Will TT Engine be capable to render photorealistic graphic?

[MusicallyInspired]

Originally Posted by taumel

You know that this isn't true, right?

All GameEngines i at least have seen have their very own featuresets and limitations. Depending on the aspects you want to replace this either works or isn't supported at all.

So all the most popular engines nowadays (Quake, Unreal, Source, CryEngine, even TTG's own engine) that have made significant advances since they were initially created means....nothing? For Duke Nukem Forever, they even took the Unreal engine and modified it to create a completely new rendering engine with its own look. My point is anything can be be modified and added to. Especially the Tell Tale Tool, since they've said they're always working on it and adding to it. They can make it do anything they want it to.

[taumel]

You can't generalise this, it depends on the licence, the engine, on what you want to enhance and so on. Therefore the statement that it's no problem enhancing engine A so that it's able to perform like engine B just doesn't work out.

Whilst theoretically you might could enhance an engine which grants you the rights to do so, it easily could be a complete waste of ressources because you don't have the knowhow/time/manpower and so on to do it correctly, it might be a drag due to the design of the engine or messes up the workflow somewhere else, to shorten it up whilst your idea could be right for a specific case, it doesn't work as a generalization.

There are engine designs which work in a open modular way where you can exchange certain elements and write it on your own or make usage of some middleware you licence but again, you can't generalise this and say oh it's no problem enhancing the TTT so that it works/looks like theCryEngine for instance.

Sometimes it can be quite a pain listening to gamers, some horrible examples exist on certain game magazine sites, and their very special kind of views of what all should be no problem and those lazy incapable programmers who just have to, well, i guess you know what i mean.

[thesporkman]

The fact of the matter is Telltale has made improvements to their engine since CSI. You guys have played the new Sam and Max episodes, right? You could take any one of those CSI models, put them into the new engine with its realtime lighting and shadows and complex textures and whatnot, and you'd have something that would look just as photorealistic as the vast majority of PS3 and 360 shooters to have come out in recent years.

[MusicallyInspired]

Originally Posted by taumel

Whilst theoretically you might could enhance an engine which grants you the rights to do so, it easily could be a complete waste of ressources because you don't have the knowhow/time/manpower and so on to do it correctly, it might be a drag due to the design of the engine or messes up the workflow somewhere else, to shorten it up whilst your idea could be right for a specific case, it doesn't work as a generalization.

I realize it means extra work, but seriously. The majority of the game developers out there work with the latest rendering technologies*, and gamers expect it. So there's got to be a way to easily streamline it. And if not you can always hire people with the knowhow. And I know that means more money. I'm not saying it won't cost the company more of something, I'm just saying it's more than possible.

There are engine designs which work in a open modular way where you can exchange certain elements and write it on your own or make usage of some middleware you licence but again, you can't generalise this and say oh it's no problem enhancing the TTT so that it works/looks like theCryEngine for instance.

Hold on. Are you saying that if one wants to take advantage of certain rendering technologies* in one's engine that they'd have to license it first? I can't think of anything more ridiculous.

Sometimes it can be quite a pain listening to gamers, some horrible examples exist on certain game magazine sites, and their very special kind of views of what all should be no problem and those lazy incapable programmers who just have to, well, i guess you know what i mean.

Again, I never said it wouldn't be more work (although the methods that graphics are created with nowadays have become more streamlined and efficient), and I even understand if TTG couldn't/wouldn't do it. I'm just saying it is completely possible to add greater rendering technologies* to an existing engine. And you can generalize that. Any engine has the capability to be more than it is if you have the patience and/or money and knowhow to program it in.


*When I say rendering technologies, I'm not referring to engines but they way engines render a 3D image. You can't license normal mapping, phong shading, or dynamic lighting for instance, while you can (and must, if you don't already have an engine) license an engine that utilizes these rendering methods.

[taumel]

But just because something is theoretically possible, doesn't make it automatically likely nor reasonable. As i already suggested, choosing the right way for your GameEngine involes a couple of questions you first have to answer to yourself according to your specific project/situation/strategy.

You can write you own renderengine, you can licence one, you can use the one which comes with the gameengine, ...

What's suprising about that? It's the same like for instance with sound. If you can afford it, you will most probably go with a FMOD licence, if you can't you'll use BASS, openAL, ... write you own audio lib whatever. It's the same thing with a lot of components you need for a game (graphics, sound, ai, physics, ...) as long as your game engine is capable of integrating such components.

