Hi guys! This may be on the wrong forum, but what the hell! How do you guys design game engines? ie planning it on paper(what u write down and stuff). I''m just looking for defferent ways to design mine. Thx, J

Howdy,

First I do a sort of ''Top Down'' aproach in URL.
I define the components I need for the engine,
like Input, Networking, Data, Graphics, Application, etc.
Then for each of these pieces I start breaking
them apart. Graphics in this case usually ends up
being broken down into a DX wrapper class with
a couple of manager classes to take care of resources.
Data ends up being broken into some sort of
Model class and a Model container. Input becomes
an input manager, Keyboard, mouse, and any other type
of input class you want to support.

After I finish breaking down everything to a basic
level, I can see the relationships between everything
and change them as needed for the project.

Next would be designing the interface between each of
these classes. You would of course have basic functionality
like Loading, Saving and Update. However, once
again, this starts getting engine specific.

I try not to start programming until I can go through
several functional paths through the design. My basic
test cases include startup, shutdown, loading and displaying
several object, handling input and what it should do, etc.

Hope this helps! This is what I do at least, and it
has worked great for the projects I have worked on.

By reading a gow-awful lot, and reviewing published game engine code

Magmai Kai Holmlor
- The disgruntled & disillusioned