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WOOT! Go Pix GO!!!
You did good dude!!! 
http://www.military-training-technology.com/article.cfm?DocID=726
This roundtable discussion begins an exploration of these new technologies with insights from the best possible sources—some of the game industry experts who actually created some of these technologies
Included are responses from three experts at top game developer studios who each have a decade of experience working with and developing new game technologies, with a focus on creating massively multiplayer online games (MMOGs): Vincent Pourieux, CEO of VWorld comments on real-time 3-D terrain generation technologies; Dennis Robinson, lead developer at Magic Hat Software, addresses artificial intelligence (AI) technologies; and Laurent Paret, CEO of Paret Productions, looks at audio technologies.
Q: How do MMOG technologies differ from other game technologies such as used in Microsoft’s Xbox and PC games currently used in military training?
Vincent Pourieux, CEO of VWorld: The main point is that MMOG technologies are massive, so they allow huge and complex true-to-life simulations. The greater immersion effect you can get in MMOGs is particularly well suited to the needs of military training programs. I don’t think classic video games, such as “Quake/Doom”-like video games, offer such a high degree of realism in terms of size, graphics, AI, sound effects or server capabilities. Our technologies lay the foundation for the next generation programs dedicated to military needs—massive [or modestly massive] military training programs.
Q: Can you give us brief examples of what your engine can provide, so that readers will have a better understanding of how this technology can be used to train military personnel specifically?
Pourieux: Our technology, called VWorldTerrain, is a realistic terrain simulation technology, including weather-system management. We’ll be showing VWT in booth 64 at the I/ITSEC show in Orlando in December. VWT allows the real-time rendering of massive, but very accurate, worlds by using satellite databases, so that you get distant horizons with foregrounds down to one-centimeter precision. Soldiers can therefore train in a true-to-life landscape, with changeable, seasonal weather conditions and actual time. After action review is facilitated by the capacity to go forward and backward in time.
Q: When evaluating MMOG engines, what are the two most important criteria for determining if they are valid and legitimate? What are the two criteria that, if missing or poorly done, should disqualify them from further consideration in the evaluation process?
Pourieux: The two good points are as follows—technologies must present top quality realistic effects. When moving in a city for example, you need to see the exact location, size, aspect, color of the buildings. You need to hear realistic sounds, which might help decide if you may go on this way or choose another direction in addition to the engine’s ability to be easily integrated with other technologies.
The bad points are not all technologies are well suited for massive needs, [size of the world for a client engine, or limitation in the number of users in the same area for a server engine, etc.] and not all engines are easy to implement or use, and some have little or no possibility of customization
Q: What are the two biggest problems or pitfalls to watch out for in developing an MMOG?
Pourieux: Make sure there is not a big difference between client/server capabilities. If your client engine can display huge, very realistic worlds but your server can only manage 100 users in the same location, it doesn’t work.
Make sure your project is in line with the technical capacities of each customer’s PC. PCs can be fairly different in terms of hardware. If one can display lots of details, and the other can’t because of a low-performance CPU/video card, it can considerably modify the customer’s perception of the game and it will ruin the game play.
Q: Do you have any sneak peeks at what your MMOG technology might be able to do for military training in the next, say, 18 to 24 months that it can’t do now?
Pourieux: We are planning to put the emphasis on the rendering of cities. Three years ago, we made a demo of a big city, using very accurate aerial databases with a resolution below 50 centimeters. Our goal is to offer a very fast, efficient method of city integration, as we do now for the terrain and weather system using satellite databases.
This roundtable discussion begins an exploration of these new technologies with insights from the best possible sources—some of the game industry experts who actually created some of these technologies -- uh gee, I thot Farlan created it???? LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL
LOLOLOLOL He dont need no stinking Farlan LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL hats off to ya _Pix_. Very impressive.
Comments
About time you posted something fun/cool
Nice write up on his engine, even a bit on DnL's sound system
Keep it up
"He dont need no stinking Farlan"
no one will touch that vworld stuff. the association with farlan/dnl will make the real deal people stay far away. theres way too many other big name options out there to license out for mmo's that don't carry anyk inda "stigma" with them.
dude you missed the whole point of the post.
Edit: As well as the fact that since that article is dated Dec 2004 - with yet another release date that was missed btw - read carefully the things that are needed in order for this kind of technology to work and run fine. Obviously with the 2 year delay in Farlan announcing that the weather effecting armor, the druids losing the control the weather selling point, they have also not found,harnessed nor finessed the engine technology well enough to handle the big dreams. _Pix_'s creation, in the hands of the right gaming company will simply blow most games in the dirt. heh as well as the seed used in much much more than a silly mmog. Go _Pix_ and fly as high as you can!
Gosh... thank you for the good words, LilBoPeep. I was asked to answer these MT2 questions just before my company VWORLD came to I/ITSEC, Orlando, in december 2004. HR made also an aticle on the subject.
