What is Digg?63 Comments
- zizzy, on 10/10/2007, -3/+37Congratulations! Now everyone will get to see just how far you get dugg down.
- hockey, on 10/19/2007, -1/+29You can add another to the list easily:
11. Realistic Hair. Amazingly difficult and CPU intensive to do it right (something other than a texture map on a head) - inactive, on 10/10/2007, -2/+23Nice article, not too much text, but not too little. Nice related images, i especially liked the part about fire, you wouldn't expect something so minor to make such a huge difference to the programming difficulty.
- john2kx, on 10/10/2007, -0/+18This only goes to show the ignorance of people who still claim that videogames are not art.
- imikedaman, on 10/10/2007, -1/+15“Viscosity is the difficulty,” says Ron Fedkiw.
Ron Fedikiw has been my hero for years. Check out ssome of the things he made:
http://graphics.stanford.edu/~fedkiw/ - onimusha115, on 10/10/2007, -0/+11Game development is tough stuff. Almost makes the $60 price tag of todays games seem worth while....almost.
But alas, I still pay it. - liquidhalcyon, on 10/10/2007, -0/+9Realistic Grass and Environments.
- decoy18, on 10/10/2007, -1/+1011. Tightening up the graphics.
- Asianwaste, on 10/10/2007, -3/+11This is why the guys always flicker when there's 20 guys on the screen in Contra :P
- inactive, on 10/10/2007, -3/+10You're my hero.
- BobsYourUncle, on 10/10/2007, -0/+7I want to throw people through glass using the Digital Molecular Matter too! Not fair...
- ahatter, on 10/10/2007, -8/+15Saying "first post!' isnt cool on digg.. or anywhere else on the internet for that matter.
- okrayski, on 10/10/2007, -0/+7I wish I could digg you down to infinity.
- imikedaman, on 10/10/2007, -0/+6They want to, but haven't yet. How is that a contradiction?
- inactive, on 10/10/2007, -4/+10I think after Pacman designers got lazy and things haven't really progressed that much.
- h4mx0r, on 10/10/2007, -0/+6Game Developers need much more respect than they get. Even the crappy ones. (Just not as much :P)
- okrayski, on 10/10/2007, -0/+5Lots of really impressive stuff there. Thanks for the link.
- inactive, on 10/10/2007, -3/+7First block
- mookieXL, on 10/10/2007, -0/+4Solution: Option to turn off cutscenes. Too bad very few games have it
- carbonetc, on 10/10/2007, -0/+4When I read the motion capture one, Miranda from the Diamond Age popped into my head. Could you imagine the things that would happen in virtual space if we had massive YouTube-like libraries of user-submitted motion caps?
I'm very glad the game industry has exploded as it has, because it's really driving revolutions in all sorts of fields since the knowledge is so universally applicable. It just makes the future look brighter. I doubt we would gain such practical and indepth understanding of the mechanics of the natural and the human worlds so quickly without all this money being thrown at efforts to simulate them. Gaming isn't the only industry doing this of course, or the richest, but it may be the most all-encompassing. - spindrift, on 10/10/2007, -0/+4There's a reason why sometimes the best-looking games for a console come out during its final decline -- Kirby's Dreamland/NES, Yoshi's Island/SNES, God of War/PS2, and I'm sure there are tons of other examples.
- Krhis, on 10/19/2007, -1/+59. True-to-Life Simulation: Like cramming the sum of all automotive engineering knowledge into a joystick.
So true, so true. - LordSkywalker, on 10/10/2007, -2/+5It should also be noted, "making videogames" isn't just the programming code.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_and_video_ga ... - hockey, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3The holy grail of course is to find a game that does have replay value AND a great story.
Of course there's absolutely nothing wrong with mindless fragging if you've got 20 minutes or so to kill with some UT2003 matches. . . - h4mx0r, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3You are not paying attention if you think that. Game developers DO realize what players want, and some cater to others better than other devs.
- hockey, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3The complexity and the amount of work are not why people leave. People leave because they get sick of companies like EA forcing them to work 16 hours a day 7 days a week (because we can't have Madden delayed now can we). No matter how much passion you have for making games that will burn out ANYONE and burn them out quick.
- imikedaman, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3There are still games that satisfy the urge for mindless violence (God of War, anyone?); it's just that gaming has expanded beyond that niche market these days. The good games with no replay value (those where the story IS the reason to play) usually take like 40+ hours to beat to make up for it.
Most of the time the story is no more than a hollow shell to push the gameplay forward. - dukeochutney, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3Awesome article. Nice to see more of the science behind modern graphics since many articles don't go into depth due to the high level of difficulty.
