What nextgen should look like...
<div class="IPBDescription">Unreal Engine 4?</div>At GDC EpicGames showed their next gen engine that is planned for the next consoles, I've read somewhere that it ran realtime on a computer with 3 GTX 580 though...
<a href="http://kotaku.com/#!5774861/epic-says-this-is-what-next+gen-should-look-like/gallery/1" target="_blank">http://kotaku.com/#!5774861/epic-says-...-like/gallery/1</a>
<img src="http://betacache.gawkerassets.com/assets/images/9/2011/03/shadowedpointlightreflections_logo_text.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" />
My opinion is that it looks nice, but for next gen, I would have expected to get to the point where the videogames are photo-realistic. Although this might comme later.
What do you think of it? Oh and I hope Max can get Spark engine to look as nice =P (looong way to go)
<a href="http://kotaku.com/#!5774861/epic-says-this-is-what-next+gen-should-look-like/gallery/1" target="_blank">http://kotaku.com/#!5774861/epic-says-...-like/gallery/1</a>
<img src="http://betacache.gawkerassets.com/assets/images/9/2011/03/shadowedpointlightreflections_logo_text.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" />
My opinion is that it looks nice, but for next gen, I would have expected to get to the point where the videogames are photo-realistic. Although this might comme later.
What do you think of it? Oh and I hope Max can get Spark engine to look as nice =P (looong way to go)
Comments
<div align='center'><center><object width="450" height="356"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/J4nRzeNeka4"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/J4nRzeNeka4" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="450" height="356"></embed></object></center>
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4nRzeNeka4" target="_blank">linky</a></div>
<b>edit:</b> For those who don't quite get what's in that video or were too lazy to watch it...
- Live action mo-capping. mo-capped and replicated in real time so you can act stuff out.
- Virtual camera representation. That is... the position of the camera you mo-cap with can be replicated exactly by the camera the game uses too so it matches up perfectly in angle and distance.
- Maya to Game real-time modelling. You can mess with the models in Maya and have the game running showing those changes in real time.
- Sandbox editor. Still the same as usual: you can map, edit and all the others while the game is running so you can see the changes as they happen. Makes the old 'change, compile, check, change again' model look silly :3
- Fancy graphics stuff. I'm not a graphical artist but it looks uber pretty :D
server admins could use the sandbox to create dynamic map changes on the fly, making all kinds of crazy stuff while you play, that engine has way to much potential , i cant even think of the stuff peoples might come up with. like rpg´s with game masters changing the enviroment while the game is going on and stuff
But in my opinion, the screenshot of the supposedly UE4 looks closer to photorealistic, and the scene seems more complicated.
But yeah, Cryengine 3 is great, and the nextgen version of Cryengine will be even better, for me UE3 and CE3 have more o less the same potential, with CE3 being a bit nicer (on PC at least)
Also I have this video of the demo shown at GDC, it's cam-recorded, but next week it should be released for the public:
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n3XeCHywNYM" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n3XeCHywNYM</a>
The vid I was thinking of was this one...
<div align='center'><center><object width="450" height="356"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/vK_zFue1zBk"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/vK_zFue1zBk" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="450" height="356"></embed></object></center>
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vK_zFue1zBk" target="_blank">unreal environment</a></div>
It's impressive but nowhere near what that vid you linked was like :D
The first Cry Engine was really only used for Farcry and its numerous console iterations. The second Cry engine only has Crysis and its spawn for notability. Cry Engine 3 appears to be shaping up in much the same way, the only notable releases planned are coming straight from CryTek.
While the Cry Engine tools may be powerful, the games really have not had notable modding/mapping communities. The pool of developers actually familiar with the engine is pretty small. On top of that, CryTek has only now begun their foray into cross-platform support, and with Crysis 2 not out until the end of the month it is hard to say how well it holds up.
The first Unreal Engine powered over 20 games. The second iteration, around 50. The third? Getting close to 100, if it has not already surpassed that. Many developers are familiar with the unreal toolset, and players seem pretty happy with the results. Beyond that I think everyone is pretty happy with the Cross-platform support for Unreal. The only major platforms left unsupported by UE3 are Windows Phone 7 and the Wii. With WP7 development being held up by Microsoft, and the Wii not really able to handle anything above UE2 (Which does have Wii support) I'd say Epic has all their bases covered.
