 |
Author |
|
|
|
imadoki
Joined: 04 Jan 2006
Posts: 24
Location: Canada
|
 Posted: Thu Feb 16, 2006 1:44 am Post subject: |
 |
|
What 3d engine would you suggest is good enough right now for making a game such as Mr. Robot?
Irrlicht or your own engine, but using Ogre for the 3D rendering? Or some other engine? |
|
|
|
Back to top |
|
|
 |
|
starscape junkie
Joined: 15 Jun 2003
Posts: 177
Location: The Thirteenth Colony
|
| Posted: Thu Feb 16, 2006 4:12 am Post subject: |
|
|
| Fost wrote: | Just make sure your email addresses are up to date, and you've elected to receive our newsletter, otherwise we can't legally (or ethically for that matter) mail you  |
How would one go about checking thier newsletter subscibedness?
In any case the game is looking awesome, keep up the good work  |
|
|
|
Back to top |
|
|
|
|
Fost
Pod Team
Joined: 14 Oct 2002
Posts: 3734
|
| Posted: Thu Feb 16, 2006 11:44 am Post subject: |
|
|
| imadoki wrote: | | What 3d engine would you suggest is good enough right now for making a game such as Mr. Robot? Irrlicht or your own engine, but using Ogre for the 3D rendering? Or some other engine? |
We probably will go the OGRE route in the future. That way, a big chunk of messing about - rendering, complicated shaders, GL/DX crossplatform support etc is all taken care of, but we have fine control over the 'game' pasrt of the engine, since we'll be writing it ourselves.
There are some really impressive engine out there now.
| starscape junkie wrote: | | How would one go about checking thier newsletter subscibedness? |
Log in to the customer panel, and click on 'Update Profile', make sure the email address is in there, and that 'receive updates' is set to 'yes'. |
|
|
|
Back to top |
|
|
|
|
Weeble
Starscape Jedi
Joined: 25 Apr 2003
Posts: 1139
Location: Glasgow, Scotland
|
| Posted: Thu Feb 16, 2006 8:06 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| icarus wrote: | Spoiler (highlight to read): one thing i didn't like about that movie was the captan went to hell in the end
its one thing for the hero to die, but do they have to send him strait to hell |
|
Spoiler! |
|
|
|
Back to top |
|
|
|
|
icarus
Troll
Joined: 01 Mar 2004
Location: Tacoma Washington
|
| Posted: Thu Feb 16, 2006 8:10 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| and bruce willis' character in the 6th sense is a ghost |
|
|
|
Back to top |
|
|
|
|
Magnulus
Joined: 08 Nov 2005
Posts: 556
Location: Bergen, Norway
|
| Posted: Thu Feb 16, 2006 8:31 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| I actually think that post should be moderated. That's like the T-shirt that proclaimed That [wossname] died in the sixth harry potter and on what page. Okay, not quite as bad, but there's no reason why you should do that. |
|
|
|
Back to top |
|
|
|
|
icarus
Troll
Joined: 01 Mar 2004
Location: Tacoma Washington
|
| Posted: Thu Feb 16, 2006 8:44 pm Post subject: |
|
|
well the event horizon one isn't really a plot twist
and its not like i am ruining a great movie with the sixth sense one |
|
|
|
Back to top |
|
|
|
|
Fost
Pod Team
Joined: 14 Oct 2002
Posts: 3734
|
| Posted: Thu Feb 16, 2006 9:20 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| anyone seen Korean film 'The Eye' ? pretty much takes the Sixth Sense plot and redoes it. Has a bit of a Hollywood action end, but I quite liked that, and I thought they did 'creepy' incredibly well. |
|
|
|
Back to top |
|
|
|
|
Magnulus
Joined: 08 Nov 2005
Posts: 556
Location: Bergen, Norway
|
| Posted: Thu Feb 16, 2006 9:24 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| Magnulus wrote: | I've been dying to ask you something.
Now that you've been working on Mr. Robot (that little, 6-month project you started all that time ago. ) for this long, you've no doubt learned a lot. Are there any particular things you've learned during this development that you'll definitely be bringing on to your next games like Battlescape etc? |
Any thoughts, Fost? Poo? |
|
|
|
Back to top |
|
|
|
|
Fost
Pod Team
Joined: 14 Oct 2002
Posts: 3734
|
| Posted: Thu Feb 16, 2006 9:56 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Sorry, I missed that!
Hmm>
- Prototyping extends development time, but not by as much as the time it saves enhancing your decision making process.
- Data driven design, whilst adding quite extensively to your project development time, looks like it will make it much easier to update the game post release. Whilst at the time, we couldn't really do much about it,
Starscape's design means it's a lot of effort to put in even small changes. It would be lovely to redo that game from a data driven standpoint.
