Q (game engine)
Encyclopedia
Q is a 3D engine / tech development platform / interoperability standard developed by the London based developer Qube Software
.
Q is configured as a framework into which all the supplied components plug in modular form. The framework’s common APIs are designed to make adding and removing components a trivial task and one that can be done neatly. The key idea is that this makes it simple for studios licensing the platform to develop and add whatever elements their project requires and to license original components amongst one another.
The claim has had customer endorsements: “If we develop a plug-in during the course of one project its easy to use it or build on it for another; so our development work is cumulative. We can build a library of plug-ins. Nothing is wasted.”
Qube also claims to have developed Q as an interoperability standard for 3D providing the same degree of coherence for the 3D products across both gaming and non gaming environments that Flash or HTML
provide for web applications.
The claim is predicated on Q’s supposed ability to accommodate any platform (albeit floating point technology is required and thus fails to cater for handheld consoles such as the Nintendo DS and GameBoy Advance), scripting language or genre of game or 3D application.
Licensees have already reported titles in production or shipped for the PC, PS2, Wii and PS3. Keondjian said early in 2008 that an Xbox 360 port would follow: "we know it's the easiest.” The company has also indicated that Mac and Linux versions of Q are available and that the platform would be compatible with the PSP, iPhone and next generation mobiles.
and scene management schemes, collision detection, network-enabled media pipeline, live editing of game content, scripting across all core and custom components, cross-platform data formats and APIs, platform-specific extended data formats and APIs, 2D and 3D audio with effects, background texture compression / decompression, user input, hardware accelerated math, Max and Maya exporters, application framework, command line tool framework and cross-platform build.
. There he had led the team that turned his own Reality Lab
API into Direct3D
. According to Qube’s website Keondjian and his Reality Lab coding partner Doug Rabson believed; “Microsoft was a great place to ship products but not a place for innovation and new ideas.”
"Basically," Keondjian told the website Gamasutra in 2008, "when we left Microsoft after we'd done Direct3D, we wanted to build a middleware solution. I didn't just want to make another middleware solution, I felt there was a problem with middleware in the game industry, and I wanted to really understand that problem and see if we could crack it. That was the mission."
Q 1.0 was released in 2001. In effect a prototype for the version that was to follow it was first used on the BBC’s Dinosaur World (June 2001), LEGO Creator Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Sept 2002) and projects for Microsoft and Virgin Interactive.
Q 2.0 was released in February 2008.
Q 2.1 was announced in July 2008 and included script debugging and new shader and scene rendering plugins.
Qube Software
Qube Software is a London based company specialising in advanced 3D technology. It was founded in 1998 by Servan Keondjian and Doug Rabson who created the Reality Lab renderer and who subsequently played a leading role at Microsoft turning it into Direct3D....
.
Overview
Qube has made considerable claims for Q. Its lead designers, Servan Keondjian and Doug Rabson have pointed to Q’s architecture as being its key innovation.Q is configured as a framework into which all the supplied components plug in modular form. The framework’s common APIs are designed to make adding and removing components a trivial task and one that can be done neatly. The key idea is that this makes it simple for studios licensing the platform to develop and add whatever elements their project requires and to license original components amongst one another.
The claim has had customer endorsements: “If we develop a plug-in during the course of one project its easy to use it or build on it for another; so our development work is cumulative. We can build a library of plug-ins. Nothing is wasted.”
Qube also claims to have developed Q as an interoperability standard for 3D providing the same degree of coherence for the 3D products across both gaming and non gaming environments that Flash or HTML
HTML
HyperText Markup Language is the predominant markup language for web pages. HTML elements are the basic building-blocks of webpages....
provide for web applications.
The claim is predicated on Q’s supposed ability to accommodate any platform (albeit floating point technology is required and thus fails to cater for handheld consoles such as the Nintendo DS and GameBoy Advance), scripting language or genre of game or 3D application.
Licensees have already reported titles in production or shipped for the PC, PS2, Wii and PS3. Keondjian said early in 2008 that an Xbox 360 port would follow: "we know it's the easiest.” The company has also indicated that Mac and Linux versions of Q are available and that the platform would be compatible with the PSP, iPhone and next generation mobiles.
