Are game engines software frameworks? A three-perspective study

Politowski, Cristiano; Petrillo, Fábio; Montandon, João Eduardo; Valente, M.; Guéhéneuc, Yann‐Gaël

doi:10.1016/j.jss.2020.110846

Cited by 19 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 26 publications

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“…Our clustering was mainly based on folder names so these files were clustered together, even though they are not functionally related. For example, we confirmed that Cocos2d-x has HID functionality by inspecting its source files, which is backed by its documentation 10 . However, the files that contain HIDrelated classes are in a folder called base, which was clustered in the COR subsystem.…”

Section: A Rq1: Detected Subsystemssupporting

confidence: 58%

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An Exploratory Approach for Game Engine Architecture Recovery

Ullmann¹,

Guéhéneuc²,

Petrillo³

et al. 2023

Preprint

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Game engines provide video game developers with a wide range of fundamental subsystems for creating games, such as 2D/3D graphics rendering, input device management, and audio playback. Developers often integrate these subsystems with other applications or extend them via plugins. To integrate or extend correctly, developers need a broad system architectural understanding. However, architectural information is not always readily available and is often overlooked in this kind of system. In this work, we propose an approach for game engine architecture recovery and explore the architecture of three popular opensource game engines (Cocos2d-x, Godot, and Urho3D). We perform manual subsystem detection and use Moose, a platform for software analysis, to generate architectural models. With these models, we answer the following questions: Which subsystems are present in game engines? Which subsystems are more often coupled with one another? Why are these subsystems coupled with each other? Results show that the platform independence, resource management, world editor, and core subsystems are frequently included by others and therefore act as foundations for the game engines. Furthermore, we show that, by applying our approach, game engine developers can understand whether subsystems are related and divide responsibilities. They can also assess whether relationships among subsystems are appropriate for the game engine.

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Section: A Rq1: Detected Subsystemssupporting

confidence: 58%

“…• Game engine: the repository must be tagged with the "game engine" tag. • Written in C++: the repository must contain mostly C++ code because it is the most used programming language for game engine development [10]. • General purpose: the game engine must enable the creation of games of diverse game genres.…”

Section: A System Selectionmentioning

confidence: 99%

An Exploratory Approach for Game Engine Architecture Recovery

Ullmann¹,

Guéhéneuc²,

Petrillo³

et al. 2023

Preprint

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show abstract

“…The options of game engines are also not as varied as traditional software IDEs, for example. Unreal and Unity are used by the wide majority of commercial projects [12] and this has an influence on professionals' learning choices. Since education institutions focus on courses for these popular tools, the developer's knowledge may not be broad enough, which makes it harder for them to choose or develop their own tools.…”

Section: 23mentioning

confidence: 99%

Video Game Project Management Anti-patterns

Ullmann¹,

Politowski²,

Guéhéneuc³

et al. 2022

Preprint

Self Cite

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Project Management anti-patterns are well-documented in the software-engineering literature, and studying them allows understanding their impacts on teams and projects. The video game development industry is known for its mismanagement practices, and therefore applying this knowledge would help improving game developers' productivity and well-being. In this paper, we map project management anti-patterns to anti-patterns reported by game developers in the gray literature. We read 440 postmortems problems, identified anti-pattern candidates, and related them with definitions from the software-engineering literature. We discovered that most anti-pattern candidates could be mapped to anti-patterns in the software-engineering literature, except for Feature Creep, Feature Cuts, Working on Multiple Projects, and Absent or Inadequate Tools. We discussed the impact of the unmapped candidates on the development process while also drawing a parallel between video games and traditional software development. Future works include validating the definitions of the candidates via survey with practitioners and also considering development anti-patterns.

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“…From the analysis, it is observed that more than thirty AV simulation tools are available in the market. ey are commercial and open source in nature and are built using game engines [122,123]. In general, game engines give the flexibility to place the actors over the 3D space.…”

Section: Cosimulationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evolution of Traffic Microsimulation and Its Use for Modeling Connected and Automated Vehicles

Raju

Farah

2021

Journal of Advanced Transportation

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Traffic microsimulation has a functional role in understanding the traffic performance on the road network. This study originated with intent to understand traffic microsimulation and its use in modeling connected and automated vehicles (CAVs). Initially, the paper focuses on understanding the evolution of traffic microsimulation and on examining the various commercial and open-source simulation platforms available and their importance in traffic microsimulation studies. Following this, current autonomous vehicle (AV) microsimulation strategies are reviewed. From the review analysis, it is observed that AVs are modeled in traffic microsimulation with two sets of strategies. In the first set, the inbuilt models are used to replicate the driving behavior of AVs by adapting the models’ parameters. In the second strategy, AV behavior is programmed with the help of externalities (e.g., Application Programming Interface (API)). Studies simulating AVs with inbuilt models used mostly VISSIM compared to other microsimulation platforms. In addition, the studies are heavily focused on AVs’ penetration rate impact on traffic flow characteristics and traffic safety. On the other hand, studies which simulated AVs with externalities focused on the communication aspects for traffic management. Finally, the cosimulation strategies for simulating the CAVs are explored, and the ongoing research attempts are discussed. The present study identifies the limitations of present CAV microsimulation studies and proposes prospects and improvements in modeling AVs in traffic microsimulation.

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Are game engines software frameworks? A three-perspective study

Cited by 19 publications

References 26 publications

An Exploratory Approach for Game Engine Architecture Recovery

An Exploratory Approach for Game Engine Architecture Recovery

Video Game Project Management Anti-patterns

Evolution of Traffic Microsimulation and Its Use for Modeling Connected and Automated Vehicles

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