Wintermute Engine Forum
Wintermute Engine => Feature requests, suggestions => Topic started by: Jeroen on November 19, 2006, 01:05:46 PM
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Hi there fellow WME-ers!
I've been quite absent after the Scumbag Joe debacle which demotivated us for a while. But we're back in business with lots of ideas for a new adventure game.
This time we're thinking of a full 3D game (smaller in story size, mid-priced game). We've been noticing two important requests from publishers and interested parties:
- "We want 3D"
The reason: people have LCD monitors nowadays, showing an incredible variety of screen resolutions.
With bitmap backgrounds, this will not look pretty.
Also, slight 3d camera panning gives the game a great look and feel, and zooming in when
the character has a dialogue (Sam 'n Max) is not much work in 3d, but for 2d you have
to (re)render a new scene. Also, when you want a slight different angle, in WME you'll need to
re-edit your whole scene, including static foreground objects.
The bottom line: WME seems to be "almost feature complete": it has 3d characters, shadows,
the whole shebang.
Basicly what we would need is to use a 3D object as environment
and define child objects in this 3D scene (clickable in scene edit) as a regular WME object.
Camera panning would be same as scrolling now, except when you want
to turn the camera and such, the user could implement a custom script that handles this.
(e.g turnCamera(pitch,yaw,roll) based on character location).
Lastly, it would be nice to be able switch camera's.
(E.g cameras are defined in 3dsmax like now).
When you have a dialogue or cutscene, you simply call ActiveCamera(myCam);
The interface (2d) could simply be a bitmap, not scaling with the screen resolution.
Just like now, but ignoring the resolution it is being displayed on.
- Cross Platform
Although I think this is increasingly getting important, it is a thing we could live with.
The interpreter, compiler could be ported (porting the tools would be huge), but I can
imagine its a b*tch to transform DirectX code to OpenGL?
However, the Mac platform is very interesting. Not much games exist for this relative small target
audience. They are willing to buy games quite easily (this has been researched by some publishers).
Phew...Sorry for the long post.
What are your thoughts on this?
I think WME is *awesome* and there is no adventure based engine that comes close to WME.
Implementing 3D environments would make WME perfect.
I understand the fear that the user base want advanced 3D stuff and WME becomes a bloated
engine, but perhaps it is possible to adapt existing technology (rendered) and provide advanced
3d stuff through some kind of external script API? Or....?
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Fellow WME-ers don't seem to care, as usual.
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We care, we care!
Automatic answer: We have talked about those two wishes (real-time 3D & cross platform) at the #wme channel many times before. Last time Mnemonic almost attacked a bot. ;D
Conclusion: AFAIK it won't happen before wme v666 or else Mnemonic has plans to take over the world and he is hiding them from me.
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As both of them would mean huge changes to the core of WME my fear would be that they lead to instability and a myriad of bugs - I don't know if this two features would be worth that? Maybe as a different development-branch, but I guess Mnemonic wouldn't like that idea too much :-)
So, as much as I would like to have especially multi-platform-abilities, I would renounce them in favour of WMEs rock-solid stability. But in case that wouldn't be a problem I'd say: Go for it :-) And then I think cross-platform is more important than 3d stuff.
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Fellow WME-ers don't seem to care, as usual.
I'm usually silent here but to say that I don't care would be very, very far from the truth!
Anyway, good to see you're back Jeroen, I appreciated your work on Project Joe very much.
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My standpoint is clear. It would be wonderful to have all these features, but right now I am concentrating hard on delivering my little side project so WME has one more game completed. Why all that features when nobody is practically using them? So as soon as I will be limited by WME, I'll join the mourn-for-3d. :)
And with 3d the game creation will become even much more complicated. :)
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I'm usually silent here but to say that I don't care would be very, very far from the truth!
Unfortunately it's hard to tell what people think as long as they remain silent.
Oh well, but that's a general problem of this community, most people are only posting when they need something, no interest in other things, no interest in helping the others.. Luckily there are a few honorable exceptions, kudos to them!
::hijack
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well, sometimes the problem boils down to simple reluctance to use the forum search function or entering the wiki. ;)
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Sorry to have stirred up this ... stuff :-)
I understand WME will need to be enhanced, perhaps in a way that Jan seems to be not worthwile.
