Why
use a scripting language instead of hard coding it in to the engine?
Well most game logic can be scripted keeping the
game code and the engine code separate. This way its easier to find stuff and
modify plus you can re-use the engine code for another game. There are other
pluses too. In the industry it can take quite a while to see your changes in
the game because you would have to recompile the entire game each time (heavy
rain had 4 million lines of code). But if you use scripting you can see the
effects in game immediately. Even more efficient is the possibility to teach
non programming roles how to modify bits of code so they can tweak it
themselves without having to involve a programmer.
Making realistic actors
In a film or book you have no control over the
content and so there is no agent. You watch the characters make decisions
and stick to their roles which gives the illusion of personality. However in a
game you have more control due to the interactive nature of the gameplay. This
means your the agent, you make all the decisions which is why, even though the
characters history might be known, you do not have any attachment to the
character your playing. In the Sims a mother is playing with her baby. You
tell the mother to feed the baby. The mother then puts the baby on the floor
(to end the last animation) and then picks the baby up to feed him
(beginning the next animation). This is very unbelievable!
So how
can we make believable actors if they don't make any
decisions?
The key to this is believability. Although it
must be understood that there is a difference between realism and
belief. Bugs Bunny is a believable character but he
certainly isn't realistic. The idea is if you
can imagen what that character could be doing now then it must have a
believable personality. However if you can only think of the character as a
empty husk then the believability has obviously failed. Again if you have made
all the decisions for the character than you have nothing to latch onto about
the characters personality. You have to be able to create characters that feel
like they have a responsibility over their own actions and yet allow
us to also be responsible.
One way to fix this is by using procedural movement
and behavior. Combine multiple movements
by overlapping the animations to produce a
more believable action. A good example would be to walking
and reaching for something in a cupboard rather r than
walking to the cupboard, stopping, then reaching for the door. You can
also use pseudo-random movement to create a continuous presence. Such as
shifting weight or blinking. The point is use more non linear animations.
