279 réponses à ce sujet

[ev76]

This is the best news today the engine. Hope bioware uses it to it's fullest potential. I can see using earquake Mage power and having buildings fall apart onto my enemies. bioware unleash it's true potential. Oh and rain make it rain!

[Allan Schumacher]

deuce985 wrote...

I'm just curious to know if the "technical" aspect of DA3 had been in development for two years too. The article I read said DA3 has been in development for two years. Does this mean in that time Bioware has been designing this new engine? Or was it mostly just conceptual ideas? I'd be curious to know if somebody could answer this.

A lot of prototyping, assessing what the engine is like, how it works, how it deals with a lot of tech details and so forth.  Though much of the team was on DA2's expansion pack too, if you recall.  I myself joined the DA3 project at that point too.

[rapscallioness]

John Epler wrote...

Engines don't really have a lot to do with the kind of game that's being made. Engines handle a lot of things behind the scenes - the example of visuals was already used, but it's more than that. Engines can handle how animations are handled, how data is stored and accessed, how assets are treated. Certainly, Frostbite 2 has, thus far, been primarily used for FPSes, but there's a lot of stuff it does that is simply going to give us the ability to do a lot more than we have previously - not just graphically.

The thing is, though - this is not a sign that we're shoving everything into overdrive action mode. We're working with the creators of this engine, and we've been building our changes from the ground up. This means that we don't have limitations in terms of things like customization that are imposed on us by the way the engine was originally created. Gameplay demands can drive changes to the engine, versus the engine limiting what we can do in terms of gameplay.

Hope that's a bit better of an explanation.

yes. oh, god, yes!

[Renmiri1]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

Renmiri1 wrote...

Interesting... I looked at Frostbite's site and they don't seem to have sword and sorcery games yet. Is that one of the things you guys will have to build from scratch ?

Well, "sword and sorcery" type games is a bit vague.  There are elements that we use in our game (i.e. a more full featured conversation editor) that, for example, DICE wouldn't have really needed to do for BF3.  For us, though, it's essential for fast workflows and iteration.

It's not built entirely from scratch (there's a foundation that we can build upon and other systems that we can leverage), but there was no concept of a tree based conversation editor that let you quickly hook up speakers and whatnot.  There is now, and it can even do some stuff that the one in Eclipse couldn't do to boot!

The big issue is that they lack the level of stability that the Eclipse tools would have (since those tools existed for years), but that's where I come in!

That will be great!

I meant the swordplay and magic visual effects. From what I saw so far, Frostbite has being used mostly in "realistic" settings no fireballs or Petrify spells  Would be interesting to see how you guys push it to display magic 

Modifié par Renmiri1, 18 septembre 2012 - 02:40 .

[rapscallioness]

Cstaf wrote...


I am sorry for being rude. On my third day without cigarettes so im not on my best behaviour. Be grateful you are not my wife !

good for you!

[Demx]

Hmm a new engine could mean rag doll physics, cities more populated then before, spells that won't crash the game. Although I'm not sure about the face customization.

[Jadebaby]

Will the new engine have a limitation on dialogue? Will DA3 have as much auto-dialogue as ME3?

[Demx]

Jade8aby88 wrote...

Will the new engine have a limitation on dialogue? Will DA3 have as much auto-dialogue as ME3?

Oh God, I hope not.

[Jadebaby]

rapscallioness wrote...

Cstaf wrote...


I am sorry for being rude. On my third day without cigarettes so im not on my best behaviour. Be grateful you are not my wife !

good for you!

Yes, congratulations. I used to smoke myself and it was hard to quit without much support. So here it is, keep going strong

[deuce985]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

deuce985 wrote...

I'm just curious to know if the "technical" aspect of DA3 had been in development for two years too. The article I read said DA3 has been in development for two years. Does this mean in that time Bioware has been designing this new engine? Or was it mostly just conceptual ideas? I'd be curious to know if somebody could answer this.

