A New Competition - The AAA Challenge

not too long ago we had a really decent water compo... lots of really decent entries and examples...

now i propose a new compo...

not meant to distract anyone from their current projects, but i've always had this urge to see if output from Blitz based games were capable of competing with the more expensive game 'engines' out there... the licenses that are just a bit out of the reach of most of us without taking out a second mortgage, or selling a kidney to fund it...

any of the AAA engines out there, bar none, are possible targets... from the Quake Engine or the UnrealEngine, to Unigine, Quest3D, down to the new Lawbringer Engine, from which i posted a shot from recently... anything that costs around $2000 or higher for a real license... or any brand new state of the art game engine that boasts bleeding edge graphics will be in my sights...

seeing as some of us are using BlitzMax/wrappers/other3D apis as their dev platform, it will be only fair to allow anything made from any engine that Blitz has been wrapped for to be used... this includes OGRE, Irrlicht, 3Impact... whatever...

what is really important is the output, the scene running in the engine, and how it compares to the AAA scene in the shot...

to be honest, this is my way of challenging myself to up my skillz a bit... i'm really not happy at all with how my sub thing is looking, and i feel that part of the reason is my lack of graphics expertise... what better way to up my anti than by challenging the big boys...

anyone who is interested, and who has a lil free time, is welcome to join in...

no prizes... (the free license to Aurora has already been doled out... sorrrryyyy :) ) the rules are loose and accomodating...

ok, the first target is something i saw that really got me hot and bothered... a screenshot from a decent looking project that won a compo to get a no money up front license to use Unigine to develop their game with...



can i come close...

(btw, it's only fair to mention that this pic and all rights to it belong to the copyright holders mentioned in the image... if you have a chance, visit their site and check out Unigine as well)

one week starting from this monday will be the drop dead date... i challenge myself to come up with a scene as close to this as can be done with either Blitz3D, or Blitzmax wrapped to another engine, or simply using one of those engines sans 'Max (for those who haven't yet licensed it)...

after monday, we can have a lil post mortem review and judging... then if there is still any interest, the next target will be posted...

--Mike

That doesn't even look all that great? Surely someone with decent art skills can trounce that using just Blitz3D!

I also don't like the scene thaaaaaat much. So I don't feel like wanting to copy it ^^.

Have we to copy that scene? Or can we just create our scene as long as it looks AAA? =)

Some time ago we also had a scene contest in the German community:
http://www.blitzforum.de/forum/viewtopic.php?t=16729
(Fisherman's Wharf is worth a download.... The original download is off, you can download it from http://www.x-pressive.com/FishermansWharf/en/index.html )

I think, an AAA scene challenge is no bad idea but I really don't like the scene.. But alright, it's your compo.. :D

i don't like that scene too. just adding glow-fx to a scene does not make it AAA. i think the blitz community can do it better...

also, i never said that it was a great looking scene...

Jeremy, if it's so easy, then you should have t=no problem doing it... right...

Jenarie... you also don't like the scene that much... muuuawwaaaahhh, muwwaaahhh, sorrry... what would you rather me choose, just tell me, and i'll change it to accomodate your wishes... and while you're at it, tell me what color shirt i should wear, and how i should comb my hair, and a lot of other things i should do, seeing as i exist only to please you...

t3K... if all you see here is a bit of glow, then you might be better off moving on to the next thread...

hulloooo...this is not a mandatory thing guys... and i picked a relatively easy scene for the first one, mainly because i thought that i might be able to do it..

if you aint interested, hey, it's ok... i really didn't think that everyone would jump on the bandwagon anyways...

--Mike

i am interested, but i look at the picture with AAA-eyes. and all i see is a glow effect. the rest is just semi, nothing special (in my opinion). didn't want to offend you. its just my 2 cents.

White square with a red X on it? Sure, I can do better than that... :)

I cant see image...

not really offended t3... really though, if this aint interesting enough for you, then don't waste your time on it... i'm just doing something to try and up my graphics potential a bit... sorry if i sounded a lil gruff up there...

'Stang, NA... right click and show pic... maybe i shouldn't be direct linking to a pic on someone elses site... i'll change that in a sec... i hope they don't mind me using their example as a proof target...

--Mike

don't get me wrong, i like the idea of a AAA Challenge - its just the sample that wasn't very well chosen. give us a AAA picture and we'll see if we can do the same or even better (or worse ;) )

Red..so we have to prepare similar scene like Unigine one you post?

t3... fair enough... i just didn't want to start out with something ridiculously out there... like a scene from Doom3 or the latest UnReal stuff... there's a lot in here for an interesting starter... glow, shadowing, bumpmapping (or detail mapping), decent turturing...

something that wouldn't take up too much time... the next one will be a lil more challenging...

NA... yeah, a scene as close as you can get... doesn't have to be an exact replica... using any blitz tool or an engine that can be wrapped by a blitz tool... basically, no renders from a modeller...

a screenie, and if you want, a sample exe of the scene that people could either fly through or look around in... like the water compo we had recently...

ok, how about this... winner gets to select the next scene from a bigtime AAA engine... along with bragging rights, and our humble worshipping in whatever manner he/she chooses :)

how's that...


--Mike

[EDIT] Okay, this thread seems to be degreading into what is/isn't a 'AAA' title so I'll just recant.

