Examining the Capabilities and Limitations of Texture Maps in Digital 3D Games Development

Der Fortschritt in Computerhard- und software ermöglicht der Spieleindustrie, immer technisch versiertere digitale Spiele zu entwickeln. Besonders der Bereich des 3D und 2D Designs profitiert davon, obgleich immer noch Grenzen vorzufinden sind, welche in Hinsicht auf die Generierung von Game Assets zu berücksichtigen sind. Die vorliegende Arbeit untersucht dabei den aktuellen Forschungsstand und analysiert diesbezüglich Chancen und Limits sogenannter Texture Maps zur Erzeugung von Detail auf dreidimensionalen Objekten. Die Resultate dieser Untersuchung sollen am ausgewählten Beispiel der Videospielreihe Tomb Raider aufgezeigt werden

Agency in and around videogames

This thesis conceptualises player agency in avatar-based videogames as an affordance of game design (Gibson 1979). By examining how agency is discussed in different discourses surrounding videogames, such as those of game studies and game design, it puts forward a multidimensional heuristic framework for conceptualising agency in avatar-based games. Game studios with a particular design focus that draw on ‘game design lineages’ (Bateman and Zagal 2018) feature as case studies to demonstrate the analytical power of this framework, examining how agency is designed, and how developers discuss how it is designed. The combined methods of textual and paratextual analysis provides insight not only into how game designers think about agency but also into how design intentions can translate into features of the released game. Such an approach facilitates a way of looking at agency as designed, which is informed by the vocabularies of academic discussions concerning videogames, as well as the language used to refer to these phenomena by industry practitioners, thereby grounding abstract theory in production practices and discourses

Agency in and around videogames

This thesis conceptualises player agency in avatar-based videogames as an affordance of game design (Gibson 1979). By examining how agency is discussed in different discourses surrounding videogames, such as those of game studies and game design, it puts forward a multidimensional heuristic framework for conceptualising agency in avatar-based games. Game studios with a particular design focus that draw on ‘game design lineages’ (Bateman and Zagal 2018) feature as case studies to demonstrate the analytical power of this framework, examining how agency is designed, and how developers discuss how it is designed. The combined methods of textual and paratextual analysis provides insight not only into how game designers think about agency but also into how design intentions can translate into features of the released game. Such an approach facilitates a way of looking at agency as designed, which is informed by the vocabularies of academic discussions concerning videogames, as well as the language used to refer to these phenomena by industry practitioners, thereby grounding abstract theory in production practices and discourses