Full Motion Video in 3D.

[soypowered]

Uru never made me feel as immersed as all the other Mysts because I just couldn't really get too attached to the 3D sprites. I have never played RealMyst, but according to the screenshots I've seen, it did use real actors. Can somebody tell me how they did that? Were you able to move freely when they were talking? It would be a real disappointment for me if Myst V didn't use real people. I've been thinking would it be possible to film an actor's entire body at once to put them into a 3D environment? I'm all for a 3D environment, but Yeesha in Uru was just plain...polygonal. If anybody has any thoughts about my opinion or if an expert in the field has any insight, it would be appriciated http://forums.ubi.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif .

[Eat_My_Shortz]

Yes I can tell you. They did it in a way that I think is viable in Myst V.

Firstly, realMyst. I assume you've played Myst. There wasn't much Live Action Video (by the way, I assume you're talking "Live Action Video" not "Full Motion Video" which refers to when the whole screen is moving like those rides in Riven).
- Atrus in the imager: His image was simply displayed as a texture inside the imager.
- Sirrus and Achenar in the books: The video was simply placed on the page of the book. Pretty simple.
- Sirrus and Achenar's channelwood messages: Since they were holograms, they were simply projected into the air. You were able to move around while the holograph was being played.
- Atrus talking to you in the D'ni book: Same as Sirrus and Achenar.

The only Live-Action footage in Myst where someone actually talks to you face-to-face is at the end, when you meet Atrus. And this is the important part.
Firstly, when you were able to walk around the room, Atrus was actually a 3D model, with photographs of Rand Miller used as textures. This looked pretty bad but it was only from long-distance.

When you actually moved up to talk to him, the screen cross-faded into a new shot. Your camera was fixed in position and Atrus' live video was simply shown on the screen. The rest of the scene was still realtime 3D. This techinique was quite effective. Here was live-action Atrus in a realtime environment.

The limitations you need to pull this off:
- The camera needs to be fixed in position. However, unlike realMyst, it does not need to be fixed rotationally. As we saw in Myst 3 and 4, the camera could be allowed to pan around.
- In order to "initiate" the live-action sequence, the scene needs to either crossfade into position, or slide into position and have the actor appear on screen after the slide.
- You can't have actors walking around the room as you walk around (like Yeesha did in Myst 4) UNLESS they are far enough away that perspective doesn't matter, and they can be a "billboard". (Sprite texture always facing the camera).

Lets see how you could apply this to a game such as Riven, if Riven were to be made into realtime 3D.
- Intro sequence - Camera is always fixed for this sequence anyway. That would work.
- Talking to Gehn and Catherine - In these scenes, you are always in a small room (the cage or the elevator) and the character walks in from offscreen. This could be implemented by having the camera subtly slide into the centre of the room when the video begins, then having the prerecorded footage shown on screen. You would still be able to pan.
- Death sequences (linking book) - Easy, just show video.
- Death sequences (telescope) - When you push the telescope button, the game has control over your position by the fact that you are zoomed in. Therefore, the game controls your position from the start of the video.
- The only real problems presented would be when you run into people such as the little girl or the scribe.

But you can see how most cases are viable in realtime with live-action video. All you really need is to have the game in control of your position before the video starts.

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>if an expert in the field has any insight, it would be appriciated <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>"Oh yeah, well I'd really appriciate it if you proof-read your emails before sending them!!!"
- Strongbad <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
http://forums.ubi.com/images/smilies/16x16_smiley-very-happy.gif Sorry mate, couldn't resist.
Welcome to the forums!

[Deg__]

Also, if you look at recent advances in games like Half-Life 2, you'll notice some very realistic character models. Things sure have come a long way!

Cheers,
- Deg -

[Eat_My_Shortz]

Ehh thats true but its nothing compared to live actors.

[TastyTom]

Is myst5 going to be realtime 3d?
I hope not. I love the way myst4 looks. The image quality is so much better. And I think a lot of (not all) people who play myst usualy don't play these 3d games. The experience is just not the same.

I dislike 3d character models. They are still very 'lifeless'. No thank you. I'll take bad acting over 3d models anyday.

[IMForeman]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by TastyTom:
Is myst5 going to be realtime 3d?
I hope not. I love the way myst4 looks. The image quality is so much better. And I think a lot of (not all) people who play myst usualy don't play these 3d games. The experience is just not the same.

I dislike 3d character models. They are still very 'lifeless'. No thank you. I'll take bad acting over 3d models anyday. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Yes, it is realtime. Get over it.

-IMF

[the_fibber]

The screenshot of the Riven dagger in the cleft, looks obviously (well, to me anyway) like it has been rendered in an advanced version of the Plasma engine that Uru used. Textures appear to be in higher resolution and quality than Uru, with more clearly defined shadows and reflections. While this is all very pretty, my concern is that this will mean the Required Specs will exceed that of Uru's, and since myst games have never been particularly resource intensive, some fans might not be able to play it. (I hope I'll be fine, if not, I'll buy it anyway)

I do have two other concerns.

1: I hope they make it and design it for first person play only. The third person stuff was fine for Uru, but since it could be assumed you are no longer playing Uru-You but rather Myst-You (ie. two hundred years previously) it would be nice if it remained in the fixed first person perspective so you could not see yourself.

2: More seriously though, WILL THEY BE USING HAVOK PHYSICS? If they are, sorry Mac users, you won't be playing Myst 5: End of Ages. As anyone who was seen the announcement at http://www.cyanworlds.com knows, Havok is not compatible with the Mac system. So it would be nice if the havok physics were removed from the Plasma engine. I'm not a Mac user, but Myst is one of those things that both mac and Pc users can share so it would be nice if this didn't happen AGAIN.

Other than that, my only hope is that I can grab a copy of the Myst 5 collectors edition this time. (Stupid stuff up at store denied me of my Myst 4 CE.)

(Oh, and in regards to bad acting, 3d models hide many of the things that bad acting can cause. There are still times in Myst 3 (and to a lesser extent, 4) that I have to wince at.)

[Alahmnat]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by the_fibber:
1: I hope they make it and design it for first person play only. The third person stuff was fine for Uru, but since it could be assumed you are no longer playing Uru-You but rather Myst-You (ie. two hundred years previously) it would be nice if it remained in the fixed first person perspective so you could not see yourself. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
I think that this is the case, but I don't have any official word on it.

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>2: More seriously though, WILL THEY BE USING HAVOK PHYSICS? <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
NO. Cyan's learned from their mistake (though it wasn't so much a mistake as Havok saying there would be a Mac port and then not making one, but that's a whole 'nother thread) and is using an open-source physics engine that already has a functioning Mac port, so it will be available for both PC and Mac users.

Actually, I went to check, and the official press release makes it officially official that the game will be on both platforms:
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Cyan Worlds, Inc., creators of the critically acclaimed and best-selling Mystâ® franchise will launch its final adventure, Mystâ® V: End of Ages, in fall 2005 (PC and Macâ® hybrid disk format). <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

[Vertigo3]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Deg__:
Also, if you look at recent advances in games like Half-Life 2, you'll notice some very realistic character models. Things sure have come a long way!

Cheers,
- Deg - <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by TastyTom:
I dislike 3d character models. They are still very 'lifeless'. No thank you. I'll take bad acting over 3d models anyday. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Tom, have you played HL2, the character animation is amazing. Of course that is HL2, not Myst V so who is to say how Myst V will be, but if they have a similar system of character animation as HL2, I am not going to complain, thats for sure.

The system compatibility issue is a big one here, Myst 4 had incredibly low specs for what was presented, I am actually curious how Cyan is going to present this. I run HL2 with everything maxed so I don't have much to worry about, but there are those out there...

