Call of Duty: What it is at it’s core

Most gamers have probably heard of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. Most game developers have as well. Many gamers and game developers alike have probably at some point asked “what makes the past three Call of Duty games so great?” Then they end up postulating that it is the gameplay, or the graphics. Call of Duty, at its core, is a game that has appealing graphics, story, and gameplay. The graphics stick out the most when anyone first looks at the game. The original Modern Warfare really raised the bar on graphics with a high amount of photorealism. The textures were great, the art equally great, along with a great engine to render it all with. The fire and explosion effects were equally great. The graphics were good from a technical and artistic point of view. However, a game cannot go well solely because of graphics. Call of Duty’s main strength is its gameplay. Any game that has enjoyable gameplay will really do well. Gameplay really covers nearly all of the components of a game. If the graphics are bad, then the gameplay is hampered as well. Similarly, if the AI is bad, this will also hamper the gameplay. Having strong gameplay means that the game is able to perform in other areas well enough to stand together and that the game is overall fun to play. Gameplay involves what a player can do in a game. Call of Duty has good gunplay, along with enough variety in the game that the gunplay doesn’t get old. This translates into an excellent online multiplayer gaming as well. Some people are probably wondering “what about the AI?”. Call of Duty is not an AI based game, meaning that its AI does not comprise the core of its strengths. Assassin’s Creed, for example, would be a complete and total cakewalk if the AI failed to give a good enough challenge to the player. Call of Duty, however, only needs AI that can give the game a good pace. It cannot be easy, otherwise the gameplay would be hampered, however, it does not have a true sense of challenge to it, at least in the first Modern Warfare. The AI in both Modern Warfare and World at War were adequate enough that it did not affect the gameplay, but it did not have incredibly intelligent foes to fight against. Killzone 2, for example, had enemies that really did give the player a good fight, but were still easy enough to defeat. Modern Warfare 2 improved on the AI substantially, bringing it now to a level close to that of Killzone 2. Most shooters do not ever focus on AI, and this is why it does not matter very much in Call of Duty.

Unity 3d is now free!

You heard us right. The Indie version of Unity 3d is now a free download on the Unity website! Originally, we wrote that Unity is not a great software for beginners. That is true, however, for current C# and Java users, it is the perfect software to switch to for game developement. Go to the Unity website at unity3d.com to download it!

Game AI structure: Heirarchical Command Structure

There are many ways to arrange a game AI structure. Each one has its strengths and weaknesses. Each one is suited to a different task. A Heirarchical Command Structure is a sort of structure we at Kryotech use in some of our games. First and foremost, what is a Heirachical Command Structure? Imagine a chain of command in the military. At the lowest level is the individual soldier, who fights on the basis of the orders/rules of engagement. After that there are squad leadesr, and platoon leaders etc, etc. At the top of the structure are the genreals. They direct all of the action, but usually do not fight in the engagement at all. As one can see, there is a cmmmand structure. Similarly, one can make a game AI using a similar structure. At the lowest level, there are the individual Ai’s, that are the basic soldiers. The next level would be the squad AI’s, that would dictate the squad tactics. After that, there are platoon AI’s, or AI’s that command a sest number of AI’s, and dictate where they need to go, what tactics need to be employed. Then there are the highest level of AI’s, the command AI, that is like the platoon AI, but on a larger scale. Remember, that there can be any number of levels in the command structure. What is the benefit of such a structured AI? The immediate genre that pops out is RTS, as it can really benefit from this sort of AI structure, depending on how the game works. However, most open world games can also benefit from a structured, heirarchical AI system. In Assassin’s Creed, for example, squad AI would be responsible for the actions of the squads pursuing Altair, and command Ai would route reinforcements to wherever they are needed. While it is unlikely that Assassin’s Creed really did use this AI system, it is a good examples of the uses of such a structure.

The Basic Game AI

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is not as difficult to create as some people think. A basic AI can be created by even the most novice programmers. There’s some basic things to remember when one creates game AI. The first thing to remember is that game AI is an illusion of intelligence. Your AI does not need to be a complex model that actually simulates some sort of complext model. What it needs to do is give the player of your game an illusion of intelligence. It needs to make the player feel as though he’s playing an intelligent foe. There are many ways to go down this path, and we will not go into them in this post. Another thing to remember is that an overly simplistic AI is never the solution either. In the days of Mario, the enemies did the exact same thing every single time you played the game. After that, we had games that had an AI that would literally wait to die after detecting a player in its patrol path. If all your AI does is attack once it sees the player, then you know something is wrong. That sort of AI does have its place, but not in most games. If you are trying to create a typical game AI, then that is probably not what you want. The main point of not having overly simplsitic AI is that it shouldn’t look like it’s doing something without purpose. Your AI should at least be intelligent enough that it can give the player a fight. However, the AI should not be so hard that it can’t be beaten ever. This leads us into our next point, which is that make sure that your AI fits in to whatever role it has. If your enemies are the inhumanly strong Helghan from Killzone 2, then the AI should play to those strengths. If your AI has the role of being the grunts from Halo, then they should obviously not be incredibly smart. If your AI is like the Leapers from resistance, then they should have a very simplistic AI. However, that AI should look like it has a purpose. In general, your AI should play to the strengths given to it and have a general sense of purpose without giving the player an extremely easy cakewalk without being too hard. However, the most important thing to remember is that your AI should create an illusion of intelligence.

