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Poldano wrote:

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Flatfingers wrote:

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SWG-Goliath wrote:

Modular housing sounds cool at first glance, but the real problem is how we set up houses and other interiors in the game. In order to seperate the house from the rest of the world and thereby making the game more effectaint we use a portal system. when you step from the world into the house, you walk thru a portal. Each portalted room is called a cell. The cells have to line up perfectly, and the custom lighting i do has to match from room to room, or there is a huge and ugly pop when you step between them. In addition there is flooring issues as each cell has its own floor. those floors have to also match exactly or you cant cross thier bounderies.

 

cell

  |_ mesh

  |_ floor

  |_ portals

  |_ Lights

 

Bottom line is that from an art perspective player created modular housing would be extremely buggy and unpredicable assuming it even worked at all.  Our game in its current state isnt set up for this level of customisation in housing.

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Mucho thanks for the insight, Goliath.

I manage the development of some fairly complex software in my day job. There's been more than one time a developer has come to me with a great idea that I've had to nix, as it would have meant our customer didn't get three other things that weren't as cool but could be implemented in less than a year and didn't require a PhD in particle physics. Those decisions aren't popular, but sometimes a system is just too complicated to enhance without a complete (and expensive) redesign.

So I won't pester further for modular architecture, even if it is one of my favorite ideas. I would like to offer a suggestion, though.

It sounds like designing a house is still a very manual process that requires a lot of tweaking and adjusting to get things to look and work right. It's not clear whether you feel this iterative process is a valuable part of the artistic/creative capabilities you bring to your work, or if you regard all the tweaking as frustrating techie stuff you just have to endure to get a particular artistic effect. Either way, it sounds very labor-intensive.

The good news is that it also sounds like you understand the rules of the process. (Cell openings and floors must line up; fixed lighting must be consistent between cells; etc.) If your Tools group (do you still have a tool development group?) ever decides to make your life easier by improving your house construction tools to include functions that apply these rules for you (like a "snap-to" function), I like to think it might be possible to create similar functions in the Live code for players to use.

There's no question that a DIY house construction feature would result in some truly ugly houses -- technical ability doesn't imply aesthetic ability! And of course there'd be people who'd perversely enjoy competing in a "Build The Ugliest House" contest. But knowing the rules of what makes a house "work" -- the things that make a house minimally functional even if it's not beautiful -- should mean that those rules could be implemented in code so as to prevent buggy houses from ever being constructed. If it's not valid according to the design rules, the system won't even let you create a blueprint schematic. You just (just!) have to make sure the design rules prevent all the designs that would break the game, without being so draconian as to stifle innovative designs.

Sure. No problem.

The payoff might not seem worth the effort. The thing is, there's no question that there are plenty of people still playing SWG who would happily pay for a creative, exploration-oriented feature like modular architecture. For that matter, while this wouldn't quite be a "modding" feature, it's similar... and the popularity of modding suggests that there could be a significant number of people who don't currently subscribe to SWG who would do so if it offered a true "builder" feature.

That's a big "if," of course. All I'm suggesting is that if you ever get house design tools to make your life a little easier, I'd hope to see those tools also migrated into the game itself.

Regardless, thanks again for all your effort, and for the great communication. Be assured that for every critic, there are a bunch of us you don't hear from because we're out enjoying your work.

--Flatfingers

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Thanks, Flatfingers. As another long-time software guy, I was kind of offended by some of the comments that creation of the bunker house took way too long. I really had to restrain myself from absolutely flaming the first person who said it. You kind of indirectly dealt with that whole line of reasoning. I can really relate to the scenario described by Rogue_5 and Goliath; I've done the same kind of thing myself on several occasions, and I've had to nix many of my own "great ideas" (IMAO, at least) in order to keep to schedule or avoid risk of unacceptable unintended side effects. Maybe 5% of product creation is the actual creative work, the rest of it is the grind of making it all happen.

That being said, I think one of the undesirable side effects of modular housing is an increase in lag. This will be particularly true if the exterior skins are modular. I made the same comment in response to the same (or nearly the same) proposal in the architect forum several months ago. The reason for the increase in lag comes from the need to download and/or arrange lots of custom shapes, compared with the current "fixed" skins whose images can be stored client-side.

