Mirificus posted:

peter gabriel posted:

Even the rivers is in the other lumberyard game, noted shitfest New World look stunning compared to this Bryce 3D looking horse poo poo

quote:

do you think a Pentium D 820(Dualcore 2.8GHz) can handle it?

Kosumo posted:

I don't think you understand game development.

Fidelitious posted:

This guy is a master of make-believe. But in any case, the issue is not one of widespread incompetence, it is incompetence concentrated in the most damaging positions. I believe that the 500+ people involved in this could make a quality game no problem with the proper leadership and direction.

As we all know the C-suite is a bastion of incompetence headed by Chris and Sandi with a touch of competence from Erin. Way too many of the top people in positions that set the direction of the game are there because they're friends with Chris or Tony or because they worked at TT Fusion with Erin, etc.
I took a look at people with Director/Lead in their job title and plenty of them have a history of technical competence. A good number of them are internal promotions starting from mid-level IC roles which wouldn't normally be a problem but I could see it being concerning when their promotional environment was CIG right?

It's just simple though, the decision makers at the end of the line have zero experience with MMOs or anything even similar. It's a poo poo show.

quote:

I hire people for a living, in technology. It would be monumentally complicated to hire so badly, consistently, for this to ever even be an edge case factor. An absolute non-starter.

Occam's razor remains a solid analogy because the MOST likely outcome, as I stated, is that the game is complex enough that the good people they have working on it will take more than 10 years to get it done. That it isn't done at 10 years isn't because the team is bad, or they aren't up to the task. The simple answer is IT TAKES WHAT IT TAKES.

That is the entire, true point. There doesn't have to be "something they could have done better or differently" to be at a different level of "done" right now. Some people argue as if that is a given, that SOMETHING that can be controlled wasn't. But the unsatisfyingly accurate answer is: that's not the case.

quote:

I'll only reply to the idea that 'it takes what it takes' is a poo poo method.

Let me explain why it is appropriate for SC.

When you are delivering code, let's say a new screen in a policy administration system (something I have 20+ years of experience with), you should be able to pick a date, plan sprints and hit the target relatively close. You are working in a system that you've worked on often for a decade plus, have extensive knowledge with, and are delivering something you've delivered dozens of times before.

Now let's say that the underlying tools you rely on are no longer supported by the vendor and security concerns press you to replace the entire system from the ground up.

You find me the company, fortune 500, technological, I don't care, that has EVER hit their targets doing that, and you'll have created a fake document from scratch - because (and here is where the rubber meets the road on this concept) - just like with SC, doing something BRAND NEW FROM SCRATCH is not compatible with pre-defined dates. Simply stated, and factually accurate.

If CIG was churning out "yet another" formulaic shooter, then this would be a reasonable thing to suggest. But they aren't. They have ideas on how it might work (as opposed to existing code that shows it does work) so they ARE going to have REASONABLE and UNDERSTANDABLE delays.

If this weren't the case - if CIG wasn't creating brand new, edge-pushing technology and unprecedented stitched-together gameplay including net-new systems, net-new game engine functionality, etc. - then sure, they missed a date and have no excuse.

But that's not the case. And that's what CIG has stated, when Chris delivered his year-end 2020 letter it was clear. When they revamped the roadmap because we struggle to understand its actual intent, it was clear. They've stated as much as I've elucidated. There is no mystery.

Just an unwillingness to accept the facts.

Mirificus posted:

I'll only reply to the idea that 'it takes what it takes' is a poo poo method.

Let me explain why it is appropriate for SC.

When you are delivering code, let's say a new screen in a policy administration system (something I have 20+ years of experience with), you should be able to pick a date, plan sprints and hit the target relatively close. You are working in a system that you've worked on often for a decade plus, have extensive knowledge with, and are delivering something you've delivered dozens of times before.

Now let's say that the underlying tools you rely on are no longer supported by the vendor and security concerns press you to replace the entire system from the ground up.

You find me the company, fortune 500, technological, I don't care, that has EVER hit their targets doing that, and you'll have created a fake document from scratch - because (and here is where the rubber meets the road on this concept) - just like with SC, doing something BRAND NEW FROM SCRATCH is not compatible with pre-defined dates. Simply stated, and factually accurate.

