Nick Burton (RARE) talks about the tech under Kameo

[Griffith]

We always wanted to have crowd scenes in Kameo and started to do some experiments with the Xbox 1 and figured we could get maybe 100 or so NPCs. Once we moved onto the Xbox 360 we thought, "Let's try something that will slow it down, how about 1,000? Ran fine, no problem whatsoever! How about 3,000? Still fine!" Then we thought we had better try it with something more taxing than a test level so we put them on the Battle Field level which was all parallax and normal mapped, had a huge draw distance and lots of special effects like volumetric smoke; it still ran fine. In the released game we had something like 3000-plus NPCs because more than that was hard to choreograph, but the 360 can do much more. At one point during debug we found that each of the NPCs in one scene were being drawn 4 times by mistake, that's 12,000 being drawn and still no sign of slowdown.

We had a similar story with the GPU particle systems... We had a test running with a 100,000 particles being computed purely on the GPU, no CPU intervention at all. Now the Xbox 1 could do that but on the 360 they all react to the player and hit the floor and are lit, then we tried more, lots more! How about 1 milion? We aren't talking test levels or tech demos here. They are actually in the released game, and you can go and count them in the Throne Room. Most levels don't have quite that many though as only about 300,000 are normally in visible range at one time.

When thinking about the NPC and particle rendering, remember to put it into context; these are not tech demos and they represent a tiny amount of the actual graphical load Kameo puts on the Xbox 360. Each scene has hugely complex shaders on the geometry that would not have been possible on previous generation hardware, or even on the PC until recently. Almost every surface in Kameo is both normal and parallax mapped, has a detail map, is shadowed, has some global illumination and has an accurate dynamic lighting model. On top of the main model shaders, you have so many effects such as (but not all) particles, volumetric smoke and fire, instanced foliage, grass shaders, true reflections, accurate depth of field, bloom, color correction, real-time water surfaces, heat haze, and much more.

http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/693/693239p3.html

very interesting, IMO

 

[Platon]

Can't wait to see what they will be able to do once they actually tae advantage of the hardware and design a game from the ground up for the 360. Next time I would like to see them though maybe using a bit more polys per character...

 

[nintenho]

If they're so smart, why didn't they get rid of the load times?!! /sarcasm

 

[Griffith]

If they're so smart, why didn't they get rid of the load times?!! /sarcasm

what?
the load times are not disturbing at all, have you never played Kameo?

 

[Nesh]

Very very impressive
I think this generation is the first to underestimate the capabilities of new hardware.Developer expectations are exceeded generally.Cant remember similar occasions in the past

 

[Dr. Nick]

I still find it puzzling that they didn't make a higher polygon model of Kameo. Seeing those polygon edges on her at the start up screen was kind of surprising.

 

[expletive]

Nice to hear that they could quadruple poly counts of character models and still be fine. I think thats the one area for the 360, that early on, is lagging behind the rest. I dont know why it is; hardware, effort, talent, etc., but the poly counts have looked less 'next-gen' than the rest of the visuals imo. This, at the least, helps to rule out 'hardware' as the cause imo.

 

[scooby_dooby]

This is a great quote:

But Kameo certainly isn't perfect - nothing is. To get the very best out of the game, you really need to look way beneath the surface, especially with the combat mechanics. We were very conscious of the fact that there would be some people that would just want to breeze through the game as quickly as possible and sadly not really discover the real beauty of Kameo. But that's probably more our fault than that of the user. It's fine having great hidden depth, but in retrospect, it seems that maybe we shouldn't have expected everyone to want to dig deep to find it.

Also, we really wanted to do more with the adventure part of the game. Break up the Shadow Troll hunts a little more and give the player other quests before getting to the next shadow troll action scene. But, as always, time is something we always seem to run out of. Having said all of that, we still feel we made a great broad reach action adventure title for the 360.

It really shows they realize what it would've taken for Kameo to take that next step to be a trully classic game. I can't wait for Kameo 2. I only wished he would've mentioned the difficulty level of the game, that was the other main thing that seperated it from Zelda in my mind; lack of difficult puzzles.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

But, as always, time is something we always seem to run out of

Yes, Kameo was a little rushed. From conception to release really wasn't long enough

 

[Pozer]

Can't wait to see a rare game with an engine that wasn't built for the Gamecube then ported to the xbox then rushed over to the x360.

