Nextgen systems = massive levels and onscreen characters?

hutno

hutno

CAGiversary!
I was just thinking about this, I was playing frontline the other day day and thinking how cool it would be if they could animate enough characters to adccurately recreate the storming of normandy and other war games. So i guess my question is will it be possible to have 100's of fluid moving characters onscreen on the upcoming systems?
 
[quote name='hutno']I was just thinking about this, I was playing frontline the other day day and thinking how cool it would be if they could animate enough characters to adccurately recreate the storming of normandy and other war games. So i guess my question is will it be possible to have 100's of fluid moving characters onscreen on the upsoming systems?[/quote]

maybe
 
We still have no idea what the next gen will bring. I personally don't see how much more graphical prowess will really be that great, I'm more than happy with what I have now. Then again, after a year or two of owning a PS3 or the Revolution or whatever, I'll probably cringe looking at PS2 games.
 
Probably. And didn't storming the beach of Normandy in MoH look real enough? How bout Pearl Harbor?

It looked real enough to me.
 
[quote name='alongx']We still have no idea what the next gen will bring. I personally don't see how much more graphical prowess will really be that great, I'm more than happy with what I have now. Then again, after a year or two of owning a PS3 or the Revolution or whatever, I'll probably cringe looking at PS2 games.[/quote]

After owning an Xbox, I already cringe at ps2 games...

(wow ive become a fanboy)
 
[quote name='dnt_h8me2']Probably. And didn't storming the beach of Normandy in MoH look real enough? How bout Pearl Harbor?

It looked real enough to me.[/quote]

Have you ever seen pictures of the real thing? there were 1000's more men
 
[quote name='spyhunterk19'][quote name='dnt_h8me2']Probably. And didn't storming the beach of Normandy in MoH look real enough? How bout Pearl Harbor?

It looked real enough to me.[/quote]

Have you ever seen pictures of the real thing? there were 1000's more men[/quote]
Yes I've seen pictures. All I'm saying is that was the best re-creation we can have of those events now. And they look real enough for this generation at least.
 
[quote name='spyhunterk19']After owning an Xbox, I already cringe at ps2 games...

(wow ive become a fanboy)[/quote]

Typical comment from an Xbox whore...

Just kidding.

Maybe.
 
[quote name='int80h']
They would need a shitload of RAM.
Click to expand...

Hey, if they can pack 16 GB of RAM into a laptop these days...[/quote]

Which laptop would that be? Even most Athlon64 laptops are constrained to within the 32-bit address range, mainly because RAM chip densities still have a way to go before there is enough physical space free in a typical laptop design. Cost is also a factor. Until the prices make such large amounts common fromt he factory it will be difficult to get the needed space. In the portable market it is very difficult to justify added physical volume for an optional feature.

The next generation consoles will have between 256 and 512 MB of RAM, depending on prices when the designs are frozen. This may pale beside a well equipped PC but is still a big leap over the current generation. Consoles make much more efficient use of RAM thanks to their single minded dedication to their task. For instance, even if you're playing a single-player game with no online component, the driver for your PC's NIC is still using up a chunk of memory. The same game on the Xbox wouldn't need to do this as the Windows kernel and DirectX stack are custom configured for each game. If the game has no Xbox Live or LAN support the code is simply left out.
 
[quote name='hutno']I was just thinking about this, I was playing frontline the other day day and thinking how cool it would be if they could animate enough characters to adccurately recreate the storming of normandy and other war games. So i guess my question is will it be possible to have 100's of fluid moving characters onscreen on the upcoming systems?[/quote]

Well I think you'd have to respawn every 5 seconds as the Germans mow your entire unit down but there are tons of people running around aimlessly in Dynasty Warriors during the battles so I'm sure they could manage even more with the newer systems.
 
Games like Dynastsy warriors, Kessen2 and SoE claim about 200 simultaenous NPCs with simple AI, New systems should double and possibly tripple the number of NPCs and improve on the AI.
 
