Graphics and physics engines, wich offer what i want?

[the dark side]

warning LONG POST, and a SERIOUS topic, so TL-DR will NOT be tolerated.

Hello. I originally baught this up in the "learning stuff" thread, but, as "acies" kindly pointed out, that wasnt the correct thread. oh well, it wont be the first time i've posted in the wrong thread, and it probably certainly wont be the last.

As you will know by taking a quick look into my Profile, i have my own FPS I.P, a Throwback to the "silver age" of the FPS, the era between Half Life and COD-4, what the "kiddies" would call "the pseudo modern era" games such as the first 2 "Soldier of Fortune" games, the first 3 "Medal of Honour" titles, the 007 FPS games from EA (AUF, NF, TWINE 64), The 2 "No One Lives Forever" titles, etcetera.

as you know, i have had some pretty decent interest from some pretty big name developers, but nothing but cold feet from, and sheer Balderdash about "american console players" (who the game isnt even available too) from the marketing divisions of, the Publishers. however, im a crazy, determined little basket who isnt going down without a nuclear war, so im sticking with it, in the chance i may be able to get some guys together to make a Demo Level to show the publishers the IP's potential, or one of the interested devs manages to find a publisher who actually has the Guts to take a risk on a new IP, a silver age throwback to complement the rising popularity of "Golden Age" (pre Half life era) throwbacks such as Painkiller HD, Serious Sam III, Hard Reset, etc. (if there is a publisher with the guts, i expect it will probably be one of the "take 2" companies)

anyway, i have come to a sticky wicket, as you know, these days games are pretty much sold on the graphics they have, especially in the PC market. now, as the game is a NEW IP, and a pretty niche market one as 1. it is VERY old fashioned, and 2, its ONLY going to be available on PC, there is no way even the gutsiest, most crazy publisher is going to give a budget big enough for an in house engine, so im going to need to look at a pre existing one.

as games are sold on there graphics these days, i am naturally looking at the best new engines out, namely Cryengine 3 and Frostbite 2, and the accompianing PhysX physics engine, however, as these engines are used to modern "corridor" level design and "modern" (call of duty style) gameplay physics i am unsure they can handle the classic "open plan" level design and "old fashioned silver era" gameplay i am after.

i know what you are thinking, "what the fuji is this fool yammering on about? old fashioned gameplay? modern gameplay? corridor design? WTF?" well ill show you.





Old School gameplay (what i want). Static Crosshairs, No Gun Limit, No Controll Hints, multiple route levels, no ADS, Medikit based Non Regenerating health with armour pick ups, sky high running speed with no sprint, circle straffe, long and high jumps, lone wolf gameplay (no squads), all out fun.





Modern gameplay (what i want to avoid like the plaque), Expanding crosshairs, 2 gun limit, CONSTANT hints, one corridor route levels, Aim Down sites, regenerating health with bloody screen, dead slow movement with limited sprint, a shorter "hop" than a 2 year old, and damn squads nicking all yer kills. No fun.

now, a more elderly engine such as unreal 3, ID tech 4, frostbite 1 or Source can handle the open plan levles, and the accompianing HAVOK physics can do old school gameplay, but, the graphics are poor, muddy textures, slow texture load, poor anti aliasing, slow to react physics, poor collision detection, floaty movement etc, wich would be sales killing in this era of graphics and physics led sales.

so, what i need to know is, can cryengine 3 or frostbite 2 handle the following? 1. Trilinear Anti Aliasing. 2 FULL H.U.D Render with no "regenerating" bars and a full "weapons wheel" weapon selector due to NO gun-limit, 3, STATIC crosshairs (ones that stay the same size and shape even when running and firing, as with the SOF1 vid posted), 4 a Zoom camara lens style "precision aim" instead of Aim Down Sites. 5. GHOUL II gore engine compatibility, 6. large Open plan levels (up to 100 alternative routes and dead ends, multiple secrets), 7. First person Vehicles with FULLY animated cockpits, 8. Full enviroment destruction. 9. HDR lighting with micro light sourcing, 10, texture tesselation, 11l.HD particle physics. all at the same time at 60 Frames per Second with no texture pop in,. low def muddy texture issues, or frame rate slowdown. it also needs to be able to handle Third Person cutscenes.

