Gravitron A study of game development and its graphical effects

Abstract

This bachelor thesis explores the possibilities of creating a visually pleasing game within a limited timeframe of three months, and which graphical e ects that may be crucial. The game is in uenced by the neon light city environments in TRON, and uses gravitational shifts to incite excitement, hence the name Gravitron. Many of the techniques sought after during this project are included in the nal result. Among these techniques, bloom, god rays, and screen space ambient occlusion are considered the most bene cial for the desired visual setting. The combination of a deferred renderer and these graphical e ects makes the luminous city environment in Gravitron possible. The project use XNA Game Studio 4.0, alongside C# with .NET, and the IDE used is Visual Studio 2010/2013. An agile approach is adopted and the group deploys an iterative development model. Using the XNA framework gave the group some knowledge about graphics and its underlying structures. Unfortunately, this slowed down the development process. Tool-kits, like Unity and Unreal Engine, could be used, if the progression of the game is considered more important than the learning process.