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Hey Everyone

Keyblade Master
Dec 30, 2016
794
191
26
Unknown, Unknown
#41
If you don't think there's a problem with the way KHIII and FFVIIR look, there's no way I'm going to convince you that UE4 is a problem. Suffice it to say, I do think there's a problem with the way they look. I think KHIII's graphics only "look like what you would find in a current gen Kingdom Hearts title" insofar as there's nothing current-gen to compare it to outside of itself; the character models in particular look poly-starved, more in line with (first-party) Wii U games than Squenix's PS4 output. And both KHIII and FFVIIR, unfortunately, suffer from "stock UE4 syndrome," which makes them feel more like amateur UE4 remake projects than full-priced Squenix games ever should.

In other words, modding is a terrible solution in this particular case, because the crux of the problem is that it looks like a fan mod in the first place. =P

As common as it is to pretend that trade-offs must inevitably be made between graphics, story, and gameplay, that's not meaningfully true. Different people tend to work on those elements of a game, and if one is bad, reducing one of the other two is unlikely to improve it. Reducing the graphics wouldn't make a game with a bad story and/or bad gameplay better. It'd just result in a game with bad story, bad gameplay, and bad graphics. =P

As for frame rate and frame pacing, UE4 didn't really do much for KH 0.2 in that regard, so I'm not sure why you're assuming that it'll give you what you're looking for. DigitalFoundry's analysis shows that it's got the exact same sort of frame rate/frame pacing issues as FFXV does in spite of the big dip in graphical quality... and it's handling fewer hero characters on screen than KHIII will need to handle.

Even working on multiple titles simultaneously isn't UE4 specific. Squenix is structured such that there will always be multiple teams; the only thing that needs to be done to allow for multiple teams working on Luminous titles is for the Luminous team to be freed up to train/support them.




FFXV isn't the only point of reference we have for Luminous. FFXIV uses a branch (optimized for many character models and lower base hardware), and while its graphical performance isn't anywhere close to FFXV's, it steers just as far clear of the stock UE4 look as FFXV does. The Luminous tech demos -- Agni's Philosophy and Cry -- might not be full games, but they demonstrate the same "scaled-down VisualWorks" look as FFXV itself.

As for KHIII and VIIR, we might not have other Square-part-of-Squenix UE4 games to include in a comparison, but we don't really need to, because it's obvious on even a cursory look that most of those games' issues are shared with UE4 games that use the stock settings (like all those fan-made "HD remake" projects out there).

"Reducing the graphics wouldn't make a game with a bad story and/or bad gameplay better. It'd just result in a game with bad story, bad gameplay, and bad graphics. =P"

Actually with the less resources going to graphics you can work on the gameplay more, as well as the story. Of course you can have a trifecta of terrible there is no denying that, but that doesn't change that you can have pretty games, that aren't great overall, or fail in certain aspects due to trying to push graphics over gameplay thus taking resources away, and making a game that pushes the console graphically, but can't push it gameplay wise since a lot of it's gone to making it look pretty so pushing some pretty intense boss fights might cause it too choke not to mention engine issues and deadlines. I'd rather not XVI go through that where they have to take resources optimizing the engine, as opposed to just making a game that is great in all of it's aspects, especially assuming that the Luminous Engine they use for FFXV isn't the same for XVI.

Agni and Witch cry was running on a gaming PC, that's far above what any console can handle.

Also about that framepacing, I have no idea why the Xbox One version of the game doesn't have these issues, or why in blue blazes 0.2 is having these issues maybe it's a console related thing, because Bloodborne has these issues.
 
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Lulcielid

Warrior of Light
Oct 9, 2014
3,826
2,826
28
Argentina
#42
Actually with the less resources going to graphics you can work on the gameplay more, as well as the story.
Putting more $$$ is not an instant designer(s) flaw eraser. Nor changes what they consider to be good/bad design.
It really baffles my mind and triggers me, where the heck this reasoning comes from?
 
