Major items from Twitter

[Marth Koopa]

Originally Posted by Higby

We don't have back holstering right now... it has to do with the number of draw calls that out characters cost, since there is such deep customization for both weapons and armor they were getting way too expensive for us to have hundreds on the screen at once =)

Surely you could have a checkbox in the options menu to turn it on and off? I wants maximum eye candy and I'll pay out the nose on hardware to get it!

[Traak]

Originally Posted by Malorn

Might be....

* MCG renamed to Heavy Cycler
* Heavy Cycler is a Cycler variant
* Heavy Cycler is a MCG variant
* "Heavy" is an ammo type

Good points. Semantically correct on all points.

[Higby]

Originally Posted by Marth Koopa

Surely you could have a checkbox in the options menu to turn it on and off? I wants maximum eye candy and I'll pay out the nose on hardware to get it!

I promise you we're squeezing as much in as we can handle.

[Traak]

Looks like "as much in as we can handle" is quite a bit, so far.

Unless the screen stuff we have been seeing is the usual "great concept art, followed by Telepong-level graphics in the real world" so to speak.

[Captain1nsaneo]

Creative director posting on a fan site at 7pm on a Saturday. Awesome.

Graphics don't mean much to me, I'll always take better game play or an advantage ingame over seeing pretty things. Please don't hurt me T-Ray.

[Higby]

Originally Posted by Traak

Looks like "as much in as we can handle" is quite a bit, so far.

Unless the screen stuff we have been seeing is the usual "great concept art, followed by Telepong-level graphics in the real world" so to speak.

All the screens and videos we've posted are game assets in game engine. Now, of course, if your hardware can't handle the highest settings we'll shift graphical quality downwards, but until you hear otherwise assume everything you see is legit and in the game client.

[TRex]

will heavy assault be an either /or situation with regards loading out in AI /AV ie you can either carry a big mcg or a striker, but not both at same time (since I think we have no backpack to put alt stuff in now) ?

as for the back holstering thing , I'll miss it , but I'll go along with that , anything to reduce lag or keep my frames up will be appreciated . can't buy a new rig for quite a while so I'll have to eek out a half decent game in meantime .

[Traak]

Originally Posted by Higby

All the screens and videos we've posted are game assets in game engine. Now, of course, if your hardware can't handle the highest settings we'll shift graphical quality downwards, but until you hear otherwise assume everything you see is legit and in the game client.

*quietly slips into a soundproof room*

YAAAAAAAAAAHOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!

*calmly slips out, adjusts tie and Kent glasses, goes back about his business*

[Hamma]

Awesome!

[Higby]

Originally Posted by TRex

will heavy assault be an either /or situation with regards loading out in AI /AV ie you can either carry a big mcg or a striker, but not both at same time (since I think we have no backpack to put alt stuff in now) ?

as for the back holstering thing , I'll miss it , but I'll go along with that , anything to reduce lag or keep my frames up will be appreciated . can't buy a new rig for quite a while so I'll have to eek out a half decent game in meantime .

Yes, most of the classes are setup that way, can spec in a couple really diverse roles but they're making trade offs... so if you want an MCG (yes, there is an mcg) you wouldn't packing any AV equip.

[Bags]

I'll believe there's an MCG when I sees it.

[Higby]

Originally Posted by Bags

I'll believe there's an MCG when I sees it.

Bags I already sent you this epic playtest screenshot for our fearsome TR HA with a MCG...

http://yfrog.com/kh7hxmvj

[Sirisian]

Originally Posted by Higby

We don't have back holstering right now... it has to do with the number of draw calls that out characters cost, since there is such deep customization for both weapons and armor they were getting way too expensive for us to have hundreds on the screen at once =)

I usually try not to get technical, but it sounds like this could have been implemented differently.

As a quick example you have 1 weapon and just imagine all the vertices for a second. Those make up the vertex buffer object in model space. Now overlap those vertices with the location of every customization option available for the weapon. Now you have a cloud of vertices that are say 64 bytes each. Say that for a single weapon you have 1000 vertices for the weapon then 100 vertices for each add-on with a total of 50 add-ons for the weapon. (1000 + 100 * 50) * 64 bytes per vertex = 375 kilobytes for the VBO per weapon. The "trick" comes when creating the IBO. Every unique weapon + add-on combination would have their own IBO. Now since making every combination would be silly we can instead just compute the IBO connections if we know where the add-ons merge with the base gun mesh. (Simple operation). So if there are 100 unique weapons that means there are 100 unique IBOs. Let's say each gun has an average of 5 add-ons at a time. That would give us an IBO size of 1500 vertices. That's 2 bytes per index so 3000 bytes. So 3000 * 100 IBOs = 300 KB. So on average for each gun you'd have less than 800 KB of mesh data. And texturing is easy if all weapons have a texture atlas for their own texture and add-ons.

Even assuming 50 guns that's 40 MB of data. Though it could be far less since the program would be recycling and dynamically generating the IBOs when a new weapon entered the player's view. However that makes it 1 draw call per weapon. Assuming holsters that 4 draw calls per player on average probably.

The same idea extends to characters but the cost is higher what with animations. Ignoring bones and other things and still going with 64 bytes per vertex if each is say 10K verts and each upgrade is 500 vertices with a total of 100 ad-ons and 6 classes that's 22 MB VBO. Then for 500 players with unique setups that's say 20,000 indices (2 bytes each) * 500 players = 19 MB for the VBOs for a total of 41 MB of data.

For both weapons and players that's 81 MB without animation data with 5 draw calls per player (1 player + 4 weapons holstered). Actually I can see why that would be troublesome especially with your texture resolutions and animation costs. Then again I think I overestimated the per vertex cost by a lot. Good luck.

// edit force programmers to post

[TRex]

@ Sirisian , haven't a clue what you just said , blew my brain away though, seriously impressed.

[xSlideShow]

Special Assault? This hasn't been mentioned at all. Will Heavy Assault have Special Assault?