1. Introduction

Making a game involves several groups to work together. In this case four groups:

• Programming group
• Object group (my group)
• Level design group
• Music & sounds group

The programming group has the hardest and probably most annoying task in making a game. If you want to program a game you will first have to know a lot of codes. If you want to program you are not allowed to make any mistakes because that could have an negative effect up the whole game (e.g. It could stop working/functioning). You will also have to know the programming “language” to program.

Programming languages can be divided into 4 different generations:

• First generation languages are called assembler and are depending on the type of computer.
• Second generation language examples are Fortran and Cobol and Basic and are computer independent.
• Third generation languages are procedural languages like Pascal and C and Algol
• Fourth generation languages are Object oriented languages e.g. database languages, c++ and Java.

In Assembler only instructions, which the computer can directly execute, are used:

* Load contents of an address into a register.
* Add a number to the contents of the register
* Store the contents of the register into a memory address.

Second generation languages have variables, conditionals, statements, loops, and so on. For instance:
If age equals 18 then salary = salary + 100.

Third generation languages have procedures with variables and results. For instance:
Procedure birth-year (age: interger): interger
Begin
Birth-year = 2001- age
End

Fourth generation languages describe the behaviour of objects; what they look like.

Our game was programmed in third and fourth generation languages; HTML (website), Gold Wave (sounds) and Pascal (game)

The object group has a less technical but just as an important job. They had to make the objects used with in the game e.g. walls, tables, guns, rabbits etc. Making an object is quit hard because you have to build an object out of triangles. (See chapter 2 of this report)

The level design group has a less technical job but more creativity is needed. They use the objects from the object group and put it somewhere in a level of the game (some 3-dimensional place where the game takes place). I will also tell more about this in chapter 2 .

Music & Sounds group has also a less technical content and also more creativity is needed. They construct sounds used when you shoot or when you jump. They also have to make songs used in the background. To do this you must know a lot about music editing programs.

These four groups were divided into two groups each, so there were 8 groups. These 8 groups were all working very hard on ideas for a game. There were very different ideas e.g.

• Rabbinator (shooter)
• The fight for the kite (adventure)
• Mission to earth (adventure)
• Tekkel I+II (shooter)
• Joep’s kleffe avontuurtje (strategy)
• Jailbreak (shooter)
Some games had no story line their only goal was to kill enemies. Others were too simple because you only had to fly in airplanes. Therefore we all chose for Rabbinator because it had a good storyline and it was feasible. Here I learned that developing a game was not only working behind computers but also thinking and being creative.

Storyline:
You are Willie de Wortel, the hero of this story. After your father was brutally murdered by Flappie and his savage killer-rabbits. But even before you could realise your father had passed away Flappie’s killers caught your mother and you. You are already 15 and you got an axe for your birthday. When you are put in captivity you manage to escape but could’t save your mother. Now the real works starts: Save Your Mother Before It’s Too Late! At the end (If you make it) you will have to use everything you have when you need to beat Flappie.

Once you know what kind of game you want to make you will have to learn about the software tools you need to use. For instance:

• There was a basic music-editing program but there were already better music editing programs downloaded from the Internet.
• The object-making program was designed and programmed by the students of the university.

2. My work during the making of “Rabbinator”

2.1 My speciality: Objects

I will tell you a lot about objects because my main assignment in the group was to make objects. An object is ‘something’ in the game, e.g. a house, a gun, a person or an airplane. In a 3 dimensional environment 3D objects are build up by a lot of small triangles. These triangles are called faces. Examples are:

a piece of paper by making 2 triangles,
a 3D cube or shoebox made out of 6 sides of 2 faces.

With even more faces you can make for example a house.

Several faces approach round objects. Take for example a sphere: with 8 faces you can make an object that looks a little like a round object although it is far from perfect. With help of over 100 faces you can make a sphere much more like an actual round object.

3 different points in a 3 dimensional space make out a face. The space has an origin (0,0,0) and from that, a particular point have the x, y, and z co-ordinates defined. The X stands for length, the Y for height and the Z for depth. The 3 corner point of a face are also called vertex (or in plurar vertices).

A vertex is shown as in the coordinates 10,10,10. With two more vertices a face can be made.

As example:
A face is drawn with the co-ordinates (10,10,10) (0,15,10) and (5,20,0). See next figure. These co-ordinates are not so important and you won’t find it being needed in the 3D object editor.

2.2 The layout of DrieDee Object Edit

All objects in the game had to be made with help of the program “driedee object editor” because the “level editor” only supports that type of 3D objects.

The editor starts with an empty screen.
With the icon new you can make a new window.
There are 4 different views of the object available

• A top view (x and z),
• a left view (y and z),
• a front view (x and y)
• and a 3D view.

On the right there are the “textures” tab where there can be given textures and colours to the objects. There is also a “primitive” tab for making spheres, cones, cubes etc.

The icon beam has several functions; here are the functions from left to right:

- Making a new object
- Open an existing object
- Save a current object
- Cutting
- Copying
- Paste
- Vertex mode
- Face mode
- Move
- Scale
- Rotate
- Mirror-X, Y, Z (three buttons)
- Join

2.3 The making of an object

As was already mentioned in the description above, there are two different modes in the editor:

• the vertex mode
• the face mode.