Jun 7, 2014
898
625
Poland
#43
Its funny when even Digital Foundry's 0.2 analysis agrees that the details in visuals are akin to a last generation game. :/

That stings given that KH3's announcement was actually the first current gen project that i legit considered "next-gen".
I legit laughed at that part of the video. That DF guy should seriously go back to PS3 and remind himself how last gen games actually looked.
 
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Ikkin

Warrior of Light
Oct 30, 2016
1,099
1,705
#45
"Reducing the graphics wouldn't make a game with a bad story and/or bad gameplay better. It'd just result in a game with bad story, bad gameplay, and bad graphics. =P"

Actually with the less resources going to graphics you can work on the gameplay more, as well as the story. Of course you can have a trifecta of terrible there is no denying that, but that doesn't change that you can have pretty games, that aren't great overall, or fail in certain aspects due to trying to push graphics over gameplay thus taking resources away, and making a game that pushes the console graphically, but can't push it gameplay wise since a lot of it's gone to making it look pretty so pushing some pretty intense boss fights might cause it too choke not to mention engine issues and deadlines. I'd rather not XVI go through that where they have to take resources optimizing the engine, as opposed to just making a game that is great in all of it's aspects, especially assuming that the Luminous Engine they use for FFXV isn't the same for XVI.

Agni and Witch cry was running on a gaming PC, that's far above what any console can handle.

Also about that framepacing, I have no idea why the Xbox One version of the game doesn't have these issues, or why in blue blazes 0.2 is having these issues maybe it's a console related thing, because Bloodborne has these issues.
Do you really think that video game developers are fungible resources? That you can take a random 3D modeler and give her responsibility for writing part of the story, or take a random engine designer and expect him to excel at tuning gameplay systems? Game development doesn't work that way.

And, to make matters worse, you can't even just hire more story or gameplay people in place of graphics people, because creative work like storytelling and designing game systems often scales very poorly -- "too many cooks in the kitchen" and all that.

What good gameplay systems require is sufficient consideration early enough in the development process to make sure they can be implemented.

Good story -- even assuming skilled writers -- requires either a combination of that and significantly more time for implementation than it seems like it would take, or the absurdly good luck necessary to either implement it or an alternative that's also good.

You can sort of work around those issues by limiting your ambition (without equivalent budget limitations), but at that point, you're not dealing with Final Fantasy anymore.

For the record, Agni was optimized for and shown in a PS4 after its initial display on PC. As for the lack of framepacing issues in the Xbox version of FFXV, DigitalFoundry already explained that -- the game is designed to allow for screen tear near the top of the screen, which does away with the framepacing issue. Presumably, the developers preferred the pacing issues to the tearing, but didn't have as much of a choice on Xbox.
 
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Hey Everyone

Keyblade Master
Dec 30, 2016
794
191
26
Unknown, Unknown
#46
Do you really think that video game developers are fungible resources? That you can take a random 3D modeler and give her responsibility for writing part of the story, or take a random engine designer and expect him to excel at tuning gameplay systems? Game development doesn't work that way.

And, to make matters worse, you can't even just hire more story or gameplay people in place of graphics people, because creative work like storytelling and designing game systems often scales very poorly -- "too many cooks in the kitchen" and all that.

What good gameplay systems require is sufficient consideration early enough in the development process to make sure they can be implemented.

Good story -- even assuming skilled writers -- requires either a combination of that and significantly more time for implementation than it seems like it would take, or the absurdly good luck necessary to either implement it or an alternative that's also good.

You can sort of work around those issues by limiting your ambition (without equivalent budget limitations), but at that point, you're not dealing with Final Fantasy anymore.

