The Game Asset Pipeline

by Ben Carter

Many of today's computer games are mega productions with huge teams and budgets, vast quantities of content, and crunched schedules. Getting these games to market is not an easy feat. Just managing the creation of content and getting that content into the right place at the right time is an enormous challenge. Hundreds of development hours are lost dealing with asset and pipeline issues, so the need for a working system is immense. The Game Asset Pipeline is written for tools programmers, producers, and managers who need to know how to create such a system. The solutions and ideas presented in the book cover current technology and methods that can be used to design and implement an asset management system. The book is divided into three distinct
* Construcutng robust and usable asset management systems
* Building systems necessary to implement an automated system for managing asset processing
The nuts and bolts of performing the most common tasks Each of these areas will be of interest to various members of the production team. The beginning chapters cover both design and implementation details, including data formats, naming conventions, custom export tools, asset identification, broken data, synchronizing code and data, building a distribution package, and automated testing. From there the book moves into the specifics of the system, such as storage methods, transactions and locking, client/server architecture tools, managing the local repository, access controls and security, scripting support, and archiving and purging data. The remainder of the book covers low-level processing tasks, management of the pipeline, and the production of the final data. Some of the topics covered in these chapters texture and image processing, geometry processing, audio and video processing, and environment processing. This is the one book that will guide the production team through the daunting task of managing the vast array of game assets in a structured, practical method. Key Features!
* Provides detailed coverage of the entire asset building process, from source content through to final game disc files
* Details how to build and maintain an efficient asset management system, using either existing products or a custom solution
* Includes examples of commonly-needed asset processing tasks, with implementation details and strategies
* Covers the processes and tools tailored to the specialized needs of game development teams
* Teaches how to use dependence maintenance and smart build tools to ensure game assets are processed and integrated as efficiently as possible

302 pages, Paperback

First published September 3, 2004