Realtime immersive - Militar simulator cryengine

[nodunit 397]

Not entirerly true, in the case of Crysis (that is the original not 2) the community was able to do some great stuff, some of it may not have been relayed in the most asthetic way but it got the job done. A few examples of these would be the system inspired by mirrors edge, mods that added bullet penetration as well as more weapon authenticity in function.

And some more silly but no less impressive mods such as spreading fires and there are even groups dedicated to getting fixed wing to work. Hell I believe one our old community members Fortran was (is?) working on a helicopter mod that changes everything about helicopters in Crysis, from the flight model to being more fluid vs the standard on rails, and actual functioning instruments as opposed to the completely static setup in crysis aircraft.

The engine has a great deal of potential, the trick..like any other is how to unlock that potential.

[chortles 263]

Imagine ArmA 4 or 5 or whatever 50000 square killometers terrain with lush vegenation, realistic sound, physics, effects, etc. It's possible even now, but you won't see it happen, because big corps wont allow for that to happen as long masses are willing to pay for 80USD 2005 refurbished game (CODW, W for whatever)

And why would either the "big corps" -- devs included -- or non-milsim gamers want the above anyway when they're not looking to make/distribute/play milsim anyway? ;)

Funny thing is, to me (and evidently a lot of the non-milsim viewers) Arma 3's looking really good in the visual aspects that used to belong to the "visuals-based shooters"... which seems consistent with Jay and Ivan's comments about development earlier this year. :p Then again, their development goals seemed to be less "what does the community want" (in and of itself) and more "what will result in enough revenue to exceed the monetary costs of making Arma 3 without having to rely on profits from other ventures like DayZ (standalone) or VBS2"...

And to weigh in (again) on MOH Warfighter... it being on rails wasn't that game's real problem, although "on rails" was symptomatic thereof.

Edited December 14, 2012 by Chortles

[metalcraze 290]

So? It doesn't mean it is a bad game, it just isn't for you.

Of course. I just got used to real games way too much.

If you are impressed by a generic "hoo-ah marines vs. aliens that squeel like pigs" plot that is exactly the same in at least 2-3 games a year coupled with "gameplay" that is entirely based on cheats like /notarget - by all means.

On-topic:

I like how in that video they still don't show any gameplay. Even the ending is utterly scripted with soldiers running into an IED and bullets with long smoke-traces like in Crysis. :rolleyes:

No matter how it's named Crytek will be Crytek.

Have you used ARMA or VBS2 an placed a IED on the road? You can spot that shit easily

And what makes you think ArmA/VBS2 are incapable of high detail and it will be any different in CryEngine?

When military orders a map of some area they want to train in - do you think they will wait two years until it's done? According to one of the interviews they expect a finished product in 3 months.

Not exactly a huge timeframe to make several armies with simulated vehicles and a 200 sq.km map.

And RTI showed that same street consisting of 10 buildings 1 year ago.

Edited December 14, 2012 by metalcraze

[MAVEN 1]

MilSim games - Functionality and education for the public (ArmA series).

MilSims - Simulator tools for military (VBS series).

Shooters - Warfare games with eye candy graphics and little sense (COD, BF, etc)

Different products for different audiences...

[chortles 263]

Wow, someone who recognizes that Arma is a game and not (just) milsim, that's an improvement over the usual beliefs! :lol: Seriously, good for getting 'different products for different audiences'.

[maturin 12]

The trend towards cinema and away from gameplay in modern shooters has nothing to do with the simulator/game dichotomy, and did not used to be the case.

[NZXSHADOWS 0]

And what makes you think ArmA/VBS2 are incapable of high detail and it will be any different in CryEngine?

When military orders a map of some area they want to train in - do you think they will wait two years until it's done? According to one of the interviews they expect a finished product in 3 months.

Not exactly a huge timeframe to make several armies with simulated vehicles and a 200 sq.km map.

And RTI showed that same street consisting of 10 buildings 1 year ago.

I didnt say they was incapable. You can create all the high detailed content in the world you want. Long as its in the boundaries of the game engine. 3months

you say? I hope they like that flat terrain.

[PuFu 4600]

CryEngine is all about visuals and little about functionality.

Visually, the engine is great it boasts good graphics. But when it comes to functionality there comes a problem.

