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Scalable UI


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2 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

Heh!  Well, if that's the only typo in that post then I'm doing pretty good!  Among my many personal triumphs on this Earth was achieving "Worst Speller Of The 5th Grade Award".  It was quite an achievement in my young and formative life! ;)

Steve

Nice reply, Cheers Steve.

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16 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

I do think we're both making arguments that are a little more extreme than the point of this coversation.  You're right that the behemoths, at least, don't chuck everything out with each new release.  So I did overstate that.  However, I think you're being far to dismissive of how much rewriting and recoding work is routinely done to established code.  So let me restate my position...

When technology changes there's demand by customers (ALL customers) for their games to take advantage of those changes.  The big AAA companies have large budgets to work with and are playing for high stakes, therefore they are pretty much compelled to take advantage of even seemingly small improvements *if* they think it gives them an edge over the competition or is required to keep up with it.  If the new whiz-bang-whatever means established code has to be chucked and rewritten, in large part or in total, then so be it.  The programming bean counters make their calculations and they proceed accordingly.  Nothing is inherently sacrosanct.

Ok, that's fair, but we aren't talking about new whiz bang features, we are talking about UI scalability. It's hardly something Combat Mission is alone on, especially in the video game world, but anyone writing software in 20xx that wasn't disposable and didn't take into account increasing resolution of displays was making a mistake. It frustrates me whenever I see it. Scaling a UI to a screen is not "whiz bang".

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Combat Mission's customers put the same expectations on us as the AAA companies, though most are willing to grudgingly accept that's unfair.  We do our best to improve the game engine as we go along, but rewriting fundamental portions of our game engine isn't feasible.  We have neither the time nor the money to do it because we don't have the same sort of financing (customers + investors). Even if a majority of our customers demand we do something that requires a major intrusion into critical established code, it's not going to happen.  It can't happen.

Which means that inherently the AAA game companies do have a disposable mentality when it comes to any one section of code *if* they feel there's a need to rewrite it.  We don't have the same luxury, which means even if we do see a need we usually can't address it if major sections of code have to be messed with.

It depends on perspective.  What the AAA guys view as "rewritten" is not the way we would view it. Which is understandable since we're talking totally different scales of development.  The AAA games out there are playing for much bigger stakes, so if video game card company A comes out with a new whizbang graphics feature that requires a major portion of the game engine be rewritten, then they rewrite it either before the competition does or because the competition already has.

Again, sure, I agree in principle. Bigger companies can put more resources and effort behind their upgrades than small shops can. That isn't what you had said though, you called these massive game engines disposable, which I can't agree with.

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If you looked at CM2 Engine 4 code vs. CMSF you'd see more similar than dissimilar.  You'd also see major sections of code that are practically identical.  I highly doubt that can be said for the AAA game engines out there.  If for no other reason than dozens of programmers have worked on the code over the years.

You would absolutely see major sections of code that were identical.

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I don't know what Chris could have possibly posted that would have given you some insights into what was coded and how it was coded 10+ years ago.  There's always trade offs for doing something one way vs. another way and I think it's a bad idea for you to make a blanket statement about technical decisions without having been part of the development of the code at the time those decisions had to be made.

 

It was an excerpt from one of the TO&E storage files. It was pretty scary. Also in my experience you actually can make blanket statements about tech decisions when you see certain mistakes made. I see it all the time.

 

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Which gets us back to the primary point :)  In theory we could have a scalable UI now because technologically it's straight forward.  But we don't have the resources to do it and our customers (on the whole) are not willing to pay the cost for doing so.  The cost is not just financial, it's also opportunities lost for improvements to other parts of the game and speed of releases.

The other point is that the reason CM2 doesn't have scalable UI isn't because we "didn't give it a second thought".  Quite the contrary... we have given it at least 5 second thoughts that I know of  :)  The problem is that wanting and doing aren't the same thing.  We want to have a scalable UI, but unfortunately we can't.