If CIG was churning out "yet another" formulaic shooter, then this would be a reasonable thing to suggest. But they aren't. They have ideas on how it might work (as opposed to existing code that shows it does work) so they ARE going to have REASONABLE and UNDERSTANDABLE delays.

If this weren't the case - if CIG wasn't creating brand new, edge-pushing technology and unprecedented stitched-together gameplay including net-new systems, net-new game engine functionality, etc. - then sure, they missed a date and have no excuse.

But that's not the case. And that's what CIG has stated, when Chris delivered his year-end 2020 letter it was clear. When they revamped the roadmap because we struggle to understand its actual intent, it was clear. They've stated as much as I've elucidated. There is no mystery.

Just an unwillingness to accept the facts.

monkeytek posted:

It's true everyone, Wolfenstein and DOOM took 5 million developers over 17 decades to develop. Time to accept the facts.

Mirificus posted:

One of the most anticipated features of 3.18...Coffee! Star Citizen #Shorts
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_i3ux_LnLM

CIG Take Notes posted:

The upcoming MMO Ashes of Creation was showcasing their Character Creator in alpha stage and its mind blowing to put it mildly.
There is quite a few things I see CIG can learn from here both in terms of UI and functionality. Some of these things are the same as what CIG does but much more developed than anything we got out hands on.

Enjoy the show.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_PasE-_W6M

quote:

Nice. But the acolytes believe CIG will have the best everything in gaming/computer history. Good luck.

quote:

There's nothing in that video that shows they're doing anything CIG isn't doing, except for breaking out different sliders and options for body textures and body shape.

The video that you show uses an older type of technology that's been around since before CIG started. It's not new, at all, and is essentially the standard way that most 3d games do custom character design now. It's nearly identical to what CIG has on the backend - CIG just doesn't expose as much of it, and obviously they haven't implemented the ability to change body shape or apply decals.

The major difference that CIG brings to the table is that their models are based on actual actors. If you look at that AOC video, it's pretty obvious that their characters were all modeled in 3d in a traditional way, using a common mesh built from the ground up. Each character then gets different values for subcomponents of that mesh. These subcomponents form a basis set, and when combined with manual manipulation of "sliders" (just magnitudes of the previously mentioned subcomponents), allows you to create and manipulate your custom character. When the 3d artists create a character, what they generate is actually just a list of weights for each subcomponent in the basis set - and if you mix two characters, it will simply combine the weights for those subcomponents, like taking an average value (for instance).

CIG does exactly the same thing, but instead of building a mesh from the ground up and using those to create characters via 3d artists, they started with mocap actors and built the meshes around them. The individual mocap actors form their basis set. You can then mix that basis set through a set of transforms that CIG has introduced. So, instead of adjusting a slider for "cheek bone depth percentage", you instead adjust a slider for "Christina Robinson's head percentage". Other than that, though, the methodology is identical.

There are obviously pros and cons to each approach. AOC's approach is much better for creating unrealistic characters that don't exist in real life, like orcs and goblins and whatnot. But, when it comes to creating basic humans, their models are only going to look as realistic as the 3d artists can make them - which, except for people like Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni (you know, famous artist) - isn't going to result in a hyper-realistic person.

CIG's approach, on the other hand, is going to look as realistic as you can possibly get for a human because it is literally based on real humans. The downside there is that it isn't as good for creating aliens, and is nearly useless for creating things that don't resemble a human (for example, a box turtle, or a The Great Race of Yith). At that point, they would have to fall back on the approach of using 3d artists to create or tweak their mocap meshes, which is what they did for the critters in the aquarium and presumably what they will eventually do for the Banu, Vanduul, and Xian.

Both approaches are equally able to use "DNA", because both are just a pile of numbers that describes which features to combine and how much to weight each of them.

The real advantage to what CIG is doing comes specifically from its ability to take advantage of mocap. In AOC, if an NPC wants to do some animation, an animator has to go and actually animate that. That takes time and effort, and if you have multiple people working on it, then there's a high likelihood that you're going to get animations that just don't look right when combined together. You're also going to see a lot of reuse of the same animation for similar activities, like e.g. picking up a brick compared to picking up a bicycle. CIG, on the other hand, can simply film a body actor picking up a brick or picking up a bicycle. And, not only that, they can have 20 body actors performing 20 activities simultaneously. Then, all they have to do is clip those mocap animations and import them into their system.

