Dirty Bomb Terminology (for bug reporting)

(Crispy) #1

Please Note: This list may refer to elements of gameplay that are not implemented in the current build. This list should not be taken as confirmation that those elements will ever be implemented.

  • [li]Terms & Vocabulary by Resource[/li][list]
    [li]Front End Menus[/li][list]
    [li]Front End – the collective name for all the menus accessible when the user is not in a match.[/li][/ul]
    [li]In-game HUD & GUI[/li][ul]
    [li]IFF (Identify Friend or Foe) – The iconography that floats over a player’s head.[/li][li]Class Indicator – the icon that shows which class the player is currently playing as.[/li][li]Hit Indicator – the visual feedback for when a player’s shot has hit another player.[/li][li]Crosshair – the visual feedback of where shots will hit and how large the CoF is.[/li][li]Ammo Counter – how much ammo a player has.[/li][li]Prompt – any text or button icon advising a player of how they can proceed.[/li][li]Limbo Menu – menu where player can set team, class, weapon loadout, etc. during a match.[/li][li]Match Review Screen – the screen that displayed when a victory condition is met. This screen shows the player’s individual XP Tally bar and the team’s victory status for the match, among other items.[/li][/ul]
    [li]Art General[/li][ul]
    [li]Z-fighting – When two textures are applied to the same plane, resulting in flickering.[/li][li]Untextured face – When no texture at all is present on a face, allowing the player to see what is behind.[/li][li]Seam – When two edges don’t quite meet and the player can see through the gap.[/li][li]Misaligned texture – when textures on two different faces don’t match up neatly.[/li][li]Missing texture – a high-visibility texture used to indicate that a proper texture has not been assigned. In Unreal this is a blue checkerboard. Note that a placeholder texture may be different to the checkerboard texture.[/li][li]Wireframe - the frame of an object displaying only the vertices and edges[/li][li]Skin - a different ‘costume’ for the same character model.[/li][/ul]
    [li]Effects[/li][ul]
    [li]Muzzle flash – the flare at the end of the barrel when some weapons are fired.[/li][li]Muzzle smoke – the smoke that emits from the barrel when some weapons are fired.[/li][li]Bullet casing – the bullet casing models that fly out from the ejection port when fired.[/li][li]Ejection smoke – the smoke that emits from the ejection port when fired.[/li][li]Bullet/impact decal – the mark left in the surface when a bullet hits it.[/li][li]Impact emissive effect – the dust/sparks/debris that emit from a surface when a bullet hits it.[/li][li]Explosion decal – the scorch mark left on the surface where an explosion has taken place.[/li][/ul]
    [li]Audio[/li][ul]
    [li]VO (voiceover) – generic term for spoken audio.[/li][li]Commander VO – (voiceover) objective-driven, spoken audio heard by the entire team.[/li][li]Autochatter – spoken player character audio heard locally in the world.[/li][/ul]
    [li]Animation[/li][ul]
    [li]State – the core animation being performed (e.g. standing idle, crouched idle, sprint).[/li][li]Pose – a static state.[/li][li]IK (inverse kinematics) – Best to Google this one.[/li][li]Blend – the process of transitioning from one animation state to another smoothly.[/li][li]T-pose – when a character stands with feet together and arms outstretched to the sides. This usually indicates a missing animation.[/li][li]View-bob – the rocking motion of the camera during player movement.[/li][li]Weapon sway – the swaying motion of a weapon during player movement.[/li][li]Ragdoll - the physics-driven animation state the character model enters on death.[/li][/ul]
    [li]Text[/li][ul]
    [li]Unlocalized – when the path of the file the game is searching for is displayed instead of the actual text. E.g. ###game/info/carryable_item_target_use###, or when the text just reads ###UNLOCALIZED TEXT ###.[/li][li]Text string – A predefined segment of text to be displayed at a given moment.[/li][li]Text bleed – when text flows out of its containing graphic or overlaps other text.[/li][li]Text cutoff – when not all of the text is displayed because it has been cut short.[/li][/ul]
    [li]Code[/li][ul]
    [li]Soft lock (crash) – when the game enters a state that cannot be exited without rebooting the software.[/li][li]Hard lock (crash) – when the game enters a state that cannot be exited without rebooting the hardware.[/li][li]Crash dump – the recorded state of the working memory of a computer program at the time of a crash.[/li][li]C2D (Crash to Desktop) – during PC testing, if the game crashes to the Windows desktop[/li][/ul]
    [/list]
    [li]Gameplay Terms & Vocabulary[/li][ul]
    [li]General[/li][list]
    [li]Pushback - the effect of being pushed away from an enemy firing at you.[/li][li]Incap (incapacitate) – the act of incapacitating another player.[/li][li]Incapped (incapacitated) – the state a player is in after losing all of their core health.[/li][li]Kill – the process of killing another player.[/li][li]Dead – the state a player is in if they have been killed.[/li][li]Spectator – someone who watches the match but cannot interact with the game world.[/li][li]Hitbox - the simplified geometry broadly surrounding the character model which dictates where a bullet will register a hit and where it will pass by the player.[/li][/ul]
    [li]Controls[/li][ul]
    Keybind - the association between a button on the keyboard and an in-game action.