I think lots of things could be possible with the new systsms. Remember though, it isn't just graphics that improve. Think of how GTA was able to achieve more of a living city feel this generation, something it lacked on the PS1.

I really think the living world idea will explode. You can see it beginning with Morrowind now, but with more processing power you can actually have people move around, possibly between towns, and have even more impressive graphical moments. Sports games will continue to improve. I'm also wondering, what sorts of brand new gaming ideas will come to the forefront. It's exciting to think about.
 
[quote name='lordxixor101']I think lots of things could be possible with the new systsms. Remember though, it isn't just graphics that improve. Think of how GTA was able to achieve more of a living city feel this generation, something it lacked on the PS1.

I really think the living world idea will explode. You can see it beginning with Morrowind now, but with more processing power you can actually have people move around, possibly between towns, and have even more impressive graphical moments. Sports games will continue to improve. I'm also wondering, what sorts of brand new gaming ideas will come to the forefront. It's exciting to think about.[/quote]

Yeah that would make one sweet sim game
 
So i guess my question is will it be possible to have 100's of fluid moving characters onscreen on the upcoming systems?
Click to expand...

Believe it or not, that might not happen with the next generation. If you look at the way many developers are choosing to spend their polygon and fill rate budget (the level of complexity you see in the characters and environments) in current PC games, we might still be stuck with the same size spaces with the same number of characters, just with higher fidelity and more complex lighting. Look at Doom3, in which the largets space is about the size of a high school gymnasium and you rarely see more than 4-5 creatures on screen at once.

I agree that hundreds of characters would be nice to have, but the industry currently has a big hard-on for cramming stupid (no, really, I personally feel it's stupid) amounts of detail into the same number of characters. Which is kind of a waste, because that's not really using technology to enable anything new gameplay-wise. There was a noticeable step up in scope and complexity from PS1 to PS2, but it may not happen this time around.

I do think there will still be games like Dynasty Warriors that are about massive battles, but then, those are possible with the current generation.

Long story short, I personally am hoping the next hardware generation is a total bust sales-wise, where consumers aren't sufficiently compelled to upgrade because the graphics improvements are so incremental. Development budgets and team sizes are going to go through the roof, and only the most wealthy companies will be left standing. Yet sales won't rise commensurately. At which point I believe the industry will collapse, because if all that's on the shelves is fucking EA rehash shit, even people with abominably low standards will eventually stop buying. Then game design might start to become less about the technology and more about the creativity. We might even see the emergence of new markets and an "indie" aesthetic.

Well, that's what I *hope* will happen at least. This is based on my own experience as a game developer and caring / thinking way too much about the industry.
 
I'd be happy if the next-gen systems made every game in 1080i and 16x9 even if the graphics didn't improve al that much...
 
[quote name='int80h'][quote name='epobirs'][quote name='int80h']
They would need a shitload of RAM.
Click to expand...

Hey, if they can pack 16 GB of RAM into a laptop these days...[/quote]

Which laptop would that be? [/quote]

2 x 64-bit processors + 16 GB RAM

http://www.tadpolecomputer.com/html/products/mobile/bullfrog-dual/[/quote]

Sweet. Almost makes me want to dust off my old SparcBook. Too bad I don't have a power supply for it :(.
 
The next gen systems might be able to do that if a lot of it was scripted, and only allies and enemies near you would have AI.
 
You know there's a certain point where it's just ridiculous to add more polygons to a character that you run past on the way to killing someone else.

The average Player character this generation is what? 6000 polygons? NPCs toping out at like 3000 maybe 4000 for detailed ones. There shouldnt be any need to go much higher for characters you arnt dealing with directly all the time. with the next generation systems adding new heights to the Polycounts they might be tempted to ramp it up a few thousand but if you know you;re creating a game where 300 other people have to be running around the player, the developer has to be better at managing their resources.
 
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