Fallout in 3D

[swordinstone]

Ok, I risk death by flamers and riddicule, but I read that locked thread and I wanted to interject...

First off, in most 2D games, the artwork you are viewing came from 3D to begin with. This is the case for Fallout 1,2, & Tactics. When you do a game in isometric, your increasing the the amount of work you do by 50-100% because you have to transfer all your 3D work into 2D sprites or tiles, or whatever. Not only that, but you also have to do it for every possible angle you going to view it from for actors (things that can move). So, now your dealing with multiple sequences of sprite animations, which makes programmers waste lots of time trying to keep it all straight... and keeps them from working out bugs in the gameplay and whatnot.

Now, the whole reason this was worth-while in the past was because you could have a lot higher resolution models and effects, without choking your video card on polys and textures... there all just pixels and alpha channels. So, now that video cards can handle all that stuff, AND allow you to view it from ANY angle... why not?

3D will also let the developers do some things with the game that will make the world of fallout that much more immersive. Texture swapping to show damage and wear on items and people. Lighting and shadow effects, pretty particles for weapons and weather (yes, i know you all are worried about this!). More interactivity with your surroundings, blah blah blah... im sure you've all played a 3D game at some point.

And as far as not being able to add art work (or being really difficult and time consuming) to a mod, well, that kills atleast 50% of anything creative you could possibly do with it to begin with.


As a side note...

I think Fallout 3 should have an option to turn on realism, for a slower, but more in depth style of game play. Make surviving in the wasteland part of the game... collecting food (and eating it), repairing weapons, recasing ammo shells, fixing your vehicle... customizing your vehicle and upgrading it... this goes for weapons also... show some duct tape wrapped around the handle where you repaired it... crap like that. Maybe this would be better suited for a MMORPG environment, but I think it would be cool.

[EvoG]

Stop by "Project : Phoenix" here in these forums and read up.

Everything you say is on the nose. ::points to nose::


::since finger is already there, picks nose::




Cheers

[Raymondo]

collecting food (and eating it), repairing weapons, recasing ammo shells, fixing your vehicle... customizing your vehicle and upgrading it

You stole all my ideas

http://www.duckandcover.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=2457

[atoga]

collecting food (and eating it), repairing weapons, recasing ammo shells, fixing your vehicle... customizing your vehicle and upgrading it

Any idiot could've thought of that, Raymondo. Though they would help out in Fallout 3. Some of these would add depth, but, of course, some would just be annoying (such as having to constantly stop to eat food, or recasing thousands of rounds of different ammo types).

[OnTheBounce]

I think Fallout 3 should have an option to turn on realism, for a slower, but more in depth style of game play. Make surviving in the wasteland part of the game... collecting food (and eating it), repairing weapons, recasing ammo shells, fixing your vehicle... customizing your vehicle and upgrading it... this goes for weapons also... show some duct tape wrapped around the handle where you repaired it... crap like that. Maybe this would be better suited for a MMORPG environment, but I think it would be cool.

Abstraction. There's a great future in abstraction.

Do you really want to go through all of the activities that are either too monotonous to enhance game play or require skills which your character has but you don't?

Since RPGs have a strong escapist element in them we resolve many things with a roll of computerized dice and fade the screen out or simply assume they are occuring. It's only when they don't occur that we need to be informed of the result, e.g. failing an Outdoorsman check simulating your character hunting for food and water which in turn means he/she looses some HP.

So, while all you're seeing is your character's tireless progress across the World Map he/she is actually doing all of those things that would either bog the game down in detail or would hack the escapist elements right out of the game.

Some things in your list do merit some attention from the designers, though. For instance the customization of equipment. I would like to see a less linear set of customization options, personally. For instance, you could install a fuel cell regulator on a vehicle that would net you better mileage but would slow the car down. Or you could get a high performance package on the car that would speed it up, but hammer your mileage. (Of course, these particular examples would only fully work in a game with a time limit, but that's something that FO3 definitely needs.)

Cheers,

OTB

[swordinstone]

I realize that a lot of these thing will become monatenous for some, that why i say design it as an option. I used to run a PnP game of fallout with about 6-8 ppl, and I made them worry about stuff like that... I also let them scavenge the wasteland and do heavy customization to their equipment...