[li]Melee[/li][ul]
[li]Light Knife – slashing with your knife (light damage).[/li][li]Heavy Knife – stabbing with your knife (heavy damage).[/li][li]Quick Knife – performing a heavy stab and immediately de-equipping the knife again.[/li][li]Execute – special instant kill move performed when meleeing an incapped player.[/li][/ul]
[li]Player Movement[/li][ul]
[li]Crouch[/li][li]Walk – a slower, quieter state of locomotion.[/li][li]Run – the default locomotion state when a player moves forward.[/li][li]Sprint – the fastest locomotion state, during which a player [/li]cannot fire.
[li]Strafe – moving left or right without turning to face the direction of motion.[/li][/ul]
[li]Abilities[/li][ul]
[li]Cooldown – the timer on an ability that prevents it from being executed twice in quick succession.[/li][li]Deployment Mode – the mode a player enters when a Turret ability is activated and the wireframe is visible.[/li][li]C4 - the explosive pack deployed at certain objectives to destroy them.[/li][li]Armed - the state of the C4 explosives if they have been placed on the ground or an object.[/li][li]Disarm - the state of the C4 explosives if they have been defused.[/li][li]Repair - the act of restoring an objective object to its functional state (Engineers only)[/li][li]Destroy - the act of breaking an objective object and rendering it non-functional (Engineers only)[/li][li]Hack - the act of interacting with a control panel to activate an objective object (non-class-specific)[/li][/ul]
[li]Weapons[/li][ul]
[li]Weapon Spread – the way the cone of fire increases to its maximum value when firing.[/li][li]Recoil – the amount of vertical/horizontal movement (or ‘kick’) applied to the crosshair when firing a weapon.[/li][li]Iron-Sight – Bringing your weapon up to head height. Note: bullets always fire from the player character’s eyes regardless of firing mode.[/li][li]From the Hip – Shooting your weapon in the default mode.[/li][li]Cook – then the user holds down a grenade throw.[/li][/ul]
[li]XP[/li][ul]
[li]XP Tally bar – The menu graphic that displays the total XP awarded for a match.[/li][/ul]
[/list]

[li]Map Terminology[/li][ul]
[li]General[/li][list]
[li]Spawn – where players enter the game world after they are killed.[/li][li]Spawn Protection - the temporary invulnerability granted to players who have just spawned.[/li][li]OoB (Out of Bounds) – term describing the area outside the playable area of the map.[/li][li]Player Collision – term describing what prevents you from walking inside objects. If you can walk inside an object it can be described as lacking player collision.[/li][li]Bullet Collision – term describing what prevents you from firing through objects. If you can fire through an object it can be described as lacking bullet collision.[/li][/ul]
[li]Objectives[/li][ul]
[li]EV – the escortable objective on London Bridge and Whitechapel.[/li][li]Disabled – the state of the EV when it has lost all its health.[/li][li]Primary Objective – any objective that must be completed to complete a level.[/li][li]Secondary Objective – other objective types unique to the map such as Capturable Spawns and Barricades (excludes MG Nests).[/li][li]MG Nest – fixed machinegun emplacements that can be repaired by Engineers if destroyed.[/li][li]Interaction Zone – the location of player interaction with an objective. Marked by a prompt.[/li][li]Intro/Outro – non-interactive camera that displays the objectives to the player at the beginning and end of a match.[/li][/ul]
[/list]
[/list]

(Crispy) #2

And here’s a list of more general terms:

Alpha (channel)
A part of the texture that defines its area as being transparent or translucent in the game. Colours uncommon in most environments are used to designate the areas for Alpha removal, such as pure blue, magenta or bright green. If an Alpha is not functioning correctly for a game texture, one of the aforementioned colours may be visible.

Blocker
Any bug that prevents the user from progressing in the game. Blockers are absolute, i.e. if the level or game can be restarted or absolutely anything can be done (no matter how unintuitive or out of character) to bypass a critical issue, the issue in question is not a blocker. In short, blockers prevent full testing of the game and receive a very high fix priority.

BSP
Binary Space Partitioning is any three-dimensional solid that is not dynamic and is not a model. Most of the major geometry in a level of this type -such as the ground, walls, ceilings, etc.- will be made out of BSP, but most of the details such as door frames, debris, signage, etc. will be models.

Callstack
For the purposes of simplification a list of a program’s functions in memory at the time of a crash. Essentially a more detailed error message, a call stack appears on-screen as an alternative to a dump file or basic error message.