In both modes new faces can be made.
In the face mode you can select the small square in the middle and move the whole face.

In the vertex mode you can select one separate point of the face and move that so you can change the appearance of the face.

To make one whole object of several smaller objects the faces must be ‘joined’. If you make a new face and you click on an already existing vertex the vertex will be automatically be used by the new face.

Joining with the icon join is shown below with two pictures. In the first picture the two top vertices of the two faces are selected. On the right you see the result.

In the three different views there is always a square in the middle because then you can see how big it is. This helps you judge the size because otherwise you might end up with a house three times as small as you or a car as big as the Eiffel tower.

2.4 Textures

Textures are very easy. You select one or more faces and you select a texture. A texture is a picture you can put on a 3D object. You can see this on the pictures above. You can also change the colour easily with the menu on the bottom right corner. If there is already a texture on the object you can change the colours of the texture this way.

Textures are drawings that are .BMP (Bitmap) file type 128x128 pixels 24-bit mode. These you can make yourself or get from Internet. These textures are very important to the object because if the whole object is white you will not be able to see any corners or lines. The best program to make a texture is to use the program “Paint Shop Pro”.

2.5 Primitives

This is one of the most used options in the program, because it has every standard shape e.g. cubes, cones, spheres etc. You will find this option very handy and it will save you lots of time. If you want to make an house for example you will only need 2 basic figures (a pyramid and a cube).

2.6 The level editor

With the level editor you literally fill a map with 3D objects from scratch. In the beginning you will have a green floor. Then you will have to start building walls etc. The level editor of course will help you to build levels. With help from the objects made by the object group you can build a level.

On the left of the picture on the right is a picture with a grid of the level drawn. On the right there is a preview of the object, on the right bottom the path is shown to the 3D object.

Once you have put an object in your level you can give it an attitude e.g. kamikaze, normal enemy etc. So if you want to, you can make a hostile wall. You can select an object in your level editor after you have placed it by clicking on it in the left grid.

5.5 My efforts

First of all I needed a good idea for my personal project. I started thinking about it already in TTO 2. In May 2000 I decided to find out, how to make a computer game.
As you already know I contacted a company, but they couldn’t help me. Then I received the magazine about a games camp from a Technical University in Enschede.

During the camp I had to decide with the other boys (no girls enjoyed this camp) about the subject of the game. My first choice was “Joeps kleffe avontuurtje”. The reason I preferred this other game was because it was a strategy game.
This was the moment that I realised, I am not alone making this game. This is one of the most important things I learned during the week. A project, like making a computer game is something you need to do with a lot of people, and they have to cooperate well to make the project succeed.

I joined the Object group because of several reasons. To join the programming group you needed skills that I didn’t have. I love music but I didn’t find it challenging enough. Before I wanted to learn how to make levels, I wanted to know how to make objects.

The first day the students showed us how the programs worked. I started practicing right away. I started with small simple objects and finished with space ships.

By the end of the week the game was ready to present to our parents. You can see it is not half as good as the games that you can buy.

By the end of the week everyone was ready, had fun and didn’t have to look at the game anymore. At that moment I had to start with the documentation to make this my personal project. I ensured that I had a copy of the data of the game and the data to make another game. At home I tried to discover more about the level editing and even more about the object editing. I described exactly how to make objects.
3 Summary

I went to a games camp where I learned how you make computer games. With around 50 people we were al divided into 4 groups; the Programming group, level editing group, music editing group and the object making group.

We all had to come up wit idesas for a game. There were a lot of ideas but just a few good ones. We chose “Rabbinator” because it had such a good storyline and it was feasible.

I was put in the object-editing group because I found a challenge in that and I thought you would need creativity. To make objects you don’t have to know a lot about computers (just the basics). An object is made out of several faces ( triangles) the more faces you use the better the object looks.

The object is white at the beginning later you can put “textures” on to give it colors or a pattern. A totally white object is not handy in a game because you won’t be able to see corners.

The level editing is less technical; you will have to put objects ( walls, guns, rabbits etc) in the level. You will be able to give every object an attitude, hight and abilitys.

The programming group had to do the most technical job; to program the game! This is quit hard because the languages are quit hard to learn and the computer can not better mistakes.

The music group had to make music and sounds for in the game. They used some basic music editing programmes from the Internet.

I made several objects a day ( guns, ammunition, spaceships etc) and I found it quit easy! Trying to make a very beautifull object was the most fun to do.

At home I wrote my report and my logbook.

Conclusion

Making a computer game is very hard. You need well educated people and it takes more time then I expected (a few years!).

What I noticed is that teamwork within the group is one of the most important things of making a computer game. Dividing the group of developers, in four different groups with their own assignments, worked well. Using people with their own specialities and interests was also important. Working on something that interests you is, fun! At least for me.

We couldn’t finish the game as we wanted. It is not so good, not so exciting, not so detailed as we hoped. We simply were not educated enough to make it as professional as the games that we usually buy.

I had a great week and learned a lot.

Bibliography

I got most of my information from the students of the Univerity of Enschede. They gave me software that was needed for making the game and explained me the biggest part of making a game.

Software programs we used:
1. Object editor
2. Level editor
3. Music editor

My father helped me a lot, explaining me the basics about computer languages.