Realtime immersive - Militar simulator cryengine

[Richey79 10]

If you think physics anything like this can be calculated server-side with current tech in MP, just take a look at BFBC2, with much more restrained physics than this: with any more than 24 players, the server can't handle the amount of info being sent both ways and the hit detection is ruined. The causes of this may be partly that it was a console 'port' (although Cryengine whatever version is being developed on the consoles in parallel) and it may be that the official server provider is running too much on each of their boxes. Personally, I think Arma 2's destructible environments are pushing the limits of what is possible with current public network and server capability.

The Real Time Immersive stuff looks very exciting (although Crytek's engines have never concentrated on rendering larger geographical areas), and the Cryengine itself has some very promising features. I find it a bit sad that, while we're all worked up about the engine and another what another dev team's doing with it, Crysis 2 itself looks dull as ditchwater. How do they manage to design such a boring alien race? Another totally unmemorable tech-demo campaign, with a story-line that's been woven around a few key set-pieces the engine-designers came up with long before work began on the levels. Let me guess, there'll be a tornado, an AC130, an underwater section and a part where some caves are collapsing around the player (I know these are'nt from work by Crytek, but you get the picture)?

[Pulverizer 1]

As I pointed out some of the videos are prerendered at real FPS of 1 to 2 Frames Per Second. So esentialy fake

Repeating a straw man argument doesn't make it any less invalid. Those were player-made videos done with Crysis.

None of the Realtime Immersive videos are fake. As the name implies, it's realtime, not pre-render.

[walker 0]

Repeating a straw man argument doesn't make it any less invalid. Those were player-made videos done with Crysis.

None of the Realtime Immersive videos are fake. As the name implies, it's realtime, not pre-render.

Hi Pulverizer

Nothing straw man involved I was refering to an actual video posted in this thread being treated as an example of how good this simulation was.

I am refering to this video which everyone was going Wow! to

which states at the end that it was done at 1-2 frames per second. So it was Pre Rendered in the engine then speeded up to look good.

It it something that the game could not actualy achieve in game play. I was warning people not to be fooled by trickery.

Kind Regards walker

Edited January 11, 2011 by walker

[Pulverizer 1]

Then perhaps you should've said "some of the Crysis videos posted on this thread are pre-rendered".

No one expects Crysis-like single player physics in internet multiplayer. You don't have to keep telling it's impossible over and over. It's hard to not see those kinds of posts either as an insult to the intelligence of the BI forum readers, or as straw man arguments against CryEngine.

[Baff1 0]

(although Crytek's engines have never concentrated on rendering larger geographical areas)

They use streaming technology. So the sizes of their geographical areas shouldn't have any particular limits.

If you take a look at the size of the maps in World of Warcraft for example you can see that there is no real finite limit to them in computer games any more.

I think it's more a question of how much time the artists have to create them rather than the ability of game engines and hardware to render them these days.

[whisper 0]

They use streaming technology. So the sizes of their geographical areas shouldn't have any particular limits.

If you take a look at the size of the maps in World of Warcraft for example you can see that there is no real finite limit to them in computer games any more.

I think it's more a question of how much time the artists have to create them rather than the ability of game engines and hardware to render them these days.

need to render larger view distance too, usually rather short, even on the movies shown here

And even Wow's streaming is showing loading times here and there ;) (unless they changed their techno since last time I played it long ago)

Not saying BI is unbeatable here, but from experience, I don't think that if an engine is not build from the get go with scale in mind, it will be able to render anything good while reaching its limits scale-wise.

Funny you take WoW as example, MMO are prime examples of engines thinking "scale first". They need to cater with hundreds of simultaneous players, that's their #1 priority. Everything will be designed around this.

RV original intent was scale (and freedom), it still has this history, even though I think BI got more and more away with the concept with OFP successors (well, tbh since ArmA1, which was still trying to push the limits further).

Edited January 11, 2011 by whisper

[Baff1 0]

As long as you have defragged your HDD, you shouldn't notice the streaming in WoW.

Streaming technology is pretty common in games these days.

WoW's enviroments are a lot less complex than say ArmA's or Crysis so I just run it off a regular hard drive.

In ARMA despite my running from an SSD I still get LOD popping, so the streaming tech is still noticeable.

Likewise I run Crysis from an SSD and that cuts down on the noticeablility of the streaming also. In Crysis it typically manifests as shimmering tree textures in the distance as they rez up and down.

Streaming technology however, is pretty mainstream in gaming these days.

Even consoles use streaming technology currently. Mass Effect, Oblivion, Fallout 3, Operation Flashpoint DR are titles that readily spring to mind.

Don't expect it to lag especially.

BIS in my opinion are certainly one of the technology leaders in open world gaming. But it's a busy playing field and some of their rivals have been doing it for longer than they have. Bethseda for example were releasing open world games that used streaming technology in 1996.

View distance is a play off between GFX capabilities and also netcode if you want Multiplayer.

It's a USP for the ArmA series of games and also many flight simulators.

I don't think draw distance is so much a technical hurdle as an artistic/game design one.

