Nanjing Hearthstone CEO Zhu Wei: Mobile game development can also be "unconventional"

In early 2015, Newzoo, a game industry research organization, released a report stating that global mobile game revenue will reach $30.3 billion this year, equivalent to RMB 188.4 billion. In the context of the economic downturn that most industries are facing, the booming game industry, especially the mobile game industry, can be said to be a shot in the arm. For mobile game developers, the huge revenue also brings many excellent competitors. From creativity to design, from R&D to promotion, every link is full of challenges. Among them, development is the most critical link - how to develop a mobile game quickly and well is a problem facing almost every development team.

On this issue, Nanjing Hearthstone CEO Zhu Wei has a personal experience. At the Cocos 2015 Fall Summit that just concluded not long ago, Zhu Wei shared his personal "unconventional" mobile game development strategy. Overall, his method greatly reduced the team's learning cost while ensuring results, thus speeding up the development progress in disguise. The colleagues present said that there are only two words to describe this method, that is, "magical".

(Zhu Wei shared his game development achievements at the summit)

Taking an unconventional approach and using Cocos Engine

Like many game developers, Zhu Wei's 3D MMORPG (massively multiplayer online role-playing game) is also developed based on the Cocos engine. This one-stop game development solution launched by Touch Technology can enable developers to form the shortest and clearest workflow, greatly improving efficiency and work results.

Usually, there are two ways for game developers to use the Cocos engine: one is to use Flash to make animations first, and then use Flash extensions to export them to the Cocos engine for parsing and playback, such as the famous game "Blade of the Three Kingdoms"; the other is to use Maya's texture baking first, and then use Cocos Builde to create 3D effects, such as "Like the Three Kingdoms". But Zhu Wei's method is different from the above two. The method he uses is to use the Unity editor with the Cocos engine to complete the development of 3D games. At the scene, Zhu Wei demonstrated in detail their unique development method and specific process. An audience member said at the scene, "It seems that our understanding of Cocos is still too shallow."

“Black technology”, that’s what it is

Zhu Wei demonstrated a 3D MMORPG game developed based on Cocos 3.8 at the summit. Although it was only a trial version, it still aroused the interest of the crowd. Zhu Wei explained that in the 3D function module of the game, it can be divided into three parts: the first part is the model and action; the second part is the special effects of the game; and the third part is the construction of the scene. "Black technology" mainly plays a role in the construction of the scene.

After many trials and errors, Zhu Wei determined the following scene production plan: first use 3D MAX to produce the elements required for a single scene, then use Unity to combine the scenes, and then export them to a format supported by Cocos. Unity has many advantages in combining scenes, designing terrain, and brushing terrain. In the process of importing to the Cocos engine, Zhu Wei emphasized the following points:

1. The light map of the terrain should be separated from the light map of the model;

2. Rebake the building's lightmap (be sure to delete all the original terrain);

3. Format conversion path: Export Unity to DAE format through Collada (DAE) Exporter, and then export to FBX format supported by Cocos through Blender;

(3D function module list)

(The effect after the game is completed)

Cocos Engine, the Present and Future of Mobile Game Development

In Zhu Wei's experience sharing, the Cocos engine is a core point that cannot be avoided. As a product for developers, Cocos provides developers with a full set of development tools and establishes an integrated workflow, which greatly reduces the time cost of game developers. In addition, Cocos has also greatly lowered the threshold for game development. Game development is no longer required to master C++, and scripts can already support lua and js. In other words, Cocos has further opened up the road for ordinary people to enter the game industry.

It is very interesting that the 3D function has not been the main function of Cocos. Developers like Zhu Wei have used their industry judgment to open a hidden door of Cocos. As a comprehensive cross-platform development engine, Cocos may have more hidden doors waiting for developers to discover.

At this Cocos Autumn Summit, Chukong Technology proposed a new direction for the rise of mobile web games. Although Wang Wei's 3D games written based on Lua cannot be directly accessed in the browser, he firmly believes that 3D games will perform well in mobile browsers. All we need to do is wait for the day when Cocos' Lua Runtime enters the browser. If the era of mobile web games really comes, Cocos, which has the three major weapons of R&D, launch and operation, is likely to become the maker of industry rules. We can all wait and see.