Phobias and Horror Essay

What is a phobia?

A phobia is a term used to show a person certain fear or a disorder in something which can be spilt into two types of phobias, the first one being rational fears like death or high places which are things that can always kill you where as the opposite are irrational fears like the fear of clowns or certain numbers which can’t really hurt you in anyway.  People who have phobias will go to great lengths to try to avoid confronting or running into these phobias. Most phobias have causes that trigger the phobias to develop within a person as well as symptoms, which will become act active once a person comes face to face with there phobia.  

Types of Phobias, their causes and symptoms.

Trypophobia – fear of holes

This phobia can be linked with holes in people such as cuts or holes left by impalement which produce holes in people, which can scare people due to it being gross, because or the flesh or bone will hang through them. Also holes can be scary to people because people are scared they may fall into holes and that they disturb or make their skin crawl.  The causes of this phobia are not known but can cause people to become of:
Honeycomb, sponges, Swiss cheese, spots, warts, bubbles, seed pods, boils, larvae holes, skin infection, tooth fallen out and cracks on walls as well as other things. There are many symptoms of which you can tell if a person has this phobia which are: Disgust, break into hives, manic reactions, and shortness of breath, vomiting and itching. This phobia can affect a person’s everyday life because holes are quite common in the things that present in life like sponges that are used often in life in kitchens, which can cause people with this phobia to struggle in life more than others.

Ornithophobia – fear of birds, feathers, birds stealing food.

This phobia scares people because it can link to the fear of catching disease as birds like pigeons and seagulls carry around diseases which potentially harm them or kill them, as well as those birds can contaminate food which can cause illness and death. This can be caused similar to other phobias of animals which is bad contact with the animal, this phobia is not uncommon as one of the causes of the phobia is the birds of prey like eagles or falcons which can be dangerous, as well other causes of the phobia include: the flutter of birds wings, the feather texture, birds stealing food, loud sounds birds make and fear of disease. The symptoms of the phobia include: difficult breathing, dizziness, excessive sweating, nausea, dry mouth, shaking and inability to speak are the most common as well as many more symptoms. This phobia has a great effect on everyday life because birds are a very widespread animal, such as pigeons are one of the most common birds known, which can cause problems for people with this phobia because they extremely wide spread across the world.

Myrmecophobia – fear of ants, home invasion of ants and ants contaminating food.

This phobia is similar to other animal phobias as ants can carry diseases and contaminate food, but can also invade the home getting into peoples clothes and food that disturbs some people. As well linking into the fear insects which is known as Entomophobia to which people won’t like the way they move or certain body parts. The causes of the phobia are very similar to that of other animal related phobias such as ants crawling on your food or over your body, which can lead to the development of the phobia. The symptoms of this phobia include constant avoidance of ants, anxiety when seeing ants and the inability to function normally, which can have an impact on a person everyday life especially if the person has to work with nature and plants.

Pedophobia – Fear of children

This phobia can be scary for people as it can linked to the fear of loud noises as children tend to scream or cry when they don’t get their own way or hurt themselves/ in pain which can cause people to be disturbed by the sound they make. As well as how people would feel to see a mutilated child or dead child who people can find disturbing as well as the sounds children make like laughing or singing. The causes of the phobia are that people who it are can also see that younger people like children and teenagers are the source of a lot of crime such as being mugged which can cause older people to develop a phobia towards them. One of the symptoms related to this phobia are that older of people of the same age as youths will attempt to avoid contact or being around children at most times, which can have an impact on their lives as children are very widespread and can be a part of a relatives or friends daily life which will cause problems for people with this phobia.

Achluophobia – fear of the dark, imaged or concealed things within the darkness.

This phobia normally happens to children who can see the outline of objects in the dark, to which they would imagine something else in place of the actual thing it may be such as some clothes on the floor way be translated to the brain as being a monster ready to pounce on the child or it can be caused by the fear of not being able to see things within the dark. The symptoms of this phobia are that a person can get very little, shaking and in some cases it can cause insomnia for adults which can have a affect on that persons everyday life as the darkness is a part of nature so it can do most damage to adults who have to work a night shift or work in dark places where as with children the lack of sleep can cause illness and poor education due to the lack of sleep.