[tsrblke2]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Alahmnat:
Actually, I went to check, and the official press release makes it officially official that the game will be on both platforms:
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Cyan Worlds, Inc., creators of the critically acclaimed and best-selling Mystâ® franchise will launch its final adventure, Mystâ® V: End of Ages, in fall 2005 _(PC and Macâ® hybrid disk format)_. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Quickly hijacks thread http://forums.ubi.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_wink.gif Are we assuming that this will be another DVD game? If so can someone point me in the direction of a list of problematic drives from Myst 4? I still don't have it so I'm not sure it works on mine.

[DebbieDec2003]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Quickly hijacks thread http://forums.ubi.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_wink.gif Are we assuming that this will be another DVD game? If so can someone point me in the direction of a list of problematic drives from Myst 4? I still don't have it so I'm not sure it works on mine. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Um, I don't know much, but from the bit I do know, I don't *think* this will on DVD. The reason being: not prerendered (thank you EMS for explaining it well enough for me understand the difference!). Apparently, with real-time 3D, which this will be, it creates the view on-the-fly. This is a slightly lesser quality but much more coolish feel as you can see in any direction. In Myst IV where it was pre-rendered, it takes up much more space and therefore is of higher quality. Is that about correct? I hope so! I'm sure I'll be corrected if I'm wrong http://forums.ubi.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_wink.gif hee hee. http://forums.ubi.com/images/smilies/16x16_smiley-very-happy.gif

As far as DVD drives go for Myst IV - a newish one, that reads double layer data DVD's is good - a ROM is great but my LG DVD-RW did a great job too, with no hiccups. Myst IV tech thread here http://forums.ubi.com/eve/forums?a=corfrm&cf=580100736
has good help. And sorry about the messy link but these darn boards don't like Firefox and my linking thing doesn't work i.e. pasting the link in doesn't work http://forums.ubi.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_frown.gif Good luck!

[nuyork]

Well I've just recently finished Half-Life 2. And the character animation in that game is SOOO amazing.

If Myst 5 could get their character animation to look as good as Half-Life 2, then there won't be any need for Full Motion Video.

But from the looks of things, Myst 5 will be similar to URU's graphics (perhaps just updated a little bit), and only with a first person interface only.

Cyan!!! Use the Half-Life 2 engine!!!!!!!!!!

:L:

[Vertigo3]

I seriously doubt that they will be licensing the "Source" engine from Valve (though I think it would work...). I do believe, however, that they are capable of better than Half Life 2 graphics especially because there isn't nearly as much going on on the screen (no shooting, blood, muzzle flashes, reload animations, etc) so make it BETTER than the source engine in the way of environmental graphics...please.

As to the question of DVD, I am fairly sure that they would have to release it on DVD or on 5 or more disks if it is to have the graphics quality of Myst 4 in real-time. HL2 was 5...I am thinking they are going to do a CD or DVD choice release, but then again, Myst 4 was DVD exclusive...just more speculation, my 2 cents as it were.

[soypowered]

One thing that Cyan seemed to do well with Uru is make low-poly objects look very high poly (those mushrooms come to mind.) I wonder if they could make a 3D model of all the characters and then add a 'video texture' to them to make them look like full motion video. Just another thought on how they could pull it off. I have played the Half Life 2 demo and seen their engine but I still think it ain't good enough to be MYST.

[Scythephantasm]

You know, I had a thought as to the acting . . .

They could go the way of The Polar Express, by filming the live acting, and then attaching the actions to the mesh.

[Eat_My_Shortz]

Wel obviously they won't be going to the Hl2 engine, the whol point of Myst V is to clean up the remains of Uru and that includes using an updated version of the Plasma engine. This means
- Realtime 3D is definite
- NO HAVOK is definite (side note to everyone who wants them to use the HL2 engine: HL2 uses Havok same as Uru, and isnt available on Mac, same as Uru).
- Realtime 3D characters cant be confirmed. Will they use prerecorded live action video? Or not. However, I doubt it will look as good as HL2.

I have a "making of" book for HL2 called "Raising the Bar". It explains the very detailed process they went through in HL2 to make the very detailed models. They got real actors and scanned in their faces, then built extremely high-definition models around them. Then (the hard part) they contracted experts in the field (such as psychologists) who knew the human face and its expressions down to an art, and they built this system which would realistically model any human expression. This system was made so that it was impossible to do anything that a human can't do with thier face. The process is very different than creating normal animation a la Uru.

Cyan simply wouldnt have had the time or resources to do all this. So I hope they manage to get live actors in there, using the technique I outlined in my first post this thread.

[Alahmnat]

I think it can be expected that characters in End of Ages, even if they are realtime models and not live-action video actors, will be a lot more detailed than what we saw in Uru. Remember, the avatars in Uru were designed to be fairly low on the polygon counts because there were going to be a large number of them exploring the Ages of Uru together and high-poly characters in those quantities is a bad idea for an MMO.

I doubt they'll look as good as the ones in HL2, but honestly, I'll take a little bit of quirky motion to Polar Express-ified people... seriously, it's like watching Night of the Living Dead, especially with the little girl's face... eew. Yeah, they look super realistic, but when they start moving (and especially *talking*) they turn into these lifeless zombie people. Working in a movie theatre, I've actually seen people complain that the movie scared their child because the characters look so ... odd. I think the harder CG characters are pushed to look real, the more our attention is focused on realizing that there's something really subtly off about their demeanor, their gaze, their expressions, that makes them seem very empty. In fact there's been studies that confirm this, believe it or not http://forums.ubi.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_wink.gif.

[Eat_My_Shortz]

Thats a very interesting point Alahmnat.
A bit like how violence in games of the early 90s and earlier didnt really botrher people until it got so realistic.

I'm still holding out for video chars, but I seriously doubt it, what with the time frame they have here.
So, I suppose Hi-def chars would be cool. But I dont want avatars like Uru. As I've said sevral times, that was good in Uru, but this is Myst not Uru and should be associated with the Myst games, not uru. (ditto for Relto, DRC, etc)

[Coronagold]

I wanna see Atrus with Clutch Cargo animated lips.

[Vertigo3]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by soypowered:
One thing that Cyan seemed to do well with Uru is make low-poly objects look very high poly (those mushrooms come to mind.) I wonder if they could make a 3D model of all the characters and then add a 'video texture' to them to make them look like full motion video. Just another thought on how they could pull it off. I have played the Half Life 2 demo and seen their engine but I still think it ain't good enough to be MYST. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Since nobody answered your question directly I will here. It would not be possible to use live action video for a full character model. The problem here is the wrapping of the model with the live action video, you would only have one angle of the person. They could do it with the face I imagine, but it really would look bad because the mesh wouldn't be moving/talking, the texture would, and it would just look odd.

As to all the other speculation, I agree that the characters will most likely be much more detailed than those of Uru and I doubt they will do live action video a la Myst 4 because of the realtime 3d environment. No, they will have 3d character models, but they will be much more detailed. The problem with live action in a 3d environment is live action is done in 2d, from one perspective, and in order for live action to work, you need a fixed perspective, the first 4 games had this, but now with the 3d world, you have freedom of motion...hence the problem with live action.

[JustBrett]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Coronagold:
I wanna see Atrus with Clutch Cargo animated lips. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
Owww! I did not need this image in my head! http://forums.ubi.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif (And I LIKED Clutch Cargo, Space Angel, and Captain Fathom. All hail Cambria Studios!)

[Mowog]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR> I wanna see Atrus with Clutch Cargo animated lips. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>Oh, thanks a million. I'm old enough to remember Clutch Cargo, and you reminded me.

For the unitiated, see the ToonTracker Clutch page HERE (http://www.toontracker.com/clutchcargo/cargo.htm).

By the way, anybody who likes old cartoons can easily get lost in the ToonTracker site. There's a wealth of great old stuff on there!

[Nebodin]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Vertigo3:
...It would not be possible to use live action video for a full character model. The problem here is the wrapping of the model with the live action video, you would only have one angle of the person. They could do it with the face I imagine, but it really would look bad because the mesh wouldn't be moving/talking, the texture would, and it would just look odd...

