A few thoughts after playing Oblivion

[Michael Betke]

I think some of theese unlimited and non repeatable texture discussion is overrated.

A lot of games use repeating textures. Lets take Crysis or Cod4. With some decals and good cover of the terrain it's not visible.

 

Using models for terrains entirely is a pain in the wonderful person if you need to do small changes. And you are limited in size. It depends on what you want to do. A fast paced shooter doesn't need mega texturing because all stuff pases by in a fast way. In a wide open level with only some vegetaion it would be nice to have such a tech. On the other hand if you do a open desert level you probably will have lots of stones to break it up. New Medal of Honor will take place in afgnahistan. Im curious how they will handle the "old texturing style" with their setting. First screenshots are very cool to look at.

 

So, yes, it would be nice to have more terrain layers especially in large scale levels with 4kx4k sizes so you can have several kinds of environment in one map like a transistion from desert to woodland.

For example Battlefield 2 is limited to 6 texture layers. And there are nice maps out there too.

 

First go and fill up a 4k level with all the stuff and then ask for (world)streaming. IT takes forever to walk through such a large level. Even if you do a RPG you can add different quests where the player has to cross parts of the level. Plus you can add vertical geometry and caves/dungeons. There are so many possibilites to keep the player busy in a non-world streaming world.

[Davaris]

dbl post

[Scott Richmond]

Why not go further than the Stalker people and create a map system that can wrap around onto a planet or asteroid shape? If this could be put into orbit with other planets, it would be tres cool. I am joking because it sounds ridiculously difficult, but if you came out with an engine with that capability, it would blow the competition away.

Already doable no problems. Prey did that - Jumping between asteroids of medium sizes. The gravity was great fun to play around with. Garys Mod has a few levels with the space plug where you can fly ships around a fairly large level full of worlds. Not as nice as Prey, but definitely cool.

 

I think some of theese unlimited and non repeatable texture discussion is overrated.

A lot of games use repeating textures. Lets take Crysis or Cod4. With some decals and good cover of the terrain it's not visible.

 

Using models for terrains entirely is a pain in the wonderful person if you need to do small changes. And you are limited in size. It depends on what you want to do. A fast paced shooter doesn't need mega texturing because all stuff pases by in a fast way. In a wide open level with only some vegetaion it would be nice to have such a tech. On the other hand if you do a open desert level you probably will have lots of stones to break it up. New Medal of Honor will take place in afgnahistan. Im curious how they will handle the "old texturing style" with their setting. First screenshots are very cool to look at.

 

So, yes, it would be nice to have more terrain layers especially in large scale levels with 4kx4k sizes so you can have several kinds of environment in one map like a transistion from desert to woodland.

For example Battlefield 2 is limited to 6 texture layers. And there are nice maps out there too.

 

First go and fill up a 4k level with all the stuff and then ask for (world)streaming. IT takes forever to walk through such a large level. Even if you do a RPG you can add different quests where the player has to cross parts of the level. Plus you can add vertical geometry and caves/dungeons. There are so many possibilites to keep the player busy in a non-world streaming world.

You make some good points. But my main point, and I think one of the main attractors to iD's solution is this:

By having this one mega-texture, iD have developed a real-time editor where artists can just go in and literially paint out the landscape. You can place down and merge in as many layers as you want because in the end it'll all become one big texture. I believe the editing tool is capable of working on the same 'world' in parallel with other artists as well. So oyu could have a team of peeps painting away in realtime in the same world. The advantage here is that it could cut production times by an astronomically huge amount.

Of course, its a completely new concept and there have got to be some disadvantages. But the bigger we make our worlds, the production costs in time and resources continue to exponentially increase. I mean its getting to a point even now where most large worlds look noticably crappy because they simply cannot spend the time they would like on all aspects of the surface.

And I think this'll first come to light when we see RAGE released. I think we'll all see the subtle but massive impact this mega-texture technology could have on a large landscape.

[Michael Betke]

No the terrain has to be made at first.

It's a long process to even make the terrain if you want to have it looking good.

And you dont paint it like in Photoshop. It uses masking on common textures like grass and so on.

See there: http://wiki.splashdamage.com/index.php/An_Advanced_Terrain_and_Megatexture - it#s an interesting read

 

This terrain also has tileing like any other: http://wiki.splashdamage.com/index.php/Image:Simplemega_ingame.jpg

 

Here you see the texture selector: http://wiki.splashdamage.com/upload/e/ee/Simplemega_firstnode_preview.jpg

 

it's not that magic in my opinion, just some more options and of course the terrain offers the power of a 3dapp for doing nice shapes.