Arachnophobia – fear of spiders, there legs, hairy texture, scuttle of movement.

The phobia can be caused by bad experiences in life such as a spider dropping onto a child or someone in their family and that person becomes scared it can be passed over to the child. There are some things that are quite noticeable that causes people to develop this phobia, one of which is the legs which are thin and move very fast which can be described as scuttle like movement which disturbs some people also there is the fact that spiders can crawl up most surfaces which tends to give people with this phobia high paranoia as well as the hairy look that they have which tends to freak people out.  One of the causes for this phobia was that in the past spiders were blamed for food contamination as well as it can be a transmitted phobia from parent to child or it can be caused by incidents involving spiders such as falling onto the child or bites the child which can cause them to develop a phobia. This can have an effect on everyday life as spiders are extremely widespread across the world and tend to end up living in people gardens or even there house which cause some people to not tend to there garden or enter certain rooms.

Autophobia – fear of being isolated or alone.

This fear can begin to develop when abandoned by a close person in that one’s life such as losing a spouse or loved one, which can develop a person to have dread when left alone somewhere as well as losing one’s own mind and themselves due to not being able to do anything while they are alone.  The symptoms of this phobia are that a person with the phobia will do anything to avoid being isolated, inability to function normally, unreasonable and exaggerated, and the feeling of under controllable anxiety which can have a impact of a persons everyday life as people may hide them annoying or irritating as they would never want to be alone which cause lose of friends or even relatives such as spouses or someone that person is close too.

Thanatophobia/death anxiety – fear of dying or seeing someone else die.

This type of phobia can be a complicated thing as it can be caused when one tries to think about how long they have left to live as well as the amount of time remaining, or when people find no purpose in life they will become afraid of dying or death anxiety. The symptoms of this phobia are that it will cause a person to have: a dry mouth, shortness of breath, trembling, muscle tension, rapid heartbeat, feeling out of control, feels trapped and feeling of a impediment disaster. This phobia can have a nasty affect on someone’s daily life due to the effect that death is part of the natural cycle in life which can have an impact on there life’s as they will lose family and friends or see something or someone die which will causes symptoms to show in most of there life.

  

Scopophobia – fear of being looked or stared at.

This phobia can be caused by an event in a person’s life such as being a child and having people laugh and stare at you can cause trauma to that child’s mind causing them to develop symptoms like social anxiety like meeting new people or answering a phone in public as they would believe they are being stared at. It can also be caused by people be stared due to a deformity or disability which can lead to social awkwardness as well as isolation from other people, this phobia can also be linked with social anxiety which in turn can cause symptoms such as: avoiding attention, afraid of taking to people, blushing, sweat, shake, heart problems, shallow breathing and the inability to control their thoughts. This can have a bad affect on a person’s life because they will not be able to do much work as most work involves interaction between people as well as becoming isolated and socially awkward which can decrease there social behaviour by quite a lot.

Phonophobia – fear of hearing loud noises.

This phobia can be caused during something or something a person would interact, which would cause that person to develop a fear based on a loud noise that has startled that person, but another way for people to develop this phobia is when a child or even an adult will believe that loud noises will pop there ear drums causing them to go deaf. The symptoms of this phobia are that if the person hears a loud noise they will: get tremors, palpitations, find quiet places to sit alone in, and will avoid crowded places whether it is work or a classroom as well as when a child hears this they will avoid parties because of balloons popping. This can have an effect on child’s life more than an adults as they will start skipping classes causing there education to decrease as well as skipping going out with friends or participating in events like parties ruining there childhoods.

Haphephobia – fear of being touched by a person or something.

This phobia can be caused when a person is touched inappropriately which usually links it to manifest due to sexual assault in which it can manifest in anyone no matter the age or gender, as well as that it can also begin to develop the phobia if they have a fear of contamination or germs which can be spread through touch.  The symptoms of this can vary between people depending on how it manifested but some of symptoms include: Discomfort, nausea, heart problems, dry mouth, dizziness, panic, numbness, heightened senses, breathlessness, feeling trapped, muscle tension, trembling, hyperventilating, feeling out of control and feeling as a disaster is about to occur. This can affect that person’s everyday life because of the fact that being touched or touching someone else can happen all the time whether it be walking through a crowded place or at work or class as someone could pass you something and you may accidentally touch there hand.

