"How to evolve Japanese games in the future" "CESA game development technology road map released"

In order to provide the latest developments and future technology trends to game developers, the Association of Computer EntertainmentCESA) Has released "CESA game development technology roadmap". It is said that Japan's game development is beginning to be delayed compared with the game development site in the world It has been quite a long time since then, according to this road map, the game development in Japan still has plenty of room for development I understand.

The road map consists of five categories, "programming"Visual Arts" (Rendering, Animation, Graphic Design, Authoring · Production) · "Visual Arts" (Programming General, Computer Graphics, AI, Physics, Animation)Game design"(Game system, improvement of productivity and quality, peripheral technology that we must care) ·"sound(DSP (Digital Signal Processing), synthesizer size / waveform generation / speech synthesis / speech analysis, authoring environment / compression format) · "network(Expansion of the concept of private owned data, P2P usage and resource sharing, establishment of network environment incorporating WEB technology, gaming community integration), the situation of "latest" and "several years later" It is written.

Details are as below.
CESA - Home
http://www.cesa.or.jp/

This technology development roadmap is to open up the latest trends in various technologies related to game development and contents that may be utilized in the near future as a roadmap, and the game developers, related industry personnel, It is said that it aims to be used as a guideline for activities of researchers and students. In addition, this roadmap was created by consultation with CESA's Technical Committee and CEDEC Advisory Board, which hosts CEDEC (CESA Developer's Conference) for Japan's largest game developer conference, this time for the first time It is getting.

~ CESA game development road map (programming field) ~


◆ General programming

- Created in C / C ++. API based thread control with multi-core CPU


- New language or language extension that supports memory sharing, declaration of isolation level, thread generation, simplification of synchronization, etc. As a reference example, CUDA / Axum / ATIstream / TBB / OpenCL / OpenMP and other approaches from functional languages
- Improvement of run-time optimization techniques such as LLVM / PGO
- Game body part gradually shifts to languages ​​such as C # and Java

◆ Computer Graphics

- Polygon based model + Variations of mapping, Deferred Rendering, etc.


- Realization of scalable geometry using Voxel / Micro polygon / NURBS / Displacement Map / Tessellation / Fractal etc.
- Real time implementation such as Global Illumination / Radiosity, or hybridization with polygon based methods
- Solving Z-buffer problems such as ABuffer / Alias-Free Shadow Maps

◆ AI

- Script-based implementation of FSM


- graph based, setting based visual script
- Behavior selection by scoring calculation, condition judgment, etc. not dependent on conditional branch on the code. As a reference example GOAP / Hierarchical Behavior Tree / Probability Based Search etc.
- Automatic / semi-automatic content generation by animation, image, voice, syntax analysis

◆ Physics

- Rigid body simulation + Constraint Solver, Ragdoll physics etc.


- Do not rely on setup, representation of broken faces, breakage, deformation of material by material
- Fracture simulation using spring model / FEM
- Partial application of particle method by fluid simulation / cross simulation etc.

◆ Animation

- Skeleton-based keyframe animation, IK + autocompletion.


- external force response
- Muscle simulation
- Proactive animation such as dynamic analysis of motion capture data and creation of animation data by generation / learning method by combination

~ CESA game development road map (Visual Arts field) ~


◆ Rendering

- Utilization of programmable shaders, HDR · AO · SH · PRT etc.
- Fine, expressive, robust shadowing


- Realization of high scalability
Geometry shaders, geometric images, etc.
- Interactive ray tracing
- AR · Stereoscopic viewing · High frame rate etc. Output stage evolution
- Diversification of shape representation such as vector representation and point group representation

◆ Animation

- High level motion capture
Performance capture, facial capture
- Rigid physical simulation, physical base motion generation


- Interactive motion based on advanced DB search
- AI based motion generation
- Advanced physics simulation (destruction, fluid, muscle, soft body etc)

◆ Graphic Design

- Penetration of FLASH
- Dynamic production using motion graphics


- Behavior based interface direction
- Network expressions other than simple lists and avatars
- Resolution free design

Authoring · Production

- Abstract data generation according to request of programmable shader
- Introduction of high efficiency methods such as 3D scanning and 3D brush tool
- Efficiency editing of large scale data, distributed environment
- Highly efficient content pipeline
- Penetration of asset management system


- Various color space · Handling of HDRI texture
- Construction of data from fine arts and real objects
Inverse rendering
Proceduralization from syntax and rule extraction
- Concurrent authoring beyond file operations and version control
- Interaction between DCC tool and game runtime
- Aggressive use of open content

~ CESA game development road map (game design field) ~


◆ Game system
How to put out ideas, elements to become original, how to use easy-to-operate interfaces

- Bipolarization of casual games and core users
- Diffusion of download sales
- Increase and Coexistence of UGC
- Increase in games supervised by experts
- Game design conscious of playing environment like stationary machine + portable machine
- Dedicated customized game design for customer groups in specific communities


