IGN

I was reading on this new technique and it is simply amazing. I so wanna see this damn demonstraton that was described. I saw a few videos of it without any game just a prototype demonstration i guess. I wanna see what it looks like in an actual game.

it' s truly incredible, finaly something next gen without talking about visuals, i told you guys that what i only see is graphics pushing up while keeping animations in the past gen , which looks weird and not impressive...

with this , it oppens a lot of possibilities to gameplay and it' s truly amazing, see power doesn' t serve only in graphics, could the wii do that ? i don' t think so ...

That sounds fantastic, the only thing that can limit this is the users limited input!

More durable, persistent enemies will come from this. Let' s face it: if a bad guy can get knocked off the roof of the bus, only to smash the window below and regroup, then the game will feel much more like a true action movie, and not just superhero vs. x (whatever the game throws at you plotwise).

Still, Indy the game better have a throwback to one of the more spontaneously cool sequences of Harison Ford' s acting gigs - have a guy wildly swing a sword menacingly, only to get shot. Man I LOVE that scene.

Funny thing is, back in 1998 on SegaWeb Adam Doree was saying that the next logical step for VF was using physics calculated in real time.

Unfortunitely Sega never went down that path (hardware lacking processing power at the time, etc), and now thinking about it, VF5 would have been the perfect game to demonstrait. The level of depth would be truly unrivaled.

Still, it' s nice to finally see someone take the first true steps to next-gen gameplay proving you don' t necessarily need a radical controller to achieve this. Well if it ends up playing well.

Unfortunitely Sega never went down that path (hardware lacking processing power at the time, etc), and now thinking about it, VF5 would have been the perfect game to demonstrait. The level of depth would be truly unrivaled.

realtime calculated physics would ruin your VF experience since you wouldn' t have the same reaction from the same move twice.Juggles and stuff like that would be unpredictable and it could lead to some unexpected situations with wrong animations triggered in a silly way.

The... elimination of predictable juggles? WOW! Do it Sega! Do it NOW!

Realistic fighting games should be a bit more tactical, and not juggle-riffic. Sure, gamers may not be able to execute the same pop up move twice, but it would lead to a much more complex and fun gameplay mechanic where positioning is just as important as the attack you use. Use a straight jab up close, does nearly no damage. Do it from proper distance, and POW, it would smart.

I say, change is good.

I' ve always thought it' d be cool to have someone react realistically to being punched/shot depending where they got hit, being flexible, instead of with a set animation.

The problem with any procedural simulation though is that the simulation code has to be accurate. If it isn' t it won' t look right. Even though IGN says everyone in the room was convinced, I can' t help thinking that it' s probably nowhere near that simple to get right.

Take physics for example. For ages, a falling box hitting the ground was done through animation, and physics simulation was introduced to make the motions of the box more flexible to its envirnoment when it fell. But..early physics code was rubbish and unconvincing. Even now we' re still trying to get it right, and we' re resorting to dedicated physics processors to help us out.

Behavioural simulation is even more complicated. How long will it take to reach a stage where this is convincing, and how long till we need a BPU (Behavioural Processing Unit)!

I mean I heard Chris Crawford, an industry vet from olden day Atari, is working on a Social Simulation (think light years ahead of The Sims ffs!) which will try to simulate complex human behaviours and interactions. So whatever you do or say, npcs will react convincingly, rather than with pre-scripted responses/actions.

Anyone played Facade? That was an interesting experiment in procedural social simulation. You could type in whatever you wanted and in-game characters would react appropriately. The game was limited to one room and 2 other characters though. It would start with you entering, and end with one of the three characters leaving depending on what you did/said. It was like 600mbs and needed a hefty CPU even though the game was so short! And even then, imo it was only moderately convincing..

So maybe Indy doesn' t plan on being that ambitious, and they just want enemies to put their foot in the right place depending on how they get knocked. But I can' t imagine that the potential of LucasArts new technology isn' t getting hyped just a bit.

The technology has to start somewhere. Even if it is only for limited reactions, such a design is good to get the ball rolling.

Oh yea I agree, I forgot to say that. I' m not knocking the future possibilities of this kind of thing, or saying that LucasArts are doing a bad thing. Just that we shouldn' t expect too much from a first go from Indy... if it is even a first go - Spore is working down that kind of path too right? Some would just call it advanced AI.

I agree that it' s likely Indy won' t pull it off as amazing as were being led to believe, but it makes a good starting point so.

Anyway real-time physics doesn' t always have to be linked directly with complex AI. It is possible to use it just for more realistic and advanced collision detection and reaction. Ultimately the overall animation will be pre-detirmined but certain things like what direction limbs move, will change according to where and how fast the collision occurs. Obviously AI would come into play, but not on quite the same level as you would be using some pre-scripted animation to fill in the gaps.

I believe that the easiest way to achive a good balance with realistic AI and physics is to have things partly simulated and then using the real-time physics to manipulate the exsiting animations, using a guideline pre-programed to determine how far things like limbs could move before say breaking etc.