For the record, Agni was optimized for and shown in a PS4 after its initial display on PC. As for the lack of framepacing issues in the Xbox version of FFXV, DigitalFoundry already explained that -- the game is designed to allow for screen tear near the top of the screen, which does away with the framepacing issue. Presumably, the developers preferred the pacing issues to the tearing, but didn't have as much of a choice on Xbox.
Do you really think that video game developers are fungible resources? That you can take a random 3D modeler and give her responsibility for writing part of the story, or take a random engine designer and expect him to excel at tuning gameplay systems? Game development doesn't work that way.

And, to make matters worse, you can't even just hire more story or gameplay people in place of graphics people, because creative work like storytelling and designing game systems often scales very poorly -- "too many cooks in the kitchen" and all that

What good gameplay systems require is sufficient consideration early enough in the development process to make sure they can be implemented.

Good story -- even assuming skilled writers -- requires either a combination of that and significantly more time for implementation than it seems like it would take, or the absurdly good luck necessary to either implement it or an alternative that's also good

Yes I'm very aware that certain people in development are meant for certain things, obviously programmers can't be the story writers, or that the story writers can't be programmers. I don't think that the more you have the better it will be, I'm talking about time, and ease that allow for a certain vision to be realized.


If the engine is giving problems time has to be devoted towards that possibly at the expense of the gameplay, you can't work on the gameplay aspects of the title if it simply won't run ie.Versus XIII, so they would then have to stall the gameplay stuff until the engine issues are worked out. Then comes in the cost this is going to affect all of them, and the story writer that may have wanted to tell something great, but because of cost, lack of efficiency on the engine, and the game having to come out in a certain time period of time. Like take this for an example let's say I have a boss battle that is gravely important to the story, the gameplay guys are working on the mechanics, and the engine guys are making sure the engine is sound to work with my particular plot point, and I have a deadline of 3 months. The in house engine messes up for the system I'm trying to work with as it can't work with the limitations very well, so then the gameplay guys have to halt what they are doing because it won't run properly and I may have to remove a plot point integral to the game, problem is I have to get this game out 3 months from now, I can't outsource anything, because my company is the only one that knows how to use this engine, so if they can't get it to work with this part in a reasonable timeframe no one else can.

Now let's look at another scenario, I'm the same writer, and the other guys are the same except we are using a different engine Unreal Engine 4, the engine is well supported, the engine is an industry standard, and it's just easier to use for the system I'm trying to work with in general, I just take a slight dip in graphical quality. I want to do the same thing, in the same timespan, the gameplay guys doing there thing, and the engine guys have seldom issues, nothing major, I can create this boss fight for the story, I don't have to remove a major plot point in my game, and the gameplay guys can design away and play test without any issues.

To sum this up if Luminous Engine is like the first scenario then I would prefer they use Unreal Engine 4 or Unreal Engine 5 for their future titles, if it means a smoother development cycle, because when a game goes through a rough development cycle it shows up in the game, and if Unreal Engine allows them to tell the most ambitious story they can tell, then all the more for it.

Titles have time limits they need to get something out in a certain time period.
 

Ikkin

Warrior of Light
Oct 30, 2016
1,099
1,705
#47
Yes I'm very aware that certain people in development are meant for certain things, obviously programmers can't be the story writers, or that the story writers can't be programmers. I don't think that the more you have the better it will be, I'm talking about time, and ease that allow for a certain vision to be realized.

If the engine is giving problems time has to be devoted towards that possibly at the expense of the gameplay, you can't work on the gameplay aspects of the title if it simply won't run ie.Versus XIII, so they would then have to stall the gameplay stuff until the engine issues are worked out. Then comes in the cost this is going to affect all of them, and the story writer that may have wanted to tell something great, but because of cost, lack of efficiency on the engine, and the game having to come out in a certain time period of time. Like take this for an example let's say I have a boss battle that is gravely important to the story, the gameplay guys are working on the mechanics, and the engine guys are making sure the engine is sound to work with my particular plot point, and I have a deadline of 3 months. The in house engine messes up for the system I'm trying to work with as it can't work with the limitations very well, so then the gameplay guys have to halt what they are doing because it won't run properly and I may have to remove a plot point integral to the game, problem is I have to get this game out 3 months from now, I can't outsource anything, because my company is the only one that knows how to use this engine, so if they can't get it to work with this part in a reasonable timeframe no one else can.

