Game Engine

[Fierce]

What current game engine does Istaria use?

[Pharcellus]

It doesn't use a "current" engine.

It uses quite a bit of different middleware, so the answer depends on what specifically you are referring to, but the "3D Engine" is primarily the old Intrinsic Alchemy engine, which is used in console games now.

[Fierce]

Aye, i was looking for what 3d engine... ty for the reply!

[Drevar]

The version of Alchemy they are using is VERY old, as far as technology goes. It is Direct3D 8 based.

The company and software has since changed hands a couple of times, now being in the possession of Activision, where it is now proprietary. Way back in the acquisition, some Japanese company kept the rights to license and distribute the older version (still more updated than the version used in Istaria), but is limited to Asia. I believe one or more Korean MMOs are based on it.

Drev

[Fierce]

so would this older engine make Istaria look less appealing to people compared to today's current 3d engines?

[Takora Drakan]

I think I saw somewhere at the istaria homepage what engine they use, Granny 3D I read often, but I am not sure what it is. But it is used in the game I think.

[Drevar]

Depends what you mean by "look" *grin*. In the context of actual visual appearance--shadows, lighting, shaders, texture resolution, and particle physics--we aren't in the stone age, but the engine is still pretty gimp. If you get the kiddies who only care about the ooh-ah-sparklies, then Istaria will be less appealing to them.

If you mean the fact that it can't be marketed as mature D3D9c tech, then yeah it "looks" bad. When was the last time you heard the devs boast about the graphic engine in any interview or press release?

Now for the "gotcha!". Even with the most advanced Direct3D10 engine, when you design an open, seamless world like Istaria, you are limited in the amount of eye candy you can use anyway. You just can't throw the kind of detail you see in Crysis at a GPU in an open world. It is simply too much data to process at once, and techniques to get around that are unappealing (wall of fog 100 ft in front of you, etc).

*edit* Tak, Granny3d is the software they use create the animations.

Drev

[velveeta]

- Featured Event - Game Experience May Change During Online Play


from the login page........

[Solitaire]

I'll sum what was said before into one post since I deal with it all the time, though I'm just repeating for the most part. Intrinsic Alchemy is the 3D engine incorporated into the client. Most of the static models with short and repetitive animations or no animations are created in Maya or 3DS Max and exported using Alchemy plugins modified specifically for our client. RAD Game Tool's Granny 3D is the animation software that handles player and monster models. The models were created in Maya and exported using Granny's plugin. There are other effect and world building tools that are built directly into a developer version of the client. And no, you can't have the dev client.

[Favoran]

Now for the "gotcha!". Even with the most advanced Direct3D10 engine, when you design an open, seamless world like Istaria, you are limited in the amount of eye candy you can use anyway. You just can't throw the kind of detail you see in Crysis at a GPU in an open world. It is simply too much data to process at once, and techniques to get around that are unappealing (wall of fog 100 ft in front of you, etc).

Would a more up-to-date engine work better at this kind of seamless world effect? I'm confused as to what you were getting at here. XD

And no, you can't have the dev client.

But... why not?

[jerk-o]

Why not? Because that would be cheating.

[Solitaire]

You would not be able to do much with it anyway without the proper permissions on your character.

[RuneDragoon]

The reason there is a limit in detail with any game is that computers are stupid, mindless machines, and not meant in a bad way. You give them too many edges and verticies and the machine will puke them all back up and implode upon itself.

So even though istaria may have an older engine, in my opinion with the player towns and things it still does a darn good job.

Also in my opinion, you can trick people into going oo and ah by nothing more than a beautiful texture on a simple mesh. No meed for mesh detail, as I doubt most players count up or try to see the poly counts. For example, and not promoting myself or anything, the water texture I made (Although I still have no clue why it looks weird on my laptop). The water plane is flat but the texture as the engine reads it, the texture appears to have depth and ripples. Simple mesh, good texture.

[Vaz]

I agree, the most important thing is textures. As far as MMOs go, a lot of Istaria's textures are among the best.

[Favoran]

I agree, the most important thing is textures. As far as MMOs go, a lot of Istaria's textures are among the best.

When you can see them. The low-res textures aren't much to look at.

[Drevar]

The low res LOD models are pretty bad too. Emaciated dragons make me cry.

Drev

[Raptress]

Emaciated dragons make me cry.

There is a mod for that here. I use it myself and it works perfectly, though you might get a bit of a lag spike if you hit a group of dragons you need to load.

[Drevar]

While I have little use for the world building tools built into the dev client, it would be really neat to have access to the shader/particle effect tools. There are quite a few effects that could use some touch-ups or outright replacement.

Drev

[Greenclaw1]

I agree, the most important thing is textures. As far as MMOs go, a lot of Istaria's textures are among the best.

Yup, there are some nicely done textures in Isaria that set the mood and atmosphere well, but there are also some textures that let it down. There are some tree's and grasses that look pretty dated , not all though, some trees in the game look decent, so it's not a total face lift. If these were touched up it would make a big difference. They did a nice job improving the textures on the mountains and cliff sides. It used to look as dated as some of those trees and grasses before being tightened up.

[Guaran]

I think even after all these years, Istaria has held up in the looks of the game and the particle effects. And the animations, (especially the Monk with his kicks) look pretty good too.

The game engine could use an update if it would improve performance. Such as not drawing the stuff that isn't visible (backface culling I think it's called). If a newer version of Intrinsic Alchemy could be easily upgraded to, and would improve performance, how could that hurt?

If a suitable licensing arangement could be reached (i.e. affordable), it would only help the game.