I'm creating a post here with links to all the videos and images that Funcom has produced which relate to the upcoming new graphics engine, along with the more significant reports from the AO Development team. At present, they are scattered around in dozens of threads on the main AO forums. I will try to collect all those links here in one informational post.
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First up: The post by then-Game Director Silirrion (Craig Morrison, now Game Director for Age of Conan) that first mentions the new engine:
June 27th, 2007
Letter From the Director:
http://forums.anarchy-online.com/sho...d.php?t=498971
Quote:
"Next up, also looking to the long-term future of the game, I’d like to cover something that we have alluded to several times in the past and confirm that we are currently starting work on upgrading the rendering engine for the game.
What does this mean? In effect it means that we will be bringing the game engine up to date with more modern graphics technology that will, amongst other things, allow us to utilize the power of modern graphics processors. It doesn’t mean that the game will suddenly look amazing different overnight, but it does mean that we will be able to utilize the more modern technology to improve performance and introduce new effects down the line.
This is a long term project and it will most likely be next year before we are in a position to start to test the upgrade (as there is obviously a lot of work involved in such a process) but we wanted you all to know that the process is under way and our coders have started to work on the upgrade."
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Christmas 2007
The Original 'New Engine' Video:
480p: http://cdn.funcom.com/ao/video/rende...ailer-480p.wmv
720p: http://cdn.funcom.com/ao/video/rende...ailer-720p.wmv
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October 3rd, 2008:
After this, the next image released was 10 months later
Note that at the time the engine coding team was trying to adapt an engine known as 'Ogre' to AO.
http://www.anarchy-online.com/anarch...epreview-2.jpg
Dec 4th, 2008:
Old Athens: http://forums.anarchy-online.com/att...9&d=1228559737
Tir: http://forums.anarchy-online.com/att...0&d=1228559750
March 13th, 2009:
We got a running series of reworked Opifex heads. All char heads are going to be reworked to look better in the new engine and work had commenced by this time. This became a 'running' series of heads because, apparently, the work first posted was not 'finished' by the artists and the players were in a bit of an uproar over the initial appearance:
Initial image: http://forums.anarchy-online.com/att...8&d=1236959609
1st Revision: http://forums.anarchy-online.com/att...9&d=1236974132
2nd Revision: http://forums.anarchy-online.com/att...1&d=1237227395
March 22, 2009:
Further revised Opifex head:
http://forums.anarchy-online.com/att...6&d=1237565960
http://forums.anarchy-online.com/att...7&d=1237565985
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May 22nd, 2009:
We learned that the Design team had decided to ditch the Ogre engine in favor of the Age of Conan Dreamworld/Cheetah engine. The reasons are explained in Game Director Means (Colin Cragg) post:
http://forums.anarchy-online.com/sho...d.php?t=553916
Quote:
"The Engine
We have been working on the conversion to Ogre for quite some time now...and there have been good days...and bad days. The team has really done a great job and it has been amazing to watch AO slowly move towards a day where we could release the game "fresh" with the upgraded look the AO world deserves. The problem with this journey is a matter of time and the destination. While the Ogre engine is an excellent choice it is just not providing the full featureset that we originally hoped to would deliver...moreover to add those features seems to be a task with ever growing estimates....which is something our small team can not afford, nor expect our players to wait for. When the decision to go with Ogre was made the engine used for Conan was in its adolescence...it ran but it was gangly, awkward and had stability issues. After two years of constant work by a large and brilliant render team the engine used by Conan runs beautifully and stably and offers a great number of complete features that would require additional years of work in Ogre. With the delays due to difficulties associated with optimization of Ogre to work well with current AO and the estimated timelines for a full implementation of the Conan engine (Dreamworld Engine/Cheetah) being nearly identical we were faced with a difficult decision.
We chose to go with the Dreamworld Engine.
With time estimates being roughly the same..the more fully supported/featured engine was the obvious choice. The fact that Dreamworld is being used in both Conan and our other "Secret World" project means that it will receive the future love and care it needs as AO grows older and the AO world continues to grow. This future consideration was impossible to ignore.
This has not been an easy decision. Letting go of Ogre after so long is painful and I feel for all those who put so much work into trying to bring it to completion. A great many evenings and weekends went voluntarily into it with the hopes and dreams of a brighter future for AO. It was purely for the future of Anarchy Online that we had to step back let go of Ogre...and move forward with Dreamworld. Today felt exactly like saying goodbye to an old friend...however the facts and plans for the future make it impossible for me to think of it as the wrong decision.
We will get there!
What this means for us:
Within the Ogre timeline the sheer amount of unanticipated optimization of essential features had slipped to November this year. With additional resources from the larger technical team we hope to bring the Dreamworld engine to AO in 2009. I truly believe that Age of Conan is a visually stunning world and I look forward to seeing the same technology available to us in the near future."
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July 31st, 2009:
More reworked heads (Nanomage) posted:
http://forums.anarchy-online.com/att...2&d=1249080258
http://forums.anarchy-online.com/att...3&d=1249080271
http://forums.anarchy-online.com/att...4&d=1249080284
http://forums.anarchy-online.com/att...5&d=1249080296
It was also noted in the thread that the glowing blue Nanomage eyes will, in fact, 'glow' in the new engine.
