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Better to be quick and concise, however, the videos pad out the documents a lot and give you real time visualizations of some of the things they're referring to. I'll be looking forward do seeing more visualizations of the node editor used in Luminous based on the screen shots from other documents.
Anyone who underestimates Luminous or making games in general should really take a look at this stuff and see how much of it is likely going to fly over your head. The only reason I understand a lot of this stuff is because I've been a programmer for several years of my life and also aspire to make games myself. Of course, a lot of the techniques and terms used are way above me, I can still follow this stuff and appreciate the amount of work and intelligence behind this stuff.
Spend some time looking at these talks and hearing the work that goes into their VFX, AI, animation solutions etc to really get a feel for the amount of work put into Luminous and subsequently XV. It's even more impressive knowing that all of this stuff is in real time along with having constant real time lighting with the day/night cycle.
After spending time watching these presentations and listening to the team, you will understand why they have created their own engine. Many people think that Luminous will somehow fail like Crystal Tools, but those people don't know why Crystal Tools even failed to begin with. It had more to do with several teams of people trying to use the unfinished engine at once along with a complete lack of standards causing the creation of assets that wouldn't be usable by the engine which ultimately fragmented development on the engine. This is actually one of the main causes as to why XIV 1.0 failed as much as it did, along with why XIII had so many unused assets and why they needed to create sequels and reuse a lot of older assets. Much of the work with assets was done to further along production of these games while the engine was still being worked on, so many projects ended up creating work that wasn't under any spec and couldn't be used.
This is why Luminous Engine was created to be done separate from any other game besides XV. The engine was to be created in tandem with one game only so that a set of standards could be made, along with creating actual documentation for everything (which didn't happen for Crystal Tools... seriously what the fuck was Murata thinking). Luminous engine is also created with ease of use in mind, which is why it has all of the tools necessary for every area of development within any given title for things like VFX, AI and level design. One of the key areas with Luminous is actually the integrated AI system which I'm looking forward to seeing in the upcoming talks.
Anyways, the heavy use of node graphs in a lot of areas is one of the key things that makes Luminous a lot more user friendly and accessible which in my opinion is a smart move. They mention how a lot of current node based systems that exist today don't meet their demands creating a real time game like XV for example. In the VFX talk they mention the implementation of VFX elements like explosions with short life span is that creating lots of them like in the Titan scene would normally kill the memory and performance. Their solution is to create node groups where the lifetime of common assets can be handled separately from the lifecycle of any given effect which not only reduces overhead by sharing a common group connection (like all being part of a group that says these effects are this type of explosion), but also means that the memory usage is lessened for each new instance of effect which only needs specific memory for things like translation (position scale rotation) of the effect and not information about the shader or particle effect. It's much like a particle generator would be in a third party tool like Unity or Unreal Engine where a common asset is created under a particle system, however the difference here is that these are not a common system but share assets.
Anyways, I'm rambling on. This is exciting stuff (I think... lol)! For those of you who think Luminous isn't going anywhere after XV, you are sadly mistaken. This is a big step for SE and they've created something truly special here that can be used moving forward, don't be surprised when FFXVI will use this same engine. SE prides themselves on being tech innovators, and they're ahead of the game with Luminous creating an extremely powerful real time engine.
Anyone who underestimates Luminous or making games in general should really take a look at this stuff and see how much of it is likely going to fly over your head. The only reason I understand a lot of this stuff is because I've been a programmer for several years of my life and also aspire to make games myself. Of course, a lot of the techniques and terms used are way above me, I can still follow this stuff and appreciate the amount of work and intelligence behind this stuff.
Spend some time looking at these talks and hearing the work that goes into their VFX, AI, animation solutions etc to really get a feel for the amount of work put into Luminous and subsequently XV. It's even more impressive knowing that all of this stuff is in real time along with having constant real time lighting with the day/night cycle.
