Realtime immersive - Militar simulator cryengine

[froggyluv 2133]

Yeah. I'd certainly consider a title that has great CQB and intense dense environments, to do the stuff that ArmA2 can't quite pull off :)

Same here. As long as they kept the movement speed similar to Arma's but offered improved fluidity of movement, satisfying death animations and CQB -well I'd be very interested.

[Steakslim 1]

But can Cryengine render 10km or more viewdistance

simulate everything that RV is doing, windage,bullet drop, ricochet, non player centric structure.

Heavy usage of AI

from every crytek demo I dont see a whole lot of AI roaming about.

We dont want arma 3 to have as 64entity limit just for some fancy under water shaders etc.

As far as the engine goes, the answer is 'yes' to most of your questions as any developer can implement much of those features if they put the work into it. The AI thing is the only thing I can't say for sure. The big question is whether or not it'd run smoothly at all.

For Crysis they went the easy route with a lot of things. It's why I wanted to see more mods and games built on the engine. There was already modders making better AI scripts and such but like I mentioned before didn't go very far due to lack of support. :\ Crytek can make nice looking games, but they do fall short on a lot of things people want in gameplay, but then again they really only have interest in making fancy arcade shooters, and no one should ever think otherwise with their games.

[maturin 12]

So can that amazing foliage work with AI? I've heard that the AI in Crysis see you through all sorts of vegetation, and videos of people getting shot in dense jungle seem to support that.

[Heatseeker 0]

I dont know why everyone is jumping in their pants over this.. we've seen all that when Crysis came out, including the ingame level editor and the ability to edit terrain geometry like that, its even included in the crysis demo, atleast i remember destroying that level as much as i could :D .

Dont get me wrong, i'd love to see a new fps on Cry Engine but this is clearly not it..

[Leopardi 0]

So can that amazing foliage work with AI? I've heard that the AI in Crysis see you through all sorts of vegetation, and videos of people getting shot in dense jungle seem to support that.

The AI just sprays randomly in the jungle.

[Flash Thunder 10]

In other words this engine would be just as handicapped as Codemasters Ego technology is at making a Military Simulator.

Accounting all other factors once the core engine is set in stone..

The best thing IMO with Cryengine is its physical interaction capabilities and its animation pipeline.

Somethings that would immensely help Arma 2 in the visual aspect aswell as gameplay when you account accurate/dynamic physics simulation.

Give the hardware more time to mature and BIS more time and will likely see similar results in terms of animation and physics and overall graphical quality.

[twisted 127]

Looks like Real Time Immersive Inc is using CryEngine3 to develop a military simulation which will be the rival of VBS.

http://www.rt-immersive.com/?id=1

This is the next generation military Sim... (Sorry BIS)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SYUrbOvzlsQ

Unfortunately it'll probably be out of our price range...

incredible stuff. wonder how far it can render and how big the terrain can be.

Edited January 8, 2011 by twisted

[Maddmatt 1]

It's amazing how people see some cool demos and immediately think it's like a better version of ArmA 2 and BIS must use the engine.

Consider that major parts needed to make something like ArmA 2 are still missing.

Squad based AI that can navigate a huge map, fight large scale battles, detailed weapon simulation ect.

I imagine this will be used to rehearse small scale scenarios, much like what VBS2 is used for. With a few humans and simple AI playing insurgents while a squad of soldiers plays the other side to rehearse tactics.

Making a commercial game out of it will require much more work and a big budget to fill in the things that a game needs. Unless they want to sell it as a cheap multiplayer-only game, which could be something like Americas Army with support for bigger maps, more vehicles and Crysis-like graphics.

Does look very cool though. Would be awesome if it really was turned into a commercial game.

Edited January 8, 2011 by Maddmatt

[sic-disaster 311]

But can Cryengine render 10km or more viewdistance

simulate everything that RV is doing, windage,bullet drop, ricochet, non player centric structure.

Heavy usage of AI

from every crytek demo I dont see a whole lot of AI roaming about.

We dont want arma 3 to have as 64entity limit just for some fancy under water shaders etc.

For an ArmA 3 it would have to have that.

But does it really have to be a new ArmA? Why not create a new IP, get a fresh start even though it might be a smaller scale game?

Personally i wouldnt have a problem if they made an oldschool tactical shooter with this engine, as it DOES offer a lot of possibilities.

