engine question thread


3dent

 

Posted

while suggesting some things, i always have a full story about engine limitations.
but up until now, i don't know what the engine can and can't do.
but now i'll take my time and ask the questions first before posting more suggestions that are, again, not possible because of a weakness in the engine.

1.) is it possible to make water so that we can dive in it, swim deep and even have an empire under water?

2.) what is the limit in speed?

3.) is it just not possible to make different colors for powers or is it more because it takes a massive amount of work?

4.) what kind of power, that was on the drawing board, isn't possible?

5.) if something isn't possible currently, but a different team working on a different game knows a solution, do you take the trouble to let him work on it or do you just ignore the problem and say "it isn't possible"?

6.) is glassy shine skin possible on the current tight skin or do you need some engine updates to make it possible?

7.) if you make a costume, do you just create one skin or do you need 3 skins?

for now, that's it, but i might come up for more questions.


 

Posted

... [censored] cryorounds! [/Archy]


 

Posted

1: There is a mission in the Imperous TF which has underwater swimming, so it seems possible.

2: limits are diffrent for jumping, flying and running. Those limits are set by the devs, as far i as i know, theoretically you can make an entity move much faster than whats allowed atm.

3: It's massive amounts of work, as they way it's set up right now the color is hardcoded into the power. So if you want green lightning, they would have to make a brand new powerset with green colored lightning, if you want pink, they would have to make a new set with pink etc...

4. no idea

5. no idea.

6. no idea, i assume it's technically possible, as they have textures which are reflective (metal), shiny (leather) etc.

7. They have to do cossie pieces for each of the 3 player models, Female, Male and Huge. It would look kinda wierd to stretch a huge texture on a female model


 

Posted

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2: limits are diffrent from jumping, flying and running. Those limits are set by the devs, as far i as i know, theoretically you can make an entity move much faster than whats allowed atm.


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No source but I seem to remember that the run limit was set due to it being at or near a technical limitation. Any faster and rubberbanding/lag takes it's toll.

EDIT: btw is this us researching an essay for you?


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Posted

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1.) is it possible to make water so that we can dive in it, swim deep and even have an empire under water?


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The Imperious Taskforce contains a room where you can go underwater. This was done as a test for something one of the new programmers worked out how to do, and MAY be used more in the future.

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2.) what is the limit in speed?


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The SuperSpeed cap is just a little below the maximum movement speed the game engine can handle. Any faster and the netcode starts to drop packets, resulting in rubber banding.

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3.) is it just not possible to make different colors for powers or is it more because it takes a massive amount of work?


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It's technically possible, but requires a lot of rewriting to achieve. There's more involved than just the power effect, there are impact effects too.

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4.) what kind of power, that was on the drawing board, isn't possible?


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I believe one was growing/shrinking. Another was wall crawling IIRC.

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5.) if something isn't possible currently, but a different team working on a different game knows a solution, do you take the trouble to let him work on it or do you just ignore the problem and say "it isn't possible"?


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Anything is technically possible, it's more whether it's economically feasible with current tools.

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6.) is glassy shine skin possible on the current tight skin or do you need some engine updates to make it possible?


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Technically possible again, but could cause major lag issues due to the processor power required to render shiny surfaces.

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7.) if you make a costume, do you just create one skin or do you need 3 skins?


[/ QUOTE ]

Each piece requires a version for each body type.


@FloatingFatMan

Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

 

Posted

2) the speed limit is 99 mph because the sever side can't track you if you move any faster than that.

3) the colour of a power has to stay the same because each character doesn't get a separate version of the power, they all pull the base stats at a given level, animation and effect from the same source, also because the the FX on the mob you hit with that power is pulled from a central source which is separate again.

5)because something is possible on a different game is utterly irrelevant, unless that game happens to have been identical untill that thing was changed to make something possible.


 

Posted

thanks for answering the questions, i do want an official word from a dev at question 5 tho, just to be sure.

o and 2 more questions

8.) do the powers get scaled according to the animation or to the code?

9.) not to go against it but, what IS the problem with waal crawling?
i know some solutions, but i dunno if it's within the limits of the engine.


 

Posted

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9.) not to go against it but, what IS the problem with waal crawling?


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Just the number of extra animations really afaik. Not only do you need to make the animations for moving, you have to create alterantive animations for every single power for use while wall crawling.


I really should do something about this signature.

 

Posted

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4: Water was another power effect that they had issues with doing.

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I'm sure i read somewhere that some of the effects in the energy blaster AT, were one water ones, can't think where :S


 

Posted

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
1.) is it possible to make water so that we can dive in it, swim deep and even have an empire under water?

[/ QUOTE ]1: There is a mission in the Imperous TF which has underwater swimming, so it seems possible.

[/ QUOTE ]
You don't actually swim though, there is no vertical movement, you just have a swim animation underwater. If the pools were fifty foot deep you'd fall to the bottom and only be able to get out with fly or jump. But while ta the bottom you would appear to swim. I suspect that if the add a swimming system they will grant a fly like buff when under/in water to give you a vertical movement, however it doesn't appear to exist yet.

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4.) what kind of power, that was on the drawing board, isn't possible?

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Don't know any that have been on the drawing board but web-slinging/grappling hook type powers have been said to be impossible.

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5.) if something isn't possible currently, but a different team working on a different game knows a solution, do you take the trouble to let him work on it or do you just ignore the problem and say "it isn't possible"?

