Horrified? Panic?Originally Posted by Means
This sounds interesting...
Horrified? Panic?
This sounds interesting...
Sixty-Second!
.
Dammit. You just gave away the next expansion concept...there is no way I'm going to come up with something else half as cool. Who wouldn't want shiny pants...pants with power!
"Anarchy Online - SHINY PANTS!!"
Colin Cragg
This "Means" Cake
Past Game Director (2008-2011)
Seriously though...Enno has added the ability for us to make that nasty, glinty, shiny black armor actually shiny and glinty. Very very cool. Self illuminating body textures are coming too thanks to Enno.
Colin Cragg
This "Means" Cake
Past Game Director (2008-2011)
I can see it now....
all I have to do is combine 40 pieces of Luxurious shiny fabric with Alien Invasion Plans and then combine the product with Digamma Commando Armor Pants
infact it would be great if I could just combine every alpha xan symbiant, all of my armor and equipment into ONE pair of ridiculously shiny, ridiculously overpowered pants that required no other items be equipped
power to the pants
also hooray for new shiny armor!
I've got a question about upcomming content,
The Awakened Xan says us that "The Great Manipulator" wants to destroy this world and by his side walks another Awakened.
First: Where's the rest of the eight Xan? We've met only 2 so far.
Second: The Great Manipulator is just God of Xans or some powerful creature we have yet to discover?
And the last: Since Ao Bday is comming closer every day and so is new engine wich is supposed to hit live in 3 or 5 months wouldnt it be cool for make a new video?
Last time the video was done was 3 years ago? And someone said that its almost all done just missing the clouds. So I'm sure that the engine is now is superb state!
MMORPG, Massive Multiplayer Online ROLE-PLAYING Game, some people seem to miss the RP part, and aren't you posting this "offence" just because I responded on your opinion with mine in one thread about Envy?
Last edited by makerofnoise; Jun 15th, 2009 at 21:30:36.
Whats about ROPLE-PLAYING Game?
Idiots are just like slinkies. It makes you smile when you push them down a flight of stairs.
[Zacyx]: i will perma bann u from MR
Fixed, thx
Very cool.
I have a question about the current color scheme differences between SL and Rubi-ka.
Why is the "neon" coloring of some of the mobs and even plantlife in SL brighter than the "neon" lighting on buildings on Rubi-ka? Does SL actually use a higher directx or some other functionality than the "old" AO does, allowing a brighter, shinier template? I know SL is just the scrapped mmo "Midgard" refitted for AO, so I'm assuming Midgard's underlying tech was ahead of AO at the time.
You have been reading all the "Friday with Means" threads aven't you? If so, then you'd know the engine that is in those old videos was just recently scrapped and they are starting over.
i doubt he read them tbh, but he does have a point about showing another screen of sneak peek video... just so we can see where they really are now with the moving and switching.
Freedom or death!
Anything then being an Omni Tek Corporate slave!
Created 2005-11-16 (paid main that's all mine)
Created 2005-02-03 (froobie)
Created 2007-10-11 (second paid account because i wanted a freaking shade :P)
Would be nice, although I suspect getting the new "new" engine will probably be a bit more of a bigger undertaking than Means is willing to let on at this point. But if they have progressed far enough to have something showable, it would definitely be a bonus.
I admit, I am more than skeptical that there will be any new engine this year as planned, due to the setback of starting over, but I am also willing to let Means prove me wrong.
I did a simple and quick search of the forums and found the very first mentioning that they are working on a new graphics engine.
That was on June 27, 2007 which was just short of exactly two years ago. Then if you read that you see it was stated they figured it'd be a large and long project that they would not be ready to even test till some time in the next year (6-18 months later). The very early video they have since said was released much too early was released on Jan. 19, 2008. That was six months later or a year and a half ago, not three years ago.
I love how people keep adding to the date of those things. At the rate things are going if it takes much longer the announcement of the new graphics engine will be some date before AO went live according to some people.
Another thing is that they just recently chucked what they had been working on all that time and went with something else. Also as you can see from the above they said from the start things would not look very different. It will make use of some effects the current one does not which will make some things look better and they are using to add some things. They are redoing the odd things like char faces but most things will be about the same.
Yes that's what was said initially, but you need to read everything posted afterwards. Plus look at the "AO Still Alive" vids to see things are ( or at least were at that time before scrapping and re-starting ) going to be very different in regards to textures, water, effects, etc.