After spending time watching these presentations and listening to the team, you will understand why they have created their own engine. Many people think that Luminous will somehow fail like Crystal Tools, but those people don't know why Crystal Tools even failed to begin with. It had more to do with several teams of people trying to use the unfinished engine at once along with a complete lack of standards causing the creation of assets that wouldn't be usable by the engine which ultimately fragmented development on the engine. This is actually one of the main causes as to why XIV 1.0 failed as much as it did, along with why XIII had so many unused assets and why they needed to create sequels and reuse a lot of older assets. Much of the work with assets was done to further along production of these games while the engine was still being worked on, so many projects ended up creating work that wasn't under any spec and couldn't be used.
This is why Luminous Engine was created to be done separate from any other game besides XV. The engine was to be created in tandem with one game only so that a set of standards could be made, along with creating actual documentation for everything (which didn't happen for Crystal Tools... seriously what the fuck was Murata thinking). Luminous engine is also created with ease of use in mind, which is why it has all of the tools necessary for every area of development within any given title for things like VFX, AI and level design. One of the key areas with Luminous is actually the integrated AI system which I'm looking forward to seeing in the upcoming talks.
Anyways, the heavy use of node graphs in a lot of areas is one of the key things that makes Luminous a lot more user friendly and accessible which in my opinion is a smart move. They mention how a lot of current node based systems that exist today don't meet their demands creating a real time game like XV for example. In the VFX talk they mention the implementation of VFX elements like explosions with short life span is that creating lots of them like in the Titan scene would normally kill the memory and performance. Their solution is to create node groups where the lifetime of common assets can be handled separately from the lifecycle of any given effect which not only reduces overhead by sharing a common group connection (like all being part of a group that says these effects are this type of explosion), but also means that the memory usage is lessened for each new instance of effect which only needs specific memory for things like translation (position scale rotation) of the effect and not information about the shader or particle effect. It's much like a particle generator would be in a third party tool like Unity or Unreal Engine where a common asset is created under a particle system, however the difference here is that these are not a common system but share assets.
Anyways, I'm rambling on. This is exciting stuff (I think... lol)! For those of you who think Luminous isn't going anywhere after XV, you are sadly mistaken. This is a big step for SE and they've created something truly special here that can be used moving forward, don't be surprised when FFXVI will use this same engine. SE prides themselves on being tech innovators, and they're ahead of the game with Luminous creating an extremely powerful real time engine.
Actually, Tabata said it would have a photo mode if I remember correctly.
The image here is just showing states of the character system. The whole Intelligence <-> Body <-> Animation thing is showing the relations between the AI and the animation for a given body. For example, you're moving your character at a set speed and you turn, the AI can talk to the body which tells the animator to blend a specific set of motions etc.
The various physical states represents different states for the body to be in, kind of self explanatory in the description, but the idea is that the body takes a different state of control and animation under different situations. For the swimming, it basically means that the connections between the animator and the AI is the same, but it can handle different states and respond by sending back different animations to be interpolated between and blended. For example, when Noctis steps into the water and you switch to a state of walking on land to swimming, the animator would use some form of a blend tree to move between animation states to make the transition seamless so that it looks like Noctis allows his body to be suspended in the water. One that might make a little more sense is between a normal state and a battle state where his overall control is EXACTLY the same, the only difference is with his animation set with his idle animation and movement etc, and that's where the states come from.
I hope that makes some sense, I could explain it better if I watched the talk (which I will later). I'd love to write up a bunch of stuff from the contents of these talks, but it would take some time, plus I think I'd make a new thread for it... and I don't know if anyone really cares (lol).
The image here is just showing states of the character system. The whole Intelligence <-> Body <-> Animation thing is showing the relations between the AI and the animation for a given body. For example, you're moving your character at a set speed and you turn, the AI can talk to the body which tells the animator to blend a specific set of motions etc.
