The Star Citizen Thread v5

[dsmart]

Well In Arcorp for example they had 40 players right....I know it´s totally different just saying when you lowering your net-data-transfer it is possible to squeeze more players per instance right?I certainly not any kind of expert in this field just seems kind of logical to me....

Yes, I am well aware of the numbers that those "stations" can host. Again, it boils down to network data transfer. It really doesn't matter what cap they put or don't put; having 40 people milling around, is totally different from having 40 people firing weapons, flying ships etc.

Key here is that - right this minute - croberts has gone on the record saying that the upcoming netcode will support "thousands" of players. Which, btw doesn't even make any sense when you consider that even the likes of ED, though instanced, developed bespoke tech (not based on an inferior middleware engine) to do it, while "simulating" large player numbers.

Anyone who thinks they've seen any indication that CIG/RSI is capable of pulling it off, i) hasn't been paying attention ii) is firmly in denial + sunk cost fallacy mode

 

[Viajero]

*Mod hat off

It might be true but its also irrelevant. The only thing that matter is the game. The rest is just the usual noise from the usual suspects.

The eyebrow raising part is how SC ultra fans can often agree/accept that all those cases of apalling practice and incompetence may be true, but at the same time somehow believe that "the game" itself is exempt and it is good and the BDSSE made flesh. As if it was a completely different entity managed by a different set of people.

 

[Ian Skippy]

The animation I linked isn't a bug as far as I know, I linked it in response to the idea that no games have separate first/third-person animations.

If your only point is that there have been at least one game with seperate 1st/3rd person animations, sure (but I think one should aim higher than than disprove such claims, but fine). But, as a person who has never rendered, boned or skinned anything and gets confused easily, what does all of this mean? Are you saying SC must share animations or this stretching becomes inevitable? Or are you saying that example of yours is just a poor example of using seperate animations? And is CIG changing their stance? Or has something been fixed that would have to be fixed anyway? Or was an unexpected issue fixed but they keep on the same course?

And its saturday you say, hmm? Guess that shows you how hard I have been working during my current vacation.

 

[dsmart]

I dunno, man...
http://static2.gamespot.com/uploads/scale_super/1539/15391776/2595421-1871775105-7vraE.gif

You know quite well what I was talking about within the context of my post. Here, I'll quote it again. Read that again. Slowly this time. Since I'm in a generous mood, I even highlighted it for you. Enjoy.

That's patently false

NO fps game has two sets of animations for first and third person. The way it works is that some legacy games used to have different arms for the fps view as that increases the visual fidelity in that you can have arms (which holding a weapon) with over 20K polys, while the actual character (seen only in 3rd person if the game has that view, or remotely by other players if multiplayer) may only have arms with about 1K polys.

The issue with allowing the same character pov for 1st person is that you have to set the camera POV so that it doesn't intersect the character model. So if you have a fov of 60 and someone decides to change the settings set it to 90; this will break the view. The end result is that the camera will either end up inside the character model or worse.

Like all games with 1st/3rd person view, even LoD does this. We have high resolution arms for holding weapons, interacting in 1st person etc. They are completely different (in terms of polys and models) from the arms on the actual character model itself, and which other players see remotely in multiplayer.

If they are unifying the 1st and 3rd person models now, it simply means that they are no longer using a separate model (e.g. arms) for the 1st person view. If they were in fact using two FULL character models for 1st and 3rd person - which I think is unlikely - that right there is part of the problem with this game. Everything is just a broken mess.

"visual stabilization" is just a fancy term for "we went back and changed to how it really should be, because how we did it before was unconventional rubbish". And the removal of head bob is just a camera manipulation, coupled with physics input, depending on how they implemented it. So they disabled it. And if they were actually animating the head movement, then they also went in and removed that character "head" animation if in fact it was a separate entity.

Finally, If you ever see someone shooting at you, even though they are reloading, that has absolutely nothing to do with models or visual stabilization. At all. It is purely to do with netcode synchronization because the client and server are not in sync.

