Yet some more GDC Goodness!

[ChrisM]

Thought I would throw up some screen shots for you all of the 3 game demos in the booth for GDC...

Cosmic Birdie





Battle Trolls (VERY EARLY TEST SCREEN)



Andrew Leker's Stomping Grounds





6 more days......

-Chris

[princec]

Shame you ain't got Titan there to show people....

Cas

[ChrisM]

Shame you ain't got Titan there to show people....

Cas

Well, these games all use our new server tech.  However, I will also be runnign general demos on my own system during press events and Titan is in there, to be sure!

-Chris

Games published by our own members! Check 'em out!

[jfelrod1960]

Are all of these games Java3D?

[ChrisM]

First 2 are

-Chris

[shawnkendall]

Are all of these games Java3D?

I doubt it, we (IMI) are the only losers left pushing Java3D ;-)
Incidentally, Java3D's got shaders now! Heheh (even though we did use any in our game since we want it on Mac as well and the Mac version is behind...)

[mod] grammar

[jfelrod1960]

I doubt it, we (IMI) are the only loser left pushing Java3D ;-)

Then I must be a loser too  I'm for Java3D!

[blahblahblahh]

The graphics are rather ... dated ... aren't they?

[shawnkendall]

The graphics are rather ... dated ... aren't they?

Well, our game is intended for web play/casual gamers, so that is one of the reason we didn't use shaders (I showed the shaders at least GDC on some higher-end models, we did normal-maps and parallax mapping) so we could shoot for lower end hardware and larger audience in terms of system requirements.
Having said that, this is the same level of technique used on the PS2 (multi-texture, vertex lighting, texture blending for other lighting effects, although we can do higher polygon counts), and since the PS3 is coming out shortly, it dates it to that time and level hardware.

[mod]
Oh yeah, and we are two guys with no budget :-)

[ChrisM]

The graphics are rather ... dated ... aren't they?

Hmmmm.....



Compared to Sonic Riders, done with Renderware, I'd say Shawn's stuff is right up there.

-Chris

P.S.  Of course, it's not the graphics powerhouse that 'Survivor' is:



JJUUSSTTT KIDDING!

Games published by our own members! Check 'em out!

[darkprophet]

I thought Sonic riders ran on a PS2? With less memory, less cpu and pretty much less of everything? Point is, I can probably make an Asteroids clone, looks exactly the same, and plays the same. Yet not the same achievement.

I wouldn't say thats an apples to apples compare there...But both look alike

DP

[princec]

LOL!

Seriously though, the graphics do need a little magic working on them... what you need is a Chaz.

Cas

[shawnkendall]

I thought Sonic riders ran on a PS2? With less memory, less cpu and pretty much less of everything? Point is, I can probably make an Asteroids clone, looks exactly the same, and plays the same. Yet not the same achievement.

I wouldn't say thats an apples to apples compare there...But both look alike

DP

All true but you left out the fact that Sonic was made by a sizable team of industry veterans with a licensed IP and dev environment and project $$$.

We are two with no $$$ using a freely available dev environment and APIs (soon to be available net API :-)) driven by passion only

[Jeff]

The graphics are rather ... dated ... aren't they?

The Graphics on Battle Trolls cna be very percisely dated-- they are the Bioware NWN models used with their kind approval.

I havetn done much with lighting in battle troools and certianly havent implemented shadowing yet.  This is because its mostly a code-demo of how to do a toy-MMO on the server then anything commerical.

The other two however are commerical products and I eprsonally think look pretty snazzy.

[darkprophet]

We are two with no $$$ using a freely available dev environment and APIs (soon to be available net API :-)) driven by passion only

A true italion stalion

DP

[Orangy Tang]

The graphics are rather ... dated ... aren't they?

Hmmmm.....



 I'd say Shawn's stuff is right up there.

-Chris

Hahahahahahahaha... oh thats the funniest thing I've seen you say in ages. Have you actually seen Sonic Riders in action? Gameplay-wise it may not be that good but visually it's light years ahead of this offering.

[kappa]

btw if you have a nice little demo, what do you have to do to get it to appear on GDC?

[darkprophet]

light years ahead of this offering.

I thought light years is a distance measure?

* darkprophet plays devil's advocate

[swpalmer]

The graphics are rather ... dated ... aren't they?

Hmmmm.....
 I'd say Shawn's stuff is right up there.

-Chris

Hahahahahahahaha... oh thats the funniest thing I've seen you say in ages. Have you actually seen Sonic Riders in action? Gameplay-wise it may not be that good but visually it's light years ahead of this offering.

I have to admit that even from the screen shot alone I can see that Sonic Riders is graphically more advanced.  But the point is that two dudes with no budget made it... better graphics can presumably be swapped in and Java3D can handle it.
It's still a positive thing.. but I do think that many people (the type that hang out at slashdot) will be quick to jump on the lack of cutting edge graphics.   This isn't Doom 4 so they can pretend it doesn't matter.   We really need to get something out there that does have all the flash and polish of the "next big thing"... if it was a Java app that was pushing the envelope a-la id Software it would be a whole different story.

Anyway... I think this is still a great thing to show .. and more importantly have available for download so people can see for themselves how well it works.

[kappa]

donno why the complaints about the graphics, personally i though they were pretty nice, (not cutting edge or next-gen) but pretty decent, as long as the game play is nice, i'll be happy!

[ChrisM]

The graphics are rather ... dated ... aren't they?

