Attached Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1ELRWTXQ1g&mode=related&search=

Amazing!!!

Any idea how much the license is?

Don't stop at the first minute.... stay till the end !

The underwater ender and dynamic lighting effects are simply jawdropping.

I saw the first one of these and I wanted it then ... now I want it more!!!

Attached Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ogYMkkrmvC0&mode=related&search=

Traditionally, game editors like these have been provided for free with the game.

In this case however, it would be amazing if this thing was free. I would gladly pay for the game editor alone if pricing was reasonable.

I want...

Quote - Another one.

Traditionally, game editors like these have been provided for free with the game.

In this case however, it would be amazing if this thing was free. I would gladly pay for the game editor alone if pricing was reasonable.

I'm right there with you, agiel!  This is amazing!

Watch this one through the middle: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDLTRXV1KHM&mode=related&search= I'm having a purpose-in-life crysis wondering whether I'm wasting my time in Vue. Why so much disparity and why do the kill-em shooter uppers have the upper hand? Why is there such a vast dividing line between art and games? Why aren't our art tools more advanced than that of gamers? Seeing this, I feel like I'm living 100 years ago spending time in Vue. Maybe its because artists are working one-by-one and gamers are working in teams like movie studios? And a single artist on a shoe-string budget is no competition for a 20 million dollar game team. Even a Phoul would get a jolt from seeing this! Where does this all lead? What does it mean? How can an artist compete? Shall I throw in the towel and just become a gamer? Someone throw me a bone (or an Uzi). Perplexed and bewildered, Greg

The way I see it - it is possibly the arrival of a new generation of tools that will change the way we do things. Just like SLR changed Photography, and Photography changed Painting before that.

I am sure a lot of painters felt the same way - what's the point reproducing painstakingly a sunset when you can simply take a snapshot of it with one push of a button.

Once the first shock and denial passed, people found new purpose for painting, others went to photography and never looked back. Same here... it will depend in the end of what you are really trying to do and what tools you use to best get to the result you want.

That being said... we should wait and see how this tool will handle in real life situations.

This is a tech demo... an amazing one but still a demo.

I will reserve my judgment until I get my hands on it and play with it for a while.

I have been disappointed many times before by softs that looked amazing in demos and didn't live up to their expectations.

Quote - The way I see it - it is possibly the arrival of a new generation of tools that will change the way we do things. Just like SLR changed Photography, and Photography changed Painting before that.....

Good points. All of them. However, the one thing different here may be whether these new tools are accessible to all artists or only proprietary toys for shoot-em up game company artist? Interesting roads ahead huh? Makes one also wonder if culture defines are or if art defines culture (or maybe a bit of both?). btw, how does one edit a post. I wanted to my my url into a clickable link but I can't do it.

To make a url clickable, just highlight it and then click on the little planet with the chain on it right above the window and enter the url.  It can be the same but it will become clickable.

Quote - I have been disappointed many times before by softs that looked amazing in demos and didn't live up to their expectations.

So true.  I bought vue 6 infinite based on it's animation demo reel.

This is a thread about Crysis and real-time scenes editors.

Please do not turn it into another running commentary about Vue or e-on.

Why is there such a vast dividing line between art and games? Why aren't our art tools more advanced than that of gamers? Seeing this, I feel like I'm living 100 years ago spending time in Vue. Maybe its because artists are working one-by-one and gamers are working in teams like movie studios? And a single artist on a shoe-string budget is no competition for a 20 million dollar game team. 

Simply because you didn't $500,000 for Vue. As an individual you can buy the CryEngine also, but you need to pay a mere $500,000 for it.

Imagine the power coming our way if this is a game editor guys!  New programs will utilize even more than this and then the results will truly be infinite.  I see it a as a great pre-vue of things to come.

Attached Link: http://www.gametrailers.com/gamepage.php?id=2509

What I did find though is an interview where it was said that the engine is available for licensing, and that licensees will form a 'select club' with privileged support and input into features.

There will be no doubt a very steep entry price into the club, making it reserved for studios and not individuals.

What we can hope is that the technology will eventually trickle in more accessible applications.

Check out the first couple of videos at this link - they are photorealistic, real time renders using the engine in an architectural setting.

Attached Link: http://www.crytek.com/CryENGINE2Features.pdf

I saw the animation of the nuclear explosion last night - I can't wait to see what it looks like in a game.

Quote - This is a thread about Crysis and real-time scenes editors.

Please do not turn it into another running commentary about Vue or e-on.

Gotcha.  No more posts about vue on the vue forum.

haven't been able to find details about the exact pricing - where did you find that $500,000 number ?
That's what the CryEngine 1 costs..... and I'm sure the new one one be much cheaper. Those figures aren't just floating around the net. I've been ino game design for years and when looking for a new 3D engine, I looked into the engines like CryEngine, Havok and some more. Havok is cheaper..... only 10% of what CryEngine costs :-) After looking at my bankaccount, I decided to pass for the CryEngine for now.