   

Claustrophobia – fear of tight spaces or having no escape.

This phobia can be caused by being locked in a pitch black room or area as a child as punishment by parents which has no windows or light as well as a child getting shut in other tight places like in a box or a child falling into a swimming pool and not being able to swim up. These symptoms of this phobia include: fear of restriction, fear of suffocation and panic attacks among other smaller symptoms. This can have a bad effect on person’s live as if an adult owned a house they would have to a window in each room and may even have to have them consistently open all the time which could lead to there house being broken into, as well as having an affect if a person was shopping as the shelves being close together which could cause a panic attack.

Horror

Horror is a genre used in many different Media which are games, films, television, music videos and books. The purpose of the horror genre is to try to cast negative emotions upon the viewer like fear which is done by playing the viewer’s primal fears in which horror tends to overlap with other genres like fantasy (Arkham Horror), supernatural (Dawn of the Dead) and science fiction (Event Horizon). The Horror genre can use a wide variety of fears and phobias to get a negative reaction out of, in which one of the most known used fears is of monsters like vampires or zombies which have been in use throughout history of Medias and are simulated by a child’s fear of a monster under the bed as well as using viewers hidden fears, nightmares and the terror of the unknown against them. But the use of other people as horror has also been widely covered such as the use of home invasion, torture, cannibals and murders.

Horror in games

Horror is used in games to get a negative reaction both emotionally and physically such as the player turning of their platform due to being frightened so much. In which it can be used to produce a wide variety of games which can range in locations, assets and atmosphere as well as sounds and music.

The music used in horror games can have a different effect on the game depending on its theme and what music is used such as that to create suspense for an event with a game engine, there will be some music which plays after the player reaches a certain point and will gradually louder as the player progresses until reaching a point where it cuts of then will use an asset to strike a negative feeling upon the player like a jump scare or a scene which creeps out the player or music can be used to scare the player by playing soft music intended for children and other people to creep out the player such as in Dead Space Extraction (2009) the song Twinkle Twinkle Little Star will be begin to play in the background as the player moves through the vents causing them to feel as if something is behind them.

Sounds in horror games are used often to create an atmosphere and make game seem more realistic so the fear can get the player more easily and cause a better reaction such as the use of floor boarding creaking when the player isn't moving to get the feeling their being followed or the sound of door creaking as there being opened which is most used in games like Amnesia: The Dark Descent in which when the player opens a door it will make a creaking sound.

In horror games the developers can chose from a wide variety of assets and ideas as the antagonists in the game which are generally used as the main source of fear used on the player which can range from supernatural things like ghost and monsters (Evil Within), deformed creatures/people (Dead Space), murderous or insane people (Condemned: Criminal Origins) as well as other things. These assets can be based of different phobias and terrors which can affect the player in different ways such as a game about the fear of the darkness can have a different effect to one about deformation.

Horror in Movies/Television

Horror in films is used similar to other Media which is to get a negative emotional reaction from the viewer like fear, in directors will use a wide variety of ideals to try and achieve this goal by using music/ sound effects, antagonists, atmosphere as well as using the actors in films to help create a deeper and better atmosphere.

Music in horror films can have a big effect on how the film will turn out as music can be used to create suspension within a scene such as when the killer is approaching the victim some sinister or dramatic music will begin to play and will increase in volume as he draws closer an example of this is in the film Psycho (1960) when the killer is approaching the showering woman music begins playing which builds up the suspense until the part he begins the murder to which the music plays even more dramatically but then slowly goes quieter. Whereas sound in movies is used to create and suspense such as the floor boards creaking, dripping sounds and wind sounds which are used to build up the atmosphere within the film.

