*God Of War 3 Thread v2.0 + Interview Stig Asmussen

I know you're being sarky =p but I think even Naughty Dog would have preferred to carry over stuff from their PS2 engine is they could - but that wasn't possible for them as they used a completely different language. I think SSM were much more better suited to carrying it over, especially since they were working on the PS2 so late in its life.

 

Carrying the engine over means you can get a basic version of the game up and running as early as possible so people can get to work on the actual game, while systems are being replaced as development goes on. An engine being built from scratch may not end up being any different in any significant way compared to one built upon an existing tech, but using an existing engine means you can get to work much earlier in other areas. If you have the ability to use an existing engine and update it part by part you would probably want to and chances are the game would be better off for it.

 

Yes otherwise you can spend 2 years just building your engine.

 

Shh...Christer was the one who got annoyed...

*hides*

 

I remember that after GoW II release, one of developers (Tim Moss?) said that their engine is so advanced that they are planning to re-use big parts of it for GoW III. I think I've read it somwhere in this forums

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Here it is:

http://forum.beyond3d.com/showthread.php?t=40667&highlight=god+war

 

I think I saw two interviews so far that say the moving Titan level is technically the most difficult for the team. What exactly is causing the problem ?

 

It's like a level on top of a level...self-explanatory?

 

It is not clear which subsystems choked in a hard-to-tackle way (vertex processing ?). And how did they fix or workaround it ?

In GoW3, the artists and designers seem to have quite a bit of freedom too.

 

Imagine every vertex needs to be calculated (offset or addition) in a moving level. In a normal game, environment vertexes are fixed, just the vertexes for the characters need to be updated. You need a cpu with a tremendous processing powers to update millions of vertexes per second.
Remember the train level in uncharted 2? No other games before GoW3 can handle it due to those vertex calculations. Now in GoW3, take the train and multiply it by 5 and make the game run at 60fps. Just so you get the idea how impressive GoW3 is.

 

Also I'd expect moving the camera out very fast from Kratos size to the whole arena would be very tough to achieve. U2 is mostly behind the shoulder for example.

 

Awesome commercial introducing the Phantom of Chaos skin
http://www.gametrailers.com/user-movie/gow-3-gamestop-pre-order-bonus/341007
I love the costume but my favorite so far would be the Dominus skin. Can't wait to see all of them in action.

http://i50.tinypic.com/hslvlc.jpg
http://i45.tinypic.com/348ka60.jpg
http://i46.tinypic.com/b6o9dk.jpg

 

Poor Chimera.

 

Well good work getting what you did in that case. Hopefully next time they'll schedule you for longer and you can get even more out of them

Well if that's what it takes to get an interesting interview rather than a BS PR puff piece then I'm all for it!

 

Hmm, not sure if you are being serious here or just being sarcastic. But just in case you are serious...there's nothing mathematically special about the U2 train level, the original Xbox can handle the math on it. Seriously, hooking objects together to make a moving train level isn't that cpu intensive But if you do still find the U2 train level hugely impressive, then there are many other games with more impressive moving levels that will blow your mind. For example play the much maligned Wet, later in the game you fight in a building that is in the process of collapsing.

What you describe is done en masse on most games already, even on games with fixed environments. Think about it, take instanced objects for example like a tree. How do you draw the same fixed non moving tree at multiple locations/orientations in a world if you don't process all the verts?

 

Is it the same or better than the collapsing building in Uncharted 2 with all the physics and IQ?

I believe he said "update"...not just process all the verts.

 

I don't know if complex vertex processing is the main problem, but I don't think the tree example is at the same level. As joker454 said, the trees are non-moving. Once you plant them at the beginning, they remain there.

The U2 train level has walking enemies on the train. So the animation, collision detection and AI have to be coordinated.


I checked out Wet on youtube. It has an interesting car chase scene with QTE and shooting, but the enemies are stuck to the cars (They don't move from one car to another based on AI). The graphics quality is noticeably weaker. I just don't think they are pushing the hardware as well as U2 and GoW3.

According to forumites, Wet also uses collapsing wall to prevent you from going to unwanted places. Not sure if this is the same as the collapsing building level where Nate fought the enemies while everyone, including loose props tumbled across the tilting building floor.

In GoW3, I think they brought the mobile level concept up a notch by making Kratos jump all over the Titan's limbs and body.

 

Moving levels per se have been done in the past. Just look at Shadow of the Colossus. I think the guy's point is that it has never been done on this scale and all these details.
I would hope and assume that collapsing building or a moving train have far fewer issues and take up less calculation time than a big fat rocky guy moving in much more complex ways, with a lot more detail and the player being able to go pretty much all over it - from what i can see, but i could be wrong on that.

Needless to say, because of you people i have preordered the game. All your fault!!

 

Thanks

I think some of you would have already seen this but anyways msg 157,158 SantaMonicaChris has some interesting post about final build and Sony first party devs
http://forums.godofwar.com/t5/God-of-War-III-Discussion/Developers-on-Forums-Right-Here/td-p/30061/page/16