15ronment being rendered. For example, indoor “dungeon crawl” games oft en
employ binary space partitioning (BSP) trees or portal -based rendering sys-
tems. Outdoor FPS games use other kinds of rendering optimizations such as
occlusion culling , or an offl ine sectorization of the game world with manual
or automated specifi cation of which target sectors are visible from each source
sector.
Of course, immersing a player in a hyperrealistic game world requires
much more than just optimized high-quality graphics technology. The charac-
ter animations, audio and music, rigid-body physics, in-game cinematics, and
myriad other technologies must all be cutt ing-edge in a fi rst-person shooter.
So this genre has some of the most stringent and broad technology require-
ments in the industry.
1.4.2. Platformers and Other Third-Person Games
“ Platformer” is the term applied to third-person character-based action games
where jumping from platform to platform is the primary gameplay mechanic.
Typical games from the 2D era include Space Panic, Donkey Kong, Pitfall!, and
1.4. Engine Differnces Across Genres
Figure 1.3. Jak & Daxter: The Precursor Legacy.