For instance... their squad vehicle ended up being a panel van (delivery truck), a very weakly armored vehicle in terms of combat... They were getting tired of replacing tires and misc. parts constantly (cos i was a bastard and had the NPCs shoot their car up . So, they got creative and stripped every single road sign from the streets of a ghost town they were traveling through... then welded the signs onto the truck for some extra armor. When they were running out of bullets, they raided a junk yard and melted down old brake rotars for metal. They ate radscorpion when they were stranded in a week long sandstorm. I can keep going, but i think you get the idea. I think that allowing the players to be creative scavengers would add a lot to the game... but like I said earlier, it might be better suited for a MMORPG environment, not a single player campaign.

[Section8]

Major gameplay options aren't a good thing in my opinion. The game shouldn't try to please too many people, it should just be what it is.

[dishwasher]

um, and the 3D thing?

[Cigol]

collecting food (and eating it), repairing weapons, recasing ammo shells, fixing your vehicle... customizing your vehicle and upgrading it

Any idiot could've thought of that, Raymondo. Though they would help out in Fallout 3. Some of these would add depth, but, of course, some would just be annoying (such as having to constantly stop to eat food, or recasing thousands of rounds of different ammo types).

A better idea would be having to be stocked up on food, you could have the game react differently to how much/little you have and for how long it stays that way.

If the game were in 3D it'd just be an engine like that used in Neverwinter Nights. And it'll probably be just as bad.

[Kashluk]

OR it could be like Morrowind and be a big hit. Figures.

[jerman999]

um, and the 3D thing?

That's a granted. FO3 will use the in-house engine developed for Jefferson, which is in 3D.

[PIPBoy2161]

um, and the 3D thing?

That's a granted. FO3 will use the in-house engine developed for Jefferson, which is in 3D.

well.. i dont really know if i like 3d... i kinda like it how it is it kicks ass... everyone knows it i think 3d would just make it comfusing... i mean look at the attempt to make FO:BoS kinda 3d.... totally failed... but then again thats a console and not pc, so i can see the logic behind it

[Doyle]

well.. i dont really know if i like 3d... i kinda like it how it is it kicks ass... everyone knows it i think 3d would just make it comfusing... i mean look at the attempt to make FO:BoS kinda 3d.... totally failed... but then again thats a console and not pc, so i can see the logic behind it

It must be working, I feel confused already.

[Rice-Rocketeer]

Hmm...well, for those of you saying NWN or Morrowind were bad, it's completely a judgement call on your part. It's your opinion, but to many people, these games were quite a lot of fun. Not to mention, these games have been selling very well.
Automatically relegating 3D games to the pit of despair isn't fair. Besides, it isn't the graphics that make the game. I'm fairly confident if they get their priorities in order, Fallout 3 could be a great game, 3D or not. To me, whatever they do, it will not really matter...there is the functionality of 3D that would really help add in a lot of new features, but at the same time, 2D provides that art style that isn't quite possible with 3D (unless you're running the latest and greatest hardware). As long as the game has a good story, and follows the Fallout universe, I shall be happy.

[Saint_Proverbius]

First off, in most 2D games, the artwork you are viewing came from 3D to begin with. This is the case for Fallout 1,2, & Tactics. When you do a game in isometric, your increasing the the amount of work you do by 50-100% because you have to transfer all your 3D work into 2D sprites or tiles, or whatever.

I'd hardly say you're anywhere even close to doubling your work time due to rendering(making those 3D models in to 2D). You're still going to have to animate a low poly model for a 3D game just to test the way it moves. Depending on the perspective, view, zoom, or whatever camera orientation you go with, you might be animating that model fairly up close, after all.

Not only that, but you also have to do it for every possible angle you going to view it from for actors (things that can move).

This isn't true either. For an eight sided sprite, you only have to render five directions, because the other three can be mirrored.. And honestly, if you think this takes much more work on the part of anyone but the CPU, you need to check your facts. Automatically rotating a stage is pretty easy, and has been since the early days of 3D rendering.

So, now your dealing with multiple sequences of sprite animations, which makes programmers waste lots of time trying to keep it all straight... and keeps them from working out bugs in the gameplay and whatnot.

