Fallout 3 .. 3d environment?

[Roshambo]

The real time fear is pointless.

I'm glad you think so, as there has to be someone who has blithely ignored many of the earlier press statements that we have yet to hear otherwise about. Tell me, did you also sheep along with Fallout Tactics and FOS, or would this be the first time you have experienced mixed media signals from a developer?

Just because bethsoft has done real time in the past dosn't mean they can't do turn based.

Just because they are able to do Turn-Based doesn't mean that they will, especially in light of what has been said to be "marketable", when in fact that is the only thing marketing chimps are able to look at and automatically come up with "fast-paced action" as a tag line, and what Bethesda have preferred to develop in.

It really depends on how Bethesda will go with this, and that lies on when they will give new information to clarify or debunk earlier statements, or state their intents with the license.

They are fans of FO, just like you and me.

Just like Chuck Cuevas. Todd also has said a number of disturbing things in the past, too, and this was one of them.

Really, I do hate repeating myself, so if you'll bother to read up on the news and the prior subjects regarding this, things won't progress the same way as Flashkiller and Rampancy. You know, the "earlier discussion" paragraph, which you had earlier completely missed the point to fellate Bethesda, and you didn't even touch upon the point of the "earlier discussions". The straw man arguments, in particular the "it's not Fallout so it sucks" bullshit, are not really welcome.

Trust me, anything is better than scripting. When somthing is built into the engine, it works much better than if it is added in later with scripts.

To continue what Sander said, it also relies on what the developers do with said engine. So uh...any examples of where Bethesda can do a keyword speech system that isn't years behind Wizardry? How about speech trees, with stats and character abilities taken into account over a simple reputation check?

Using "AI" as some kind of straw man prop for trying to say that suddenly everything will have depth is rather foolish - I have programmed AI and scripting before (and AI is little more than scripting at this point in computers); unless you know how to give the world depth in developing and using the AI, it is only a waste of resources. So far, we have the lacking depth of the earlier TES games and promises. The "effort" of bringing depth to Morrowind wasn't that spectacular, and if that is what they came up with after years, after the comments about Arena and Daggerfall, then they still have about a decade to go. So what makes you take the leap of faith and come up with that they are now suddenly able to do a solid TB game with depth, as is Fallout?

Promises and plans mean jack shit in the game industry, especially when we have seen them easily turn into otherwise, even from developers like Origin.

 

[Screaming_Dude_in_Vegas]

That'd be great. But that doesn't mean it'll be any good, if it was of the quality of Morrowind.
Also, maybe it's just me, but I never encountered an interesting NPC, and I have played it for several months.

It dose take longer than that to find them. They wrote a ton of generic topics. If you could isolate the topics where the NPCs were being individual and not spewing the generic descriptions, they be easier to find. Some ones that I might not call "deep", but do have a personality, I would say Uncle Crassius, Fargoth, Creeper, and Mahique the liar.

 

[DirtyDreamDesigner]

Mahique the Liar is such an obvious rip off of the Fallout random encounters.

 

[Sander]

It dose take longer than that to find them. They wrote a ton of generic topics. If you could isolate the topics where the NPCs were being individual and not spewing the generic descriptions, they be easier to find. Some ones that I might not call "deep", but do have a personality, I would say Uncle Crassius, Fargoth, Creeper, and Mahique the liar.

Fargoth....no, I never found him to be interesting, and Creeper was (to me at least) nothing but a way to dump all your excess stuff for good money. So I don't see how they have a real personality.

 

[Screaming_Dude_in_Vegas]

Creeper was a little whiny git, and fargoth was hyper over-freindly wood elf. The had personality. It wasn't deep, but it was enough to say that they had personality.

Better example: the crazy lady in Balmora with the pillows.

 

[Lazarus Plus]

I would at this time like to just say that I would not want to see Fallout in a 3d enviroment. After experiences like Dungeon Siege I don't think the system would work well. (At least not without radical changes.) And I do prefer isometrics, because they let you know exactly where you are and what you are doing.

