable to shade polygon normals
It made me wonder if such a problem could ever actually exist. Can polygon normals be shaded? Is a ...
4
votes
3answers
555 views
Is there a better term for a thing that hosts a game story script than “game engine?”
When I recently entered the field of game development, I actually assumed that “game engine” meant something with which you can make your game story script run in an environment where non-player ...
31
votes
3answers
8k views
What is the difference between a library and an engine?
I am working on a library to help 2D game development with Scala. So far, it is a collection of helpful classes, file loading, collision detection, images, sprites, etc.
So when does it stop being a ...
36
votes
4answers
6k views
What is a fragment in 3D graphics programming?
What is a fragment in a fragment shader? Wikipedia says that:
In general, a fragment can be thought of as the data needed to shade the pixel, plus the data needed to test whether the fragment ...
6
votes
2answers
1k views
What does the term 'photorealistic' really mean?
I was wondering about the term 'photorealistic' in regards to rendering and was wondering how this is used.
Is it used to describe a shader (or set of) that have certain quantifiable features? Or any ...
10
votes
6answers
6k views
3D Illusion of a 2D Planet Texture
Several years ago I overheard a technique that gives the user the illusion of a rotating planet by using a 2D texture. Given that the user isn't able to change its position or viewport.
What's the ...
3
votes
1answer
272 views
Name of the model in memory that you use for map collision detection?
I'm trying to remember the English name for a memory model of a map built exclusively for handling collision detection. I think this is especially frequent in tile-based platform games.
I believe the ...
4
votes
2answers
388 views
What term is used to refer to iPhone and Android games?
What do you call games developed for Android or iPhone to differentiate them from games developed for other platforms?
5
votes
3answers
387 views
What is the name of the balancing technique that reduces the incremental value of bonuses?
Some games, including Dungeon Crawl (example), use a balancing technique that attempts to prevent certain values (stats, damage, etc.) from being excessively high. The algorithm looks like this:
<...
15
votes
2answers
16k views
What is “game state?”
The terminology "game state" is a bit vague to me. Could anybody clarify what is included in the game state, please?
Is it a state of all the variables and objects within the game at particular ...
7
votes
3answers
498 views
What is the name for the little numbers that appear over characters' heads when they lose health?
...you know the ones. Something like "value overlays" or "value pop-ups" describes them quite well, but I was thinking they might have a real name?
22
votes
1answer
13k views
What is “procedural generation” and how is it done?
I hear a lot about "procedural maps" and "procedural textures". What does that mean exactly, and what resources are there for learning these techniques in a game?
54
votes
3answers
20k views
What is deferred rendering?
I've heard about deferred rendering and how using it can allow for "lots" of lights in a scene without a huge performance hit, but what is it and (from a high level) how is it implemented?
55
votes
6answers
124k views
What is ambient occlusion?
I've heard about ambient occlusion and it looks nice, but what exactly is it?