and can Phys-X handle the following, .1 Realistic land vehicle mechanics, 2. full flight simulation mechanics for planes and helicopters, 3. full procedural generated water currents for boats and SCUBA levels, 4. full environment destruction with GEO mod terrain and up to 80% environment object (such as building") destruction, 5. Chain reaction physics (ie shoot a tree down, it lands on a car, the car explodes, the top of the tree lands on a bui8ldigns roof and knocks a hole in the roof) with preocedural destruction, not scripted destruction, 6. Weapons Damage Physics, 7, Bullet impact physics on the environment (ie, they will punch through wood but ricochet of metal). 8. "deadly world" environment, ie, shattering glass, falling debris, etc can kill both the ai but also a clumsy player. 9.full gravity physics, all withiout grinding to a halt or glitching out.

so, can those engines handle all that. or am i going to need to use a more old fashioned engine and risk loosing sales due to out of date graphics and physics. or is there a modern graphics and physics engine other than cryengine 3 or frostbite 2 with Physx that can handle all that i have not thaught of?

please, any help or advise would be gratefully appreciated.

sorry for the massive post.

[Obliviator27]

TL;DR for people who don't want to read.

So, essentially, you want Battlefield 3 with old school game mechanics.
A hyper realistic environment accompanied by an incredibly unrealistic player.
Seems a bit silly to me.

[the dark side]

why does it seem silly to you?, go on, tell me.

if you look at a lot of the silver age games, like SOF (posted), they aimed more towards realism, but kept in a lot of the over the top nature of the classics. plus, come on, the game is, and im not giving away any plot here, about a SPY, its not supposed to be 100% realistic, its allowed to be a LITTLE over the top (to say, goldeneye (film) levels, im, not talking die another day wacky here), it just needs to have its feet in reality to keep it plausible.

i dont want battlefeild 3 with old school gameplay, goodness no, battlefield 3 STANK, just more of the usual cod clone "russia invades america with the help of the middle east" world war 3 crap. if anything, what i want is a modern day Goldeneye 64. Hyper Realism is NOT fun, it is BORING, yet Aliens, invasions from hell, and war on other worlds has been done so often it has become a parody of itself!

i dont want a Hyper realistic environment, i just want one that feels realistic to give the storyline plausability, like SOF II had, so the player actually gives a crap about what happens in that world!

im not sure how i can actually explain the IP without giving too much away and ending up with someone stealing it!

[Obliviator27]

I'm not talking about what happens in Battlefield 3. I'm not even talking about gameplay. I'm talking about the way that the environment works. Large levels, almost fully destructible environment, realistic vehicle mechanics (okay, that's a bit of a stretch), and bullet physics.

I think it's silly because of a few things.

1) Guns are kind of heavy. Add a bunch of them plus military gear, and let's see how far and how fast you can run with it. Running at "Lightning" speed with high and far jumps is just not possible with that kind of gear on. Unless you're a superhuman, really.

2) No gun limits. I don't understand how this could be put into a realistic environment. Carrying a pistol, assault rifle, rocket launcher, sniper rifle, and more than that. Unless your character is basically a pile of guns, that doesn't make much sense.

3) Static crosshairs. I've seen in other posts that it hurts your eyes. Well, that seems like a personal problem. If you hold an assault rifle and then start shooting, you're going to get recoil. Meaning that your shots aren't all going to land in the same place.



As far as the rest of the mechanics go, the game could possibly get confusing and annoying for a majority of gamers. As an example, Thief 1 has large maps, which are all too easy to get lost in. I've spent a lot of time wandering around trying to find whatever I have to do to get out of the level that I'm now frustrated with.

I understand the regenerating health and armor thing. It makes sense.

But really, you're asking for a realistic environment with an unrealistic character.

[Acies]

As I see it games have gone from innovativeness in gameplay styles to (present day) a heavy focus on graphics and physics reactions.