...The problem with live action in a 3d environment is live action is done in 2d, from one perspective... <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>I think it's a little strong to say "It would not be possible" as this is very possible and is exactly what was done in Matrix Reloaded and Revolutions.

Now it is not likely to appear in this game as it is most probably a rather expensive process, but it is possible to film a person from multiple angles, and use those multiple angles to assemble an animated 3d model of their moving face, with an animated texture to match so that you have a completely animated full 3d model of the recorded person.

The following shot is of the completely virtual representation of Hugo Weaving. These are 2 still shots, but it is possible to view his animated face from any angle with this sort of technology.

Virtual Agent Smith (http://whatisthematrix.warnerbros.com/vfx/rl_img/vfx_image_07.jpg)

[soypowered]

Wow, that's cool. I wonder how big Cyan's budget is? I'm assuming Uru sold pretty well....That would definitly be cool if they did that.

[IMForeman]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Nebodin:


The following shot is of the completely virtual representation of Hugo Weaving. These are 2 still shots, but it is possible to view his animated face from any angle with this sort of technology.

http://whatisthematrix.warnerbros.com/vfx/rl_img/vfx_image_07.jpg <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Cool as that is, it still can't be done in realtime... that's prerendered.

-IMF

[Nebodin]

Again we have a statement like that "can't be done in realtime". What is it with people here seeming so certain that cool ideas are impossible.

If the tech exists to capture and then wrap a texture on an animated model... then exactly why can't you do it in realtime?

You wouldn't even need an animated texture, just a single shot of a face in a relaxed position taken from multiple angles applied to a model obtained from the same shots. This is nothing new and well within the realms of possibility. Then you can film the person talking from multiple angles, feed that info into your system and translate that into an animated model.

They already have highly detailed, well textured, animated models in games, it's just that usually this is all done by hand. I can't see anything about this which makes it so impossible.

[IMForeman]

Let me amend: It's impossible to do it in realtime in that level of clarity with today's technology. The amount of geometry in that face, and the amount of deformations that would be needed, to say nothing of the realtime shading and lighting in that image... technololgy right now just can't do that at anywhere near a speed you could use a reasonable FPS count with.

-IMF

EDIT: These are about the best realtime figures I've seen to date:
Dawn 1 (http://www.nvidia.com/docs/IO/3248/large02.jpg)

Dawn 2 (http://www.nvidia.com/docs/IO/3248/large01.jpg)

And it should be noted this is an example of a technology demo, not a game. She's really the only actual animated structure in the demo.

[Nebodin]

Agreed - you can't achieve the level of quality seen in the agent smith shot, but you could still use the tech to create an, albeit lower detailed, representation of a real human being.

Ps. Have you seen the mermaid demo for the GeForce 6 series cards, the are amazing.

[Coronagold]

I can honestly say those aren't real.

Bart - "Ay carumba!"

[JennyH]

These forums load slow as it is for the sake of loading can you place a link to the pictures. Thanks a lot. http://forums.ubi.com/images/smilies/16x16_smiley-happy.gif

[IMForeman]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Coronagold:
I can honestly say those aren't real.

Bart - "Ay carumba!" <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Well, sure they're not... I mean, it's a fairy, innit?

They are slightly less convincing when you see them moving, though, especially if you see them upclose.

-IMF

[IMForeman]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by JennyH:
These forums load slow as it is for the sake of loading can you place a link to the pictures. Thanks a lot. http://forums.ubi.com/images/smilies/16x16_smiley-happy.gif <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Done, and done.

[Nebodin]

Sorry JennyH, I sometimes forget that some people don't have BroadBand.

[Rocky1138]

Actually, the models in Uru weren't half bad, but it's true that they had to cut back a bit since they thought there were going to be upwards of 10 or so on one screen at once.

Then again, we might visit a city in EoA and there could possibly be people walking around the streets, etc. Since they wouldn't have to hire actors or pay them.

I think the game's graphics would have been improved tremendously if they had used more pixel shaders. I remember reading that they decided to include higher resolution texures all around rather than relying on coded pixel shaders for the graphics since it would mean a more normalized game for everyone (ie: the graphics are pretty good all around, for everyone. Even the people that don't have the super-duper videocards).

I think that by the end of 2005, any 3D game that is released onto the market should support DirectX9 features such as bloom or else they'll just seem out-of-date. DirectX9 has been out for ages now (no pun intended) and there's just no justification for not including those effects (especially when they increase the visual quality so much). Of course, DX8 (PS 1.4) features can be included for those of us without high-end graphics.

Intel users will, of course, be left out in the cold. That's just how it is. You can't expect to run Half Life 2 on a Tandy.

[Ian [Atrus]]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Rocky1138:
I think that by the end of 2005, any 3D game that is released onto the market should support DirectX9 features such as bloom or else they'll just seem out-of-date. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Just as long it's not DirectX9 only like Revelation...

[soypowered]

Why would you not want to update your drivers to DirectX 9?

[Ian [Atrus]]

Because I can't: my video card is discontinued, and hacked/omega drivers incur in the infamous Toshiba Black Bar bug.
I found it funny that I could play Uru seamlessly, but to play Revelation I had to install a hacked driver that didn't work with any other game.

So, DX9 is good for those that can use it. Just as long as it's not mandatory.

[soypowered]

Ah. Back on subject for a little bit, I was thinking today, if they did film and actor's whole body, wouldn't you see the camera on the other side? Think about it, if you need, say, 5 cameras to film all you need, top, front, back, left, right, you would end up seeing the camera on the opposite end right? Unless the film them one at a time, but that could allow for slight disrepencies. What do you think about that.

[Rocky1138]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Ian [Atrus]:
Because I can't: my video card is discontinued, and hacked/omega drivers incur in the infamous Toshiba Black Bar bug.
I found it funny that I could play Uru seamlessly, but to play Revelation I had to install a hacked driver that didn't work with any other game.

So, DX9 is good for those that can use it. Just as long as it's not mandatory. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

It's sad that you had so much trouble playing Revelation, but you can't expect the world not to move ahead just because you have a crappy videocard. Instead of complaining about DirectX9, why not complain about the manufacturers who couldn't adhere to an international standard?

DirectX is a graphics standard, and the standard right now is at DirectX9.0c. I would consider any game to be released in 2005 without DirectX9.0 effects to be out of date. It might still be fun, but DX9 has been out too long to not support it. Besides, it offers some really great tools for developers and awesome effects.

[Alahmnat]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Rocky1138:
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Ian [Atrus]:
Because I can't: my video card is discontinued, and hacked/omega drivers incur in the infamous Toshiba Black Bar bug.
I found it funny that I could play Uru seamlessly, but to play Revelation I had to install a hacked driver that didn't work with any other game.

So, DX9 is good for those that can use it. Just as long as it's not mandatory. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

It's sad that you had so much trouble playing Revelation, but you can't expect the world not to move ahead just because you have a crappy videocard. Instead of complaining about DirectX9, why not complain about the manufacturers who couldn't adhere to an international standard? <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
I see no reason to exclude people simply because they don't have the money to upgrade an otherwise perfectly acceptable video card which was manufactured before the DX9 standard was created... DirectX is plenty backwards-compatible, but it sure as heck isn't forward-compatible, so if your video card only supports DX8 content and you try to play a game exclusively built on DX9, you're going to be in a world of hurt. The fact that Cyan decided t extend the compatability of their Plasma engine to include such low-end chipsets as the Intel Extreme chips seems to indicate they care more about reaching a broader audience than they do about glitzy effects like Bloom (which I see no practical application for in the Myst universe anyway).