Steve

Again, sure, I can dig it. I understand that going back and changing it now is practically impossible, I just object to the idea that when it was being built it was hard. Scalable UIs in video games are pretty easy when you are rolling your own. Look at it like the Ultrawide screen issue you see today. A new popular screen format emerges and some games don't work with it, and others crop the hell out of it, and some work perfectly. Combat Mission happens to be one of the games where the ultrawide format works really well out of the box. You guys did a good job with that, but I'm sure it wasn't really considered an issue, and certainly not something you put a lot of time into, you just did the renderer correctly.

 

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(as an aside, I've read more than one criticism that the AAA companies have slowed down their "innovation" over the past few years because they've been primarily interested in game boxes and not PCs.  Game boxes are more static and predictable environments, therefore the PC versions don't get as much attention as they once did.  I don't know how true or pervasive this is or not, but certainly there's a group out there that thinks the AAA companies are doing the minimum only, especially on PCs)

This comes and goes since 2000 really, especially near the end of console release cycles. The new Call of Duty which released this week is the same crap released 10 years ago, but with a truckload of garbage bolted on to make it passable for 2017.

Edited by SgtHatred
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31 minutes ago, SgtHatred said:

Ok, that's fair, but we aren't talking about new whiz bang features, we are talking about UI scalability.

Agreed, but the same principles apply.  If a AAA game company thinks they need to change something to modernize their game, they have the resources to do it even if it means major architectural changes to core code.  If most of the games don't have it, then there's not much incentive to change if it's hard.  Until, that is, someone else makes the first move and is rewarded for it.  It's like game comany's reluctance to be the first one to raise prices.  Like any industry, the market leaders tend to let others go first to see if it's viable, then they all jump on the bandwagon.

31 minutes ago, SgtHatred said:

It's hardly something Combat Mission is alone on, especially in the video game world, but anyone writing software in 20xx that wasn't disposable and didn't take into account increasing resolution of displays was making a mistake.

Sure, hindsight is a wonderful thing to have :D  But I think you're still missing the point... there were good reasons to NOT have scalable UI back in the early 2000s.  It wasn't laziness that drove the decisions.  Certainly wasn't on our part.

31 minutes ago, SgtHatred said:

Again, sure, I agree in principle. Bigger companies can put more resources and effort behind their upgrades than small shops can. That isn't what you had said though, you called these massive game engines disposable, which I can't agree with.

Yup, I scaled back my comments.  In my view (which I agree isn't the norm) rewriting core sections of code is a form of "disposable" mentality compared to how niche game engines (2D included) view things.  Again, it's a different way of looking at things and I admit that my perspective is weighted in a particular direction.

31 minutes ago, SgtHatred said:

You would absolutely see major sections of code that were identical.

Interesting.  What percentage of code would you say is the same as the latest version of Source vs. Quake 1? 

31 minutes ago, SgtHatred said:

It was an excerpt from one of the TO&E storage files. It was pretty scary.

What does that have to do with scalable UI? 

Though you are correct that the TO&E storage is extremely complex, but that's more out of necessity than anything else.  The degree of minute control we need for a system to function equally well in all time periods and theaters is severe.  And even with what we have there's still cases that we can't deal with.  For example, right now we have a unique situation of a Soldier model in CMFI R2V that we're trying to find a work around for because in 10 years this particular situation hasn't come up.

And yes, we are aware of lots of ways the current TO&E code can be optimized/simplified.  Engine 1 (original CMBN) and Engine 2 implemented a lot of those changes, but like so may things we're stuck with the basic framework.  We definitely won't be using this framework beyond CM2.

31 minutes ago, SgtHatred said:

Also in my experience you actually can make blanket statements about tech decisions when you see certain mistakes made. I see it all the time.

Maybe when comparing games of a similar type that you have familiarity with, I'll go along with that.  But it gets pretty iffy when you start comparing apples to oranges.  What is an obvious design flaw for a sports car might be a requirement for a pickup truck.