Game Engines

Game Engines 

What is a game engine? And the history of game engines

A game engine is a piece of middleware used in the game development, which is used to house assets used to create a game and then using all the assets by placing them in the correct configuration to create something within the engine. Game engines are generally made using C++, C and Java which are programming software in which the engines have to be programmed/coded in order to make them which is also connected to that before engines where available/existed every game was programmed using programming language which made the games limited and buggy until the release of game engines in which the first was engines were released for the Atari 2600 but those types of engines now called kennels had to be built from the ground up to make use of the hardware available in which due to the difficulty in making the games at the times all the levels were small and had small amounts of graphic data. In the days of the first game engines, engines were not shared between different companies and programmers as the code was difficult to adapt to various platforms that were in the market so codes were generally used to create the engines were thrown away s other companies couldn’t try to adapt it to their hardware.

Different types of engines

First person shooter engine

First person shooter engines are developed for mainly used for games of the FPS genre that have 3D visuals, in which the engines are made up of things which are old and new features in older games to the newest ones an example of this is the game: Red Faction (2001) which was the first to implement destructive building and objects which wasn’t used widely in future games but had some exceptions like Battlefield 4 (2013). An example of a game engine used to mainly house FPS games is the id engines 0 and 1 as there where used to create the game DOOM (1993) which then gave breath to a variety of doom ‘clones’ such as Wolfenstein (1992) which uses the id tech engine 0 which was an earlier version of the id tech engine 1 and was one of the games that helped fix a lot of problems before the release of there bigger games and Quake (1996) which was a clone of the doom engine with a few texture changes and games related changes but has the same interface and look to it.  

3D engine

3D game engines are developed and used for games like work with a 3D environment instead of a 2D one, to which 3D engines have a lot of tools at there disposal such as the manipulation of 3D objects/assets like cubes and other shapes as well as other assets like vehicles, weapons and buildings to which can be altered in size and shape to the persons shape, but there are also a lot of other tools like lighting in which you can choose where the lighting is, where it goes, how bright or dim it as well as the colour among other advanced options.

An example of a 3D game engine is the Unreal Engine made by Epic (1998 -Present) that has gone through 3 iterations and the latest in due for arrival in 2014, the first engine labelled the Unreal Engine (1998) was one of the first engines to include a rendering, collision, AI, networking, scripting and a file system included within the engine which was a third part engine meaning other companies besides Epic could use the program as Epic only released to games for this made by the company an example of this being Unreal Tournament where as 30+ games where made by other companies also used this engine in which an example of this is Rune (2000) made by Human Head studios and in fairly recent years Duke Nukem Forever (2011) which was made by a few companies including Gear box software. The first unreal engine was released in 1998 in which the user could install A.I. into the game to script events and behaviour patterns, could render things within the engine and add collision detection to objects such as building or other structures as well as the option to place your own building and structures it also had an advanced software rasterizer among this were the various assets that were available to the controller such as colour, lighting and background. An example of a game made with Unreal Engine 1 that used the engine to its full potential is Unreal Tournament which upon release made both the network performance and Direct3D & OpenGL support become much well on the Unreal Engine to which it was mainly used for games on the PlayStation 1 and 2 as well the PC and in later years the Xbox 360 and PS3.

The next version of the unreal engine known as the Unreal Engine 2 (2002) had all the things that the original had but with a different layout and some added things such as ragdoll physics which became a common physic in future games as most present games have ragdoll physics an example being Halo Reach (2010), it also has improved the rendering improved by having the rendering engine as well as the core code completely rewritten as well as improving all the assets, elements and function that were in the previous incarnation. There were also some other things that improved this engine over the previous one of which being added support so it could be used for games on the GameCube and Xbox. In the future a more updated version of the engine was released known as the Unreal Engine 2.5 that improved

Bioshock 2

the performance, added vehicle physics, a particle system editor which was included within the Unreal Editor and 64-bit support which was done so it could be used in Unreal Tournament 2004 as well as also supporting games on the Nintendo 3DS. The engine was also a third part engine so other companies or individuals could use it, as Epic only released one game using the Unreal Engine 2 which was Unreal Tournament 2004 where as there were many games that used the engine which include at the time it was made America’s Army (2005) for the PC, as well as made by U.S Army and is also used in newer games for the seventh generation consoles like Bioshock 2 (2010) to which uses this engine to the best of its ability and is made by 2K Games.

The next version of Unreal engine and the one in current use is the Unreal Engine 3, had all its assets, graphics and elements improved from the last engine as well as being made for Windows 7 and the Xbox 360 by using Direct X which is a appliance programming interface made by Microsoft for handling tasks related to multi-media of which it is commonly used for video game programming. But it also operates on other systems like OpenGL that is another appliance programming interface similar to Direct X but allows system not affiliated with Microsoft to use UE3 of which the available platforms in can intergrade with are PlayStation 3, OS X, iOS, Android, PlayStation Vita and Wii U as well as also being able to intergrade with other programs to upgrade its performance which include

Xcom: Enemy Within

Adobe Flash Player 11 and Java Script. This engine has been used to create over 50 games of which only 4 are made by Epic, which is the Gears of War Franchise (2006-present) but has also been used by other companies to create well known and popular games which includes XCOM: Enemy Within (2013) which is made by 2K Games which regularly have used the engines to create there games over the years and another game is Fable: Anniversary (2014) which is made by Lionhead Studios which is a game not out yet and is using the engine to its full potential. But this engine is not always used in games industry as it has attracted the attention of other media an example of this is the popular kids TV show Lazy Town using the engine to create the visual sets which are interactive in real time with the actors and puppets, aside from another two example of other media that use UE3 are that the FBI use UE3 engine as a simulation for training and is used by the animation software called Muvizu Play.

Another 3D engine that is used to make 3D games in is the CryEngine made by CryTech which has 4 generations that has various features used to create games, in which the first engine made is the CryEngine 1 which was developed in 2004 for the game Far Cry which was also released at the same time although it was originally developed as a tech-demo until its true potential was seen making it into a game engine as well as being used to make Aion: The Tower of Eternity (2008) which unlike Far Cry was an MMORPG as well as being used for game consoles in the sixth generation which included the PS2, GameCube and Xbox as well still in use when the seventh generation was out in which it was used for games on the Xbox 360 and Wii and was also used for games on computers like Microsoft Window’s machines. The engine can support video cards with 3.0 pixel and vertex shaders when the 1.2 update of the engine which allowed it to use better graphic cards, as well as being able to handle HDR lighting by the time the 1.3 update came out for the engine as well as using a lot of the features that are used in the UDK engines such as object manipulation and rotation, lighting placement, pathnode usage as well as other features.

The next engine is the series was the CryEngine 2 which was developed around the same sort of time that Crysis began its development, this engine improved over the old one in all its features as well as being used with gaming computers in which there were no games developed on the engine for gaming consoles in which it was used to create games like Crysis (2007) and Blue Mars open beta (2009). But no stated additions were stated except from graphical and handling improvement.

The next engine that was developed was the CryEngine 3 (2009) as well as being in current usage for current games, in which it is used to develop games on the seventh and eighth generation of consoles which include the Xbox 360, PS3 and Wii U as well as gaming computers. Just like the previous one it improves upon all features that were in the previous engines which such as graphics and lighting effects as well as know being able to support DirectX 9, 10 and 11 to help improve and move in to current PC platforms but any other features that were added were not stated to the public. It was used to make game like State of Decay (2013) and MechWarrior Online (2013) as well as still being used to create future titles like Evolve.

2D Engine

2D game engines are developed for games that use a 2D environment, in which the engines allows developers to create games within the engines with control of the objects like blocks the player jumps across in which they alter there size and shape as well as similar to 3D engines the lighting, AI are customizable as well as having the availability of sprites which aren’t commonly found in 3D games.

An example of a 2D engine is Construct 2 (2012) made by Scirra Limited for non-programmers for drag in drop games which can be created by anyone if they know how to, but is also available to programming through JavaScript framework for use for programmers. But it should also be noted as the successor to Construct Classic (2007) that is a free open source game creator and editor like Construct 2 as well as using Direct X, which was written using C++ and was not made by Scirra Limited but instead a group of students. The features of both engines include: pixel shaders, motion blur, rotation and zooming, behavioral system, skeletal animation system, debugger and over 50 in built objects as well as being able to support 2D physics on Box2DLibary. Also Construct has the ability to program sprites that can be used as characters, NPCs and enemies depending on the way they are programmed or are categorized by the user in which enemies or player characters can be given animations on how they move, attack or interact with the player or to obstacles/events.     