- Introduction of game design to educational institutions, rehabilitation and employee training
- Increase in games that are aware of rising age of users
- Game design based on psychology
- A game that continues to evolve based on user's play information
- Cloud-type game using a portable information terminal capable of constantly connecting to the Internet
- generalization of flow to appropriately examine UGC games and aid publishing

◆ Improve productivity and quality
Technology that raises productivity to make the most of ideas

- Pre-made tests and evaluation by purchased users since they are on the market
- Short-term idea realization by Flash etc.
- Prototyping, white box development method
- script generation by handwriting and tools
- Increase in countries that need localization


- Marketing using data mining
- Automated test (game system, integrity)
- Equipped with AI to automatically adjust difficulty level
- Proper progress prediction by process management system conforming to game development
- Development of advanced localization necessity and automation (translation and character number adjustment, automatic conversion of units and digits, culture)

◆ Peripheral technology to be concerned
Technology that is anticipated for the future that will be the source of ideas

- Three dimensional image recognition technology with depth taken into consideration
- Increase in multi-touch device
- AR technology by camera, GPS and electronic compass etc
- Accelerometer


- Diffusion of 3D images
- Generalization of technology to read facial expressions
- Game design using personal recognition technology
- Operation based on weak signals from the brain and skin
- Force feedback that can control the environment

~ CESA game development road map (sound field) ~


◆ DSP (Digital Signal Processing)

- Sound processing rushes into the era of full software drive
- DSP became programmable and original control became possible
- Start of frequency domain type speech processing


- Unique DSP development generalized. Expertise to handle signal processing is required.
- Tools that can easily perform signal processing such as DSP become popular and become part of workflow
- Audio input / output standard like VST is adopted also on the game platform, and it becomes more generalized

◆ Synth size · Waveform generation · Speech synthesis · Voice analysis

- Implementation of fundamental physical phenomena (shielding, diffraction, transmission, Doppler etc)
- More advanced volume control / tone quality control of prepared waveforms
- Pronunciation waveform selection according to object mass, shape, and speed (linkage with Physics started)
- Experimental stage of speech uttered by speech synthesis engine and natural language input by speech analysis


- Further evolution of conventional waveform synthesis technology (frequency domain signal processing, waveform morphing)
- Approach from waveform storage type to waveform generation type
- Integration with more sophisticated physical computing engines, Applications of AI engine to pronunciation control
- Challenge to simulation based on research on spatial acoustics such as acoustic engineering and architectural acoustics

Authoring environment · Compressed format

- Provide authorization environment such as sound source layout assimilated with game engine
- Musical instrument sound sampling + musical score data (MIDI etc.) creation of songs, shifting to raw pickup progresses
- Generalized codec for surround support
- Attempt to Automatically Generate Songs (Application of Sequential Technology to the Music Field)


- Accelerate work efficiency by linking with CG authoring tool
- Increase work efficiency by fully collaborating with DAW software, Establish new workflow · Import DAW data or operate on platform
- Practical application of interactive composition / control technology by script language
- Promotion and Effective Utilization of Audio Format Containing Metadata
- Acceleration of codec development for voice transmission (Voice chat is more popular)

~ CESA game development road map (network field) ~


◆ Expanding the concept of personal possession data

- Personal information on the server and "Game data deeply related to individuals, Avatar, Diary recorded by individuals · Blogging text" exist
- The server operator protects "personal information" with legal responsibility and handles it based on the intention of the target company


- Beyond personal information, the range of data deemed owned by an individual will be expanded. Game data and so on are owned by individuals, the server operator is responsible for protection.
- A security mechanism and protocol realizing ownership with expanded personal data is realized

◆ P2P usage and resource sharing

- It uses P2P technology for battle game etc etc.
- Data distribution by P2P is performed to improve data transfer efficiency and reduce server load
- Virtualize servers as cloud and provide large-scale computing resources


- Aggressively utilize P2P to provide resources for game world construction from the game play environment side. As the client becomes part of the server, the boundary between the server and the client becomes ambiguous
- Technology for virtualizing resource groups with different configurations as game space provisioning resources is established

◆ Building a network environment incorporating WEB technology

- Construction and operation of large-scale sites by WEB technology with stateless characteristics are performed
- Provide stateful server = client based game playing environment


- Construction of a game server applying the multiple connection / load distribution technology cultivated on the Web progresses
- A game playing environment in which an access terminal is chosen is realized because it uses the one whose connection technology is standard / open

◆ Game · Community integration

- A game-based environment and a web-based community that complements it exist
- Game planning interlocking between web based games and conventional network games, linking some data
- We provide casual gaming environment based on WEB technology including browser plugin


- Community, web based game, server = client type game, share the same data source
Equivalent access means and protocols independent of terminals are established
- A game environment with multiple views according to the expressiveness of the terminal is provided

In addition, CESA plans to update this road map once every year in conjunction with the holding of CEDEC and publish it, and it says that the field will be revised as necessary.