Windows Phone 7 : 3D Game Development (part 1) - 3D Game Concepts

1. 3D Game Concepts

Programming in 2D is similar in process to hand-drawing a cartoon on paper. You can draw a scene in 2D that makes objects appear near or in the background, providing perspective that models the 3D real world. 3D game development results in the same 2D projection on a flat 2D screen, however, the path to rendering is very different.

In 3D game development, you create a 3D world using wireframe models with a skin over the wireframe that is a 2D texture. The view into the world is similar to viewing the real world behind a camera, where the front aspect of an object is visible and the back of an object is not; however, the back of an object still exists. As an example, Figure 1 shows a sample 3D rendering named Pac Man displayed in CaligritruSpace with views from different angles.

Figure 1. 3D model rendered in Caligri trueSpace

You can spin, rotate, and zoom in on the model to get a different view of the environment. Just as in the real world, any view you pick is translated into a 2D rendering. However, with 3D game development, as hardware grows more powerful, the 3D model and rendering comes closer and closer to the real world. With the power of matrix mathematics, 3D vectors, and Algorithms, a game developer can fly around a 3D model of an imaginary world resulting in an immersive experience.

1.1. Modeling the Real World

For 3D game development, you mathematically create the camera view on the loaded model. As a user manipulates a game controller or tilts a phone in a mobile game experience, the Accelerometer readings can be measured and the movement is translated to affect the camera view in the model.

A 3D world can be quite expansive, so much so that trying to render an entire world model will bog down even the most powerful graphics cards. Just like viewing the real world through a camera, developers mathematically create a view that consists of a boxed 3D area that is rendered called the Frustum.

The Frustum consists of a near plane, a far plane, left and right plane that boxes an area of view, as shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2. Frustum area of a view

Notice that some objects are shown outside of the Frustum; this means that if the scene is rendered those objects would not be shown. If the user moves the camera closer in, the people would come into view. Likewise, moving the camera towards the cars could begin to bring in the building in the background. Notice in Figure 8-4 that the developer could decide to make the Frustum longer, with the near plane in front of the crowd of people and behind the buildings. As mentioned before, this could overload the graphics card resulting in frame rate loss, especially in a high-speed racing game. This is the essence of 3D game development, building out a model and rendering it in such a way that user movement feels "natural" within the game.

1.2. 3D Coordinate Systems

The XNA Framework is engineered to work with the modeling techniques in the previous section, modeling the real world via 3D coordinate systems and mathematics to project a view of a 3D experience to a game player. At the heart of 3D is the coordinate system.

Remember in 2D game development that the 2D origin (X,Y) is in the upper left-hand corner of the screen with positive X going left to right and positive Y going top to bottom. In 3D game development, the origin (0,0,0) can be at the center of a car model, or it could be at an arbitrary place in the overall 3D world. In reality, there are multiple 3D origins that are relatively positioned to each other. A model has a 3D origin that runs through the center of the model or could be centered at the bottom of the model, depending on what makes most sense for the game at that time. You can rotate around the model origin, and the model would spin like a top.

Likewise, the overall world will have an origin as well. You can also rotate a model about the 3D world origin like a plane orbiting the sun in our Solar System.

One aspect of coordinate systems that needs to be consistent is how the three axis (X,Y,Z) are oriented. In 3D game development, this is called either a right-handed or left-handed coordinate system. Figure 3 shows the two coordinate systems taken from the DirectX documentation on MSDN.

Figure 3. Left-handed and right-handed coordinate systems

So the idea is you can use your hand to remember the direction of the positive Z access. Point your fingers in the direction of the positive X axis and curl your fingers up toward the positive Y axis, and your thumb points in the direction of the positive Z axis.