Otherwise you might just use such middleware and write the GameEngine on your own or you can't integrate such things because your engine wasn't designed for such purposes or it would mess up your engine's workflow. There are many possibilities why you can and why you can't do such things. But if you don't want to write a certain component on your own due to some of the reasons we have already talked about and can afford the licence, then why not?

a) There does exist a mature crossplatform soundengine? Let's see what it costs.
b) We need some more performance and are in need of some advanced occlusion culling. Let's take a look at Umbra.
And so on...

Theoretically you could enhance a Quake I engine to a cryEngine 3 but it would be more a complete start from scratch. As this is a money driven business you'll want to go the way which serves you the best.

Of course you can licence render engines. With shaders the days of fixed function piepelines are over since years, at least on the desktop. Normal mapping is a concept. You're free to implement it on your own (it's all just shadercode) and it has to wok together with the rest of the lightning system. Beside of this, a renderengine is a bit more than just a pack of shading possibilities.

[moo535]

you can't really bolt on more components until it works. most of those components have interoperability issues. ttg uses their own proprietry engine and fmod sound. they have focused the engine on animation cpabilities rather than fast paced performance. i'm not even sure the majority of the character designs use textures. quite a few look vertex shaded. though that has been improving on the latest releases

frankly i do agree with the original post that both of these new franchises would be better suited to the realistic look as opposed to the cartoon like look they have used of late...but don't be surprised if these titles end up being made on a different engine. especially jurasic park. that is just screaming out for cryengine2.

but before we cry out for awesome visuals how about some idea of how jurasic park would even work? seems like a limited scope for adventuring.

[PariahKing]

You're kidding yourself if you expect to compare anything Telltale produces to Crysis.

That's not what Telltale is about.

[moo535]

not necesarily by choice. crisis has an art team poached straight from movie studio's. hiring standards specifically mention 3+ years at movie special effects places. crytek's budget would probably rival telltales total combined budget and sales from everything they've ever released.

[Bloody Eugene]

Originally Posted by PariahKing

You're kidding yourself if you expect to compare anything Telltale produces to Crysis.

That's not what Telltale is about.

If TT will release a shoot'em'up, I'll shoot'em'all.

I'm looking toward a real Adventure Game.
No RPG, no FPS, no RTS.

[taumel]

So you won't be satisfied with the upcoming Dino Chess as well?

[Spadge]

I'm hoping we won't get photorealistic graphics. I want a slightly exaggerated character design, some great puzzles and a good story! Heh, I often find photorealistic characters rather creepy. But that's probably just me.

[SHODANFreeman]

Originally Posted by Spadge

Heh, I often find photorealistic characters rather creepy. But that's probably just me.

This is known as the uncanny valley.



I think it's because the eyes always look dull and lifeless.

[Secret Fawful]

Originally Posted by Pale Man

This is known as the uncanny valley.

That's a very interesting concept.

[Tor]

Originally Posted by Pale Man

This is known as the uncanny valley.

I'm familiar with the effect (the humanoid robot pictured in the article is a good example) but I didn't know the name for it. Thanks for the link!

[Santar]

I think movie licenses like Bttf and Jurassic Park lends themselves to realistic graphics so I really hope they'll try to go with that for those games.
It just wouldn't really be Jurassic Park with cartoony and wacky charactes in it.
Maybe this is what they're going for:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LyGMiwOGBfM

[Haggis]

Crikey, some of you guys are talking as if there's a cartoony-realistic dichotomy, with nothing in between. I would find a Jurassic Park game with graphics along the lines of Telltale's CSI games perfectly acceptable. I really hope they won't go for some totally unnecessary Crysis overkill, not in the last place because my PC couldn't handle it.

[Santar]

I think Jurassic Park deserves something more than the dated graphics of the CSI games. The movies always looked smashing, with high production values. The efects in the movies were even groundbreaking for it's time.

[SparkTR]

Originally Posted by Santar

I think Jurassic Park deserves something more than the dated graphics of the CSI games. The movies always looked smashing, with high production values. The efects in the movies were even groundbreaking for it's time.

Agreed. I still think the original Jurassic Park has better visuals than the majority of actions films today. Besides, Telltale's engine features scalable graphics settings so people with low end PC's can play the game and people with high end PCs can have it looking spectacular.

[Santar]

Originally Posted by SparkTR

Agreed. I still think the original Jurassic Park has better visuals than the majority of actions films today. Besides, Telltale's engine features scalable graphics settings so people with low end PC's can play the game and people with high end PCs can have it looking spectacular.

Yeah, it's been a while since I last saw them, but I've always thought they look fantastic even by todays standards.
Lets hope they actually surprise us with the graphics of both these new franchises. It would be really awesome if they stepped outside of the cartoony zany graphic styles I think.

[taumel]

Dr. Nucleus's assistent: Finally, we've succeeded and as expected we can confirm that also adventure gamers can be turned into visual dependants!