Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Northlight technology in Alan Wake 2

remedygames.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 274 posts

Re: Northlight technology in Alan Wake 2

#121

Post by mcbrit »

mcbrit wrote: post #115

From the first few sentences of the article: "ECS meant that iteration was quick because adding new or modifying existing systems or game objects was easy, and performance gains were clear when saving and loading the Case Board." and there's an accompanying screenshot with perhaps 20 objects on a case board. I scanned through the rest of the article with one question in mind: what the hell? ECS is not a solution to p…

The next section isn't better:

We built a new Voxel-Based Character Control that enables smooth navigation in cramped, complex and dynamic environments; it makes character movement more natural and fluid.

Fluid movement can be a problem, but "Voxel" is not what you did here, it's a marketing term. Maybe start with how a 2d collider for a 2d game should perhaps be a sphere smaller than the character (not a square, they get stuck on corners), and then say sth interesting about how you solved 3d. I am fairly certain that "voxel" isn't what happened, esp with the prior of "ECS".

Re: Northlight technology in Alan Wake 2

#122

Post by ux-app »

_kulang wrote: post #111
ux-app wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I guess the problem there is pretty fundamental yes absolutely, you can't have both realism and snappy response times.

Considering you walk around and don’t have a problem with it, I’d wager that putting a more realistic walk model into a game and changing the control scheme to be a bit more natural would lead to a learnable system for control that would achieve both goals. Say ZMP

>changing the control scheme

Controllers use analog input for the sticks. I guess you could create a system which uses a dead zone where the player "signals" their intention by partially moving the stick in their desired direction.

This would be incredibly cumbersome though, and the payoff would not be worth it.

Re: Northlight technology in Alan Wake 2

#123

Post by ingenieros »

Keyframe wrote: post #95
jay_kyburz wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder how long it will be before we stop using animation and switch to an actual bipedal physics simulation where the agent actually knows how to walk and jump and run.

We were there over a decade ago with Euphoria, but I think they've stopped selling/developing it? GTA 4 used it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HauN98naZ9U

They were acquihired by Zynga of all companies which then promptly proceeded to kill off all their products.

Re: Northlight technology in Alan Wake 2

#124

Post by darzu »

ux-app wrote: post #106
SirMaster wrote: post #26

In the first example it's still really jarring how much their feet slide around on the ground, or sliding in place as they walk into an object without moving. I wonder when this will ever be solved. Don't get me wrong, the engine is incredible and the visuals and systems are some of the best we have seen.

It's always a tradeoff between responsive movement and realistic movement. RDR2 has very realistic animations, with the tradeoff being slightly "floaty" controls. Personally I prefer snappy movement i.e. when I press left the screen character moves left immediately. A more realistic looking animation system introduces a delay while you wait for the feet animation to "catch up" to player input.

I’ve always preferred the Wolfire approach[0]: animation should “do no harm” to player control, it’s only there to add flavor, never at the cost of game responsivity

[0] https://youtu.be/LNidsMesxSE?si=W7xnQfXt5ulfHklR

Re: Northlight technology in Alan Wake 2

#125

Post by dymk »

jay_kyburz wrote: post #75
Tade0 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've seen a demonstration of a solution on the YouTube channel Two Minute Papers - it was actually about an algorithm that blended animations so that the transitions looked natural.

I wonder how long it will be before we stop using animation and switch to an actual bipedal physics simulation where the agent actually knows how to walk and jump and run.

The keywords you're looking for are "procedural animation" and "inverse kinematics" - Overgrowth was doing this in 2009.

The developer did a presentation at GDC 2014 on it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LNidsMesxSE

Re: Northlight technology in Alan Wake 2

#126

Post by ThatPlayer »

rstat1 wrote: post #70
eddythompson80 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's fair, as it's your preference. It's my preference too to use steam just because it's where I have the most games and I like keeping things tidy and in 1 place. Though it's not an ideological stance, which "refuse" leads me to believe. I'm genuinely curious about the reason an adult would take that position. Last time I asked (a couple of years ago) on Reddit I didn't get, ummm, mature responses. If there is a…

My reason for refusing to give the Epic store money is pretty simple: Paid exclusives are bullshit. Especially when they're used as fodder to promote "competition", when such things are anything but.

The FTC would disagree with you. Generally exclusives improve competition unless it's a monopolist doing it. Which is not Epic in this case.

https://www.ftc.gov/advice-guidance/competition-guidance/gui...

As long as storefronts have to compete for games, this is what that looks like. There's not really any way to get rid of exclusives without hurting competition. Would you want a law passed for games to be required to be put on certain storefronts? For storefronts to be required to accept all games submitted to it? Either one would hurt competition by giving too much power to either the game publisher or the storefront.

Re: Northlight technology in Alan Wake 2

#127

Post by thaumasiotes »

rstat1 wrote: post #70
eddythompson80 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's fair, as it's your preference. It's my preference too to use steam just because it's where I have the most games and I like keeping things tidy and in 1 place. Though it's not an ideological stance, which "refuse" leads me to believe. I'm genuinely curious about the reason an adult would take that position. Last time I asked (a couple of years ago) on Reddit I didn't get, ummm, mature responses. If there is a…

My reason for refusing to give the Epic store money is pretty simple: Paid exclusives are bullshit. Especially when they're used as fodder to promote "competition", when such things are anything but.

A lot of games are exclusive to Steam. People are currently pretty angry about Sea of Stars, which explicitly committed to a GOG release, and then decided not to have one.

Return to Monkey Island also released as a Steam exclusive.

Re: Northlight technology in Alan Wake 2

#128

Post by alpaca128 »

kylebenzle wrote: post #118
ReactiveJelly wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm surprised it's still a problem. Years ago a basketball game franchise bragged that the PS3 allowed them to do foot planting with inverse kinematics. Years before that, Shadow of the Colossus shipped on PS2... with IK foot planting.

Inverse kinematics is used but, again, that does not solve the problem of the trade off between response time and realistic movement. It simply "snaps" the feet to the ground.

A lot of the problems occur during movement, when responsiveness doesn't even matter. I still have yet to see a game where it's impossible to get randomly stuck at a fence or rock that instantly stops one's movement for example. Making the character dynamically avoid such minor obstacles would make the game more responsive, not less.

And games with fancy animations are often not just less responsive, but also less controllable in general: in Witcher 3 the character cannot walk backwards or turn in place, so you can literally fall off a cliff in front of you by trying to walk away from it. In terms of movement the only difference between Geralt and his horse is the turning radius.

Re: Northlight technology in Alan Wake 2

#129

Post by [deleted] »

mcbrit wrote: post #115

From the first few sentences of the article: "ECS meant that iteration was quick because adding new or modifying existing systems or game objects was easy, and performance gains were clear when saving and loading the Case Board." and there's an accompanying screenshot with perhaps 20 objects on a case board. I scanned through the rest of the article with one question in mind: what the hell? ECS is not a solution to p…

[deleted]

Re: Northlight technology in Alan Wake 2

#130

Post by dymk »

roboror wrote: post #61
throwaway879423 wrote: post #42

Am I the only who have no interest in graphics fidelity, but would like to see more physics engines created to play with? Like a fully destructible world would be fun.

You should check out Teardown, very impressive physics engine made mostly by a single developer.

I remember seeing this game a long time ago, and your comment reminded me to check it out again. It's got a console release next week - what timing!
Post reply on HN