For aliens and such, CIG can simply define some sort of mathematical transform that combines "body actor A" with "animation B", and scales it into looking like a Vanduul or whatever. This works because CIG's basis set is the entire actor. The AOC animators could do this too, but it would take a lot more work to figure out how to convert each individual subcomponent into something that works for the alien; it's more likely that they would just create a new animation using that alien, which uses up more development time and effort.

At some point in the future, CIG can and most likely will introduce a method that lets us (and them) tweak different features of each mocap model, like their cheek bones or whatever, even moreso than what we already have. This would take the form of exactly the same type of transform as they would use in the animation for an alien. And, at that point, it will be functionally identical to what AOC has here - except that CIG will still be able to take advantage of mocap actors, while AOC won't.

Mirificus posted:

Mirificus posted:

The real advantage to what CIG is doing comes specifically from its ability to take advantage of mocap. In AOC, if an NPC wants to do some animation, an animator has to go and actually animate that. That takes time and effort, and if you have multiple people working on it, then there's a high likelihood that you're going to get animations that just don't look right when combined together. You're also going to see a lot of reuse of the same animation for similar activities, like e.g. picking up a brick compared to picking up a bicycle. CIG, on the other hand, can simply film a body actor picking up a brick or picking up a bicycle. And, not only that, they can have 20 body actors performing 20 activities simultaneously. Then, all they have to do is clip those mocap animations and import them into their system.

marumaru posted:

wow that game looks really bad

marumaru posted:

cool character creator though.

quote:

Since we're not even going to be customizing the body of our SC character at all, and we won't see out character faces except in some kind of screenshot, I don't think I'd agree with ridiculous effort being put into creating something.

quote:

Lol, okay. Whole sci-fi short series are being created in the game even now with the 'limited' character creator. Here's one with a character based on me: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt17345794/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gn9NsvwTe6I

And make no mistake Machinima is a big part of Star Citizen. Community made content is a big reason for the Reliant Mako and currently does as much to excite potential backers as anything CIG's cinematic team puts out themselves.

Applewhite posted:

Forget spaceships! This game is redefining the meaning of immersive sci fi!

Mirificus posted:

quote:

[...] so they ARE going to have REASONABLE and UNDERSTANDABLE delays.

Turbinosamente posted:

Y'all so busy looking at the river you missed the forest for the trees.

Literally, the forest in that "fly" over is 90% the same height pine tree. I did see a couple pine trees at half height and one deciduous tree in fall colors, so I guess it is autumn on that planet?

Thoatse posted:

PROCEDURAL BIRDS TO 60

https://i.imgur.com/2C525Xs.gifv

MarcusSA posted:

Ok where can I buy this?

Rotten Red Rod posted:

This is INCREDIBLE, how did they manage to screw up every single aspect of something so simple and uneccesary

trucutru posted:

Let's play a game! Guess what all these steps are for:

code:

Step 1: Make friends with someone (highly recommend both of you pick lorville for this patch since A18 Riker has stream in issues that can include the elevators, Orison has killer elevators, and NB has broken elevators) 
Step 2: Try to join a server and hope one of you doesnt CTD
Step 3: Once one of you is in the server, have the other join in, hope he doesnt CTD
Step 4: Once both in, make a party to hold the same server
Step 5: One of you leave, hope this person doesnt CTD, and hope the person waiting in the server doesnt CTD or the server 30ks
Step 6: The person who left must come back, and hope he doesnt CTD while loading in
Step 7: If the person who left and came back, didnt CTD or close their client, they should now have QdBatches of - and QdFinalize of 0, they should be able to spawn ships
Step 8: Repeat for the person who originally stayed behind
*Eventually the server seems to desync again, with rising qdbatch / qdfinalize , so expect stations not to load in, and ship spawning to break again, apparently dying far away from your spawn point also can resync you the way the above steps does*

That's what it takes to spawn a ship in the current test patch

Dwesa posted:

salad fingers discovered in SC

https://v.redd.it/qiczwd1pg9r81/DASH_480.mp4

Lammasu posted:

I've started playing in a Starfinder campaign but I keep wanting to say Star Citizen. I'm going to slip and it will be so embarrassing.

marumaru posted:

like

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hBrnv249kJ0

i dont like MMOs though so maybe this is par for the course