Developers have to choose two things when developing a title - Will they go for appearance or functionality, because nobody's budget is ever big enough to cover everything. Games like BF3, COD, Crysis 3, etc are developed with visuals in mind, in other words, make a quick buck with less bang. While games/simulators like ArmA 2, VBS2, DCS series are designed with functionality with a goal to primarily educate and then entertain, in some cases train even.

While true, Cry Engine, opposed to mass belief, is more than fancy graphics. Surely, it is that as well, but it does support a number of physical real simulation than RV engine for instance doesn't. Not to say that the SDK is properly done.

Another issue all games and developers face today is outdated software. Sure you get all the eye popping iron sights, explosions, attachments, animated menus, etc, but that's old stuff, it was invented decades ago. A good example is tesselation, MS claims like it's a brand new feature and a big breakthrough, but did you know tesselation aka subdivision was invented few decades ago? The heck, I used that feature in my own game prototype and CGI design when I was a teen and still learning.

It's all marketing, people gotta make for a living somehow.

Tessellation is far from new technology, agreed, but M$ doesn't market it the way you say. Instead, Real Time Adaptive Tesselation combined with Texture Map Displacement Technology is indeed new to the PC gaming scene. next in line would vector displacement maps. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Displacement_(vector)

BTW: Tesselation is NOT equivalent to Sub-D: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subdivision_surface

There's a really nice tech by Euclideon called Unlimited Detail. Some say it's fake, but there was a live demo released that shows how this kind of tech is indeed a game changer. If Devs had the chance to use something like that, they would no longer focus on spending mountains of money on visual development, but add functionality to their products, and for those who do add great functionality visuals would no longer be a problem.

It's not fake. And it is nowhere near new. Remember Delta Force (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Video_games_with_voxel_graphics)? It is the same system(voxels - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voxel) It's just really not feasible for games (or in fact it is, in complementing polygons).

Issues with voxels - textures, animations, asset creation, physics and interaction. I could go into detail, but it't not really the place here. Same goes for point cloud technology (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Point_cloud).

Imagine ArmA 4 or 5 or whatever 50000 square killometers terrain with lush vegenation, realistic sound, physics, effects, etc. It's possible even now, but you won't see it happen, because big corps wont allow for that to happen as long masses are willing to pay for 80USD 2005 refurbished game (CODW, W for whatever)

enormous sized terrain are possible only via some sort of automation generation. Manual labor (placing the assets and designing all the small details) is out of the question, unless the dev cycle is around 10-20 years.

And what makes you think ArmA/VBS2 are incapable of high detail and it will be any different in CryEngine?

Rv engine is capable of high detail. It lacks (at the moment) a proper lighting system, a proper physics engine, and some advanced shaders to work with. All of those can be implemented along the way

When military orders a map of some area they want to train in - do you think they will wait two years until it's done? According to one of the interviews they expect a finished product in 3 months.

Not exactly a huge timeframe to make several armies with simulated vehicles and a 200 sq.km map.

LOL what? Where did you read this lie from?

BTW, speed for asset creation depends on a lot of factors. just as a side note, it is easier to get an asset into CE3 than it is to do it for RV (mainly because of the SDK tools provided, as well as the fact that CE3 supports natively SKP files, as well as other industry standard formats).

[max power 21]

While that point cloud demo may not be fake, last I read, materials and transformations seem to be a problem for it so its actual utility is questionable. I would like to see a demo where all of these statues aren't facing the same direction.

[MAVEN 1]

PuFu.

Yes, CryEngine isn't all graphics and explosions. It does have a really really good editor and well done SDK. The thing is, not many use it for functionality, thus CryEngine is relatively new to simulations.

Crytek saw this and decided to advertise CryEngine for simulations, in a hope someone will adopt it and make a great product that will add a lot more functionality than it has now in released products. The same is with every game engine. Game engines can be upgraded to fit purpose, they aren't a closed product where you have to make new one for new games, you simply upgrade, ArmA series engine can boast superb graphics and functionality as well, but that does need a lot of work and would impact gaming performance greatly.