Only Jan knows what's to be changed under the hood.
There are some arguments I'd like to point out though:
- full 3d is inevitable. WME's "longlivity" is, IMHO, based on full 3D support.
This does not mean 2.5D or 2D games are now out of the picture. They have their
own characteristics. They will be used the upcoming years.
We at Sticky Studios love 2D (Scumbag Joe proves that :-) but things are changing
very rapidly. The market asks for it.
- WME is halfway there. It has reached "the point of no return" :-P
It is the first adventure specialised engine that has 3D character support.
- I don't think a pixelshaders and advanced stuff it neccessary. But, perhaps it is possible
to adapt existing render technology in WME and simply say: "hey, if you want fancy stuff,
check out www.theadvancedrender.com for the API".
Because I think Jan is right when he says: "I add 3d, and whats next?"
This will keep things managable.
- We're not targeting advanced doom3 effect stuff. No one of us has the team and money
for those kind of scenes anyway. If so, I would personally say:
"go write your engine" or "license another engine".
Basic 3d with some bells and whistles is enough.
- It makes your adventure easier to sell.
Believe me, it does :-)
Which is good for the community, for WME and for world peace!
- Faster development and smaller resources.
No more hundreds of frames, but 3D models,
You can switch a camera to zoom in or focus on another part, and you'll still
only have to design one room!
There are also much more 3D specialists than 2D specialists.
Jan: I'm not sure, after reading the posts above, that I should shut up about this, or not :-( If so, sorry.
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Oh well, but that's a general problem of this community, most people are only posting when they need something, no interest in other things, no interest in helping the others.
Well, I can't say for the rest here but in my case it only comes down to being too much of a novice and out-of-practice with WME - something that would change greatly the moment I actually start using WME...
But as I see it, and I could be wrong, WME is a more professional engine than other engines out there and as such, it is more pro-oriented. We all know that pro's usually have considerably less time on their hands to keep visiting the engine's forum in order to assist the others so they usually come in only when in need of assistance themselves. The case is very different with engines that are more fan-oriented where people do things just for fun and hanging out in the forums helping others is a kind of a fun activity for them.
That said, even with the large AGS community, the ones giving the greater share of the assistance are only a handful, as I remember it.
(Sorry Jeroen for the hijack, though I'm just following previous hijackers ::))
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No problem there :)
But, could we discuss the contents of the actual post? ::)
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Ok maybe i will say something unexpected. It is already possible to build a realtime 3d scene in wme only by exporting the scene as an actor an loading it in a scene. (ok more that one actor for a complete scene) In fact the only thing needed is a moving camera ...
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That sound like a hacky, but still interesting.
But, this "actor" is placed in a layer, and is not a real "scene", in the sense
that it does not care about Z-ordering.
Let's say this 3d entity is the scene itself containing a couple of buildings
and a tree in the foreground.
Currently in WME the whole object would be rendered BEHIND the character
or IN FRONT.
The actual 3D object should be the scene itself, not just a layer.
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The layer seem to be used only to order 2d sprite because it is not 3d, i think ...hehe When we use a 3d actor like a big castle it use the normal 3d z buffer i think ... OK i do not realy know how the engine handle it but 3d object are alway ordered in good way on the test scene i done. ...
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Warning! This post has turned into very personal opinions so please take it as one. Warning ends!
I think it's too hackish. I would wait for the real 3d support in WME since then it will be really well implemented judging by the quality of the rest of the engine. This goes out of discussion and in the future I believe, that quality engine like WME will have it implemented. Still given the unquestionable quality of WME engine, how comes, there is such a little ammount of games finished?
I have the following theory on this and maybe you'll realize it actually IS connected to this thread. WME is professional tool very much comparable to AAA engines like Virtools. Given its price, it's accessible for everyone and given its functionality it has now, it invites people to create HUGE, shiny games full of bells and whistles. And there's the pitfall. Huge games require teams and teams require funding. So basically the most of those teams just fall apart since the funding is nowadays not that easy to get.