 

[Screaming_Dude_in_Vegas]

I would at this time like to just say that I would not want to see Fallout in a 3d enviroment. After experiences like Dungeon Siege I don't think the system would work well. (At least not without radical changes.) And I do prefer isometrics, because they let you know exactly where you are and what you are doing.

Have you even played a 3D game made in the last 2 years? I don't see why you wouldn't know where you are in a 3D game. I find Isometric actually bad for this, as you often loose sight of your character, and doors and such are hard to find. The Idea is a rotatable camera, and the ability to snap back to a fixed position at any time.

 

[Lazarus Plus]

Have you even played a 3D game made in the last 2 years? I don't see why you wouldn't know where you are in a 3D game. I find Isometric actually bad for this, as you often loose sight of your character, and doors and such are hard to find. The Idea is a rotatable camera, and the ability to snap back to a fixed position at any time.

When you are indoors, for example, the camera either zooms in or fades away the outside of the building... Either way, hard to see where you are precisely. With isometric, on the other hand, perspective is not lost.

You seem to be more arguing for 3d because you want Fallout to be more like other games, instead of concentrating on the important point: A good Fallout game.

I'm not convinced 3D is good for Fallout.

 

[Screaming_Dude_in_Vegas]

Have you even played a 3D game made in the last 2 years? I don't see why you wouldn't know where you are in a 3D game. I find Isometric actually bad for this, as you often loose sight of your character, and doors and such are hard to find. The Idea is a rotatable camera, and the ability to snap back to a fixed position at any time.

When you are indoors, for example, the camera either zooms in or fades away the outside of the building... Either way, hard to see where you are precisely. With isometric, on the other hand, perspective is not lost.

You seem to be more arguing for 3d because you want Fallout to be more like other games, instead of concentrating on the important point: A good Fallout game.

I'm not convinced 3D is good for Fallout.

There are ways around this. You can have disapearing roofs in 3D, just like you did in Isometric. Difference is, you can manuver your camera to see the doors you want. You make the assumtion that all 3D games are limeted by annoying facts like that. You can get siluettes, outlines, fading walls, disapearing cealings, and all that jazz in 3D. It's all simple coding when you make/modify your graphics engine.

I don't want fallout to be 3D "to be like other games" I want FO to be 3D because technology is at the point where 3D looks great, even on lower end machines. When fallout was made, 3D was just a like a cardboard model. Now you see 3D as completely photorealistic and awsome. There are still ways to keep fallout's look, such as sticking with the same types of colors, still using alot of "grittyness", ect...

 

[Roshambo]

The presentation style also plays a factor in the game design.

Fallout also has rounded surfaces; unless you have calculated POV rendering for real object construction and representation in 2d, or drawn presentation of said rounded surface, it will be still the standard bullshit act of using a load of polygons to try and fake the effect.

Hence, as I noted before with Rampancy's case, 2d is far from dead and in fact lends a lot more to artistic style, than what is the standard for chunky items in the setting in order so that low-end users can still play the game. 2d doesn't even need advanced graphics cards, and with calculated POV 2d, you still don't even need a graphics card except to connect your monitor to, just a bit more draw on the CPU itself.

On top of that, that increased CPU load really isn't even an issue if you're using the existing artistic style and viewpoint. If you don't have to change the POV, the geomatric designs don't really require more calculations to process a new POV representation. Fallout's style has a pulp look it it, hence the loading screens.

There is plenty you can do with 2d, people just don't because it is easier to use a 3d graphics vendor's API, versus using real programming and real development. People then wonder why the industry has gotten unimaginative and stagnant. Frankly, I doubt many developers have thought of applications of 2d except in terms of tossing up a bitmap as a background, and that's pretty sad.

 

[Screaming_Dude_in_Vegas]

The presentation style also plays a factor in the game design.

