Kameo news (8/26)

[Inane_Dork]

The first piece of news is that Kameo will be released in Japan and will be playable at TGS.
http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/645/645693p1.html

The second piece of news is that there are 3 new (new to me, anyway) shots of Kameo at Xboxyde.
http://xboxyde.com/news_1896_en.html

If Rare gets AA working in the game (which they should have by now), I'll be satisfied with the graphics. For a GC to Xbox to X360 launch title, it'll be good enough for me. It would be nice if they made the environments less sparse and upped the poly counts some, but I'm fine without them.

 

[Acert93]

The aliasing is not bad in those shots san the shadows.

Agree on the comments... looks like a nice solid first title. If it is fun and long it will be a good game.

 

[AlNom]

The scene with the horse could use a higher resolution background

But yeah, I like the varied environments and colours that they've been showing thus far.

I really do wonder why Rare is deflecting attention from PDZ though. To me, it seems like they would have to be doing a massive graphics overhaul for not showing any screenshots (or very very very few).

 

[Inane_Dork]

The scene with the horse could use a higher resolution background

Heh. The DOF fooled me for a second. I'm just not used to seeing it in games yet.

I really do wonder why Rare is deflecting attention from PDZ though. To me, it seems like they would have to be doing a massive graphics overhaul for not showing any screenshots (or very very very few).

True. IMO, MS is waiting to show it off until either (A) the graphics do impress people or (B) the game is playable and thus hooks people. It's still supposed to be one of their big guns, so maybe they're saving it to make a bigger impact.

 

[Acert93]

PDZ may already be done... it already has a content rating of Mature I believe. That would indicate it is at least content complete.

 

[BlueTsunami]

PDZ may already be done... it already has a content rating of Mature I believe. That would indicate it is at least content complete.

or theres a single scene where Joanna Dark does somthing naughtay :insert blushy face here:

 

[jvd]

or theres a single scene where Joanna Dark does somthing naughtay :insert blushy face here:

the game has been done for sometime gameplay wise . Graphicly i think its been getting a revamp since e3 .

 

[BlueTsunami]

the game has been done for sometime gameplay wise . Graphicly i think its been getting a revamp since e3 .

I also think theres going to be a huge visual upgrade. After seeing Conkers and his pretty fur tail...I believe Rare is going to pull out the stops with PDZ.

 

[Acert93]

You have to remember they were already bragging about the number of polys and such in their game.

As for redoing the graphics... always possible BUT that would require a ton of work. You are talking about totally reworking the models and art direction.

Further, one reason I doubt a total rework is because Rare HAS shown some killer art work:

Obviously the Rare guys could see the difference between that and this

I have a hard time believing that IF they could do the former they would still spend all the time making the game look like the later.

Maybe the Single Player looks a TON better and it is only the Multiplayer--which has 50+ players--is more rough?

But a total rework of the game in 6 months? There is a REASON that games take 2-3 years to make. ART takes time. To suggest Rare could redo and improve the entire game in the last 6 months by such huge amounts is unfair to Rare. Remember, they need to bug fix the game (it was really choppy) and get it converted over as well.

No, I think JVD's other posts are more correct: The game is an Xbox Port.

Would I like a "curve ball" with PDZ looking great? Yes! But history is not on their side.

I think PDZ is an Xbox port... it would have been a 2005 title if the 360 shipped in 2006... and that MS is banking on the GAMEPLAY.

I hope Rare proves me wrong and shows they ARE the graphics monsters I know them to be

 

[jvd]

But a total rework of the game in 6 months? There is a REASON that games take 2-3 years to make. ART takes time. To suggest Rare could redo and improve the entire game in the last 6 months by such huge amounts is unfair to Rare. Remember, they need to bug fix the game (it was really choppy) and get it converted over as well.

I don't think they are doing it all in 6 months . I think its a process that they have been doing .

I doubt its going to suddenly be gow quality. But i think they can get to half life 2 quality. It seems to me that they had come pretty close to finishing the game on the xbox and thus most of the gameplay and mechanics were done . They were in the process of improving the quality of the graphics .

I don't know how hard it would be for them to bump up the polygon counts and add in normal maps . From e3 to launch they have what a good 4 months of dev time ? If there were only graphical updates needed i don't see why they couldn't just put 20-30 artists on it and let them go to town and update most of the graphics .

 

[BlueTsunami]

Was there ever a definitive answer as to why PDZ looked as it was at E3? It seemed like a mistep from MS and Rare....or was it intentional?

 

[jvd]

Was there ever a definitive answer as to why PDZ looked as it was at E3? It seemed like a mistep from MS and Rare....or was it intentional?

think it was just a miss step

 

[Acert93]

I don't know how hard it would be for them to bump up the polygon counts and add in normal maps .

It is more than just bumping up the poly count, but a total rework of the model. They are really stiff. Adding more poly's to Joanna would not make her go from the bad picture to the good picture.

The entire model would need to be scrapped--along with all the other models--and new high quality models would need to be constructed, new textures and rendering effects/shaders, normals, etc... It takes a LOT of time to make a 1M poly source model.

Then you would have to start all over with testing and balancing of the game engine.

And that does not even begin to add some "depth" to the levels or improve the rendering engine. Remember, having a good engine or art is only half of it. You need an engine with certain features and specs and THEN art assets that take advantage of it.