I think that AGS has one advantage over WME. It attracts hobby coders in a sense of making little projects. If you run WME for the first time and see the plethora of possibilities you usually go "wow, I could make syberia easily in this engine". But "syberias" are not done easily in any engine, because there's much more to the game than just the engine.
So WME (the same as pseudo swiss cheese) is innocent, but sometimes it would be nice to see some little project which doesn't try to enter the evil "commercial level" quality. There were projects like this in the past (Dead City, Sofia's debt, 7 lethal daemons) or longer projects like The White Chamber or very long 5MA. I miss seeing small projects announcements nowadays.
And finally what does this all having to do with Jeroen's first post? Well, let's suppose, Mnemonic will implement shiny new 3d engine with all bells and whistles so you will go "wow, now I can make Sam'n'Max with WME". Does this mean you will actually make a game? Or will there be another bunch of on hold projects which (IMO) aren't very motivating for the engine creator.
I personally think, that what we're given to play with here is a very strong tool which can be really creatively used. And I think that as the time passes the pit between "commercial Source engine like things" and "independent games" will grow bigger and bigger. I personally feel like remaining at the independent level with accent to creativity and originality than trying to surpass the huge sharks with million dollars funding.
So just to write more about my previous short post.
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I'll also break my silence to say i would love to see both features in WME
OFC :
Xplatform > FULL 3d
but it'll save me the time i need to develop this engine myself in the future.
2.5d is awesome. 3d is needed for true profits. That's what publishers want, thats' what the gamers want.
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I think it's too hackish. I would wait for the real 3d support in WME
I just want to help by sharing what i tried...
I dont think waiting for a "real way" to do something you can do now is that much constructive.
Some examples ....
Ive added particle in my game before wme suport it and i still use my own particles..
I added colision for realtime caracter.
I found a way to have a reflection on the floor for a couple mansion scene.
I built a complette weapon system including a bow with working arrow and soon bazoka with guided missile ...
I cant wait for all those thing to be added ...
And anyway what is the "real way" or the "real 3d" in a completly computer driven virtual world.
If you build a forest actor or a castle actor what make them less "real 3d" it is only the name "actor" only changing internal name in the engine by scene props or scene object will not make them more real.
And if by real you mean BSP, portal culling it is only a types of optimizations
for indoor level ... In small scene it is not needed at all.
I mean wme suport realtime 3d, name the objects how you want actor level object props it is realtime 3d object.
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Haven't bothered to read most of this, however I don't think WME should ever go full realtime. The current optional, realtime 3D objects is enough given that is the direction the traditional adventure industry has been headed for a number of years. There are plenty of full, realtime engines out there that have been maturing for years, but there is only one 2D with 2.5D capabilities engine that is publically available(to my knowledge). You can code 3D engines to emulate this style, but WME is like this out of the box, and this should be expanded and made more feature rich instead of devoting development time and complication to full realtime integration. The two worlds are apples and oranges and WME would be better served sticking with what it does best.
If you want to make a Tunguska/Grim Fandango style game, use WME. If you want an Ankh or Fahrenheit style the go with a full 3D engine. Like with anything else, use the engine that works for your particular project.
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Haven't bothered to read most of this, however I don't think WME should ever go full realtime. The current optional, realtime 3D objects is enough given that is the direction the traditional adventure industry has been headed for a number of..............
Well first of all, I think you should have read most of this thread before answering, because now your reply seems like an autonome "I dont want 3D because I..." answer, and not an actual discussion or responds on what has been mentioned here.
I am surprised there are so little finished smaller WME games at the moment. We wanted to go commercial with Joe so that's a different thing, but I still don't understand why there are not more smaller fanbased WME games finished. I don't know if AGS is easier. I did found it hard to work with because it restricts way too much. In WME there is a complete template ready! Just fill in the blanks! AGS users will understand it perfectly after some research. We did a 2D/3D test some months ago, and got it up and running within 30 minutes.
I think, for WME, much can change with a different webdesign, promotion, presentation of portfolio, etc.
Now back to the topic. I haven't read a single good argument why 3D should not be implemented, except personal opinions on how the engine should be. I've read:
- possibile instability
- hackish
- there-are-enough-3d-engines-so-use-these.
- and some others.