Whether or not Cry Engine 3 is better really doesn't make a difference, as it stands Epic owns the market. Whatever improvements are made in UE4 will likely set the bar for the next generation of games.
And the engine showned on the screenshot (UE4? ) is for the nextgen consoles, there is noway this runs on current Xbox 360 or PS3, as it needed 3 GTX 580 to run.
@Sherpa : Yes CryEngine 3 is used for Crysis 2, but in the scenes you see on those video, there is more details because it's smaller scenes, it's for use in the cinematography, while it looks good ingame as well, I think using too much details would not work so well for big maps.
What do you think of it? Oh and I hope Max can get Spark engine to look as nice =P (looong way to go)<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Well, this also depends on the artist as much as the engine. If you don't take full advantage of the engine, it can just end up looking cruddy (example: half-life source vs hl2. same engine, different art)
Photorealism is still quite a long way off. It would take a vast amount of processing power to accurately model the things light does as it bounces around an environment. We tend to rely on tricks that simulate the result of the motion of light, which works pretty well, but means that proper photorealism isn't something we'll see in realtime for a while.
Just look at Crysis: Good graphics but no substance. There is no particular style in Crysis, no re-occuring theme or symbols. Now look at NS2: The walls, the skin of the aliens, their eyes, the armor of the marines. It all fits together in a believable universe.
Just look at Crysis: Good graphics but no substance. There is no particular style in Crysis, no re-occuring theme or symbols. Now look at NS2: The walls, the skin of the aliens, their eyes, the armor of the marines. It all fits together in a believable universe.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
QFT
Gameplay, re-playability far outweigh shininess in my book any day of the week! Sure shininess is good to have, but not if it goes on a personal mission of vengeance versus substance and gameplay due to sheer time constraints in creating the art assets!
Besides, I probably can't even run the trailer video of these games. It looks way beyond what my computer is willing to display <img src="http://members.home.nl/m.borgman/ns-forum/smileys/tongue.gif" border="0" class="linked-image" />
In terms of CE3 projects, there are 8 so far. Three are from Crytek, one is from a company best known for making desktop/business applications, one by a company best known for the rather lackluster <i>Sniper: Ghost Warrior</i> and the<i> Farm Frenzy</i> series. Another game is a commercialization of an open source Quake style MP shooter and will be retailing for around $10-15 (Its on XBLA and PSN.) The remaining two projects are from new studios that currently lack publishers.
I stand by my claim that the only notable releases planned are coming straight from CryTek, because the only notable releases planned are coming straight from CryTek.
As for the SDK there is very few details so far but two things that Crytek has stated explicitly are that “it’s not the same as what Epic or Unity are currently doing" and that they want to release a standalone free engine “that will be up to speed†with the CryEngine 3 platform. Which is to say, an engine that is not actually CE3, or at least the full version of CE3. So what I'm getting from that is that it is not the same type of thing as UDK.
UE3 -> Gear of War series, UT3, Borderlands, etc.
CryEngine 2 -> Crysis 1, Far Cry 2
CryEngine 3 -> Crysis 2
UE4 -> What we might be looking at in the smoking morphing dude trailer (i.e. brand new engine)
EDIT: This was of the top of my head. Correct me if wrong. I will update
CryEngine 2 -> Crysis 1, Far Cry 2<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Actually, because FC2 development was started after the Ubisoft/CryTek split, it uses Ubisofts Dunia engine.
While Dunia is technically part of the CryEngine family, it is not based on CryEngine 2. Rather it is based on a heavily modified version of CryEngine 1 that Ubisoft made internally to port Far Cry to various consoles. This is why FC2 is not quite as pretty as Crysis, but a lot more stable, runs faster and can run on Consoles (Which were never supported by CryEngine 2)
It is much like how Half-life and Quake 2 are both based on the Quake Engine, but have drastically different feature sets.
Other than that, the Timeline is pretty solid.
Real time graphics are possible now, but the hardware is not. You only have to look at films such as Avatar to realise that level of realism is possible, just not in real time.
Moore's law means that it shouldn't be that long though, supposedly.
That's a pretty sweet deal, though, because for that price they throw in some tissues.
Get it? <b>Cry</b>engine? Tissues? I'm here all week, folks.
So... Shattered Horizon would be 'next gen' by that metric?
Though I'd strongly agree; consoles are holding mainstream (read: highly funded) game development back greatly, requiring severe 'dumbing down' to allow for ports to underpowered, badly-aging hardware.