What makes a good game?

Daz Studio Software review

We can start off by saying that this software is initially free. Note, however, that we say initially, as all the add ons, models, and morphs cost money. It isn’t a great deal of money, but it can start to add up. With that said, Daz Studio has some truly amazing capabilities. Like most softwares for character modelling, it isn’t creating models from scratch, but it is rather editing them to look different. The ease of use may not be apparent at start, but once one reads through the manual, it gets very easy to use. Plus, the power in this package is also quite amazing, as the results can be truly astounding. This is our rating:

Power: 8.5

Ease of use: 8.5

It is a great balance of ease of use and power. However, it may not seem to have all of the editing capabilities out of the box (when you download it). One needs to buy the rest of the capabilties, such as face morphs. This goes for every model. If you are fine with this, then this software is for you. We found it to be a nuisance, as not having everything out of the box is annoying.

3D Canvas software review

3D canvas is an ineteresting software actually. It’s a good mix of ease of use, and power. 3D Canvas is a software that someone can pretty much just pick up and start using. One can learn how to use it from just exerimentation on its own. There is no need for tutorials. Evem for the more advanced versions, it is very easy to use. However, it sacrifices power for this ease of use. Unlike Blender, it cannot perform all of the high level functions that can truly make an object magnificent. This is our rating:

Power: 6.5

Ease of Use: 9.8

This is a software that can turn out results quickly, but it cannot turn out results that are as good as that of Blender. However, its ease of use makes it a great software for anyone to use. This is a software generally for those who are more itnerested in something easy to use, that can still turn out results.

Blender software review

Blender is a open source 3d modelling package. The best part about it is that it’s free. With that said, it isn’t the easiest software to use. The learning curve is pretty steep. If one reads the tutorials, all of them, he or she can become an expert on Blender. However, Blender does have the power. The results it can turn out are amazing. Not only is Blender a modelling software, but it is also an engine within itself, allowing for scripting, and much more. Our rating is as follows:

Ease of use: 1.2

Power: 9.9

While it is not the easiest software to use, it is free, and it has true power to craft some of the most amazing things. With some time and effort, a beginner can learn the software, and use it quite effectively. All in all, Blender is definitely a software worth using.

MakeHuman Alpha 3b: The Good, the Bad, and the Uses

Let us start off by saying that this Alpha is still pretty much in the works. They have added quite a bit of new features, such as hair. Thing is, the we haven’t really figured out how to put the hair on the model. It looks like a bug, but we’re not sure if it is us, or if it’s them. It doesn’t really matter though. The export function is working now, which is a very good thing. It exports in the Wavefront format (which is .obj). For those of us who want to use the premodelled and toned up meshes in Blender or any other modelling studio, it is now possible. This Alpha is more or less the same as the older ones, except that it now has some of the bugs fixed. In general, the rating remains the same (see the original review of the MakeHuman software), but we are talking about some possible ways to use this alpha. For one, one can export it into other softwares, such as Blender, and make the models much better, such as texturing, clothing, etc. Another thing to keep in mind is that the 0.9.1 version of the MakeHuman software is much more complete. Meaning, that it has more functionality, and is in general a more complete software package. If you’re looking for the complete package, use the older alpha. However, if you want the newest features, and don’t really care about the full functionality, then use the newest alpha. In general, the MakeHuman software is coming along quite nicely. Hopefully, it will be finished sometime soon.

MakeHuman Alpha software review

As most game developers know, 3d modeling is arguably the hardest part of game development. Character modeling is even more difficult to do unless one has the trained manpower. For people who do not have the manpower (most people do not), tools that can turn out models with little effort yet have great results are required. For character modeling, the software exists. There are many softwares dedicated to just character modeling. We at Kryotech judge software on two main categories:

Ease of use-meaning that is the software truly easy to use and can create results quickly without too much trouble

Power-meaning that can the software allow to create some truly magnificent things on all levels

There are three softwares that are dedicated to character modeling. One of them is Pose, but it is a very expensive software that most indie developers cannot afford. Another is Daz, which we will talk about in a different review. The last one is MakeHuman, which is still under development, but it can be reviewed at this point. MakeHuman is still in it’s Alpha stages, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be reviewed. Currently, MakeHuman is actually a very useful tool in character modeling. At the current stage, it does provide what it promises. The creators of MakeHuman have mentioned on their site that the software is intended to be easy to use and be able to create magnificent models. While the characters are not truly magnificent (in comparison to Daz), if one needs an easy to use software to create models, MakeHuman can be used. MakeHuman has features that enables one to edit the character on the bases of age, weight, and muscle tone. It even has tools that allow for one to change the features of the character based on the ethnicity. It allows one to scale all the major parts of the character and to move them. It has a very deep editing system that allow one to edit the character and model it very comprehensively. All in all, MakeHuman is looking good so far. This is our final rating on a scale of ten:

Ease of use: 9.8

Power: 8.5

While it is very easy to use, no character modeling software offers as much as proper 3d modeling, but besides that, MakeHuman looks good for the Alpha version. It has no support for clothes or for hair, but what we suggest is to use it in conjunction with software that already has this support (such as Daz, or any other modeling software). We are really looking forward to this software once it comes out. It may be the alternative that indie game developers are looking for instead of Pose. The only problem is, that most of us do not know when it will come out, as it has been in the Alpha stage for a very long time.