It should be noted that adventure gamers are, on average, running systems far closer to the low end of the PC spectrum than almost any other market (with the possible exception of the Hotel Casino games market http://forums.ubi.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_wink.gif) and are quite often adamantly opposed to having to upgrade their hardware in order to get a game to run (just read the Revelation or Uru suport forums...). This isn't the Doom3, HalfLife 2, or Unreal 3 crowd. If Cyan decided to create a game using only DX9 they would be alienating a larger chunk of their audience than if they used DX8 (which if you ask me is all they really need, I personally found Uru's graphics to be spectacular and more believable by at least one order of magnitude over any of these newer DX9 games... because that's what storytelling is about... believability over realism... learned that one in school http://forums.ubi.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif).

Plus, this game is supposed to be cross-platform, and DirectX is a Microsoft technology... Mac doesn't use it. They use OpenGL. So you have to engineer a game with an engine that can use both of those standards without losing anything between the two platforms... often times this may mean sacrificing those high-end glitzy special effects in order to make sure the darn thing actually *works* at a base level, especially when you're on a tight budget and production schedule. You also have to take into account the fact that Plasma2 was engineered with DX8 in mind, and the special effects like Eder Gira's water were added quite literally at the last minute, which is why the water effects in some of the Ages don't match up in quality to those in Gira... there just wasn't time to fine-tune them before shipping. Based on one of the shots we have, they've made vast improvements to the water effects for End of Ages, but again, I see no reason to overload the game with special effects that won't be put to any practical application. Cyan's standard of excellence comes from shunning what's "cool" over what's needed in order to tell the story. Re-writing even MORE of the engine in order to support DX9 when they've already had to take time out to re-engineer the thing to use a different physics engine, work on the Mac platform, *and* integrate into 3DS MAX 7 (coming from MAX 4, that's a *huge* jump) is likely to have taken more time than they had available to them.

[Ian [Atrus]]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Rocky1138:
It's sad that you had so much trouble playing Revelation, but you can't expect the world not to move ahead just because you have a crappy videocard. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

My 'crappy' videocard is a Geforce 4, thank you.
If you read my post you'll see that mine is a driver, aka *software* problem.

For the rest, Alahmnat explained it much better than I possibly could. Making a game that looks better on the latest systems is good; but making it playable on older configurations is even better, particularly if you work on a niche market like the Myst games.

[Rocky1138]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Alahmnat:
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Rocky1138:
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Ian [Atrus]:
Because I can't: my video card is discontinued, and hacked/omega drivers incur in the infamous Toshiba Black Bar bug.
I found it funny that I could play Uru seamlessly, but to play Revelation I had to install a hacked driver that didn't work with any other game.

So, DX9 is good for those that can use it. Just as long as it's not mandatory. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

It's sad that you had so much trouble playing Revelation, but you can't expect the world not to move ahead just because you have a crappy videocard. Instead of complaining about DirectX9, why not complain about the manufacturers who couldn't adhere to an international standard? <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
I see no reason to exclude people simply because they don't have the money to upgrade an otherwise perfectly acceptable video card which was manufactured before the DX9 standard was created... <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
It's called technological advancement. This is why we are on the computers we are on today and not using the Eniac.

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>
DirectX is plenty backwards-compatible, but it sure as heck isn't forward-compatible, so if your video card only supports DX8 content and you try to play a game exclusively built on DX9, you're going to be in a world of hurt.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Well, I never said that you should only support cards that support DX9. I said they should include DX9 effects. Besides, if a card supports DX9, it will support DX8. The graphics effects used in the game simply will not draw. So your 'world of hurt' example really doesn't work.

Besides, most game companies write lower-end PS routines for people who are technicalogically impaired, like those people with Intel Extreme chipsets.

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>
The fact that Cyan decided t extend the compatability of their Plasma engine to include such low-end chipsets as the Intel Extreme chips seems to indicate they care more about reaching a broader audience than they do about glitzy effects like Bloom (which I see no practical application for in the Myst universe anyway).
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Well this argument here can go on forever and ever. Everyone says they play the games for the story, yet somehow everyone boasts about the graphics quality in every new Myst game that comes out. I think everyone's just afraid of saying that the enjoy great graphics in a game. I know I do. There, now I said it.

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>
It should be noted that adventure gamers are, on average, running systems far closer to the low end of the PC spectrum than almost any other market (with the possible exception of the Hotel Casino games market http://forums.ubi.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_wink.gif)...
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

True.

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>
...and are quite often adamantly opposed to having to upgrade their hardware in order to get a game to run (just read the Revelation or Uru suport forums...).
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

We're working on computers. This type of technology, for the last 30 years, has been known to change and upgrade very quickly over the course of time. It's too much to expect people to buy better computers every time a new game cones out, but it's not too much to expect people to be with the times. Look, I work retail. I deal with people all the time who still use Windows 98. It's sad. They just haven't joined the rest of the world.

And to the argument that "well, it's always worked...": Now it doesn't. Time has moved ahead, and you have stayed behind. Games today make use of the latest and greatest in hardware, and to put it simply, if ya ain't got it, ya ain't got it.

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>
This isn't the Doom3, HalfLife 2, or Unreal 3 crowd.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

That's not true, I have the first two games and am anxiously awaiting the last one. And no one can say that I'm not the average Myst nut. I've attended a Mysterium and I'm wearing a Myst shirt right now. I think Myst players come from all walks of life. That's the genious behind the Myst series.

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>
If Cyan decided to create a game using only DX9 they would be alienating a larger chunk of their audience than if they used DX8 (which if you ask me is all they really need, I personally found Uru's graphics to be spectacular and more believable by at least one order of magnitude over any of these newer DX9 games... because that's what storytelling is about... believability over realism... learned that one in school http://forums.ubi.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif).
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I think they should include DX8 effects for those of us who do not have DX9 standard video cards. But that doesn't mean that they shouldn't have DX9 effects at all. Just face the facts: DX9 greatly improves graphics quality. It really does. I am all for a switch if it truly benefits the Myst experience.

Which leads me to the last part of your quote. I think Uru was a fun game and a great idea. I would have loved to see the idea come to fruition and I was really saddened on February 4th when the hammer came down, just like a lot of people here.

It was not, however, better looking than Half-Life 2. Especially in terms of facial detail or physics useage. That's just my opinion, however. And people can judge for themselves.

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>
Plus, this game is supposed to be cross-platform, and DirectX is a Microsoft technology... Mac doesn't use it.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Uhm.. I don't want to be rude here, but who cares about Macs? Seriously, they're what, 1% of the total computer users around?

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>
They use OpenGL.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I hate Microsoft as much as the next guy, but they rule the roost with DX9. Especially 9c. OpenGL is always playing catch-up. I mean, it would be great if OpenGL could capture the desktop and win over DirectX but I just don't see it happening. If anything, why then, did Cyan decide to incorporate DirectX as their API? Why not just go OpenGL right from the outset? Is it because ATi's OpenGL drivers suck?

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>
So you have to engineer a game with an engine that can use both of those standards without losing anything between the two platforms... often times this may mean sacrificing those high-end glitzy special effects in order to make sure the darn thing actually *works* at a base level, especially when you're on a tight budget and production schedule. You also have to take into account the fact that Plasma2 was engineered with DX8 in mind, and the special effects like Eder Gira's water were added quite literally at the last minute, which is why the water effects in some of the Ages don't match up in quality to those in Gira... there just wasn't time to fine-tune them before shipping.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I don't want to get in hot water here, since I love Cyan as much as the next Myst nut. But not having time? There was a period of 8 years where Uru was being worked on.

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>
Based on one of the shots we have, they've made vast improvements to the water effects for End of Ages, but again, I see no reason to overload the game with special effects that won't be put to any practical application.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

How about nice-looking water? Seriously, how can anyone talk about a practical application when talking about a videogame?

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>
Cyan's standard of excellence comes from shunning what's "cool" over what's needed in order to tell the story.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Wrong. Cyan's standard of excellence comes from USING what's "cool" in order to tell their story.