August 14th, 2009:
New Atrox heads:
http://forums.anarchy-online.com/att...6&d=1250264574
http://forums.anarchy-online.com/att...7&d=1250264578
http://forums.anarchy-online.com/att...8&d=1250264581
September 11th, 2009:
Long list of Reworked head images posted:
Opifex
http://forums.anarchy-online.com/att...2&d=1252681460
http://forums.anarchy-online.com/att...3&d=1252681464
http://forums.anarchy-online.com/att...4&d=1252681469
http://forums.anarchy-online.com/att...5&d=1252681474
http://forums.anarchy-online.com/att...6&d=1252681480
http://forums.anarchy-online.com/att...7&d=1252681491
http://forums.anarchy-online.com/att...8&d=1252681503
http://forums.anarchy-online.com/att...9&d=1252681511
http://forums.anarchy-online.com/att...0&d=1252681521
http://forums.anarchy-online.com/att...1&d=1252681532
http://forums.anarchy-online.com/att...4&d=1252681556
http://forums.anarchy-online.com/att...5&d=1252681563
Solitus
http://forums.anarchy-online.com/att...2&d=1252681545
http://forums.anarchy-online.com/att...3&d=1252681550
October 2nd, 2009:
Some early screenshots rendered under the Dreamworld engine:
Old: http://forums.anarchy-online.com/att...3&d=1254497177
New: http://forums.anarchy-online.com/att...4&d=1254497184
Old: http://forums.anarchy-online.com/att...5&d=1254497191
New: http://forums.anarchy-online.com/att...6&d=1254497197
There were a number of comments about the lack of 'atmospherics' and the design team promised to not post images like that again unless they also has atmospherics turned on (clouds, haze, etc...)
November 13th, 2009:
More screenshots comparing scenes rendered under the old engine versus the new engine. No Atmospherics yet...
Rome: http://forums.anarchy-online.com/att...4&d=1258561656
Rome: http://forums.anarchy-online.com/att...5&d=1258561666
Rome: http://forums.anarchy-online.com/att...6&d=1258561676
Tir: http://forums.anarchy-online.com/att...7&d=1258561691
Tir: http://forums.anarchy-online.com/att...8&d=1258561700
Tir: http://forums.anarchy-online.com/att...9&d=1258561706
December 4th, 2009:
A few screenshots:
New engine with some atmospherics and sky - which will be worked over some more by the artists:
http://forums.anarchy-online.com/att...0&d=1260449524
An RK mission with upgraded textures (displayed in the 'old' engine):
http://forums.anarchy-online.com/att...1&d=1260449560
December 11th, 2009:
Means posted a 16-second video to Youtube demonstrating something new coming with the new engine - flora deflecting aside as a person passes.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2WQB74W6_4
December 18th, 2009:
Lengthy letter From GD Means which includes an extensive summary of the status of the engine:
http://forums.anarchy-online.com/sho...d.php?t=566873
Quote:
"The Engine
Damn it is starting to look good...and the artists haven't really even started to poke it yet. From an integration standpoint we are getting pretty close to feature complete. The reason we always use Tir is this: most of the visual features of the entire game can be found in this little easy to load playfield: meshes, ground, statel animations, npcs, self illumination, character animation, water, gfx effects, sky, weather systems, grass, dynamic shadows etc etc. All the visual resources need to be converted to a new format to be viewed in the new engine...so working in the same feature rich environment makes a lot of sense. Both the old AND new engine are rendered at the same time..side by side...for comparison to make sure that things look as they should and no detail is missed (and in most cases drasticaly improved upon). Watching the orbital strike in Tir today was great fun...we weren't 100% sure how it would look or if it would work..but stunning is the best word for it.
What is missing:
The last issues:
Characters are "naked". Meshes (like shoulderpads) and weapons are displayed but the textures on the character are not "swapped" to display the correct armor. This is a feature missing from the new engine and we are waiting on work from the Montreal office for this feature to come it. This is not complicated but has been delayed by the expert in our Canadian office somehow breaking his leg horribly while actually IN the Canadian office...I don't know how he did it...but I am sure he was "compiling" at the time. He is back on one leg now and this work should be coming along soon.
Large playfields crash the conversion utility. AO playfields are 4000 x 4000. Conan playfields are 2000 x 2000. It wasn't important until we made it this far. Now we are working on it. I'm not even remotely worried about it. I hope we can show an enormous SL playfield soon.
What is next:
With integration (all features where they should be) next we get into optimization. This will consist of cutting out the old engine completely and running only the new. Removing "old" AO will immediately result in a better framerate...but there will be work to do on making it run as smooth as possible..with options in place to work with as many setups as possibe...from the most humble laptop right up to the gnarliest gaming rig available. Having not said "gnarly" for years I enjoyed that. Work is beginning in earnest shortly in the Beijing office on the new heads. We received the first Atrox head complete back from the office and it was more amazing and detailed than I ever would have imagined..it will be great to have all 358 done over the next few months."
Aforementioned Chinese art team designed Atrox head: (posted to the AO forums February 4th, 2010)
http://forums.anarchy-online.com/att...1&d=1265290910
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I'll try to keep this updated as we progress towards launch.