Guest Big Time Software Posted January 30, 2001 Share Posted January 30, 2001 Folks... some people are really not getting the point here. We need to go through the following questions for something like DL (i.e. a "whiz-bang" option), in the following order. If it flunks even ONE question, there it shouldn't be looked into any further: 1. Is the feature "cool"? Obviously something can be "cool" and fail every single question below. But if the feature isn't very interesting, then why bother? 2. Does it add something SIGNIFICANT to the game as a whole? The key word is SIGNIFICANT. 3. Is it technically possible to do even for the high end systems? This is CM specific. It is totally irrelevant if another game has it UNLESS that game is trying to do EXACTLY the same thing we are doing. Apples to Oranges examples have zero relevance, and therefore aren't worth even discussing. 4. Is it something that is likely to increase sales significantly? Yes, if we are talking about investing a lot of time/money into something, it had better have some sort of payback. Otherwise... why bother? 5. Can it be done without harming the game itself? There are only so many hours in the day and dollars in our pocket, so if we have to make sacrifices it had better be damned important. 6. Overall, how much effort will be spent on how much of a percentage of the customer base? The more effort, and the fewer people that can use it, the less reason to do it. Some people, for example, would rather use Combat Mission on a LINUX system. But we certainly aren't going to put in the effort to port it just for a handfull of people. That would be totally irresponsible to the rest of the customer base, not to mention our goal of staying in business. Dynamic Lighting passes only the first question. It fails each and every following question for one or more reasons. "Make it optional" - a reasonable request only if it is no sweat off our nose to do it. Dynamic Lighting would probably take several months of coding just so 10% of the customers MIGHT be able to use it. A no starter from the get go. "Don't Be Lazy" - we aren't. We have said OVER AND OVER again that we will be improving Combat Mission, graphically as well as in every other aspect, over time. But there is only so much that can be done at once. Dynamic Lighting is NOT an option for MANY reasons, so adjust your expectations and be reasonable. We can not travel faster than light or discover the meaning of life either, so why hold us to such a standard? "Hire away your problems" - anybody that thinks we can just go down to the local college and hire some schmuck to add in whatever bleeding edge technology that comes down the line is obviously not a software developer. This is NOT an option. It just doesn't work that way. We can, to some extent, offload artwork and the like but even that is a real drain our our forward momentum. And that is if you get a GREAT person that sticks with it. Otherwise it will most likely bring forward momeuntum to a grinding halt. There is no possibility, not for a long time, of increasing our programming staff. It simply is NOT possible to do. People can wishfully think that we can, but unless you can show me your software development track record I will not be able to take anything you say seriously in this regard. I don't go around telling Physics scientists that they can get time travel to work if they just get some more grad students on the job, so don't tell us that you know that we can do amazing things if we just tried. It is OK to suggest such a thing, but after reading our answer it should be dropped. It isn't going to happen because it can't. Period. So... where does that leave us? Right where we have said all along. Combat Mission's graphics will be improved over time. But we are not going to risk our well being and the interests of the vast majority of CM customers just to make a handfull of Hardware Bigots happy. We would rather every single Hardware Bigot go out and buy some other game INSTEAD of Combat Mission 2 rather than go down this road to suicide. Even if we lost every single such sale we will still be in business, although catering to the high end might very well put us OUT of business. So if the choice is between losing 10% of our sales or 90%, which would pick? And yes, it does come down to such a choice, even if you don't understand why. I don't have time to explain it any better than I already have. End of discussion. Steve Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Big Time Software Posted January 30, 2001 Share Posted January 30, 2001 Deanco wrote: I know your time estimate is a ballpark figure of course, but how many coders were you thinking of to do it in that time frame? And I know it's just an educated guess, I take it as such. We can only make an educated guess as well. Since we have never done this before, and Combat Mission is NOT set up to do it, we would probably have to spend at least a week just to figure out if we can do it. Probably several weeks to implement after, if we are lucky. This is too much time for the potential payback. The vast MAJORITY of CM owners would rather see several more weeks worth of