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Infinity Engine...from space to planets surface...no load times!?

Sins of a Solar Empire has something like this, where you can quickly zoom in and out from closeups of individual small ships to wide views of multiple star systems.
 
Memory versus Detail

In order to accomplish this with no load times, you need a shitload of RAM in your system as well as your GPU to accommodate basically the entire game's worth of art assets. CPU power is also a secondary concern in non-static environments as you'll need enough to handle any "hidden" AI whether you're looking at it or not in order to keep the game in sync.

Best example I can give you is Ultima 7. Yeah, not 3D. Yeah, not transitional. However the entire world was running with full AI no matter where you were in the game. NPC's were going to sleep at night and going to work in the morning whether you were half-way around the world or not.
 
Dang, those community modders really improved the Infinity Engine. It does not even look like Baldurs Gate anymore.
 
dunia engine can do it too, Though i would think,most engines that load levels on the fly should as well, GTA iv, Oblivion..etc does kinda similar, loading consistantly as you travel. It comes down more to game design than anything.
 
I love how people who dont know about 3d CG can dismiss demos because it looks like a previous game or has some feature that was sort of implemented before. The demo/trailer may not have "ohh'ed and awe'd" you but it doesn't mean that there isn't something significant going on under the engine.

For those who didn't read the demo specs, the planet descent footage was done on an old athlon 3500 and ati x800(i'm assuming real time or it would be meaningless). There are no levels to load because it is a procedurally generated terrain. The surface of the planet is a basic sphere which is subdivided(or tessellated for you johnny come latelys) and a displacement map is applied to create the mountains. That map is generated by fractal noise algorithms that can be expressed as a few number settings on the noise generator, eliminating the need for a colossal model mesh or even a color map as the fractal generator can do color effects. The memory savings can be significant enough to allow you to devote resources to other things like the ships.

this level of procedural modeling was available 8+ years ago, but there was a cpu hit taken as it takes a fair bit of computing power to make the noise data and convert it into the final render. Given the power of available now with duals and quads(or even gpu compute), something like this could be done viably.

the developer of the engine seems to be pushing ahead, not a whole lot of updates on their site since 2008, but there are completion percentages on the assets.

Based on a quick browse of their site, I have to say I'm not optimistic about their prospects. the art style aspires to be like the stuff from conceptships.org, but they are relying on some fan submissions to round out the ship lineup. It makes for a motley assortment of art/design styles. Releasing a space mmo with STO out now(not to mention EVE), seems questionable.
 
I don't think you need a shit load of ram; I believe the trick is vector representation of the data so you can do transformations as you zoom in and out. The trick is optimization of the vector translation.

Could be wrong but I think that's the approach.

SunnyD said:
Memory versus Detail

In order to accomplish this with no load times, you need a shitload of RAM in your system as well as your GPU to accommodate basically the entire game's worth of art assets. CPU power is also a secondary concern in non-static environments as you'll need enough to handle any "hidden" AI whether you're looking at it or not in order to keep the game in sync.

Best example I can give you is Ultima 7. Yeah, not 3D. Yeah, not transitional. However the entire world was running with full AI no matter where you were in the game. NPC's were going to sleep at night and going to work in the morning whether you were half-way around the world or not.
Click to expand...
 
you2 said:
I don't think you need a shit load of ram; I believe the trick is vector representation of the data so you can do transformations as you zoom in and out. The trick is optimization of the vector translation.

Could be wrong but I think that's the approach.
Click to expand...
For a really big world/universe, you'd still need somewhere to put all those vectors for AI purposes. Unless there is no AI out there. And in a modern 3D engine, there's a lot more than just a vector that needs to be loaded.
 
aka1nas said:
X3 does the "entire galaxy loaded at once" concept as well, though they don't have planetary landings.
Click to expand...



All good games, but the interface left a lot to be desired. I was absolutely hooked on the first X2.


Ever since playing the original WC games, and the Privateers, I've dreamed of games that created an actual world you could explore, adventures to find. Fly from one solar system to another and fly over their planets.

We simply moved past that kind of dreaming in video games I think and in many ways our industry has become that of Hollywood vs. the garage studios of old.

There are still some visionaries, but they are few and far between.
 
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