Don't take my word for it, just ask Ben Parry

Then, you said this:

You've really no idea how a studio of more than a handful of people operates, have you? I've made it quite clear that I write rendering code. Personally I've not ever worked on bones/skinning type stuff, but even if I did I wouldn't have had anything to do with what animations are being played or how they're being blended together - by the time it hits the renderer it's just bone soup.

Right there, you publicly admit that you have no clue what I'm even going on about; but you posted an animation illustrating precisely what I was going on about - and why it presents a problem.

Then, as if you hadn't already headed farther South than envisioned, you indicate that you write rendering code, yet don't have a clue how that actually affects entities that the rendering loop has to account for and render.

You - are writing a renderer - and yet have no clue how that loop handles entities such as characters and animations? Like, dude, seriously?

I write renders, and entire game engines. So it is my business to know everything the renderer does; whether it's a level or a character model; or an animation system. The too many cooks spoil the broth analogy is prevalent in game dev. If you have 50 people working on a game, there comes a time when it does more harm than good.

By your submission, what you've just said, is akin to the guy who is hooking up the electricity in a building, not knowing what the breaker box actually does because he didn't build it.

You work on Star Citizen (where disabling head bobbing is now new "visual stabilization" tech). So it all makes sense now. Carry on.

@Tippis, are you reading this?

 

[Ben Parry]

If you're only point is that there have been at least one game with seperate 1st/3rd person animations, sure (but I think one should aim higher than than disprove such claims, but fine). But, as a person who has never rendered, boned or skinned anything and gets confused easily, what does all of this mean? Are you saying SC must share animations or this stretching becomes inevitable? Or are you saying that example of yours is just a poor example of using seperate animations? And is CIG changing their stance? Or has something been fixed that would have to be fixed anyway? Or was an unexpected issue fixed but they keep on the same course?

And its saturday you say, hmm? Guess that shows you how hard I have been working during my current vacation.

Maybe I was being a little passive-aggressive by just posting a gif, but when someone says "none" they're making a pretty strong claim. What I should say is: using separate animations in first and third person is pretty common in games. That isn't even a bad example: you can see it looks good in the first-person view, so long as you showed a different animation to other players no one would ever have noticed. I don't have concrete evidence that the vast majority of games use separate 1st/3rd (even if you don't count games that have only 1st for the main character, and only 3rd for anyone else), but I strongly suspect it. For instance, another example that pops into mind is any of Bethesda's RPGs since Morrowind-ish times.
I've not really got a position on whether unified animations are good or bad overall, I guess. So far I'd found SC's FPS camera to be pretty awkward, so if it's been sorted then I'm very happy to hear it, however it's been done.

 

[JohnMice]

According to metrics...

I've developed that tech, and I know how it works, inside and out.

What metrics? The same used to predict the 90 days collapse of a company or the one used to predict the closing of the Austin studio?

Care to share a video of a game with 16 players having a go at it as an example of said tech you developped?

 

[Ben Parry]

Right there, you publicly admit that you have no clue what I'm even going on about; but you posted an animation illustrating precisely what I was going on about - and why it presents a problem.

Admittedly that's a first-person model in the gif. If you look again (slowly, I guess?) you'll see that the animations it's playing would seriously screw up a third-person model. If anything, the common behaviour is to use separate models and animations everywhere.

Then, as if you hadn't already headed farther South than envisioned, you indicate that you write rendering code, yet don't have a clue how that actually affects entities that the rendering loop has to account for and render.

You - are writing a renderer - and yet have no clue how that loop handles entities such as characters and animations? Like, dude, seriously?

I write renders, and entire game engines. So it is my business to know everything the renderer does; whether it's a level or a character model; or an animation system. The too many cooks spoil the broth analogy is prevalent in game dev. If you have 50 people working on a game, there comes a time when it does more harm than good.