Clip
A term used commonly in testing to describe when a player avatar or object passes through an object. The term is thought to be derived from id Software’s ‘noclip’ debug mode, that removed player collision detection from the game.

Collision detection
The code that prevents two objects from intersecting with eachother. In 3D games, collision between models is handled by a ‘bounding box’ that may or may not be identical to the visible boundaries of the model. Similarly, in level design, artificial ‘invisible walls’ may be added to prevent the player from exiting the playable area of the game world. In 2D games this may be handled by ‘sorting’ (see depth sorting).

B Console[/B]
A drop-down text input menu some games use to perform debug (and in-game) operations.

Crash
When a game closes itself abruptly. After a crash the user may be taken to a ‘dump’ screen or a screen with an error message or error code. Following this, the system should reboot itself automatically.

Debug
A mode or set of commands that allows a developer or tester to perform operations that either have not been fully implemented or cannot normally be performed within the rules of the game. Examples of this include cheats like ‘god’ mode, ‘noclip/fly’ mode, ‘notarget/invisible’ mode, as well as modes that help artists assess their work, such as ‘wireframe’ mode. Any bug found when using debug mode should be re-attempted without the use of debug to ensure its validity before a bug report is entered into the bug database.

Depth sorting
A method of creating the illusion of a third dimension for games. When two objects occupy the same on-screen 2D co-ordinates, based on the values of these objects, depth sorting will determine which object appears to pass under the other. If a character in a top-down 2D game appears to pass over or inside of a tree, this would be a depth sorting bug. In Dirty Bomb, you may get effects sorting incorrectly in the world or in-world HUD elements overlapping static HUD elements (e.g. IFF overlapping the Ammo Counnter).

Diffuse map
The essential layer of a texture that defines the combinations and arrangements of colours on a surface. The diffuse map makes a flat surface look like a brown door made out of wood, for example. Any other maps are simply accentuating and improving on this effect.

Draw distance
Draw distance is the distance within which objects in the world are drawn. Objects beyond this distance are ‘culled’ (not drawn) and will only be drawn as the player avatar approaches them. If the draw distance in a game is set too close to the player, objects will ‘pop-up’ suddenly, breaking the immersiveness of the gameplay.

Dump
The process that occurs after a crash whereby game data relating to the crash is recorded into a ‘dump file’. Programmers can look at these dump files and attempt to work out which part of the game produced the error.

Environment art
Any level art not created in level editing software. Generally speaking, any separate model placed inside a level to increase the level of detail. Usable weapons, character models & other models requiring complex animations are not considered environment art.

Geometry
A useful term to describe large areas of 3D level art in abstract forms, such as cliffs and caves. E.g. “Missing/untextured face in cliff geometry”.

Hang
If the game ceases to respond to user input (i.e. it freezes) this is called a hang. A hang is different to a crash because a hang usually requires the user to manually reboot the game or the system.

HoM (Hall of Mirrors)
In some engines, the visual effect seen when viewing the face of an object with no texture assigned to it. This effect can be seen most clearly if falling out of the level.

Lag (note: not the same as latency)
While latency is, generally speaking, the measured or demonstrable time taken for data to be sent, received and retrieved, ‘lag’ is a term used to express a noticable and unacceptable delay between a user’s input and their resulting actions in-game. Lag can be attributed to too much client-side traffic, too much server-side traffic or -less likely- game/engine code.

LOD (Level of Detail)
The name given to the optimisation technique of swapping in higher-detail versions of models as the player approaches them in the game world. If done correctly, this changeover appears to happen seamlessly because the model usually switches to a lower or higher detail version at a distance where the player cannot discern any difference between the two.

Normal map
A layer within a game texture that provides extra information for shading a flat surface. Normal maps make a flat surface appear more bumpy and allow them to respond to light sources with more detail. On models, normal maps are usually derived from a higher detail version of the same model.

Poly (a.k.a. Polygon)
Any single face of a model. A high-poly model is a very detailed model with many different faces, used for models close to the player; the opposite being true of a low-poly model. In the term ‘polycount’, this word usually refers to triangles (or ‘tris’), since when game engines analyse model topography all faces are broken down into triangles as their mathematical properties can be easily evaluated in calculations.

Specular map
The layer of a texture that defines the reflectivity of a surface. E.g. the specular map on a metallic weapon model is what makes it look shiny.

Texture (or texture map)
A 2D image stretched across a single or multiple surfaces in the game world. Figuratively speaking, the ‘paint’ applied to any surface in the game to give the resulting visual effect. In more modern 3D games, multiple layers of textures are combined on a single flat surface to give the impression of reflectivity, transparency or ‘bumpiness’. These layers each do different things and have different names: see Alpha, Diffuse, Normal, Specular.