Fallout also has rounded surfaces; unless you have calculated POV rendering for real object construction and representation in 2d, or drawn presentation of said rounded surface, it will be still the standard bullshit act of using a load of polygons to try and fake the effect.

Hence, as I noted before with Rampancy's case, 2d is far from dead and in fact lends a lot more to artistic style, than what is the standard for chunky items in the setting in order so that low-end users can still play the game. 2d doesn't even need advanced graphics cards, and with calculated POV 2d, you still don't even need a graphics card except to connect your monitor to, just a bit more draw on the CPU itself.

On top of that, that increased CPU load really isn't even an issue if you're using the existing artistic style and viewpoint. If you don't have to change the POV, the geomatric designs don't really require more calculations to process a new POV representation. Fallout's style has a pulp look it it, hence the loading screens.

There is plenty you can do with 2d, people just don't because it is easier to use a 3d graphics vendor's API, versus using real programming and real development. People then wonder why the industry has gotten unimaginative and stagnant. Frankly, I doubt many developers have thought of applications of 2d except in terms of tossing up a bitmap as a background, and that's pretty sad.

You realy only need afew more polygons to get a rounded edge, at leat when theres a shader or two running.

True, you CAN do alot with artistic style in 2D, but you also can do alot in 3D aswell. I never real saw much being done with 2D art styles anyways, at least nothing that could only be done with 2D. I honestly don't see why having the Pulp Sci-fi fealing is a problem with 3D. Things might look a little too smooth, but thats about it.

You consider using 2D as "Real development"? Real developement is getting the gameplay and content down. Real developement is making the gameplay and content the focus of the game.

And blaming the industy's downfall on 3D is just stupid. The Downfall of the industry is based on our focus on graphics over gameplay, and the habit of just putting the same crap out over and over again, and just updating the graphics. I mean realy the only actual gameplay changes companies make now are adding Havock physics (which dose somtimes add alot to the game, but other times seems like a gimick).

Developers don't use 2D anymore for these Reasons (in no particular order):

-3D offers much better visual imersion, at least on a machine using a decent GPU (more than the integrated thing)

-Consumers are superficial, and people tend to think 2D is lame, at least when it comes to marketing.

-All the cool technologies coming out are for 3D.

-There is very little that you can do with 2D that you can't do with 3D. Sure, in 2D you can actually use drawings/ilustrations for your game (I real wish somone had done this on a large scale, best I've seen is just doing the backrounds), no one realy took advantage of this, and most of them just used pre-rendered 3D stuff. Maby Fallout took advantage of this, I'm not to sure. The style wasn't somthing that couldn't be done with 3D though.

 

[Roshambo]

You realy only need afew more polygons to get a rounded edge, at leat when theres a shader or two running.

Thanks for paying attention, but I kind of figured the concept would have been clearly out of your understanding. No, adding more polygons and shaders does NOT give the right effect.

True, you CAN do alot with artistic style in 2D, but you also can do alot in 3D aswell.

That is one of the most idiotic statements I have heard in a long time. There are also a number of things you can't do in 3d, such as make rounded surfaces. Kind of a shame, really, since 2d can both do that and even offer more control over the environment with a POV interpreter.

Once CPUs get to a certain point so that the graphics can be rendered fully with a POV 2d pane based upon calculations for geometric depth, GPUs will no longer ever need to exist except for legacy 3d games, and that is what the hardware vendors truly fear and already know. That is why they are causing more problems with game development with publisher contracts as well.

I never real saw much being done with 2D art styles anyways, at least nothing that could only be done with 2D.

Rounded objects? Backgrounds and scenery that looked a bit better than 3d object dropping? Lack of requiring more load be put on the GPU, so that low-end users can not only get the game to work, but they can also experience the game almost the same as the high-end users?

Yet this isn't what the 3d card owners will want, and it seems like most publishers want new games to have some hardware vendor's label tacked onto a game for shallow marketability.