I do not agree with your first post because I don't miss "an unlimited number of guns" or a "static crosshair". I miss the innovativeness old games had. To me it doesn't really matter wheter the cross-hair is green or red (those are just details which in themselves wouldn't matter much to the experience itself) as long as the game is fun.

With budget constraints a current-gen game relies heavily on graphics to sell. In most cases a game can't have "top-notch" graphics combined with awesome gameplay. It's too much effort for a game company (in most cases). That's the reason why your idea, although cool(?), wouldn't work in the real world. You can't eat the cake and still keep it. Both awesome mechanics, graphics and gameplay isn't possible within a budget.

I therefore look to indie-developers, as they often ignore graphics and go for gameplay (Hurray!).

This is merely an input of my opinion, you may dismiss it if it differs from yours. I don't really want to argue wheter an opinion (my/yours) is right or wrong.

Enjoy your evening sir

[Ghieri]

What I liked about half-life 2 wasn't necessarily the things you were talking about, it was the way they took an open world and forced you to think about what was actually going on around you. This in contrast to newer games, where the most complicated thing in the environment is a scripted particle effect.

That's what I like about older games, they did more with less.


FYI: If you are doing this project by yourself, then forget the graphics. It takes a lot of dedicated time to get even close to a realistic environment, and a lot of practice.

[the dark side]

Hello, sorry this message is so late, i read peoples posts this morning, but ive spent the whole afternoon playing through favourite bits of my "inspiration" games (ie the games im using to test my own Ips ideas out on), and i think ive come up with some cures for a few problems.

okay, answers time!

@aldigheri , Dont Worry, i am not doing this project myself, i havent got the budget, know how, or intellect,. for that, heck, i pretty much blew my budget just getting the Ip copyrighted!

I am going to do as much as i can personally, wich is about 80% of the phase 1 Development and about 60% of Phase II, i dont have the know how or intellect for phase III (programming), Phase 1 and 2 is stuff like concept art (got a mate at deviantart doing that!), level maps, Plotline, synopsis form, Storyline, charachter bio's, Acheivement list (sadly, you need cheevos to get steam certification these days ) etc. the only bits of that i can't do myself are the concept art, my drawing aint all that good, but i've got a mate covering that, the dialoque script (i can only do scene outlines as i am not a professional screenwriter), and the weapons list, because, well, you get looking at weapons sites here in the UK and you are gonna have whitehall 1212 pay you a visit, wich also means i cant do all the cheevos as i dont know what all the guns are gonna be. once i have all the work i can do myself, im handing over to wichever one of my interested Developers (and ive got some real pros looking!) can land a publisher who is going to agree to all the stipulations in my copyright lease (stops them stabbing me in the back if i only lease the copyright, they have to abide by MY rules).

yes, i know there is more to a classic FPS than the core shooting gameplay, but, thats not the point, as Duke Nukem Forever proved, if your core FPS experience is Crap, than all the little extras, no matter how well done, are going to fail. That is why i only covered the core FPS gameplay experience i want in my list, so the developer who gets the game will be able to use an engine that will be able to deliver the core experience properly.

The rest of the cool stuff a Proper Silver age throwback needs, such as tactical decision making regarding how to tackle the AI (wich uses Half Life's "factored Ai" system), Puzzle solving, procedurally generated set peices, etc, comes later. i am more than aware that what made half life brilliant was its Puzzles and its Tactical decision making, but that comes after you have got the Core shooting correct. as i said, if your core shooting is bad then youve got another Duke Nukem Forever rather than a modern day Soldier of Fortune 1.

@obliviator.

hmm, seems i have got a bit of a arcade/simulation imbalance here, i hadnt noticed it before, thanks for pointing that out! you saved me from a very nasty mistake there pal! now, before i answer your 3 points, i will state now that i am NOT going to modernise the game, Modern shooters bore me to tears, and as i said, this is MY IP, so im gonna make the game I want. fegg anyone else. so i am NOT introducing a gun limit, NOR am i slowing the pace, and NOR am i adding expanding crosshairs because i think those elements suck AND blow, if you do not agree with that decision, then fine, that is your perogative, , i would appreciate it if you at least tried it via the shareware version if i ever get a publisher hooked, but i wont go demanding you like it, after all videogame taste is a subjective thing.

