Assignment 8 Write-Up

Download this game here.

• Controls:
  • Esc – Exit.
  • Shift – Toggle object’s geometry.
  • Backspace – Toggle between controlled camera/object.
  • Arrow Keys – Move camera/object.

1. Assignment Goal:
   • To transform human readable files into easy-to-process binary files.
     • This allows the files to still be viewed and edited within source-control, while also compacts them for ease of processing.
   • To move much of the asset loading work into the building process rather than doing it in-engine.
2. Additions & Changes:
   • Altered GeometryBuilder project to output binary file rather than simply copying the Lua file.
     • Instead, reads Lua file and transforms it into a binary file.
     • Unwinding code is executed here instead of in cGeometry.d3d.cpp.
   • Added a binary File .geo format:
     • Stored in order of vertex count, vertices values, index count, and indices values.
     • Simple to read and iterate through one step at a time.
     • Smaller in size, both for processing and storage.
   • Removed unwinding code from cGeometry.d3d.cpp.
     • This was transfered into the cGeometryBuilder.cpp where winding is now done based off the platform.
3. Metrics:
   • Helix Lua on Disk: 2,564,096 bytes
     • Time to Read File: 0.207188
   • Helix Binary on Disk: 602,112 bytes
     • Time to Read File: 0.025640
4. How I Did It:
   • Simply shifting code around, I was able to complete this assignment very quickly.
   • The way the binary file was written and read makes a lot of sense to me, since I usually have the mindset of storage in arrays.