Forge light engine.

[Heaven]

Just a bit of info that I found on the net for you guys, am guessing alot of you already know about this but its still intresting.

SOE boss John Smedley revealed long-awaited details for Planetside 2 last night during the FainFaire eventm and Smedley stated out talking about the game’s engine, Forge Light.




The engine will allow for “massive seamless worlds, advanced atmospheric effects such as moving lights and shadows, volumetric fog, and even sun filtering through clouds,” according to Massively.

It will also allow the game to work on older PC systems as well as future hardware configurations. It uses NVIDIA’s PhysX system, which SOE believes can “make some of the most amazing looking characters and environments.”

PlanetSide 2′s Matt Higby said the game would contain massive warfare, and it will be able to accommodate “thousands of players in open world combat, with massive conflicts.”

It will come with a new conquest map, areas in the game are contestable and considered valuable real estate. Topography changes when areas are conquered, with battles taking place in physical structures as well as in the landscape. Players will be fighting over resources, which are needed for armor, weapons and vehicle upgrades.

Each of the three empires are back, the game has new combat roles, a new skill tree class and outfit updates, and will include an “offline, time-based unlock system,” similar to the one used in EVE Online. This will allow players to continue advancing even when offline and to keep up with what their friends are up to in-game

[Bags]

Going to interesting to see planetside on an engine DESIGNED FOR MMOFPS instead of planetside on an engine DESIGNED FOR LOLQUEST.

[Tikuto]

Obviously it's a J _ _ _ and S _ _ _ thing from S _ _ _ W _ _ _ .

lul.....

[Aractain]

You know, I just thought about Line of Defense. Derek Smarts game.
"[Planetside 2 ] won’t stand a chance against LOD. At all."


That always gets me. :D

[Levente]

excellent. i find it more impressive then frostbite 2 so far. Forgelight is more massive scale and pretty too. frostbite 2 is full of backfrop images and fake crap, ofc it looks good but forgelight FTW

[BorisBlade]

Frostbite 2 is much better for the super small scale of BF type games. But the destructable stuff has no use in a persistant game, nor was it designed or able to even remotely handle what Forgelight can with ps2.

Plus you need to call up NASA to run BF3 even with its small scale at full power. We have a game with 100x the players, so that wouldnt work so well. =)

[Levente]

Frostbite 2 is much better for the super small scale of BF type games. But the destructable stuff has no use in a persistant game, nor was it designed or able to even remotely handle what Forgelight can with ps2.

Plus you need to call up NASA to run BF3 even with its small scale at full power. We have a game with 100x the players, so that wouldnt work so well. =)

Correct sir. im not impressed by frostbite 2 that much, i do think cryengine 3 looks way better, but that doesnt have this scale either, but of course thats the graphical aspect of the engine, now in frostbite 2 the audio and animations are the best iv seen in any game, i really hope that these 2 other aspects are gonna be well made in forgelight too. :groovy:

[CutterJohn]

Frostbite 2 is much better for the super small scale of BF type games. But the destructable stuff has no use in a persistant game, nor was it designed or able to even remotely handle what Forgelight can with ps2.

I wouldn't call some of the levels I've seen in frostbite 'super small scale'

That tank level was pretty damned large. Not so large perhaps as PS, but it could give some PS continents a run for their money.

Size doesn't matter much anyway. Most engines could handle PS sized maps with PS level of detail no sweat.

Obviously it can't handle PS2 though, because its not designed to do so. Forgelight couldn't handle BF3 either.

And destructible stuff would work fine. It'd just have to autorepair when nobody was around to see it do so.

[Rbstr]

Frostbite 2 is very technically impressive. Amazing in some ways. I also wouldn't say small scale, we're talking square KM sized maps with 64 people...that's larger than most high-profile FPSs support. Add in fighter jets ect...definitely not small scale. But also not up to the scale of planetside 2 (we hope).

I don't think we've seen enough for Forge Light to say much about it. The trailer looked perfectly adequate, if not really amazing. The important part is handling the massive player counts and everything that goes along with it. If it does it properly it's amazing in it's own right.

[PsychoXR-20]

Going to interesting to see planetside on an engine DESIGNED FOR MMOFPS instead of planetside on an engine DESIGNED FOR LOLQUEST.

Actually the engine was designed from the ground up for PlanetSide.

There was a huge post about it a few months ago on the front page.

[Bags]

Actually the engine was designed from the ground up for PlanetSide.

There was a huge post about it a few months ago on the front page.

