Indiana Jones is entirely physics-based?

wco81

Legend
No precanned animations?

http://ps3.ign.com/articles/757/757265p2.html

An entirely physics-based game with no pre-canned animations anywhere to be found? Every object in the game is breakable and usable as a weapon? The AI adapts to its surroundings, picking itself up off the ground with whatever is around and using whatever it finds as a weapon? All of this coupled with one of the coolest heroes ever to grace a movie screen?

So would this be considered pushing the technological envelope?

Guess it would depend on the execution. Sounds good on paper.

Probably using Havok?
 
Probably using Havok?



http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/702/702389p1.html

But with its upcoming Indiana Jones title, LucasArts may be onto something. Utilizing a run-time animation technology called euphoria, the game is poised to push the limits of what was previously possible. The company that developed the technology, NaturalMotion, has been working for years to hone euphoria to accurately replicate real-world physics such as strength, weight, and momentum with in-game character models.
 
http://www.naturalmotion.com/euphoria.htm
http://www.naturalmotion.com/files/euphoria_technical_summary.pdf

If I am not mistaken, I think the system uses a combination of mocap and keyframe animation systems that are then fed into the Euphoria animation system that takes over from there. So if you were walking it would use mocap, but lets say you tripped it would then dynamically alter your walk and even make you fall (into another fall mocap end position). That is how I understand it. It doesn't totally junk mocap, it just takes the "best" of both worlds... if it works. if it doesn't work, then it is bad all around :p Btw Endorphine videos demo some of the concepts (but I believe it is offline):

http://www.naturalmotion.com/downloads.htm
 
A game with human characters and no pre-made animation would never exist - at least not any time soon, on current hardware... There must always be some kind of hand-made (or motion captured) animation. In this case they are using tools which combine real-time physics with pre-made animation routines...
 
From the brief playaround I had with the downloadable Euphoria, it seems you would in most cases require preset animations to represent certain actions. However those animations can be combined with physics based situations (e.g. holding guns of certain weights so that light machineguns would be held slightly lower than an SMG) to make the whole thing appear unique. For example the US lemonball sample entails a runner and a tackler both using the same running mocap, except the runner has the ball tucked underarm. At the intercept point the tackler jumps into the tackle, reaching and locking both arms around the runner, while the runner collapses to the floor, putting a hand to the ground to soften the impact.

At the same time, there were samples that used no preset animations at all, and instead used in-built behaviours to determine what the character would do. You could jump and grab a trapeze, and tell the character to swing his legs to increase the swing, before then detaching the hands from the trapeze at the right time to perform a somersault and landing. You could easily edit the landing behaviour so that he lands poorly, or have him let go at the wrong time and then use other parameters to simulate resultant pain, all without using preset mocap sets.
 
BTW, anyone else find it strange that in the list of top 10 most anticipated games for the PS3, these IGN editors put God of War II up high?

I guess they're confident of backwards compatibility?

Or it's a commentary that the PS3 games slate isn't so strong?
 
BTW, anyone else find it strange that in the list of top 10 most anticipated games for the PS3, these IGN editors put God of War II up high?

I guess they're confident of backwards compatibility?

Or it's a commentary that the PS3 games slate isn't so strong?

Well, GOW2 will probably be one of the best games PS3 owners will be able to play this year and for a long time after that - regardless that it's actually made for PS2.
 
Maybe at some point this year, they'll do BC in software and support upscaling in BC mode. That could make GOW2 even better.
 
Do you have a cite for that?

I guess it would be like the 1080i mode in GT4?

Wonder how that looks on the PS3. Probably pales in comparison to GT HD.
 
GOW2 has a special HD mode for the PS3 AFAIK....

This is very OT, but does anyone else think that Sony needs to pull a Twilight Princess and release an HD version of GW2 for PS3? I'm thinking it would do very well and also help move the hardware.

On topic. I find anything that can help improve animations in games very interesting. I'm finding that lately I'm not that interested in graphics (most next gen stuff looks good enough), but the animations are still last gen crap. That needs to change.
 
I think people are taking his comments a bit beyond what they meant... GoW2 won't have some special mode. They just checked to make sure it looked good on HD sets, much like GoW 1 did. it's 480p widescreen, nothing more. They can tweak the art all they want, but ultimately it still has to run on a PS2. As far as I know, it won't run any differently on a PS2 as on a PS3. There's not been any mention of a different build for PS3 (none that I've seen, at least).
 
There's not been any mention of a different build for PS3 (none that I've seen, at least).

I wouldn't be surprised if they addded something like that as ps3 has nothing for games right now and GOW2 will sell huge. If it was the exact same game but ran in HD on ps3 I think that would be enough for ps3 owners to hold them over until ps3 games start showing up later this year.
 
I think people are taking his comments a bit beyond what they meant... GoW2 won't have some special mode. They just checked to make sure it looked good on HD sets, much like GoW 1 did. it's 480p widescreen, nothing more. They can tweak the art all they want, but ultimately it still has to run on a PS2. As far as I know, it won't run any differently on a PS2 as on a PS3. There's not been any mention of a different build for PS3 (none that I've seen, at least).
That's exactly what I understood the comments to make. Basically I think it was as much a case of 'GOW2 won't look screwed on PS3 like some PS2 games!' as anything ;)
 
What does God of War 2 and display resolution have to do with Indiana Jones and physics :LOL:
 
Indy will have "precanned"/keyframed/mo-capped animation.

When Indy is performing a simple action such as walking or cracking his whip... that will be a precanned animation.

The whole physics'ish stuff happens IF...
Indy is walking and then trips over something... or... Indy cracks his whip and latches onto something and then swings, if the whip snaps and Indy falls, then the behavioural animation will kick in and Indy might try and grab onto things as he falls....etc..


Nearly all games will have precanned animation... games based entirely on physics would be the exception... e.g. Forza Motorsport.
 
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