First Killzone screenshot/details? So says USAToday..

[RobertR1]

Like the whole "if you want that, look at Halo 3 instead."-thing, I suppose.

I'm pretty sure he was just pointing out budgeting the assests depending on the gameplay.

If you want huge open spaces with a ton of enemies it's pretty well assumed that the graphics on such a game will be lower than a game presented in closed off areas with fewer NPC's on screen.

Halo3 was just an example......

 

[Mrakor]

If you want huge open spaces with a ton of enemies it's pretty well assumed that the graphics on such a game will be lower than a game presented in closed off areas with fewer NPC's on screen.

We don't know anything about how many enemies at one time can provide Killzone 2.

Halo3 was just an example......

We don't know anything (but developer's promises) about how many enemies at one time can provide Halo 3.
Walkthrough didn't showed any massive battles.

By the way, why do not remember HS?

 

[one]

Lots of enemies seem unlikely... if you want that, look at Halo 3 instead.

How many enemies? Are there any media I can check out for that point?

The dev walkthrough where they move the camera reminded me of Lair. Though not as many enemies as in Lair, I hope something like the battlefield at the E3 2005 trailer come true. In a battle field like that without complex destructible buildings and additional lights, I suspect the processing load is lighter with a clever LOD technique unless a player character can ride on a fast vehicle. The army scene in Heavenly Sword is another benchmark. Basically I'm tired of claustrophobic shooters such as Doom 3 and Bioshock. KZ2 devs mention the Helghan weapon that absorbs and emits lightnings, things like that need an open area to show them off.

 

[GreekDNA]

The engine's workings and the way the art assets are made suggest to me that the game won't really try to use large open spaces for the actual gameplay.

Yes they've shown the level from far away while the shuttle is landing, but no, you can't just get out and walk there. The buildings are empty, and it'll stream in the parts of the level on a pre-defined path. Even different floors of the same building have to be loaded separately, so you can't really interact with anyone or anything there.
Remember, their (on-screen) texture budget is significantly smaller than for example Halo3's; they have less memory from the start, and traded in a lot of it for deferred rendering. BR may provide huge levels but you'll never interact with more than a small part of it as it's streamed in and out of memory.

So it's a clever illusion of freedom, covering a relatively linear path. There's absolutely no problem with this and it can make for some cool gameplay as well. Remember Half-Life 2, it was pretty much the same, but with similar loading pauses instead of the seamless streaming they've promised for the final version of KZ2.

Bungie on the other hand has decided to go for a lower level of detail (the comparisions obvoiusly favor KZ2) but they have huge open spaces that the player can explore, and it takes a lot of time even on vehicles. And they've promised (though we haven't seen it yet) a battle with as many enemies and allies as the entire first level of Halo 1. I just can't see KZ2 matching that... but it won't have to, either, as the two dev teams are clearly making two different games.

I know where your comming from

but we have seen only a small part of a level .

for all we know it could have huge open ended enviroments and epic battles with more than a dozen of enemies .

just because it has a higer level of detail than halo 3 doesnt dismiss it of having open ended enviroments.

i think we underistimate the engine GG is using

thats all im saying .

 

[Laa-Yosh]

You missed that part of "moving camera over all this detailed area"?

No. And it appeared to me that there weren't any objects, enemies, visible building interiors there.

Like the whole "if you want that, look at Halo 3 instead."-thing, I suppose.

Yeah, I guess I'm kinda right in both cases.

 

[Laa-Yosh]

How many enemies? Are there any media I can check out for that point?

I'd rather not comment on this one.

The dev walkthrough where they move the camera reminded me of Lair. Though not as many enemies as in Lair, I hope something like the battlefield at the E3 2005 trailer come true.

I'm basing my speculation on the frequency of loading pauses in the demo. They'll probably be unnoticeable in the final game because of the streaming - but they're a pretty good indicator of how often the engine has to load new data, thus how much it can fit in memory for a single scene. And it loads a lot, practically for every encounter that takes place in a new area.
(this is in response to others in this thread as well)

I'd say that KZ2 will be pretty similar in scope to Gears of War, ie. level sizes, enemy numbers and such, but it'll probably be about 30-50% longer/bigger.

 

[Laa-Yosh]

We don't know anything about how many enemies at one time can provide Killzone 2.

But as a 3D artist who has worked on player character assets for an AA game, I think I can make relatively good guesses about polygon and texture costs, and extrapolate from there...

We don't know anything (but developer's promises) about how many enemies at one time can provide Halo 3.

I kinda trust them on this one, especially after what we've seen so far from the game.

By the way, why do not remember HS?

HS has significantly lower poly and texture detail on the army enemies then KZ2 on the Hellghast soldiers. It's using forward rendering so it probably has more available memory to store level data.
But again, it's quite obvious that the two games have very different concepts and scale in mind, so HS is a perfectly viable example for large number of enemies as well - however, it's not exactly a sci-fi FPS...

 

[Mrakor]

No. And it appeared to me that there weren't any objects, enemies, visible building interiors there.

A lot of objects, try looking at the begining of 25-minutes walkthrough.
That area is HUGE.

They can load anything, like more detailed textures, scripts, etc. in those "pauses". They are very short.

But as a 3D artist who has worked on player character assets for an AA game

But not for an killzone 2 game, i suppose?

 

[patsu]

Laa-Yosh, can't GG reduce the number of objects and structures on screen to accommodate more troops ? The demo has quite a bit of debri (e.g., wheels, furnitures, crates, burning vehicles, ...) all over the place, plus particle effects, flying platforms, streaking missiles, lightnings, wind, light sources, destructible fixtures, and a number of detailed soldiers right after landing.

