S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 - by Vicarious
mothra on 3/5/2010 at 13:31
x-ray is good because it's a different engine. I'm sick of UE3 clones. x-ray has character, purely subjective
Ostriig on 3/5/2010 at 14:32
Quote Posted by gunsmoke
Remind me again what's so great about X-Ray?
I recall correctly, X-Ray is capable of effectively processing AI over much larger areas than most. Compare, for instance, the way you enter a STALKER map and there's shit going on in real-time at the other end of the map to the way Gamebryo in Fallout 3 will only activate NPCs in reasonable proximity (distance of one cell?).
Other than that, it's definitely a wonderfully capable engine with modern features and all, but I'm not aware of anything else to make it stand out of the crowd so much more than the others.
Quote Posted by mothra
x-ray is good because it's a different engine. I'm sick of UE3 clones. x-ray has character, purely subjective
An engine doesn't have "character", you're letting your impression of specific games overly colour your view of their supporting tech.
242 on 3/5/2010 at 14:50
Quote Posted by Ostriig
An engine doesn't have "character", you're letting your impression of specific games overly colour your view of their supporting tech.
A combination of big and small distinctive features makes every engine
and games created on it special, forming the "character". Stalker games definitely would feel VERY differently if they were created on UE, at least it's my belief.
If game design was all that mattered, a single (just regularly updated) game engine in the world would be enough.
Ostriig on 3/5/2010 at 16:21
What sets engines apart is technical features and capabilites, I don't think you can state an engine has "character" since that implies some sort of artistic traits. Engines are developed and adapted to fit the requirements of the game being developed, and those well known commercial solutions on offer are far more versatile than most people imagine. As an example, contrary to a massive volume of uninformed kneejerk reactions that popped up on the Eidos forums a while ago, just because Deus Ex 3 is being developed on the same core engine as I-don't-remember-which Tomb Raider title(s) doesn't mean the new game has to play, feel, or even look anything like the Lara ones. You could, for instance, make (
http://www.moddb.com/mods/half-life-2-wars) a classic RTS out of Half Life 2's Source or a (
http://www.udk.com/showcase) simple 2.5D platformer on Unreal. The boundaries are far looser than they seem at first glance.
That there are many different engines with different specifications out there is a matter of business and development practicality. Companies will consider whether they would be better served, cost-wise, by licensing an existing SDK and developing on that or by creating their own tools and platform, both in the context of immediate projects as well as future commercial intentions. And, of course, different technical bases will lend themselves more or less readily to different projects, or maybe not at all (you couldn't make an FPS on the Infinity Engine), but that's not the issue here.
As for STALKER on UE3 - I don't know how much or little work it would take to get the engine to handle STALKER-sized maps. Aside from that, I'm quite certain GSC could've theoretically used UE and created a STALKER very much like the one they delivered on their own X-Ray tech.
Ultimately, licensing an engine doesn't mean that you've got the tech and all you need to do is start churning out content and media assets, there's still a lot of programming work to be done, including on basic systems. For example, BioShock was developed on UE3, but if you look at the game's (
http://www.mobygames.com/game/windows/bioshock/credits) credits you'll see they had about as many programmers as they had designers on staff.
mothra on 3/5/2010 at 16:42
from a technical standpoint an engine can get to a point where the developer has to make a decision: design mechanic x of engine like that but then have only half of y or use full y but then you have a limit of only x times y or whatever. making that decision gives the engine character. an emphasis of focus on things differently from others. I think something like that shines through somehow, maybe that's why STALKER got better wood. Not because they made nicer textures or have better tree-processing. because the engine likes wood.
Ostriig on 3/5/2010 at 17:01
Sorry dude, you're not making a lot of sense for me there. Can you give a couple of examples of particularities of the X-Ray engine that give it "character", as opposed to Unreal Engine or CryEngine? Like with the wood, if that was meant to be such an example - what's better and how does it tie in with the engine?
Muzman on 3/5/2010 at 18:38
Unreal engine games definitely have a certain character, generally speaking. Subtle things about its rendering, frame processing, player physics and so on make most of them seem similar (I don't know enough technical details to say what it actually is that's doing it, I'm just guessing. But it's bound to be something background like that). Unreal engine games across each generation usually bear a certain family resemblance in there somewhere.
This isn't to say it can't gotten rid of with the right kind of effort (Mirror's Edge is largely unrecognisable as UE game except for the menu and the specularity in some of the indoor levels). Engines these days are very modular, of course. But the fundamental maths can show through. The same would be true of Crysis, not that I've seen very many Cryengine2 games.
