Production Diary: The Making of Dirk Dashing

Game Concept

Game Animation

Game Scenery

Game Engine

Game Music and Sounds

Game Levels

Game Engine

DynaPaint is the code name of our new graphics engine that drives the game.  The engine softens the edges of each hand-painted element and blends them all together to produce a unified background scene.  This allows us to generate a single scene that looks as if all of the elements were painted together on the same canvas... hence the name "DynaPaint", short for "Dynamic Paint".

In addition to blending, the DynaPaint engine uses parallax scrolling to provide up to 16 graphic layers on the screen at a time.  Each layer scrolls at a different rate as you move, which makes the scene very dynamic and gives it a lot of depth.  Plus, the graphics are drawn at a slightly tilted angle, to help emphasize the 3D effect.

If you want to see how each of the background layers work in the scene above, visit our production page on Game Levels.

DynaPaint is implemented in OpenGL, a powerful high-speed graphics library that is used in many modern programs, including games.  Using OpenGL allows us to blend our hand-painted graphic elements together with real-time performance.  It also allows us to incorporate lighting and special effects in our game.  The final result is a spectacular-looking game unlike anything else on the market!

Below, you see one of the many special effects we have built into the game.  This one is for the x-ray glasses. When Dirk Dashing finds this gadget on a level, it makes the foreground layer transparent for a short time, allowing you to see hidden areas in the game.