Now let's look at another scenario, I'm the same writer, and the other guys are the same except we are using a different engine Unreal Engine 4, the engine is well supported, the engine is an industry standard, and it's just easier to use for the system I'm trying to work with in general, I just take a slight dip in graphical quality. I want to do the same thing, in the same timespan, the gameplay guys doing there thing, and the engine guys have seldom issues, nothing major, I can create this boss fight for the story, I don't have to remove a major plot point in my game, and the gameplay guys can design away and play test without any issues.
I think you're assuming inseparability that doesn't exist.

Standard gameplay scenarios can often be prototyped and tested long before an engine's graphical features are complete. You don't need shaders or textures or VFX or detailed model geometry to test stat values or AoE ranges or general level design. Much of what the people working on gameplay systems require to do their jobs can be mocked up in a very rough state even when the rest of the game is very early.

Remember this version of FFXIII, starring palette swaps of Yuna and Rikku, generic humanoid figures, and literal geometric shapes?

What's trickier is when you have a boss fight that doubles as a setpiece -- say, Leviathan -- but that's because there's basically no way to avoid simultaneously working on the engine and the gameplay. A hypothetical UE4 version of FFXV would still rely on in-house developers to create the framework for that sort of scenario, because UE4 had absolutely no reason to code for a situation where you're 200' above a massive city and able to teleport thousands of feet between destructible pieces of level geometry. The only way around it is to abandon real-time setpieces altogether... but at that point, you're not even making a mainline FF game anymore. And once you're committed to setpieces, your options for dealing with unexpected setbacks are basically a) take the time needed to finish them or b) have a Plan B for dealing with the story if the setpiece never comes together.

Ironically, thanks to FFXV, Luminous is demonstrably better at FF-scale setpieces than UE4 is. =P

To sum this up if Luminous Engine is like the first scenario then I would prefer they use Unreal Engine 4 or Unreal Engine 5 for their future titles, if it means a smoother development cycle, because when a game goes through a rough development cycle it shows up in the game, and if Unreal Engine allows them to tell the most ambitious story they can tell, then all the more for it.

Titles have time limits they need to get something out in a certain time period.
To sum up my own point -- I'm pretty sure your concerns are based on incorrect assumptions about the nature of game development, and there's absolutely no reason why using UE4 would allow for a more ambitious story. I'm not even convinced that it'd significantly affect the amount of time the story staff had to work on the game.

*

Anyway, forgot to respond to this one before, so:

I legit laughed at that part of the video. That DF guy should seriously go back to PS3 and remind himself how last gen games actually looked.
0.2 has this weird thing going on where it spams debris and vines and foliage everywhere to a much greater extent than last gen could have handled, with the ironic consequence that the screen ends up being filled with low-poly objects. And, because the objects themselves are both low-poly and have detail added with relatively low-res normal maps, the result is a last-gen feel (because last-gen also used low-res normal maps everywhere to make up for a dearth of polygons, particularly in Unreal Engine 3 games =P ).

In other words, specific objects don't look that much better than last-gen, even if there are many times more of them. It doesn't help that character models seem decidedly more limited than, say, Nathan Drake from Uncharted 3 or Lara Croft in the X360 version of Rise of the Tomb Raider (both of whom have skin that doesn't look like plastic).

It's a particularly strange choice of direction for KH -- it's traditionally used flat shading (in-game) and/or made extensive use of areas of flat color (in CG) to mimic traditional animation, so increasing real geometric detail should have been top priority. I get that UE4 is likely to be much more efficient at faking detail using lighting tricks than at rendering tons of relatively simple polygons, but if that's the case, it's more a reason why UE4 is a poor fit for KH than an excuse for the current visual direction. =/
 

Hey Everyone

Keyblade Master
Dec 30, 2016
794
191
26
Unknown, Unknown
#48
I think you're assuming inseparability that doesn't exist.

