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Re: Jason Jones interview
Posted By: M-ClassDate: 1/9/02 3:11 p.m.

In Response To: Re: Jason Jones interview (M-Class)

Q. Basically, the program generates a frame or a screen of animation every so often. In between this, it processes events that ocurred, maybe a user interaction.

A. Let me explain that a little better. There are two things that go on. There's a big piece of data sitting in memory somewhere that represents the state of the world at any given time. It tells you where the monsters are, where the projectiles are in the air, and where all the players are. It also indicates if doors are open, if objects are in certain places, and if there's something exploding. The data block has all that information.

Basically, we give that big piece of data to the rendering engine, which turns it into a picture. It [the engine] renders a screen to show to the player, based on where the player is and what he can see from that position. Essentially, the input to the rendering engine is the state of the world, and the output is a bitmap that represents what the player sees. So then we display that bitmap and then, depending on how much time has passed, we may have a lot or a little work to do. If it took a long time to render that frame, we have a lot of work to do. If that frame was renderedin less than a 30th of a second, then we might not have any work to do. In that case, we actually wait until the state of the world changes.

We have thirty updates a second, or, put another way, our world changes every 30th of a second. We monitor the player's keyboard every 30th of a second, and we check the network for other player's commands every 30th of a second. Then, between frames, we handle all the updates that occurred while we were rendering the previous frame. Finally, we render the next frame. It is not like Doom, where things reportedly happen asychronously. However, we do a lot of stuff asychronously. A lot of work on the update happens this way. We have an interrupt that fires every 30th of second and a lot of work happens during that interrupt.

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Pre-2004 Posts

Replies:

Jason Jones interviewAndrew Nagy 1/9/02 8:31 a.m.
     Also, while playing Marathon 2 the other day...Andrew Nagy 1/9/02 9:10 a.m.
     Re: Jason Jones interviewHamish Sinclair 1/9/02 9:17 a.m.
           Re: Jason Jones interviewwhocares 1/9/02 11:31 a.m.
           Re: Jason Jones interviewM-Class 1/9/02 2:51 p.m.
                 Re: Jason Jones interviewM-Class 1/9/02 3:11 p.m.
                       Re: Jason Jones interviewM-Class 1/9/02 3:24 p.m.
                             Re: Jason Jones interviewM-Class 1/9/02 3:43 p.m.
                                   Re: Jason Jones interviewM-Class 1/9/02 3:54 p.m.
                                         Cool. Are you going to continue? *NM*Hamish Sinclair 1/9/02 9:28 p.m.
                                               HAMISH!!Khral 1/10/02 2:39 a.m.
                                                     Re: HAMISH!!Hamish Sinclair 1/10/02 3:11 a.m.
                                               yep, I got sleepy last night *NM*M-Class 1/10/02 10:58 a.m.
                                         Re: Jason Jones interviewM-Class 1/10/02 11:17 a.m.
                                               Re: Jason Jones interviewM-Class 1/10/02 11:34 a.m.
                                                     Re: Jason Jones interviewM-Class 1/12/02 9:43 a.m.
                                                           Re: Jason Jones interviewM-Class 1/12/02 10:06 a.m.
                                                                 Re: Jason Jones interviewM-Class 1/12/02 10:31 a.m.
                                                                       Re: Jason Jones interviewM-Class 1/12/02 10:44 a.m.
                                                                             Re: Jason Jones interviewM-Class 1/12/02 11:01 a.m.
                                                                                   Many thanks *NM*Hamish Sinclair 1/12/02 12:22 p.m.
                                                                                   Re: Jason Jones interviewM-Class 1/13/02 11:08 a.m.
                                                                                         Re: Jason Jones interviewM-Class 1/13/02 11:31 a.m.
                                                                                               Re: Jason Jones interviewM-Class 1/13/02 11:58 a.m.
                                                                                                     Re: Jason Jones interviewM-Class 1/13/02 12:27 p.m.
                                                                                                           Many thanks. *NM*Hamish Sinclair 1/14/02 12:14 p.m.
                 Re: Jason Jones interviewDan Aris 1/10/02 2:13 p.m.
                 I have this Book! I will sell it if anyone wants!Ernie TMBM 1/11/02 2:53 p.m.
                       Re: I have this Book! I will sell it if anyone wanHamish Sinclair 1/12/02 9:05 a.m.
                             Re: I have this Book! I will sell it if anyone wanErnie 1/15/02 12:39 p.m.
                             Re: I have this Book! I will sell it if anyone wanErnie 1/15/02 12:40 p.m.
           Re: Jason Jones interviewVid Boi 1/10/02 2:20 a.m.



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