Broadband.
Massively Multiplayer.
CDROM drives.
DirectX8 graphics.

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>
Re-writing even MORE of the engine in order to support DX9 when they've already had to take time out to re-engineer the thing to use a different physics engine, work on the Mac platform, *and* integrate into 3DS MAX 7 (coming from MAX 4, that's a *huge* jump) is likely to have taken more time than they had available to them. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

If it's such a bother, why even make games at all? Oh yeah! To make money? Sheesh, after Uru everyone acts as though having Cyan making money on a game is A) Impossible and B) Something bad.

Just my $0.02

[Rocky1138]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Ian [Atrus]:
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Rocky1138:
It's sad that you had so much trouble playing Revelation, but you can't expect the world not to move ahead just because you have a crappy videocard. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

My 'crappy' videocard is a Geforce 4, thank you.
If you read my post you'll see that mine is a driver, aka *software* problem.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Ahh I see. But my point still stands. Instead of trying to change the world, you should instead blame the manufacturers of your card for not being able to adhere to an INTERNATIONAL STANDARD.

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>
For the rest, Alahmnat explained it much better than I possibly could. Making a game that looks better on the latest systems is good; but making it playable on older configurations is even better, particularly if you work on a niche market like the Myst games. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

See, this is why games like Uru Live failed. Some people just don't understand that the Myst market is NOT the niche. "Mainstream" games are. There are many, many, many more people who would play Myst games than shooters. That's another reason why Myst was so popular when it first came out. It touched upon something no one had thought of before: The average adult. The person who finds little or no fun in shooting all the time. Who wants something mentally stimulating.

Uru Live was doomed from the outset. I've realized that in the 364 days since Rand's announcement.

Trying to get the average adult, many of which do not have broadband, to purchase and subscribe to a game where they would need broadband was a bad idea. Though I lack statistics, I'm guessing they alienated a large percentage of the people who would have normally bought and subscribed to the game.

Secondly, it went 3D. Whenever a game that is known for ease of navigation and playability goes 3D, it loses a lot of customers. This is true for more games in the average player market. Take The Sims. It was the only game to get more sales than Myst in the entire world, and yet it's sequel (which has gone 3D) hasn't even stayed on the charts for longer than 2 or 3 weeks.

There's just something about 3D that scares some people off, and I think it's navigation. It's just too **** hard to move your character around. Not many Myst players liked the idea of physical puzzles, either. Which I believe was an attempt to bring over some of the FPS market to a Myst game. I think it was somewhat of an attempt to bridge a digital divide. Myst players, as a whole, want an engaging story, otherworldly graphics, easy navigation, and Rand Miller as Atrus.

Thank you.

[Alahmnat]

I would like to apologize in advance for any horrific spelling errors caused by missing letters... my laptop keyboard is a piece of garbage and randomly decides to ignore the fact that I've pressed a key. Unfortunately, I don't watch the screen as I type so sometimes the ommission is already scrolled up through the reply window before I look back up. I would also like to note that the opinions and statements here are in no way to be taken as the official position of Cyan or UbiSoft, and are simply my interpolations of what I have seen these companies say and do in the past. Now then, on to the novel...

It should be noted that the Myst market has been steadilly declining in sales ever since Myst's release, believe it or not. While Myst sold over 10 million copies, that includes the figues for the number of computers shipped with the game as part of a pre-installed software package, and it also doesn't count the number of people who bought Myst, played it for 5 minutes, and then gave up on it (my mom would fall into that category). Riven's sales I think just topped 6 milion, Exile's are somewhere between 1 and 3, and I don't even know how well Revelation is selling at all (it's apparently selling well, but I have no numbers to provide you). Myst may not have been a niche market when it started, but these days, adventure games are anything but mainstream. Sure they may be targeted at the mainstream market, but the mainstream market is buying fewer and fewer games, especially for the PC. Between the sales now being diverted to console gaming and the increase in "gamers" buying games (since they are, of course, one of the largest driving forces behind both the gaming and hardware industries on desktop machines) as compared to the everyday average joe schmoe PC user buying games (again I could use my own family as an example), "mainstream" gaming is simply not as popular as it used to be.

As I mentioned in another thread (or maybe it was earlier in this one), the status of Myst games as being something on the cutting edge of the industry with insane system requirements has changed drastically in the past 11 years. Myst is no longer considered a "cutting-edge" industry-leading brand name, because after 11 years, the insanity of the original system requirements has turned into an almost laughably ridiculous list when you compare it to anything else on the shelf. This is really where Myst has run into problems of late, pretty much ever since the release of Exile: it's considered a game that is supposed to run on *anything*, and a LOT of people over the past few years have bought the game (and Riven and Exile as well) because it's practically the only thing they can get to run on their outdated box from 2000. As I mentioned earlier, you wouldn't believe the amount of moaning that people made over the 233MHz processor requirement for Exile, because Myst games "should run on anything". You and I may understand perfectly well that after a certain period of time, your computer is just not going to be able to do anything anymore, but you would probably be amazed at how many people out there DON'T understand that (probably because they were told by whatever doink sold them the system that they'd "never" have to replace it) and get downright indignant when a company develops a game that doesn't fit their specs.

So what do you do if you want to advance the story further and continue the series? Do you completely ignore the change in your game's user base and once again put out a game with absolutely mind-blowing system requirements, or do you try to be fair to everyone who has bought the game (within reason obviously) and try to get the game to run and look the same as much as possible from the PIII 800 with an Intel Extreme chip and 256 MB of RAM to the P4 3.2 GHz box with an nVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT and an ungodly amount of video and system RAM? That's where I think Cyan's line of thinking differs from yours. Yes, you could dump a ton of DX9 effects into the engine and just have them not appear when you play the game on a DX8 card, but odds are it would look a lot worse because of that, and from everything I've seen Cyan say, they don't want that to happen. They WANT to game to look good on those lower-end machines, because yes, people DO buy the games for the graphics and there IS a certain standard of excellence that is associated with these games. However, Cyan is having to draw a very fine line between blowing out all the stops and making a game that takes full advantage of the latest and greatest tech at the expense of quality on lesser machines and making a game that still looks fantastic but also works on lower-end hardware.

I would also like to go on record again as saying that I have never said Uru has better graphics than games like HalfLife 2 and Doom 3. That would be stupid of me. No, Uru can't match the sheer polygon count or level of effects and physics integration present in those games. No, Uru's avatars aren't as detailed as those in HL2 or Doom 3 (and again, there's a reason for that; Uru's avatars were designed with online play in mind and so had lower poly counts to keep people's systems from exploding when too many folks were on screen at one time). I did not say that Uru's graphics were better. I said that I found them more believable. There is a difference (one which evidently a lot of people fail to pick up on) between realism and believability. What HalfLife 2 has is realism, to a rather obscene degree. However, it falls, for me, into a sort of expanded interpretation of the Uncanny Valley: the graphics are so super realistic that I find any one small, tiny, insignificant flaw in them to be quite mentally jarring. Shadows, character movement, lighting, and texturing are things that still, despite the valiant efforts of Valve and id, things that have not quite reached reality's level of chaos and unpredictability, and when I see something that is otherwise perfectly normal-looking but is off by some small, perhaps even inmperceptible degree, it throws me out of the game's environment. Uru, because it is a bit more iconic and abstracted than HalfLife 2 or Doom 3, has much more leeway in what it can do right or wrong before it falls into the Uncanny Valley. Pretty much the only part of the game that does that for me is Yeesha's opening speech, because her arm movements are just bad in some places. However, if the lighting is a little off or the shadows don't quite match, it doesn't bug me as much (and trust me, I'm a HUGE stickler for this kind of thing... you've no idea how many texturing errors I sent in during the beta test http://forums.ubi.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_wink.gif), because it's less realistic to start with. However, the surreality of the Myst games has always been perfectly believable, even if it defies any sort of conventional knowledge of physics, biology, electronics, architecture, etc. Is it at all possible that you can be transported to a planet in another universe simply by touching a book? No, but it sure is believable within the construct of the game's own internal rules.