It doesnt have to render 200 soldiers on screen including tanks, helicopters, boats and whatnot to be a good tactical shooter, or a good sim.

It wouldnt be ArmA but if it's a new IP it wouldnt have to be.

At the same time, getting such a fresh start might attract a lot of new people who were previously turned off by ArmA's problems (bugs, lack of proper animations, performance etc etc).

Now i'm not talking about dumbing the game down. Many people will know me as a person who fights every possibility that might dumb a game down.

But fact is that there are a lot of people who do like tactical shooters a lot, they hear about ArmA and it's features and absolutely love it, but when they play the game somehow it doesnt come out right. Now i love ArmA as does the rest of us here who can look past problems and wait for patches, but i think it's safe to say that some of ArmA's problems have been around since OFP:CWC and will never go away. Hence the reason people ask for a new engine, to get a fresh start.

Now i also do not see it happening, BIS getting a new engine and creating a game that offers as much as ArmA does right off the bat.

It is impossible, because they worked for 10 years to get ArmA where it is now. It's simply implausable. But they cant stick with this engine forever.

Some time they have got to make the change, and when they do IN MY OPINION this engine would offer a lot of interesting stuff.

If BIS create a new IP on this engine that would be on par or larger than say, original Ghost Recon, you would still have a hell of a big game. After that, they can keep on adding and adding new features and bring it closer to the content and features that ArmA offers atm.

Personally, i LOVE ArmA. I LOVE IT. But at the same time i wouldnt be very pleased with ArmA 3 still being on the same engine as OFP, ArmA1 and ArmA 2. because i think there is a very high chance some of the problems that OFP had will still be here for ArmA 3.

Hell, they wouldnt have to use CryEngine at all but they do need a new engine at some point, if they write it themselves or not.

[soul_assassin 1745]

I'm a little confused why everyone is talking as if Arma has some kind of uber AI that doesn't fly into th ground, doesn't just sit and wait there for no reason, doesnt attack tanks with pistols...etc etc etc...

[ben_s 11]

BIS really needs a new engine, But CryEngine is not the path for BIS to go down. If someone throws out some competition for ArmA, Real competition, It's better than having BIS create and use new engines.

Not that the RV engine is perfect, its got plenty of bugs, But that engine is what makes ArmA what it is, and it might lose quite a large chunk of what we would call "ArmA's personality" whilst playing it.

Competition would be better than BIS just re-doing their own engine.

[rksl-rock 1300]

But can Cryengine render 10km or more viewdistance

simulate everything that RV is doing, windage,bullet drop, ricochet, non player centric structure.

Heavy usage of AI

from every crytek demo I dont see a whole lot of AI roaming about.

We dont want arma 3 to have as 64entity limit just for some fancy under water shaders etc.

I seriously doubt we'll see RTI release a game we'll see in the stores. They are catering for the Serious Games market just like BIA/BISim/VBS2. I saw the demo at a trade show last year, it was very impressive. But its being touted as a platform to build specific applications upon, not a ArmA2 like game. They have said that it will eventually be able to compete with VBS2 but i think we'll have to give it some time and development before it becomes a proper competitor

The cryengine3 is pretty capable and what RTI seem to be doing is very similar to what BIA has done with the OFP and ArmA1 engines. They are rewriting/adapting sections of the engine to allow for expansion. Whether that is graphical or functional it can be added in. People should also remember that the entity limits are imposed due to hardware/performance requirements of the "average" gamer and console. They can be removed or adjusted. VBS2 has done it with ArmA1. Why can't the Cryengine be similarly "updated"?

If it can be, and if someone were to create an ArmA2 competitor. And as much as I love ArmA2, I think it would be a very interesting competition to watch. But I think BIS would need to update the RV engine for ArmA3 to compete in the graphical stakes.

[walker 0]

I agree it's not hard to understand :) videos like this are made in rendertime not realtime, which means it's rendered out in frames (however long it takes each frame to calculate & render) then stitched together to make an animation:

TE3SEKCdWB0

Hi all

Note the important bit at the end of the video.

Real Frame Rate 1 to 2 Frames Per Second (FPS).

