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Epic acquires RAD Game Tools

epicgames.com

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Re: Epic acquires RAD Game Tools

#71

Post by Impossible »

hutzlibu wrote: post #63
Impossible wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worked on COD:AW and we used video in game often. The lead UI artist would have used it significantly more if performance was better. Might be an exception but it's not uncommon, I've worked on multiple titles with full 3D and video playback at the same time

Hang on, the performance of playing static video content was not good enough? (and worse than dynamically rendered game art?) You mean a single - full screen video, or videos inside the 3D content?

Video used as textures, either in world on 3D meshes, or as part of UI (HUD) elements. It could be prohibitively expensive to play a single video in some scenes, and we didn't support multiple videos. Not because it wasn't possible or anything, mostly because performance, although there would have been an engineering cost to doing also (ie I would have had to add support to the engine)

Re: Epic acquires RAD Game Tools

#72

Post by iamcreasy »

Thaxll wrote: post #67
bexsella wrote: post #31

There's a lot of focus here on Bink, but Oodle has a fascinating history as well. From world-class compression ratios/decompression speeds to being implemented in hardware by Sony in all PS5s. RAD have a great history of getting exactly the right people that are interested in their fields and are great at what they do. I echo the sentiments of many when saying I am surprised no one had scooped them up earlier (althou…

Oodle is very expensive though.

I wonder why some companies do not publicly post their price of the product? Or at least a price range? What's the harm in that?

Re: Epic acquires RAD Game Tools

#73

Post by hutzlibu »

Impossible wrote: post #71
hutzlibu wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hang on, the performance of playing static video content was not good enough? (and worse than dynamically rendered game art?) You mean a single - full screen video, or videos inside the 3D content?

Video used as textures, either in world on 3D meshes, or as part of UI (HUD) elements. It could be prohibitively expensive to play a single video in some scenes, and we didn't support multiple videos. Not because it wasn't possible or anything, mostly because performance, although there would have been an engineering cost to doing also (ie I would have had to add support to the engine)

Ah, video textures. That makes sense and indeed sounds expensive.

Re: Epic acquires RAD Game Tools

#74

Post by dharmab »

ratww wrote: post #60
manfredo wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I heard that the main issue with decompressed assets was audio, not video (granted, video is image and audio so one is a strict superset of the other). One game - Titanfall or a CoD game, IIRC - had something like 20 GB of uncompressed audio in a 35GB installation footprint. Rationale was saving CPU cycles. Meanwhile here I am with a sound card in my desktop PC for no real reason anymore :\

That doesn't really compute. Audio decompression is pretty light on CPUs these days. It takes about half a second in a single core to decompress a 4 min MP3 to WAV in my 2012 MB Air, including writing to disk. In a gaming machine it will be way less. If anything, the audio could be decompressed and cached on demand, when loading levels, or even during installation. Also sound cards do not participate on the decompres…

Keep in mind that Titanfall had to ship on the Xbox 360 and PS3.

Re: Epic acquires RAD Game Tools

#75

Post by person_of_color »

jo032 wrote: post #5
eutectic wrote: post #4

RAD's Charles Bloom has a blog ( https://cbloomrants.blogspot.com ) which is excellent for anyone interested in high-performance programming. Especially compression.

fabien giesen, also at RAD, has a very informative blog as well. https://fgiesen.wordpress.com/ they have a seriously impressive group of developers

What were they paying to keep these greybeards around?

Re: Epic acquires RAD Game Tools

#76

Post by ATsch »

zerocrates wrote: post #25
nothis wrote: post #16

It always seemed like RAD makes the kinds of tools you want as a developer who likes to run its own core systems and license powerful components for key issues. To think these tools will now be locked into the bloated Unreal Engine makes me feel a bit sad. It's like a lot of game companies get bought up by giants in a "just because we can" fashion, recently, and I can't help but wonder how this de-prioritizes quality…

It certainly could happen down the road, but the post says the opposite for the time being, that they'll continue to support usage outside Unreal Engine.

We'll see about that in a few years when some of the contracts start to expire and the company becomes more integrated.

Re: Epic acquires RAD Game Tools

#77

Post by altdatathrow »

xienze wrote: post #19

Man, Epic is absolutely flush with cash. They’re moving their HQ down the road a mile or so by buying a dying mall for $100M and hiring 2k more employees.

Hey, I know it's been a day, but I want to remind you that you're still a covid-denying seditious piece of shit.

Re: Epic acquires RAD Game Tools

#78

Post by ratww »

dharmab wrote: post #74
ratww wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn't really compute. Audio decompression is pretty light on CPUs these days. It takes about half a second in a single core to decompress a 4 min MP3 to WAV in my 2012 MB Air, including writing to disk. In a gaming machine it will be way less. If anything, the audio could be decompressed and cached on demand, when loading levels, or even during installation. Also sound cards do not participate on the decompres…

Keep in mind that Titanfall had to ship on the Xbox 360 and PS3.

Interestingly, those two consoles had dedicated hardware decoders. It doesn't make any sense to have uncompressed audio for them.

Re: Epic acquires RAD Game Tools

#79

Post by moritonal »

manfredo wrote: post #40
mappu wrote: post #33

The history of RAD is a history of media read speeds - playing back full-motion video from a CD on a PS2 with its near-zero available CPU resources was a superhuman effort. So low-overhead (fast) decompression is essential for AAA titles. But recently I guess developers think disks are fast enough now, because PC games have been using more uncompressed assets to free up CPU time, massively bloating install size. Curr…

I heard that the main issue with decompressed assets was audio, not video (granted, video is image and audio so one is a strict superset of the other). One game - Titanfall or a CoD game, IIRC - had something like 20 GB of uncompressed audio in a 35GB installation footprint. Rationale was saving CPU cycles. Meanwhile here I am with a sound card in my desktop PC for no real reason anymore :\

Rumour I heard was that it was because they realised 20% of their customers using much older PC's wouldn't be able to decode fast enough, so they distributed it with the uncompressed to everyone because no distribution platform allowed "optional" downloads.

Re: Epic acquires RAD Game Tools

#80

Post by selectodude »

iamcreasy wrote: post #72
Thaxll wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oodle is very expensive though.

I wonder why some companies do not publicly post their price of the product? Or at least a price range? What's the harm in that?

Because pricing on stuff like that is negotiable and they don't want people to have a starting point.
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