game improvements instead. It is an either or deal. Every day spent on whiz-bang graphics is one less day spent on improving the gameplay, accuracy, historical flavor, whatever. Currently our CM2 schedule is already locked down with an expected release in early Fall 2001. Any screwing around with lighting will delay release AND require sacrificing other possible enhancements. It is a nobrainer choice here, no matter how people try to rationalize it. Jeff, your point is well taken. However, we refuse to make a significant improvement in something like night fighting if it can only be used by a small percentage of gamers. This would be a VERY bad call for us to do. So until nearly all gamers can take advantage of such a feature, it isn't going to happen. And note that I do not disagree with you that night fighting suffers without dynamic lighting. I of course don't think it is "unplayable" as you do, but that is a matter of opinion. Steve Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Rollstoy Posted January 30, 2001 Share Posted January 30, 2001 Dear Steve! I for one do not ask anything from you. I find the matter itself (Computer Generated Images) fascinating, and I like to discuss about it. Unfortunately, little is said here about the technical aspects of the problem. Maybe Charles could shut us up with a few technical facts. Again, I am an engineer and I like to discuss technical problems. Please do not take that as an attack on CM. It is not. I am just curious on how things could (theoretically) be done. Because some things cannot be done. Not even theoretically. Regards, Thomm P.S.: Was I right about the Stuart/Buidling/Panzerschreck issue? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Big Time Software Posted January 30, 2001 Share Posted January 30, 2001 Thomm, Not to worry. You have been very levelheaded about this issue. In fact, some of the things you suggested in your previous post might possibly make it into CM2. They are at least scheduled. However, it is still too early for me to comment on the proposed feature list for CM2. Just know that we haven't rulled out ALL visual effects linked to lighting. Full Dynamic Lighting is, however, certainly out of the question for all reasons stated previously. Oh, and you are partially correct about the LOS/LOF thing. The mechanics basically work as you said they do (there are several threads on this if you want to find out more) but we think the reason why sometimes things are allowed to shoot through buildings is just a run of the mill bug. It is being looked into now, so no definite answer at the moment. Steve [This message has been edited by Big Time Software (edited 01-30-2001).] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeff Heidman Posted January 30, 2001 Share Posted January 30, 2001 Originally posted by Big Time Software: Jeff, your point is well taken. However, we refuse to make a significant improvement in something like night fighting if it can only be used by a small percentage of gamers. This would be a VERY bad call for us to do. So until nearly all gamers can take advantage of such a feature, it isn't going to happen. And note that I do not disagree with you that night fighting suffers without dynamic lighting. I of course don't think it is "unplayable" as you do, but that is a matter of opinion. Steve Well, "unplayable" might be too strong of a word. I mean that playng the game under night conditions has no resemblance to night combat due to the previously mentioned limitations. For me, that pretty much ruins it. Playing at night is pretty much exactly the same as playing in very dense fog. It has no resemblance to what actually fighting at night is like. Is there any thought to implementing some form of psuedo-dynamic lighting on the back-end? Basically allowing units to spot and fire at each other based on circumstances that may not be apparent on the screen itself? Jeff Heidman Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Big Time Software Posted January 30, 2001 Share Posted January 30, 2001 Gunny Bunny... add "coward" to the growing list of adjectives that accurately describe you. Just for fun, here is my take on what you posted: TEP 1 - Act like an annoying child by demanding special attention and not listening to anybody. STEP 2 - Pretend to have a brain. STEP 3 - When everybody figures out no brain is present, try being more insulting. STEP 4 - When that doesn't work, start up a new thread in the same exact way and hope that nobody notices. STEP 5 - When it is clear that nobody is buying your BS for what it is, repeat the following to keep your spirits up: *** Everything I state is the truth *** I shall figure out more apples to oranges examples because it is fun and doesn't require thinking *** I am my one and only GOD *** I shall be a daily annoyance in the hopes that someone will do what I demand just to shut me up *** I shall ignore the fact that BTS has a lot of respect and support by people that have brains because to accept this fact makes me look like the child that I am STEP 6 - Find some other thing to keep busy, which most likely involves making a bigger ass out of oneself. Gunny Bunny... if you want to think that people 2-3 times as old as you, who have been playing COMPUTER games before you were born, don't know what they are talking about... go right ahead. You will always come off looking like the child that you are. I also don't mind you criticizing BTS (me) either, because I have been making games since you were crying for your naptime in Kindergarten. So long as you keep it up you shall always be an irrelevant, non-issue in terms of CM's continuing evolution. And you won't be thought of any better for it either. Steve [This message has been edited by Big Time Software (edited 01-30-2001).] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Rollstoy Posted January 30, 2001 Share Posted January 30, 2001 I bump this to the top not only to thank you, Steve, but also because your previous post sure deserves some attention from the community ! Thanks and regards, Thomm [This message has been edited by Rollstoy (edited 01-30-2001).] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Slapdragon Posted January 30, 2001 Share Posted January 30, 2001 Originally posted by Big Time Software: Gunny Bunny... add "coward" to the growing list of adjectives that accurately describe you. Just for fun, here is my take on what you posted: TEP 1 - Act like an annoying child by demanding special attention and not listening to anybody. STEP 2 - Pretend to have a brain. STEP 3 - When everybody figures out no brain is present, try being more insulting. STEP 4 - When that doesn't work, start up a new thread in the same exact way and hope that nobody notices. STEP 5 - When it is clear that nobody is buying your BS for what it is, do repeat the following to keep your spirits up: *** Everything I state is the truth *** I shall figure out more apples to oranges examples because it is fun and doesn't require thinking *** I am my one and only GOD *** I shall be a daily annoyance in the hopes that someone will do what I demand just to shut me up *** I shall ignore the fact that BTS has a lot of respect and support by people that have brains because to accept this fact makes me look like the child that I am STEP 6 - Find some other thing to keep busy, which most likely involves making a bigger ass out of oneself. Gunny Bunny... if you want to think that people 2-3 times as old, who have been playing COMPUTER games before you were born, don't know what they are talking about... go right ahead. You will always come off looking like the child that you are. I also don't mind you criticizing BTS (me) either, since I have been making games since you were crying for your naptime in Kindergarten. So long as you keep it up you shall always be an irrelevant, non-issue in terms of CM's continuing evolution. And you won't be thought of any better for it either. Steve Just ban is rear Steve. He runs to Uslessnet to blather inanities and accuse BTS of terrible deads in a forum they do not read (a clear example of cowardice as you cite) then runs back here to post 6[//b] threads on joining his Uselessnet group thread which I am told is worthless and starts threads that accuse BTS of being slackers, which a few custard heads fall for, but most rightly see as a troll attack. Ban him for your own good, even if he is just a kid. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gremlin Posted January 30, 2001 Share Posted January 30, 2001 I picked this up on another forum: "Never argue with idiots. They'll bring you down to their level and then beat you with experience." ------------------ New to Combat Mission? Visit CM Boot Camp at Combat Missions for tips. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Big Time Software Posted January 30, 2001 Share Posted January 30, 2001 Jeff wrote: Is there any thought to implementing some form of psuedo-dynamic lighting on the back-end? We have thought long and hard about this. Prior to CM1's release in fact. Unfortunately, these options require (to some extent) the same effort that DL needs. Units need to be aware of each other to a degree not possible right now. Plus, the problem of Absolute Spotting remains, and that is a large part of the hinderance of a more realistic night fighting environment. Basically allowing units to spot and fire at each other based on circumstances that may not be apparent on the screen itself? We have a little bit of this in there now. There are slightly different rules about spotting than in fog, for example. Obviously this is very hard for the end user to see, but it is different. Also, friendly fire mistakes (small arms) can only happen at night. But basically... we agree. It would be good if we could do more with night fighting. Unfortunately, I don't think we can for CM2. When we rewrite the CM engine (CMII) it will certainly happen. Steve Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Big Time Software Posted January 30, 2001 Share Posted January 30, 2001 Gremlin, This is good advice. Unfortunately, some people believe in the "if it is in print, it must be true" or "any opinion is valid because it is an opinion". Experience shows that when the Gunny Bunnies of this world are left unchallenged, they gain a certain amount of credibility. Best to challenge him now instead of later. Slapdragon, your point is well taken. Trust me, GB doesn't have to do much more for us to look up his IP and put it into the ban list. Steve Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Andrew Hedges Posted January 30, 2001 Share Posted January 30, 2001 Everyone seems to have ignored the most important part of Steve's response: Originally posted by Big Time Software: Currently our CM2 schedule is already locked down with an expected release in early Fall 2001 Steve Even if that turns out to be over-optimistic, that is a much sooner release date than I was expecting. Cool. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kingfish Posted January 30, 2001 Share Posted January 30, 2001 Wow, a release date of Fall 2001 for CM2. That means that, by my calculations, we will have a demo by next week ------------------ "I do like to see the arms and legs fly" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gremlin Posted January 30, 2001 Share Posted January 30, 2001 Yeah, who needs debates? I just want to get my hands on all those new Russian units and have some alarmingly big and brutal tank battles Plus we'll be one step closer to the Mediterranean and the early war years. ------------------ New to Combat Mission? Visit CM Boot Camp at Combat Missions for tips. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
deanco Posted January 30, 2001 Share Posted January 30, 2001 Originally posted by Big Time Software: We can only make an educated guess as well. Since we have never done this before, and Combat Mission is NOT set up to do it, we would probably have to spend at least a week just to figure out if we can do it. Probably several weeks to implement after, if we are lucky. This is too much time for the potential payback. Steve OK, cool. That was my question, you answered it, subject closed. Didn't mean to bug yas, didn't even really expect to change your mind in the first place. Just jawin and yappin, that's all, you know how we are by now I think. ------------------ DeanCo-- CM interface mods: http://mapage.cybercable.fr/deanco/ so many games...so little time Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gunny Bunny Posted January 31, 2001 Author Share Posted January 31, 2001 Originally posted by Jeff Heidman: I would be most interested in graphical improvements that have a direct effect on the game play. Currently night scenarios are basically unplayable because of the lack of dynamic lighting, either in graphics or the underlying engine. Night is basically treated like really thick fog, which is a gross over-simplification. Gun flashes, flares, fires, tracers, etc., etc. are all necessary to have any hope of re-creating night time fighting. Jeff Heidman Good points Jeff Heidman I hadn't considered tracers and other night effects. It would certainly increase immersion. Regards, Gunny Bunny Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Slapdragon Posted January 31, 2001 Share Posted January 31, 2001 Originally posted by Gunny Bunny: Good points Jeff Heidman I hadn't considered tracers and other night effects. It would certainly increase immersion. Regards, Gunny Bunny Yes, another in a long line of useful posts by Gunny Bunny. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gremlin Posted January 31, 2001 Share Posted January 31, 2001 Looks like Gunny Bunny can't win, then. ------------------ New to Combat Mission? Visit CM Boot Camp at Combat Missions for tips. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Big Time Software Posted January 31, 2001 Share Posted January 31, 2001 Nope. I think his little tantrums over on USENET kinda killed any remaining hope of GB being a bit more than a Troll. Not bothering to debate a single point raised by me, in DIRECT response to his blatherings, was what really did it. Someone who just wants to bitch and complain, and not even aknowledge that the game developer took the time to post a response, gets a big fat F on the report card. Steve Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bruno Weiss Posted January 31, 2001 Share Posted January 31, 2001 Zat mean I getta B+? ------------------ "Gentlemen, you may be sure that of the three courses open to the enemy, he will always choose the fourth." -Field Marshal Count Helmuth von Moltke, (1848-1916) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Slapdragon Posted January 31, 2001 Share Posted January 31, 2001 Originally posted by Gremlin: Looks like Gunny Bunny can't win, then. Gunny Bunny has never tried to win. When you have posted 1 clear post in 25, throw out some trash then back off -- you are a Troll. If he wanted to "win" as you say he would have made some attempt at communication. Since his task is to stir up trouble with no reason, then banned he should be. He COULD come on and reply to Steve, explain why he is the way he is, somethig. I suspect that he is a cipher for another person or as discussed earlier, some sort of shut in / student. His e-mail is a washer, his whole net presence is anon. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Rollstoy Posted January 31, 2001 Share Posted January 31, 2001 I looked a little bit around and was astonished how few games are actually able to produce something like lighting from explosions or from missile exhausts. Most explosions are billboard sprites, still. Unfortunately I do not have time to investigate, but I think there are three ways to produce lighting effects: A) Brighten or darken the whole polygon uniformly. Calculate brigthness at the polygon vertices and smooth shade the polygon. C) Superimpose a light map over the polygon texture. Now I do not know if today's 3D cards implement all these capabilities, especially ©. Method (3), however, would be the only way to produce local lighting effects like those from muzzle fire, because it is independent of the size of the polygons. A mixture of method (A) and method ( would be sufficient to shade vehicles and objects with directional (=sun) light. For point light sources the resolution of the polygon mesh (esp. terrain and buildings) will be too small. About how they produce shadows nowadays, I have to speculate. 'Panzer Elite', I think, shades individual pixels on the texture of the terrain polygon. Others obviously generate the shadows with (transparent, like sun glasses) polygons that are "hovering" centimeters about the actual terrain. Both options seem unfeasible for Combat Mission, in my humble opinion. Would be nice to have at least static shadows for buildings and trees, but HOW?!? Pasted onto the textures? Not possible, because shadows can interfere with neighbouring tiles -> too many possible combinations. Puzzled and clueless I throw in a screenshot from CDMAG with interesting B 17 II explosions. I like the top left one! Regards, Thomm Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quenaelin Posted January 31, 2001 Share Posted January 31, 2001 This B-17 explosion isn't so good example, as you can see in the screenshots, it is only explosion effect produced by 3-D hardware, there is no real lighting or anything. If we want lighting effects in 3-D they have to be calculated with 3-D HW or processor, there is no other way a round. And there is some expensive simulators which are allready using ray-tracing, maybe not pixel by pixel (I don't know about that fact?), but somekind of light source tracing anyway (And I don't mean PC simulators, I mean simulations calculated by Silicon Graphics multiprocessor computers). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Rollstoy Posted January 31, 2001 Share Posted January 31, 2001 Originally posted by Quenaelin: This B-17 explosion isn't so good example, as you can see in the screenshots, it is only explosion effect produced by 3-D hardware, there is no real lighting or anything.I did not mean it to be an example of lighting (as you will find fairly few of them), but I like those "rays" of debris and dust which emerge from the blast wave. They convey the 'violence' of the explosion quite nicely. This is something which I liked about the explosion bitmaps in Close Combat II, by the way - explosions that do not look like movie explosions (gasolin fire balls), but more like actual war footage ('high explosive'). By the way, I remember that 'Syndicate Wars' used dynamic lighting YEARS ago. BUT they had the advantage that their polygon meshes were fine enough to employ methods (A) and/or ( mentioned previously. In CM the mesh is too coarse to do it this way, at least for 'local' light sources (burning vehicles, street lamps, ...). Regards, Thomm Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GriffinCheng+ Posted January 31, 2001 Share Posted January 31, 2001 Thomm, From my understand, yes, there is one. GeForce 2GTS uses Transformation and Lighting (TnL) which "accelerates" the effect (light map) you mention. However, it can only handle 1 single light source. Check out Tom's Hardware (www.tomshardware.coom) and Gefore GTS guide in Sharky's Extreme site (www.sharkyextreme.com). The only game I know uses TnL is MDK2. This title uses OpenGL. BTW, how many CMaries have this piece of equipment right now? For me, I don't. I know some people's PC (pun intended) cannot even show fog effect! IIRC, DirectX 8.0 has TnL included in their API. Count me one as the one not complaining the graphics. And I find HL:CS better FPS than Q3A (but is Q3A really a GAME?) Griffin. Originally posted by Rollstoy: I looked a little bit around and was astonished how few games are actually able to produce something like lighting from explosions or from missile exhausts. Most explosions are billboard sprites, still. Unfortunately I do not have time to investigate, but I think there are three ways to produce lighting effects: A) Brighten or darken the whole polygon uniformly. Calculate brigthness at the polygon vertices and smooth shade the polygon. C) Superimpose a light map over the polygon texture. Now I do not know if today's 3D cards implement all these capabilities, especially ©. ------------------ "When you find your PBEM opportents too hard to beat, there is always the AI." "Can't get enough Tank?" [This message has been edited by GriffinCheng+ (edited 01-31-2001).] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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