Hi there, as a student of Computer Science, UML is one of the things we learn as part of the course. It seems very useful, but doesn''t seem to be too widespread in the real world. So, my question is: does anyone out there actually use it in the gaming/entertainment sphere? If so, could anyone point me at example UML diagrams for a 3D engine (I have come up with a diagram for one, but would like to see if I''m on the right track)? -- Sartori

The fact is there are no "standards" when it comes to analysis and design. There are a barrel full of OOP Methodologies out there, and everybody uses their favourite. To me,from what I''ve seen of UML it is useful, but also painful. It would take a very long time to design sya an operating system entirely in UML, and then writing in C++ would take a long time again.

Lots of people use UML, I just don''t think many of them are in the games industry. Perhaps it is because of restricted time when making games.



-=[ Lucas ]=-

I had to use UML at my last job, and here''s what I came away with:

The use-cases are excellent for aiding in business-to-technical translation. If you can get your bosses to give you use-cases (harder than it sounds), it''s much easier than going back and forth with text descriptions.

Action diagrams are good for SIMPLE sequences, but become unreadable with more complex situations. I found them great for protocol specs (inter-component communications), but that''s about it.

Object diagrams are EVIL! I by far prefer Booch diagrams for this part: they''re much more intuative.

Any other parts of UML I tended to ignore, because they didn''t help me much. I personally use block diagrams and my own form of action sequence for my designs, and find they are quite decent at describing the system.

Do I use UML for games? Not really. I find the concepts of UML are geared for Applications, and it''s hard to map to a game (engine or otherwise). Not impossible, just hard.

Hope this helps.

Morbo

I have SOFTEAM''S UML installed but haven''t used it yet. Am working on 3d editor. My UML can translate the code into c++ code but I haven''t tried it yet but felt that I needed to mention this clever feature

http://www.objecteering.com/us/

my homepage
E-Mail: BlueOrbSoftware@mailcity.com

I use UML in my project where it convenient (www.rolemaker.dk - the diagrams are on-line), but I do not force everything to UML.

I just use it when I need to explain thing to myself and other about how something works; for instance, class diagrams are often useful.

Like any other technique I think it is problem if it is overdone and you for instance use some UML tool that enforces system wide use. The UML development process is also overdoing it.

I use it as a notation technique for things that would just have been ad hoc diagrams anyway.

Jacob Marner