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Thursday, February 15, 2007 |
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Cross Com 2.0
Hello GRAW fans, I’m Olivier Dauba, Content Producer on GRAW2 Single player. I’m responsible for every item of content, from the colour of the sniper camouflage, to the design of the Cross-com 2.0 interface. I’m here with Yann Masson, Lead Single Player Game Designer. While I’m working on the tools to be put in your hands, Yann is working on ways to make their use exciting and enjoyable.
Cross com 2.0: the player’s tool for efficiency.
GRAW 2 continues to innovate by incorporating near future military gear & equipment. Enter, Cross Com 2.0, expanded support, more precise control over tactical elements available to the player.
Yann Masson – The first thing is the vastly upgraded intel and command system the player will utilize; The Cross Com 2.0 system. The cross com system from GRAW is being greatly upgraded. Intelligence and information is what will make the difference in tomorrow’s battlefield. The cross com system is based on actual research and development from the US army. All of this research is being implemented in the Cross com 2.0 and will take it further.
The Picture in Picture feature system will be advanced. In GRAW2 not only will you be able to see what your friendly forces see in the top left display, but you will also be able to expand that to full screen view to see more clearly and precisely what they see. We call this new feature the Full Command View because we are allowing the player to issue orders to all the manned supports in this view. For example if you have selected a striker as a support you are able to switch to its full view and order them very precisely where to move to or which target to attack. To make this system all the more efficient the player will be able to take control of the camera mounted on the different support to see everything happening around them. This gives the player a much more efficient and precise order interface.
Olivier Dauba - As for unmanned support such as the UAV cipher drone the system gets even more accessible.
The player can access the Full Control View of the UAV. When in full screen you will actually be able to take direct control of the drone, directing it precisely to fly over certain areas or enemies, or order it to focus on specific enemies and targets. This will allow a new level of control and intelligence to the player on the battlefield, all on the fly. We are delivering a very realistic battlefield experience. When you switch to the full command or full control views you can still be attacked and shot by enemies. All of the near future technology surely makes you more powerful and efficient on the battlefield, but they don’t make you invincible. You can still die at any moment. Hence it can be a risky choice to use the full view depending on the situation. It does work exactly the same way as for the tactical map in GRAW1 in this regard.
As real life armies on every battlefield of the world, there’s a tacit goal in sparing human lives. Using your tactical skills and a bit of organization thanks to the Cross-com, you’ll be able to achieve your objectives and keep your Ghosts alive. Even if sometimes, the price to pay is sacrificing million dollars worth vehicles and equipment.
New Supports: BIG & easier to use
Yann Masson – There are many new advancements in GRAW 2 regarding support available to the player. To start, we have several new human supports. The player will sometimes fight along side other friendly infantry team such as Mexican loyalists. Not only will they offer support, but the player will be able to order them through the cross com monocle the same way as strikers, tanks or apaches. Another new support is the plane support that will allow you to perform much more powerful air strikes than apaches.
Olivier Dauba – GRAW 2 will offer a new level and lethalness with heavier support forces. Being more powerful, this support needs to be handled with care. When asking for a jet strike, there will be a safety perimeter around the designated target. To avoid any damage to you or your team you need to make sure you and you other supports are out of this strike zone.
Yann Masson – We are introducing an all new unmanned support drone called the M.U.L.E. It is a ground drone and can be used for 3 distinct purposes. Its first purpose is to carry weaponry & ammunition for you, hence the name. Whenever you are close to the mule you will be able to exchange your current equipment with that carried by the mule. For example, if you need a rocket launcher at some point you can just take it from the mule, use it, and revert to a more standard rifle. This is going to give the player greatly expanded options on the battlefield.
Olivier Dauba – The second benefit of the Mule drone is that you can use it as mobile cover. This drone is very robust, heavily armoured and can sustain a good deal of damage. Hence it can offer a great protection for the player, especially in the rural wide-open environments where the player will have to battle. The desert environments offer far less cover opportunities than urban settings. When used smartly, the Mule will give the player the ability to transverse danger zones such as these in a more protected fashion.
