Battle.Net Member
This is more of a "is it easily possible?" or a "how can this be done?" to the techies out there who know 3d modeling and making games:
I was looking at the new Unburied screenshots, namely this one (http://us.media.blizzard.com/1901200114/_images/screenshots/ss81-hires.jpg).
On his own, the Unburied looks pretty cool. When there are three or four standing next to each other, exactly identical, it looks kind of less-amazing. What I want to know is can there possibly be a RANDOM generation of features on mobs (particularly big ones like this guy where you really notice it) such as the position/number of spikes on his back, the size and shape of head and limbs, etc?
Does this put too much strain on CPU/GPU to be feasible? Will creating the code for this random model maker take a team of coders six months of hard work to get working? Would it be easier to just design say, 10 models of each mob and then when populating a map with mods, randomly select from these 10 models?
So there you have it, you probably won't see screens filled with nothing but the unburied.Bashiok
Well to be perfectly honest all of these shots are set up. Generally you're probably not going to run into that many at one time. So a couple dispersed within a sea of every other monster, you don't see the stark repetition. I don't think normal spawning conditions would have that many facing you at once, especially because they're kind of tough.
As far as having randomized creatures... mmm... it would take a lot of work but of course it wouldn't be impossible. The question is though, does that massive undertaking just to make sure a creature doesn't look the same as the one next to it matter when they're dead within a matter of seconds? Probably not.
Or a more important question is, how many unique types of monsters do we cut from the final game so this guy doesn't always have an arm in the same place?
The stark reality of production schedules! They give me nightmares too.
There will be creature variations, but it's not quite the same as randomization of body parts.
Right now they just have more important stuff to do rather than worrying about monsters that will be killed in a matter of seconds, like he said.
Ideally though, I wouldn't mind them to have a little variation.
So I say, let's leave the game making to the game makers ahy?
Opinions may vary I guess.
I think this thread would have been better titled "Mobs that WON'T look slightly different by Bashiok" though.
Agreed its trivial compared to the many other things the team has to worry about right now. they might go back and consider this when more important things are seen to tho
Except most programs already have a list of nearly infinite hues and shades which are already pre-programmed into it. The variations in the design of a monster would have to be created, thus taking much more time..... Dunno how you haven't grasped this concept yet.. Sorry Doppel I usually agree with you.
For each monster tho that would take quite some time considering how many monters are gonna be in the game....well thats assuming there is but well D2 had a lot of diff monters so we can assume D3 will to
All the characters are a SINGLE mesh, you don't put them together like Spore animals. The creation of the models in the game and how they are arranged is not a code intensive process in and of itself. Even the randomly generated environments have walls that are pre-modeled and just arranged in different configurations by the game engine. Having all the spikes as different meshes could work, but it on the most basic level would take more polygons and thats just a waste when you are trying to make an efficient model unless it's something that HAS to be done.
90% of Video Game stuff are not hard to implement, they're hard to optimize.
Bashiok is certainly overdoing it. In fact, so far from what I read of Bashiok's stuff I think he behaves like an idiot teenager. Characters are a bunch of poly's... what are you trying to say here? By your logic, a skeleton with a sword is a single mesh, and we can't give him an axe instead. Did you follow some course where triangles are generated via vertex methods? Because in game industry, that stuff is usually done by programs automatically, nothing is manually programmed, it would take ages.
Do you do this stuff for a job or something? seems liuke you know yer shit
And they can be disconnected. Meshes can be toyed with.
Spore is a video game. I'm talking in terms of programs that create 3D models, not a game that is specifically adapted for people to toy with it and stuff. Please stop bringing that game up, I never mentioned it at all.
I'm sorry that you don't know anything about vertex methods. If you don't know something, I suggest you don't mess with it. I commented on a guy's post. What do you want here?
And, vertex methods: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/cc164112.aspx
You can generate vertexes, polygons, etc. on a very very low level of programming.
Obviously, nobody uses that, but to give you an idea, since you totally had to butt into our convo.
See Project Offset. Crowd test demo.
Yes indeed you can theoretically script something that would randomly generate spikes in designated locations on a mesh, but why would you do that? Why wouldn't you just edit the mesh by hand, it would end up taking less effort. The thing is though that you'd still have to take the time to retexture the new meshes anyway. The whole work flow you are suggesting would take more time than actually just making a new variation on the character. The reason Spore was brought up was because people are assuming that it's easy to drag one part of a model and place it in another position. You CAN detach part of mesh and then weld the points to another part of a mesh or another mesh all together, but from an edgeflow point of view and with polycount in mind it would make more sense to make a new character from scratch if you wanted pieces of a character in different positions. We've already brought up the topic of bones etc. You'd have to re-weight the new mesh to make sure it deforms correctly regardless of how it's created. You can't leave these things up to pure computer generation. Why take the time to have the computer make something then go back and test it and tweak it to make sure it's right when you can just make it right the first time yourself?
I don't think we need to accuse each other of not knowing what we are talking about, but I think a reasonable person will conclude that it will take a large enough degree of effort to warrant the original response by Bashiok that we are discussing.