The Crytek engine demonstrated great view distances in Crysis in my opinion. I don't forsee this as being any issue to them whatsoever. But rather a trade off they may seek to make depending on what it is they are attempting to model or represent. What type of gameplay they are attempting to focus on.

Draw distance in a sim like America's Army for example is not needed to be so very large since the scenario's it models doesn't require very much. As such it is able to render much more detailed local enviroments.

Also clever map design in America's army limits the amount of actors that can be seen at any one time by the player, which in turn vastly reduces bandwidth usuage.

While in a flight sim such as IL2, we can see the other end of the scale. View distances of many miles tempered by the poorer resolution graphics depicting them.

Edited January 11, 2011 by Baff1

[Tonci87 163]

If you want to see some really impressive physics with cryengine take again a look at this video

watch from 1:21 and look at the metal plate on the left watchtower. Please keep looking at it until the end of the Video. Not very realistic IMHO

[Opticalsnare 12]

I just find it funny but annoying how many people bash a engine they know nothing about. I bet 3/4 of the people here havnt even made a map in the editor or when they did it was utter shit and they coundnt be arsed to invest more time exploring the editor and engine itself.

Edited January 12, 2011 by Opticalsnare

[walker 0]

Hi Opticalsnare

Changing the market

Without doubt the ease of use of the ArmA/VBS Real Virtuality (RV) engine scenario editor is one of its primary advantages. The reason other developers and indeed the primes do not want such easy technology given to the customer is that one of their primary sources of income is in providing the customer with scenarios.

The million monkey effect

It is a short sighted business model as a tens of developers cannot match the creativity of a millions of monkeys hitting all the keys and coming up with sonnets, not only that but once they learn how to make a sonnet being in actual fact "human monkeys" they can then produce sonnet after sonnet after sonnet. Also in the creating of scenarios, these training sergeant and junior officer developers better understand the concepts they are training others on, and become better at their primary task of being a soldier.

This million monkey effect is the primary driver behind the cloud computing concept. As a developer if you rely on in-house bespoke for anything other than specialist core factors of your engine then you are pitting your few tens of developers against a self training mass of thousands of developers and they will simply overwhelm you.

Any Developers that realise this are streets ahead in terms of development and have masses of resources to draw on. This is how a small company like BIS can simultaneously be nimble enough to run rings around and simultaneously overwhelm with numbers the likes of the big primes.

Letting the customer develop, and creating internal champions

This was part of BIS's strategy to change the market. Simply it placed the development of scenario content in the hands of the training sergeants and junior officers and other targeted key training personnel. Allowing them to create the training tools they needed. This gave BIS several key advantages. It turned many of those persons in to internal customer champions. It cut the scenario development business that the primes relied on out of the equation; essentially that business dried up overnight, and allowed BIS to then enter the scenario development market as a training and refinement provider.

As the provider of these new services BIS started out with advantages of both insider knowledge and experience of the product and providers of the services of those who had the requisite skill set from which to draw on, eg the modders in this community, in particular those who were former or serving military who then went on to become secure veted local contractors in each customer country.

Avoiding the secure lab trap

BIS created a concept of exposed variables for all security related details, leaving it to the customer to insert these, thereby escaping the cost of maintaining secure labs. Because the core BIS engine was staying out of the direct confidential and secure market it could make use of international development teams, that the secure lab environment precludes. Most of all this allowed BIS to make use of a wider, more experienced and skilled development team; than any Prime, restricted to the limited number of personnel, that are security cleared, and that all other primes are competing for.

This also negated the security cost based barriers (cost of expensive secure labs, vetting procedures and security cleared personnel) to entry that the Primes had relied to prevent the entry of low cost market entrants like BIS. And as soon as VBS was established it could then also go after that same security cleared jobs by supplying people from within the community which has always included very high proportions of former and serving military persons.

Mass market techniques

The key factor is that the market was changed to one conducive to the BIS business mass market model of stack it high sell it cheap, the COTS model of game engines. Giving much of the services that the bespoke suppliers relied on as included in the whole COTS package. This is not new this is what Tescos and Walmart did to the High Street butchers and the Chain Stores.

"Try before you buy" vs. "Pay through the Nose"

Once this was achieved it was then just a case of exposing as many senior people in the defense department to the product and its advantages via free trial use labs so that they could test the product, "Try before you buy", a truly shocking concept to customers used to "Pay through the Nose"; and allow them to discover for them selves that can do 80% of all the simulation that is needed but with modification tools that allow the customer or contractors to develop the final 20%. Straight up Pareto Analysis tells you to do this because that first 80% only takes 20% of the effort.

Making an offer they could not refuse

Then Make The Offer of an unlimited license that allows the customer to issue the product with a soldiers boots at a price offer of between a 10th and 100th of the cost of the best Bespoke product on the market, which only does a 10th of what the RV engine can do. It became a no brainer.

With that Done VBS became the de facto simulator of NATO and the West.

