The Game World
One of the most important aspects of modern game creation is the environment. Subtle touches like reflections in shiny surfaces and varied cloud patterns often go unnoticed by players, but they help create a much more immersive environment. And often such details can propel the story forward: for example, a twig snapping under a character's foot can signal approaching danger.
As the power of home computers rapidly increases, game developers are able to create ever more realistic and complex environments. Levels of detail that were unimaginable only a few years ago are now commonplace. It's hard to imagine the game worlds that await us in the future.
The majority of 3-D objects created for computer games are made up of polygons. A polygon is an area defined by lines. Each polygon has a set of vertices to define its shape, and it needs information that tells it what to look like. The most commonly used method to transmit this information is "texture mapping."
You can think of texture mapping much like wrapping a present. Each side of the box being wrapped is a blank polygon and the "paper" is an image of the texture to be applied. Most video game consoles and computers contain a special chip and dedicated memory that store the special images used for texture mapping and apply them to each polygon on the fly. This allows games to have incredibly detailed 3-D environments that you can interact with in real time.
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