[ZJJ]

We actually have a thread about the beginnings of Epic here.  

[Serellan]

very cool, congrats!

[Jsonedecker]

Serellan, on Jul 8 2008, 04:01 PM, said:

very cool, congrats!

We're getting there brother! Slowly but surely.  

[FUBAR]

not same story about epic as the one i was reading The one i was reading went into more detail but basicly same, goes to show how 1 man (small team) can go all the way, only this day in age it can only get harder, BFS has a big advantage in they have  already  worked on games that where and still are No1 titles,the team know what is missing with all the games out atm

Who still plays orig tom clancy games?

I still play play RS,UO,CO and all the oGR+expasions in sp, graphics are dated,movement is well not perfact but taking ya time and trying to complete the mission with only pistol and no deaths makes it interesting



SERBY mate
hows it hanging

FUBAR

Edited by FUBAR, 08 July 2008 - 08:44 PM.

[Swedish_Seb]

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Who still plays orig tom clancy games?

I would still be playing RS/UO/CO/BT if I could get the guddam thing working. _{(No! CDs won't scratch, not at all )} .

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SERBY mate
hows it hanging

I'm fine, mate. How's life in "Executive ½Circus"?
Damn, I still owe you that easter egg.

[FoxTwo]

I especially like this one:

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"Fan pages are an amazing phenomenon, and to be honest, a great morale booster for development teams." - Cliff Bleszinski

That's, what a few Publishers but also Developers have forgotten these days and one of the reasons why one fan page after another is dying.

[CAG-Delta]

Great news

[Poita]

Well, everyone is piling on the congrats so i am a bit leary about this post but here goes.

One thing i liked about OGR was that it had a very gritty look to it and also didn't go for pretty looks up close at the expense of consistency of environment, in other words, if there is a pretty shrub at my feet  and i lay in it for concealment then it shouldn't fade out from the point of view of some snecking sniper on another hill. The consitency of some bushes in OGR were so sublte that you could even choose what quarter of it to crouch in based on that part being darker and be sure that a guy hundreds of meteres away would would be impacted by that choice.

  My point is that although the Unreal graphics engines are nifty and great for eye candy. There is a certain 'fatness' to everything in the games. As beautiful as the Unreal engines can render graphics there is always an enforced cartooniness to them from my point of view. I see OGR graphics compared to other environment renders in games in a bit of the same way that those Diablo 3 fans are a bit disturbed by the WOW colour schemed look of the initial Diablo 3 maps. The grit has gone and been replaced with consolised colour schemes. It's not only that they want depressing and gritty looking graphics, they want a naturalness. The real world certainly has lots of colour but certain games tend to make them over vibrant in the way that we do with childrens books and toys etc. That detracts from the natural feel of the environment.

  Even Gears of War despite being gretty looking doesnt quite cut it for me. Apart from everything looking like it's bulging and fat, the games practically looks like it's in black and white. That no sollution to a too vibrant colour scheme either.

  I don't want all the guns, characters and other objects being fat and bulging, i don't want excessivly pretty graphics at the expense of a totally consitant world (right down to every weed and tuft of grass). Also I don't want prettyness of graphics in design and also colour to take away from me the aesthetic sense that i'm moving around in a real place. I'm not a rabid OGR fan, it's just that even now, even with games such as Crysis, i still don't get that pleasurable sense of being in a place as i did with the gritty look of some of the OGR maps such as Villiage. I guess the only game that has come close is Stalker, although that game didn't have the grounded feel as the character moves around that OGR did.

  Please don't get me wrong, this isn't a 'why can't this game be like OGR' post. I have more hope and expectation in GB than any other project in the works (maybe shared with Opflash 2). I just always had mixed feelings over the Unreal engines. I felt they go for bells and whistles at the expense of naturalness, which results in cartoonification for want of a better word (or indeed, a real word).

  I trust that the maturity of the fans on this site is enough that people will address my sincere points rather than just flame me for having concerns for something that they are wholeheartedly behind already.
  Having said that i'll be very interested in your input. Especilly if Jsonedecker can find time to comment.

Edited by Poita, 14 July 2008 - 03:25 AM.

[zoog]

poita, I think most points raised have not actually something to do with the Unreal Engine an sich but more about the design choices by the developers using Unreal engine. Graphics and artistic style, as far as I know, don't really have anything to do with the engine (well the capabilities have something to do with the engine but not the "look" of the game). It's up to the developer to decide what kind of colour palette to use, how much bloom etc. Raven Shield was also on the Unreal engine, I personally don't think those graphics were off, but that's just my opinion of course.