Standard gameplay scenarios can often be prototyped and tested long before an engine's graphical features are complete. You don't need shaders or textures or VFX or detailed model geometry to test stat values or AoE ranges or general level design. Much of what the people working on gameplay systems require to do their jobs can be mocked up in a very rough state even when the rest of the game is very early.

Remember this version of FFXIII, starring palette swaps of Yuna and Rikku, generic humanoid figures, and literal geometric shapes?

What's trickier is when you have a boss fight that doubles as a setpiece -- say, Leviathan -- but that's because there's basically no way to avoid simultaneously working on the engine and the gameplay. A hypothetical UE4 version of FFXV would still rely on in-house developers to create the framework for that sort of scenario, because UE4 had absolutely no reason to code for a situation where you're 200' above a massive city and able to teleport thousands of feet between destructible pieces of level geometry. The only way around it is to abandon real-time setpieces altogether... but at that point, you're not even making a mainline FF game anymore. And once you're committed to setpieces, your options for dealing with unexpected setbacks are basically a) take the time needed to finish them or b) have a Plan B for dealing with the story if the setpiece never comes together.

Ironically, thanks to FFXV, Luminous is demonstrably better at FF-scale setpieces than UE4 is. =P



To sum up my own point -- I'm pretty sure your concerns are based on incorrect assumptions about the nature of game development, and there's absolutely no reason why using UE4 would allow for a more ambitious story. I'm not even convinced that it'd significantly affect the amount of time the story staff had to work on the game.

*

Anyway, forgot to respond to this one before, so:



0.2 has this weird thing going on where it spams debris and vines and foliage everywhere to a much greater extent than last gen could have handled, with the ironic consequence that the screen ends up being filled with low-poly objects. And, because the objects themselves are both low-poly and have detail added with relatively low-res normal maps, the result is a last-gen feel (because last-gen also used low-res normal maps everywhere to make up for a dearth of polygons, particularly in Unreal Engine 3 games =P ).

In other words, specific objects don't look that much better than last-gen, even if there are many times more of them. It doesn't help that character models seem decidedly more limited than, say, Nathan Drake from Uncharted 3 or Lara Croft in the X360 version of Rise of the Tomb Raider (both of whom have skin that doesn't look like plastic).

It's a particularly strange choice of direction for KH -- it's traditionally used flat shading (in-game) and/or made extensive use of areas of flat color (in CG) to mimic traditional animation, so increasing real geometric detail should have been top priority. I get that UE4 is likely to be much more efficient at faking detail using lighting tricks than at rendering tons of relatively simple polygons, but if that's the case, it's more a reason why UE4 is a poor fit for KH than an excuse for the current visual direction. =/
"According to Kingdom Hearts 3 director Tetsuya Nomura, who just recently jumped from the Final Fantasy 15 team to Kingdom Hearts, the Luminous Engine was posing too many problems for the development team. As a result, Nomura’s team decided it best to take the project over to UE 4. They even sought help from Epic Games so as to bypass any problems they might encounter with the engine."

https://gamerant.com/kingdom-hearts-3-unreal-engine/

If we can avoid this engine issues only they can solve which wastes time then that means development is smoother, thus the final product will be better as a result, these things take dev time, time is a resource, so the less time fumbling with engine issues the more time can be spent elsewhere. Is my point getting across now? Also the prototype stuff? I'm aware that FFXIII had developmental problems to, and the game wasn't well received by the audiences that played it,, maybe critics even though I remember Jim Sterling panning the game gave it a 4/10.
 