Attached Link: Truespace Version 7.5 Realtime modelling and rendering program annoucement

Cute...Forester. And this looks like a promising trend. But I think the Cry 2 Engine brings us closer to the Hollywood movie experience which is what is so striking about it. It gives the "appearance" that modeling has been reduced to storytelling almost. This speed and simplicity, combined with its powerful real-world physics simulation is what makes it most appealing I think. Its just that $500,000 price tag that's still buggin me... But maybe this is just a foreboding of future convergence to come....hopefully in an affordable form.

Well, here's the deal.... For both demos, the models have been built and positioned (and they are 'articulated,' although in two completely different technologies). (If you look vey closely at the first 30 seconds again, you will see that the "road" consists of wedge-shaped sections linked together in linear fashion. Listen to the narrator explain that "we don't want to make these too sharp ... or the edges will become too sharp - i.e. "show.) What we are seeing in both those demos is the "movement" of quite a lot of pre-existing models and of the lighting, and with a little deformation thrown in, ... by a knowlegeable/skilled model-builder using relevant sets of tools for movement, scaling, selecting the joints, and so forth. Essentially, we are looking mostly at "real-time rendering of sets" - we're not looking at "modelling reduced to storytelling." That is, the hard part (that of making the objects, texturing them, placing the relevant articulation into them, and so forth) came first, doesn't show in these two demos, and still remains to be done by somebody before any of this can "happen." I'm only pointing this out because we don't want anyone to feel that they're having a mid-life crisis, have been wasting their time in Vue, all this long time, and that they should just throw themselves over into the gaming world and start all over again.

And synergy, I'm not trying to flog Truespace. "Real time rendering" is a very new collection of technologies - that is only appearing in a few products at the moment. Its just that Truespace is coming out with a new version as we speak, and it happens to include real-time rendering at a great price. In theory, anything that 3d app has to offer (for example, Truespace has had real-world physics simulation for 5 or 6 years now) is available once you have a real-time rendering capability. "The speed and fluidity of motion" is the most impressive thing, I think, and it certainly will help set-builders. But, you probably don't have to go to an enterprise-level game engine to get it. That's the only point I was trying to make.

Quote - I'm only pointing this out because we don't want anyone to feel that they're having a mid-life crisis, have been wasting their time in Vue, all this long time, and that they should just throw themselves over into the gaming world and start all over again.

Ummm....that would be me. Thanks ;-) Yes, I concede that many of the points you make are valid and correct. However, don't kill my fantasy of having this be a preview of the next version of Vue either. Who knows what this may inspire the Vue programmers to do? I think right now, many Vue animators are simply aspiring to re-create the 10 second quality of a Phoul's animations which seems to be so elusive. So its fun to dream....maybe that's my attraction to a virtual 3D world. While the real one goes to pot, the possibilities in a virtual world are seemingly endless (even if elusive for the time being). Thanks for the wonderful models btw. Still waiting to see more of your lovely boats. ;-) Cheers, Greg

The best way to look at the Cry2 set-building demo is that it is an "integration tool" - it is not a stand-alone tool for model-building. You are correct - nothing wrong with us requesting this for Vue7. I'll go with you on that one - that's where we want to place our fantasies. And, thank you for the complement.

Well the terrain-shaping of caves and cliff overhangs was pretty damn cool! Check out 6m45s: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDLTRXV1KHM&mode=related&search= I wouldn't mind that modeling feature being added to Vue. Turning terrains on their side we can do something similar but it requires entering an editing window. So ideas like this seem like interesting possible protype additions for the future (even if it were as simple as editing a "hidden" 2d map in realtime). So I think the best way to look at Cry2 is as a goldmine of possibile ideas that might be emulated or implemented in a variety of ways.

Yes, it was pretty cool. I greatly admired that myself. Hmmmmm, can we paint terrains with Mudbox? As to the rest of this discussion, before any readers get out their e-mail pencils and start firing off notes to e-on software - consider the possibility that real-time rendering probably is going to be just a tad inconsistant with 500,000,000 polygons.

Not if there's a way to scale polygons based on their being in the field of view and close to the camera. I think there's a technical name for this - its used by gamers (LOD?) but I never understood why it couldn't be also implemented for 3d rendering too. At least in the scene setup phase it would be a great way to manage scenes with massive amounts of polys. Ah, but these are the dreams the Vue Engineers should be having. I wonder what they're thinking...

They use LOD... level of detail indeed. but it's not scale polygons, it's a clever trick. Each model has 3 versions. High poly (mind you in game design that's still low 10,000 polys at the most, but often around 5000 polys), med poly and low poly. When the player is close to the model, the high poly version is uded. When he's further away, the medium poly version is used and when the player is really far away, the low poly version is used.