What a bunch of negativity :)
Now let's look at:
- development time (IMHO faster and cheaper)
- easier-to-find-team members
- exceptance of target audience
- getting adventures out of the niche market
- art direction and storytelling using cameras, shadows, etc.
With the right graphics designer you can create atmospheric 3D games which can co-exist with 2D games
perfectly.
So you're saying: if you want 3d, use a generic 3d engine? And this is not the case with 2.5D or 2D? Let's pretend WME didn't exist and I wanted to make a 2D engine. You'd say: "use BlitzBasic or DarkBasic or whatever. They have a good 2D sprite system"? Nope, you wouldn't. :)
The reason a full 3d engine is not the right choice IMHO is:
They are too generic and you have to make a dialogue system, 3d pathfinding, event based system,
adventure animation system etc. For action based games they are excellent.
We use www.otee.dk (Unity) which is a great tool for those kind of games.
I think it's important to remember that WME is designed for a specific game genre,
and this provides the foundation for an adventure game.
This is why we want WME for our next game.
Wheter it's 2D, 2.5D or 3D is matter of technical implementation, in which only
Jan Nedoma knows if it's doable or not.
3d is needed for true profits. That's what publishers want, thats' what the gamers want.
Exactly. And that doesn't mean 2D should be thrown away (god no).
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Hi Jeroen,
I think you may have misread my post a bit. The main point was (shortly) that every project (and you must know it already) needs
a big deal of motivation. Wme creator in my opinion needs a big deal of it nowadays since as you can read from his recent posts, he
doesn't find community very helpful / alive. He created wiki page for community for sharing tutorials, code snippets etc. So far look at
the contents and mainly who contribute there. Look at who helps other users here at the forum. Mainly Mnemonic and handful of others.
To implement full 3d is a huge deal of work. It's not IMO, it's a fact (I know quite a lot about this unfortunately) and to go with this step
you need to be highly motivated and see some perspective. I don't want to speak for Mnemonic, but as a permanent member of IRC channel
I see that much. And my point was, that some times ago people were saying "the only thing wme needs to be fully professional are realtime 3d characters" Mnemonic made them but instead of games there was "yes, but we need better video support and video entities". They are now fully in with optimized library so you can play videos in dvd quality. But then came "shadows are bad, make stencils" so Mnemonic made a stencil shadows.
But where is one single game actually using any of those features? There is not a single one, so how should be Mnemonic motivated to
step into huge redesign and conversion to full 3d?
Maybe Mnemonic steps now in and says, "no, it's nonsense. I want to create tons of functions and never see them in use" but I strongly doubt it. :)
And yes, model as an environment IS hackish. I'd suggest using Virtools which have full 3d instead for now. Using wme in current form isn't the sign of a good design because you'll soon run into serious problems which you may not see now. For example with every camera turn, you'll have to reposition all the sounds in the scene etc. etc. You can't move regions programatically, how would you remain hospot logic? Etc. etc.
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But where is one single game actually using any of those features? There is not a single one,
Wait until you see my game demo. Should be done within a month.
It uses ALL the features WME has to offer PLUS more I coded into DLLs.
I'll also share some of my code with the community once it's done, but not before.
Actually, not true, Some of my code is already on the WIki.
so how should be Mnemonic motivated tostep into huge redesign and conversion to full 3d?
I would hope so. In a year i'm planning on making a second adventure game, which by then I will require full 3d. And as much as I would like to stay with WME, it won't be possible by then unless it evloves inot that direction.
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Hi Metamorphium,
Sorry if I may have misread your post.
New stuff in engines may take a long time to implement and showcased in a "real" example.
I am correct when I say stencil shadows have been implemented just very recently?
I agree though that "bad craftmen blame their tools". I also think WME could have a better
showcase by now, but god knows what is happening with WME at the moment.
It's just that we now want to create a game and avoid all the "weak points" that Joe had as much
as possible.
I am sorry to hear there is a lot of negativity in this community!
If I can help out to improve stuff in any way, I'm happy to help out.
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No problems here Jeroen. :)
I don't percieve it as a negativity. Only stagnation. AGS has a lot of stuff going on community based (little game competitions etc. etc.)