[Scott Richmond]

Wait wait. You're talking about MegaTexture. That tech is the precursor to the iD Tech 6 technology.

 

Wikipedia Quote:

id Tech 6 will use a more advanced technique that builds upon the MegaTexture idea and virtualizes both the geometry and the textures to obtain unique geometry down to the equivalent of the texel: the Sparse Voxel Octree (SVO). It works by raycasting the geometry represented by voxels (instead of triangles) stored in an octree. The goal being to be able to stream parts of the octree into video memory, going further down along the tree for nearby objects to give them more details, and to use higher level, larger voxels for further objects, which give an automatic level of detail (LOD) system for both geometry and textures at the same time. The geometric detail that can be obtained using this method is nearly infinite, which removes the need for faking 3-dimensional details with techniques such as normal mapping. Despite that most Voxel rendering tests use very large amounts of memory (up to several Gb), Jon Olick of id Software claimed it's able to compress such SVO to 1.15 bits per voxel of position data.

 

The main drawback of the Sparse Voxel Octree is the need for fast updating of the octree in order to represent dynamic objects. However, Jon Olick gave examples of alternatives which would not require this, but cautioned that their use would probably be better suited for id Tech 7. For id Tech 6, SVO will therefore be used for representing static geometry such as terrains and buildings. Dynamic objects such as vehicles and characters will be represented by rasterized polygons as is the case in most 3D games today.

 

 

Check out this presentation: http://s09.idav.ucdavis.edu/talks/05-JP_id_Tech_5_Challenges.pdf

[Jardar]

Why not go further than the Stalker people and create a map system that can wrap around onto a planet or asteroid shape? If this could be put into orbit with other planets, it would be tres cool. I am joking because it sounds ridiculously difficult, but if you came out with an engine with that capability, it would blow the competition away.

 

Take a look at the I-Novae engine.

No its not done, but the engine they are developing for Infinity: Quest for Earth will be putting procedurally generated planets around procedurally generated star systems, where each star is a member of a procedurally generated galaxy.

They also claim that there will be no loading time after the initial game startup.

 

Personally I just want a planet lol. But seeing how much work there is populating just a few kilometers, I am quite happy with leadwerks really.

[Davaris]

Take a look at the I-Novae engine.

No its not done, but the engine they are developing for Infinity: Quest for Earth will be putting procedurally generated planets around procedurally generated star systems, where each star is a member of a procedurally generated galaxy.

They also claim that there will be no loading time after the initial game startup.

 

Personally I just want a planet lol. But seeing how much work there is populating just a few kilometers, I am quite happy with leadwerks really.

 

 

The problem I see, is they have spent so long getting it to that stage and still haven't made a game they can sell. The other problem I see with procedural games, is they can create infinite worlds, but what you do when you go to any place, is pretty much the same as what you do in any other place. Of course some people like that kind of thing.

 

I have a question for anyone that knows. If landscapes are procedurally generated, does that mean they cannot be edited?

[L B]

The problem I see, is they have spent so long getting it to that stage and still haven't made a game they can sell. The other problem I see with procedural games, is they can create infinite worlds, but what you do when you go to any place, is pretty much the same as what you do in any other place. Of course some people like that kind of thing.

 

I have a question for anyone that knows. If landscapes are procedurally generated, does that mean they cannot be edited?

 

There is no commercial game made with Leadwerks either, so this is just not relevant.

Also, you can save procedurally generated maps on a server (or just their seeds), once, for instance, the user has decided to establish a colony on a planet.

If landscapes are procedurally generated, you also need to save them in order to edit them. You could easily retrieve vertex information and model positions (or placement maps) of the procedurally generated map and save it, then load this in an editor.

 

I am not really for the procedural generation nor for the streaming, although it can give out something nice in a game like SPORE. Else, I don't know why you would need it, especially with a 4096x4096 terrain. Even the most recent MMORPGs have smaller maps and no streaming.

[Davaris]

There is no commercial game made with Leadwerks either, so this is just not relevant.

 

Yes it is from a commercial standpoint. On their site they say they have been working on it for *5+* years. No pro indie would work on a game for that long, because the chances of making all that money back is very slim. It would be a fun hobby project though.

 

As for no Leadwerks engine games yet, I can't see it being long now. I'm still new to this engine, but from what I have seen, I am amazed at how much work Josh has done for us. I only wish I had been born years later than I was, because game making today is so much easier than it used to be even 5 years ago.

[Josh]

Wow, Fuel is awesome. I downloaded the demo. Can you travel across the whole world in the full game?

[Davaris]

Fuel looks very impressive and it looks like they can sculpt the terrain (at the very least with roads). It would make for a great Mad Max kind of game.

