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Sn00py
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From New Zealand
Aug 2001
time: 13:36
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quote:
Originally posted by Urban Ranger
High resolution bitmap images are staggeringly large.
I don't think it's the eye candy part that is difficult. There are enough sophisticated programs out there to create photorealistic images and animations. With the progress in storage facilities, that should not be a problem. The big one has always been the game design itself.
I am not sure what you are getting at. The computer has always been doing all the interacting bit - e.g. who gets shot when - all along, from the very crude Pong days. |
ok, UR, your replies are telling me that you don't know exactly how the engine works.
I'll just try to correct you here, I hope you can pick up what Spore is.
First of all, there are no bitmap images in the game. (maybe apart from the interface, but that's unimportant in this case).
Secondly, you say that the computer IS doing all the interacting, but that is not what I was talking about. I was talking about the fact that the engine works out on the fly how to make a creature walk or how to make a creature interact with other creatures and objects correctly. Because at the moment, this sort of interaction/animation has to be created by graphic designers and programmers, not the computer. With Spore, it is the computer that does the work that the graphic designers would otherwise have to do.
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Aramis
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Not where I was tomorrow, nor will be yesterday.
Dec 2002
time: 23:36
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I thought it had something to do with hallucinations.
Last edited by Aramis on 21-03-2005 at 17:58
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Urban Ranger
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Apolyton Duke of Off-Topic
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quote:
Originally posted by Sn00py
First of all, there are no bitmap images in the game. (maybe apart from the interface, but that's unimportant in this case). |
There are two kinds of images: bitmap and vector. All Wintel graphics are bitmapped, AFAIK.
quote:
Originally posted by Sn00py
Secondly, you say that the computer IS doing all the interacting, but that is not what I was talking about. I was talking about the fact that the engine works out on the fly how to make a creature walk or how to make a creature interact with other creatures and objects correctly. Because at the moment, this sort of interaction/animation has to be created by graphic designers and programmers, not the computer. |
Hm, anything the computer "knows" how to do is programmed. For example, a game uses some kind of collision detection algorithm to see if somebody gets shot.
quote:
Originally posted by Sn00py
With Spore, it is the computer that does the work that the graphic designers would otherwise have to do. |
No. All the work still has to be done by graphic designers. If the graphics are to be generated programmatically, you still need the designers to layout what the program is to generate.
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vovan
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quote:
Originally posted by Urban Ranger
There are two kinds of images: bitmap and vector. All Wintel graphics are bitmapped, AFAIK. |
Errr... I'm pretty sure Sn00py isn't talking about the format of the images in the game. He is talking about where the images come from. The point he is making is that they are not shipped with the game, but rather are generated by the game.
quote:
Originally posted by Urban Ranger
Hm, anything the computer "knows" how to do is programmed. For example, a game uses some kind of collision detection algorithm to see if somebody gets shot. |
Actually that's a very interesting point, almost philosophical.  And really it's not true in the general sense. For example, with self-programmable hardware, a computer can change its own hardware to learn things it was not technically programmed to do.
quote:
Originally posted by Urban Ranger
No. All the work still has to be done by graphic designers. If the graphics are to be generated programmatically, you still need the designers to layout what the program is to generate. |
Hmmm... I think I already kind of addressed this point above, but I will reiterate. All of the things in the game - creatures, buildings, etc, are not created by the designers. They are purely made by the players of the game through the game's own interface. Now, some of these players could be designers, but they don't technically have to be. The engine is smart enough to figure out how a thing should behave no matter how it looks like.
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Sn00py
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From New Zealand
Aug 2001
time: 13:36
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Well I'm sure Maxis will provide basic shapes to help people along.
From one of the screenshots I noticed a spine inside of one of the creatures in the creature creation window, I figured that would be the starting point to creating a creature that needs bones.
I can see now, that having these stages is a good thing; if the player is asked to create the entire and final creature from scratch on the spot, it would feel like a large task each time you wanted to start a new game.
I think these stages will allow the player to slowly create their creature in small steps, which wouldn't be such a huge task.
Graphic Designers will have an advantage over graphically-challenged people, but I'm sure that's not the problem, as Will Wright stated, people love to just create what they want, even if what they have created sucks.
I have another question that you might be able to answer for me vovan. Can or does the creature evolve by itself?
And if one creature has 20 powerful arms and 10 Jaws each with the power of a Hippo's jaw, does that creature have more of a chance of killing a civilization of Smurfs? The reason I ask is because this game's engine is based on real life physics I presume, so if one creature's physical attributes are more powerful than anothers, then the weaker creature is going to die no doubt?
Also, I'm curious, what would the disadvantages be if I had an extremely powerful creature? Would I have to feed it a lot maybe?
Does it have to be a creature? Can I make an insect that stings people with deadly poison? Or what about a virus? Ok, a virus can't travel the universe by will, but I might be able to hitch a ride on another UFO that happens to land on my planet.
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Ari Rahikkala
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Unreported loss of streaming in atomic read operation
Oct 1999
time: 07:36
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quote:
Originally posted by Urban Ranger
There are two kinds of images: bitmap and vector. All Wintel graphics are bitmapped, AFAIK. |
Untrue and irrelevant. Where was it said that this game wants to store any bitmaps, anyway? I mean, sure, it has to *render* bitmaps to show on the screen, but... ah, I'm not even going to try to explain anything here, I just want you to tell us why you think the game should need to store high-resolution bitmaps anyway.