In theory this could be implement in application as Vue and Poser, since they use phyton scipts. One could write a phyton script that controls the versions of models used in reference to the used camera. The further away from the camera, the lesser poly version is used.

The Cry Engine editor was available free of charge with Far Cry and is great fun. It makes building new game levels a doddle and with some work to change the animations/textures could be used to create whole new games.

The 'licence fee' for the engine is if you want to produce and sell a commercial game or application.

The Cry Engine 2 editor appears almost identical in functionality to the 1st editor but obviously includes the higher capabilities of the new engine. I would expect to see this being available free with the game as the 1st editor was. The 'mod' scene is a large part of PC gaming these days and by releasing such editors either free or at low charge, they widen the appeal of a particular game and extend the lifespan of such a game quite considerably.

With the increased quality of the new engine, I wouldn't be surprised to see this editor being used beyond games though. With very little work it could be used for architectural visualisation, but it would require extensive work (to build the characters/props and animations) to be used for something like pre-viz for movies or even for general animation.

Attached Link: http://incrysis.com/crysis/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=169&Itemid=2

Just stunning, the beach is the only image where it is obvious which is which.

This just might be reason enough to upgrade to Vista and buy a DX10 card. :-)

why is people trashing vue not being able to reproduce what it promises???

*This is a tech demo... an amazing one but still a demo.
*I'm fortunate to be on a mod team that has early access to the cryengine2 sdk & engine..it's a very cool engine,easy to use..& visually stunning..I dont think it will have any trouble living up to the tech demos
cant wait to see some other games coming out that use it  :-)

Cheers
Stefan

Quote - Yes, I concede that many of the points you make are valid and correct. However, don't kill my fantasy of having this be a preview of the next version of Vue either. Who knows what this may inspire the Vue programmers to do? I think right now, many Vue animators are simply aspiring to re-create the 10 second quality of a Phoul's animations which seems to be so elusive. So its fun to dream....maybe that's my attraction to a virtual 3D world. While the real one goes to pot, the possibilities in a virtual world are seemingly endless (even if elusive for the time being).

Philippe only has one real 'secret', and he tells it on his webpage; he is a cinematographer. He knows not only -how- cameras move, but what kinds of cameras there are, how they behave, and how you assemble and plan a professional cinema scene. He certainly doesn't have some uber-system able to run 5 iterations of Maya at once (well, he does have access to an uber system where he works now, but I kind of doubt they let him play on it all that much.... :) ). He uses all his tricks in his video tutes he sells at Cornucopia. Try looking at one, only tell your brain that you are dealing with a physical camera, with the same limitations. People are expecting him to be treating the Vue camera as a digital viewing fustrum, and he doesn't. It's a lens and a box with mass, and it has movement limitations due to rigging. =And the camera action in a scene has to be built up in logical layers=. Look at some of his shots it that light. You'll see the only exceptions he takes is being able to go from one rig to another with no break in shot (oh, like doing a long dolly shot along the ground, with the telltale jiggle you see in a fast dolly, then going to an airborne rig with no scene cut). That doesn't mean it is easy; people who have trained their minds to think of an apps camera as the software gimmick unbound by physics that it is are getting tripped up by their own training. Well, look at the CG exterior shots in the new Battlestar Galactica. Those animators are using the same tricks that Philippe does (except for the jerky zooming; must be a rookie on the zoom ring); camera trailing and overshoot because the bloody thing has mass, and it is hard to get moving and stop, plus the the fact you have a delay built into it due to human operation. It takes time for the eye to see, find, tell the brain, which tells the muscles which moves the camera to where it was told....only the object in the viewfinder isn't quite there because it was still moving while all that was going on. So you catch up, then have to stabilize your aim on the object, and things are cool....until it changes speed or direction, and you have to go through the loop all over again.

Yes Dale, I agree with your comments for the most part. Its surprising that so few 3d animators study and utlize cinema movements the way film makers and videographers do. Yet, the end goals are often the same. I have looked into books on this myself and there are very few I could find. It seems that camera motion and cinema direction is something that isn't so easy to teach or capture in words. So aside from experience, I wonder how aspiring film makers and videographers learn these critical skills? And how might 3d animators best learn? I think some of the techniques that Philippe uses go beyond the realm of physical cameras and typical camera motion. For example, his sudden "fly up into action" at the beginning of shots is rather unusual in film other than maybe on gonzo shooting such as with Blair Witch. Yet, its a very interesting move. And his overshoot and oscilation back to the target is also unusual but somehow feels uncannily natural as we tend to do this with our eyes more than with film cameras. Well, it seems this thread has been hijacked (but for a truly good cause) as we continue down the Road of interesting discussion on 3d animation techniques. Well here's an interesting cookie: Check out the "Strada Explained" button in the link below to see how far a real camera crew will go to emulate what we can easily do in 3d. This is very cool: ]http://www.fluid-images.com/