Yann Masson – The third advantage of the mule is to use it to recon the environment. While it is a pretty big drone that might be spotted by enemies it can take more damage than you or your team mates. In some situations you might want to scout the environment and use it as a recon option to discover where your enemies are. Even if spotted and shot at the mule won’t be destroyed that easily while your team mates could receive a head shot and die.
Yann Masson – The M.U.L.E will provide you the same intel as the UAV but not in the sense that the intel system is being largely upgraded compared to GRAW. The intel you will get will give you more specific info then the ones in GRAW. For example, different enemies will tagged with a different intel tag, designating the most dangerous enemies like a sniper or an anti tank for example.
Olivier Dauba – The new intel system will also give you information on the orders being performed by your support forces and the level of their completion. This way the player can see the actions such as the exact moment when their antitank destroys an enemy tank so they can make their next move.
To get a good visual taste of the new Cross Com system and how it adds to the already lethal level of player control in GRAW 2, be sure to check out our behind the scenes video developer diary here
So this is all for today; I hope you’ll share our excitement of using all of these new features in the game. With GRAW2 we have worked very hard in making sure that every tool (Support, Intel, Full Command View and so on…) adds a new depth of gameplay variation, and the combination of all of these new tools makes the game even more exciting. We hope you’ll like enjoy them as much as we do!
Over.
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Thursday, February 08, 2007 |
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Technology, Look & Feel
Hello GRAW fans, I’m David Reizer, Lead Engineer on GRAW2 Single Player. I’m here today to reveal to you the secrets of the technical magic behind the GRAW 2 in the next instalment of our developer blogs here on IGN. The deal is pretty simple: what’s the strategy behind creating gorgeous effects, stunning lightings & impressive game features, and make sure everything is running smoothly the day you want to show off with your (friends/mom/brother/geeky girlfriend, check the relevant)
The first step is to start from a strong basis. For deployment, we had an in-house game engine, built from scratch within UBISOFT, the YETI engine, used for the original GRAW. This included nice features at the time like:
Real-time dynamic shadows & dynamic lighting
Heat effects & heat waves
Highly detailed normal mapping & impacts
Dynamic physics system & interaction with the world
An array of filters and post processing
Combination of HDR (High Dynamic Range) lighting & powerful anti-aliasing
We’re using a vastly improved version of YETI for GRAW2, which includes and improves all those native technologies.
The second step, to challenge the console a bit, was to add tons of new technologies to make sure the Xbox 360 is at its best.
Light & Shadows technologies:
Ambient occlusion – Ambient occlusion is a visual technology feature that accurately reproduces the way shadows appears to the human eye in real life. In most games shadows tend to appear the same regardless of the nature of the shadow, the surface, time of day etc., while in real life shadows differ in many ways. For example when you face a building that casts its shadows toward you, the intensity & darkness of the shadow evolve depending on how close the building is, and continues to evolve depending on how close to the building you move.
Object Translucency – Object Translucency simulates the effect where certain surfaces, while they stop most of the light, the human eye can still perceive shapes through them depending on the direction of the light source. It is often the case with plain thin surfaces such as tree & plant leaves, and certain textile surfaces.
God Rays - God rays simulate the way light goes around the surface of objects that stop the sun light. When the sun light is blocked by certain elements you can always see at the limit of those elements a particular light ray that has a blurry unreal feel to it, for example when you are at the limit of dense forest with the sun in front of you & you look at the top of the trees, you can see the light penetrate the depth of the forest in distinct “rays”.
At that stage, your console should look fine, the green lights of the console brightly looking at you. This is why you should add in the mix dangerous fire & smoke effects.