(that I called that "true" at first was a complete stupid braino... I mean... it doesn't make any sense at all to me to say that "all Wintel graphics are bitmapped")
quote:
Hm, anything the computer "knows" how to do is programmed. For example, a game uses some kind of collision detection algorithm to see if somebody gets shot. |
True, but basically as vovan said, in the end only to the same extent as it is true of any other information-processing system. That includes, for example, humans. I consider the burden of proof to be on you - if you want to disagree with me about this, please do it in the off-topic forum, and only after meditating intensely on the Church-Turing Thesis.
quote:
No. All the work still has to be done by graphic designers. If the graphics are to be generated programmatically, you still need the designers to layout what the program is to generate. |
Untrue. The text I'm typing out here wasn't layed out in advance by a programmer, yet my browser splits it up to lines just fine. Figuring out the inverse kinematics for arbitrary animals created by a whole bunch of people is the same problem - a hell of a lot more difficult and complex, but in the end, quite possible with enough calculation power and good programming.
Note that I might have seemed to use the argument that "this simple problem is solvable, therefore this complex problem must be solvable, too". Please disregard that argument. What I'm claiming is a bit more direct: I simply don't see a reason why it should be impossible for a computer program to calculate plausible-looking IK for a plausible human-created model. The reason why I mentioned text layout is not that I think its solvability makse this problem solvable, too, it's that you should tread carefully because someone might think that you implied that all nontrivial data analysis problems are unsolvable.
Last edited by Ari Rahikkala on 22-03-2005 at 01:12
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lord of the mark
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FUKCOV - Former United Kingdom Colony of Virginia
Dec 2000
time: 00:36
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quote:
Originally posted by Ari Rahikkala
True, but irrelevant. Where was it said that this game wants to store any bitmaps, anyway? I mean, sure, it has to *render* bitmaps to show on the screen, but... ah, I'm not even going to try to explain anything here, I just want you to tell us why you think the game should need to store high-resolution bitmaps anyway.
True, but basically as vovan said, in the end only to the same extent as it is true of any other information-processing system. That includes, for example, humans. I consider the burden of proof to be on you - if you want to disagree with me about this, please do it in the off-topic forum, and only after meditating intensely on the Church-Turing Thesis. |
The Spike-Skanky thesis, OTOH, says that anything that can be discussed in the on topic forums should be
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vovan
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quote:
Originally posted by Kloreep
This means we'll have a limited number of organs and appendages for the creatures, I imagine? |
I imagine so too. Might be some expansion pack material right there, though maybe there will be some way to edit the appendages as well.
quote:
Originally posted by Kloreep
Don't know how the buildings would work (i.e. if the player's graphical design will have any effect on what they do). |
I think it works much the same way as animals. You basically shape the building however you want, and then also add these functional "appendages" which determine what the building does. But during the demo, Wright didn't reallly touch on that very much, he only customized the look of a single building to show how easy it is to do, but he didn't go into the whole form vs function thing.
quote:
Originally posted by Kloreep
Still, so long as they spend enough time polishing it, and devote enough manhours to creating the kind of general content needed for a variety of options in these editors, it could be very nice. |
Yup. I imagine much of what will ship with the game will be the content created by the testers and programmers over the course of creating the game.
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vovan
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quote:
Originally posted by Sn00py
I have another question that you might be able to answer for me vovan. Can or does the creature evolve by itself? |
I don't think so, because there was nothing to indicate any autonomous evolution in the demo, however, there was nothing to indicate that there won't be any such thing... Everything is possible, but I imagine all the change will be done by the player.
quote:
Originally posted by Sn00py
And if one creature has 20 powerful arms and 10 Jaws each with the power of a Hippo's jaw, does that creature have more of a chance of killing a civilization of Smurfs? The reason I ask is because this game's engine is based on real life physics I presume, so if one creature's physical attributes are more powerful than anothers, then the weaker creature is going to die no doubt? |
I think this is certainly true for lower levels of development - especially the non-sentient existence. During the demo, when Wright's creature came out to the surface of the planet, there was this round brown thing (which you can see on one of the screenshots) which he killed and ate - it didn't respond with anything, because it didn't have any weapon appendages - it only tried to run, but its short legs didn't help much either. When Wright's creature was full, there appeared a huge spider-looking thing, from which the player had to run for dear life, because apparently he couldn't defend too well from them.
Now, a more interesting development is in the sentient levels. Here, I am not sure about the answer. When Wright's city was attacked, basically what happened was that these other creatures rolled up in tanks and started bombing the living daylight out of the city, to which Wright tried to respond with aerial attacks from some fluffy air-balloon looking thingeys. So, here, of course, the shape of the creatures doesn't play much direct role. There was no hand-to-hand combat to be seen between the creatures of the different civilizations, so I don't really know whether that will be in the game... It would make sense if it was.
quote:
Originally posted by Sn00py
Also, I'm curious, what would the disadvantages be if I had an extremely powerful creature? Would I have to feed it a lot maybe? |
I don't recall Wright mentioning anything about that during the demo... It would make sense... I don't think he said anything much about the importance of feeding and how the daily life of the player goes. It was more of a high-level concept overview kind of thing.
quote:
Originally posted by Sn00py
Does it have to be a creature? Can I make an insect that stings people with deadly poison? Or what about a virus? Ok, a virus can't travel the universe by will, but I might be able to hitch a ride on another UFO that happens to land on my planet. |
Yeah, I've been wondering that too. I was sort of less extreme about it, for example, I was wondering whether you could make a herbivore instead of eating animals. As far as stinging, I am sure there will be some kind of stinging implement. But as far as radically changing the form of the organism, I don't know...
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20-03-2005 10:06
I think you can blow through it in a day. 
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