By your submission, what you've just said, is akin to the guy who is hooking up the electricity in a building, not knowing what the breaker box actually does because he didn't build it.

My version of your analogy is a little different. I'm the guy installing the breaker box. If the guy installing the breaker box needs to know what brand of lightbulbs was used on each floor, then the wiring system was pretty badly designed. Maybe he has personal knowledge or opinions on lightbulb brands used generally in the industry, but assuming he needs to know that is weird.
To go back to the character example, the renderer ought to be able to handle any model in any pose. For sane maintainability, it shouldn't need to know whether that's a first or third person model, whether there would be a different animation in third person, whether the pose is a result of physics ragdoll, canned animation, or some mixture of the two, or even the animator's birthday.
Just: What model do you want, what materials does it display, where do you want it, how is it posed. (if you want motion blur, maybe some info about how that stuff was set last frame)
This is the exact opposite of too many cooks spoiling the broth, it's getting some of your cooks away from the broth to make starter and dessert based on a pre-agreed meal plan.

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YESSSS!! COME ON FOOTBALL ANALOGIES!!!!!

Sorry, it's all cooking analogies from here on out.

 

[Tuub t Tute]

Sorry, it's all cooking analogies from here on out.

If you are a Norwich City fan, you can have both at once!

 

[CMDR_Orlando]

That's patently false. NO fps game has two sets of animations for first and third person.

Wrong

But don't take my word for it, just listen to actual game developers that actually worked on it @30:30

[video=youtube;WvlnG45Kois]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WvlnG45Kois&index=20[/video]

The great majority of the games use different sets of animations for the handling the stuff in 1st POV.
Besides Arma or maybe other military sim's I don't recall other games that go that extra mile.

What you see in first person is not what your characther is actually doing, you can easily test this by watching the shadow's of the players that don't match what they are doing or even how the hands are positioned don't translate into how the shadow is casted, this because what you see one thing, what your characther is actually doing is other = Separated Animations.

The way it works is that some legacy games used to have different arms for the fps view as that increases the visual fidelity in that you can have arms (which holding a weapon) with over 20K polys, while the actual character (seen only in 3rd person if the game has that view, or remotely by other players if multiplayer) may only have arms with about 1K polys.

Wrong. Both Battlefield 1 and the "new" COD are the most recent "state of the art" FPS's and they don't have 1st person and 3rd person integration. They do the same old like allways, have different animations for the arms. It has nothing to do with visual fidelity, it's all about how hard it is to make the animations fealing right from both views and the different needs of different games.

Spoiler

[video=youtube;Gl5oIIarMxs]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gl5oIIarMxs[/video]

Like all games with 1st/3rd person view, even LoD does this. We have high resolution arms for holding weapons, interacting in 1st person etc. They are completely different (in terms of polys and models) from the arms on the actual character model itself, and which other players see remotely in multiplayer.

What high resolution arms for holding weapons?

Spoiler

 

[Toumal]

What I should say is: using separate animations in first and third person is pretty common in games.

Agreed. There's a few notable exceptions however: Arma is one. Torque Engine (which is the successor to what was used for Tribes 2) by default uses the same exact model for first person and external view. Making a separate high-poly first person hand model was difficult in that engine and we eventually abandoned that and instead just made quite high poly player models. (That was for a free Stargate game that eventually got axed by MGM's lawyers)

Most modern engines use separate assets for arms and weapons however.

 

[Backer42]

imo, the alarm bells should start going off the minute you see the part where they were asking for only $500K to build that kind of game.

It is the same amount Chris Roberts' KS asked for.

 

[Tuub t Tute]

It is the same amount Chris Roberts' KS asked for.

And that was only 4 weeks ago, just before development started...

 

[Tippis]

I dunno, man...
http://static2.gamespot.com/uploads/scale_super/1539/15391776/2595421-1871775105-7vraE.gif

If I remember that GIF correctly, it's from a single-player mode without third-person view. In other words, it doesn't show a difference between first- and third-person animations or models — it's showing the single first-person model + animation when viewed from a third-person camera that you can't use in-game so they never bothered modelling for it.

