Comments on: Dynamite Jack: Component Object model

By: Marcus

Marcus — Sat, 21 Apr 2012 13:42:24 +0000

COP is especially helpful for 100s or 1000s of components (or object instances) to process, since you can keep data and processing logic separated, not overloading your real in-game or in-application instances with unnecessary functionality and data fragments, they do not need.

After ditching things like COP (CORBA anyone?) for years, it is fun to see that the industry seems to find its way back to such nifty patterns.

Another big advantage for COP is to plug in or out processors and data structures without actually having to care too much about side effects on other parts (in contrast to simple OO, where mixing data and functionality happens often enough, leading to bloated objects that only need x% of their functionality).

By: philhassey

philhassey — Sat, 21 Apr 2012 00:25:31 +0000

Yeah, obviously this won’t work for ALL setups. It did for my game. The main point of Gareth’s talk (as I understood it) is that the concepts of Component Object stuff are really important — but how you implement them is a matter of “as simple as possible for your situation” .. In my situation it was VERY SIMPLE And it gave me a ton of advantages because I was able to use the power of C-O without the complexity of a relational database.

By: Martoon

Martoon — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 21:56:08 +0000

I like this, but how do you deal with a component that has more complex data (e.g., lists, etc.)? I feel like I’d inevitably end up with at least a couple pointers/references in Entity that need to be managed.

By: philhassey

philhassey — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 19:57:31 +0000

Yeah .. I really like it for quick and easy. I’m sure it wouldn’t so well for a huge game with 100′s of Components .. but for a game with just a few dozen, it worked fine

By: Hume

Hume — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 19:24:36 +0000

This is like an Entity System, but with a single component.

Obviously it’s extremely fast, because there’s no framework looking up components every frame — it’s all there in the single struct, like you said.

I thought ES was simple, but this takes the cake. This is awesome.