To sum up, I think most of your worries have more to do with the developer than with the engine.

[Nemesis]

@ Poita: http://www.blackfoot...php?showtopic=9
Those are the in-dev screenshots that have been shared with the public domain on these forums plus there are a few in the newletters, so they should address your concerns although TBH: I dont know if ALL of those shots were taken from the UE.
You do raise some good points albeit ones that I think BFS will have already addressed.
As Zoog stated its a palette decision made by the devs as for saturations, lighting conditions, surface properties etc etc.
You can create a "Jackson-Pollock" or a "Cistene Chapel" just by using the same tools.

[Jsonedecker]

Nemesis, on Jul 14 2008, 06:46 AM, said:

TBH: I dont know if ALL of those shots were taken from the UE.

Everything shown so far is taken from the engine.... though some of those teasers are pretty old now.

[Jsonedecker]

Poita, on Jul 14 2008, 05:17 AM, said:

One thing i liked about OGR was that it had a very gritty look to it and also didn't go for pretty looks up close at the expense of consistency of environment, in other words, if there is a pretty shrub at my feet  and i lay in it for concealment then it shouldn't fade out from the point of view of some snecking sniper on another hill. The consitency of some bushes in OGR were so sublte that you could even choose what quarter of it to crouch in based on that part being darker and be sure that a guy hundreds of meteres away would would be impacted by that choice.

Some of that you filled in mentally because you wanted it to be there. Honestly. OGR sat in that somewhat sweet spot where it wasn't cutting edge with a lot of the graphical detail rendered, but wasn't crappy looking to where there was no detail. So your mind had just enough visual information to complete the picture. There is a gap in the way games look where if you go farther than the sweet spot, but not far enough it looks like stuff is missing. Likewise, if you go below that spot, the game just looks like crap.

That spot moves around as games get better looking overall though.

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My point is that although the Unreal graphics engines are nifty and great for eye candy. There is a certain 'fatness' to everything in the games. As beautiful as the Unreal engines can render graphics there is always an enforced cartooniness to them from my point of view.

I used to agree on the "fattyness" of Unreal Engine games, but that was when they were all made with solid geometry (BSP) and 90% of the world was made from solid cubes. So walls were overly thick. The RSE engines used arbitrary geometry for everytihng so we could have a 3 inch think door frame if we wanted to. That is why the RSE games looked "thinner". You can make a level in UE3 100% static mesh (arbitrary geometry) and never touch the BSP junk. As for "enforced cartooniness" then look no further than the Art Director on the title. It's 99% design decision for the visual look as well as the overall geometric design. Epic has a certain testosterone filled style that they use. It's their design style, not the engine's style.

I said 99% because the lighting system used does have some unique aspects to it simply because of how it's programmed. No 2 game engines will have identical lighting.

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I see OGR graphics compared to other environment renders in games in a bit of the same way that those Diablo 3 fans are a bit disturbed by the WOW colour schemed look of the initial Diablo 3 maps. The grit has gone and been replaced with consolised colour schemes. It's not only that they want depressing and gritty looking graphics, they want a naturalness. The real world certainly has lots of colour but certain games tend to make them over vibrant in the way that we do with childrens books and toys etc. That detracts from the natural feel of the environment.

Again... 100% design decision and engine agnostic. I could make you a scene that is full on cartoony, cell shaded, pencil rendered, uber realistic, Mtv inspired, goth, and or any artistic style you wanted and all in the exact same engine. A texture is a texture is a texture and it all depends on how it's made. Same with shaders and how you set up your lighting.  

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Even Gears of War despite being gretty looking doesnt quite cut it for me. Apart from everything looking like it's bulging and fat, the games practically looks like it's in black and white. That no sollution to a too vibrant colour scheme either.

I could take a scene from there and give you 100 different looks simply by adjusting the post process in the level. It's all artistic/design choices.

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I'm not a rabid OGR fan, it's just that even now, even with games such as Crysis, i still don't get that pleasurable sense of being in a place as i did with the gritty look of some of the OGR maps such as Villiage.

Honestly, that's what you sound like. If you can't sit in the middle of a level in Crysis on a decent computer and not feel like you are "there" then you won't be satisfied. There isn't anything that comes close to visually hitting reality.