[Josh]

The problem is Fuel is only a racing game. A game with weapons or more complicated interactions is a lot more complex. I definitely like their design, though.

[Davaris]

I heard someone say, who has both games, that MotorStorm is a lot better. I don't know what tech they use, but it might be interesting to compare if they are radically different.

 

 

From what I saw on this video, MotorStorm has destructible cars and environs. I didn't see that in Fuel.

[Josh]

Motorstorm is just a generic racing game. That movie is mostly prerendered CG.

[Davaris]

That's very sneaky. That video had me convinced the cars were tearing themselves apart when they crashed.

 

EDIT:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMjnXgRhiOA&feature=related

 

Though at 8.50 this vid shows some destructible environs.

[Josh]

I played this game on the PS3. When the car hits that ramp and knocks over the tower, the ramp has an animation that makes it "fall" on a pivot, but the tower is completely solid. Unless I remember wrong.

 

I actually bought this game and studied it a bit because someone was interested in having us design something similar, but it didn't work out.

[Davaris]

I see. The first video had me convinced it was all real, because it looked similar to Crysis quality.

 

So how long do you think it will be before cars crumple and tear themselves up like that in games?

 

This shows the MotorStorm crashes better:

 

 

Looks like panels come off and wheels break off, but no crumples.

[Davaris]

Wow, Fuel is awesome. I downloaded the demo. Can you travel across the whole world in the full game?

 

The game world spans 5,000 square miles, yet there are no load times during races.

 

http://www.mahalo.com/fuel-game

 

 

I also saw a video where they said you can drive anywhere at any point.

[Scott Richmond]

Wow, Fuel is awesome. I downloaded the demo. Can you travel across the whole world in the full game?

 

Aye. There is a lot to be said about procedural graphics. Fuel is a perfect example of how procedural graphics can really make your game unique. There is simply no way anyone could justify building such a huge world by hand, and the fact is, a game like Fual just would not exist without the huge procedural engine they have under it.

 

Josh, you should really check out some of Shamus's other articles on Fuel. I know you yourself have done quite a bit on roads, so I know you'll be interested in em:

1. Fuel: Roads - http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=5237

2. Fuel: Terrian - http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=5267

[Davaris]

 

1. Fuel: Roads - http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=5237

2. Fuel: Terrian - http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=5267

 

 

The comments in the roads section mention procedural cities. The Pompeii city in this link is stunning. Its a pity about the price of the software though.

 

http://www.procedural.com/cityengine/provided-examples/pompeii.html

[Scott Richmond]

The comments in the roads section mention procedural cities. The Pompeii city in this link is stunning. Its a pity about the price of the software though.

 

http://www.procedura...es/pompeii.html

 

Wow that app is very impressive!

I think procedural environments will become a bigger and bigger part of the gaming industry. We just can't keep on going the way we are - Takes too long to make decent large worlds at the moment. We need better tools.

[Josh]

Well, for terrain at least it makes sense. I bought Fuel. What an amazing game. Can you imagine if they had made an FPS with that?

[Scott Richmond]

Well, for terrain at least it makes sense. I bought Fuel. What an amazing game. Can you imagine if they had made an FPS with that?

 

haha. Gee you've really jumped on it eh. To be honest I don't think an FPS would have worked out at all. You'll see this the more you play - By the games design you are flying through the world at high speeds. So environment quality isn't a big issue. Thats not to say Fuel isn't beautiful, because it is. But when you're on foot in an FPS, its an entirely different matter. The world has to be much much more detailed. I think it could very well be done, but it'd take a hugely detailed procedural system to build up an interesting world to an FPS player level. It would require so many layers and passes.

I'm fairly certain the code is out there in pieces - Trees, grass, terrain, roads, caves, etc. It just all needs to be put together. I'd really love to see an open source project do sometihng like that. I wonder if there is already a project out there?

[Michael Betke]

Wait wait. You're talking about MegaTexture. That tech is the precursor to the iD Tech 6 technology.

 

I wasnt aware of the fact theres id-tech6 already. No game has been relased with tech5 so it's a bit early to talk about tech6.

 

EDIT: Took a look at the .pdf from your wikipedia link and its refering to tech5. No tech6.

Edited December 18, 2009 by Michael Betke

[Laurens]

The problem I see, is they have spent so long getting it to that stage and still haven't made a game they can sell. The other problem I see with procedural games, is they can create infinite worlds, but what you do when you go to any place, is pretty much the same as what you do in any other place. Of course some people like that kind of thing.

 

I have a question for anyone that knows. If landscapes are procedurally generated, does that mean they cannot be edited?

 

I would also bet a procedurally generated environment would not have as good a hand for balance as a human would.