You've got to be fucking kidding here. You think it's a lot harder to page flip through frames based on a file convention or keyframe sequence in a sprite file than it is to program a skeletal modelling system? Skeletal modelling requires some nifty vector transforms. Flipping through a filename sequence or keyframe sequence is for-next loop stuff.. Beginner coding.

Now, the whole reason this was worth-while in the past was because you could have a lot higher resolution models and effects, without choking your video card on polys and textures...

Let's not forget detail. 2D still wins over 3D in terms of detail. It always will so long as 3D remains based on polygons with flat rendering. Bumpmapping helps, but there's still only so much you can do with 3D currently.

there all just pixels and alpha channels. So, now that video cards can handle all that stuff, AND allow you to view it from ANY angle... why not?

Because most sprite models are 150k polygons. Landscapes can be as many polygons as you want. You can use as many textures, shaders, etc. in 2D that your rendering software can handle, because it's all done before it even shows up in the game. You can have as much detail as you want in 2D, and you're still limited in 3D by what can be done in real time with 60 frames per second.

3D will also let the developers do some things with the game that will make the world of fallout that much more immersive. Texture swapping to show damage and wear on items and people.

This can be done in 2D, many games have done weapon switching using overlayed sprites.

Swapping textures isn't how it's done in 3D either, but whatever you want to think here.

Lighting and shadow effects, pretty particles for weapons and weather (yes, i know you all are worried about this!).

Can be done in 2D as well.

More interactivity with your surroundings,

Such as? Climbing? See Jagged Alliance 2. Destroying walls? Jagged Alliance 2. Pushing objects around? Nox, Divine Divinity, Arcanum.

Tiles are the big factor here, not 2D or 3D.

blah blah blah...

Probably the only thing you've said that I don't disagree with right there.

I think Fallout 3 should have an option to turn on realism, for a slower, but more in depth style of game play. Make surviving in the wasteland part of the game... collecting food (and eating it), repairing weapons, recasing ammo shells, fixing your vehicle... customizing your vehicle and upgrading it... this goes for weapons also... show some duct tape wrapped around the handle where you repaired it... crap like that. Maybe this would be better suited for a MMORPG environment, but I think it would be cool.

Ugh.

[swordinstone]

I'd hardly say you're anywhere even close to doubling your work time due to rendering(making those 3D models in to 2D). You're still going to have to animate a low poly model for a 3D game just to test the way it moves. Depending on the perspective, view, zoom, or whatever camera orientation you go with, you might be animating that model fairly up close, after all.

This isn't true either. For an eight sided sprite, you only have to render five directions, because the other three can be mirrored.. And honestly, if you think this takes much more work on the part of anyone but the CPU, you need to check your facts. Automatically rotating a stage is pretty easy, and has been since the early days of 3D rendering.

You have to do A LOT of extra rendering, process EVERY FRAME, optomize pallets, tweak alpha channels, come up with naming conventions, and sort them in directories for the programmer, i would say thats quite a bit of extra work. If you need more proof, then why are most sprite based games 3+ discs?

You've got to be fucking kidding here. You think it's a lot harder to page flip through frames based on a file convention or keyframe sequence in a sprite file than it is to program a skeletal modelling system? Skeletal modelling requires some nifty vector transforms. Flipping through a filename sequence or keyframe sequence is for-next loop stuff.. Beginner coding.

What do you think 3D files do? They flip through frames too. Skeletal programing may not be easy, but its seems to be in almost every new 3D game that comes out now adays, so it cont be that tough either. Having a skeletal system also lets you recycle a lot of animation, and apply dynamic simulation to a character, that you could NEVER do in a pre-rendered sprite game.

Let's not forget detail. 2D still wins over 3D in terms of detail. It always will so long as 3D remains based on polygons with flat rendering. Bumpmapping helps, but there's still only so much you can do with 3D currently.

Because most sprite models are 150k polygons. Landscapes can be as many polygons as you want. You can use as many textures, shaders, etc. in 2D that your rendering software can handle, because it's all done before it even shows up in the game. You can have as much detail as you want in 2D, and you're still limited in 3D by what can be done in real time with 60 frames per second.