I am also not going to dumb it down for new gamers, as the game is not aimed at them, its aimed at Experienced PC gamers who were around in the original "Silver Era", and possibly the "golden era" before that, any sort of dumbing down is going to anger them (i know that for a fact, as an experienced PC gamer myself, i get right angry when a game is dumbed down for "new gamers" because i feel patronized!) and loose me my target market, and i know for a FACT i wont get the casual market because the game doesnt have "Call Of Duty" written on the box.

i would rather produe a game thats a bit silly and unrealistic and get my target audience than have a more realsitic more COD style one that isnt going to attract anyone because the market for COD clones, if it has escaped your notice, is thankfully, collapsing!

your points.

1. Please!, Dont patronise me on guns. i come from a military familly, i also know that most guns are not all that heavy really, i mean, fully loaded, an M16A4 with 30 rounds in its box, and a 40 MM in the m203 undermount, only weighs 6 pounds, lighter still if you dont have the m203, even the heaviest guns, such as a PKM, only weigh about 12 pounds, with spare ammo, thats about 20 pounds. Fully loaded, a british soldier can carry 200 pounds, an American soldier about 160. now, the reason that weight slows a modern shooter charachter down is because they are based on US soldiers, who, i am sorry to say, are not very well trained in weight disribution. the UK army however is, a Uk soldier is expected to do a 20 mile run in two hours with full kit, he is also expected to be able to make a 2 metre jump with the same kit, and that is a standard squaddie!

2, yes, i will agree that not having a gun limit is unrealistic, but come on, this is a VIDEOGAME, they are supposed to be ENTERTAINING!.

I am sorry, but gun Limits are Frustrating, BORING, and also quide you by the hand, they remove all tactical decision making, and any exitement from the game goes out the window as well,

Example: if there is an SVD dragunov lying around in a game with a gun limit, you know you are gonna need to do some sniping, IMMEDIATELY, as the script will spawn some snipers as soon as you swap your shotgun for the rifle, if you dont have a gunlimit, then you can hide the SVD somewhere were there isnt gonna be sniping, that way, the player KNOWS there is going to be a sniping section, but they dont know where. that way, when a High Velocity sniper round suddenly bursts a window near you about 10 minuites after you collected the SVD, the player is gonna jump out of there skin, and there adrenaline will spike, wich means they will enjoy the game more, as it making there pulse pound.

Also, as i said, having a gun limit also removes any form of tactical decision making, because all you need to do is put the AK47 in slot one, and the Spas 12 in slot 2. that covers all bases. Without a gun limit, you need to decide what gun is best for what tactical situation, say you have a room full of US secret service operatives armed with Mp5-a6's loaded with Glazers (a bullet that has 24 balls of 00 lead shot encased in liquid cupronickel under a plastic nose, basically, being hit by one is like having a double barreled shotgun go off with both barrels into your chest at point blank range), those rounds are going to tear you to shreds, and those guys are both well trained, and have Reflex sites, combine that with the MP5 a6's blazing fire rate, low recoil, lowered even more by the Mullins E40 Vertgrips on there guns, and naturally high mechanical accuracy, and you are gonna get pwned if you dont get them all before they can hit you, so , you need to make a tactical decision, do you use the CAWS-90 and prey you dont run out of slugs before you kill them all? use your own Glazer loaded Secret Service Spec MP5? or load up the m249 with a 200 round belt and turn the room into an abboitoir? in short, what an Unlimited armoury looses in terms of realism, it makes up for in terms of ENTERTAINMENT and THAUGHT.

3. Just because a game has static crosshairs, it doesnt mean the gun is going to work like a lazer rifle and hit dead straight every time with no recoil!

Did you ever play Return to Castle Wolfenstein, Project IGI, Soldier of Fortune 1, Nightfire, or Medal of Honor: Frontline? those games have Static crosshairs, and yet the also have bullet drift, muzzle rise, and recoil kick, its just they take a more "sim-cade" approach to it, with a modern, "realistic" game, with expanding hairs, if you say, fire off the Mp40 on full auto when circle straffing, you will be lucky if ONE of its 32 rounds is going to hit something, sure, thats realistic, but its also downright boring, popping up from behind walls in ADS may be realistic, but it is NOT a fun way to play a videogame!

With RTCW or MOHF as examples, yes, you will still have rounds from the MP40 miss the target when fireing on full auto while circle straffing due to bullet drift, muzzle rise, and recoil kick, you will only have 8 rounds out of 32 miss, the other 25 will hit true. in short, your accuracy is only hampered by the inbuilt mechanical innacuracy of the weapon used, not the fact the shooter has been BARELY trained and does not know how to handle the weapons recoil competantly.

With a highly trained charachter who is extremely proficient in firearms you can get away with Static Hairs, because his training means he can manage most the recoil, with the only rounds that miss being due to Muzzle rise or Mechanical innacuracies inherent in the firearm itself, the Animation to show this ability is very simple, in fact its in the original "project IGI", you let loose on the AK47 (actually an AKM-but, i wont split hairs, its a good game) in that, and it kicks like a mule, but the bullets will still hit home if you fire in bursts, as you will see Jone's arm has tensed up and he is physcially COUNTERING the recoil of the gun with his muscles, as an SAS operaive, he is trained to counter recoil, the only time you will start missing is if you fire for too long and the muzzle rise overwhelmes your strength.

in fact, the static hairs and mild innacuracy of a silver age shooter is actually more realistic than the "you cant shoot unless in ADS" stuff of modern shooters, soldiers are trained to be able to shoot accurately from the shoulder, in real life, in a battle you dont have TIME to aim down the sites, or take cover, you need to be able to fire and kill on the move,. come on, John Mullins, the REAL John Mullins, will tell you that, hence the high on the run/ circle straffe levels of hip accuracy (even with the expanders turned ON in SOF II's case), in the first 2 SOF games, wich he actually helped to create!

Look, realistic videogames are NOT FUN! the whole point of a videogame is it is supposed to be entertaining, if i wanted a realistic war experience, i would join the royal marines, when i play a videogame i want to be ENTERTAINED.

now, as you pointed out, i do seem to have an imbalance between a hyper realistic environment, simulation vehicles, and silver age gunplay, and, although i quess having an Unrealistic charachter in a Realistic environment is no more or less Silly than say, the "Uncharted" games, wich put a "realistic" chrachter in an environment so unrealisitc it borders on cartoon territory, i will do something about that.

the question is, what. as i refuse to change the gameplay, and i dont want to loose the destructable environments, wich, actually, i havn't put in for the sake of "realism" like you assumed, i actually put them in because i learned with the classic 2 Red Faction FPS games, blowing the poop out of walls with a pump action grenade launcher is a Heck of a Lot of Fun!.

so I am going to need to change the art style and make the vehicle mechanics more "sim cade" (think forza motorsport for vehicles and Hawx for planes and heli's). and im not sure with what to do there, as i want to give the game a sort of "Half Life 2" feel. clearly fantasy, clearly exaggerated in terms of art style, and yet still with JUST enough realism in the environment and gameplay to feel just enough grounded in reality to be plausible! wich makes the player actually care about what happens in the game, and the people in the game world.


leave it with me, when ive thaught of some answers, ill sound them out here and see what people think.

on the map thing, i am actually REALLY glad your baught that up Obliviator!, as i went over my level maps, and... i...got...lost. hell i DREW the damn things and i got lost... well, i am not going to dumb them down into a corridor, thats not a good idea, as that would seriously annoy my target audience, and im not going to dumb them down with a on screen minimap or waypoints, as again, they are ruddy annoying, patronizing as heck, and clutter up the HUD, and i want a nice, smart HUD. basically crosshairs in the middle, and weapon icon, ammo readouts, health and armour (IF in military gear! you CANNOT wear amour in "civilian" clothes and you are limited to just health) all grouped round each other in a small area to the bottom right of the HUD.

so i thaught, what about having something like IGI 1's Map computer?

so if you do get lost, you can call up the GPS on your charachters smart phone (GPS quick acitvate is M on default keyboard), and view the map, wich will highlight objectives, but not secrets, giving you some idea of were to go, i'll also put things in the environment itself to show you were to go, such as road signs, or military base signs, etc, dont worry if they are in a foreign tounque, i've already decided that if you hold the hairs over them for a few seconds, the charachter will read the sign to you in english.

using the map computer well, may also enable you to make a tactical decision, and seeing as im not giving too much level info away here, ill actually give you an example tactical Decision!