Features
According to Qube Q ships with a range of features including: arbitrary scene rendering algorithm support, arbitrary shader program support (HLSL 2 – 4, GLSL, Cg, shader states), keyframe animation, simultaneous n-dimensional animation blending, animation state machines, multi-gigabyte texture manager, background data streaming, hierarchical LODLevel of detail
In computer graphics, accounting for level of detail involves decreasing the complexity of a 3D object representation as it moves away from the viewer or according other metrics such as object importance, eye-space speed or position....
and scene management schemes, collision detection, network-enabled media pipeline, live editing of game content, scripting across all core and custom components, cross-platform data formats and APIs, platform-specific extended data formats and APIs, 2D and 3D audio with effects, background texture compression / decompression, user input, hardware accelerated math, Max and Maya exporters, application framework, command line tool framework and cross-platform build.
Virtual Worlds and MMOGs
Early in 2009 Qube and Brighton based server solution company RedBedlam announced that they would bring their technologies together to produce a ‘one stop shop’ for online environments. The project was given the codename Messiah. Messiah has been adopted by NearGlobal for the NearLondon virtual world.Customers
Take up of Q 2.0 has been steady if unspectacular to date. Clients announced include Candella Software, Asylum Entertainment, EC-I Interactive, NearGlobal, Airo Wireless and Beyond the Void. The developer has hinted that other studios are using Q on projects that have not yet been made public.History
Work on Q started in 1998 after Qube founder Servan Keondjian left MicrosoftMicrosoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...
. There he had led the team that turned his own Reality Lab
Reality Lab
Reality Lab was a 3D computer graphics API created by RenderMorphics to provide a standardized interface for writing games. It was one of the main contenders in the realtime 3D middleware marketplace at the time, alongside Criterion Software's RenderWare and Argonaut Software's BRender.Reality Lab...
API into Direct3D
Direct3D
Direct3D is part of Microsoft's DirectX application programming interface . Direct3D is available for Microsoft Windows operating systems , and for other platforms through the open source software Wine. It is the base for the graphics API on the Xbox and Xbox 360 console systems...
. According to Qube’s website Keondjian and his Reality Lab coding partner Doug Rabson believed; “Microsoft was a great place to ship products but not a place for innovation and new ideas.”
"Basically," Keondjian told the website Gamasutra in 2008, "when we left Microsoft after we'd done Direct3D, we wanted to build a middleware solution. I didn't just want to make another middleware solution, I felt there was a problem with middleware in the game industry, and I wanted to really understand that problem and see if we could crack it. That was the mission."
Q 1.0 was released in 2001. In effect a prototype for the version that was to follow it was first used on the BBC’s Dinosaur World (June 2001), LEGO Creator Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Sept 2002) and projects for Microsoft and Virgin Interactive.
Q 2.0 was released in February 2008.
Q 2.1 was announced in July 2008 and included script debugging and new shader and scene rendering plugins.
See also
- Game engineGame engineA game engine is a system designed for the creation and development of video games. There are many game engines that are designed to work on video game consoles and personal computers...
- GamebryoGamebryoGamebryo is a game engine, originally from Numerical Design Limited , and the successor to NDL's NetImmerse engine.Since the creation of Gamebryo, NDL merged into Emergent Game Technologies...
- TrinigyTrinigyTrinigy is an independent company focusing on the development of advanced 3D graphics technology with its headquarters based in Southern Germany, with offices in Austin, TX and Seoul, South Korea....
Vision Engine - Unity (game engine)Unity (game engine)Unity is an integrated authoring tool for creating 3D video games or other interactive content such as architectural visualizations or real-time 3D animations. Unity's development environment runs on Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X, and the games it produces can be run on Windows, Mac, Xbox 360,...
- Torque Game EngineTorque Game EngineThe Torque Game Engine, or TGE, is a 3D computer game engine originally developed by Dynamix for the 2001 FPS Tribes 2. The Torque engine and its many derivative products are available for license from GarageGames, a company formed by many members of the Tribes 2 team at Dynamix...
- RenderWareRenderWareRenderWare is a computer and video game middleware from British games developer Criterion Software.-Overview:RenderWare is a 3D API and graphics rendering engine used in video games, Active Worlds, and some VRML browsers...
, a former competitor to Gamebryo - SpeedTreeSpeedTreeSpeedTree is a group of vegetation programming and modeling software products developed and sold by Interactive Data Visualization, Inc. that generates virtual foliage for animations and in real time for video games and simulations...
- Source EngineSource engineSource is a 3D game engine developed by Valve Corporation. It debuted in June 2004 with Counter-Strike: Source and shortly thereafter Half-Life 2, and has been in active development ever since...
- ScaleformScaleformScaleform Corporation is a developer providing middleware for use in the video game industry. Their most recent software, Scaleform GFx, is a vector graphics rendering engine used to display Adobe Flash-based user interfaces, HUDs, and animated textures for games for Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X,...