New technology: GameToolkit

#41

@Eric - I was reading your description on this future feature “We can give location-specific damage, with wholly-artist-controlled damage states/transitions. Think of a future hack-and-slash game where you can really do visible --and unique-- damage to the zombies, based on where your weapon hits them, and how hard it hits. Even which side if the weapon… the flat of a blade vs. the sharp edge vs. the point.”

It reminded me of a suggestion I had made for a texture design tool some time back. I had been tossing ideas with someone who makes 3ds max plugins and thought it would be good to be able to create a model of a medieval castle door for example and be able to select axes, swords, fire, bullets etc and scar the door and be able to export the texture with any maps. If people could define tools like hammers, chisel etc and how the material reacts as far as hardness etc it could be a good way to make some interactive texture design -for example create a plaster wall, add several layers -burned, rotted, wires and pipes etc and then use your tools/weapons to ‘sculpt’ it realistically and export your texture. Figure it would be easier to create more 3D looking 2D textures than by standard 2D drawing programs or even easier than trying to model all those layers by pushing verts etc

#42

define tools like hammers, chisel etc and how the material reacts as far as hardness etc
This is intriguing. Thanks for sharing!

One of the difficulties with this approach would be defining all the material properties for your various surfaces. For accurate breakage you’d want to define the physical attributes for your surfaces… mass, fragility, elasticity, roughness, susceptibility to fire, etc. Also the physical properties for each of your weapons/tools. Then you’d need a system that took all those into account and produced accurate physics, break patterns, particulation, wear, burn effects, etc. As of yet, this is not a trivial task.

Interestingly enough, the idea you’ve presented is very much in line with the original inspiration for the GameProcessor system architecture. It has always been our goal to provide the type of interactive creation you’re describing. We don’t have the tools for all this, as of today, in our system. But this “accurate surface material” technology is one of the features we’re working on. It is a more distant goal of ours, but like the slicing technology I mentioned it is working in our system already. We just need to develop the tools to make it accessible.

One of the goals will be to simplify the material-assignment process, to allow quick attribute-creation, probably through a system of presets that can be tweaked as needed. There’s a lot more about this technology I can’t share just yet, but it allows precisely the kind of interactivity you’re describing. I’ve seen a preliminary version of this in action already, very intriguing.

At present GameProcessor already lets the artist combine textures in materials to create complex surfaces, which can then be combined with variations to create some very interesting interactive surfaces. More info to come soon

Thanks for sharing the ideas. I feel that we’re at an exciting crossroads in interactive graphics, things are just starting to heat up.

Let me know if you have any other thoughts.

#43

Just an update to let you know we have more video content available on our website.

There are more blending examples, some sample gameplay from recent small game demos, many short videos showcasing different applications, plus some new tutorial movies showing our content-creation methods. More of the latter are on the way, that will cover how we setup bones, use materials, blend UVs, create artist-controlled interactivity, etc.

There are also recent screenshots in the gallery.

More documentation is available as well. In particular it should give you some idea of the depth of what’s already incorporated into the system. For example, tons of Concepts that have been designed so far.

There’s so many exciting things we’re working on that I wish I could share right now. Well, when it’s ready… when it’s ready…

#44

holy cow guys… those videos have some awesome stuff going on. Impressive!

#45

A new video has been added to our website, showing our most recent project:
http://www.whatif-productions.com/video.htm

You can download the actual game here:
http://nte.navy.com

You can see some of the assets from it in this recent CGTalk thread…
Game Art from NTE: Strike and Retrieve *warning big images
http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?t=274096&page=1

#46

welllll heyyy! what a coincidence… look who last posted a year ago here…

heh. small world, eric.

#47

Tell me about it! Big grin on my old face.

#48

Looks great, Eric! How many people worked on that for how much time? I like the models and textures that has been made for this. Does the POSM concept play a significant role in that production? [ Watched the video, but i am too lazy to sign up a navy account so they can track my stats :wink: … ]

#49

Thanks Don!

The production lasted six months. Whatif contributed a team of nine developers, plus there were a number of advertising and Navy people as well.

Posms were used for variation in the terrain shapes, dynamic-opening of the lava vents, transformation of the monster-fish from rocky camoflage into bright-colored attack, and to create all the other animations in the game. Plus they were used for other behavior-driven effects, like changing the lighting color for damage and powerups, blending different AI behaviors, etc.

#50

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