3DGC:Design

3D Game Comparison - Game vs. game. No hype; just facts.™

Revision as of 15:17, 13 September 2007 (edit) Eep² (t|c) m →Pages ← Previous diff		Current revision (21:00, 13 January 2010) (edit) (undo) Eep² (t|c) m →'''Wiki markup comparison''' - more namespace examples
Line 155:		Line 155:
	** [[Effect:weather]]		** [[Effect:weather]]
	** [[Effect:wind]]		** [[Effect:wind]]
		+
		+	* [[environment:level]]
		+
		+	* [[objects]]
		+	** [[object:bow]]
		+	** [[object:dirt]]
		+	** [[object:level]]
		+
		+	* [[actions]]
		+	** [[action:bow]]
		+
		+	* [[surfaces]]
		+	** [[surface:dirt]]
	<td rowspan=2>		<td rowspan=2>

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Current revision

This page is MediaWiki-specific but see http://tnlc.com/eep/compare/database.html for general design ideas.

Originally designed for a database, conversion to MediaWiki presents some problems:

Contents 1 Classification 1.1 Categories 1.2 Namespaces 1.3 Subpages 1.4 Pages 1.5 Wiki markup comparison 1.6 Extensions 1.6.1 Dynamic Page List (DPL) 1.6.2 Semantic MediaWiki (SMW) 2 Comparison table

Classification

There are different ways of designing this "database"'s classification system using MediaWiki.

Categories

The most obvious is with categories. Unfortunately, these can quickly clutter up the bottom of pages if there are too many (if categories could be displayed in an organized way instead of by declaration or alphabetically...) Categories could be named like namespaces (i.e. Game:Tomb Raider) but why not just use namespaces then to reduce having to type the link (Category:Game:Tomb Raider vs. Game:Tomb Raider)?

Namespaces

Perhaps the next most obvious is with namespaces for games (game:), companies (company:), engines (engine:), characters (character:), effects (effect:), etc.

Subpages

Less obvious is using subpages (games/Tomb Raider) but they may be easier to manage than namespaces, although I'm not sure how DPL (see next section) can handle them. Additionally, subpages are automatically transcludable via template calls ({{/Tomb Raider}}).

Pages

Even less obvious is just using pages (Tomb Raider) and, with an extension like Dynamic Page Lists (DPL), categories really aren't necessary. Not having categories means not duplicating same-named pages/categories (or redirecting to one or the other) but explicitly require an extension like DPL or embedded Special:Whatlinkshere lists.