Say you've got a NASTY checkpoint ahead, chock full of soldiers with Gp25's on their AK47's, if you try and ram the URAL truck you have through it, your going to get blown up.. so do you? attack head on? jump off the cliff, swim around, climb up another cliff, and attack from behind and try to have the element of suprise? or Open the map computer, notice a ruined abbey on a nearbye hillside with computer controlled artillery in the ruins, get back in the URAL, drive up to the abbey, kill the soldiers there, hack the computer, and blow seven bells of tar out of the checkpint with the artillery, then just go and mop up whats left with the aks-74-u? tactical descisions like that are always good, it lets the player choose how THEY want to go through the level, instead of forcing them to go thtough the way some micheal bay wannabe in burbank, so-cal, wants them to go Through.

ooopppps, nearly forgot.

@ acies. i agree, i miss the innovation old games had too, especially when you consider some were really cool innovations that have not been seen since, like how you could interact with computers with your keyboard in SIN. the only other 2 games ive seen that in were Wages of SIN, and SIN Episodes. a shame, as it was a COOL little innovation. dont worry, my own IP has plenty of innovations of its own, as well as a few old freinds from other games we havnt seen in a while, its just i dont want to share them in public because i dont want them stolen.

as you baught up crosshair colour, well, i dont mind sharing them,. they are white by default, green if targeting an ally or civilian, and red if an enemy is targeted, unless you activate "colour blind" mode in options, then they are still white by default, yellow if an ally is targeted, and purple when an enemy is targeted.

I know about the budget thing, hence the need for a pre existing engine, as the budget most of my interested devs reckon they could get from a really gutsy publisher, is, at max, £4,000,000. with that i should be able to mix great silver era gameplay, with top notch graphics from either a Heavilly modified version of Source, or Cryengine 3 if it can handle the old school level design and gameplay mechanics. if ithe budgt is lower, than planned, well, SOURCE is still more than good enough, but, im gonna have to lower some of my requriments, and im worried using such an elderly engine could harm sales.

[Statyk]

Major kudos to the person dedicated enough to read that entire essay. lol

[xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

Dude...I'll be honest, I did not read through all of those walls of text. But here's my general advice: Before you concern yourself with concept art, AAA-graphic effects and whatnot, first of all make a gameplay prototype in the engine of your choice. I'd use UDK since its fairly easy code-wise from what I've heard but I guess you can use Cryengine too.

Then, when thats out of the way you can still make it look pretty. But coding is always the most difficult part and nothing's worse than sitting on tons of beautiful assets and levels with no working gameplay feature to go with them. Trust me, I know...

i am unsure they can handle the classic "open plan" level design and "old fashioned silver era" gameplay i am after.

...well, like I said gameplay features depend entirely on your coding skills. Its even possible to make a 2D-sidescoller in Unreal Engine if you know what you're doing. And Level design doesn't have much to do with the engine. Some handle Terrain and extremely far view distances better than others, but no engine cares about whether your level is linear or not. (Except for some AI features maybe - but that's where your coding skills come into play again)

[Ghieri]

I am sorry, but gun Limits are Frustrating, BORING, and also quide you
by the hand, they remove all tactical decision making, and any exitement
from the game goes out the window as well,

I disagree with this point. Having to pick and choose which guns you use requires more thought. Players are more likely to second guess picking up a gun, but it may be worth it.

For reference, Jedi Academy allows you to have all of the guns at one time. It's really thoughtless as to which gun you pick.(it's usually the one with the biggest *boom*) L4d2 and half life 2 force you to carefully consider your weapon options, either through limited gun slots or limited ammo. Makes you think more.

first of all make a gameplay prototype in the engine of your choice.

This.