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That would only work if the other game used the same engine. Its not about what you know or don't know how to code its what is possible within the code. For instance it is possible to pickup objects in HL2 engine games but even if you know the code that makes that possible it wouldn't be possible to use the same code to make it work in CoH


 

Posted

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9.) not to go against it but, what IS the problem with waal crawling?


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Just the number of extra animations really afaik. Not only do you need to make the animations for moving, you have to create alterantive animations for every single power for use while wall crawling.

[/ QUOTE ]What about problems walls that are not perfectly vertical? I recall something about players aligning properly to surface tilt being impossible/unfeasible with the current engine too, which was one of the main reasons for not having quadrupedal pets or vehicle travel powers.


 

Posted

Quite right, that would be an issue too.


I really should do something about this signature.

 

Posted

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4: Water was another power effect that they had issues with doing.

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I'm sure i read somewhere that some of the effects in the energy blaster AT, were one water ones, can't think where :S

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I think the devs said they had actually tried to make water based powers, but they ended up not looking very watery, so they dropped the idea for now.


@Golden Girl

City of Heroes comics and artwork

 

Posted

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
1.) is it possible to make water so that we can dive in it, swim deep and even have an empire under water?

[/ QUOTE ]1: There is a mission in the Imperous TF which has underwater swimming, so it seems possible.

[/ QUOTE ]
You don't actually swim though, there is no vertical movement, you just have a swim animation underwater. If the pools were fifty foot deep you'd fall to the bottom and only be able to get out with fly or jump. But while ta the bottom you would appear to swim. I suspect that if the add a swimming system they will grant a fly like buff when under/in water to give you a vertical movement, however it doesn't appear to exist yet.

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Erm...there is actually, i've had a small character in the pool and unless im seeing things she was mid air/water in the deepest part and she could move vertically in the water, saying that my huge 8ft tank is practicaly standing in it, but i'm quite sure the 5ft mm i have could move vertically...hmm i'll double check tomorrow.


 

Posted

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
1.) is it possible to make water so that we can dive in it, swim deep and even have an empire under water?

[/ QUOTE ]1: There is a mission in the Imperous TF which has underwater swimming, so it seems possible.

[/ QUOTE ]
You don't actually swim though, there is no vertical movement, you just have a swim animation underwater. If the pools were fifty foot deep you'd fall to the bottom and only be able to get out with fly or jump. But while ta the bottom you would appear to swim. I suspect that if the add a swimming system they will grant a fly like buff when under/in water to give you a vertical movement, however it doesn't appear to exist yet.

[/ QUOTE ]

Erm...there is actually, i've had a small character in the pool and unless im seeing things she was mid air/water in the deepest part and she could move vertically in the water, saying that my huge 8ft tank is practicaly standing in it, but i'm quite sure the 5ft mm i have could move vertically...hmm i'll double check tomorrow.

[/ QUOTE ]

I've never ever had a character able to move up and down in that water without jumping.


[url=http://vox-doom.deviantart.com]Take A Gander At This.[/url]

 

Posted

one thing that really needs to be answered is, what code is this engine based on?
maybe quake, or HL, or the unreal engine, or maybe from a game we know but not the engine.
in all the years playing and modding games, one basic rule is always present, they are based on a certain game engine code.
like AION, the game is stunning, but they said the the basic engine is from the unreal engine, the same thing with spellborn.
but in the last 2 jeti knight games, the basic engine is the quake 3 engine.
so for all i know, this could be based on the Q2/HL engine, or the first unreal engine.


 

Posted

I'm pretty sure this is a proprietary engine.


 

Posted

The engine is an in-house creation, IIRC, so not directly based on any other.


 

Posted

Although (5) is almost always a bad idea, for a lot of reasons, it is _sopmetimes_ doable if both dev teams coordinated their development from the beginning. But generally, that's not the case, and even then is much harder than it sounds to a non-programmer.


 

Posted

IIRC the game engine is OpenGL system and that in itself have its own set of issues (advantage of OpenGL is that if they wanted to port over to another OS, then *in theory* its a lot less work than dealing with DirectX)


 

Posted

[ QUOTE ]
one thing that really needs to be answered is, what code is this engine based on?
maybe quake, or HL, or the unreal engine, or maybe from a game we know but not the engine.
in all the years playing and modding games, one basic rule is always present, they are based on a certain game engine code.
like AION, the game is stunning, but they said the the basic engine is from the unreal engine, the same thing with spellborn.
but in the last 2 jeti knight games, the basic engine is the quake 3 engine.
so for all i know, this could be based on the Q2/HL engine, or the first unreal engine.

[/ QUOTE ]

Aion uses the Crytek engine, not Unreal. (You may be confused with Lineage 2, which utilises the Unreal 2 engine.)

City of Heroes uses its own engine.


 

Posted

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Aion uses the Crytek engine, not Unreal.

[/ QUOTE ]

*sighs and orders a Cray supercomputer.


@FloatingFatMan

Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

 

Posted

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Aion uses the Crytek engine, not Unreal.

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*sighs and orders a Cray supercomputer.

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I thought you had a super-powerful machine? There was a post about it yesterday (and didn't you mean Crey )

The engine in Crysis Warhead is a bit more optimised apparently so its getting better than it was.


 

Posted

Oh I do... It can play Crysis fine.. But that's a SINGLE PLAYER game. Try to imagine that with thousands of people around....

And yes.. Crey...


@FloatingFatMan

Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.