Way to pull a number out of your ass. Even highend machines today will render 150k poly models with bump, spec, and displacement maps, rather slowly. And besides, all 3D geometry is polys in the end, even if modeled in NURBs or Sub-Ds... put enough polys in the right places with a good texture map, and you'll never see the facets... that goes in real time too... of course pre-rendered stuff will look a little better, but that margin gets smaller everyday.

I dont know what crawled up your ass, but I didnt see you offer any real opinion on why you think it should still be 2D, other than to satisfy your "purist" dispostion... But thanks for making me angry.

[axelgreese]

Skeletal programing may not be easy, but its seems to be in almost every new 3D game that comes out now adays, so it cont be that tough either.

2d has been used in a lot of games too, it can't be that hard either. Whoops I guess it's not so much work after all.

[Saint_Proverbius]

You have to do A LOT of extra rendering, process EVERY FRAME,

Which, btw, the computer does for you.

optomize pallets,

Welcome to the wonderful world of technology beyond 8bit graphics, where fixed palettes are no longer required.

tweak alpha channels,

1.) You don't have to use alpha channels, evar.
2.) If you do, you get to deal with it in both 2D and 3D.

come up with naming conventions,

Grasping? Is it so hard to come up with [sprite name + facing direction + frame].bmp? OMFG! I just came up with that in less than a second!

and sort them in directories for the programmer,

Which is optional, since they have the unique filename! There's a tough concept, isn't it? Even if you did decide to organize them, it's not like it takes a few hours every day to type a few extra letters in the render path.

i would say thats quite a bit of extra work.

I can say pink bunnies can fly, but that doesn't make it true, now does it?

If you need more proof, then why are most sprite based games 3+ discs?

Storage space and artist work aren't correlative.

What do you think 3D files do? They flip through frames too.

So, you're arguing my case for me now? You're saying that in formats like id software's MD2 format, you have frame sequences to flip through, just like 2D sprites, so.. Same amount of programming work if you go that route. Bravo!

Skeletal programing may not be easy, but its seems to be in almost every new 3D game that comes out now adays, so it cont be that tough either. Having a skeletal system also lets you recycle a lot of animation, and apply dynamic simulation to a character, that you could NEVER do in a pre-rendered sprite game.

Since you were talking about how hard it was to program flipping through sprites, which is totally, completely wrong, I brought up skeletal animation because it's much, much more complex than anything you have to do with 2D sprites.

Way to pull a number out of your ass. Even highend machines today will render 150k poly models with bump, spec, and displacement maps, rather slowly.

Actually, it was the number of polygons in Fallout Tactics' sprites, per Parish Rodgers. And you're a total dumbass if you think rather slowly is going to cut it for real time gaming animation, which is the point of this, isn't it? Hello, McFly!

And besides, all 3D geometry is polys in the end, even if modeled in NURBs or Sub-Ds... put enough polys in the right places with a good texture map, and you'll never see the facets...

You're forgetting voxels, which are 3D and not polygon based.

I dont know what crawled up your ass, but I didnt see you offer any real opinion on why you think it should still be 2D, other than to satisfy your "purist" dispostion... But thanks for making me angry.

I'm pointing out that the vast majority of your Why it should be 3D reasons is a load of horsecrap, and thanks for making it so easy.

[Carib]

I know my inane prattle is eating the nerves of the Gestapo, so before I get shipped off to some forced labour camp in Canada near the oil lines, or my brain scoped out and placed ina robo-brain, let me say what I gotta say.

Saint P or whomever that can answer this, Would it kill JE and crew to make FO3 in sprites and add new sprites. And if this fails, which it might, since they are most likely opted for 3-D


Could the FO3 work sort of like Morrowind, except less bugggy? I mean the first person and third person view? That is if they go to full 3-D... Will we be seeing the same mechanics?

[Kleptomaniac]

I


Could the FO3 work sort of like Morrowind, except less bugggy? I mean the first person and third person view? That is if they go to full 3-D... Will we be seeing the same mechanics?

Yeah that sounds great! And maybe we can add some magic and driving segments. We also should probably lost the talking, 'cause I mean, come on, that's SOOO 1991... :roll: