Posted: Fri Jun 07, 2013 12:24 pm Post subject:
Were voxels necessary?
I'd like to duscuss two "what if" scenarios regarding Tiberian Sun development.
IIRC Westwood originally wanted TS to have voxel fully deformable terrain. This was mentioned in early previews and many journalists believed that the terrain they saw on the screenshots was completely voxel based. We've got tile based terrain instead with very limited deformation. Could the original Westwood vision be achieved with the 1999 technology? How would it look in static compared to the nice tile graphics?
In the released game only vehicles are made of voxels and it looks like they're no more than leftovers from the original idea. You may say that Westwood's Blade Runner had voxel characters at 2d backgrounds before TS, but IMO Westwood chose voxels for Blade Runner as a test of the new (for Westwood themselves) technology during the active TS developmnet.
And to be honest voxel units don't look that good compared to sprite graphics of the era. I know that sprites would take more (but not much) memory, considering all the angles and sloped terrain. But what about polygons? They might be less detailed in 1999 but they certainly would look less rough and pixelazed than TS voxels and the virtual camera in TS battlefield is rather far from the ground so you wouldn't notice lo res 1999 textures and square wheels on units. Don't you think polygons would be a better idea? QUICK_EDIT
Posted: Fri Jun 07, 2013 12:38 pm Post subject:
Re: Were voxels necessary?
uzernaem wrote:
I'd like to duscuss two "what if" scenarios regarding Tiberian Sun development.
IIRC Westwood originally wanted TS to have voxel fully deformable terrain. This was mentioned in early previews and many journalists believed that the terrain they saw on the screenshots was completely voxel based. We've got tile based terrain instead with very limited deformation. Could the original Westwood vision be achieved with the 1999 technology? How would it look in static compared to the nice tile graphics?
In the released game only vehicles are made of voxels and it looks like they're no more than leftovers from the original idea. You may say that Westwood's Blade Runner had voxel characters at 2d backgrounds before TS, but IMO Westwood chose voxels for Blade Runner as a test of the new (for Westwood themselves) technology during the active TS developmnet.
And to be honest voxel units don't look that good compared to sprite graphics of the era. I know that sprites would take more (but not much) memory, considering all the angles and sloped terrain. But what about polygons? They might be less detailed in 1999 but they certainly would look less rough and pixelazed than TS voxels and the virtual camera in TS battlefield is rather far from the ground so you wouldn't notice lo res 1999 textures and square wheels on units. Don't you think polygons would be a better idea?
Blade Runners voxel engine is more advanced than Tiberian Sun's. QUICK_EDIT
Joined: 22 Nov 2010 Location: Iszkaszentgyorgy, Hungary
Posted: Fri Jun 07, 2013 12:41 pm Post subject:
Polygons are only good if the whole renderer is made with polygons. But most of the renderer stuff in the TS/RA2 engine is a carryover from the RA1 one just malformed for 2.5D use-case.
I wouldn't say voxels are a leftover. Maybe voxel terrain was what they meant at first but that's a totally bad idea in design. Voxels can look good, as nowadays it's shown it was just WW's tools which sucked.
Besides, many shiny effects could be added with voxels, tilting and so on.
Look at Warzone2100 how would polygons look like in that era... and while I like that game I have to tell you... the TS/RA2 choice looks better. _________________ "If you didn't get angry and mad and frustrated, that means you don't care about the end result, and are doing something wrong." - Greg Kroah-Hartman
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Past C&C projects: Attacque Supérior (2010-2019); Valiant Shades (2019-2021)
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Maintainance: Extra Expanded Enhanced Encounters! | BGEESpawn
Contributions: EE Fixpack | Enhanced Edition Trilogy | DSotSC (Trilogy) | UB_IWD | SotSC & a lot more... QUICK_EDIT
C&C64 units look rather nice in comparison to TS voxels. Of course overall C&C64 is an ugly game compared to original DOS C&C but anyway.
The advantages of polygons are better shading (IIRC voxels in TS have none, only overall brightness) and much less grainy look. TS and RA2 voxels are just too grainy. QUICK_EDIT
The "grainy" voxels are just Westwoods poor conversion tools I guess. Look at some of the best voxels the communtiy have come up with, they can look pretty damn good. Even though sprites do look better the voxel units are quite lively thanks to the technology... tilting on slopes and from explosions, hover units spinning to the ground when disabled in an Ion Storm, aircraft spinning and crashing to the ground, Dropships tilting when taking off and landing, voxel debris able to spin and bounce all over the place etc etc. QUICK_EDIT
Hahaha true that!
Journalists! I often do not believe them. They usually write stuff just to sell newspapers, not carrying much if it is true or not.
When they say you ,,good day" you must first look at sky to check if it is really day, and after that to see if it is good at all, if there is no rain and such. (Just for record, that sentence is not copyrighted by me, we usually says that for those who lie often).
According to subject of topic. Well, after seeing those 3D rendered units without texture during RA2 and YR Installations I guess Westwood could do better.
Guys, what are those models anyway? They look much better than stock ingame voxels. _________________ PPM Halloween Season 2021 QUICK_EDIT
Not to mention, a 3D engine of that era could not handle such complex details as could be done in the 3D CAD program they were using for the load screen models.
Voxels were the best they could do at the time, looking better than the 3D models of the same timeframe.
Surely RA2 could have had an updated engine, but I guess they saved that for Generals, and probably were better off in doing so, considering they apparently didn't have the money for a new engine at the time. _________________ "Don't beg for things; Do it yourself or you'll never get anything." QUICK_EDIT
Yes, but look at WC3 models which are even better and more complex than ones used in Generals. Seems that Westwood/EA always lacked at detailed units _________________ PPM Halloween Season 2021 QUICK_EDIT
Surely RA2 could have had an updated engine, but I guess they saved that for Generals, and probably were better off in doing so, considering they apparently didn't have the money for a new engine at the time.
Yes, but look at WC3 models which are even better and more complex than ones used in Generals. Seems that Westwood/EA always lacked at detailed units
Possibly, but WC3 is smaller scale with a tighter viewport and pop cap. But yeah, overall I think WW struggled with making 3D work well... Petro doesn't seem that much better. QUICK_EDIT
Joined: 26 Apr 2003 Location: Somewhere in Germany
Posted: Tue Jun 11, 2013 5:49 pm Post subject:
OmegaBolt wrote:
MasterHaosis wrote:
Yes, but look at WC3 models which are even better and more complex than ones used in Generals. Seems that Westwood/EA always lacked at detailed units
Possibly, but WC3 is smaller scale with a tighter viewport and pop cap. But yeah, overall I think WW struggled with making 3D work well... Petro doesn't seem that much better.
Westwood (the real one, not WW Pacific who made Generals and became EA Pacific and then the main part of EALA's RTS division now called Victory Games) were never that good at the technical side of making games. They just had a few top talents in some areas like design and music, which made their games a decent experience despite those technical short-comings (bugs, performance issues, mediocre in-game graphics, poor AI, stupid balance issues etc.).
To my knowledge, Emperor:BFD was made by an external team (no, not WW/EA Pacific AFAIK. They were busy with YR at that time and later Generals).
Generals' engine was derived from Renegade's engine.
Just to clarify some things and add my 2 cents QUICK_EDIT
It is actually misconception that Emperor had anything to do with SAGE=Westwood 3D, Intelligent games (UK) did the bulk and seemingly its XANADU named game engine.
What there is of usual Westwood stuff, is mostly audio engine with changes and similar ini coding.
Hyper had it confirmed for me apart from notable format differencies that are too vast to have been just carried over to SAGE and rewritten entirely.
What hyper said to me, WW were working on renegade 3d engine already prior to emperor.
Even wiki has this wrong but it was pretty good guess lacking better knowledge. QUICK_EDIT
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Were voxels necessary?