In order for any product to compete with VBS such as this CRY engine based competitor it has to match or trump this low cost strategy with a cheaper one. And because VBS is already established it is hard for a market entrant to match the users existing understanding. This means they have to provide a similar editing interface as the customer is used to it and retraining them all to a new interface is an additional cost, to the customer, that they have already born in terms of VBS training and familiarity. This can then open them to claims of infringing copyright even the hint of which legal questions can kill a project. Or they have to come up with a new interface that relies on a different set of metaphors and analogies, and hope the customer will retrain all its soldiers.

As I point out this Mass Market environment is one that is alien to the Primes and requires them to rejig their business model. This then gives BIS time to establish itself in the primes former markets.

Kind Regards walker

Edited January 13, 2011 by walker

[Lorca 10]

Wonder if that cave sculpt tool can be used on any terrain type (to make quick trenches, foxholes, craters and rivers or harbors) or just special mountains.

You can create a hole anywhere. You first have to create a so call "Voxel object" which is a wireframe box that you can place any where in the terrain. Look at this vid:

I've use the sandbox editor and its amazing how fast you can create stuff. In 15 minutes you can do a nice looking scenario because everything is done in REAL-TIME. You can place anything in the map, objects , ai, trees, etc. without worrying about parameters. In other words, you can place an enemy NPC and he will automatically know his surroundings and will hunt you down. AI are dynamic. Of course, you can set your own parameters. The Cryengine is not so much about graphics than it is about efficiency. Once you edit in real-time you don't want to go back.

Anyways, I should say now(instead of adding another post) that BIS has nothing to envy anybody. For a small company with limited resources they have stretch the boundaries of what can be done. I have seen small companies like BIS who don't do half of what BIS has done and doing right now. They are a small company with a lot of talent, commitment, heart, humility; virtues that often gets lost in the traffic of big bucks, growth and fame.

Edited January 12, 2011 by Lorca

[maturin 12]

And VBS 2 has real-time editing anyway, IIRC.

[dm 9]

I've use the sandbox editor and its amazing how fast you can create stuff. In 15 minutes you can do a nice looking scenario because everything is done in REAL-TIME. You can place anything in the map, objects , ai, trees, etc. without worrying about parameters. In other words, you can place an enemy NPC and he will automatically know his surroundings and will hunt you down. AI are dynamic. Of course, you can set your own parameters. The Cryengine is not so much about graphics than it is about efficiency. Once you edit in real-time you don't want to go back.

VBS2 has been doing that since release, so its not really all that new, or amazing ;)

[nodunit 397]

2:00+

[Muahaha 10]

2:00+

Would love to see those dynamic view distance implemented in Arma2. CryEngine I doubt has that kind of capability to do such massive environment.

[Lorca 10]

2:00+

Nice vid. Good job BIS!

[4 IN 1 0]

The video have been around for a while, it just that we shouldn't talk about in off topic but in BI general

Edited January 13, 2011 by 4 IN 1

[Maddmatt 1]

VBS2 has been doing that since release, so its not really all that new, or amazing ;)

Unlike VBS 2 it's actually available to the public and can be used by anyone with a copy of Crysis.

Also, BIS software doesn't allow that kind of terrain editing (yet, maybe they will pull it off).

[Opticalsnare 12]

Sorry walker i didnt read your post TMTR, you seem to have mistaken my post anyway, as i wasnt comparing the two game engines anyway, i was infact referring to the people who simply slam another engine, saying it cant do this and that when infact it actually can its just they are too bloody lazy to investigate the actual possibilities themselfs.

[dm 9]

Unlike VBS 2 it's actually available to the public and can be used by anyone

Last I checked, anyone can buy VBS2 too, so that excuse is null and void too.

[Maddmatt 1]

Last I checked, anyone can buy VBS2 too, so that excuse is null and void too.

It's a highly priced "simulator" sold only from BIS, while Crysis is a cheap game sold everywhere. Not a fair comparison because hardly any gamers will ever play it.

Only a few die-hard sim fans are going to buy VBS2 for entertainment purposes.

It's more fair to talk about ArmA 2's editor, because that is sold as a game to the public. Where the 3D editor from VBS2 is not included.

Crytek give their advanced modding tools away to gamers everywhere, BIS restricts them to the high paying customers and give the gamers dumbed down versions of their tools.

[noubernou 77]

It's a highly priced "simulator" sold only from BIS, while Crysis is a cheap game sold everywhere. Not a fair comparison because hardly any gamers will ever play it.

Only a few die-hard sim fans are going to buy VBS2 for entertainment purposes.

It's more fair to talk about ArmA 2's editor, because that is sold as a game to the public. Where the 3D editor from VBS2 is not included.

Crytek give their advanced modding tools away to gamers everywhere, BIS restricts them to the high paying customers and give the gamers dumbed down versions of their tools.

Still moot seeing that this is geared to be sold as a high priced simulator as well. :p

Its not like they are going to undercut a market that will pay for really expensive software.

[Laqueesha 474]

Rather than just using one or the other, create a new engine or improve the existing one incorporating similar elements based on the positive elements from all the engines. ;)

[nodunit 397]

http://www.calytrix.com/news/newsitem/135/

[noubernou 77]

http://www.calytrix.com/news/newsitem/135/

What about it?