Or doesn't that matter, and graphics be the focus? So much for your comments regarding "real development" later on.

Really, if you want to make comments that I have already debunked, it is at your own peril. I do hate repeating myself for the benefit of the slow.

I honestly don't see why having the Pulp Sci-fi fealing is a problem with 3D. Things might look a little too smooth, but thats about it.

Smooth, chunky, and ultimately, simple in artistic design.

You consider using 2D as "Real development"? Real developement is getting the gameplay and content down. Real developement is making the gameplay and content the focus of the game.

No, I explained clearly why it is not dead, and why developers use 3d vendor APIs due to the relative simplicity of it. Thanks for paying attention.

And blaming the industy's downfall on 3D is just stupid.

Really? I have yet to see an intelligent thing from you that didn't sound like Ranpancy's recycled garbage in regards to this topic. I know it must be difficult to understand the concepts I use, since I am both a programmer and a designer, but that shouldn't be any excuse for you to blather on without any clue of what you yourself are talking about.

The Downfall of the industry is based on our focus on graphics over gameplay, and the habit of just putting the same crap out over and over again, and just updating the graphics.

Thanks for the straw man argument and afterwards, trying to parrot exactly what I was saying.

I mean realy the only actual gameplay changes companies make now are adding Havock physics (which dose somtimes add alot to the game, but other times seems like a gimick).

3d still can't offer truly rounded surfaces, or even come close, without adding in unnecessary graphics load that can't be supported for low-end users. Therefore, the environments in 3d design are usually held simplistic, at least compared to what a 2d artist and supporting development can come up with.

Developers don't use 2D anymore for these Reasons (in no particular order):

-3D offers much better visual imersion, at least on a machine using a decent GPU (more than the integrated thing)

That is a highly subjective and ignorant comment, particularly in light with the examples I have given previously. In other words, 3d is good for animation, but 2d is good for static detail objects. In the method I described in my previous post, it doesn't even need to be static anymore to incorporate a calculated geometric POV pane of detail, capable of rendering a circle better than any 3d engine.

-Consumers are superficial, and people tend to think 2D is lame, at least when it comes to marketing.

No argument there, as you and Rampancy both appear to believe such.

-All the cool technologies coming out are for 3D.

Only because that is where the hype is going, because developers like to use someone else's API like a crutch, or that nobody will take more effort into making a good engine versus trying to play the "OMFG bumporz mapping!" garbage game.

-There is very little that you can do with 2D that you can't do with 3D. Sure, in 2D you can actually use drawings/ilustrations for your game (I real wish somone had done this on a large scale, best I've seen is just doing the backrounds), no one realy took advantage of this, and most of them just used pre-rendered 3D stuff.

Well, if you haven't seen someone use 2d on a large scale, then you're a bit too young and a bit too uneducated to last here for long.

And really, brilliant way of making your argument by mentioning the "pre-rendered 3d stuff". In conjunction with the 2d method I described, it just screams volumes of your ignorance.

Maby Fallout took advantage of this, I'm not to sure. The style wasn't somthing that couldn't be done with 3D though.

Thanks for playing, but keep the rest of your uneducated comments to yourself, since you're not the first to try paddling around in that area. Nor do you appear able to understand the context of the discussion without using straw man arguments.

 

[Screaming_Dude_in_Vegas]

Man, stop using personal attacks to hide fact that you're just entrenched in your little "I must not be at all main stream" world. I mean waring a funny hat and a bunny suit is all very good (a personal hobby of mine), but convincing yourself that 3D is some evil, inferior, short-cut is just bullshit.

Thanks for paying attention, but I kind of figured the concept would have been clearly out of your understanding. No, adding more polygons and shaders does NOT give the right effect.

That is one of the most idiotic statements I have heard in a long time. There are also a number of things you can't do in 3d, such as make rounded surfaces. Kind of a shame, really, since 2d can both do that and even offer more control over the environment with a POV interpreter.