31 minutes ago, SgtHatred said:

Again, sure, I can dig it. I understand that going back and changing it now is practically impossible, I just object to the idea that when it was being built it was hard. Scalable UIs in video games are pretty easy when you are rolling your own.

As I understand it, the decisions were made not based on easy/hard calculations but performance/resource reasoning.  Reasoning that changed dramatically within a few years.

31 minutes ago, SgtHatred said:

Look at it like the Ultrawide screen issue you see today. A new popular screen format emerges and some games don't work with it, and others crop the hell out of it, and some work perfectly. Combat Mission happens to be one of the games where the ultrawide format works really well out of the box. You guys did a good job with that, but I'm sure it wasn't really considered an issue, and certainly not something you put a lot of time into, you just did the renderer correctly.

From what I remember we deliberately designed the game to work with oddball resolutions.  We wrote CM2 with Windows and MacOS as well as desktop and laptops firmly in mind.  Even in 2004-2006 when the bulk of that code was written the resolutions were all over the place. Sticking to one or two fixed resolutions was simply not possible for us.  So the game was coded appropriately to match the need.

What wasn't all over the place were the maximum resolutions.  They were pretty much stalled out because monitor size, VRAM, DRAM, and processors were all ill equipped to go too much further than 1024.  Cheap LCD monitors, more than anything else IMHO, changed that big time.  Hell, even today we have customers with monitors WAY bigger than what their systems can comfortably handle.

Steve

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20 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

 

For example, right now we have a unique situation of a Soldier model in CMFI R2V that we're trying to find a work around for because in 10 years this particular situation hasn't come up.

And yes, we are aware of lots of ways the current TO&E code can be optimized/simplified.  Engine 1 (original CMBN) and Engine 2 implemented a lot of those changes, but like so may things we're stuck with the basic framework.  We definitely won't be using this framework beyond CM2.

Steve

Steve,

Can you elaborate a bit more on the Soldier model situation that you listed above?  Sounds interesting.  Do you have any plans to show screenshots or video for the upcoming CMFI R2V in the near future?

Also, would you be willing to share your thoughts on the future? Above, you mentioned not using the current TO&E framework beyond CM2.  As you have described on the forums, BFC has stayed in business for quite a long time in a very difficult market, and you have also shown that you recognize the limitations of CM2.  So, with that being said, I expect that development of the CM3 Engine is well underway.  Can you elaborate on this at all?  Will the current TO&E as well as artwork be able to be imported into the new CM3 engine?

Thank you.

 

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On 11/8/2017 at 4:16 PM, Hister said:

I know who you had in mind while saying that... ;) 

You and hundreds of others :D  We have had this problem with CM2 since the very beginning.  And it's not limited to Combat Mission either, there's a tradition of gamers complaining about game speed performance who shouldn't be.  Sometimes they have a system below specs, sometimes they are doing things like leaving lots other apps open in the background, etc.  Lots of different reasons.

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Do check the test results of Schrullenhaft on that matter in case you haven't seen it yet. 

Yeah, interesting stuff.  I'll comment there.

On 11/8/2017 at 5:27 PM, Chops said:

Steve,

Can you elaborate a bit more on the Soldier model situation that you listed above?  Sounds interesting.  Do you have any plans to show screenshots or video for the upcoming CMFI R2V in the near future?

The situation is unique.  Indian soldiers who are Sikhs had both a beard and a turban in real life.  Non-Sikh soldiers, however, had helmets and no beards (sometimes mustaches).  It's pretty consistent.  This wouldn't be too difficult to handle, however Sikhs and non-Sikhs are mixed together randomly within any Indian unit.  For 10 years we've never had diversity within a unit require a face texture linked to a specific "headgear" and also exclude it from other combinations.  Even with our complex TO&E system, which generally allows us to handle oddities without a major issue, there's no straight forward technical way to handle this specific, and definitely limited, situation.

