Python in Game Development

Python is interactive, object-oriented, interpreted programming language. It is often compared to many languages such as Ruby, C#, Perl, Visual Basic, Visual Fox Pro, Java. And it is easy to use. Python possesses a great ability with very clear and simple syntax. It has modules, exceptions, classes, dynamic typing, and dynamic data types. It can be used in interfaces to many system calls and libraries, and also to various windowing systems. New built-in modules are easily written in C or C++ (according to the need). Python is used as an extension language for applications written in other languages. Python is popular in game development, and it is also used to create applications and websites. Even NASA and Google rely heavily on Python. There are plenty of alternative languages that can be used to create games, but many choose python because it has the tendency to take care of the details and leave the programmer to concentrate on solving problems. In game development, solving problems means displaying game characters on the screen, making them look great, and having them interact with a virtual environmentObject-oriented programming is a fancy term for a simple concept which means simply means storing the information needed to describe something together with a number of actions that work with that information.

In a game, just about everything will be defined as an object. Python classes are defined with the class statement, which is used for creating new objects. Functions created within a class statement are called methods, which are similar to other functions with the exception that the very first parameter is the object that the method applies to. There is one function that is a special method and is called when an object is first created (__init__). It is used to initialize the information, or properties, contained in the object. Python has a huge number of the standard library that can do a variety of useful things. All the libraries are organized into a number of modules, which can contain classes, functions, or other Python objects. Pygame is a powerful platform for building games. It comprises of many submodules for a variety of game-related tasks. Pygame is supported in a huge number of platforms. Ports are available for all the major desktop systems and even some consoles—so as to develop a game on a platform and play it on another. Flags can be used in creating a display, which can improve the performance or add capabilities. It is probably best to leave most of these flags disabled, at least until the programmer is more familiar with Pygame and computer graphics in general. Colors are the most basic and important things in creating computer graphics. All images in the game are ultimately created by manipulating the color codes. Pygame stores colors and is also used to make new colors by combining existing ones. Surface objects are Pygame’s canvases and are capable of storing all kinds of images. The draw module is used because it is handy for visually depicting additional information in the game. For instance, it could use it to draw a little arrow over the enemy character indicating which way they are headed. Moving a sprite, or anything else on the screen requires that the programmer add small values to the coordinates on each frame, but if the movement is to be smooth and consistent. It also needs to be matched with the current time—or more specifically, the time since the last frame. Using time-based movement is also important for running the game on a large range of computers as possible.

Computers can vary a great deal in the number of frames per second they can generate. Vectors are an essential part of any game developer’s toolbox. Vectors simplify a great deal of the math in writing the game, and they are remarkably versatile. The techniques for moving in two dimensions can easily extend to three dimensions. That can be done by using Vector3 class contains many of the methods used in the Vector2 class but with an additional component (z). Sometimes the control affects the player character instantly so that it will obey exactly what the player tells it to do. Classic shoot-’em-ups were like this when the left is pressed, the ship instantly went left, and vice versa. I order to make the game more realistic, though the controls should affect the player character indirectly by applying forces like thrust and break. The controls for a game are how the player interfaces with the gaming universe. Since real persons can’t jack into the game, Matrix-style, the controls should feel as natural as possible. When making control methods for a game, it is a very good idea to take a look at how other similar games are played. Controls do not change for games of a similar genre. This is not because game designers lack imagination but it’s just that game players have come to expect games to work in the similar ways. If the programmer uses more creative control methods, be ready to justify it to the players or offer them a more standard alternative. Making a non-player character behave in a realistic manner is the goal of artificial intelligence added in games. Good AI is required to add an extra dimension to the game because players will feel that they are in a real world rather than a computer program. Poor AI can also destroy the illusion of realism as glitches in the graphics or unrealistic sounds do, possibly even more so. A player might be able to believe that a simply drawn stick figure is a real person, but only as long as it doesn’t bump into walls! The current version AI of an NPC is not always related to the amount of code used to simulate it. Players tries tend to attribute intelligence to NPCs that are not really there. Sometimes it can take surprisingly lesser work to convince the player that something is smart. State machines are a practical and easy way of implementing game AI because they break down a complex system (i. e. , a brain) into smaller chunks that are easy to implement. They aren’t difficult to design as they are accustomed to imagining what other people or animals are thinking when they do things. It may not be practical to turn every thought into computer code, but it is needed to approximate behavior to simulate it in a game. The simple state machine framework we created in this chapter can be used in the games to build convincing AI. Games with 3D visuals have the most potential to attract more and more players in and keep them entertained. This is true not because the graphics are more realistic but because they feel more natural as early 3D games actually looked crude in comparison to their 2D counterparts. Objects in a 3D game should be able to rotate and be viewed at different angles, just like in the real world. Storing information about the 3D points and directions is an easy extension to 2D. It just needed an extra component for the extra dimension. There are many types of projection, but perspective projection is the most common and best because it creates natural-looking scenes.

