Black and White will be great!

Be sure to check out Halo at bungie.com too!

I read the review that Games Domain put up ( and the interview with P. Monelex ). It sounds truly amazing. Just the thought of been able to see the whole town and then smothly zoom in to the point where you can see a worm coming out of the ground just baffles me.

It really ain't fair but to think that I have to wait longer to play it then you do. Australia always gets software after America, Japan, etc.

Ah well, I guess I better stop boring you with my pointless opions on things...


~Spike

You can contact me at
luke_howard@dingoblue.net.au



Edited by - Spike on 4/18/00 8:26:33 PM

I am taking a shot in the dark, but i am guessing that they use MRM (multi-resolution meshes) for the objects. At a far distance, an object could have 100 polygons so the user sees the object. At a closer distance the object could have 1000 polygons. Of course there would be steps between, but i think you get the idea. It would allow the camera to zoom in on a worm, but you could still see the town in the background (or whatever).

I am still really baffled about how they make the terrain look so smooth and perfectly lit (same with halo). Any ideas on how thats done?

Terrain is generated from a heightmap (basically a huge bitmap that looks like grey black and white splotches on it. the darker the area is, the lower it is and the lighter it is the higher it is. The heightmap is used to create the polys that define the world. depending on your LOD set forth, the engine uses more or less polys to define the terrain. Along with a smart smooth feature that applies more polys to areas that need it and adds anti aliasing, it makes it look real nice :D

as far as being able to zoom all the way in to see a worm on an apple, this is rather simple. the farther you move away from an object (i think it excludes terrain for this calculation cause it has its own LOD engine) the less polys it uses to draw it AND the smaller it gets. this way, when you''re way up high, you are rendering mostly terrain. and as you get closer you render less terrain and more objects. etc etc

the technology used in the game is fairly standard nowadays, the application of it is extraordinary tho, the whole concept that black and white is setting forth is something very new and sweet that i will definately want to experiment with.

Peter gets kudos on this one, even if the game isn''t done, the design is genius.

-Nfinity

That Height map business, is that how the terrain on Drakan Order of the Flame was made? I was just wondering how long it would take to make the levels on that game the other day when I was considering the mountains.

"Born of a Broken Man, but not a broken man."

Drakan was either made that way, or with a similar technique. Height mapping terrain is easy, fast, economical, and fun :D

just take a 512x512 bmp, goto photoshop and swirl some paint around, soften, blur, add random noise, blur again, then import into your favorite 3D rendering engine that supports heightmaps. WildTangent/Genesis3D had a few nice features such as auto generating terrain and even creating the bitmap for it, grass on low levels, rock on medium and snow/ice up high, quite nice.

and modifying wasn''t a pain either, if you want a gully just take your photoshop "darken" tool and carve one out

-Nfinity
Technology 0wnz m3

Thanks Nfinity
I had a look at the Drakan level editor and I had no idea what was going on. I get it now...

"Born of a Broken Man, but not a broken man."

Very amusing how all the monsters'' (e.g. the lion''s) genetalia got edited out between the concept sketches and the screenshots

Nice game, that Black & White I have to say it may be an overall rehash of populous with some added features, it adds some nice new gimmiks to make it worth a play. Man I just wish he''d bring out a Magic Carpet 3