:)

Red, you do realize you're biting everyone's head off lately. I sense intense frustration emanating from your direction.

Oh yeah, quit stalling and finish your sub game...

i'm not bitin' anyones head off... you hear me... d'YA HEAR ME!!!!! ARRRRGGGHH!!!

:)

actually, i'm working on the sub game (Blitz3d) now... cleaning up the model, trying to make the horizon merge with the ocean under varying fog and lighting conditions... changing around the underwater visibility...

hey... question guys... how do you stop a model with different textures from 'flashing' where the different textures meet at far distances (telescopic views)...

thx

--Mike

Actually, I like the rust and the chipped yellow paint quite a bit.

With great difficulty. If the textures were the same, welding the vertices would fix it, but since they're not, it won't. They're z-fighting, I assume. You could try W-Buffer instead. Also try increasing the near setting on CameraView.

Not sure why no one's impressed with the pictures. Perhaps they're seeing things that aren't there. I may be wrong, but I don't think that scene is lightmapped. I think the shadows are stencils ( ie: realtime and will react to the light source ) and I think the lighting is PRT, which is pretty much realtime global illumination. I think that's enough to keep anyone busy for a week ;)

Course I could be wrong on what's what too. I guess we none of us know without seeing it running.

well it looks like they are using cheap, low poly, near to primitive modelling for the scene, slapping on some tiled textures, lightmapped and then rely on real-time lighting to make it look "good".

Not really that impressive and missing all the quality details good game media brings to the table.

... then it shouldn't be too difficult to outdo... should it.

hey, this was only meant to be a fun lil thing... not to stir up the usual controversy that seems to brew here lately... an innocent lil fun diversion...

if you're not interested, then don't waste your time...

--Mike

..I am sure it will be very easy for everyone to create such a scene with same and better quality in B3D since its not 'good' like pro's..but before everyone claiming such a thing, take a look at unigine web site and whole scenery Red just show (its one simplest part), and then make judgement..

That scene could be recreated in Blitz3D very easily with some decent modeling/textures and gile[s]. To take the time to actually do it would be wasteful to me, but maybe someone else might partake.

It's relative easy to create a good looking scene. But it's harder to create an entire Map that looks good. And for a game engine there should be no High Poly stuff. So I'd say for such a compo there must be some kind of a Tris limit per meter. This will make sure the scene would work for ingame conditions. something like 300 Tris per cubic meter (average).

that sounds like a good idea... lets make it so...

--Mike

Red, why don't you just get someone to help with the graphics on the sub demo. just a thought.

just imagine some of the amazing stuff we would see if more coders collaborated with artists. Its not just a question of making stuff next gen with the tech, the guys making the art have to be top notch

I have seen plenty bad artists abuse next gen tools like there is no tomorrow.

good idea about getting some help Ruz... i mean, if i thought that the graphics was that bad as it stands now...

but first, i'd really like to have the opportunity to "abuse some of these next gen tools like there's no tommorrow" for myself...

that's all i'm saying...

and that's just what i'm probably gonna wind up doing...

now you can stick around playing with old school, played out graphics if you like... advising people to get help to improve their work... that's fine and good, but no matter who they get, no matter how nice the visuals are... they just aint gonna compete in a world of games that is typical of the new releases... like Prey for example... Silent Hunter3...

regardless of how much help i get, it'll still look dated in B3D... that's a fact... accept it... otherwise, you are deluding yourself if you think otherwise...

--Mike

Techincally yes. But I'd rather buy a techincally outdated game with a story that I like instead of a top gfx title that makes me think "ok played level 1 and 2, seen it all, nice fx, what's next?"

One thing we don't have, compared to the big producers, that's a lot of money to get in contact with the customers. Even if you have made a game people would like, you still won't reach them with your demo etc. unless you do some "bureau for special plans" stuff. Eg. Make the news talk about it.

ok, I agree that you are never going to get the same results in blitz as the next generation of tools , but you could still produce some really nice looking stuff.

I would love to see what a big studio could do in a month just using blitz tools to create a demo. That would be really interesting.

BTW I was playing outcast the other day for kicks and it still looks really pretty and that is how many years old?

I am of the opinion that all the new bells and whistles are nice, but style is more important to me than complete photo realism.

BTW preys graphics are fairly average in terms of what is out there, but its an engaging game and fun to play with a distinct graphic style.

that would be interesting... i'd like to see that too... unfortunately, i doubt if any of em would take the time... or should i say, waste their time, doing it...

some recent stuff posted by Svenart looks pretty nice... but i just keep thinking how much nicer it would look if...

... oh well, i'm trying to see if i can integrate nvidia's cg toolkit and runtime into torque right now... if i can do that successfully, maybe i can figure a way to get it to work with Blitz3D... maybe...

--Mike

The longer I think about it, the more I believe it's about time some of us should coproduce a biggie, checking the limits. Maybe the rules have to be kind of tuff to make sure it won't end as a fruitless debatte, as usually.

Is this still on ?

no... doesn't appear to have any real widespread interest... and the way it's going, it's looking like it may deteriorate into something that wouldn't be as productive, or fun as the water compo was...

sorry...

--Mike

Well maybe the water thing was more useful for the community. Fotorealism as the main goal isn't really reusable, unless some unknown new tricks are used.

And it's also so darn hot these days :)