Fire & Smoke technologies:
Dynamic fire & smoke - Dynamic smoke & fires, while very difficult to develop & master, is pretty simple to explain. This features allow us to reproduce the way fire & flames & smoke behave in real life. Fire & smoke will look much better in GRAW2, but what is most interesting about them is the way they will evolve & interact with the environment, and other contributing factors in our physics system. For example in real life when there is wind, fire & smoke will dynamically change their trajectories pushed by the wind. They will do just that in GRAW2. To give you a couple example of how this will translate in game if you have 2 cars burning in a street & an helicopter lands between them, the columns of smoke will move away from the helo pushed back by the wind it is creating. This also translates to explosions and or gunfire. Explosions will dramatically affect the behaviour of smoke and fire, and give the sense of realism, further immersing the player in the game world.
Depth Sprite - Depth sprite is a near invisible feature that makes an amazing amount of difference to the immersion factor of GRAW 2. A very strong challenge in terms of visuals is to obtain a smooth and natural visual interaction between fixed objects & dynamic visual elements. For example when dynamic smoke is spreading & colliding with the floor & other elements such as cars or boxes (fixed objects). Depth sprite makes a world of difference in turning this aspect from a clunky weird looking collision that automatically reminds you that you are playing a video game to a natural appearing, real life collision where the smoke interacts smoothly with the different world elements. Actually this is the kind of feature that you might not notice when it is there because it looks so natural but as soon as you will have seen it, you will always notice it is not there whenever you will see other games that don’t have it.
This is a crucial moment, the point of no return. If you’re a skilled commander, knowing exactly your strength and the enemy weaknesses, you should try a last blow:
Real-time day & night cycle - In GRAW2 as time passes the world will change around you, the sun will raise and set dynamically, shadows will adapt to this moving in real time, ambient occlusion will reflect this as the shadows intensity will evolve realistically along with the time of day, position and intensity of the sun, weather conditions (clouds or overcast) etc.
For GRAW2, the strategy was a blitz attack, with simultaneous offensives:
What is very important on top of what each feature is bringing individually is the way they combine and dynamically interact with one another. For example, Ambient Occlusion combined with HDR lighting (that accurately simulates the intensity & variations of different sources of life and the way the human eye gets accustomed to them) makes the world much more believable & immersive. This will really allow us to be much more photo realistic than GRAW 1.
This is what makes your strategy a success: combination.
The combinations of all of these new and advanced technologies are not just for visual enhancement, they also have a consistent affect on gameplay. Like we are working together with Corinne (the Artistic Director on GRAW 2 single player) to bring her the features that she needs to execute the Artistic direction she wants for the game, we also work with game designers to bring them features that will impact gameplay the way they envision. For example if you couple time of the day and translucency you can get very interesting situation for gameplay. Imagine an enemy is hidden in a tent. Thanks to translucency you could see him through the tent “wall” if the light source hit this wall in an appropriate way. Having the night/day cycle feature in the game it means that depending on the time of day you will see the shape of this enemy through the tent or not. Hence you have to be careful and assess the lighting situation before concluding whether there could be an enemy hidden behind a given object.
To get a good visual run down of these technologies in motion ,and their imapact on the gameplay in GRAW 2, be sure to check out our behind the scenes video developer diary here
Until next time… Thanks for your attention, men!
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Thursday, February 01, 2007 |
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Team Leads Intro
Hello, and welcome to the first instalment of the Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2, or what we affectionately call “GRAW 2”, developer blog. For the first entry we want to give you a brief intro and a bit of background information on a few of the team leads from both of the studios we have working diligently on GRAW 2. The studio at Ubisoft Paris is developing the single player portion of the game, while Red Storm is once again at the helm of all things multi-player. Many of these names and faces you will see throughout the upcoming blog entries, so we should get acquainted no? Without further adieu, meet a few of our GRAW 2 dev team leads…
GRAW 2 Single Player Team Leads – Ubisoft Paris
 Jean Bernard Jacon:
Knocking around in the videogame battlefields for some years, Jean-Bernard Jacon has fought for the Ubisoft Army on many fronts. He eventually joined the elite GRAW battalion, serving as an Associate Producer on the most explosive sequel of the year. A specialist in lethal game production techniques, he loves nothing more than brutalizing bugs databases, pressuring teams and crushing deadlines…
 Olivier Dauba:
Olivier Dauba was a rocket scientist for the European Space Agency. After a few Ariane 5 crashes, he decided to recycle himself in an industry where massive explosions, destruction and going down in style would actually be a success, gaming. He is now designing the only battles that a French strategic mastermind can win, i.e. virtual ones. But the Art of War has never been so stylish.