And do you have anything else that 2D can do besides rounded edges? Also I was just playing HL2, and allot of the edges seamed pretty round. Paint cans, barrels, pulse rifles, the conbine's heads...all seamed pretty round to me. maybe they're technically not round, but frankly they looked round enough that most people would see a difference.

Yet this isn't what the 3d card owners will want, and it seems like most publishers want new games to have some hardware vendor's label tacked onto a game for shallow marketability.

Really? I have yet to see an intelligent thing from you that didn't sound like Ranpancy's recycled garbage in regards to this topic. I know it must be difficult to understand the concepts I use, since I am both a programmer and a designer, but that shouldn't be any excuse for you to blather on without any clue of what you yourself are talking about.

I seriously doubt your a developer and a programmer. If you were, you know that the hardware companies pay the game companies money, not the other way around. A game isn't cool because "It runs best on ATI/Nvidia", rather a graphics card is cool because "it runs X game better". You are right on the whole marketing thing though, but I'd assume a developer would know a bit more about the business part of things.

If you are really a programmer, show a link to a game you worked, on, the company you were in, who you were, and what you did.

And stop with the personal attacks, you're only proving what an assclown you really are.

Only because that is where the hype is going, because developers like to use someone else's API like a crutch, or that nobody will take more effort into making a good engine versus trying to play the "OMFG bumporz mapping!" garbage game.

Well the shaders DO make the game more pretty. I'm talking more about developers doing a "Lets make this game look aallotbetter" rather than a "Lets make the game play better".

Thanks for playing, but keep the rest of your uneducated comments to yourself, since you're not the first to try paddling around in that area. Nor do you appear able to understand the context of the discussion without using straw man arguments.

Well what do you expect? I go on a FO forum without playing Ffa And really, this is the last time iamb going to say it, stop filling up your posts with personal attacks just so people ignore the stupidity of your own arguments.

 

[Silencer]

I seriously doubt you're in a habit of using the spellchecker often enough.

And don't quarrel with Rosh for your own sake, now let's just end this, OK?

 

[Screaming_Dude_in_Vegas]

Who's Rosh? You mean Hideki Hitler?

 

[Silencer]

Yup.

He's not normally called Hideki Hitler. Just adopts this handle once in a while when he feels like it I know he did puzzle me when I first came here.

Anyway, he's Admin and also the Protector of True Fallout Setting, so pay heed and please, don't give him any more shit, it's unsafe.

I know from experience most such arguments result from simple misinterpretations which then spiral and plummet into flamewars.

 

[Screaming_Dude_in_Vegas]

Yup.

He's not normally called Hideki Hitler. Just adopts this handle once in a while when he feels like it I know he did puzzle me when I first came here.

Anyway, he's Admin and also the Protector of True Fallout Setting, so pay heed and please, don't give him any more shit, it's unsafe.

I know from experience most such arguments result from simple misinterpretations which then spiral and plummet into flamewars.

So do all the admins have multiple Identities?

 

[Jebus]

Yeah.
Welsh likes to be called Suzy in the weekends.

 

[Ashmo]

You can only loose when you have an argument with Rosh.
The instant you try to attack the flame-ish parts, you loose.
The instant you present straw men rather than well-thought points, you loose.
And so on.

He's a bit straight forward about not liking people, but usually it's because he's right and they're blatantly obviously wrong (that's "wrong" with a capital W).

And don't try to question his knowledge -- if he gets downright violent, that usually means he KNOWS what he's talking about.

 

[Roshambo]

Man, stop using personal attacks to hide fact that you're just entrenched in your little "I must not be at all main stream" world.

Oh, dear, someone actually cares about the setting and development that isn't influenced by whorish publishers? Someone actually cares about real game and graphics development rather than the mindless chase for bump mapping and vertex shading? *gasp* How *dare* I think otherwise than the publishers and hardware vendors!