- blatantninja, on 10/10/2007, -2/+4And prior to Doom, you had games with TONS of story to make up for the basic graphics! IMO, Doom and advanced graphics have really ruined story telling in games. Too many shops think they can design a game, then slap a story into it, when a game should be designed around the story.
- jivemasta, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion is a perfect example of both good story and good replay value. It gives you the choice to go through the story, and at any point, you can just go off and do something else that has nothing to do with the story. Then, you can always restart as a different character and play an entirely different story.
- GaiaAP, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2This complexity (and the amount of work required to deal with it) is a major contributing factor to people not lasting very long in that particular industry. According to the IGDA, programmers last a mere six years on average. Check out http://www.igda.org/qol/open_letter.php - if I sound slightly jaded, it's because I am :)
- SecretPact, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2All you need is an ancient japanese history book + real time weapon change + hitting weak points for massive damage
- nailPuppy, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2Why the hell are they using Need for Speed: ProStreet for the "Real-life Simulation" example? Have they never heard of Forza?
- carbonetc, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2Not all gamers want the same things. Maybe you're buying the wrong games?
- hybridcreation, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2That is exactly what I was going to say!
And yet some people still try to pass off games as kiddie stuff...instead of the interactive entertainment that it is. Why sit and stare at a TV while watching a movie, when you can assume the role of the lead character? - hybridcreation, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2True, but notice the article only used AAA games as reference. There will always be ***** games...and they will never be showcased as prime examples like these.
- inactive, on 10/10/2007, -5/+6Ugh... That concept has ruined gaming for me. So sick of story-telling getting in the way of the action. Back in the day, we had games like Doom. Sure, there was a throwaway story in the readme file, but it really didn't factor into the gameplay. You just went in, and blasted demons. Get to the end of the level, rinse and repeat. Nowadays, I get to the end of a game, and I'm like "Phew, thank goodness that's over," and I'd no sooner replay it than I would read Lord of the Rings twice in a row. If your primary motivation is to find out what happens next, to see how the narrative unfolds, it really kills replay value, not to mention the fact that it seriously hampers your ability to just pick up and play in little five-minute chunks. I wish game developers would realize this.
- Abomonog, on 10/10/2007, -1/+29. True-to-Life Simulation: Like cramming the sum of all automotive engineering knowledge into a joystick.
Been there, done that. Try R Factor. It IS all of automotive engineering knowledge crammed into a joystick.
But physics are a complete bitch. Great physics errors of past games have proven that. Quakes "rocket jumping" and Tribes "skiing bug" are great examples on how early physics sims produced unexpected effects. - JAGUART, on 10/10/2007, -1/+2You would never guess this by judging the budget titles at Wal-Mart
- b2sai, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1with all that mathematicians, physicist and engineers..... no wonder video games are getting more expensive... $70 anyone?
- Frisbinator, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1Don't you just love improving technology? One of the best things about video games: As the years tick by, they look and sound ever prettier.
- inactive, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1RTR is one of those things in life that weeds people out extremely fast. I still have nightmare flashbacks of my teammates in college breaking every single thing I did before submitting it without my approval every single due date.
- inactive, on 10/10/2007, -0/+11) I like how processing power as listed as the most important factor
2) I like how a picture of the Cell processor is shown beside it
I would love if this article stopped people from claiming processing power just affects graphics - djbarney, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1All we need now are some of the classic creative ideas that drive films to be married with this technology (unless you just want to watch war films, or Sci Fi all the time, know what I mean ? Holonovels ?) .
- Kier, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1But sometimes it becomes fun. Tribes Vengeance (great game from the makers of BioShock) uses skiing as part of the gameplay. It's even mentioned in the tutorial. Just hold space ;)
- enakra, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1I want a Mantasuit...
- Tacobake, on 10/10/2007, -1/+1very cool article, if you'll excuse me I've got some 16 hour days ahead of me
don't show it to any of my physics professors, I wouldn't want them to understand how useless they are - smokeyphikap420, on 10/10/2007, -3/+3This will forever be my dream job...
- inactive, on 10/10/2007, -1/+1Just because it's difficult doesn't mean people respect you. I mean, look at all engineering.
- churl, on 10/10/2007, -0/+0Ha ha, you must be talking about the part where Mazerole says “Two of them move and bump into one another, and the two happen to be aggressive, and they begin to fight—that’s when we’ll have turned a corner.” Hilarious. He's obviously being taken out of context, because we "turned that corner" in Doom 2.
-
Show 51 - 63 of 63 discussions
© Digg Inc. 2009
— Content created and posted by Digg users is