The easiest component to develop in a game engine

By far, the easiest component to develop in a game engine is the Rendering Engine. However, to beginners, this is also the component that will cause a bit of frustration. The frustration is not related to complexity, but confusion — especially when using Graphics APIs such as OpenGL, Vulkan or Metal.

So why is the easiest component to develop, also the most frustrating to get it working?

The problem lies in the fact that for a device to render a 3D model on its display, three things must work synchronously: The flow of data, GPU Shaders, and Transformations.

OpenGL/Metal are mediums that take attribute data from the CPU to the GPU. They transfer attributes such as vertices, normal vectors, UV coordinates and textures from the CPU into the GPU.

However, the GPU will not know what to do with these attributes until GPU Shaders have been compiled, attached and activated. Only then, will the Rendering Pipeline be ready to transform the space of the vertices, assemble, rasterize the primitives and finally send the data to the frame-buffer.

Finally, for all this to work, you need to have a good understanding of Linear Algebra operations, such as Transformations. In Computer Graphics, the most common transformations are Model-World Space, Model-View Space, and Model-View-Projection Space.

In summary, to render a simple cube requires a bit of knowledge of the OpenGL/Metal API, how GPU shaders work and their purpose within the Rendering Pipeline, and Linear Algebra concepts. It is not hard to see why computer graphics can cause a bit of frustration and confusion for beginners.

However, once you have a good understanding of Computer Graphics, developing a Rendering Engine becomes relatively easy when compared to other components of a Game Engine.

The Art of Game Engine Development

I've written several articles explaining how a game engine works. However, I feel that I left out an important concept.

Over the years, my view on Game Engine development has evolved. It has changed from "This is how you develop a game engine" to "There is no one way to develop a game engine."

When I started, I spent hundreds and hundreds of hours pouring over technical books; learning, deciphering code snippets and trying to implement the same ideas I learned on my game engine.

There is nothing wrong with the approach mentioned above. But over the years, I realized that Game Engine development is not only science, but it is also an ART.

There was a point in the development of the engine when I stopped treating the implementations provided in technical books as "Gospel." Instead, I would make an effort to truly understand the "concept" and then go on and implement it my way.

When I did this, I started to fall in love with Game Engine Development. That was the moment that I felt that I was genuinely doing Engineering.

To develop a game engine, focus on understanding the primary role of each component, but implement the internals of each component, not as mentioned in a book, but as YOU think is the best way.

In other words, let your creativity flow through your game engine. Game Engine Development is science mixed with "technical" art.

Documenting the Untold Engine

Here is a tip I would like to share:

Approach documenting your project, as a project itself.

I started documenting the engine months before I released it. I was hoping to have the documentation ready by the Release Date. However, that never happened. Documenting a project is a lot, a lot of work and you should treat it as a project itself. Overall, it has taken me over eight months to document the Untold Engine.

In version beta v0.0.11, I implemented several camera behaviors such as First Person Camera and Third Person Camera. The particle system was also improved. Moreover, the camera culling was also improved.

Trust me; I've been working on the documentation daily.

So what type of documentation is currently available in the engine. Well here is what I have done.

The Documentation is divided into the following sections:

• Labs & Tutorials
• API Usage
• Digital Asset Exporter
• Architecture
• Modules

The Labs & Tutorials section provides several labs that will help you get started with the engine. You will have a chance to learn how to render a game character, how to add collision detection, etc. It is an excellent way to get started using the engine.

The API Usage section helps you understand how to use the Untold Engine's API. This section is geared to users who have gone through the Labs & Tutorials section and are ready to start playing around developing their games. You will learn how to render 3D objects, skyboxes, text, etc. using the engine's API. You will also learn how to use the Physics Engine, Callbacks, etc.

The Digitial Asset Exported section is a critical section to read. This section will explain how to import a 3D object/animation from Blender and use it in the Untold Engine.

The Architecture section is not complete yet. This is the section that requires a lot more work. My goal is to provide dozens of articles explaining the entire architecture of the Untold Engine. This will be massive work, and I hope to complete it in about six months or so.

When I released the engine, I was fully aware that the Documentation was lacking and I have put a lot of work on writing these articles. I hope you find them useful.

Thanks for reading.

Progress Update: Game Engine Beta v0.0.11

It feels like a long time since I updated the engine. The last version was released on Feb 2017. However, throughout this whole, I released the engine as an open source. I also spent a considerable amount of my free time writing documentation for the engine and fixed several issues that I encountered along the way.

Today I'm happy to say that I have released Beta version 0.0.11 of the Untold Engine.

The main updates to the engine are the following:

• Implemented a Camera System that can handle a First Person Camera, Third Person Camera, and a Basic Follow Camera.
• Improved the camera culling computation. If you recall, the previous version had problems with the Camera Culling. In this version, the engine allows the developer to set the desired time interval to compute the culling. However, there is a bug that I found out a bit too late. Shadow rendering is slowing down the culling computation. I will fix this in the next version.
• Implemented an actual 3D particle system. The previous version was able to produce 2D particle systems. This is no longer the case.

Here is a video showcasing v0.0.11. As you can see in the video, the engine allows you to switch between Basic Follow Camera to First Person and the Third Person Camera. The video also shows a 3D particle system.

You can download the engine from Untold Engine

Thanks for reading.

Initial documentation for the Untold Engine

Hi guys,

Since releasing the Untold Engine, I've been swamped writing its documentation. Honestly, writing documentation takes a long time, but is those things, that even though we hate to do it, it must be done.

I've broken down the documentation into three sections:

• Fundamentals
• Tutorials
• User's Guide

Fundamentals

In this section, I provide an overview of how the Untold Engine works. I explain every component and provide a lot of illustrations. I also provide labs which should reinforce your understanding of the Untold Engine.

Tutorials

In the Tutorial section, I plan to teach you HOW to use the engine so you can create your games. As of today (8/12/18), I have written only one tutorial. It teaches you how to create a character and control it using a joystick.

User's Guide

The user's guide provides a quick reference to the functionality of the Untold Engine. For example, it gives examples of how to render and translate a character. It also shows how to link an animation, apply external forces and enable collisions.

It has only been two weeks since I released the Untold Engine. I'm aware that the amount of documentation currently available is not enough. But trust me, I'm working hard on adding documentation daily.

Click here to review the documentation of the engine.

Don't forget to follow the engine @untoldengine and me @haroldmserrano