Once I typed in the title I almost wanted to make sure to say frames pre second not first person shooter.
Well this turned into almost a self interview. Well it is what it is.
So what is the proposal?
When you judge how resource intensive a script or model or anything is, don’t use fps.
why?
Blender’s game engine is capped so once it hits 60 it wont go over that, and you wont know how intensive it is. The reason for the cap is the Bullet physics engine wont work correctly if the frame cap is over 60.
Do you need to go over 60?
For a Test Yes, that is if you want more then just the one object in the scene. I came to the tap of thinking it’s 60fps it’s good then I added 20 of them and I got 11fps, and that was not good.
What would be a better way to judge resource intensity?
Well, have the debug mode on and look at how many milliseconds it take to do something. That would give you a accurate intensity, also it would tell you where all the computer power is going. which helps in fixing it.
Any hints for developers for making games resource less intensive?
If I could give one hint it would be flow the KISS rule (keep it simple stupid) . As a list, low everything, low poly, texture rez, music Hz, animation keys, simple scripts, everything, and yet make it look good. That is the art of the game industry, making things good with the lest amount possible of everything.
How do you make something good with little to nothing of everything?
Planning helps, a lot! Get everything on paper before you touch a computer. This will make the process easier and you will have a higher chance of finishing the project. When you are at the level of concept development make sure you go over everything from the look and feel to the design of most scripts and all, main scripts. Think about the hard things you will have to do and brain storm on more then one option to solve it, so if one system wont work you already have a different one you can try. One thing to always remember is you are not an army of coders and artist, you can only do so much. Don’t feel bad if it not Halo 4.