3D game development

With the development of the gaming industry, gamers have not enough ordinary two-dimensional projects. Many of them want to participate in more realistic adventures with authentic graphics, which are developed using 3D technologies.

Creating a 3D game is a time-consuming process, because the developers are faced with the task of creating an entire virtual universe filled with game characters, environments, textures, sounds and levels in which the actions of the story unfold. In this article, we will look at how the production process takes place and what technologies are used during production.

The timing and cost of developing a 3D game can vary greatly. For example, some AAA-level projects take years to create, and their price is measured in millions of dollars. Ultimately, the price tag is influenced by several main factors:

• what game engine is used;
• the size of the virtual universe;

• the number of characters, including main and secondary;
• 3D animation type: Simplified, Intermediate, or Photorealistic.

You need to understand that it is impossible to create a 3D game on a phone, large technical resources are involved for this, and this process takes a certain amount of time.

The production of a game project can be done completely from scratch, but this is often impractical because it requires a lot of time and investment. Instead, developers often use game engines, which are development environments with configurations, rendering engines, artificial intelligence, and other tools that greatly speed up production.

Some major publishers are even abandoning their own engines in favor of one of the existing solutions. For example, CD Projekt RED did this by choosing UE5 instead of REDengine to create the fourth part of “The Witcher” in order to speed up the development of the open world and get rid of a number of technical problems.

Consider the most popular game engines that you can use in your project:

• Unreal engine. Most often used in AAA-class projects and allows you to create photorealistic 3D environments. Suitable for developing games of various genres, including multiplayer shooters, MMORPGs, stealth fighting games, and more. UE is based on the C ++ language, which gives developers the ability to manually distribute the load on the hardware and create large games that optimally consume the resources of users’ devices. On Unreal Engine, you can release games for consoles and computers.

• Unity. A powerful multi-platform engine that can be used to create a 3D game for mobile devices, PC, tablets and consoles. It provides developers with a huge package of components and assets for working with 3D graphics, object physics and sounds. Unity supports two graphics rendering engines: DirectX and OpenGL. According to statistics, more than 50% of modern games on IOS and Android work on it.
• Cryengine. It supports a large number of modern technologies, including DirectX 12, Vulkan API, VR, pixel-by-pixel lighting, and more, thanks to which it allows you to create game environments with exceptional photorealistic graphics. At the same time, the engine does not use the power of RTX graphics chips by using its own ray tracing tool that works on AMD and Nvidia graphics cards.
• Source. Includes a map editor, model import/export and viewer tools, facial animation tools, file unpacking utilities, and many other tools you need to create a modern game. At the same time, the Source SDK supports the Vulkan API, and is completely free for all Steam users.

The choice of engine for creating 3D games on Android or any other platform depends on the technical requirements of the project and is often carried out by the development department, as it requires a deep understanding of the technology and context.

The production of 3D games consists of several interrelated stages, here are the main ones:

• Marketing research. Experts study the market, competitors and user demand, after which they develop an idea for a future project based on real facts, not speculation. This approach ensures that the game will be in demand among gamers and make a profit.
• Drawing up technical documentation. When the idea is approved, the concept of the project is formed, its budget, implementation timeline, and technical documentation is drawn up, which describes all the programming languages ​​that will be used, databases, memory sizes, technologies, and so on.
• Creation of a 3D game. This is the most time-consuming part, during which the programmers create the coding framework of the game, the designers develop the character and environment models, the animators bring the new virtual universe to life, the scriptwriters write a compelling story around which the actions develop, and the sound designers create the audio sequence and authentic sound effects.

• Testing. After technical development, playtesters check the project for bugs, eliminating all possible errors.
• Release. The game is placed on the sites provided for in the project documentation, such as AppStore and PlayMarket, after which it becomes available to users.
• Technical support. To keep the interest of gamers, the game must constantly evolve – it must include new levels, characters, mechanics or temporary events. They are released separately and integrated into the project through updates.

If you are planning to create your own 3D game, please contact AVADA MEDIA. Our specialists have experience in developing game projects of various sizes for most modern platforms. We will help turn your idea into reality, and provide high-quality technical support for the project throughout its existence.