- We are still getting better at scheduling - if you write out a schedule that looks sensible on paper, then double the time, it will probably be right. This always seems to be the case (although often we still can't bring ourselves to believe it!)
- Don't change engine mid project. Yet another thing that delayed us, obvious really and it's been said many times before. Basically, that meant artwork (on Battlescape), was set back by about 4 months over the code setbacks.
- Don't change project. Whilst the decisions we made at the time were the right ones, you could look at the time we've spent on Battlescape as being a loss. If we had a complete 3D engine from the start, then Mr. Robot could have been finished about 6 months ago. Of course, that's moot, because we didn't, but it's an interesting point.
- We really want to use one engine well into the future. for various reasons, it's likely we'll switch again for our next project. Unfortunately, that means we will be supporting 3 different engines into the future. However, it does mean, that our fourth game should have a head start as it will use the same tools and renderer and code sharing with other projects should become much easier.
|
|
|
|
Back to top |
|
|
|
|
Magnulus
Joined: 08 Nov 2005
Posts: 556
Location: Bergen, Norway
|
| Posted: Thu Feb 16, 2006 10:46 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Cheers for another filling and interesting insight, Fost. You're most helpful and indulging, I must say.
I can imagine how it'd be a definite plus to reuse an engine. I mean, I mostly keep the 90% of the code of my old website designs when I make a new design. If I multiply the total amount of time I spend making a new design to roughly equal your development time, the amount of time it'd take me to do it from scratch every time is... staggering. So you have my sympathies.
Scheduling... *shudders* A necessary evil, I guess. Or an evil necessity? Good point, there. I should bring that along with me. The X2 formula is also used for scheduling time for editing films, you know. |
|
|
|
Back to top |
|
|
|
|
Darth Dallas
Joined: 18 Oct 2003
Posts: 411
|
| Posted: Fri Feb 17, 2006 3:21 pm Post subject: |
|
|
I love the little details springing up so far for this game. From carried objects, characters, insignia on the ships, those cool looking doors. I can't say much to the programspeak in Poobear's post, but it sounds like he's on the ball whatever all that stuff means
Looking forward to the demo here (and for the future, that game bundle as well). |
|
|
|
Back to top |
|
|
|
|
Beanstalk
Joined: 29 Aug 2004
Posts: 8
Location: Vienna
|
| Posted: Fri Feb 17, 2006 10:25 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Will the CD-Version also have compressed textures? What about a seperate download-version with lossless compression?
Personally, even though I only have a modem at home, I donīt care about download size, since about 15MB is the point where I download somewhere else (plenty of my friends as well as my parents have broadband) and burn it on CD. |
|
|
|
Back to top |
|
|
|
|
Fost
Pod Team
Joined: 14 Oct 2002
Posts: 3734
|
| Posted: Fri Feb 17, 2006 10:46 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| Beanstalk wrote: | | Will the CD-Version also have compressed textures |
The point in us using J2K (other than it supports alpha channels), is that there shouldn't be any discernible difference at the compression levels we are using - we aren't using it at a level where you can see the loss. I understand the concern, but you wouldn't have that concern unless we'd told you the textures were compressed If we are doing our job right, then you shouldn't be able to tell the difference between a version of the game with compressed textures, and a version without - I'm fussier in this regard than anyone, and I understand exactly what to look for. If I can see a difference, it won't go in at that level.
It's funny really - mainstream developers just don't care about things like this, yet they could probably save a DVD or two from their massive installers if they put a little thought into it.
Anyway, all that said - it will be fully tested, and there may be reasons why we leave the CD version with uncompressed textures - that's how Starscape works currently, but mainly for install speed.
| Beanstalk wrote: | | What about a seperate download-version with lossless compression? |
It's possible - we already do something similar with the music in Starscape, and will probably do the same with Mr. Robot's music. However, there would be no visual improvement reason for an uncompressed texture pack, only a load performance reason - and as we said above, that should be sub 1 second. If by some chance performance was an issue, then we'd be better off with a deompress at install time option. |
|
|
|
Back to top |
|
|
|
|
Flumpaphone
Joined: 18 Sep 2003
Posts: 86
|
| Posted: Sat Feb 18, 2006 7:02 pm Post subject: |
|
|
I truly wish more game developers wrote development diaries even half as good as these; they are utterly fantastic. Better still, would be if Moonpod released one of these every day  . I think it's great how honest you are, development mistakes are as interesting and informative as successes. I believe many companies are scared to speak about the development process because it is far more hap-hazzard than most of us realise, and also because they don't wish to discuss features that may not make it into the final version of the game and risk dissapointing everybody.
You should consider having your own game development course or at least writing a book! |
|
|
|
Back to top |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