I mean waring a funny hat and a bunny suit is all very good (a personal hobby of mine), but convincing yourself that 3D is some evil, inferior, short-cut is just bullshit.

Believing that it is as capable artistically to 2d is even more bullshit, especially when in a 2d POV interpreter, you can control the aspect of individual pixels and thusly have control over every graphical aspect as displayed onto the screen.

Hmmm, sounds a lot like what 3d promises, but it has the inherent ability to not fall into 3d's downfalls - like bleeding textures, split edges, and just about every other fault of the polygon construction base that hasn't done anything other than be more shiny. In conventional 3d, you can't really patch up a certain bleeding problem from a certain angle, but if you already have the graphics going through a software processing, such clean-up would be elementary.

And do you have anything else that 2D can do besides rounded edges?

As I have described above, it would fix many of the current common graphical faults.

Also I was just playing HL2, and allot of the edges seamed pretty round. Paint cans, barrels, pulse rifles, the conbine's heads...all seamed pretty round to me. maybe they're technically not round, but frankly they looked round enough that most people would see a difference.

Too bad the effect of adding those extra polygons just means that you'll just end up buying another graphics card later down the line capable of even more polygons, for the Next Shiny Thing, as now instead of just rounded surfaces, 3d tries to tackle its other downfall - cloth!

For that matter, how about gels and other liquids or semi-liquid states? It would be nice to see a shoreline that isn't either animated and pre-rendered, or resource-consuming to the point where it becomes useless to have in the game.

Yet this isn't what the 3d card owners will want, and it seems like most publishers want new games to have some hardware vendor's label tacked onto a game for shallow marketability.

I seriously doubt your a developer and a programmer. If you were, you know that the hardware companies pay the game companies money, not the other way around.

Did I say anything about "publishers license the hardware"?

No, I thought I said:

Yet this isn't what the 3d card owners will want, and it seems like most publishers want new games to have some hardware vendor's label tacked onto a game for shallow marketability.

Besides, not all hardware companies have to pay the developers, often they get exchange rights to distribute games with their hardware.

A game isn't cool because "It runs best on ATI/Nvidia", rather a graphics card is cool because "it runs X game better".

Straw man argument, and thusly, irrelevant.

You are right on the whole marketing thing though, but I'd assume a developer would know a bit more about the business part of things.

So let me get this straight. You whine about me getting gruff when you first use an example that not only reinforces my point as to why publishers would prefer to have some hardware vendor's label on a game, while at the same time trying to use that as some reason why I am not a programmer and designer; then post something wholly irrelevant and moronic in itself (welcome to the ATI/Nvidia fanboy wars, kid, and games are often "better" looking because of "Oh, hey, it has the nvidia logo and I have an Nvidia card! I must buy!"); then you basically come up with something that says I am right about my initial assertion about how hardware vendors are regarded, and then another quip about how a developer would know how business aspects work, the finish of the straw man argument attempt.

I don't quite get that line of reasoning.

If you are really a programmer, show a link to a game you worked, on, the company you were in, who you were, and what you did.

Sorry, kid. I got out of working full time in the commercial gaming industry before you came around to it. Probably before you were born, judging by the ignorance level. Besides, given your technical understanding, you wouldn't be able to get said games to work on WinXP.

And stop with the personal attacks, you're only proving what an assclown you really are.

Maybe if you stopped with the idiocy, then you wouldn't be an idiot that wastes bandwidth.

To further drive this point into the ground:

When conventional games are made for a multi-threaded environment, more power can be put towards a graphical interpreter, and graphics cards might become a myth from that point on. After all, there are no AGP or PCI speeds to take into account for slowing the processing down, the data is already used by the engine, it just needs to be piped out to a display, possibly through an onboard port. That will not take any secondary processing at that point, and it will in fact become faster than the current 3d setup could ever hope to be.

Well the shaders DO make the game more pretty. I'm talking more about developers doing a "Lets make this game look aallotbetter" rather than a "Lets make the game play better".