The math for working with matrices can intimidate, but if the programmer uses a prebuilt matrix class. It’s more important to know how to combine translation, rotation, and scaling to manipulate objects in a game. Visualizing a matrix from its grid of numbers is also a useful skill to have, and helps to fix bugs if anything goes wrong with the games. The sound is a very creative medium and it may require a lot of experimentation to perfect the audio in a game. Selecting good sound effects is very important because the player will likely hear them many times—and bad or annoying audio will quickly discourage further play. The same is true for the main title soundtrack, which has equal potential to either enhance or annoy. The pygame. mixer module provides Pygame’s sound effects capabilities, which allows to load and play sound files on one of a number of channels. When sound is played through the Sound object, Pygame has the ability to automatically allocate a free channel. This is the simplest approach, but the programmer has the option of managing channels by playing the sound on a specific channel. Although the programmer can play any audio with Sound objects, it is best to play music with the pygame. mixer. music module because it can stream the audio, rather than loading the entire file into memory. The music module provides a number of simple functions that the programmer can use to manage the music in the game. Textures are the primary way of making a 3D scene look convincing because the programmer can apply images of the real world to objects in the game. Photographs are the proper way of creating textures, a digital camera is a fantastic tool for game development. The Pygame wiki has a great collection of links to sites with free textures. Because OpenGL was created independently of Pygame, there is no one function that the programmer can use to read and upload an image to be used as a texture. A few steps are involved in order to get the image data from a file to high-speed video memory. But the programmer has to be sure to set the minimizing and maximizing texture parameters, as well as the wrapping functions. The Wavefront OBJ format is well supported, and the programmer may find the Model3D class adequate for most of the games. Writing parsers can be challenging, but it’s a great way to come to grips with the details of 3D model creation.

OpenGL lighting is very powerful and can greatly enhance the realism of the games. Combinations of light and material parameters will help the programmer create the kind of scenario for the game like, whether it is a bright and cheerful cartoon world or a nightmarish landscape with unspeakable monsters lurking around every corner. Blending is the needed to creating a multitude of special effects but can also be used to simply render translucent objects. OpenGL’s blending features is used for combining blend factors and equations can create many more. Fog is another OpenGL feature that can enhance the game by simulating atmospheric effects or disguise the effects of distance scenery popping in as it comes into range of the camera. Fog is easy to add to a scene because it only takes a few lines to enable and set the parameters so that the programmer can experiment with fog without changing the render code. Skyboxes, which are a great way of adding a backdrop to the game. Skyboxes may be an old technology, but they are still used in many modern games including cutting-edge console titles. Game development is a constantly expanding field, as everyone likes to play games, which makes it a fascinating hobby or profession. Most of the developers, whether they are novices or industry veterans—are extremely enthusiastic about what they do, and are happy to share knowledge and code with others. Once the programmer has built a game, he should consider submitting it to the Pygame website to share it with the Pygame community. From the Pygame site, a programmer can also download projects of other programmers, and perhaps participate in one of the Pyweek challenges, where programmers compete to produce the best game they can in a week.