Ultimately, when it comes to graphics, Cyan has to make a lot of compromises because of the four pages of reasoning I've dumped above. Yes, it would be great if they would make a game using all manner of insane DX9 effects in a way that didn't detract from the game and would only look the way it does on the box with the latest and greatest hardware, ala HalfLife, Doom, and Unreal. But how many copies do you really think are going to be sold if they do that? How many angry and irate fans are going to flood to the forums espousing their ever-loving hatred for Cyan and Ubi for not making the game more accessible? Holy crimony, just the number of threads whining about Revelation being DVD only should be a serious barometer of the way this community's collective mind works. You say my claim that this isn't the Doom 3 crowd is wrong, because you play the games along with a few others in this community. However, believe me when I say that the super-techie background and drive to have the biggest and baddest piece of hardware in your ZIP code is not something that's found throughout the Myst market... it's often times quite the opposite, and so makinga game with the mindset that "people will just upgrade if they really want to play it and it doesn't work" is a huge mistake to make... people will either try to return the game (and often times return to the forums even more irate when they can't) or just give it away to someone else who might have otherwise bought the game themselves. That's how the Myst market works. Trust me, I've been dealing with tech support forums since 2001, and there are a ton of people who do exactly that. While the Myst market may overlap a large number of other target audiences for games ranging from Doom 3 to Nancy Drew to Solitaire, it is rather a bit of folly to assume that one of those segments speaks for the whole (though I think the mindset of the Solitaire player is perhaps most pervasive, especially outside the forum-going community). Your comments on why Uru failed to sell as well pretty much speaks to exactly what I've been saying. The technology changed and people just didn't want to adapt to it, so they didn't.

Now, on to a far more touchy subject. I am NOT going to get into a platform war here, but it is seriously bad form of you to just dismiss the Mac part of this community outright (and for the record, I am a PC user, so this is not me being indignant that you've dissed my box). This is a series that STARTED on the Mac, and there are a pretty large number of people in this community who are seriously invested in this series continuing to support the Mac, because it always has, and they take great enjoyment from seeing the story unfold with each new installment. There is a fairly disproportionate percentage of Mac users in this community when compared to the gaming community at large (rather like there's a massively large percentage of females who play Myst versus the percentage of females who play other games). Also, Rand Miller, Richard Watson, and unless I'm too far mistaken Ryan Miller all use Macintosh computers at home, as do several other Cyan staff members. It's a very Mac-friendly company to start with, and obviously these folks are going to want to be able to run their own game on their home computers. And so Cyan is not only obligated because of the community's hardware breakdown, but also wants to put this game on the Mac. Uru would be on the Mac as well, were it not for the fiasco with Havok. There's a large number of people in this community who are actually rather angry about Uru not being on the Mac, and who feel left out because of it. It might actually impact sales of Myst 5 on the Mac if it turns out to be taking on too much from the Uru storyline, as I've seen several people say they just won't buy the game if it does that. The rest of the gaming community may be able to laugh off the Mac as a joke and not even give it a second thought when developing their games, but Cyan does not have that luxury. They know where they came from (Myst actually had to be ported to the PC in 1994, and unless I'm mistaken, none of their earlier games wll even run on the PC, with the exception of Manhole Masterpiece Edition), and thay're not going to ignore their roots if they have any sort of say in the matter.

Now, as for the time concern, yes, Uru was in development from about 1998 through 2003 when it was released with about a year basically taken off to put realMYST on the shelves. However, DX9 wasn't around when development on Uru started (in fact I think in 1998 it was version 5 or 6...), and didn't come out until very shortly before Uru's release date, so there wasn't time to build it into the engine, and as I said before, DX8 was used but sparingly to accomodate those with older cards like the GeForce 2 (the water effects are the only thing I can actually think of that utilizes a DX8 pixel shader, and on older systems that's the only thing that doesn't render as shown in the official screenshots... I think even the avatar shadows are done without DirectX 8, and everywhere but Eder Gira the environmental shadows are baked onto the actual textures, hooray for old-school tech http://forums.ubi.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif). Between Uru's release and now, Cyan was working on completing To D'ni and Path of the Shell, which ate up roughly 6 months of production time, putting them well into 2004 before work on End of Ages even got started. So from July of 2004 to February of 2005, they have had very little time to totally re-write large segments of their engine for use in End of Ages. The switch to an open source, cross-platform physics engine and the upgrade to MAX 7 all took place after PotS was published. So that's 6 months to re-write and debug those parts of the engine and the world-building tools that go with it while simultaneously revamping old, unused content from Live to speed up production and develop a story to use it with. That really doesn't leave a lot of time to add in glitz from DX9 when you think about it, especially when you realize that they're working with a bunch of worlds that have already been built to some extent using older technology. As for why they didn't just use OpenGL in the first place? You would have to ask them, but I would imagine DirectX is easier to develop with (shot in the dark, not a statement of fact), and they were focusing their efforts on getting the engine running best on the PC (where DirectX does rule the roost) when they developed Uru. The Mac port was on the back burner until after the PC version shipped and Live was up to speed. Unfortunately, that all kind of turned into a pretty huge mess.

I do wonder sometimes why anyone even bothers to TRY to make video games anymore... they rarely recoup the massive expenditures that are invested in their development (Revelation had a multi-million dollar budget... not surprising when you consider it took 3 years and a staff of between 30 and 90 people to complete, not counting software and hardware costs) and they cause so many headaches and nightmares for the developers, who I'm sure have all shaved several years off their lives with crunch-time stress. Perhaps the worst, though, (and this is not targeted at anyone in particular, just a general observation on the state of gaming these days) is the people who do nothing but nag and whine and complain when the game doesn't do exactly what they wanted it to do and fails to live up to their expectations 150%. There've been a lot of those lately, and not just here, and I can't even begin to imagine how demoralizing it is for the people putting their blood, sweat, and tears (and sacrificing insane amounts of their time to boot) into a game to have their efforts utterly brutalized and ripped to pieces at every turn, often by individuals who have no knowledge of the complexity and insanity that goes into getting these games working at all.

[DebbieDec2003]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>[snip].. I can't even begin to imagine how demoralizing it is for the people putting their blood, sweat, and tears (and sacrificing insane amounts of their time to boot) into a game to have their efforts utterly brutalized and ripped to pieces at every turn, often by individuals who have no knowledge of the complexity and insanity that goes into getting these games working at all. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Great post Al. Yes, I'd agree with all you said. Seeing Genevieve Lord in Montreal made me appreciate the faces behind the game for sure. She's a mum with a family and husband. But a horrible deadline too. So, I do appreciate the game that much more, knowing at least a tiny bit of one of the faces behind it.

Good luck to the Myst V team!

[Ian [Atrus]]

Ouch, I didn't really mean to start such a debate. http://forums.ubi.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif
BTW, another factor to be taken in consideration is that a good slice of Myst players are using a laptop and don't usually play anything else but Myst.
Laptops usually can't be updated: if you need the newest video card, the only option is to buy a whole new PC... and really, who does that for one game only?

I'm going to buy a new pc soon for reasons independent from gaming, so I don't think I'll have problems with the system requirements... but I'd be really happy to be able to play EoA on my current laptop, even if stripped down in special effects.

[IMForeman]

Al, that is a whole lot of typing to do on a broken keyboard. I'm impressed.

-IMF

[Rocky1138]

First, I'd like to thank you for writing such a detailed reply. This is the most fun I've had on forums in a while. I feel confident in saying my bit with you because I know we are both Myst fans and neither of us can pull out the "well, what do you know, you're new!" argument.

Secondly, I'd like to address some of your points with my opinions.

