Ritual Entertainment's Question of the Week

[Chris D]

As some may be aware, Ritual Entertainment who are the developers of the upcoming Source engine game SiN Episodes, have a long history of developing powerful tools and modifying game engines.[br]With tools like ÜberTools for Quake III already successfully established, they've also made several noteworthy changes to the Source engine, including damage zones for vehicles.[br]Every week, fan site Ritualistic gets addressed by Ritual's QA manager with a new question and this week's is asking for the community's feedback on what they'd like to see included in the Source engine:

If you could pick three (3) features to be added to, or enhanced in the Source engine, what would they be?

If you want to see specific features appearing in the Source engine at some point in the future, then head over to their QotW thread to give your opinions.[br]Meanwhile, you can find more information on SiN Episodes by visiting my fansite at SiNEpisodes.net or the official website at SiNEpisodes.com.

 

[Sui]

you can find more information on SiN Episodes by visiting my fansite at SiNEpisodes.net.

Wow, what's this!? A fansite that furfils all my basic SiN related desires? My, what a wonderful discovery! when I've stopped drooling, I might have to visit the forums! And... I know... click some adverts for fun!!!

As a Staff Member of Halflife2.net, I fully endorse this SiN related fansite! In fact, it makes me happy all over! Click here, and you can be happy too!

 

[Chris D]

Wow, what's this!? A fansite that furfils all my basic SiN related desires? My, what a wonderful discovery! when I've stopped drooling, I might have to visit the forums! And... I know... click some adverts for fun!!!

As a Staff Member of Halflife2.net, I fully endorse this SiN related fansite! In fact, it makes me happy all over! Click here, and you can be happy too!

It's supposed to be me doing the shameless plugs. Oh, wait... I did.

 

[Gusdor]

I would like some logic added to the mod tools tbh. Compiling stuff into proprietry formats? Why?! Exporters that dont reset object orientation axis when exporting to SMD so that attachment orientation is borked? WHY!?

Refraction shader occluding sprites? WHY!!?
Self illuminating textures throwing a spas when drawn against water? Why?
Fix these and i'll be happy

 

[Ermac]

Finaly some news about something Intresting, in my opinion!

 

[bgesley426]

1. Updating the physics engine with Endorphin

2. Allowing alternative voice/audio codecs

3. Midgets. Everywhere.

 

[polyguns]

well will the new engine for sin be moddable?

how about this: FIX DA LOAD TIMES AND LIMITED MAP SIZES

also, more dynamic lighting and shadows, like fear d3 fc. that would really help to show off the nomral maps a bit better

oh, did anyone say midgets everywhere?

 

[Smigit]

a) Dynamic Lighting
b) updated physics
c) Midgets. Everywhere.

 

[guchi]

1. mountains
2. trees
3. midgit

 

[Asuka]

No specific order.

1: Pixel Shader 3.0
2: Full real time shadows + soft shadows
3: Better ai. (F.E.A.R)

 

[nutcrackr]

1. Ability to equip hands to get a "feel" for Jessica Cannon in the shower scene
2. More fences and barrels
3. Mirrors

 

[Kare Bear]

I hope they make there own textures,im sick of seeing the hl2 ones used over an over again.:frown:

 

[Kyorisu]

1. Dynamic lighting ie Full Day/Night Time.
2. Seamless level loading.
3. Non scripted AI tactics.

 

[FictiousWill]

A unified development suite and true modular engine.

HAHAHAHAHAHA

 

[Geogriffith]

Every week, fan site Ritualistic gets addressed by Ritual's QA manager with a new question

Wait. What?

Why is the guy from Ritual asking a fan site for answers?

 

[$kelet0r]

1 - built in situational ai + body awareness
2 - a modmaker that can be created in a real time environment in fps view
3 - general graphical improvements = water effects, lighting, dynamic shadows

 

[Chris D]

Wait. What?

Why is the guy from Ritual asking a fan site for answers?

Yes, it's called community feedback which is also known as "asking the people that actually play their games what they want in the upcoming titles".

 

[^Ben]

I love the people saying "zomg soft shadows please!" Have you actually seen fear? That game is ugly because of the performance of those soft shadows.

And the people askign for all the high end featurse probably would not be able to rund the game, always good for a laugh.

 

[Asuka]

Fear looks fine here and runs great with all the settings on max. Dunno what your talking about but soft shadows rock.

 

[^Ben]

:roll:

Ok, if you actually break down the enviroments(I know your a fear fanboy so I dunno why i'm doing this) most of the enviroments are broken up into simple objects and mainly squares.

And the textures? ERGH! Atleast doom and quake pull of the 3 colour pallete well.

 

[subtlesnake]

1.) An improved shadow algorithm - better shadow mapping for dynamic objects, ideally full shadow buffers

2.) Better A.I - In line with what we see in F.E.A.R

3.) Biozeminades

 

[polyguns]

he don't know what hes talking about either.

i think even riddick had that. riddick engine is the pwnage, best so far.


--i do agree with someone, improving the physics enging. hl2 pgysics are fun and arcadish, but very unrealistic. things just flop around like cardboard all the time, even combine

 

[^Ben]

Yeah then you compare riddicks enviroments with a game with out "soft" shadows, and you can see the glaring differences.

Small enviroments, low poly objects, not very many of those high poly objects.

And on top of that riddick is a recourse hog.

 

[Smigit]

And the people askign for all the high end featurse probably would not be able to rund the game, always good for a laugh.

Perhaps you cant but I can. Running HL2 on max looks dated nowdays. So what if fears environments arent high polygon, it makes squat difference when your actually playing the game. Id say FEAR looks better ingame than HL2 does, screen shots HL2 probably wins but thats not where it matters.

Soft shadows has no effect on anything like polygon count ect, they are two seperate issues and the fact designers decide to take away from one is a performance factor and design decision. Theres nothing stopping them using soft shadows in a high polygon map. it would just run poor (which is why theres an option in the optioons panel to disable such features).

Dynamic shadows are the bare minimum and I'm sorry but Source has missed the boat here. you also criticise other games textures, hate to say it but HL2's often were pretty pixelated, especially in the indoor environments

 

[^Ben]

Thanks for proving my point, only small percentage of people can run it.

That = lose for ritual.

And you obviously don't have a very clear idea of how softshadows and polygon counts go together.

Oh i've played fear, and yes it does look ugly with it's low res textures.

 

[bgesley426]

No, even despite only a small percentage being able to run soft shadows and environments and/or models with higher polygon counts, Ritual can only gain. Why? because the engine can still be downgraded with those options disabled/lowered and be ran on the same ammount of computers. Maybe they lose money in not getting a %100 return from their developement labor put into implementing those options but they won't necessarily immediately lose an audience because they've implemented them.

For instance, say only 1,000 computers can run the game. And lets say that only 100, of that 1,000, can run the game with HDR. Now if Valve implements HDR technology into the source engine, 1,000 computers can still play the game except now 100 of those computers can run the game with HDR. They haven't lost anyone in the audience. They could only gain more people, as in those who didn't want Valve's engine because it didn't have HDR tech, but now that it does they'll buy the product and increase the ammount of computers that can/will/do run the game.

Another example is that I would not be buying the upcoming game Possession if it didn't use Endorphin as it's physics system. But now that it does, I'll buy it because I'm interested in that technology. They've gained a customer whereas if they didn't implement that tech they would only have appealed to a smaller audience.