A lot of prototyping, assessing what the engine is like, how it works, how it deals with a lot of tech details and so forth.  Though much of the team was on DA2's expansion pack too, if you recall.  I myself joined the DA3 project at that point too.

Thanks for the clarification Allan.

[nightscrawl]

John Epler wrote...

We're working with the creators of this engine, and we've been building our changes from the ground up. This means that we don't have limitations in terms of things like customization that are imposed on us by the way the engine was originally created.

Does this mean we are going to be seeing a new, fresh, character creation process as well? Or will our character have basically the same "look" that you guys came up with in DA2? I'm just wondering how different it will be.



Eeee first post in the new forum! So excited!

Modifié par nightscrawl, 18 septembre 2012 - 03:36 .

[Brockololly]

I'm going to be very curious how characters and the art style translates into Frostbite 2. Things like the DA2 elves and some of the more stylized designs just don't seem like they'd work if they're adopting the realism that's been the trademark of Frostbite 2. So I'm just picturing things ending up in some bizarre middle ground, kind of like real life Mario:


I'm just having a hard time reconciling how they're going to make some of the more stylized designs from DA2 work in Frostbite 2, unless they're going to go for a more stylized look overall somehow. But that's not the impression I got from the press release and FB2 is known for realism and detail.

[Allan Schumacher]

I'm going to be very curious how characters and the art style translates into Frostbite 2. Things like the DA2 elves and some of the more stylized designs just don't seem like they'd work if they're adopting the realism that's been the trademark of Frostbite 2.

That an engine has only been used for more realistic portrayals has no actual bearing on the assets that can be used in game, aside from the upper bound that if you want to make very realistic models you can.

[Am1vf]

Frostbite 2 seem like a great engine, I don't see how that could be a problem.

I just hope the Dragon Age series keeps having it's particular art-style and interesting characters without trying to get all reallistic. And we have no reason to think so.

John Epler wrote...

Cstaf wrote...
I am sorry for being rude. On my third day without cigarettes so im not on my best behaviour. Be grateful you are not my wife !

Quite alright! I'm trying to cut back on caffeine so I am not at my most polite either, for which I apologize.

Did that happen on the Internet? The world is changing for the better, it seems.

[SafetyShattered]

I'm not exactly sure why this seems bad to some people. Frostbite 2 is a beast. Why the hate?

Modifié par Shadowfang12, 18 septembre 2012 - 04:28 .

[upsettingshorts]

Brockololly wrote...

I don't know how engines work, but my instincts tell me anything having to do with BioWare must be bad news.

Good of you to be so forward about it for once.

[EpicBoot2daFace]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

I'm going to be very curious how characters and the art style translates into Frostbite 2. Things like the DA2 elves and some of the more stylized designs just don't seem like they'd work if they're adopting the realism that's been the trademark of Frostbite 2.

That an engine has only been used for more realistic portrayals has no actual bearing on the assets that can be used in game, aside from the upper bound that if you want to make very realistic models you can.

Exactly. It can be adapted to fit any game or genre. Codies used the EGO Engine for Flashpoint, but it was originally designed for DIRT. People really have no idea what a game engine even is. They see something like Battlefield 3 and think every game that uses it will look just as good simply because it's using the same engine. It isn' t the case at all.

The leading game engines provide a software framework that developers use to create games for video game consoles and personal computers. The core functionality typically provided by a game engine includes a rendering engine (“renderer”) for 2D or 3D graphics, a physics engine or collision detection (and collision response), sound, scripting, animation, artificial intelligence, networking, streaming, memory management, threading, localization support, and a scene graph. The process of game development is often economized, in large part, by reusing/adapting the same game engine to create different games,[1] or to make it easier to "port" games to multiple platforms. - Wikipedia.

Notice it doesn't say anything about the game engine actually creating assets. That's what the developers and artists do.

People have the same mentality when it comes to CGI in movies. They think the computer does all the work and the artists and 3D modelers who comes up with the ideas get to sit back and watch it all unfold. Nothing could be further from the truth. Those guys have to concept and prototype everything. Imagine going frame by frame to create even the most basic idea. It would take weeks. Now, try to imagine something like Avatar.