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xXShuyaXx

Forest Owl
May 25, 2016
353
654
31
#49
"According to Kingdom Hearts 3 director Tetsuya Nomura, who just recently jumped from the Final Fantasy 15 team to Kingdom Hearts, the Luminous Engine was posing too many problems for the development team. As a result, Nomura’s team decided it best to take the project over to UE 4. They even sought help from Epic Games so as to bypass any problems they might encounter with the engine."

https://gamerant.com/kingdom-hearts-3-unreal-engine/

If we can avoid this, that means development is smoother, thus the final product will be better as a result, these things take dev time, time is a resource, so the less time fumbling with engine issues the more time can be spent elsewhere. Is my point getting across now? Also the prototype stuff? I'm aware that FFXIII had developmental problems to, and the game wasn't well received by the audiences that played it,, maybe critics even though I remember Jim Sterling panning the game gave it a 4/10.
I just checked the original Japanese interview and no where does it say that Luminous was dropped due to development issues. On the contrary, Nomura actually says that with the switch from Luminous to UE4, they actually ran into development issues by going with UE4, but with the assistance from Epic Games, they were able to overcome some of the issues.
 

Hey Everyone

Keyblade Master
Dec 30, 2016
794
191
26
Unknown, Unknown
#50
I just checked the original Japanese interview and no where does it say that Luminous was dropped due to development issues. On the contrary, Nomura actually says that with the switch from Luminous to UE4, they actually ran into development issues by going with UE4, but with the assistance from Epic Games, they were able to overcome some of the issues.
There were issues, but they got assistance from Epic as opposed to if they had to issues with their actual engine. He also said they switched the engine for multiple reasons.

"Development is steadily proceeding as planned," he said. "Due to the impact of changing the game engine to Unreal Engine 4, which we did for various reasons, there is some difficulty rendering images. And with the full support of Epic Games, we'll be able to progress smoothly."
So they at least got help from Epic Games, as I said fully supported engine, as opposed to dealing with that shit on their own.

Wouldn't be surprised if it was to avoid a Crystal Tools debacle where they tried to develop three games on one "universal" engine.
 

Nova

Warrior of Light
Jul 14, 2015
1,773
2,595
#51
>Delusional people with little knowledge still think UE4 is a miracle engine.

My fucking sides, theres no limit to disappointment they set themselves up for. :hahaha:
 

Tornak

Keyblade Master
May 18, 2014
718
421
31
Madrid, Spain
#52
I haven't been able to read most posts, but this whole demonization of the Luminous Engine and this exaltation in regards to UE 4 has always irked me.

I expect them to actually continue working on Luminous; ditching it would be stupid, considering all the work that went into it and how, for the most part, tight of an experience XV is. For a game that had as many problems as FF XV in its development, among which we find having to work against time while actually creating the engine itself, you'd say that LE turned out prettty OK, didn't it?

I'm not an expert by any means, but now that LE has finally seen a game launching with it (which you'd say it's the biggest milestone an engine has), we can properly judge it from now on. Considering that the XV team has expertise on it by now, I'd expect Tabata's new IP to be done with it. It's definitively no Crystal Tools, at least.
 
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Ikkin

Warrior of Light
Oct 30, 2016
1,099
1,705
#53
Also the prototype stuff? I'm aware that FFXIII had developmental problems to, and the game wasn't well received by the audiences that played it,, maybe critics even though I remember Jim Sterling panning the game gave it a 4/10.
Uh, that's completely irrelevant. The images I showed were from an early PS2 prototype of FFXIII before they even settled on a platform yet, the point being that you don't need much to play around with gameplay systems. I could have linked to the 2D version of FFVII that used FFVI assets if you'd have preferred that. =P


There were issues, but they got assistance from Epic as opposed to if they had to issues with their actual engine. He also said they switched the engine for multiple reasons.

"Development is steadily proceeding as planned," he said. "Due to the impact of changing the game engine to Unreal Engine 4, which we did for various reasons, there is some difficulty rendering images. And with the full support of Epic Games, we'll be able to progress smoothly."
So they at least got help from Epic Games, as I said fully supported engine, as opposed to dealing with that shit on their own.