[krise madsen]

Jsonedecker, on Jul 14 2008, 04:14 PM, said:

If you can't sit in the middle of a level in Crysis on a decent computer and not feel like you are "there" then you won't be satisfied. There isn't anything that comes close to visually hitting reality.

You know, when I played Crysis there was actually something that broke the spell: Items would pop up/spawn at fairly short distance or at least short enough to notice, notably something like a green plant on a white sand surface. No biggie, it just sorta spoiled the illusion. Much worse was the fact that the enemy AI spawned at longer range than foliage and large rocks: Zoom out and enemies are visible in the distance, zoom in and they're hidden behind rocks and foliage.

Respectfully

krise madsen

[Poita]

Well for me the sweet spot always starts with consitency of assets. Most games try to render into the future. In other words they try do more than they can technically do. I call it 'juddery cloud synrome'. A term i actually started using in the late 80's with games machines such as the Amiga and consoles of the 8 and 16 bit era. There would be some side scroller or top down game and everything would work fine but they would always try to squeeze as much graphical flair as possible. Low priority assets such as the occasional cloud driffting by got short changed for processing power so had to judder along. I undestand the pressures of a beauty contest but I don't think most players want the jarring experieces of stuff popping in and out of existence.

  That's great to hear about the visuals. I felt the same with the Quake 3 CS/GR like mods. Supposedly a more advanced engine than the souped up HL one use in CS yet with chunky graphics that somehow didn't look as good to me as CS or HL.
   I guess i saw the Unreal engine games in a similar way that i saw the graphics in the Halo games. Pretty but kind of chunky and sparse. Can't wait to see some GB footage.

  Ok then maybe i am a rabid OGR fan in some ways. I think there is a difference though between being passionate/rabid about a game or being passionate about the design philosopy that brought about that game. I like to think that i'm the latter. If more games came from that design philosophy then i wouldn't have to keep refering to a game that is pretty long in the tooth now.

  I'm a true lover of the phrase 'from follows function'. The shrubbery in OGR had a definite function to me and i also really liked the look of em. in almost every game i have played since, the shrubs and other foliage were definitly form first and function if there is any time/will/energy left over. Even the ratio of function to form can be different but as soon as i feel it had tipped over a certin mark then the 'feel' of a game becomes shallow and patronising to me.

   OGR had a lot of faults in my opinion but  ultimately it still delivered. I got the intellectual satisfaction of a chess game, the pleasure of walk in nature and the thrill of a game of paintball (even after 5 years in MP games i still often jumped out of my skin when i got shot; so well balanced were the serenity of the environs and the tension of the gameplay). What is it now, 7 years? and i'm still waiting for a game to match it. Im pretty optimistic about GB, mainly due to the philosophy that shines through the site.

  Oh, and about Crysis. Actually, though i liked Far Cry, i just hate tropical islands so maybe that's it. I prefer deserts, mountains and woodlands etc. Even in the real world i find tropical areas to be cartoonish.  

Edited by Poita, 14 July 2008 - 02:33 PM.

[Jsonedecker]

Ok, I get a better picture of where you are coming from. Thanks for the continued explanations.

And for Crysis, my comments were not related to gameplay...though they should have been. I was merely taking the point of one standing in the middle of a game level and just taking in the scenery, since we were mainly discussing visuals.  

[Lethal]

Ground Branch looks as if it could be the game we have all been waiting for!

I have already seen more response from a forum manager in this one thread, than I have seen in the entire Ubisoft forums.

If you want to see how not to make a game, and how to to really make gamers mad, check out the Ubisoft forums!
You could gain some insight there!

I personally am really looking forward to the release of Ground Branch, and will check often to watch it progress!!

Is there any tentative date for release, or is it too early to provide that information?

I have a PS3, but only play FPS on PC, so I hope Ground Branch will be optomized for PC, and not a port from console as Vegas and Vegas 2 are!

Good luck with what could be one of the best games of all time!!

[zoog]

Lethal, on Jul 17 2008, 07:10 PM, said:

I have already seen more response from a forum manager in this one thread, than I have seen in the entire Ubisoft forums.

Corrected: the CEO of the game studio (or whatever the exact "title" is )

[FUBAR]

zoog, on Jul 18 2008, 08:53 AM, said:

Corrected: the CEO of the game studio (or whatever the exact "title" is )

The Big Cheese

[Poita]

El Gwapo

[zoog]

El Duce