As to Laurent Paret, you are right. He is one of the main shareholder of NPCube (FYI, NP3 = NPPP N = Nazaret, who is the Loona developer guy, P = Paret , sound designer, P = Pelisson, Art director and u know the last P. Now we may say NP since the last 2 P left in 2004). Laurent has a web site presenting his company, ParetProductions http://www.paretproductions.com/ but it seems that since 2004 the website hasn't changed much.
No, it's not only a flight sim
Current Work In Progress
No, it's not only a flight sim
Current Work In Progress
No, it's not only a flight sim
Current Work In Progress
hey my pleasure!
But clarify for me then. The Art Director and the terrain guy(you) both left in 2004. But the sound guy and the loona guy is still there? So the new art director (is there one?) and the new terrain tech guy (is there one?) are the ones that cant figure out how to make it work? (or get into your super-secret-never-before-seen-should be sent to the UN for security for the world-uncrackable code? ....Farlan claiming they cant get into your code) Or get the engine to be able to work with the technology that they claim to have developed that they dont know how to use?
Wow WTG _Pix_! But hows come it says there that you created it??????? OMG! You mean,,...you mean....you cant mean.....theres ANOTHER article out there where they in fact acknowledge your creation?????? OMFG! LOLOLOL
Good show Lilbopeep! Gratz to you _Pix_! Loved the article and I too think it made quite a bit of sense. It also sheds a little MORE light on why they cant seem to get their own "creation" working LOL
I just saw a post by soemone that linked an old intrview about D&L.
It has some excellent post made in it for those Anti-_Pix_ people:
I the original interview was posted here: http://www.the-junkyard.net/interviews.php?action=viewinterview&id=39
and it was posted here where I stumbled upon it: http://www.darkandlight.net/forums/showthread.php?p=1020698
This is my favorite part of the junkyard interview:
tJY: Can you tell us a little bit about NP Cube and it's history in the gaming industry?
Laurent: Well, NP Cube was founded in August 2002 by 5 people, with 4 of them coming from the video game industry. One
of them, Cesar Jacquet – CEO, comes from the IT industry. In fact, this
is him who gathered everyone to form NP Cube. The other founders are
Christope Nazaret - Programmer, Vincent Pelisson - Art Director, and
Vincent Pourieux - Programmer. Everyone had his own experience and has worked in the same company but never worked all together until now. Cesar
came to Vincent Pourieux (aka Pix to differentiate from Vincent
Pelisson, aka Plis) 2 years ago and presented a project that was to
become Dark and Light. Pix started to talk to Cesar closer after Cesar saw the terrain rendering technology Pix was developing. As a visionary, Cesar quickly saw the advantage of such a thing to create a bigger, greater idea than the original one. Then
Cesar talked to a couple of his friends who were already involved in
the project back in Reunion Island, where we’re located And they came
up with what is Dark and Light today. Then, Stephane Quilichini, Gilles
Zedde and Frederic Caille designed (mostly in their heads) with Cesar
what Dark and Light should be. And, as far as I know, they brainstormed
a lot. They were all Everquest players and fans and also traditional
RPG players and Game Masters with limited computer gaming development
knowledge. So Pix asked a bunch of guys to work on the project (the 4
seniors), and after a lot of talking everyone decided to move to
Reunion Island to develop the game. Then many other people joined us to
make a solid as a rock team. Today, we have 10 people in house and we
work with 5 to 10 external people for graphics. Two musicians are
involved in the project as well.
Athlon XP1800+, GeForce4 4400, 512MB DDRAM. Are players going to have
to own rigs like this in order to play DnL comfortably and if so,
aren't you afraid that you'll be excluding a large majority of the
gaming community because of this?
Laurent: Moderate and hardcore gamers are our first target audience.
And at the time DnL will be on shelves, this configuration will
certainly be a moderate one.
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My Sager 5760 Review
1st both pix and plis left they're both at vworld now http://www.vworldpowered.com/Gb/GB.htm
2nd about the sys reqs, just shows how long this game has been in development when that kinda stuff was considered medium to hardcore gamer
Just it looks like according to this old interview that if it wasn't for _Pix_ D&L wouldn't have been started at all.
Just considerign all the highlighted, bold & colored parts of the post I quoted above.
He was the cornerstone of the whole project!
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My Sager 5760 Review
hey you got rid of the systems requirements aww
anyways for those that didn't see the interviewer talked about steep system reqs which included a geforce 4, which got the reply that DnL was aiming for medium-hardcore gamers
It must have got removed while I was editing the post to make it look nice and pretty and also to highlight the more important stuff.
FYI:
The thread that I found that link was locked with-in the hour once Serpico logged into the Forums.
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My Sager 5760 Review