Wouldn't be surprised if it was to avoid a Crystal Tools debacle where they tried to develop three games on one "universal" engine.
Is it really a good idea to contradict someone who's actually able to translate the original interview when you yourself are unable to do the same? That seems rather disingenuous.

Anyway, I remember reading that the reason they switched KHIII is because the Luminous team was too busy with engine development and FFXV to provide full-time support, which makes sense. FFXV's features appear to be a super-set of what KHIII would need rather than being completely tangential (like Crystal Tools' goal of powering a linear RPG, open world RPG, and an MMORPG), so I don't think fear of another Crystal Tools debacle would have been the primary concern.


I haven't been able to read most posts, but this whole demonization of the Luminous Engine and this exaltation in regards to UE 4 has always irked me.

I expect them to actually continue working on Luminous; ditching it would be stupid, considering all the work that went into it and how, for the most part, tight of an experience XV is. For a game that had as many problems as FF XV in its development, among which we find having to work against time while actually creating the engine itself, you'd say that LE turned out prettty OK, didn't it?

I'm not an expert by any means, but now that LE has finally seen a game launching with it (which you'd say it's the biggest milestone an engine has), we can properly judge it from now on. Considering that the XV team has expertise on it by now, I'd expect Tabata's new IP to be done with it. It's definitively no Crystal Tools, at least.
Given how ambitious FFXV is and the time frame in which the final version of the game was made (ie.. 2013-2016), Luminous acquitted itself very well. FFXV is one of the best-looking open world games on console, it holds a pretty steady 30fps (albeit with framepacing issues) in spite of sometimes outrageous amounts of VFX, its animation system is top-notch, its lighting is often gorgeous, its true cutscenes (when they appear) do a fantastic job of mimicking VisualWorks' style, and its scale is almost unheard of.

It'd be pretty weird for Squenix to ditch an engine that's capable of all of that, especially since some of Tabata's planned updates (particularly with regards to multiplayer) seem likely to double as R&D for the engine. I definitely expect BD2 to continue using Luminous going forward -- they could serve a similar role to Squenix as DICE did to EA before Frostbite became a company-wide engine.
 

Hey Everyone

Keyblade Master
Dec 30, 2016
794
191
26
Unknown, Unknown
#54
Uh, that's completely irrelevant. The images I showed were from an early PS2 prototype of FFXIII before they even settled on a platform yet, the point being that you don't need much to play around with gameplay systems. I could have linked to the 2D version of FFVII that used FFVI assets if you'd have preferred that. =P




Is it really a good idea to contradict someone who's actually able to translate the original interview when you yourself are unable to do the same? That seems rather disingenuous.

Anyway, I remember reading that the reason they switched KHIII is because the Luminous team was too busy with engine development and FFXV to provide full-time support, which makes sense. FFXV's features appear to be a super-set of what KHIII would need rather than being completely tangential (like Crystal Tools' goal of powering a linear RPG, open world RPG, and an MMORPG), so I don't think fear of another Crystal Tools debacle would have been the primary concern.




Given how ambitious FFXV is and the time frame in which the final version of the game was made (ie.. 2013-2016), Luminous acquitted itself very well. FFXV is one of the best-looking open world games on console, it holds a pretty steady 30fps (albeit with framepacing issues) in spite of sometimes outrageous amounts of VFX, its animation system is top-notch, its lighting is often gorgeous, its true cutscenes (when they appear) do a fantastic job of mimicking VisualWorks' style, and its scale is almost unheard of.

It'd be pretty weird for Squenix to ditch an engine that's capable of all of that, especially since some of Tabata's planned updates (particularly with regards to multiplayer) seem likely to double as R&D for the engine. I definitely expect BD2 to continue using Luminous going forward -- they could serve a similar role to Squenix as DICE did to EA before Frostbite became a company-wide engine.
>The images I showed were from an early PS2 prototype of FFXIII before they even settled on a platform yet, the point being that you don't need much to play around with gameplay systems. I could have linked to the 2D version of FFVII that used FFVI assets if you'd have preferred that. =P

Prototypes don't matter if the game ships, and it's marred by developmental issues caused by the engine Hi. FFXIV, FFXIII, and FFXV.

