304 17.PlaceholdersbeyondStaticArtReplacement
Placeholders will not revolutionize the way you build games, and many peo-
ple on your team might never realize someone had to actually build the place-
holder systems they’re using. The positive effect of these systems is more subtle
and only appears in the long run when you look at the big picture. The challenges
of today’s game industry are all about efficiency, creating more in less time, with
fewer people, and at lower costs. Thinking about how development can be ren-
dered more efficient plays a big part in a team’s success, and every developer has
to do his share of work on this front. Study your everyday routine, identify your
production bottlenecks, and verify whether a simple placeholder system could
alleviate the pressure. They will not make their way into the final build, but these
placeholders will definitely show their true value before that.
17.5Implementation
The code provided on the website allows you to compile and use the articulated
placeholder system described in this chapter. A Visual Studio solution with the
required library and header files is located on the website, and it contains every-
thing necessary to compile the project.
References
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mation of 3D Characters.” ACM Transactions on Graphics 26:3 (July 2007).
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Equi-Valued Surface by Using Tetrahedral Cells.” IEICE Transactions E74:1
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[Kavan and Žára 2003] Ladislav Kavan and Jiří Žára. “Real Time Skin Deformation
with Bones Blending.” WSCG Short Papers Proceedings, 2003.
[Kavan and Žára 2005] Ladislav Kavan and Jiří Žára. “Spherical Blend Skinning: A Re-
al-time Deformation of Articulated Models.” Proceedings of the 2005 Symposium
on Interactive 3D Graphics and Games 1 (2005), pp. 9–17.
[Lally 2003] John Lally. “Giving Life to Ratchet & Clank.” Gamasutra. February 11,
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[Lorensen and Cline 1987] William E. Lorensen and Harvey E. Cline. “Marching Cubes:
A High Resolution 3D Surface Construction Algorithm.” Computer Graphics
(Proceedings of SIGGRAPH 87) 21:4, ACM, pp. 163–169.
[Müller and Wehle 1997] Heinrich Müller and Michael Wehle. “Visualization of Implic-
it Surfaces Using Adaptive Tetrahedrizations.” Dagstuhl ’97 Proceedings of the
Conference on Scientific Visualization, pp. 243–250.
[Rosen 2009] David Rosen. “Volumetric Heat Diffusion Skinning.” Gamasutra Blogs,
November 24, 2009. Available at http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/DavidRosen/
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[Speyrer and Jacobson 2006] David Speyrer and Brian Jacobson. “Valve’s Design Pro-
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[Williams 2010] David Williams. “Volumetric Representation of Virtual Environments.”
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