Wrong. Both Battlefield 1 and the "new" COD are the most recent "state of the art" FPS's and they don't have 1st person and 3rd person integration. They do the same old like allways, have different animations for the arms. It has nothing to do with visual fidelity, it's all about how hard it is to make the animations fealing right from both views and the different needs of different games.

Do you have any source backing that up?

Oh, and you realise that none of this model/animation reuse still doesn't save their camera implementation from being fundamentally flawed, right? And that you're now contradicting what you said before about why you'd want different models and animations?

 

[Ben Parry]

If I remember that GIF correctly, it's from a single-player mode without third-person view. In other words, it doesn't show a difference between first- and third-person animations or models — it's showing the single first-person model + animation when viewed from a third-person camera that you can't use in-game so they never bothered modelling for it.

Ah, my mistake. Nonetheless, it's an entertaining demonstration of why first-person animations are frequently created without reference to how you'd make the body achieve such poses. If you put that character in a multiplayer scenario, you'd need a second set of animations for other people to look at.

 

[lysan]

Not a smart idea IMHO. Don't get me wrong, I'm a gun owner myself and I find it peculiar to see people be against legal gun ownership while advocating that you should never undock your ship without having at least a pair of multicannons...

But my Glock is never part of any debate. I wouldn't say "Oh yeah? Well I got a gun, so come at me!" - that's neither smart nor does it hold up in court, and worse, it can be construed as a "dangerous threat" in my country.

No. These death threats on youtube are hollow anyway. And if they aren't, well, you have your tool at hand if needed. No need to "show it" before it's absolutely needed

EDIT: Death threats are still completely unacceptable and part of the reason why the "SC community" often makes me shudder in disgust. Especially when any and all wrong things that go against SC are depicted as the worst crime in human history. Like linking to a public imdb page, how despicable, how could they etc.

I agree with that, weapons and discussions should be on different planets, if it even come to idiots trying something stupid, well I guess most people know what to do.

Regarding PG many people simply don't understand it, the beauty are in the simplicity and it can give you complex shapes, I've posted many examples on the ED forum in these matters.

 

[Asp Explorer]

And that was only 4 weeks ago, just before development started...

Buy a Bengal to help them along a bit

 

[CMDR_Orlando]

Do you have any source backing that up?

Oh, and you realise that none of this model/animation reuse still doesn't save their camera implementation from being fundamentally flawed, right? And that you're now contradicting what you said before about why you'd want different models and animations?

I've played BF1 and checked it for myself (just run around with a gun and start bunny hopping to see that the shadow's don't represent what you are "seing" your characther do. The "new" COD uses the same engine old engine and they have talked about the enhancements they did to it and 1st and 3rd Person Animation integration was not one of them. Besides both BF and COD have a very loyal and distinct fan-base that expect a specific kind of movement that they have gotten used to through out the years, they wouldn't risk jeopardize that just for the sake of fidelity, their players interaction is based on blowing each other, not the more complex stuff that Star Citizen is aiming too, they have no need for it.

 

[Tippis]

I've played BF1 and checked it for myself (just run around with a gun and start bunny hopping to see that the shadow's don't represent what you are "seing" your characther do. The "new" COD uses the same engine old engine and they have talked about the enhancements they did to it and 1st and 3rd Person Animation integration was not one of them.

So no actual source then. I'm guessing you just made it up based on nothing but your own need to believe that it's the case, but with no actual insight into how any of the games work?

 

[Tuub t Tute]

...their players interaction is based on blowing each other, not the more complex stuff that Star Citizen is aiming too, they have no need for it.

Not even in the Mile High Club?

 

[Stigbob]

their players interaction is based on blowing each other

Must have been a fun day in the mo-cap studio.