Tesselation is sort of new to gaming industry, in a way it's actually a cheaper version of subdivision (because tessellation smoothens only some parts of a 3D object, while subdivision does this completely) Vectors aren't new to gaming industry actually, there are few games that use this, most notably indie games made in past 5 years. In fact. Battlefield Play4Free features this tech for testing on some of its maps (can be seen on carriers, white markings, etc)

I didn't say voxels are new tech, I've been using them for long time, 3DSMax, Cinema4D, anim8r, those are developers tools. Even in gaming industry some concept games use voxels. What I was referring to as a new tech in unlimited detail weren't voxels but the way the software renders massive amount of voxels right on an average laptop. The tech even features polygon converter so that developers can convert polygon objects to voxels and vice versa then apply Euclideons software to render it live. The main advantage in polygons vs voxels isn't just level of detail, but that 3D scanners use voxels, so developers can simply scan real life objects and port them directly into their game. Military is using this type of tech for years, but Unlimited Detail is the 1st to try reach public and gaming industry.

About enormous terrains, that's true. Take a look at Fuel tech demos, there are few on Youtube. Those explain how such random generation works. And it's not as super complex as it may seem. In fact, game engine needs only bits of information to load objects into memory, the same method is used in ArmA 2 and expansions for the massive terrains and detail. Combine this kind of level moddeling with some technology like Unlimited Detail, and all of a sudden you get super-realistic gaming experience that is actually playable on an average system.

[PuFu 4600]

Tesselation is sort of new to gaming industry, in a way it's actually a cheaper version of subdivision (because tessellation smoothens only some parts of a 3D object, while subdivision does this completely) Vectors aren't new to gaming industry actually, there are few games that use this, most notably indie games made in past 5 years. In fact. Battlefield Play4Free features this tech for testing on some of its maps (can be seen on carriers, white markings, etc)

Tesselation is not used for smoothing, it's used to increased the geometry available, so that it can be used in conjunction with displacement maps.

I wasn't talking about vectors, i was talking about displacements vectors. It is not the same thing.

I didn't say voxels are new tech, I've been using them for long time, 3DSMax, Cinema4D, anim8r, those are developers tools. Even in gaming industry some concept games use voxels. What I was referring to as a new tech in unlimited detail weren't voxels but the way the software renders massive amount of voxels right on an average laptop. The tech even features polygon converter so that developers can convert polygon objects to voxels and vice versa then apply Euclideons software to render it live. The main advantage in polygons vs voxels isn't just level of detail, but that 3D scanners use voxels, so developers can simply scan real life objects and port them directly into their game. Military is using this type of tech for years, but Unlimited Detail is the 1st to try reach public and gaming industry.

3d scaners uses 3d meshes or point cloud data. NOT voxels. This sort of scanned data need to be cleaned up afterwards anyways, i know how you can do it with polygons, have no idea how one can do it with point cloud.

About enormous terrains, that's true. Take a look at Fuel tech demos, there are few on Youtube. Those explain how such random generation works. And it's not as super complex as it may seem. In fact, game engine needs only bits of information to load objects into memory, the same method is used in ArmA 2 and expansions for the massive terrains and detail. Combine this kind of level moddeling with some technology like Unlimited Detail, and all of a sudden you get super-realistic gaming experience that is actually playable on an average system.

Not to burst your bubble, but i think you are a bit to optimistic. We'll see what future holds in terms of technology, but as it stands right now, unless they sort of the limitation of their technology, there won'y be any games released anytime soon.

[NZXSHADOWS 0]

Check out this mechanical trainer simulator looking what cha call it thingy video. Looks good I wonder if it was setup with the actual control box for the controls Im sure it was but still i would like to see it. Things like this is must be good practice. All the equipment you want could have trainers like this an would be a great advancement in experience with the equipment. If its low cost of course. Which Im guessing its probably not. Then its useless .

94AS8PeSLpE

[MAVEN 1]

Tesselation is not used for smoothing, it's used to increased the geometry available, so that it can be used in conjunction with displacement maps.

I wasn't talking about vectors, i was talking about displacements vectors. It is not the same thing.

3d scaners uses 3d meshes or point cloud data. NOT voxels. This sort of scanned data need to be cleaned up afterwards anyways, i know how you can do it with polygons, have no idea how one can do it with point cloud.

Not to burst your bubble, but i think you are a bit to optimistic. We'll see what future holds in terms of technology, but as it stands right now, unless they sort of the limitation of their technology, there won'y be any games released anytime soon.

What's the difference between the two vector types? Can you pin a demo video or an article? Learning something new is always fun.