X-Ray's lighting and weather has a quality I've never seen before in anything else. Even in technically better looking games and it's pretty fundamental to how well the game's atmosphere works, I think. Complex things like that are built somewhat organically; they grow over time with experience and tweaks. To deconstruct and rebuild the "feel" of a game it in a different engine, while technically possible, I'd wager is an extremely difficult and time consuming thing as well as being likely to fail.
Look at Thief: DS. OK the generational jump is much larger, but there must be everything they needed to recreate the Thief feel in that engine at that time, even with smaller levels. But, try as they might, it's a fundamentally different seeming game on every level. Some will blame this on their mucking with the formula in various ways. Maybe, but that's another discussion. They did try to recreate The Thief Feel, though. Instead they had to settle for 'a' thief feel.
GSC's thought about this, I reckon, and said that working with an engine whose fundamentals they understand intuitively and can design for relatively easily to get mostly predictable results is going to save a ton of time and effort.
I wager everyone who wants them to dump XRay had a really shitty time with it and that's a bummer. I'm not that fussed since it's been mostly fine for me (and if you're fairly old school you can remember games regularly blowing up in your face anyway and it's not that big a deal when it rarely happens these days). Plus Call of Pripyat was rock solid too.
Whatever they do now though they have to find a way to get the mystery back. The Zone's a little too familar these days after CoP.
Sulphur on 3/5/2010 at 19:04
UE3 engine games generally feature semi-dynamic lighting, glossy-looking plasticky environments, too many surfaces with reflection maps, an abundant overuse of specular highlights, and nameless marines with no hair because the engine apparently renders hair like plastic.
Basically, everything looks shiny. I'd say that's character right there. Thank fuck Mirror's Edge used Beast for its lighting system.
polytourist97 on 3/5/2010 at 19:55
If one is to make an argument that game engines cannot have "character" then one must also explain why it is possible to differentiate the various qualities that competing engines consistently exhibit (like the examples that have been brought up in previous posts).
Saying an engine is merely a tool to facilitate a designer's intent is somewhat analogous to saying that a musical instrument is merely a tool that a musician uses to express their ideas. While that sentiment is true in the strictest sense, it grossly oversimplifies the impact each "tool" has on their respective finished product.
Having said all that, I think it's nice to see GSC sticking with the same engine as I believe it has a lot to do with the atmosphere of the STALKER games. I don't like the prospect of cross-platform development, but oh well.
Ostriig on 3/5/2010 at 19:55
Quote Posted by Sulphur
Basically, everything looks shiny. I'd say that's character right there. Thank fuck Mirror's Edge used Beast for its lighting system.
I agree that there is an overabundance of glossy stuff in your average UE game, and part of it may be due to the lighting system, but it's also due to materials usage at the hands of level designers and artists. And like you pointed out with Mirror's Edge, Sulphur, (
http://ve3d.ign.com/articles/news/35896/Beast-Lighting-System-Baked-Into-Unreal-Engine) it's hardly a game-stopper.
And by the way, mothra's argument a few posts up was that UE3
didn't have character, as opposed to X-Ray. I don't know, I'm just reading that as a comment on artistic considerations somehow tied to the base engine. My point is that it's more to do with the favourable impression that the game left in contrast to many AAA titles that use industry-favourite engines and nevertheless suck copiously, and that the game STALKER and
its character are not necessarily tied down to X-Ray.
I think that if the technical capabilities of an engine match the requirements of a game design, then getting the right artistic rendition of content is mostly a matter of appropriately configuring said tech.
Quote Posted by Muzman
Look at Thief: DS. OK the generational jump is much larger, but there must be everything they needed to recreate the Thief feel in that engine at that time, even with smaller levels. But, try as they might, it's a fundamentally different seeming game on every level. Some will blame this on their mucking with the formula in various ways. Maybe, but that's another discussion. They did try to recreate The Thief Feel, though. Instead they had to settle for 'a' thief feel.
I don't think that necessarily proves the point, though. You mentioned that you saw some sort of similar line running through all iterations of the Unreal Engine, and you're saying that Deadly Shadows' failure to capture the Thief feel may have been also due to the change in engine. But what of Invisible War, then? Based on UE2 and even developed by the very same studio that developed the original Deus Ex on UE1, and yet it's no closer in feel to said original than Thief 3 is to Thief 2.
By the way, I'm not advocating them dropping X-Ray here. I was a late comer to SoC, and with 1.0005 I had no issues with the game whatsoever. Complete 2009 made it look bloody superb, too.