Really? I thought ps1 was made with Everquest's engine.

[PsychoXR-20]

http://jratcliffscarab.blogspot.com/2007/08/planetside-screenshots.html

A blog post from the designer of the PS1 engine.

[Hamma]

Here is a pic I took during the presentation.

[BorisBlade]

Sorry when i say small scale im comparin to PS so thats not really fair, but even the bf maps are only 1km x 1km or 1sq km. PS1 had some 6x6 and even 8x8 maps, 36sq km and 64sq km respectively. Not to mention 4-500 players, thats large scale. And compared to ps2 which will have 2-3x the players of that and potentially larger conts, whats "big" and whats "small" is gonna change. =D

Cant wait for the first "air night" when i see literally several hundred aircraft flyin overhead into battle.....while the CoD fanboys play their pathetically boring little tiny deathmatch zergs in CoD: part 57.

[krnasaur]

Cant wait for the first "air night" when i see literally several hundred aircraft flyin overhead into battle.....while the CoD fanboys play their pathetically boring little tiny deathmatch zergs in CoD: part 57.

If the FIRST time we get to play with air is when the 57th iteration of COD comes out i wont be a happy camper. PS2 will be on huxly/DNF status

ETA: but seriously, ima make sure im wearing an adult diaper that night.

[PsychoXR-20]

If the FIRST time we get to play with air is when the 57th iteration of COD comes out i wont be a happy camper. PS2 will be on huxly/DNF status

I don't know, at the rate Activi$sion wants to release new CoD games this might not be too far off :sick:

[krnasaur]

There is a + and a -. Forgelight can be something noone has ever seen before and just be so utterly spectacular that the universe collapses by the gravity of its awesomeness. Or it may suck.

[Volw]

There is a + and a -. Forgelight can be something noone has ever seen before and just be so utterly spectacular that the universe collapses by the gravity of its awesomeness. Or it may suck.

It will probably be released in 2012, so you never know! :eek:

[Levente]

it supports realtime radiosity? AWESOME! i just hope the sounds and animations will live up to the graphics level as well. What does exactly Nvidia physic support mean? do i need an extra physx card or what? i thought this crap was integrated in the latest nvidia cards, can someone clear this up for me? thanks

[hippieschuh]

it is integrated but they also said you dont need a nvidia card, it will run withouth aswell. You will get a bit of a frame rate advantage when using physics card though.

[Levente]

it is integrated but they also said you dont need a nvidia card, it will run withouth aswell. You will get a bit of a frame rate advantage when using physics card though.

so the only advantage of the physics card is the extra framerate? :doh:

[hippieschuh]

at least thats how I understand it.

[basti]

Ragdoll, car physics, etc.
That stuff uses physx.
If your machine lacks a physx compatible graphics card, your cpu will take care of it to some degree. Unless they use special physics effects, you wont need physx.
In any way, im saving to replace my gtx280, just to be sure. ;-)

[2coolforu]

so the only advantage of the physics card is the extra framerate? :doh:

PhysX can be ran off most Nvidia cards, if you have an ATI Radeon then it will run off your CPU. In my past history this has sucked and you get shitty framerates and horrible performance HOWEVER I think nvidia are trying to improve this and are allowing Physx to use multiple CPU cores so perhaps it will be better in PS2.

Also if you have a radeon card you can by like a 7800 or 8800 for 30 quid and run physx off that and play games of your radeon

[Levente]

PhysX can be ran off most Nvidia cards, if you have an ATI Radeon then it will run off your CPU. In my past history this has sucked and you get shitty framerates and horrible performance HOWEVER I think nvidia are trying to improve this and are allowing Physx to use multiple CPU cores so perhaps it will be better in PS2.

Also if you have a radeon card you can by like a 7800 or 8800 for 30 quid and run physx off that and play games of your radeon

so when if i have a 590 gtx, then i dont have to worry about buying an additional physx card

[NCLynx]

CoD: part 57.

This was only a temporary title, part 57 has now been officially named "Call of Duty 57 - Futuristic Boogaloo"

[Bruttal]

Here's another "Resurrection" thread by me.

Am still interested in all the mechanics behind the "forge light engine" we have talked about the lighting we know that its going to allow for seamless zones and there applying the physx by nvidia to it. but what else can this puppy do?.

If SOE intends this engine to be there flag ship then its gonna need to be highly customizable and frequent updates to keep it Alive and into the next generation of games. and will they Sell the usage of this 3d engine to other developers like many of the other companies do? A.K.A Unreal Engine witch is host so some of the most impressive games today, like Mass Effect and Gears of War.