This sort of hustle and bustle attracts hobbyists. WME more attracts serious coders because only they can right now really understand the power of WME.
But serious coders with serious projects has unfortunately much bigger death rate. So yes, WME has quite a lot of promising projects
which would have been great if... But the missing underlying structure of smaller projects and funny little games is very counterproductive.
If there was this sort of community thing going on, WME would have been already really showcased well. But I once suggested to make
this sort of competitions / funny things / weekend challenges etc. Nobody was interested so I dropped the idea, although it could have been fun to make rules like for example weekend challenge: one room escape with the most funny or surprising end. Judges would not judge graphics, but idea, realization and the final joke. (so it would lay off the weight from the "must be AAA gfx" bullshit.)
But you can have tons of ideas and if you don't meet interest you soon burn out and work on your own games, which may or may not
be completed. Having an active community is definitely a bonus even for your own game creation, because the more interested the community is, the more is helping each other etc. And as Mnemonic wrote, most people come here just to ask questions about their problems and that's it.
And community is us. So everyone is part of this flaw. We mustn't think, that after all Mnemonic does for WME he will try to keep the community alive. He won't although he obviously tries.
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Hi there,
I'm reading this forum for a while, because I have a vague plan for an adventure game, but not the time to make one, at the momemt. Well, whn I was looking for the best engine, I found WME, after a short trip with Adventuremaker, and I think it's a great engine, maybe the first choice for 2D adventures right now. Well, for a pseudo 3d adventure I'd try the Scream engine (Scratches), whis is also free for download.
I don't think that this community is as half as bad as mentioned above. I'd rather guess, that most questions asked in here were so specific, that only a very small amount of users could give a proper solution.
Just my 2c
Greetings
</imagetag>
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I think metamorphium have a good point, WME attract people with bigger project. And i hope to see all of them when they will be finished.
But maybe some will never be completed.
Attracting more little project can probably attract more people to the community. We can try to improve the community like metamorphium said with competitions or somethings like that ...
I already like WME community because, OH my good people reply so quick with the good answer .. And Mnemonic is so involved.
But in same time it is probably why post are almost all about thechnical things.
About 3d and AAA eye candy gfx, people will never stop to ask for new things. I know WME is the engine i dreamed for but sometime i ask for new feature myself while i know it can be really hard to handle many user request.
Jeroen when he say hackish for 3d i think he only talk about building a scene with 3d actor. It is sable because 3d actor feature is great but limited because camera and 2d region are not built to work like that. After i tried it i chosen to use prerendered background (2.5d). But i keep a couple of things i learned from this test. We can use 3d actor for props in a scene like a table, a tree who move with wind and many other movings scene object instead of using a huge rendered sprite set.
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Good to have heared everyone's opinion on this matter!
Now it's up to us to decide wheter we'll be using WME (my preference)
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Hey Jeroen, I'm glad to see you back and rocking!!
Although everyone knows I love WME and for me it's the best engine on Earth for graphic adventures, I'm 99% sure it won't implement full 3D features, at least not in the short or middle term. And I think it shouldn't, really... mixing the 2D capabilities with a full 3D using the same interface and system seems very difficult, and if it could be done, it would be really a mess: People using 2D features would find the 3D features and options innecessary and annoying on the interface, and vice-versa.
I think that a full 3D adventure engine should be done since the start with that focusing, developing tools and a IDE completely tailored for 3D adventures.
I also agree with what you stated: WME currently is so good that when people start using it, they get delusions of grandeur about how a great game they could make with the engine. It even happend to me the first time I used it, back in the initial beta versions!! So I'm sure right now that "grandeur" effect is even bigger. That is a real problem because, again, as you said, the result is a lot of on-hold of half-finished projects, with lack of smaller but finished games like the ones made with AGS, which has a lot of games. I'm sure that newcomers are very surprised to see there are only a few finished games after almost 4 years since WME's first public beta version.
So, in conclusion, I think that WME won't and shouldn't become a full 3D engine. If Jan ever thinks that such an engine would be good and he's interested in doing it, I think the best approach would be to start making a new engine. I'm sure he would be able to reuse a lot of WME's code, but, specially on the IDE, he should make a new one from scratch.