I suspect that while it may be a great physics engine, its results will only be of use in pre-recorded cutscene videos. For the real game play they will have to chuck most of the Physics, for SP they have to limit entity count to about 16 entities perhaps 32 at a push and absolutley none of it will work in MP.

The physics of real world computing.

THE thing is most people that whine for real physics engines do not understand is: the physics of real world computing. Every calculation costs CPU and GPU time. In MP they cost bandwidth. When chaotic eg realistic real world physics are modeled in a sim you can have an ultra realistic visual representation but physics and in particular the speed of light means you can not have it in real time across the net. In the end you have to compromise and represent an aproximation that is useful.

That is why the Real Virtuality Engine can do it but the Cry Engine can not.

Kind Regards walker

Edited January 8, 2011 by walker

[dmarkwick 261]

I'm a little confused why everyone is talking as if Arma has some kind of uber AI that doesn't fly into th ground, doesn't just sit and wait there for no reason, doesnt attack tanks with pistols...etc etc etc...

Are you suggesting the CryEngine doesn't? Of course not, it doesn't have any AI yet, it's not fully fleshed out as a game. Therefore, no-one is discussing it :) I think the point is that A2 even has this adaptive AI in the first place, which, speaking personally, I find very effective in almost every situation. Not all, but I choose not to dwell on the exceptions :)

Edited January 8, 2011 by DMarkwick

[Maddmatt 1]

I'm a little confused why everyone is talking as if Arma has some kind of uber AI that doesn't fly into th ground, doesn't just sit and wait there for no reason, doesnt attack tanks with pistols...etc etc etc...

Err, no they're not.

[Archamedes 10]

I fail to see what that tech demo has to do with ArmA2 in general.

thats kind of the problem... Arma2 doesn't have it

[walker 0]

Hi all

First up to those who keep saying that ArmA 3 should have a totaly new game engine.

...But at the same time i wouldnt be very pleased with ArmA 3 still being on the same engine as OFP, ArmA1 and ArmA 2. because i think there is a very high chance some of the problems that OFP had will still be here for ArmA 3.

Hell, they wouldnt have to use CryEngine at all but they do need a new engine at some point, if they write it themselves or not.

Sorry but you are wrong and I have explaned why on mutiple occasions. It is obvious that you do not understand computer development if you keep saying silly things like this. You do not ditch millions of dollars of development costs and millions of hours of development time to replace it with a product that does not even exist. At the3 most you paralell develop and keep the good bits of the core product. As any product developer.

I suspect, under pressure from those big Prime contractors, that the makers of Cry Engine are falling into the exact same trap as Codemasters, of failing to do the real world math of how many calculations are required to do this and how many can my target system cope with.

Those primes

•Lockheed Martin

•Thales

•General Dynamics

•Bechtel

•Kapl

•Cubic

•Meggitt

etc. are hurting bad because VBS destroyed the market for multi billion dollar bespoke sims that promise a lot but deliver nothing and replaced with a mass Commercial Off The Shelf (COTS) product that does what it says on the tin.

In so doing BIS changed the Market from bespoke to mass produced and now those primes have become dinosaurs in the simulation market.

So they have desperately partnered with the Cryengine developers, in order to create a stalking horse competitor to VBS, pocket some up to date research, commercial Games developers are actually way in advance of the military contractor primes on cutting edge simulation, and in a desperate hope that they can fool a few "about to retire to a non executive directorship in the commercial sector" generals with some gucci recorded graphics.

The CryEngine developers are seeing it as a way to get their research paid for by the primes, They should beware! The CryEngine developers may be in for a shock when those same primes say the research is for the Army and cannot be used in an internationally available game or get the Army to claim the whole product for national security reasons, or just claim breach of contract because the physics wont work in MP. That is how several games company have been burned in the past by military contractor prime partners.

Kind Regards walker

Edited January 8, 2011 by walker

[Pulverizer 1]

If you try MW Living Legends mod, you will find that even CryEngine2 MP maps can feature what seems like a thousand collapsible trees that will roll down hills with physics etc and it works just fine on internet MP with 20 players. You could probably multiply that physics object count hundred times on a gigabit LAN as far as network bw goes (obviously there will be cpu/ppu constraints too), which I assume would be used for military training instead of slow-ass internet connections, rendering the speed of light a completely negligible limitation.