Another example of a 2D engine is Allegro (2013), made by Allegro developers and was created using the programming software C++ which is used to hold and create the more simpler of 2D games as its functions are limited. It alongside this it does have a wide range of features available to the user, which include: basic 2D graphics, image manipulation, text and audio output, MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) music, timers and input are among the main features used in the engine as well as additional routines used in the engine such as fixed point and floating-point matrix arithmetic, Unicode strings, file system access, file manipulation, data files and limited 3D graphics. The engine has five main features that are used primarily the first one being Vector Drawing which is to draw basic shape like squares, circles and rectangles as well as the use of curved lines and pixel creation and management but it also makes use of shape fill which the texture of a shape whether it has a pattern or not and finally it also make use of the polygons in which it takes care of there textures even 3D textures as well as what type of shading the textures use like Gouraud or Phong. The next feature the engine uses is sprites in which it covers the basics on how the sprites function and interact and whether they will be a playable, NPC or an enemy as well as making if the sprite is masked, compressed or complied, it also offers support for sprites based on what it is as the supports available include:  MP, LBM, PCX and TGA which can be used as the files that the sprites can use and be stored on and finally another part of this feature includes the use of texture applying on the sprites as well as the type of shading that can be used on them. The next feature is the used of the colour palette which, can be used to determine the amount of colours that are in the engine as well as the colour manipulation which is used to decide where the colours are to be used such as whether there for an object, sprite or text plus another part of this includes the ability to convert the colours into two different files which are RGB to HSV and vise versa. The fourth feature is the use of text within the engine that can be used to help the player through the game as well as for other things but in this engine it can also be used for different encoding and conversion purposes as well as used for the bitmapping of masking, colouring and alignment. The final feature available on this engine is known as Misc, which is used to edit and create the animation function for various things within the engine which uses a FLC format as well as the use of hardware buffering and drawing any size bitmaps.

AI (Artificial Intelligence)

AI are generally used in games and game engines to control certain aspects in that game, in which the most generally used is over NPCs (Non-Player Characters) which interact with the player in different ways but are not considered in the enemy category which have different interactions with the player. NPCs tend to be used to interact through speech or text dialogue, which is used to communicate with the player as well as being able to interact with the world they are in which is known as path finding in which they interact with obstacles and objects as well as being able to navigate the terrain and the fog of war (an area that the player has yet to visit) used in RTSs. Unlike regular AI used in modern technology game AI are not able to learn as they progress and are rather given a set of instructions to use and how to interact with certain people or obstacles such as in games like Fallout 3 (2007) NPCs in it can be spoken to have dialogue options in which they will reply with the same answer if the same question is asked as well as having the same expressions. But changing how difficult the game is can change AI from the players point to which on lower difficulties they make mistakes and act quite sluggish for intense the accuracy of there gun with change so they miss more, but this is also decided by a developer as they can decide that every 3 out of 10 shots will actually hit the player, but on higher difficulties they will be programmed to act more independently and make more complicated decisions and calculations such as hiding in cover when being shot or making other enemies under its control change how preform when fighting. Another type of AI used in video games is known as cheater AI which can access the information the developer allows them to which isn’t available to the player giving them an advantage in hard games which can be used to upgrade them such as enhanced hearing and sight as well as that in can just ask the game engine what the player’s position is; this AI is typically used to make game difficult as having a trial and error AI for an opponent can be boring and to easy so AI cheaters are used to make it harder as well as unleash an AIs full potential without exceeding the limitations while showing the intelligence achievable. Another type of AI used in games are known as Combat AI which are related to Cheater AI but are much simpler but also have more variety; from the name they are primarily used for combat as enemies to fight the player in which they have an intelligence that depends on how the game engine programmed and whether or not they are affected by difficulty change even though in recent years they attempt to make the AI more human they still are restricted to what they are told and don’t break the limitations; one of the most used features made possible with modern technology for combat AI is the ability to hunt the player/s, in which they will try to search for the player by using a more realistic state such as listening the players footprints and the line of sight between themselves and the player which can leave the player deciding on how they approach the enemy an example of this is in Metro 2033 (2010) the player has to avoid stepping on class so the enemy doesn’t hear them approaching as well as turning of there flashlight to be better hidden but have less visibility. Another feature used in todays game engines to do with AI that has been named survival instinct in which the enemy AI will try its hardest to stay alive for instance it will attempt to call another AI to help recover it if was downed as well as attempting to use the environment and objects such as hiding in cover in which it will also look over cover to check on what the player is doing before moving or reloading for example.     