Sil in the beginning was trying to keep expectations low in my opinion to keep from disappointing people if something didn't make it in or couldn't be done ( which was smart ). But over time, those expectations slowly got raised by both Sil and Means, which now places a bit higher bar to be met than original.
Last edited by Siahanor; Jun 15th, 2009 at 23:02:32.
Oh come on, do you really think they redid the textures? What made it look better was improved or added effects like shadowing, reflections and shading, not better/changed textures. This is what I said in that post and what they said after that video. That they did not redo things, they just looked better as it could render such effects better. The video focused a lot on shadowing and water. Moving detailed shadows compared to the very basic ones we have now. The water was shiny and reflective rather than just rippling but plain like now. These are effects either added or handled more effectively with a new engine. Does it look better, sure, is it night and day on an over all sense, no.
Then they still have said they do not plan on redoing all sorts of textures and what not as they said from the start. Some things are being changed, I mentioned faces but I think trees were another. They said from very early on new effects would be added and nano effects could be changed. More recently we were told of new attachment points to chars and more things making use of improved effects for reflective or shiny things.
Although those will just be some things in the game. Most would look about the same but could benefit some to one degree or another by the improved use of effects in general. If you look at things other than the water and shadows in that video they do look about the same as now. Maybe a little better through better shading and maybe a bit of reflection but still not very different from now.
Well, while it is possible that the textures only look better due to lighting, bump-mapping, etc. (which I do doubt somewhat as the textures currently in AO are low res and I can't see different lighting making that dramatic a change, but perhaps ).
For instance, as you noticed, in many frames the textures of everything looked the same except for lighting and the water. However, in some other shots, particularly close in shots of OA, the textures themselves ( such as the ground pavement ) are much higher resolution than what we have now.
However, saying the water in those vids is the exact same water we have now just with different lighting is ridiculous to me.
And yes, I do believe Means mentioned "SpeedTree" was going to be used for the trees in the new engine for faster and smoother rendering when entering new zones.
And also, from a common sense point of view, do you really think a "frankensteined" blend of new water and shadows/lighting mixed with low res textures and avatars, is going to attract people? sure, those of us already playing may look at it as "well, at least some things look better", but a new player will simply say "WTF?!?".
And first and foremost, this new engine is to attract new blood, not to please the 20k or so of us who are already willing to play regardless of the graphics.
Personally, I'd have been happy with them just changing the underlying engine for the directx9 capablity so our graphic cards could do what they're designed to and left the rest exactly the same. But the problem is there won't be new players that way. And doing it "half-assed" won't bring them in either.
As an aside, I don't know the first thing about engine coding and what is possible or not with lighting/shadows, etc. I could be 100% wrong on everything I think. I can only go from what makes sense to me.
Last edited by Siahanor; Jun 15th, 2009 at 23:32:51.
Here's a couple YouTube videos for you to look at.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=873yRIHhP30
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xkWhMKXJpM4
Ground textures in the preview video I can't see as being higher resolution as you claim. They just added better shading, there's all those nice detailed shadows and somewhat shiny surfaces in some places.
Fog, reflection, lighting related shiny surfaces, shading, lighting, shadows all of those are effects. I said the things that changed/improved are the effects and the video focused on shadows and water. The new shadows were detailed real shadows of things, not the simple shadow blobs we have now. Water rather than being basic and just rippling is given shiny aspects and made reflective. These are effects, the effects are what was improved in that, just the effects. The video focused on what was improved/changed, the effects.
As for your comments on water, that made me laugh. Water and how it looks is really 100% effects. If you turn the water animation option off then go to some places with small pools of water (like Clan BYs from what I remember, the one near the guide) the water isn't rendered at all. So if a new engine comes along with improved and added effects handling something like water which is just an effect will of course look much better. So rather than just rippling they can show shiny aspects and reflection which makes a big difference.
In regards to trees I meant that they are/were making new trees to replace at least some/many of the current ones just as they are making new char faces. Not the function of the old new engine to better populate common items like trees to improve performance.
There are a LOT of textures in AO now. If you really think they're going to redo all of them then you're dreaming. We were specifically told that the video was simply everything as it is now just rendered with the old new engine which handled various effects better and let them turn new effects on so things looked better. That's it.
Last edited by PhoenixOfAges; Jun 16th, 2009 at 00:14:35.
The video that was released is not applicable any longer as they have now changed engines again I believe, so it may look totally different, not 100% but I'm sure someone else will have an opinion on this also.
Tal
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