 

[scooby_dooby]

Yes, Kameo was a little rushed. From conception to release really wasn't long enough

Can't be easy to move through 3 dev platforms then be scheduled as a launch title. It turned out as the best launch title of them all in my opinion.

 

[Pozer]

It turned out as the best launch title of them all in my opinion.

If you have the mind of 7 year old with autism... jk its not my cup o tea

Off topic, but it's Condemned for SP, PDZ for MP. IMO

 

[expletive]

Can't be easy to move through 3 dev platforms then be scheduled as a launch title. It turned out as the best launch title of them all in my opinion.

Not from a technical standpoint but Shifty's point is well taken. The kinds of things that are mentioned in your last quote are overall gameplay design decisions, things like 'kameo must complete quest AA to get item BB which will then open area XX to unlock elemental GG.' I would have thought these kinds of things would haev been sorted out WELL before the technology challenges came to the forefront.

 

[scooby_dooby]

Not from a technical standpoint but Shifty's point is well taken. The kinds of things that are mentioned in your last quote are overall gameplay design decisions, things like 'kameo must complete quest AA to get item BB which will then open area XX to unlock elemental GG.' I would have thought these kinds of things would haev been sorted out WELL before the technology challenges came to the forefront.

No, you can see them cutting out gameplay levels already designed.

For example they cut an entire element less than a year ago, that's 2 dungeons that had already been designed, 2 characters w/ unique moves, and a whole other area in the badlands that was presumably designed as well but was cut (wind element)

Going through the game you can clearly see where they would've/should've had more filler missions exactly like he says they wished they could've. For example, right after getting one warrior you immediately are shown the location of the next warrior in the same village, You don't even have time to make good use of the warrior you just recieved, before getting another, I can't possibly see this being their intention in the original design, but rather cut due to timeline constraints and the need to be out for launch.

Certain areas in the game scream for more length between main quests, and hearing his comments about how much was cut, it seems obvious that they wanted to add these, and they were planned at some point, but simply didn't have time.

 

[expletive]

No, you can see them cutting out gameplay levels already designed.

For example they cut an entire element less than a year ago, that's 2 dungeons that had already been designed, 2 characters w/ unique moves, and a whole other area in the badlands that was presumably designed as well but was cut (wind element)

Going through the game you can clearly see where they would've/should've had more filler missions exactly like he says they wished they could've. For example, right after getting one warrior you immediately are shown the location of the next warrior in the same village, You don't even have time to make good use of the warrior you just recieved, before getting another, I can't possibly see this being their intention in the original design, but rather cut due to timeline constraints and the need to be out for launch.

Certain areas in the game scream for more length between main quests, and hearing his comments about how much was cut, it seems obvious that they wanted to add these, and they were planned at some point, but simply didn't have time.

I guess my understanding of devlopment is a little off then. I figured with all the time they had prior to final hardware, i would have thought all the level desgins, engine, art assets, etc would be complete and then just a matter of porting it to the final hardware.

I wonder what Kameo would be if they released it now instead of then...

 

[blakjedi]

the article also outlines some advanced techniques used in PD0... I guess some effects are more subtle than others.

 

[Dr. Nick]

Not only did Kameo go through design changes it went through several gameplay changes as well. This game always seemed to be changing everytime it surfaced so it did look like they every had all of the aspects nailed down. Part of the problem was figuring out what the Xbox audience wanted which included a breast enhancement and then breast reduction for the main character.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Not from a technical standpoint but Shifty's point is well taken.

I wasn't really making a point other than pointing out the irony in his comment. How many games have been in development as long as Kameo, yet he says they didn't have enough time. Ho ho ho. Chuckle cuckle? Anyone??

 

[expletive]

Part of the problem was figuring out what the Xbox audience wanted which included a breast enhancement and then breast reduction for the main character.

Hey i watch Dr. 90210, those only take a couple of hours!

 

[PeterT]

Almost every surface in Kameo is both normal and parallax mapped, has a detail map, is shadowed, has some global illumination and has an accurate dynamic lighting model.

No it doesn't. I hate this kind of buzzword-stacking. It dilutes the meaning of the technical terms. Apart from that the article isn't bad, though a gamasutra-style postmortem would be far more interesting .