Also if you tell me that the FFXIV mess wasn't under consideration, when they decided not to share an unfinished engine with Kingdom Hearts 3 then I don't know what to tell you. In Luminous when issued were present, they had to fix them themselves, causing more time to be wasted if when things were changed for KH3 there were issues, but Epic Games fixed them now development go go smooth now, since the engine is a finished one, and if things go wrong then they can get help to fix it, as opposed to Luminous. If using Unreal Engine 4 or Unreal Engine 5 means smoother development, to which the game that releases is a great quality title in all it's aspects? Then you know what go for it ditch Luminous.
 
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Ikkin

Warrior of Light
Oct 30, 2016
1,099
1,705
#55
>The images I showed were from an early PS2 prototype of FFXIII before they even settled on a platform yet, the point being that you don't need much to play around with gameplay systems. I could have linked to the 2D version of FFVII that used FFVI assets if you'd have preferred that. =P

Prototypes don't matter if the game ships, and it's marred by developmental issues caused by the engine Hi. FFXIV, FFXIII, and FFXV.
Again, you're missing the point. You said that engine problems left the people who design gameplay systems unable to do their jobs. I showed that it's entirely possible to start prototyping gameplay systems without any substantive work being done on the game.

Also if you tell me that the FFXIV mess wasn't under consideration, when they decided not to share an unfinished engine with Kingdom Hearts 3 then I don't know what to tell you. In Luminous when issued were present, they had to fix them themselves, causing more time to be wasted if when things were changed for KH3 there were issues, but Epic Games fixed them now development go go smooth now, since the engine is a finished one, and if things go wrong then they can get help to fix it, as opposed to Luminous. If using Unreal Engine 4 or Unreal Engine 5 means smoother development, to which the game that releases is a great quality title in all it's aspects? Then you know what go for it ditch Luminous.
Whether it was "under consideration" is a very different proposition than whether it was considered to be an appropriate comparison.

What FFXIV needed from its engine was all but mutually exclusive from what FFXIII needed. FFXIV needed online infrastructure, scalability, a persistent world, large open spaces, towns, the ability to render many player characters simultaneously, along with a number of other things that FFXIII intentionally avoided. Not only was the work done on FFXIII completely inapplicable to FFXIV, FFXIII was designed to take advantage of the assumption that it wouldn't need to do the things that FFXIV needed to do.

KHIII and FFXV, in contrast, are the exact same type of games -- flashy, setpiece-driven ARPGs with AI party members -- with the biggest difference being that KH is significantly less ambitious in terms of aspects like lighting and scope. Most of what KHIII requires from its engine are things that FFXV requires as well, so KHIII could have plausibly piggybacked off of the work done on FFXV.

As such, I don't think Squenix feared running into the same situation as they did with FFXIV. The problem in KHIII's case was that Luminous simply wasn't going to be ready soon enough for the Osaka team to rely on the engine team for support. And, obviously, that problem is a temporal one rather than one that will affect future projects.

...I guess my biggest concern, at least where it concerns KH, is that I'm not yet convinced that the Osaka team is comfortable making the level of engine modifications required by KHII-style setpieces. It's understandable that they didn't bother on PSP/3DS (though the Type-0 team at least tried to add in setpiece-y elements), but KHIII really needs stuff like the Battle of 1000 Heartless, Groundshaker, and KHII's outrageous final gambit to feel like a numbered game, and I doubt UE4 has built-in tools for that sort of thing. 0.2 didn't really fill me with a ton of confidence in that regard. *glares at the wave-of-Heartless boss*

If that is the case, the inevitable KHIV could be far better off with an in-house engine and the support of an in-house engine team, who'd presumably do a lot more heavy lifting than UE4's support staff would.
 
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