Fortunately, I do have a work around in mind!  I just need Charles to confirm it will work.

Yes, we will publish screenshots and videos for R2V fairly soon.

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Also, would you be willing to share your thoughts on the future? Above, you mentioned not using the current TO&E framework beyond CM2.  As you have described on the forums, BFC has stayed in business for quite a long time in a very difficult market, and you have also shown that you recognize the limitations of CM2.  So, with that being said, I expect that development of the CM3 Engine is well underway.  Can you elaborate on this at all?  Will the current TO&E as well as artwork be able to be imported into the new CM3 engine?

All I can say is that CM1 taught us a lot of lessons, both in its features and it's coding, which we incorporated into CM2.  It's a pretty good bet to presume that CM3, whenever it comes out, will be based on the lessons learned from both CM1 and CM2's features and coding.   However, I expect that select code from CM2 will make it into CM3 simply because CM2 is solid and largely doing what we want it to do.  CM1's code, on the other hand, wasn't very useful in a direct way or CM2.

The TO&E is stored in a huge relational database which allows for straight forward manipulation of data into modified formats.  This is not necessarily easy, just technically possible.  I reconfigured the CMSF1 TO&E for CMSF2, for example.  A lot of work and still more to go, but a lot easier than starting from scratch!

Steve

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On 11/4/2017 at 12:11 AM, Pak40 said:

I, for one, am ready for the next line of CM engine. My vote goes for stop making CM2 products, It's time for CM3.

Not me, I vote play at lower resolution 1360 x 768  or similar. That looks pretty good with this game. I am hoping for the next modules for Italy, East Front, and maybe a Crossing the Rhine one.

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To paraphrase Monty Python... 1024x768? Oh we used to DREAM of 1024x768.  Every morning our father would get us up an hour before we went to sleep, then we'd eat a hard lump of coal for breakfast, and if we were really lucky we could watch him use Lotus 123 in 320x240 on a Compaq Portable running DOS 1.00.

:D

Actually, I have fond memories of playing Flight Simulator on my friend's father's Compaq Portable.  Ah, life was so much simpler back when computers had less capabilities than a modern day toaster oven.

Steve

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1 hour ago, Battlefront.com said:

To paraphrase Monty Python... 1024x768? Oh we used to DREAM of 1024x768.  Every morning our father would get us up an hour before we went to sleep, then we'd eat a hard lump of coal for breakfast, and if we were really lucky we could watch him use Lotus 123 in 320x240 on a Compaq Portable running DOS 1.00.

:D

Actually, I have fond memories of playing Flight Simulator on my friend's father's Compaq Portable.  Ah, life was so much simpler back when computers had less capabilities than a modern day toaster oven.

Steve

Ah, I started on Windows 95. You definitely have the leg up! 😎 

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2 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

To paraphrase Monty Python... 1024x768? Oh we used to DREAM of 1024x768.  Every morning our father would get us up an hour before we went to sleep, then we'd eat a hard lump of coal for breakfast, and if we were really lucky we could watch him use Lotus 123 in 320x240 on a Compaq Portable running DOS 1.00.

:D

Actually, I have fond memories of playing Flight Simulator on my friend's father's Compaq Portable.  Ah, life was so much simpler back when computers had less capabilities than a modern day toaster oven.

Steve

Exactly, I used to play titles like "Nato Commander", and "Airborne Ranger" and "Gunship" on a Commodore  64 in 1988. To me CM2 is amazing. I guess as an earlier poster said

"thank goodness I'm in the minority "  Oh yeah also "Red Storm Rising"  .. had tons of fun. The magical early days of PC gaming.

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2 hours ago, Mord said:

I started gaming on an Intellivision. As fond as the memories are, I am damn glad we are past that. Actually we are past what even my 12-year-old brain could dream up, back then.

