Hi. I'm looking for information about programming using an Aggregate-Component Object Model. I read in a game dev magazine that I checked out a few years ago about this technique (I think it was for a skateboarding game) where game objects were split up into several parts (graphics object, AI object, physics object, etc) and the sum of the parts made up the object itself. This was supposed to help w/ problems having leaf-heavy and trunk-heavy class hierarchies and blob classes. I believe it was called Aggregate-Component Object Model or something similar. Does anybody know what I'm talking about? My google searches are coming up with nothing.

It is usually called something along the lines of a component-based entity system or architecture.

It is mentioned in the GPG 6 and here is a pretty recent link to a gamdev forums post discussing issues and ways to design such a system. The gamdev post contains some links to more information about the design.

component-based entity system

Thanks! That was the info I was looking for!