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Mario 64 wasn't itself written in LISP at all. It's models were built in Nichimen graphics, a SGI based 3D design tool written in Allegro CL. As far as I know,

by agavin 15y ago

Mario 64 wasn't itself written in LISP at all. It's models were built in Nichimen graphics, a SGI based 3D design tool written in Allegro CL. As far as I know, the games we did at Naughty Dog (Crash 1-3, Jak 1-3 + X), and later Uncharted were the only major console games which large amounts of runtime Lisp. The Jak & Daxter series was 99% written in my Scheme dialect GOAL, including all the assembly. The only parts that weren't were libs talking to Sony's libraries (C++). http://all-things-andy-gavin.com/category/games/ http://all-things-andy-gavin.com/category/games/

dgallagher 15y ago
I loved the "Making Crash Bandicoot" series on your site. It's well worth the read: http://all-things-andy-gavin.com/2011/02/02/making-crash-bandicoot-part-1/ http://all-things-andy-gavin.com/2011/02/02/making-crash-ban...
JabavuAdams 15y ago
Much respect! Reading about GOOL and GOAL is what got me into Lisp. Working at a previous game company, on a PS2 title, we spent a lot of time oohing and aahing over J&D's beautifully fluid animations. I'm actually still playing through the game as part of my "PS2 classics" backlog. Very nicely done! I didn't realize Uncharted used any runtime Lisp -- could you elaborate? /gush
- ginsweater 15y ago
  Uncharted uses a DSL for gameplay scripting. The compiler is implemented in Racket. You can see what it looks like in Jason Gregory's 2009 presentation: http://www.gameenginebook.com/gdc09-statescripting-uncharted2.pdf http://www.gameenginebook.com/gdc09-statescripting-uncharted... The compiler is written on top of the low-level system in Dan Liebgold's 2008 presentation: http://www.naughtydog.com/docs/Naughty-Dog-GDC08-Adventures-In-Data-Compilation.pdf http://www.naughtydog.com/docs/Naughty-Dog-GDC08-Adventures-... More or less, the sexps that define a state-script get run through a maze of Scheme macros - there's even a pretty decent expression language in there which is compiled to bytecode - and the result is big honking C++ structure which is fed to the Uncharted runtime and interpreted. In particular, note all those wait-blah-blah calls; those are using call/cc to implement coroutines. Which is something you really really want in a game but which C++ of course doesn't have. (GOAL had native coroutines.) It's also nice to be able to iterate on the language syntax without having to fool with BNF grammars and so on.
lispm 15y ago
I would guess that the 'worlds' in Super Mario 64 were also done with the software. There are somehow similar 3d worlds in a movie (Jetsons) done with the Symbolics S-Graphics software.

by agavin 15y ago

dgallagher 15y ago

I loved the "Making Crash Bandicoot" series on your site. It's well worth the read: http://all-things-andy-gavin.com/2011/02/02/making-crash-bandicoot-part-1/ http://all-things-andy-gavin.com/2011/02/02/making-crash-ban...

JabavuAdams 15y ago

Much respect! Reading about GOOL and GOAL is what got me into Lisp. Working at a previous game company, on a PS2 title, we spent a lot of time oohing and aahing over J&D's beautifully fluid animations. I'm actually still playing through the game as part of my "PS2 classics" backlog. Very nicely done! I didn't realize Uncharted used any runtime Lisp -- could you elaborate? /gush

ginsweater 15y ago
Uncharted uses a DSL for gameplay scripting. The compiler is implemented in Racket. You can see what it looks like in Jason Gregory's 2009 presentation: http://www.gameenginebook.com/gdc09-statescripting-uncharted2.pdf http://www.gameenginebook.com/gdc09-statescripting-uncharted... The compiler is written on top of the low-level system in Dan Liebgold's 2008 presentation: http://www.naughtydog.com/docs/Naughty-Dog-GDC08-Adventures-In-Data-Compilation.pdf http://www.naughtydog.com/docs/Naughty-Dog-GDC08-Adventures-... More or less, the sexps that define a state-script get run through a maze of Scheme macros - there's even a pretty decent expression language in there which is compiled to bytecode - and the result is big honking C++ structure which is fed to the Uncharted runtime and interpreted. In particular, note all those wait-blah-blah calls; those are using call/cc to implement coroutines. Which is something you really really want in a game but which C++ of course doesn't have. (GOAL had native coroutines.) It's also nice to be able to iterate on the language syntax without having to fool with BNF grammars and so on.

lispm 15y ago

I would guess that the 'worlds' in Super Mario 64 were also done with the software. There are somehow similar 3d worlds in a movie (Jetsons) done with the Symbolics S-Graphics software.