Edited January 8, 2011 by Pulverizer

[walker 0]

Hi Pulverizer

I bet all those physics are being separately calculated on the clients and not broadcast over the net to those 20 players after being calculated on the server.

If you do not understand what the consequences of this are for the accuracy of a net capable simulation. Then I feel sorry for you.

Educate your self about Sensitive Dependence on Initial Conditions.

Kind Regards Walker

Edited January 8, 2011 by walker

[Pulverizer 1]

What part of "with physics" you did not understand? The tree trunks will block players and bullets alike.

[walker 0]

Hi Pulverizer.

Statement of Fact

If the same physics based simulation calculations is carried out on those 20 clients each of those clients will see those trees in a different place.

Explanation

Even assuming each of the clients was running on the exact same console design, Heck even if you run your physics based calculation on the same computer 20 times this is so! Inconsistencies in the chip, timing, heat, the simple fact that client {A} turns left but it takes time to pass that information to all other clients, and indeed the very fundament internal workings of standard Newtonian physics make for microsecond differences, that a physics based calculation then multiplies thousands of time per second with each interation of the calculations.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_mechanics

Result

So in case {A} you will have tree trunk in front of you to hide behind but in case {B} there is no tree trunk to hide behind, in case {C} the client sees client {B} squashed by the same tree trunk etc. multiply by number of clients, but worse each error builds on the last in a cascading set that means by the smallest of differences a storm of differences between each client results. That is why it is also called the Butterfly Effect.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butterfly_effect

Effects

It looks pretty but the internal inconsistancies destroy it as an MP method.

Like I said look up "Sensitive Dependence on Initial Conditions"

Kind Regards walker

Edited January 8, 2011 by walker

[Pulverizer 1]

LOL, you always crack me up, Walker :) I'm not gonna bother with your wikipedia links. It's just some trees that fall down. I don't care if they worked by magic, as long as they go down when I drive my mech into them.

And it's not like Arma has perfect net code. It often breaks down completely and has warping issues (ie bad client-side prediction), desyncs everyone when new clients connect etc. You can get killed by a seemingly invisible (lagging player) guy/tank in Arma, that's way worse than having some tree trunk misplaced by a few centimeters in a mod about 10m tall mechs.

Edited January 8, 2011 by Pulverizer

[walker 0]

Hi Pulverizer

You do not seem to understand that if the tree stops bullets as you say.

What part of "with physics" you did not understand? The tree trunks will block players and bullets alike.

Client {A}'s Computer says he is safe behind a tree. Client {B} shoots him because according to his computer he is out in the open with no cover anywhere near him and Client {C}'s computer says client {B} is already dead so he could not have fired the shot in the first place. This means their versions of reality are desynchronised, that is what desync is, and as a result all three clients are bugged and crash. This why Codemasters had to scale down their DReck offering until there was almost nothing left, because they made a fundamental error in choosing a complex multi particle ragdoll type physics based system.

I do not know how much more simple I can make it for you.

As to the wikipedia links if you are not able to understand basic physics then showing you more complex papers on a science site is way beyond you and there is nothing I can do for you. :(

Such physics is fundamentaly MP unsuitable I doubt your 20 player count example so can you provide a link, and it would never reach the basic level of 32 Players never mind 100 Player plus servers that ArmA runs. As to high entity counts and CPU left over to run complex AI and scripts Not a chance in Hell.

Kind Regards Walker

Edited January 8, 2011 by walker

[noubernou 77]

Yea thats the thing that a lot of people do not realize with all that stuff going on... When its a run and gun shooter it doesnt really matter where all the debris fall... In a sim it does. That is a lot of network traffic, even in ArmA2 its hard to get on top of minimizing network traffic.

---------- Post added at 02:36 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:35 PM ----------

Then again, technically, if all the random data is seeded the same on all clients, and the physics engine reacts exactly the same on all clients you can get away with assuming a lot of things are the same on all clients. In practice that is a lot harder.

[Rommel 2]

Then again, technically, if all the random data is seeded the same on all clients, and the physics engine reacts exactly the same on all clients you can get away with assuming a lot of things are the same on all clients. In practice that is a lot harder.

Surely you could allow for the synchronization of some things? ArmA 2 doesn't perfectly synchronize anything outside of the players view distance, go on to a MP server and the discrepancies between clients can be several hundred meters with fast moving vehicles.