Wiki markup comparison

System	Markup	Advantages	Disadvantages
Category/Page	Games Game (or Game) Years Genres Companies Engines Camera pan, perspective, zoom; shaking (in Effects) Lighting (subcat of Effects or Lighting effects?) (lighting effects) Shading (shading) pixel shading, vertex shading Physics (physics) Collision detection (collision detection Texture (texture) Texture filtering (texture filtering) Texture mapping (texture mapping) bumpmapping, environment mapping (reflection), mipmapping Sound Sound effects Characters Actions bow, break, climb, close, crawl, crouch, dance, dive, drink, duck, eat, drop, fly, hit, hop, hug, jump, kick, kiss, lean, lie down, open, pick up, primp, punch, push, roll, run, search, shoot, sit, skip, sleep, sneak, stab, stand, strafe, shoot, strafe, swim, swing, talk, throw, tumble, vault, walk Footprints Surfaces Footsteps (subcat of Sound effects?) Surfaces Player characters Non-player characters Animals birds, fish, insects, mammals, reptiles--see [1] for extensive list Vegetation flowers, plants, trees Environment (level/world design) # environments: level, map, world, zone, etc Locations Effects Sound effects Visual effects Interaction Actions Puzzles (puzzles) Traps/hazards (Damage/damage) crushing (doors, walls, etc), falling (gravity), explosions, impalement (spikes, etc), water (drowning) Effects (effects; see also Physics) Breath effects cold breath, fire breath, poison breath Dust effects Lighting effects coronas, flickering, lens flare, lightmaps, shadows Particle effects blood, debris, dust, explosions, fire, gas, shards, sparks, smoke, spray, steam; see weather Reflection environment mapping mirrors, water Shards glass, wood Smoke effects Sound effects Footsteps Spray effects Steam effects Water effects bubbles, current, drops, ripples, splash, waves Weather effects clouds, fog, lightning, rain, snow, wind transitions (can also apply to levels) Objects--see [2] for extensive list books, candles, doors, flares, furniture (beds, chairs, desks, tables, etc), lights (flashlights, lanterns, torches, etc), keys, ladders, ropes, scrolls, staffs, weapons, windows Weapons (melee/ranged?, general type/kind only?)--see [3] for extensive list Bows/bows Guns/guns Projectiles/projectiles arrows, bullets Swords/swords Surfaces dirt, grass, gravel, metal, mud, plastic, sand, snow, stone, water, wood inventory (Interface?) design: store and use, combine, encumbrance map objects pickups Gameplay? cutscenes, FMVs difficulty levels, bosses linear, open-ended/sandbox saving: in-level (anywhere, save points), end-level	Less typing Default classification system with auto-generated lists	Mixing same-named articles and categories causes redundancy (redirect to categories only?) Games with simple names (like Rune, Dirt, etc) can conflict with object names (like a "rune") or surface types (like "dirt"); engine names like Steam and Source can conflict with the "steam" effect and "source" of something (though rare; or short for "source code"). Lowercase names can help alleviate most of these conflicts but not these: bow action -> bow weapon Camera pan (view pan, camera pan?) -> object pan (pans?) sprite (computer graphics) -> sprite (fantasy creature) level (environment term) -> level object map (environment term) -> map object Combining a noun (object) with its verb (action) on the same page may just be easier.
Namespace	Game:Games Game:Tomb Raider Effect:Effects Effect:weather Effect:wind environment:level objects object:bow object:dirt object:level actions action:bow surfaces surface:dirt	Name conflicts less likely Less need to use complicated/confusing Semantic MediaWiki to establish relationships (links between games and features) DPL can list links to specific namespace/subpages vs. to a page that can mean different things (noun vs. verb, action vs. object, etc)	More typing Must use extension(s) to generate lists
Subpage	game game/Dirt game/Rune company company/Core Design engine engine/Steam engine/camera engine/camera/pan engine/sprite engine/texture engine/texture/filtering engine/texture/filtering/anistropic engine/texture/filtering/bilinear engine/texture/filtering/trilinear engine/texture/mapping engine/texture/mapping/bump engine/texture/mapping/environment engine/texture/mapping/mip character character/sprite (noun) character/Sprite (pronoun) level design ("environment"?) level design/level level design/map action action/bow action/bowl action/duck action/jump effect effect/particle effect/particle/steam (particle effect steam vs. some other way to render it, as rare as it may be) effect/particle/water/drop effect/steam (general steam effect--necessary if "particle effect steam" exists?) effect/water effect/water/bubble effect/water/ripple effect/water/splash effect/weather effect/weather/rain object object/bow object/bowl object/dirt object/duck (quack) object/level object/map object/mud object/pan object/rune object/can object/can/soda object/can/food (aluminum/tin) object/weapon/bow surface surface/dirt surface/mud (wet dirt)

Extensions

Note: DPL and SMW appear to cause pages to load slower (lots of server calls, flashing the web browser statusbar like mad most of the time).

Dynamic Page List (DPL)

Using DPL, lists of pages linking to other pages (as well as pages in categories and namespaces) are possible. This may be the best option that will allow all classification schemes to be included/used.

Semantic MediaWiki (SMW)

This extension is similar to DPL in outputting lists of pages in categories and namespaces, but also allows more complex relationships between things. Unfortunately, it's a lot more complicated to use (even moreso than DPL), which makes it a last resort. Programmers still code for programmers, apparently...even if they claim to be "semantic"--try being "intuitive" and "user-friendly" instead.

Comparison table

So far I've tried 2 extensions for the comparison table. One (TemplateTable) is easy-to-use but very limited and the other (DPL) is more difficult to use but more customizable (yet still not enough for my needs).