Brothers in Arms : Hell's Highway Officially announced.

[st0lve]

Its too much Next-Gen for me

whats that supposed to mean

There is something that doesn't "apply" to me when it comes to next-gen games. It's probably the fact that I'm not a fan of insane polycounts or all those new maps to add on your textures. So I get no interest in it cause I know I won't be doing stuff for games\mods or anything on that gen anyway.

But it sure as hell looks nice.

[skdr]

New (?) pics and interview here:

http://www.computerandvideogames.com/ar ... ?id=138638

[Polaris]

I know what you mean st0lve.

But thats also the way I felt about HL2 before it came out. It looked intimidating but its really not.

[TomWithTheWeather]

With the tools getting better and better, next-gen isn't really that big of a problem to develop for.

[e-freak]

With the tools getting better and better, next-gen isn't really that big of a problem to develop for.

i have to disagree... working on all sourcemods (remember just mods not even a full game) was 3 times more stuff to do than working at hl1. it's a 200 times more complex code to work with as the parameters (compiler, texture system) are, too. working on a hl1 texture was like brushing some stuff on a photo to make it seamless and then resize it down - working on a hl2 texture ist ultra detailed out working and setting the last of more than 1 million pixels by hand. optimizing a model can take up to 3 months with all work to be done...

the tools may be smarter, the quality and the players wishes grow at the same time...

[mikezilla]

I think TomWTW was offering his opinion based on his working on the game in question.

Unreal3 = next gen

Source = almost next gen

[The Postman]

With the tools getting better and better, next-gen isn't really that big of a problem to develop for.

Acquiring a talented team to create a decent mod with a decent art level and a good set of levels is tougher than ever because no there's not only a spec, height, normal, diffuse and sometimes glow map, but there's also a high poly model (something which not many amateurs are good at making) and low poly model as well as the functional knowledge about normal maps that's required to not make them look like ass, or how to fix them when they do. It's a lot tougher :/

Well, it's tougher unless you're making the 506th CS rip off mod. Then you'll get oodles of support.

[KungFuSquirrel]

Half-Life's tools haven't really improved, though... A lot of HL2 elements are still throwbacks to the way things were done back in the Quake 1 days (i.e. the HL code base) and not really the sort of thing those tools were ever designed to handle.

Even D3's toolset, for example, is anything but polished but it's still ridiculous what one person can do with the right knowledge, and very quickly at that. Throw that into a polished and easy to use toolset (like, say, Unreal - epic kicks ass at polished and functional tools ), and, well... Hotness.

[Polaris]

There might be a bright side: more job security, if they are harder to learn there will be fewer people competing for similar jobs perhaps, and more demand for the ones who already know what they are doing.

[TomWithTheWeather]

Maybe I should clarify a little. From my level design experience, the tool's have gotten better and easier to use. I can crank out way more complex and polished stuff in the same amount of time as "last-gen".

Yes, it has gotten harder for the artists, with all the new texture maps and such, but for the level designer, the cinematic sequence that once took a week to put together now takes a day. The AI pathing that once required me to place a bajillion little nav points and waste a week, now requires me to simple press the compile button with nothing ever have been placed.

For the artist, the workflow speed is longer overall no matter what, but when you're comparing different tools sets that speed may vary. UE3 is faster for the artist than Source or D3.

Source was designed to create HL2.

Doom engine was designed to create Doom3.

UE3 was designed to create any game you want.

[Tequila]

UE3 was designed to create any game you want.

It's hard to argue with this considering how widely-licensed it is.

Learning UnrealEd for 1 and 2 never interested me, but you'd better believe I'll be getting involved with 3.

Out of interest, what's the engine like performance-wise? What level of hardware do you need to get, say medium/passable visuals and framerate?

[Izuno]

yeah Unreal engine licensing has been by far the most succesful historically. Had HL1 and HL2 not been as successful as products as they were, then HL1 / Source licensing would have been severely limited.

Very impressive guys...very impressive. I wanna do consulting work at Gearbox now. :-)

[Furyo]

While on the subject of UnreadEd, I was thinking of starting with 2, thinking it would prepare me for 3. How right is my assumption?

[TomWithTheWeather]

While on the subject of UnreadEd, I was thinking of starting with 2, thinking it would prepare me for 3. How right is my assumption?

There are similarities here and there, mostly with interface layout type stuff and actors. A lot of the same concepts translate over pretty well. A lot of stuff that was tedious in UE2 is easier to use in UE3. But overall, if you want to start now, UE2 will help you learn the general UnrealEd ways and it will be really easy to switch to UE3 when it's publicly available.

[Izuno]

While on the subject of UnreadEd, I was thinking of starting with 2, thinking it would prepare me for 3. How right is my assumption?

There are similarities here and there, mostly with interface layout type stuff and actors. A lot of the same concepts translate over pretty well. A lot of stuff that was tedious in UE2 is easier to use in UE3. But overall, if you want to start now, UE2 will help you learn the general UnrealEd ways and it will be really easy to switch to UE3 when it's publicly available.

man...it's all about tools. When I was at this one studio on a project in another state (that shall remain nameless) one of the lead programmers constantly was bitching about the LDs' bitching about the shitty nature of their internal toolset. The programmer would say something like:

it's the LDs fault they can't get their shit done faster. I'm not going to waste my team's time on improving tools. My time is too valuable as evidenced by my higher pay. LDs can just work longer hours and weekend to compensate. I've already paid my dues.

so that game they were working on...well it got canceled because they couldn't produce anything good in the time alloted. There were other factors...but I mean...any time you decide not to invest in your toolset you are shortchanging yourself in the long run. Sure, there is a flipside and you have to balance certain things. But this guy was off on one extreme simply due to his own ego. If he and his team spent a few hundred extra manhours on the toolset, it might have saved thousands of LD manhours in the long haul on the project.

So that project was a victim of leetitude. gg

oh so back on topic...really great tools and good management (U3 + Gearbox in this case) can produce some nifty stuff in a reasonable amount of time, at least as evidenced by BiA's history and what we know of the 3rd game. Look how fast the sequels have come out and of improoving quality.