It is a LONG process.

And then there is the repetitive tiles and textures.

That is an example of bad ART and not an engine problem. RARE bragged up on their technology AND the poly count of the levels and people. But the end product does not show it.

Like others I am HOPING for a big improvement (RARE has the talent to do great work), hoping what we have seen is only the MP portions, but it seems more likely this is just an Xbox port and not much can be done with it without scrapping the majority of the engine and art work.

Unless Rare has been holding back (always possible... but kind of counter productive to the hype machine) I cannot believe the game will undergo a massive transformation. Games take far too long to create to just up and say, "Lets bump up the poly count" or "Lets add a new features". e.g. Valve would have to offer a couple GB of new textures if they wanted to make HDR work in the original HL2.

But I am hoping for the best because 007 and PD are some of my fav games of all time.

 

[BlueTsunami]

So could that be the reason? That PDZs code was brought onto the 360 (formerly from the Xbox) and Rare thought they could probably work with the previous build and configure it to work with the 360? (hence the E3 Tech Demos). I find it weird that PDZ looked like that...but then turn around and look at Kameo. I personally hope that the gameplay isn't affected because they need to build a whole new engine around the 360.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

It is more than just bumping up the poly count, but a total rework of the model. They are really stiff. Adding more poly's to Joanna would not make her go from the bad picture to the good picture.

The entire model would need to be scrapped--along with all the other models--and new high quality models would need to be constructed, new textures and rendering effects/shaders, normals, etc... It takes a LOT of time to make a 1M poly source model.

Rare might be able to make some improvements without too much hassle. Normally art assets are created at high fidelity and downsampled to the target hardware. If they have the original high-order source models in their modeller (which they should have on backups forever), they can output higher poly models with a few buttons clicks, and a few more clicks to get a normal map. Add some better shaders and improve the texture size, it'd be quite an improvement for what shouldn't be too much trouble. As long as Rare don't need to delve into their graphics engine at all I'd expect a XB up-conversion could get a cosmetic update quite comfortably.

 

[pegisys]

from what I've seen of PDZ the environments look pretty good,the character models are a bit lacking, but depending how the single player game is going to play it might not be that bad, when I saw the kameo gameplay vid and the way they had all that stuff going on in the world it made me like it abit more it seems likes it going to have a lot of depth, if they can do the same with perfect dark it can make for interesting game play

but considering they just finished conker for the xbox a few months back and are making two game for launch I'm not getting my hopes to high

 

[pc999]

I think they should have worked hard to Xb360, I think it is a bit difficult to bellive they could make the gameplay of PDZ with 50+ players ,completely destructible cenarios and physics here the sand flying on the wind could mark invisible palyers on XB, so it as probably maked in dev kits (then thinking on XB360); the same to Kameo, 3k individual AIs on XB I dont thnk so, I am not a dev but that should implicate a major rework to the engine, probably if soon is better to just make a new one.

But then why the poor gfz, I would say that they may really put the gameplay elements first and still working on gfz (if you take out the normal maps these models have the same poly counts than GoW ones), adding shaders effects and so, meybe they could use some of the features of C1 better this way (like the tesselator, it is just me or all exclussive XB360 games seems to use paralax mapping), meybe they had it but the dev kits/no optimisation still have to low FPS to MTV presentation.

I do have hope in RARE, but GoldenEye , and PD , are too of my all time fav, so...

Anyway, if we use the 25%-30% power in theses shots
http://www.rarenet.com/wiki/index.php?title=Image:Pdzerofr_01.jpg
http://www.rarenet.com/wiki/index.php?title=Image:Pdzerofr_02.jpg
http://www.rarenet.com/wiki/index.php?title=Image:Pdz08_360.jpg
I think that it is pretty good (after 100%) for a first gen game, after all if they get that physics (the sand part) it would be strange not get good gfx, anyway some intense work on shaders effect should be relatively simple and make wonders (e.g. good shadows and lightining).

 

[scooby_dooby]

I think everyone just needs to remember how badly Halo got trashed after it's first E3.

Also, remember all the articles after E3 claiming a closed-door demo that was amazing.

IGN:
"May 18, 2005 - Forget the crappy screenshots you've seen. They completely misrepresent the game.
...
Today, I saw a demo of Perfect Dark Zero running on a Xbox alpha kit (a PC) using an old ATI graphics card, not the final GPU from the Xbox 360, and was told the game was only using about 25% to 30% of the system's full power. And Perfect Dark Zero looked incredible. Incredible. It looked nearly as good as Gears of War, which, in my humble opinion is the best looking 360 game of the show so far (I saw that running in realtime too). So, simply put, Perfect Dark Zero shocked me. "
http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/616/616196p1.html



I have a feelin Kameo + PD0 is gonna be a one-two punch that everyone is counting out right now. I mean without both of these it's still a killer launch,

what if these are both as good as they're expected to be?

 

[Tap In]

True. IMO, MS is waiting to show it (PDZ) off until either (A) the graphics do impress people or (B) the game is playable and thus hooks people. It's still supposed to be one of their big guns, so maybe they're saving it to make a bigger impact.

Exactly

 

[Tap In]

Was there ever a definitive answer as to why PDZ looked as it was at E3? It seemed like a mistep from MS and Rare....or was it intentional?

when asked that question at E3 alard said:

" Devs don't develop for E3, they develop for launch day."