And while i was writing this i looked up and saw hamma's picture and it said volumetric fog, if there's an explosion with in a dense fog will you be able to see the fog disperse or expand?

[Sirisian]

Am still interested in all the mechanics behind the "forge light engine" we have talked about the lighting we know that its going to allow for seamless zones and there applying the physx by nvidia to it. but what else can this puppy do?
I'd imagine a lot since it's being used for the Everquest Next game. It wouldn't surprise me if the Engine has all the features required for both Planetside 2 and Everquest Next so whatever you'd imagine is in an MMORPG could simultaneously be brought into Planetside 2 effortlessly. ;)

[Hamma]

Sirisian is probably right, I think SOE will be using this engine from here on out for their games. Maintaining a bunch of engines must be a total pain it's in their best interest to use this engine across all future games.

From what they are saying it is very customizable.

[Baron]

...1km x 1km or 1sq km..

It's sad that Boris even has to EXPLAIN this, hooray for the education system!

[Infektion]

so when if i have a 590 gtx, then i dont have to worry about buying an additional physx card

not necessarily, but adding another card, even an old cheap one such as a 8800GTX, will increase performance if you run as dedicated PhysX. BTW. A dedicated PhysX card does not need an SLI bridge.

[bjorntju1]

A really old version of Planetside when it was still in developement.

There are more here:

http://www.planetside-universe.com/media/index.php?cat_id=2&page=43

(top of that page, and more on a few previous pages back)

[Hamma]

Yea no idea what those were supposed to be but they never made it into any playable version outside of SOE.

[Elude]

Volumetric fog is featured in games back since the late 90s, it was clearly visible in even Planetside 1 as a static fog for hiding things in the distance. I doubt they actually meant dynamic volumetric particle effects for things like explosions, smoke, and fire. These can all be tricked into looking just as good with well designed sprites using soft particles(feathering of the sprites when they come into contact with geometry).

As for real time radiosity... I interpret that as some sort of real time global illumination system which is NOT seen in many games today, truth be told I've only ever heard of it used in the Frostbite 2 engine, and CryEngine 3. You can probably bet that this sort of feature if seen in Planetside 2 will be a directx 11 exclusive feature. The latest Unreal Engine 3 builds use a really nice static global illumination system, if by any chance it can look as good as that, and be dynamic, then by god I'm buying a dx11 card.

Ambient occlusion is a 2d effect used in post processing to simulate darker and more defined shadows for when objects come in close contact with each other, like a players feet to the floor or the corner of a wall. It's used in many games of this generation today.

[Sirisian]

Volumetric fog is featured in games back since the late 90s, it was clearly visible in even Planetside 1 as a static fog for hiding things in the distance. I doubt they actually meant dynamic volumetric particle effects for things like explosions, smoke, and fire. These can all be tricked into looking just as good with well designed sprites using soft particles(feathering of the sprites when they come into contact with geometry).
It's volumetric in the sense that you can hide a plane in a cloud. That seems to be their goal. Getting soft particles to imitate volumetric particles is fairly tricky (America's Army got it to work kind of. The effect broke down inside the fog) so I'd imagine they're referring to actual volumetric fog a la CryEngine 3's tech demos for radiosity. I pointed this out before that the modern nested grid approach for rendering real-time radiosity via ray marching through light propagation volumes is really only a DX10/11 ability. I have no idea how they plan to support DX9 unless they found a way to fake this kind of stuff. (Essentially the same modern algorithm for radiosity can give you free volumetric fog).

My fear is they implement a DX9 fake version and then a DX10/11 version and the DX9 version has artifacts that let you see objects in the smoke/fog.

[Elude]

Thanks for the response Sirisian, I see your point.

I agree that many features will have to be faked for Dx9 if they implement such features that would otherwise require Dx10/11. I don't think we'll see the full capability of these features in Planetside 2, someone hiding in a volumetric static cloud(like in crysis) versus someone hiding in a cloud made of sprites or no cloud at all could pose some real balance issues.

[kaffis]

Which is why I hope we're ready to just drop DX9 support. It's not like GeForce 8xxx's are hard to get a hold of, and we've had Vista out for nearly 5 years, now. I think that the "3-5 year old machines" snippet (or whatever it was) coincides nicely with suggesting that DX9 may not be supported.

[basti]

I hope so. Its time to drop the crap really. DX10 got alot of nice features that just cant be used fully if you still support DX9 as well.