Situation

Empire building is nothing new to Ensemble Studios. The award winning Microsoft Age of Empire's computer game, developed by Ensemble Studios, has created innumerable desktop kingdoms and fired the imagination of would-be despots and merchant moguls worldwide. Recently, Ensemble created Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings, with expanded features and even more stunning visual effects, developed with the advanced modeling and animation capabilities of 3ds max™ 3 from Discreet.

"We've been a 3ds max house since our beginning in 1995," said Herb Marselas, programmer for Ensemble Studios, "and we've never been disappointed. The power and flexibility of 3ds max allows us to quickly move from concept to finished product, and keep all those power-hungry gamers out there satisfied."

In the computer gaming industry, delivering advanced digital content to as many platforms as possible is the key to success. The tools needed for the job require the extensibility to use as much of the technology that is available from a number of third-party vendors.

"The open architecture of the 3ds max software means we have more access to the plug-ins we need," said Marselas, "and Discreet has done a very good job keeping 3ds max current with the latest technology."

Problems / Challenges

Microsoft wanted Age of Empires II to be able to run on as many PCs as possible, even those with lower end graphics cards and a minimum of memory, but without sacrificing visual quality. This presented Ensemble Studios with a daunting challenge. How can you enhance the already stunning Age of Empires graphics but keep the footprint small enough for older machines, and still work with a reasonable budget and deliver on time?

Solution / Benefits

"We start out with simple concept sketches which must be translated into dynamic action in glorious living color," said Brad Crow, lead artist. "3ds max is compatible with a large number of third-party plug-ins to improve visual quality, so we were able to use our favorites, like texturing tools from Digimation.

"Also, we knew right away that we couldn't go with 16-bit RGB color," said Crow. "The memory requirement is too high. We had to use a fixed 256-color palette, which cuts the RAM requirement at least in half."

Most modeling and animation packages do not allow the use of a color palette. With 3ds max 3, however, Ensemble Studio artists were able to specify a palette to use throughout the project, adjusting 3ds max to draw only with the palette colors specified. Using 3ds max, the programmers were even able to perform in-game adjustments by changing selected colors in the palette. For instance, for small special effects a particular palette entry could be changed, which 3ds max would use only for an identified special effect.

Each model in Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings is rendered out in up to 32 facets. The basic four being front, back, left, and right. "3ds max enabled us to render individual keyframe images to a fixed color palette and image size for use in-game," said Marselas, "Then, by utilizing the scripting capabilities in 3ds max, we were able to design an easy and straightforward mechanism for automating batch processes. Each model is rendered to one particular facet, then can be auto-rendered from different camera angles."

To further improve the process efficiency, 3ds max can render to a FLC format, basically rendering a full animation process into one file rather than rendering each frame movement into a separate file. A FLC file can be created for each type of animation-like walking, attacking, or battering-to be used over again as necessary.

Another feature of 3ds max is the ability to perform batch rendering over a number of platforms. "When we had a lot of rendering to do, say after extensive testing on multiple computers, we'd take advantage of 3ds max's network rendering capability and connect a number of machines to do the work overnight," Marselas said. "This is a great time saver."

Even with all the space saving features utilized to develop Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings, at 30 frames-per-second the program would still be far too large for any home computer. Ten frames-per-second brings the game down to a more manageable size, but accurate and consistent frame reduction is a must to retain a smooth execution of the animation. With 3ds max 3 frames can be removed at a consistent linear rate at the programmer's discretion, thereby reducing the game footprint without a major reduction in visual quality. Once the game had reached this point Ensemble Studios put in the finishing touches using Animator Pro and then used their own software to write it into a game format.

"3ds max helped us to meet the challenge of creating over 2000 highly detailed models and animations for Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings through the use of both its built-in functionality and its open architecture for plugins," said Marselas. "And, 3ds max helped us in more subtle ways to ensure we reached our deadline on budget. First of all, virtually all of our new hires were already familiar with the 3ds max software, so they could jump right into the project.

"And to top it all off, we even used 3ds max to create marketing and advertising visuals directly from the game software," he said. "So you see, 3ds max is on the job from beginning to end-and even after the end."

Gordon Davies is an industry writer based in Austin, TX. Email him at grdavies@jump.net. Images courtesy of Ensemble Studios and Microsoft Corporation.