 Olivier Didelot:
Hi, my name is Olivier. I took command of the Gameplay Programming team for GRAW 2. Our mission was clear; to take care of the basic needs for the rest of the team. Meaning we must provide them all the tools to make the best combat simulator ever. Our main task was to enhance as much as possible the capabilities of all the fighting forces in GRAW2.
 Vincent Hamache:
“Hi, I am Vincent Hamache, i served under commandment of the Lead Level Designer and I worked on various content of the game, such as the Timeline, the Features Distribution, and the Learning and Difficulty curve. Our goal was to improve the immersion feeling by providing tactical challenges in very wide urban and natural environment. I think we succeeded in creating realistic maps that present a variety of interesting situations to take advantage of the powerful and deadly arsenal of the ghosts.”
 Philippe Bayle:
Philippe Bayle served as coordinator with Army Music conductors during his military service. Senior Producer duties are indeed similar to those of a conductor: set the tempo, anticipate next measures and beats, listen and shape the sound of the Ubisoft Paris “Philharmonic” GRAW team: 160+ developers devoted to provide gamers the best, most immersive and memorable tactical shooter experience.
David Reizer:
After 9 years in the industry, David has acquired all the experiences necessary to master the development of a truly next-generation tactical shooter: the secret is no need for a high precision technology, no deal with an advanced tactical weapon, if your development kit is defective, just KICK ITS F*#$$ &$$
Multiplayer Team Leads – Red Storm
 Christian Allen - Creative Director:
Christian is the Creative Director here at Red Storm Entertainment and his latest project is GRAW2. His creative director responsibility include basically carrying the vision of the game (and with this comes lots of meetings?). He has over 3 years of professional experience in the industry – all of which has been spent at Red Storm, and also 3 years prior making MODS. His previous positions at Red Storm include: Designer, Weapons Consultant, Lead Designer, Lead Multiplayer Designer, and now Creative Director. Prior to life at Red Storm, he was in the Marines and working various government jobs, as well as making mods for R6: Rogue Spear. In his free time, he is an avid firearms enthusiast and like all the team members, a devoted gamer.
 Prince Arrington - Associate Producer:
Prince Arrington is the multiplayer associate producer for GRAW2 on the Xbox 360. Prince has spent 5 years in the video game industry, all at Red Storm Entertainment. Along with being the associate producer on GRAW and GRAW2, Prince has been a QA analyst on Ghost Recon 2 (Xbox) and Ghost Recon 2: Summit Strike (Xbox). All of Prince’s game credits include Ghost Recon (PC), Ghost Recon (Xbox), Ghost Recon: Desert Siege (PC), Sum of All Fears (PC), Ghost Recon: Island Thunder (Xbox), Ghost Recon 2 Xbox, Ghost Recon 2: Summit Strike, and Ghost Recon 3: Advanced Warfighter on the Xbox 360. Prince can be found on Xbox Live on his 360 playing anything from sports games to you guessed it, GRAW.
 Chris Bray - Lead MP Designer:
Chris is the lead MP designer on GRAW2. He has been working in the games industry for two years where most of that time has been at Red Storm Entertainment, where he was scripter on GRAW Chapter 2 DLC, GR: Summit Strike, and Rainbow Six: Lockdown. Prior to his time at Red Storm, he began his games industry career interning at Image Space Inc. working on the title NASCAR Thunder 2004. As a side note: Chris is the internal developer GRAW 360 Multiplayer champion.
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