I'm not too optimistic. I just know there is a tech, resources and possibility, but I don't really hold onto it that we will see stunning games like that anytime soon..

[PuFu 4600]

What's the difference between the two vector types? Can you pin a demo video or an article? Learning something new is always fun.

I'm not too optimistic. I just know there is a tech, resources and possibility, but I don't really hold onto it that we will see stunning games like that anytime soon..

It's not a different type of vector, but a completely different type of displacement map.

http://wiki.polycount.com/VectorDisplacementMap

Edited December 16, 2012 by PuFu

[MAVEN 1]

It's not a different type of vector, but a completely type of displacement map.

http://wiki.polycount.com/VectorDisplacementMap

I see. Thanks for the link. Really neat tech :) Simplifies a lot of things for both developers and games.

[PuFu 4600]

I see. Thanks for the link. Really neat tech :) Simplifies a lot of things for both developers and games.

Here's the catch: it doesn't currently work in any of the games engines out there. That is why i was saying that the next step for DX tech is tesselation + vector displacement maps.

[MAVEN 1]

Here's the catch: it doesn't currently work in any of the games engines out there. That is why i was saying that the next step for DX tech is tesselation + vector displacement maps.

Making money, if it wasn't for the money part, all those cool inventions would be introduced to public very fast ;)

Well. Time to go on with my regular stuff and wait until games catch up to expectations:rolleyes:

Edit: After a brief look at all of the videos and the website. This "game" doesn't look that bad. It has good visuals, but doesn't seem to be perfect solution for large scale combat. What it does promise by its look is something that most simulators lack - CQB. All those neat visuals, audio and terrain detail can be used to build realistic CQB, unlike for example in VBS or VBS2. This reminds me of SWAT 4, the best CQB game to date, even though old, it still has unmatched tactical play when it comes to CQB gaming and tactics, its community is mature and there are many players, it was also used by several special weapons and tactics units for training purposes. SWAT 4 and A2 are the only two games I play lately in fact.

Anyway.

A2/VBS2 > RealTime Immersive. Not because I play A2, but simply put, eye candy graphics don't define a well made product. RealTime Immersive looks like AA3 on steroids yet still lacks many things.

Edited December 17, 2012 by MAVEN

[walker 0]

Hi all

It is interesting that this low quality film generator is classed by some of the people as a real time simulator.

You can fool some of the people all the time.

Kind Regards

[chortles 263]

Edit: After a brief look at all of the videos and the website. This "game" doesn't look that bad. It has good visuals, but doesn't seem to be perfect solution for large scale combat. What it does promise by its look is something that most simulators lack - CQB. All those neat visuals, audio and terrain detail can be used to build realistic CQB, unlike for example in VBS or VBS2. This reminds me of SWAT 4, the best CQB game to date, even though old, it still has unmatched tactical play when it comes to CQB gaming and tactics, its community is mature and there are many players, it was also used by several special weapons and tactics units for training purposes. SWAT 4 and A2 are the only two games I play lately in fact.

Truthbetold I wouldn't be surprised if two things apply:

#1: The emphasis on CQB footage is at least in part to set it apart in marketing from VBS2

#2: That military customers may decide at least in part on what their priorities (as far as infantry combat ranges -- large scale versus small scale) are, as well as the would-be simulators' ability to do stuff besides infantry CQB.

[BlackLord 0]

Still no proper gameplay vids after all this time, that's a big red flag for me.

[max power 21]

I don't believe it's intended to be publicly available commercial software anyway, so even if you liked the 'gameplay' of the simulator tool or not, the point would be moot.

[BlackLord 0]

True. Anyway I've found some gameplay footage, imho it's not very impressive.

There's some gunplay at around 2:45.

Surprise, surprise, it lags and stutters despite running on the Cryengine.

[NeMeSiS 11]

True. Anyway I've found some gameplay footage, imho it's not very impressive.

There's some gunplay at around 2:45.

Surprise, surprise, it lags and stutters despite running on the Cryengine.

As filmed by pope John Paul II, couldn't he put the camera down? :)

I agree it does not seem very impressive.

[walker 0]

Hi all

Apparently abandoned.

Kind Regards walker

[myshaak 0]

Difficult to say, there is some footage of it here (@2:11, most of it we saw earlier)

Btw, take note of Warhorse right at the end, game developed by a studio with the lead guy behing Mafia in charge :)