To sum up: a game's engine is only as good as the people who program for it. This is why old engines can be updated and still compete. The COD games use a heavily modified Id Tech 3.. But at it's core, it's still the engine that powered Quake 3.

Older game engines don't need to be scrapped most of the time. I bet the main reason BioWare is switching to Frostbite 2 is because it makes more sense to do so than to upgrade an older engine, and it's becoming EA's prefered in-house engine for all of it's developers.

[tmp7704]

Shadowfang12 wrote...

I'm not exactly sure why this seems bad to some people. Frostbite 2 is a beast. Why the hate?

The work that needs to be put into retooling the engine to suit BioWare's purposes as well as work needed to re-create existing content ... takes away directly from resources available for production of new content and/or new abilities for existing engine.

Whether potentially* better rendering quality of the new engine can make up for that is an open question.

*) certain areas are affected primarily by quality of content, not abilities of the engine. e.g. poor animations will look just as bad in Frostbite as they did in DA2.

[Wrathion]

Okay, I had to look it up...
It's used for the one type game that I don't play...shooters.

I can imagine it working in DA3 though. I'm more worried about how skin tones will look.

Was the "black" hair looking more brown a result of their previous engines?

[Allan Schumacher]

The work that needs to be put into retooling the engine to suit BioWare's purposes as well as work needed to re-create existing content ... takes away directly from resources available for production of new content and/or new abilities for existing engine.

Content doesn't need to be recreated. DA2's assets can be imported over into Frostbite.

[SafetyShattered]

tmp7704 wrote...

Shadowfang12 wrote...

I'm not exactly sure why this seems bad to some people. Frostbite 2 is a beast. Why the hate?

The work that needs to be put into retooling the engine to suit BioWare's purposes as well as work needed to re-create existing content ... takes away directly from resources available for production of new content and/or new abilities for existing engine.

Whether potentially* better rendering quality of the new engine can make up for that is an open question.

*) certain areas are affected primarily by quality of content, not abilities of the engine. e.g. poor animations will look just as bad in Frostbite as they did in DA2.

Ah gotcha. I can see why people might be a bit apprehensive about this after learning that. Thanks.

[Atakuma]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

The work that needs to be put into retooling the engine to suit BioWare's purposes as well as work needed to re-create existing content ... takes away directly from resources available for production of new content and/or new abilities for existing engine.

Content doesn't need to be recreated. DA2's assets can be imported over into Frostbite.

I believe he's referring to actual gameplay content and not just assets.

[Allan Schumacher]

Just for reference sake, Morrowind and Oblivion were made on the Gamebryo engine.

So was Sid Meier's Pirates and Sid Meier's Civilization IV

Modifié par Allan Schumacher, 18 septembre 2012 - 05:16 .

[Allan Schumacher]

Atakuma wrote...
I believe he's referring to actual gameplay content and not just assets.

According to this post I'm discinlined to agree.

[cindercatz]

I'm hoping for more realism, actually. I don't really want DA going after that storybook look like Fable has, but it doesn't need to go ultra real either, purely speaking of visuals. I would like for the world to have a lived in, natural sense to it, and the characters to have more natural weight and emotional heft. I'm still fond of the visual flair you guys have been pushing, though, in most areas, and with the armor customization post a while back, things look pretty good. I also hope you guys can bring most of your basic animation style over, the running and walking and all that, or something similar. Hopefully combat animations will have more of a flow and weight to them. That's aside from maybe a little too wide a long sword in that blog, ultra thick feel to the male character.. I don't want male characters to resemble Gears of War, y'know? I avoid that game series mostly because of its character design. Halo too. And Army of Two for that matter. That's the same engine.. So don't do that.

Considering you guys have gotten to rebuild whatever parts you need to for so long going, and the time is being allowed to re-establish Dragon Age properly, with gusto seems like, I'm very excited for what you guys are going to end up with. A lot of the ideas that have come out are very appealing. :-) I'm not worried that the engine will be any kind of step back.