Game technology - Ain't it great! Celebrating gaming technology

[Shifty Geezer]

By the way, is it bad that in these times of disaster in Japan, I can't help but think about how awesome Populous 2 was?

I kept meaning to post Populous on here but never got round to it.

It was a real next-gen game, something completely different only enabled by advances in technology. It had procedural terrain and massive AI for the time, and then the fabulous gameplay of powers that could be wielded in novel combinations like the planting of forests to have a forest fire.

 

[swym]

Still, I don't get the "blockish" remark. Also bear in mind that the quality of the youtube video isn't exatcly helping my cause here.

I'm talking from my experience with the actual game (on the 360). Fire particle effect looked in times to me like blockish (ie square) 2D sprites to me. But it's been some time since I played it so perhaps I don't remember all that well.

 

[(((interference)))]

I'm talking from my experience with the actual game (on the 360). Fire particle effect looked in times to me like blockish (ie square) 2D sprites to me. But it's been some time since I played it so perhaps I don't remember all that well.

I always thought GTA4 had nice looking fire, it animated very realistically, especially on vehicles

 

[Arwin]

It was a real next-gen game, something completely different only enabled by advances in technology. It had procedural terrain and massive AI for the time, and then the fabulous gameplay of powers that could be wielded in novel combinations like the planting of forests to have a forest fire.

Yeah, it's a shame there are hardly any videos to be found with all the powers unlocked. One of my favorites was disease. You infect one, and then each time he gets close enough he infects another. Each infected guy is marked by a vulture circling above him, with an awesome sample of a vulture cry occasionally playing as a sound effect. Also, there were several heroes - the basic one would just pillage and set fire to the homes of your enemy as well as slay them in battle, but there was also Persephone for instance that would basically gather all enemy folk to walk after her, and then in the end lead them to sea to drown.

On to more recent games: we were discussing god rays not long ago, and this game has some of the most beautiful ones coming through the trees, as well as some beautiful HDR (youtube cannot even do it justice):

And its sequel does this (among others), in 1280x1080p with MLAA at a solid 30fps:

 

[Nesh]

In the MS3 video is that the actual game soundtrack?

 

[Arwin]

In the MS3 video is that the actual game soundtrack?

If I remember correctly from discussion at Gaf, it isn't. The actual game soundtrack is a little better imho - it's much more like the original Wipeout, if you remember that, plus that it is linked to the gameplay mood-wise; when stuff heats up, so the music changes to underline the mood.

 

[_phil_]

A good retro gaming read about the making of Crash bandicoot:
http://all-things-andy-gavin.com/2011/02/04/making-crash-bandicoot-part-3/

(part 3 is the more technical ,1-2 are more about context ,origin,history )
these where amazing times for hardcore software engineering...

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Been playing Portal 2, and I feel it needs recognition. It's doing something in computer games otherwise impossible in other entertainments - warping space and presenting that in a very natural way that feels completely intuitive. This is achieved thanks to powerful enough hardware and clever programming, which is what development in games is all about. It's amazing out-of-the-box design.

 

[Sigfried1977]

I'm also inclined to give Portal 2 an award for character animation. The amount of mileage Valve gets out of what is essentially just a talking sphere is incredible. I also love how Glados tries to tidy up the test chambers when you are just entering them. It's like catching someone with their pants down. The game has just so much personality.

 

[skmanga]

is something like tessellation for particles possible?
you could have only certain sections of a scene render particles in full res while the less active parts are scaled down. something to help manage the current particle limit.

 

[L. Scofield]

Shadow-casting particles (@5:00)

 

[Laa-Yosh]

is something like tessellation for particles possible?
you could have only certain sections of a scene render particles in full res while the less active parts are scaled down. something to help manage the current particle limit.

I don't think particles are limited by poly counts, it's probably more about the actual number of particles no matter how detailed they are. Every one of them needs transformations, you know, move around and such.
The other intensive part is the number of pixels to fill, especially if a lot of transparent polygons are drawn on top of each other - but again, it's not related to poly count and tessellation wouldn't help here either.

 

[MJP]

is something like tessellation for particles possible?
you could have only certain sections of a scene render particles in full res while the less active parts are scaled down. something to help manage the current particle limit.

Most particles are just simple textured quads, and thus don't require any kind of tessellation. However there was a recent Nvidia presentation/sample where they used tessellation to perform particle lighting at a frequency that's in-between per-vertex and per-pixel.

 

[L. Scofield]

I don't think he meant tesselation per se, but something more abstract, like a more advanced LOD system for particles with benefits akin to those that tesselation gives for geometry.

 

[Laa-Yosh]

Still won't help, the bottlenecks are number of particles and fill rate.
Also, I expect realtime engines to eventually discover voxels and fluids for smoke-fire-dust effects, just as we use them in offline rendering - they're quite efficient and the speed is going to be there eventually.

 

[jlippo]

Local galaxy with visitable planets and proper sandbox gameplay in under 800KB.

 

[swym]

Been playing Portal 2, and I feel it needs recognition. It's doing something in computer games otherwise impossible in other entertainments - warping space and presenting that in a very natural way that feels completely intuitive. This is achieved thanks to powerful enough hardware and clever programming, which is what development in games is all about. It's amazing out-of-the-box design.

Are you talking about navigating portals in general (something that was done in games before), or the fact that you can actually see through the portals? In this case, shouldn't the first Portal or (even Narbacular drop) get the actual recognition?

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Local galaxy with visitable planets and proper sandbox gameplay in under 800KB.

That's algorithmic content generation for you!

Are you talking about navigating portals in general (something that was done in games before), or the fact that you can actually see through the portals? In this case, shouldn't the first Portal or (even Narbacular drop) get the actual recognition?

Okay, Portal 1 then for seeing through cascaded portals and warped spacial coordinates. I wouldn't say Narbaculare drop because, firstly, I'd never heard of it p), and secondly that's basically a prototype from the same people created as a university project, so it's effectively the same technology from the same people getting the same credit.

 

[Arwin]

Local galaxy with visitable planets and proper sandbox gameplay in under 800KB.

I played a healthy amount of the original Elite. First saw it as weird and basic but very exciting C64 vector graphics, then played it on PC some, but probably most of my time was spent with the zippy and colorful Atari ST version. The auto-doc tune (Blue Danube I think) will forever be locked in my head and is the first thing that pops up whenever I see a spaceship approaching a spacestation (last time I saw was in Wall-E).

 

[homerdog]

That's algorithmic content generation for you!

Have you seen Infinity?
http://www.infinity-universe.com/Infinity/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=12&Itemid=33

Procedurally generated universe including planetary surfaces. Something I found interesting, they aren't able to generate rivers on planet surfaces because rivers have to flow from high ground to low, and the algorithm (obviously) has no information about geography that hasn't been generated.