Physics:

Physics in game engine/video games determine how and what laws of physics will apply to that engine, such as deciding whether the engine will have normal gravity or different gravity, in which developers use simulation physics which are a close approximation of real physics which tends to be present in most games in recent years for example a game that uses physics which are close to reality is FIFA 14 (2013) which has to use them to depict how far the ball goes when it has been kicked as well as how strong the kick was and how the wind direction will change the balls directory. In game engines there are types of physics simulators which are used the first one being called rigid body which are placed into categories in which each category based on how they interact and have a lower performance than if they use the second simulation which is soft-body in which it has a better performance but has to simulate each object individually. Particle systems are a major part of how physics work in game engines as that it makes up a lot of the moving elements like smoke, the movement of water or other liquid substances as well as other things as well. An example of how particle effects are used and made is shrapnel that comes of walls when they have been shot or had an explosive used on it, in which all the debris that comes of has been modelled and textured beforehand in which they are then grouped together as a large mesh and separate when shot or broken and come off as individual meshes/particles in which an example of a game that uses this is Battlefield 3 (2011).   

Mobile Engines

Mobile engines are developed for games that work on mobiles, IPod and Android in which they can vary from being 2D, 2.5D and 3D depending on the engine and the game being created, in which in this engine various task can be completed which can be from 3D and engines but they are dumbed down and not as over complicated than other engines. An example of a mobile engine that is used in game development is AGK (App Game Kit) which is developed by The Game Creators.

The AGK has a key feature that has made it well known across various developers which is that it is compiled to be used across multiple platforms without having to changes to the source code which allows it to be supported across multiple devices such as android like Windows and IPad and some phone devices like Blackberry which currently uses it as an engine for most of their game. The software used to create AGK is known as AGK script which is a programming language similar to C++, as well as having in build commands build into the program which are 2D graphics, physics and networking in which the commands are used to help improve the overall performance and enhance the code’s reliability.

Another engine used to make games on mobile devices is the Stencyl which was developed by Johnathan Bobby Chung; the engine can export games using Adobe Flash Player and HTML5 (this supports language across the web) to computers as well as mobile devices like Androids and iOS. Among the features in the engine the physics and Collision are managed by Box2D (this is a 2D simulator engine), but is not necessary as it can be disabled as it can affect the performance of the engine and its games that don’t require full physic stimulations. Other features include the use IDE (Integrated development environment) which is an application allows various tasks to be included in the engine such as Behavior editor which allows the behavior of the sprites and events to be edited through the edit of the code; another feature available is the Tileset Editor which is used to import and edit tilesets which basically the textures and materials, as well as edit collision and shapes, animation and appearances; the next editor available is the Actor Editor which is used to create and edit actors (entities) as well as the their behavior, physics and animation settings; and the final editor used with IDE is the Scene Designer editor that is used to create the levels and statistics as well as utilizing the actors, tilsets and behaviors within the levels. But IDE also has some other features not listed in categories which include importing images as backgrounds and scenery, import and edit font, import sounds and music which can imported from devices like MP3s and OGG (Vorbis) which depends on what is being exported and alter the games settings such as changing the controls and the game’s resolution. Another feature included is known as VPL which is used to create new behavior which can be done through to options: Create Mode and Design Mode; using the create mode will limit the user as they will only be permitted to the programs logic but can optionally open the code using an editor, whereas the Deign Mode is a GUI (Graphical User Interface) which is used to create a the game engines logic like the Actors and Scenes using a programming language.  