The various physical states represents different states for the body to be in, kind of self explanatory in the description, but the idea is that the body takes a different state of control and animation under different situations. For the swimming, it basically means that the connections between the animator and the AI is the same, but it can handle different states and respond by sending back different animations to be interpolated between and blended. For example, when Noctis steps into the water and you switch to a state of walking on land to swimming, the animator would use some form of a blend tree to move between animation states to make the transition seamless so that it looks like Noctis allows his body to be suspended in the water. One that might make a little more sense is between a normal state and a battle state where his overall control is EXACTLY the same, the only difference is with his animation set with his idle animation and movement etc, and that's where the states come from.
I hope that makes some sense, I could explain it better if I watched the talk (which I will later). I'd love to write up a bunch of stuff from the contents of these talks, but it would take some time, plus I think I'd make a new thread for it... and I don't know if anyone really cares (lol).
Likes:
Chocobocoholic
Making the demo a "waiting" segment was really a bad idea. You can't do anything to the titan and your attacks are worthless. All you have to do in that fight is holding [ ] till the party arrives and then you can trigger a cinematic take down, which is fine and maybe epic and refreshing as a part of the game, but it sure doesn't work as a demo that should make people sold on the game. Most of the interesting gameplay aspects (Aerial combat, co-op moves, environmental magic, warping) are either locked away or worthless in this demo, and the best strategy to finish it is to hold the defense button. Of course people won't get excited about it.
New trailer shown for Chinese audience contains old stuff but a few clips of brand new things like the Adamantoise and bird fight.
https://twitter.com/RedMakuzawa/status/758192927336116225
Incredible aerial combat against a weird bird.
https://twitter.com/RedMakuzawa/status/758197611077640192
Looks fucking amazing.
Edit: I asked Red where to get a better source for this, as the edges are cropped off, so here's a YouTube link of the whole presentation. If you can understand Japanese or Chinese you should be able to understand what is said, however it's nothing that interesting anyways.
Start at 15:20 for where the new stuff begins.
https://twitter.com/RedMakuzawa/status/758192927336116225
Incredible aerial combat against a weird bird.
https://twitter.com/RedMakuzawa/status/758197611077640192
Looks fucking amazing.
Edit: I asked Red where to get a better source for this, as the edges are cropped off, so here's a YouTube link of the whole presentation. If you can understand Japanese or Chinese you should be able to understand what is said, however it's nothing that interesting anyways.
Start at 15:20 for where the new stuff begins.
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Archived video of one of yesterday's presentations [starting from 21:00]:
https://www.pathlms.com/siggraph/events/609/video_presentations/31754
https://www.pathlms.com/siggraph/events/609/video_presentations/31754
Real-Time Technologies of FINAL FANTASY XV Battles
This presentation showcases several real-time technologies implemented for FINAL FANTASY XV's epic battle between heroes and monsters:
・AI systems that control companions and monsters
・Dynamic weather systems and lighting
・Visual effects for magic that affects the environment
EDIT: Oh, and here the other two from yesterday about the animation/AI system and character workflow:This presentation showcases several real-time technologies implemented for FINAL FANTASY XV's epic battle between heroes and monsters:
・AI systems that control companions and monsters
・Dynamic weather systems and lighting
・Visual effects for magic that affects the environment
Character Workflow of Final Fantasy XV
This talk presents how to create character assets with superior quality and performance for display on a game console. It also summarizes construction of a workflow to efficiently produce these sorts of character assets on a large scale.
This talk presents how to create character assets with superior quality and performance for display on a game console. It also summarizes construction of a workflow to efficiently produce these sorts of character assets on a large scale.
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Likes:
Noctis_Caelum and LeonBlade
All of this is sounding great, and very interesting for me as I like hearing about the technical aspects of a game. Give me reviews of a high-end game, or a postmortem about its development, and I'll pick the postmortem every time.
Dat mid-air combat!
Yes, amazing. Very nostalgic. Remember that first trailer from XIII, and the first one from when Versus became XV? Those looked amazing, with mid-air madness. Looks like they've finally captured that. For that, they should be applauded.
Dat mid-air combat!
Anyone know of any decent drugs that will knock me out for, say, 64 days, 8 hours and 29 minutes?
Source: https://twitter.com/MoogleKupoCake/status/758239787543388160