You have stated that Myst's market has been steadily declining in sales since Myst's release. I agree. I wonder why that is when more people are buying computers than ever? Surely all of the tech geeks who play "mainstream" games already have a few, so who is buying them? Probably the average adult, ie: someone who might find a Myst game interesting.

Also, if the publisher did such a good job with Myst as to make it the best-selling game ever for almost a decade, why did they not repeat the process for the sequels? Why did they not include it with new PCs? Why did they not secure the rights to include an Exile disc or a Revelation disc with CDROM drives or DVD-ROM drives?

It is my opinion that this is a failure on the part of the publishers and with all of the money and effort they have invested in these titles, it makes me wonder just who is working there. They are sitting on a goldmine and they are marketing it as though it's worthless. Anyone remember the terrible ads for Uru? What the hell was that dude doing in the elevator?

They should target new PC owners. Secure the rights to include a free copy of Revelation with every new HP computer sold. I sold 4 computers today at Staples and every single person, except one, I'm sure would enjoy a nice game like Revelation. Or any of the Myst games for that matter.

I understand that some people do not understand that they have to upgrade their computer over time. I've never had a job that wasn't customer service or retail oriented. I would like to say for others like me that I've never heard a salesman say that they'll never have to upgrade a computer. In fact, we're sure to stress that they will have to over time in order to lessen the blow when that time comes. That way, in 3 years, we won't have to deal with angry customers. Here's a tip from a salesman: If anyone ever tells you that you'll be good for a product forever, turn around and walk away. He's a liar. Every product fails. Every product becomes outdated. It's just a matter of time. I think that this assumption about salespeople comes about from that fact that we 'sell' our product. As in, speaking about the product's features rather than our faults. This can sometimes give the impression to the customer that the product is perfect. It may be perfect now, but conditions change and so do circumstances. You may not need a 3D card now, but when your 9 year old turns 12 and he wants to play the latest shooter with his friends, you may want one then. Anyway, that's off-topic. I just thought I'd speak in defense of salespeople.

Though I'm not privy to the internal workings or finances of Cyan, I think the fine line they are trying to walk (the one where they are trying to make Uru look really good, but still run on people's hardware) is a dangerous one. The game will look really good but it will run slow, or the game will look terrible and still run crappy. Either way it equals a bad experience for any user. I often wonder why Cyan decided to go with a 3D engine at all, since they were really good at 2D and there's this tightrope you've got to walk with 3D. It's scary, but of all of the PCs I sell at Staples, only 2 or 3 out of 25 would run Half-Life 2 at anything over 8fps. So where does that leave 3D in Joe User's home?

Personally, my favorite Myst game will always be realMYST. I've always had great hardware. I understand the argument that it ran crappy on old hardware and on regular, non-3D hardware. But I thought the 3D graphics and atmospheric feeling of the game was so intense that I used to just sit on the edge of the left pier in Rime and listen to the whale go by.

You asked how many copies I think would be sold if Cyan decided to make the game fully DX9 where people would need those cards in order to run it at the best quality. I would ask you how many copies they've sold of Uru as it is. Maybe Staples isn't the store for Myst fans, but I've sold one copy of Uru to someone and it was returned the next day. And that was when it was new. I was the only one that I've ever seen buy TPOTS. I've watched its price go down from 29.99 to 24.99 to 24.97 (clearance) to 9.99. That's about 6 dollars American. Is this what the blood, sweat, and tears of Cyan is worth? It almost makes me want to smash something. The professionals at Cyan work their butt off and get nothing but a smack in the face in return.

So, where does that leave us? Well you and me, it doesn't change our situation. But let's just pretend like we're pulling the strings at Cyan.

Hmm. I'm undecided about the Mac situation with regards to Cyan. I understand that they like Macs, but does it make business sense? Hey, it's their company.

You were saying that some Mac users would not buy Myst 5 if it took too much from the Uru storyline. I can only assume that's because they never got a chance to play Uru on their Mac. I wonder why one would subject themselves to such pain of only having a Macintosh. Imagine always having to make excuses about why you can't run the things you want to run. Sour grapes in how your stuff is actually somehow better but no one uses it. Hmm.

Buy a PC. Join the rest of the world. Stop trying to change it.

I understand that Macs is where Myst got started. That's cool. But does that mean that Cyan is indebted to them? If they're strapped for cash, why continue a business model where your only hope is to lose money? In my opinion, Cyan would be better off taking the resources they use to make a Macintosh version and spend it on making the PC version a must-have adventure title. Then, hire a third-party developer to port the game to the Macintosh while work is done on the next title.

There, everybody wins. Macs get to play, and Cyan makes money (and stays in business to make more Myst[-based] games).

I don't know what to say about the timeline of Uru's development. I don't know what went on during the 8 years, though I understand they took off time to work on realMyst, which is alright. I don't know the internal workings of Cyan, so anything I say is conjecture. I can say that from a fan's standpoint, 8 years is a long time. When a game takes 8 years, I expect it to be unbelievable. I thought Uru would have been a lot bigger than it was. I remember getting into beta and walking around the city thinking "this is it?" Not that I want to be one of those people you described in your closing paragraph, but after reading so much about D'ni and the ideas I would think up in my head about D'ni being this massive city and how we'd get to ride creatures and be able to explore (a huge part of the Myst world for me), I was surprised to see that I could run around the city in around 5 minutes and that was it. You couldn't go off the beaten path.. There was no where to explore. No doors to open. I envisioned walking for hours along giant city streets and entering homes that hadn't been entered in 200 years since the great fall.

But out of all that, Uru became a really different game. Not better or worse, but completely different. And it was something I didn't expect. Uru moved me in a way that I had never been moved in a game. The people you play with and the discussions you have, the community you enter when you join Uru will be one of those quirks that will probably not be repeated in this industry for a long, long time. I don't think I need to explain myself here since everyone reading this that got a chance to play Uru Live knows what I'm talking about. You enter a family when you played that game, and I look at each of the people on the forums as my brothers and sisters. And it's the only place I've ever felt okay to say that about other geeks on the internet, because we all so totally are. LoL

That's why the Feb. 4th announcement last year hit us all so hard. It was really like we lost a family member. I just couldn't believe that it was gone. Just like that.

To your last paragraph: I understand that there are those of us who do nag and complain about not getting 150% of every game they play. You will always get that. I just want to say that while I say things that are highly critical, that's just the type of person I am. I like to see if I can solve issues and come up with cool solutions for things. But I only do that in an environment where I feel I will be listened to and argued against, like right here in the Myst forums. I love the Myst games and Cyan is a really cool company doing really cool things. I say what's on my mind and I want to hear feedback about stuff. My opinions are not always set in stone, they change depending on what other people say and how good of a job they do explaining why my opinions are not right.

Basically I just wanted to say that even though I may badmouth Cyan or Myst or be critical of how they do things, I love the series and have bought every single Myst game for the PC. I'm a huge Myst fan and that's why I feel like I can say these things. And I'm also glad that the things I say don't illicit responses like "get out of here then if you don't like the game".

Just my $0.02

[Dark Screen]

Some people seem to think Myst games need to use outdated technology that will run perfectly on old computers to be cool. Nope.

Some people also think Myst IV fit this since it was 2d instead of 3d. Nope. Myst IV probably often required upgrading to run nicely.

I had a decent computer when Myst IV came out and it didn't run very well. Turns weren't smooth ("video lag"). Computer specs at that time:
Athlon XP 2100+, 1gb ram, gf 4 4600.

I did a small upgrade to:
Athlon XP 2800+, 1gb ram, 9800 pro.
This allowed the game to run smoothly. Still, when I teleported from point to point, it took awhile. Menu's also take awhile to load...

Pre-rendered isn't as awesome and perfect as many claim it is, even visually it isn't always great. Due to how Myst IV was done, the transitions to complete video are sometimes horrible quality. I believe some are worse than the older Myst games even. The first example that comes to my mind is entering the room with the fireplace puzzle at night. Everything changes colors, tree's stop moving, etc.