So the next best option would be to use a general-pourpose 3D engine. At least I haven't found any 3D adventure engines, maybe you have been luckier. The best options right now in my opinion, in free LGPL-licensed engines are:
Crystal Space (http://www.crystalspace3d.org), with an example of adventure game developed with it being Bonez (http://bonez-adventures.com/gallery.html) (although the view is a la NeverWinter Nights and there are some fighting so for me it's more of a RPG...).
Some screenies of Bonez:
(http://img169.imageshack.us/img169/8786/ex1screenrp1.jpg)
(http://img136.imageshack.us/img136/8076/libscreen07ve1.jpg)
(http://img136.imageshack.us/img136/5254/tb1cscreen02hy8.jpg)
Ogre3D (http://www.ogre3d.org). In my opinion, this engine is much better than Crystal Space, specially graphics wise. There is already two commercial point-and-click adventure game released using this engine, and with very nice graphics in my opinion. They are Ankh (http://www.ankh-game.com/) and its sequel, Ankh - The Heart of Osiris (http://www.ankh-game.de/de2/). The best thing is that there is a Game Framework, by the name of Yake (http://www.yake.org/). It is a general-pourpose framework, but it means that you won't have to deal directly with the engine all the time, but with higher-level functions focused on game developing. It is still a very young project but there are some stuff I'm sure you'll find very useful. There are other game-focused tools for Ogre3D under development, like GOOF (http://www.ogre3d.org/wiki/index.php/Game_Object_Oriented_Framework) or Ogre Studio (http://www.ogre3d.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=21757), but I think they are less developed than Yake nowadays.
Here some pics from Ankh 1:
(http://www.ogre3d.org/gallery/albums/album22/ankh_scr4.sized.jpg)
(http://www.ogre3d.org/gallery/albums/album22/shot4.sized.jpg)
(http://www.ogre3d.org/gallery/albums/album22/ankh_scr5.sized.jpg)
(http://www.ogre3d.org/gallery/albums/album22/shot9.sized.jpg)
And Ankh 2:
(http://www.ogre3d.org/gallery/albums/album45/10062006_102108175.sized.jpg)
(http://www.ogre3d.org/gallery/albums/album45/10062006_114831698.sized.jpg)
(http://www.ogre3d.org/gallery/albums/album45/10062006_104722980.sized.jpg)
You can see high-res (1024x768) screenshots at the Ogre3D gallery of Ankh (http://www.ogre3d.org/index.php?set_albumName=album22&option=com_gallery&Itemid=55&include=view_album.php) and of Ankh 2 (http://www.ogre3d.org/index.php?set_albumName=album45&option=com_gallery&Itemid=55&include=view_album.php)
There are also demos available for each of the games:
Anhk 1 demo (in english) (http://www.gamershell.com/download_16122.shtml)
Ankh 2 demo (in german (http://www.gamershell.com/download_12062.shtml)
Of course, developing a game in any general-pourpose 3D engine is going to take much more time, money and resources than in WME... so it's something one must think deeply about.
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Hi there,
Thanks for the examples.
IMHO general purpose 3D engines are to 'generic' for a lot of stuff, and perhaps is too costly to develop from scratch.
We bought Unity (http://www.otee.dk) for action-based games, which can be compared to the engines you suggested
(Unity is the king of those engines ;D)
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Ah well, I was only suggesting free engines, if you wanted to expend some money there's of course much more suggestions :) In any case Unity looks good and it seems specially good for quick development.
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In any case Unity looks good and it seems specially good for quick development.
But its for MAC only :(
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In any case Unity looks good and it seems specially good for quick development.
But its for MAC only :(
Which is strange because the games of the Unity Pro engine run on windows 2000/XP ???
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Yes, the engine and tools are MAC only, but the exported product is compatible with MAC and PC.
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An easy compromise would be to open up the existing 3D stuff in WME for plugin developers. A simple pointer to the Direct3D engine would be enough to add your own functionality like moving the camera.
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Well you can query the Direct3DDevice object (using the Game.Direct3DDevice property), but it's far from ideal to implement the entire 3D engine in a plugin, I'm afraid.
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Shame on me! I haven't seen this property. This should prove interesting ;D.