Andrew Meiggs tech demo, tech Q &A, 4/17

binskki

For those who have technical questions about Camelot Unchained development:

A lot of interesting information about development of the engine, overall tech design, and tech Q &A,  as well as an engine demo featuring 500 models and particle effects.

http://www.twitch.tv/citystategames/videos

(two parts)

Part I - 10:58

Part II - 34:12

gylnne

Thank you for posting this.:) The game engine is coming right along and is exciting to see it handle so many players and effects at one time.

mmoski

Yeah its good too see him talking about the technical aspects, much respect, i really do hope they get the funding.

binskki

If anyone missed it, there was also a livestream interview with Mark Jacobs right after the Andrew interview; interviewer questions followed by questions from folks on live chat;.  Tons of insight into what they are thinking about/working on for actual gameplay mechanics:.

There were...I think 600-700 people on during the interview (?  correct me if I am wrong), and about 350 hung around for the chat Q&A afterwards.  (Andrew returns at the end of the Q&A, too.)

Mark Jacobs -  interview, followed by questions from live chat
"Camelot Unchained, Episode 3"

Part I - Interview with Xirrin and Gondram, 1:27

Part II - Q&A with livestream chat, 58:50

http://www.twitch.tv/oppositionpodcast/videos

 

skyrek

Thanks for the links.  I didn't get a chance to catch them last night. 

Hjamnr

Those were some good streams.  I especially liked the Q&A after the podcast.

binskki

Also, if anyone wants to see some Q & A on gameplay, etc, but can't watch podcasts right now,  this is a compilation of questions MJ has been asked on Kickstarter, with his answers...decent place to start:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/16WfZQbGhBg8m6IrdO9iEE4diMQp-3C0xV61ZbJ2QvaA/edit

SmudgePudge

They were a lot of fun to watch. Andrew was Livestreaming and running the tech demo on a 2011 comp and at one point the combination of the two (tech demo and livestream) literally crashed his computer lol. What I was really happy to see is that no one freaked out in the Twitch comments - everyone realizes it was a two week old game engine showing 500 models ALL with sprite effects, while trying to Livestream on a relatively old computer.

It was just fun to see a developer so raw and unedited. If they had a 'Marketing Department' I'm sure someone would have fallen out of their chair and pulled the plug at that point. They are being completely upfront with us and showing us SUPER early stuff. I think at one point Andrew said he figured he had coded about 5% of the total engine lol.

binskki

Originally posted by SmudgePudge

They were a lot of fun to watch. Andrew was Livestreaming and running the tech demo on a 2011 comp and at one point the combination of the two (tech demo and livestream) literally crashed his computer lol. What I was really happy to see is that no one freaked out in the Twitch comments - everyone realizes it was a two week old game engine showing 500 models ALL with sprite effects, while trying to Livestream on a relatively old computer.

It was just fun to see a developer so raw and unedited. If they had a 'Marketing Department' I'm sure someone would have fallen out of their chair and pulled the plug at that point. They are being completely upfront with us and showing us SUPER early stuff. I think at one point Andrew said he figured he had coded about 5% of the total engine lol.

Yes...it's really cool to see a glimpse of this kind of development from the inside out.  I have no tech background at all, but have been involved in overall design for other (non-game) projects and presentations, so all this transparancy in the development process is totally fascinating to me. 

tlear

Andrew is awesome, interesting to know that server will be in C# while his faourite language currently is F# I wonder why he did not want to use it, probably issue with hiring people who know it.

binskki

Plus, you've got to love the ridiculous hats...LOL.

BeansnBread

So um, did anyone else notice that there were incredible frame rate drops when the screen got close to the fire effects? Or that there was never actually 500 people on the screen at one time? Or that 500 people on the screen is 9500 less than the last "demo?"

binskki

Originally posted by colddog04
So um, did anyone else notice that there were incredible frame rate drops when the screen got close to the fire effects? Or that there was never actually 500 people on the screen at one time? Or that 500 people on the screen is 9500 less than the last "demo?"

Thanks for pointing that out, colddog - I thought that  was interesting, too.  During the podcast, Andrew answered that exact question about the frame rate drops, because of course many people on chat noticed it as well.  To paraphrase, he said that because as the camera passed through the smoke column the engine was tracking a large number of layers of smoke particles, all moving.  He said that would obviously be optimized in the final engine, but hadn't yet because he had just begun coding the particle effects on Sunday. (!)

The most recent demo before this one also had approx 500 unique iterations of the two (12K-triangle) character models as well. 

The demo with the 10K models was the initial one he tossed up right when the Kickstarter began as a visual example of what their priorities were and why they were building their own engine instead of using an existing one - smooth combat experience for very large numbers of players > anything else in this project, which is why they are already bashing away at improving framerate just a couple of weeks into the project.  You may remember that the 10K one used a model from March on Oz (much lower number of triangles), and that he had only spent 24-36 hours coding the beginning of the engine before he showed that one.  Andrew was very clear about that in his first update - video is here, if anyone is interested.:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/13861848/camelot-unchained/posts/444733?ref=email&show_token=1d97ab4e142652bc&play=1#video

 

cwtrex

Thanks for the overview of the engine demo's binskki.  I'm hoping they'll have some weather and terran in before the Kickstarter ends.  I know he said his next step was networking.  Not sure if in reality he'll be working on all 3 aspects for a grand finale in 2 weeks.  Either way, I love seeing his progress with every update and I especially love him explaining what we see such as why the smoke causes huge framerate drops due to not being optimized.  All very good stuff.

binskki

Originally posted by Tierless

Your like a one man rock band of linkage, I thank you.

LOL, Tierless.

Drakynn

I tihnk if they made the "Ranged Duck Weapon" a Kickstarter bonus they'd get more pledges!

collekt

Originally posted by Drakynn
I tihnk if they made the "Ranged Duck Weapon" a Kickstarter bonus they'd get more pledges!

Ahahaha. I'd certainly up my pledge amount if I could shoot ducks at my enemies .