Hahahahahahahaha... oh thats the funniest thing I've seen you say in ages. Have you actually seen Sonic Riders in action? Gameplay-wise it may not be that good but visually it's light years ahead of this offering.

Imagine that, a negative comment from QT    In fact, I own 2 copies of Sonic Riders (PS2 and GC) ,and agree with you that the gameplay is not very good, but when it comes to complexity of the models, vehicles, etc, CB are just as complex.  No, the shadows are not there, lighting effects are however and the resolution of the textures in SR are low, the ones in CB are higher.  I was using  the comparison between the two to point out that IMI's stuff is not as dated as someone suggested.

-Chris

[Orangy Tang]

But the point is that two dudes with no budget made it... better graphics can presumably be swapped in and Java3D can handle it.

But thats kinda the point - it's not produced by a whole studio of people, so it's almost certainly not going to be of as high a quality. But by pretending that they're just as good graphically you reduce the credability of the project of a whole. This makes people less receptive when you come to talk about whats really important about the game.

[blahblahblahh]

The graphics are rather ... dated ... aren't they?

Hmmmm.....

P.S.  Of course, it's not the graphics powerhouse that 'Survivor' is:

JJUUSSTTT KIDDING!

ROFL

OK, so, back to the point ... on the one hand, I know the problem extremely well: you're promoting a server technology to the games industry, and server technologies *do not have graphics*, so if the graphics look good it means nothing, but if they look bad ... well, this is the games industry, and everyone judges you by rolling demos and screenshots. I have cried over this unfairness many times , and feel for Chris et al. (NB for any who don't know my background - I've been there and been through this problem many times over with partners, investors, and customers. It's really harsh!)

On the other hand (and this is what I was getting at), this is AFAICS going to be Sun's big representation at GDC this year. Yet, it's going to go up there and make Java games look crummy, *simply because everyone judges by rolling demo and graphics*. It's not fair, but it comes up as a number one problem for java games developers every single month on this java-gaming.org site alone - again and again we're lamenting the problem of people seeing poor graphics games and judging java by them.

Of course, I'm not saying Shawn et al did a bad job at all. If you judge it as a game done by a couple of guys, it's fine.

However, the graphics are terrible by today's standards, and they're the best of the ones you've shown - the other games have graphics that I've not seen in games since 1999. Look at the entrants into the IGF, and you'll see that the base standard for that alone is substantially above this game, and that's what people are fed as "the back-room-developer games", i.e. what they think of when "a couple of people" do a game together. (no, this isn't fair - but thats how it is ). I get unsolicited applications for game programmers on my desk with portfolio games that look substantially better (again, not fair - these are for games with no substantial gameplay, usually no more complexity than tetris - but there is a world of difference in the looks).

Worse, if you were at GDC last year, Sun had the Agency 9 demo with better-than-UT2003/Quake3 graphics on the stand. That stuff is a heck of a lot better looking than the screenshots above.

Aren't you worried the effect this is going to have?

[kevglass]

I think thats a fair statement based on your opinion. However, I also think you do the attendees of GDC down. From the photos of the people who attend you might assume they're a bunch of overgrown teenagers with a passion for hair dye but from the collection of people I've met who've attended and the people I know who do games dev for a living they're all perfectly capable of making solid technical decisions.

That means they'll look at the tech demo and go meh at the graphics (its pretty, but its not ground breaking - its not meant to be). Like any body attending a conference they'll find out what the technology is being advertised, realise its server side and ask more. To say that they'd just see graphics, not up to Quake 4 (or whatever), not interested would make them very shallow indeed. I'd think they'd start asking some pretty pertinent questions about Dark Star which I hope there are good answers for.

Infact, one friend who works for a games developer (who I might finally get to meet next week) said (after I pointed him at this thread). "What does he think? They show us something shiny and we all just stare transfixed "

Your point I hope is that while this demo will sell DarkStar to people looking for server technologies does it not present maybe a bad picture of client side Java. Not that the game is bad but will the message be to non-server oriented people:

"Heres a game we're showcasing the power of Java with, look how average the graphics are"

Kev

PS. "Average" obviously compared to the top names at GDC (not one of my limited creations)

[princec]

I'm afraid I share Adam's reservations. Read this article The Bane Of Being Very good and Adam's points may become more clear. In fact this very article is about to make me quit the directorship of the company I work for now and throw away £1m of share options because I am fed up of mediocrity. It matters to some people. Especially the games industry, where just being good isn't good enough.

Cas

[nonnus29]

and throw away £1m of share options because I am fed up of mediocrity

 

I'd recommend talking to a therapist before making that decision...

[TheAnalogKid]

Cas, you might not be conscious of the life quality your current job probably provides you. This counts a lot. Maybe try to negociate some sort of partial work time.

[princec]

Bugger that. I am available for contract work again if anyone wants me.

I ain't cheap

Cas

[TheAnalogKid]

Sure but how many hours a week would you have to work for contracts compared to a permanent job?

Well this is becoming quite off topic!

[Jeff]

But the point is that two dudes with no budget made it... better graphics can presumably be swapped in and Java3D can handle it.

But thats kinda the point - it's not produced by a whole studio of people, so it's almost certainly not going to be of as high a quality.

I think "quality" is far to subjectiove a judgement.

Is the animation in Trobal; trouble as complex as that done by bigger studios? No.  Is the **qaulity** as good?  IMHO yes or even better then some..

To me, facny/expensive doesn't necessarly equate to quality.  TT bit off a style they could do well ona budget and then did it very well.  To me, thats quality.