Hive Assault: Technology
Computational Fluid Dynamics
Implicit Modeling
Destroyable Geometry
Swarm Intelligences
Skeletal Animation
Physics and Collision Detection
Impulse Physics
Hive Assault was developed at Rice University by the talent of the undergraduate and graduate students
of Computer Science class 460: Advanced Computer Graphics. Rather than treading a road more favored
by commerical game developers, they chose to develop a game to best highlight the amazing features of
Rice University's newest hardware, and to best match their own diverse skill sets.
Hive Assault features numerous cutting edge features only dreamed by of mortal game designers. These
include a computational fluid dynamics simulator which realistically simulates the flow of gasses and
particles through the air of the alien hive, a destructive geometry engine which permits weapons and aliens
to dynamically alter the hive structure around them, carving new tunnels and orifices to the rocky surface above.
These in turn are supported dynamically by the fluid dynamics engine as new tunnels should be: new tunnels
change the flow of gasses through the environment.
Hive Assault also features a revolutionary new system for artificial intelligence. This game doesnt depend
on silly waypoints and jittered vectors to "simulate" a realistic opponent - the antlike aliens of the Hive
have been endowed with behaviors nearly identical to their fleshy chitinous brethren. More importantly, the
computational load required by the alien intelligences, while large enough to encourage the use of an AI
server to maintain them, is low enough that the game can easily simulate the emergent behaviors of a hive
populated by hundreds of individuals.
The geometry of the Hive has no level designer. It is entirely generated upon request before the game begins
despite the fact that it has tens of kilometers of twisted alien generated tunnels and chambers. Indeed, even the
colonist bases which have a distinctly human look and feel, and support such things as doors and other fairly high frequency
geometry, are generated logically, on request, by the computer. This makes each game a distinct and refreshing challenge
for the players, who cannot simply depend on their memories of the hive's structure from game to game to save their souls.
More importantly, the structure of the computer generated hive is created by simulation of ant gathering patterns and flocking
algotithms - hive tunnels generated by the computer are both topologically relevant and (because the alient colony must gather food
in order to stay alive) functionally sound.
The geometry engine is, in fact, so robust that the data structure supports the realtime destruction and reconstruction
of, respectively, any closed or open space in the game space. Walls, ceilings, floors, and any part of any geometry in the
game can be completely destroyed from any direction. The very human notion of walls cielings and floors are entirely
dispensed with and all are treated the same way - as completely destroyable, customizable geometry.
The animation of the human marines and alien "bugz" are controlled by an especially robust skeletal animation engine. While this
animation engine operates by animating the model between multiple keyframes inside a set of animations, the tremendous flexibility
of this engine emerges from its ability to simulate projectile impact with the model in realtime. Shoot a space marine in Hive Assault
and every rotational and translational force through his body is calculated, causing his limbs to flail in accurate physical simulation
- no precanned animations here.
The rendering engine itself is highly optimized to support the display of hundreds of overlapping particles without performance choking
overdraw and memory bandwidth issues. While we do have the benefit of full control over a 100 base T switched network on which to ship
all our information for the game, we are able to coordinate multiple servers and multiple clients.