Actually, I think you were referring to "All the cool technologies are coming out for 3d", which is pretty much a myth when you actually know how 3d graphics work and how you can re-design them for potentially better.

Japanese developers are looking into ways to break the moronic Next Shiny Graphics Card market, yet it seems like many American and Euro are happy to follow the next installment of one-trick ponies like Far Cry. Of course, what else can you expect of a market where the average consumer is quite educated and familiar with the styles and evolutions of games most other video game players haven't even touched yet? They have been around video games in a much higher saturation level, they now look towards abstracts in design. "Super-amazing-polygon-titties" might appeal to you and the rest of your prepubescent friends, but in Japan they are a dime a dozen, and the Japanese are now looking on ways to have cloth represented in games without requiring it be in a pre-rendered movie scene or in polygons.

And after all, when the developers don't have to waste more time detailing each and every polygon, they could work on other aspects of the artistic design, like removing the polygon-tied wireframes for movement that lends more to the actual physical shape of muscle and body dynamics. Or create more than a few token background items.

Well what do you expect? I go on a FO forum without playing Ffa [sic]

I'll just accept that as your brain just shunted to ground in self-defense.

And really, this is the last time iamb going to say it, stop filling up your posts with personal attacks just so people ignore the stupidity of your own arguments.

Sorry, I think people are enjoying the holes I'm shooting your uneducated bullshit with a bit better than your uneducated bullshit to begin with. Uneducated bullshit like yours, if we wanted to, could be easily seen on the GameSpy forums. We'll visit there if we care to read more. Or to DAC, if we wanted to read your uneducated bullshit in regards to Fallout and Morrowind's design. No slight towards DAC, of course.

The people there and here also have some hope of actually understanding the topic, rather than try to convince me that I should be amazed at how a "3d designer" can fake a rounded surface with a few more polygons and a shader or two running, and that is why 3d is Teh King! I am even less impressed when an uneducated child tries to discuss such methods, when I have heard them stated better from said 3d designers, who even agree that using more polygons really misses the point of trying to create surfaces as it is only really good for creating solid surfaces of limited surface structure, not much else as it is highly unrepresentative for physics engines. Surfaces such as cloth without requiring a pre-rendered animation or chunky cascading polygon effects. Going through and creating all of those polygons is a time-wasting chore that could have such effort be put in more important areas once they no longer require the use of polygons.

All they need to make cloth or hair move realistically would be to have the actors in place. Then they put in the algorithms commonly found in most 3d graphic modeling programs (you know, where the pre-rendered 3d animation is made), and the article, even down to the muscle form of the actor, is rendered into the engine. With a physics engine working along with the projected geometry of the interpreter; physical contact and interaction may be achieved in previously unheard of levels in gaming as it doesn't have to be limited to polygonal contact planes and the issues of physics and graphical clipping involved with such a poor method. Real-time liquid physics, for instance. (On a tangent, I can imagine one bitching boxing game coming from this technology, or some incredibly lifelike fantastic town in an RPG.) It, in fact, could possibly mean a viable ease for *nix gaming (as graphics drivers mean shit with this engine), and even better cross-OS compatibility once the developers do not have to rely on a crippling API such as the ever-so-buggy DirectX - at all.

Blocky view distance calculations for limiting the drawing of certain objects will also be a thing of the past, as a sphere-based POV sampling could be drawn into the rendered pane just as easily as a squared one, and it doesn't take anything more. Then it will be just a simple matter of tweaking a setting for the draw distances, and it will look correct without any fucked up effects in the corners such as in most modern 3d games, with elements such as fog effects.

To put it in deference to your level of understanding, it would be like having a dedicated output that operates like a screenshot utility, but it works much faster with multithreading capabilities, and it can make up for the flaws in 3d polygon processing bases. In context with the discussion, such a method would allow for easier control of a graphical style, even capturing the feel of the Fallout pulpish art.

Welcome to the next step of technology, cockroach.