Oh, now we're getting into "started" are we?  My first home video game was a Telstar Marksman, which was basically Pong with a light pistol and detachable rifle stock.  I remember my father waiting in a long line at a Sears to get one.  Yesserie, fond memories that I've not dredged up probably since you were playing Intelivision ;)

Now that I feel old, I'm going to go to sleep for a little while!

Steve

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5 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

Oh we used to DREAM of 1024x768.  Every morning our father would get us up an hour before we went to sleep, then we'd eat a hard lump of coal for breakfast, and if we were really lucky we could watch him use Lotus 123 in 320x240 on a Compaq Portable running DOS 1.00.

 

Paradise!

we'd get up 3 hours before we went to bed, eat a lump of cold poison, wait 26 hours a day every day for Elite to load on a tape recorder and when that was done, dad would bash us to sleep with a Sinclair ZX Spectrum...if we were lucky!

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If you have a small monitor, 1024x768 is ok.  It becomes an irritation when one upgrades to larger monitors.

While many of us are impatient to see the early years of WW2 depicted, with the pace of development as it is, am beginning to think that going to CM3 asap may be a good idea (as opposed to waiting another 5+(?) years for early WW2 by which time CM2 may have become as outdated as CM1). 

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12 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

Oh, now we're getting into "started" are we?  My first home video game was a Telstar Marksman, which was basically Pong with a light pistol and detachable rifle stock.  I remember my father waiting in a long line at a Sears to get one.  Yesserie, fond memories that I've not dredged up probably since you were playing Intelivision ;)

Now that I feel old, I'm going to go to sleep for a little while!

Steve

What was the world like when everything was in black and white?
Did food taste differently?
How did traffic lights work?

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11 hours ago, Erwin said:

While many of us are impatient to see the early years of WW2 depicted, with the pace of development as it is, am beginning to think that going to CM3 asap may be a good idea (as opposed to waiting another 5+(?) years for early WW2 by which time CM2 may have become as outdated as CM1). 

And then you'll be complaining that CM3 doesn't have all the units/nationalities/features/etc. as CM2 (as I will).

As much as I like the idea of CM3 (and the cool stuff I imagine it could have), I do not want to see it any time soon, unless what we have now can be brought along somehow. I do not want to go through all the waiting for theaters/time periods/vehicles/formations/nationalities/features again. It's been a really long road just to get here. I sure as h*** don't want to go back to square one. I'd rather see them push CM2 as far as they can. Stuff like new animations and the like could help freshen it up.

 

Mord.

Edited by Mord
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I understand what you are saying.  My concern is that (I find) that most scenarios start to feel very similar across all the game families (esp WW2).  Of course, the terrain changes a bit, there are new or different units etc.  But the gameplay experience is virtually identical. 

The current state of the game is good.  The graphics are perfectly fine for this genre of game.  The UI is the biggest problem that dates the game...  and that won't change apparently until there is a significantly updated engine. 

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A new engine isn't gonna change the feel of the similarity once there are lots of titles. Unless they went back to leaving out features and that would suck. It'd be the same argument if we were on CM9, with five titles. It's guys shooting guys, tanks blowing s*** up, and mortars being dropped. They'd have to make a title about Rome, The Civil War, or Samurai or something to really change it.

 

Mord.

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CM1's game data and models were both too rooted in the original game engine and the research materials we had at the time.  We were able to use almost none of it (and even that is being generous!) when we started making WW2 games in CM2.  This isn't the case for CM2's data and models.  They are basically as detailed as can be, which means there's no need for us to redo them all for whatever comes next.  This means we can produce games faster and not risk cutting corners on quality.

BTW, we agree with both the viewpoints expressed by Mord and Erwin.  CM2 felt different from CM1 because we went from a more generic simulation to a more literal one.  But in many ways there's more in common than there is different.  Scope, scale, focus on realism, etc. are fundamentally similar.  I don't know how the next game will compare to what's come before, but I suspect people will have a similar "it's the same but different" discussion about it.

Steve

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