The larger battlefields in other games are relatively empty and/or "fixed". I would be keen to see it match the larger levels in Resistance (comparable/exceeds Halo 1 in level size). Resistance is packed with action too but lesser post processing effects and no streaming. It was a launch game and may not be as optimized due to time constraint.


EDIT: Also while the enemies on a different floor probably can't interact with the player at the ground floor, there can be exceptions due to level design. In the demo, we see a Helghan shooting at the player from a bridge/corridor on the second floor, and also Sev's companion manning a heavy machine guy in the second floor window.

 

[Mrakor]

e.g., wheels, furnitures, crates, burning vehicles, ...

Cables!!!

and a number of detailed soldiers right after landing.

Near 10-12 of onle camrades in begining of demo.

 

[babcat]

HS has significantly lower poly and texture detail on the army enemies then KZ2 on the Hellghast soldiers. It's using forward rendering so it probably has more available memory to store level data.
But again, it's quite obvious that the two games have very different concepts and scale in mind, so HS is a perfectly viable example for large number of enemies as well - however, it's not exactly a sci-fi FPS...

I prefer fewer high quality enemies rather than more lower quality enemies.

Also, deferred rendering allows them to use more shaders.

 

[Laa-Yosh]

They can change the balance on the texture/geometry load, maybe even on the shadows for all those units... But there might be things like CPU cost of AI, bones in the characters, physics/collisions, and so on that we don't know about. For example FPS AI usually relies on lots of raycasting to determine visibilities - can the AI see the player, shoot at the player, what would be good cover from the player etc. etc.
We do know that they use several SPEs for graphics work that makes them unavailable for other tasks... But it's not possible to really decide these things from the trailer.

What we can see is how they're using the engine now. The scale looks more comparable to Gears, and not to Halo; the general level of detail is high, loads are frequent so the level is broken up into many small pieces, and so on.

Then again, there are about two dozen soldiers in that first scene, which is quite good, just don't expect a hundred or more...

 

[Mrakor]

The scale looks more comparable to Gears, and not to Halo; the general level of detail is high, loads are frequent so the level is broken up into many small pieces, and so on.

Are you not downloaded 25 min walkthrough yet?

 

[patsu]

They can change the balance on the texture/geometry load, maybe even on the shadows for all those units... But there might be things like CPU cost of AI, bones in the characters, physics/collisions, and so on that we don't know about. For example FPS AI usually relies on lots of raycasting to determine visibilities - can the AI see the player, shoot at the player, what would be good cover from the player etc. etc.

It's hard to call though. If the level is open with relatively fewer obstables, then the line of sight calculation may be simpler/faster compared to a dense area. The same for collisions/physics (Lesser destructions). I would think the raycasting is highly dependent on the scene complexity too.

I don't believe people are asking to put more soldiers into the same level as the demo. That would be a real problem IMHO. For now, it's just a big question mark how many more they can fit in a fictitious "large" battle.

We do know that they use several SPEs for graphics work that makes them unavailable for other tasks... But it's not possible to really decide these things from the trailer.

If the scene is not as complex, the idling SPEs may be assigned other tasks.

What we can see is how they're using the engine now. The scale looks more comparable to Gears, and not to Halo; the general level of detail is high, loads are frequent so the level is broken up into many small pieces, and so on.

Then again, there are about two dozen soldiers in that first scene, which is quite good, just don't expect a hundred or more...

If they can show 2 dozen good looking soldiers now (Are you sure ?), I think that's pretty impressive considering the busy warzone shown. Afterall, some will die and more will spawn/stream in from different directions to exagerate the size further.

 

[Laa-Yosh]

Are you not downloaded 25 min walkthrough yet?

Course I had.

 

[Laa-Yosh]

If they can show 2 dozen good looking soldiers now (Are you sure ?)

Two shuttle's worth of good guys and quite a few enemies... if anyone's bored, count 'em

 

[Mrakor]

Course I had.

I think it's clean, that only opening scene has much larger area, than usually is in GeOW.
And very detailed as well.

It's a HUGE area.

 

[Mrakor]

Two shuttle's worth of good guys and quite a few enemies... if anyone's bored, count 'em

you simply can't see them at that moment.
They are hiding and shooting, like your allies do.

 

[Mrakor]

My guess -- streaming is first of all for the hi-res textures, audio, scripts maybe.

 

[Laa-Yosh]

I think it's clean, that only opening scene has much larger area, than usually is in GeOW.

There are some pretty huge scenes in Gears as well. Gigantic pieces of architecture in the background, underground caves, even the countryside around a railway. You just don't get to walk up to the far parts, nor can you see too far on the ground level, usually your sight is blocked by something. And you can't participate in a huge battle that fills the entire space either; you're on foot, the way is blocked until you deal with each small pack of enemies, you can't take up a high position with a sniper gun, and so on.
And now look at the KZ demonstration - and it's the same.

And very detailed as well.
It's a HUGE area.

Believe me, there's a lot of smoke (literaly) and mirrors going on in there. Again, notice how there aren't any doorways or windows so that no building interiors have to be displayed... no Hellghast soldiers stading guard, no crates or other little objects to provide cover in a gunfight. Just large, beautiful, but empty pieces of architecture. You'll have to walk through a linear and constrained path to get there and the game will only load enemies and interiors and other content once you're around the next corner.

I don't know how else I could explain it, so even if you still don't get it, I'm done...