Interview Vision Q&A at RPG Vault

[Vault Dweller]

Tags: ALTAR Interactive; Vision

<a href=http://rpgvault.ign.com>RPG Vault</a> posted an in-depth <a href=http://rpgvault.ign.com/articles/509/509025p1.html>interview</a> with <b>Vlada Chvatil</b> of <a href=http://www.altarinteractive.com>Altar Interactive</a> about the new RPG <a href=http://www.rpg-vision.com>Vision</a> that's supposed to restore <i>the original meaning of the term role-playing</i>. Let the hype begin!
<br>
<br>
<blockquote>Although we have a very tactical approach to combat implementation, visually, it looks like fierce action. The combatants are still moving, circling around each other, lunging, dodging, parrying etc. Watching them, you feel they are really fighting, not only exchanging blows. Even now at this early development stage, it looks much better than combat in most of the other games.
<br>
...
<br>
At the very beginning of the story, the player is offered to choose his character's master, and thus something like the class of your character. However, this still doesn't define the further development of your character. There are lots of skills for each class that can be learned and upgraded; if your mage is concentrating on ranged and global spells, you will get a completely different character than if you are concentrating on fighting with your staff and on supporting spells. Or maybe you will not specialize in particular skills and rather learn a wider range of skills at lower levels. In addition, most of the skills are accessible even to the other classes. If your fighter is clever enough, and if you want to, maybe he will learn some simple spells at his higher levels.
<br>
...
<br>
Yes, there will be lots of NPCs willing to join your party, but you will not CONTROL any of them. You are controlling your main character, by whom they will be recruited and from whom they will accept commands.Forget the classic scenario of accepting a character into the party, taking all his equipment and kicking him out. On the contrary, you should give him some items or gold from the loot from time to time to keep him content and loyal
<br>
...
<br>
There will be no multiplayer in Vision, and we considered this well. It is hard to create a game that is really great both in both single-player and multiplayer modes. It is always a compromise, as lots of design questions should be decided differently in single-player and multiplayer games.</blockquote> Hmm, doesn't actually sound that bad.
<br>
<br>
PS. Saint, in case you didn't notice, the paragraphs are really, really short
<br>
<br>

 

[S4ur0n27]

real-time inverse kinematics through animation blending

Anyone'd care to tell me what does that mean?

 

[Vault Dweller]

I'm afraid it's complicated. It involves a multi-phased proactive paradigm that integrates real time dynamics with animation blending, creating the synergy that produces inverse kinematics.

 

[Country_Gravy]

Seems like a pretty basic concept. When will they come out with something a little more advanced?

 

[Psilon]

real-time inverse kinematics through animation blending

Anyone'd care to tell me what does that mean?

Essentially, it means that they dynamically generate characters' limb positions based on location. Given the lengths of the arms and legs, as well as the ground geometry, you can figure out how far the knees need to bend for the character to look realistic.

Rather than do the whole IK solver algorithms, though, which can be rather computationally expensive, they're doing a weighted average between, say, the "flat ground" pose and the "45-degree incline" pose. (At least that's what I get from that phrase.)

 

[Vault Dweller]

Essentially, it means that they dynamically generate characters' limb positions based on location. Given the lengths of the arms and legs, as well as the ground geometry, you can figure out how far the knees need to bend for the character to look realistic.

Rather than do the whole IK solver algorithms, though, which can be rather computationally expensive, they're doing a weighted average between, say, the "flat ground" pose and the "45-degree incline" pose. (At least that's what I get from that phrase.)

Pseudo-science! Everyone knows there is no such thing as algorithm

 

[Whipporowill]

After having read the interview... I actually got interested. Imagine that! Sounds like they make actually have their stuff together for this game, at least their INTENTIONS sound about right.

 

[StraitLacedDeviant]

A game that everyone doesn't instantly hate.... by the gods its a miracle. GIve it time, maybe a couple of hours, before its declared the latest suckfest.

 

[DIPthong]

A game that everyone doesn't instantly hate.... by the gods its a miracle. GIve it time, maybe a couple of hours, before its declared the latest suckfest.

This place is all about throwing curveballs...that's what makes it so maddening.

 

[Vault Dweller]

A game that everyone doesn't instantly hate.... by the gods its a miracle. GIve it time, maybe a couple of hours, before its declared the latest suckfest.

We already hated it a little bit, now we like it, at least till the next interview

 

[chrisbeddoes]

real-time inverse kinematics through animation blending

Anyone'd care to tell me what does that mean?

Disclaimer : I am not an expert .just guessing here

animation blending This means at most that the animation will use transparency or alpha or mayby something more fancy to look more natural.

inverse kinematics That was at the past the holy grail of animation and robotics .

Now it is extremely common.Basically it has to do with finding how you should move limbs or something with degrees of freedom to achieve a particular motion for the whole object.

That was very useful in robots and now it is used in games to achieve a better illusing of motion.

As for the whole ?

real-time inverse kinematics through animation blending

This has no meaning . Basically it shows that the person that speaks it is a marketing droid that connected some techobubble toghther and does not really knows what he is talking about.

 

[S4ur0n27]

Yerh, these people are trying to impress us with those mega words. Although the game ight be good, we'd need some screenshotes.

 

[Psilon]

real-time inverse kinematics through animation blending

This has no meaning . Basically it shows that the person that speaks it is a marketing droid that connected some techobubble toghther and does not really knows what he is talking about.

I agree, it's most likely marketing-speak, but I've read multiple papers on this and related subjects. Animation blending can also refer to interpolating between multiple animations in order to create a new one. See my post for the details.

Verdict: They're doing what Silent Storm did with limb positions, or else someone got really drunk watching ACM SIGGRAPH videos. I'll wait for screenshots before rendering (ha ha) final judgement.