Good catch on the human eye motion; I forgot to mention that one, and its another trick he does use -just- because it feels right to the human eye. And of course he isn't a slave to conventional camera rig limitations; but that is the base he built off of, so he knows the rules that everyone is used to from watching movies and TV, and so knows when he can get away with breaking those rules (a good example of not knowing when to break the rules is in 'I Robot'; the scene where Will Smith is standing at the computer's access panel, shooting NI-5's, and the camera does a tilting 360 loop through the catwalks and support cables. That shot just screamed 'CG!'.....which would be cool for a tech demo, but murder in a flick where suspension of disbelief is rule #1) Probably the easiest method of learning is studying both classic cinema and CG cinema with a good slow and stop capable player. Unless someone writes a Python script that introduces actual camera emulation so people can actually get some hands on experience with how things behave, experience is probably the best teacher, and least available resource out there. Hm. -Could- a Python script be written to introduce inertial effects and friction-based resistances into Vue Infinite's camera controls? Or even better; a coded app that could use all these upcoming realtime render engines to let people see how things actually work.... (there. On topic.... :P ).....

Gotta chime in - these "realtime" game engines are expensive (CryEngine is reportedly $500k, Unreal3 Engine is $350K, etc.) and exclusive (they won't just sell it to little old you and me!) for a good reason - they want to make sure you'll make a good game with their name on the line.

They'll make sure you've done SOMETHING in the games industry, and will make a great game with their technology. Otherwise, if you have zero experience and talent, buy their engines and make a crappy game, SOMEONE will ask, "Well, what engine did you use?"

The reason to make them expensive - you can find investors pretty much ONLY if you have a successful track record - again, better security of a good end product.

Something to note as well - they tout the words "photorealistic" and while they look great (I'm NOT knocking them - really, I'm NOT) they are NOT actually good enough renders to replace rendering methods for Hollywood (FX shots, CGI composites, animated movies). There is an almost cartoonish fakeness to them you can't put your finger on but you know it just doesn't look right.

They make my jaw drop with every new demo - don't get me wrong - but you can get better renders out of Vue (or Carrara, or C4D, Max, XSI, Maya, LW, etc.). It takes longer for a reason - even though these engines can claim to do AA and Radiosity, it's quickie methods that are an approximation, and as pointed out somewhere above, the textures are low res (and constantly repeating - this saves memory and processing power), and the models are low-poly (relatively - from a distance they look great, but close up...).

These are awesome engines, but not going to replace the slower non-realtime methods anytime soon.
-Lew ;-)

Agreed with that.

What interests me with this particular one, is how much they push the envelope of 3D live editing of scenes.

I wonder how long before we can see this level of immersion in 3D editors, with live 'fake' shadows, lighting approximations, LOD, voxel terrain sculpting, animated shaders, etc...

Imagine a future version of Vue with this kind of editor and a final - Render' - step to generate a high definition, slow render of the scene.

Vue's OpenGL preview is a step in this direction but we are still very far from this kind of immersive editing.

Hehe - if they came out with V7 TOMORROW and it had that terrain sculpting in the video - without having to go into an editor, and possibly being able to do overhangs and caves (more than just basic height) I'd whip out my credit card like it came out of a holster!

Mudbox - someone asked above - YES you can model terrains. You can model anything you want and export it as an OBJ. I LOVE doing that for terrain chunks and odd rock formations for Vue to render!
-Lew ;-)

I think were Vue is lacking and the others are not is the maximising of the GPU not the CPU, Vue only uses the CPU for rendering and the GPU for OpenGL pre-view, yet the GPU is far superior for rendering especially now DirectX 10 enables many realtime effects, NVidia has all the libriaries for free if any programmer wishes to integrate them into their program, they even have a free renderer called Galaxo on their site, just check-out their demos, real-time hair underwater, realtime SSS, realtime HDRI etc etc., the GPU is the way forward and has been for the last few years for games companies, some great reasoning on this thread. Chris.

Yeah, it would be nice if Vue got on board the GPU train - we spend truckloads of money for the best graphics cards we can afford and are only able to use the CPU for rendering in most 3D programs.

I have the option of installing a 2nd graphics card - if Vue were able to do that I'd have my own built-in render farm!

Aahh, to dream...
-Lew ;-)

GPUs used in a 3D software before. The only applications of the GPU I have seen so far are still exprimental.

Do you have examples of other apps using GPUs to accelerate rendering ?

Attached Link: http://www.art4all-all4art.com/News/article/sid=14.html

Impressive :)

I didn't know we were that far along with the use of GPU. I have to get from under my rock more oftent.