Graphic Rendering

Graphic Rendering is the process of placing an image upon a model such as a texture or texture detail, which is done by using various computer programs like Alladin4D  but it will also contain other elements that will be loaded up with the model which includes geometry, viewpoint, lighting, and the shading information. An example of how graphic rending works within a game as it is being played is that in big open world games like Elder Scrolls or GTA they use a grid system that splits the map up into sections so that if a player is in one section it will load up that area as well as start rendering the areas in each direction and when a player enters a new section it will unload the previous section and then start to load all the sections around the section the player is currently in. There are many features that are used when rendering which can improve or are part of the model that is being rendered, which includes: shading which determines how the colour and brightness will be affected by the render on the surfaces, texture-mapping which applies the detail to the surfaces of textures, bump-mapping which is used as method to stimulate a small-scale bumping affect on the surfaces of the models/meshes, fogging which is used to see how the lights dims through non-atmospheric areas or air, shadows which is used to see how the light would obstruct as well as many others. There are a few techniques that are used for rendering to help achieve a final image, one of which is known as ray casting which means the user will render it from one point of specific view, which is calculated using geometry and basic laws of reflecting lights as well as using Monte Carlo (broad computer algorithms)  to reduce the artifacts; another technique used is known as ray tracing is similar to ray casting but uses a more advanced optical system in which it uses Monte Carlo techniques to have a more realistic speed; another technique used is Rasterisation which projects geometrical objects onto an image plane which doesn’t have any advanced optical affects done to it.

Animation Systems

Animation is used a lot in game engines to control certain aspects of different assets in which different developers will use animation system engines for different games; an example of the sort of animation that is used within games is how characters would their bodies which has to animate their individual body parts like arms and legs separately within an animation engine.

An example of an animation engine used in game engines is Euphoria made by NaturalMotion which is mainly used to animate 3D characters as well as having control over parts of the body like the muscles, body and the motor nervous system which can be used to have a more realistic model but unlike some other engines the animations are synthesized in real time to give a more realistic look to them as even if the same sequence is played such as in dialogue the animations will be different in some aspect whether it be facial expressions, body language or the way they are talking; also unlike other engines which use ragdoll physics Euphoria uses a more complex system which physically bounds objects to the games environments. The engine is currently in use on consoles within the seventh generation of consoles such as the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 as well as the eighth generation which include the consoles Xbox One and PlayStation 4 as well as computer systems like Windows and OSX as well as iOS in which this engine has become compatible with all of them. An example of a game/s that was uses this engine is the Star Wars: The Force Unleashed (2008 – 2010) series made by Lucas Arts in which it was used to make the characters, NPCs and Enemies animation.

Another engine used in the game industry is the Unreal Engine 3 Animation System developed by Epic which uses a full skeletal systems allowing control over the 4 bone influences per vertex as well as the bone details. The animation in the engine are all driven by the ArminTree which is a tree of animation nodes which includes the use of Blend Controllers, data driven controllers, player controllers, skeletal controllers, inverse kinematics, group animations and morph target animations. An example of game used with this engine is the Gears of War Franchise made by Epic Games which would use them to make all character animation such as talking and movement.

Sound

Sound is used in game engines for a wide variety of reasons like water dripping or the sounds characters footprints will use in different environments, but can also be classed as the music/ soundtrack the game engine uses. Music in games can be to create a certain atmosphere related to what type of game it is such as in horror games the music can be quite sinister or creepy to create an atmosphere that puts players on their toes or to have the player feel uneasy though certain parts of the game, an example of this is in the game Dead Space: Extraction the player has to crawl through a air vent that it poorly lit and as the player progresses the song Twinkle Twinkle Little Star starts playing which leaves an uneasy feeling on the player but in games that are Science Fiction the developers will use more of a variety of music such as dramatic music made by an orchestra to give a more dramatic feeling or can use techno music to illustrate parts in which player has to run or do a certain objective which convinces them it’s more of a sci-fi game. Also in game engines the use of sound is quite well used such as sound of footsteps or the sound of doors creaking is used to add atmosphere to the game as well as realism but can also make games challenging an example of this is in Metro 2033 when the player has sneak through bandit camps they have to avoid the glass as stepping on it will make a crunching sound giving away their position. Sounds in games are made by using real life sounds like recording a door creaking then putting it into that game’s engine or can be artificially created by using a combination of different sound to get the sound you want such as when creating a sound for an aliens weapon or scream the developers will combine sounds from different things like something stuck in a lawnmower crossed with the sound of running water.