[mszv]

Hi,
On games in general - it's a different world from when Myst originally came out. At the time of Myst, hardware companies wanted to sell CD Rom drives, so it was that great convergence of a beautiful game that took advantage of a CD drive and hardware companies that wanted to sell machines with CD drives. I was never in that part of the computer business, but I would guess that's one of the reasons you saw all the bundling of game with a new computer - to sell hardware. That happy convergence, that lucky break, will not happen again for Cyan. I know it made a lot of Myst sales, but as for getting people hooked into the whole Myst universe thing, I'm never sure how well that works. From everything I've read most people who bought Myst did not complete it.

I also don't think Cyan's publisher (they don't publish their games, most development companies are not publishers) could make a deal where they bundle computers with the Myst Series games. Maybe they could, don't know. Adventure games are a niche market. Where I've seen bundling, it's been with different games.

On 3D games - if you are doing an online game (remember Uru was originally an online game), that's what you do. People need to move around and interact with the space. I love how Myst Revelation (2D) looks, but I love 3D games. It also makes complete sense to me that Cyan isn't going to suddenly go back to 2D games - their technology is 3D now.

On Uru - agreed on the "not enough to interact with" thing. Uru is a fantastic world and it still moves me, but it does/did surprise me that there is so little to do in that world. Ah well, hindsite - if Cyan was doing Uru now - maybe it would be different. Big online games also take awhile to develop - as far as I know, the development time for Everquest 2 and WoW wasn't all that short.

I just want Myst V to be a nice end to the series, and to have the ages that I saw in screenshots for Uru - screenshots of stuff that would be future content for Uru. Since Uru expanion packs are not more, Myst V gives me (hopefully) an opportunity to see those things. Just give me those D'ni tunnels and that beach age, OK?

[soypowered]

Geez guys, how did this thread change from being about Full Motion Video to how people don't appriceate Myst. Great debate though, so I thought I'd throw in my two cents:

Some people just don't 'get' Myst or its puzzles, in fact they might find them so brain boggling that they give up, that's a big weakness of Myst, giving their player headaches until they give up without enjoying the better parts of the game. Myst games also don't have much character interaction which seems to alienate some people. As I've stated before I HATE 3D (realtime - ick, prerendered - great,realtime isn't yet matured enough) you just can't associate with the character as you do when they are real. I think if Cyan did something DIFFERENT, as in NOT followed the 3D fad, they might sell more because people might discover Myst and realize that it uses real people to tell a story that works on virtually all hardware from the last 7 years and is fun.

[Dark Screen]

What did you run Myst IV on?
It didn't run well on: Athlon XP 2100+, 1gb ram, gf 4 4600. Thats wasn't 7 years old either.

It's the opposite when it comes to selling the game, most people want 3d. Friends of mine that hadn't played Myst back in the days got interested in the Myst series due to Uru being 3d. They were then turned off by the pre-rendered Myst IV.

[soypowered]

Right, but that's just because that used many videos playing at once in every screen, I was talking about prerendered graphics in general (I bet your comp. does fine with Exile) I have a FX 5200 w/ 2.4 ghz Intel P4. It wasn't able to look around smoothly with the highest settings, but I did it anyway just for the experience.

[Rocky1138]

I really don't know why you guys had trouble running Revelation. The game wasn't all that demanding on your system. I think there's probably something going on in your computer because my Athlon XP 2500 Barton, 1GB Ram, and GeForce 4 Ti4800SE ran it perfectly.

[soypowered]

Compare your PC to mine. 512mb-me 1gb-you GeForce FX 5200-Me Geforce Four TI4800SE-You. Plus my DVD-ROM drive isn't too speedy.

[Alahmnat]

If you do a minimal installation your DVD drive speed will certainly play a factor in how smoothly the game runs because it will have to access a lot more data from the DVD than from your hard drive, which has a much faster read/seek time than a disc.

[Mowog]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR> Uru is a fantastic world and it still moves me, but it does/did surprise me that there is so little to do in that world. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>That's because all we really saw was the introduction and part of Act 1. Cyan spent those eight years developing what was essentially a mind-boggling movie set on which we could act out our personal Uru stories in the years to come, as new episodes were developed. They didn't plan for Uru Live to fail before it really started. Just the fact that they took THAT long merely to set the stage should show what great hopes they had for the game. Having to suddenly wrap it up with single-player expansion packs must have been terribly frustrating.

So I appreciate Uru for what it is: a prelude to something fabulous that unfortunately couldn't happen. I'm very thankful that we have "Until Uru," which has allowed me to make many visits back to the Cavern and Ages, where I can explore that vast movie set with good friends and fantasize about what might have been.

[Eat_My_Shortz]

Wow that got pretty touchy.

Firstly, for the poeple who said Cyan should have got someone to port to mac, that wasnt the problem with Uru. The problem was the company who did the physics engine (library) refused to port it. Without the source code to that library, neither Cyan, nor any other ocmpany, could port it.

With Myst V they are dropping that engine (Havok) and going for Mac right out of the box. So no biggies naymore.

On the ORIGINAL topic of full Motion Video - I think even if Atrus looked like characters from the Warcraft III cinematics (prerendered, highly realistic) or Final Fantasy, there would still be something missing.

Firstly, he wouldn't be Rand Miller. Secondly, it would serve to make it more like a game where NPCs talk to you and give you quests. Atrus is not like that, he serves as a guide, and a philosophical pillar. When he talks to you, its like a quiet bit in the movie. He walks around, in the world. He's a real person. I'd WANT to see this again in Myst V.

[soypowered]

Thanks for getting back on track. My post on page 2 got kind of lost on you guys's argument, I feel like it would be OK to post it again, since it went unanswered. Yeah, as I think I've said too many times before, I don't know if I would buy MYST 5 if it used 3D sprites.

"Ah. Back on subject for a little bit, I was thinking today, if they did film and actor's whole body, wouldn't you see the camera on the other side? Think about it, if you need, say, 5 cameras to film all you need, top, front, back, left, right, you would end up seeing the camera on the opposite end right? Unless the film them one at a time, but that could allow for slight disrepencies. What do you think about that."

[brilers]

If you were looking at the raw video captured from one of the cameras, then yes you would see the other cameras. The cameras are removed with some digital magic though as the video is being polished up.

[Xrc6]

yes they can use live video in 3d, i saw that in a technology demo...its done similar to how matrix movie, they just use video to capture all angles and all are played back as you move around it, the problem is you cant get too close, you cant change verticle views meaning you can only move around it horizontally (no jumping) and character could not follow your movements like turning their head less somehow they program all that in together, so basically the character is not 3d but rather a panoramic video seen from the outside....on the tech demo whenever the camera accidentally whent upwards a bit the video character looked weird so thats why i assume its only for horizontal viewing

[soypowered]

Where's this tech demo?
What's it showing off?
Or did you visit CES or something...
Just curious.

[Mowog]

I was just skimming back over this thread, and it reminded me of something I saw in RealMYST. I was playing it using my stereo shutter glasses, and the 3D effect was really VERY good. But the one scene in the game that used a "real" video, versus the displays in the red/blue book panels and Atrus' imager, was when we meet Atrus himself in K'veer at the end of the game. When you walk up to Atrus' writing desk, and he speaks to you, your position is fixed. You can't move about when listening to him. And if you play that sequence using 3D glasses, you see that even though the setting itself is 3D, the movie of Atrus is flat, and cleverly composited over the 3D imagery. Naturally, this effect was unnoticeable when playing RealMYST in 2D, but with the glasses it looked peculiar. It looked like the Atrus video was projected onto a screen just above his writing desk.

So that's one example of where Cyan used live video in a 3D environment... they just superimposed the flat video over the 3D scene, then froze the viewing position so you couldn't move around and see that the video was actually 2D. Not without glasses, anyway!