I mentioned at the same time that I thought the lag problem would not be nearly as bad if exterior skin shape was not modifiable, but if internal layout was at least partly variable, and if exterior color and texture could be customized. I have not heard whether I guessed right or not.

Saego, Master Architect, Wanderhome.

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I believe a review of the comments in the Architect forum would find that we've long given up on the idea of external skins within this engine being modular, but the insides of the skin could be modular without affecting players until they load the structure.

Fivo Asia

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SWG-Goliath wrote:

I have seen some people wondering what takes so long in creating a new structure for SWG and I wanted to explain what it is we do when we create a new structure or ship.

 

The first thing we have to do is get a concept for the exterior of the house and maybe one for the interior as well. A concept artist will spend a few days working on this and it will go through several stages before its actually finalized. Next it will be given to an artist like myself and Ill spend approximatle 40 days creating the ooutside and inside. there are several tasks when creating an interior/exterior house or ship

 

• creating mesh
• creating textures (including effects like normal maps and specularity)
• pre-lighting each room
• adding character lighting
• adding floors
• adding other technical components

 

After this is all done, we put it through a review phase where several other artists will look over the assets and make sure they work properly. If anything is broken I will have to go back over it and fix any issues. then it is re-submitted for a second review. Once it passes the review it is exported and a designer has to work on it.

 

Designers will need to add things like terminals, repair points, chairs and any other objects called for in the design. they will also need to make sure that it works in the world and that the turrets, engines, thrusters, guns, signs and any other additional items funtion and fit. all together it can take over 2 months from start to finish to bring a new ship or house into the game. Thats one artist taken up for 40 days and a designer taken up for additional days to bring it in.

 

The bunker I made recently was an exception to the rule and I was able to finish it slighty faster then previous things I have made like the Y-8 and ARC170. In the case of the bunker I was asked to use the pre-exsisting mustafar bunker exterior. that saved me alot of time in mesh and textures. I also designed the interior from my own concepts so I didnt need a concept artist. all of this shaved my art time down to about 25 days. The house is now in the stage where it is being prepared for the game by designers. When it finally gets into the game it will still be 40+ days of development however.

 

Hopefully this sheds some light on what me and the other artists do from day to day to bring you the Star Wars experiance

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Stronghold wrote:

so in all of this is there any chance of the bars in our homes and yachts being able to have items placed on them because a empty bar is not very inviting although i do have to say the addition of beer taps in the bunker is very nice now if only i could have glasses and such to put on the bar

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Message Edited by built2shred on 10-24-2005 02:57 PM

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built2shred wrote:

UnbanCire wrote:

Yes, that is, if Publish 24 ever comes out.
Been over 3 weeks on TC now.. /cry

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Lets see you guys complain when they rush a publish from TC to Live with bugs, then you complain if it stays on TC to long to get rid of the bugs..

 

There's NO pleasing you guys....   Seems all you guys want to do is @itch regardless of what its about.  I think people are using these forums to release stress from the real world, and being SWG has its faults its an easy target for them.  I mean if you hate this game so much how come you guys are still playing?   Lot of people say WOW is an awesome game, have you visited there forums lately? lots of flames towards the Dev's on that forum also.  No game is perfect ...

 

All i know is I remember the first MMO Ultima online and regardless of what anyone says SWG MMO has come a long way since that game.  

 

P.S. this reply was not directed solely at UnbanCire.   It's kinda of a general respone to all those who constantly complain and give no constructive input.

Message Edited by built2shred on 10-24-2005 02:57 PM

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You're not kidding.  I do think that people have the right to complain, seeing as how they are paying for this game on a monthly basis, but it is extremely irritating how whenever there seems to be some sort of constructive discussion, debate, or even critisizm, it seems like one of those flamers pops his head in and says something like:

Blah, blah, SOE is a ripoff, blah, blah, cancelling all fifty of my accounts...  blah, blah, all you that stay are suckers!.... blah, blah...

Really, that's not too far from some of the posts that I've seen, LOL.

For some reason, I just have to think that posts like that do not really inspire the DEVs to spend their time trying to communicate with the community.  Oh well.