Some of you may have been wondering why we aren't doing a game update this week. This dev blog should hopefully explain what we've been up to in the game engine team recently and why this week we've been engaged in a large amount of extra testing and polishing before we launch RuneTek 5.
To read the full blog, please click here.
I'm happy to try and answer any questions you might have on this thread.
(15-16-701-59472700)
To read the full blog, please click here.
I'm happy to try and answer any questions you might have on this thread.
(15-16-701-59472700)
There are now six of us working in the Game Engine team, including Andrew himself. For the past eight months, two of us have spent the majority of our time completely rebuilding our graphics engine from the ground up, under Andrew's direction; we are calling this 'RuneTek 5' (RT5)*.
RuneTek
The primary goal of the rebuild was to allow us to target different graphics platforms (such as DirectX, OpenGL and the various consoles) with just one game engine. Previous iterations of the graphics engine were not designed this way. This meant that when we came to design RuneScape HD's technology, we ended up creating, in effect, two parallel game engines to render the game in two different ways - the current client has both the RuneTek 3 (Standard Detail) AND RuneTek 4 (High Detail) engines built in! This doesn't scale well when we come to target even more platforms, so this change was definitely necessary.
You may be wondering how this will affect RuneScape. Well, during the rebuild of the graphics engine, we have taken the time to almost completely rewrite both of our existing platforms to make them compatible with the new cross-platform technology. (You know them as Standard Detail (SD) and High Detail (HD); internally, we call them Software and Hardware.) This has totalled around 40,000 lines of new or improved code, not including the RuneScape game engine changes required to support the new graphics systems, or the changes made by the RuneScape Content teams to support the new options!
Revamped SD
An RT5 SD screenshot
The most immediate impact you will notice is the revamped SD. Many of you will have known we've wanted to do full screen and resizable window modes for SD for a while; RT5 finally makes this a reality. We've also been able to squeeze some other features into SD during the update, including:
Benefits for HD
An RT5 HD screenshot
We've also improved the minimap in both modes, and added further shadowing to HD mode, such that shadows show up across all world levels (if your hardware supports it).
There are also a couple of other larger features we've integrated into the graphics engine, which you won't see immediately, but we may be introducing into the game over the coming months, including:
What next?
The impetus for some of these improvements has come from the development of "Mechscape", and RuneScape is now able to benefit from these too.
Development is still continuing; another member of the Game Engine team has just commenced work on the DirectX RT5 implementation, and we have several awesome features in the pipeline.
For a variety of reasons, this RT5 update also finally allows us to fix the long-standing mis-click bug in the Grand Exchange (unwanted walking/friend adding, etc), along with any number of smaller long-standing issues.
*Major iterations of the Jagex graphics engine have included:
RuneTek 1 screenshot
RuneTek 2 screenshot
RuneTek 3 screenshot
RuneTek
The primary goal of the rebuild was to allow us to target different graphics platforms (such as DirectX, OpenGL and the various consoles) with just one game engine. Previous iterations of the graphics engine were not designed this way. This meant that when we came to design RuneScape HD's technology, we ended up creating, in effect, two parallel game engines to render the game in two different ways - the current client has both the RuneTek 3 (Standard Detail) AND RuneTek 4 (High Detail) engines built in! This doesn't scale well when we come to target even more platforms, so this change was definitely necessary.
You may be wondering how this will affect RuneScape. Well, during the rebuild of the graphics engine, we have taken the time to almost completely rewrite both of our existing platforms to make them compatible with the new cross-platform technology. (You know them as Standard Detail (SD) and High Detail (HD); internally, we call them Software and Hardware.) This has totalled around 40,000 lines of new or improved code, not including the RuneScape game engine changes required to support the new graphics systems, or the changes made by the RuneScape Content teams to support the new options!
Revamped SD
An RT5 SD screenshot
The most immediate impact you will notice is the revamped SD. Many of you will have known we've wanted to do full screen and resizable window modes for SD for a while; RT5 finally makes this a reality. We've also been able to squeeze some other features into SD during the update, including:
- Distance fogging and sky colour
- Ground-/Path-blending and smoothing
- Underwater visibility
Benefits for HD
An RT5 HD screenshot
We've also improved the minimap in both modes, and added further shadowing to HD mode, such that shadows show up across all world levels (if your hardware supports it).
There are also a couple of other larger features we've integrated into the graphics engine, which you won't see immediately, but we may be introducing into the game over the coming months, including:
- Sky boxes
- Particle effects
- Bloom lighting effects (HD only)
- Water reflections (HD only)
What next?
The impetus for some of these improvements has come from the development of "Mechscape", and RuneScape is now able to benefit from these too.
Development is still continuing; another member of the Game Engine team has just commenced work on the DirectX RT5 implementation, and we have several awesome features in the pipeline.
For a variety of reasons, this RT5 update also finally allows us to fix the long-standing mis-click bug in the Grand Exchange (unwanted walking/friend adding, etc), along with any number of smaller long-standing issues.
*Major iterations of the Jagex graphics engine have included:
- RT1: Original Jagex 3D engine used on gamesdomain games (1998)
- RT2: RuneScape Classic (2000/2001)
- RT3: RuneScape2 SD (2003/2004)
- RT4: RuneScape2 HD (2007/2008)
- RT5: Cross-platform version that runs both SD and HD on the same engine (2009)
RuneTek 1 screenshot
RuneTek 2 screenshot
RuneTek 3 screenshot
Answers to Questions
Spoiler: Click to Toggle the Spoiler.
Page 2
Bluepupfrost
"I just noticed that SD shows more of the area where the fog is than HD. I found that awkward. "
I've actually been doing some work this morning to even up the draw distances between SD and HD, so the difference should be less noticable on launch.
"PS: You just leaked the someone's RS name in that pic!
"
That's one of my test only characters, so no worry there
Night Runite
"Still don't understand how the Content development team was doing this - isn't this entirely Tools and Graphics? Idk."
Whilst the engine + tools teams develop the engine itself, the content team have to update bits of the game (maps for example) to support the engine changes.
Bluepupfrost
"I just noticed that SD shows more of the area where the fog is than HD. I found that awkward. "
I've actually been doing some work this morning to even up the draw distances between SD and HD, so the difference should be less noticable on launch.
"PS: You just leaked the someone's RS name in that pic!
"That's one of my test only characters, so no worry there
Night Runite
"Still don't understand how the Content development team was doing this - isn't this entirely Tools and Graphics? Idk."
Whilst the engine + tools teams develop the engine itself, the content team have to update bits of the game (maps for example) to support the engine changes.
Page 3
To answer several questions at once, sky boxes are as you probably would imagine a giant cube surrounding the currently loaded bit of world you're in, displaying some seamless image (not necessarily a sky!). [wiki article ~ Neo]
Particle effects can be used to generate all sorts of effects, some examples are smoke, explosions, liquids...there are many possibilities! [wiki article ~ Neo]
Light bloom is a lighting effect which is hard to describe, but makes a big visual impact when in game. You'll notice it when we launch something with it [wiki article ~ Neo]
To answer several questions at once, sky boxes are as you probably would imagine a giant cube surrounding the currently loaded bit of world you're in, displaying some seamless image (not necessarily a sky!). [wiki article ~ Neo]
Particle effects can be used to generate all sorts of effects, some examples are smoke, explosions, liquids...there are many possibilities! [wiki article ~ Neo]
Light bloom is a lighting effect which is hard to describe, but makes a big visual impact when in game. You'll notice it when we launch something with it
[wiki article ~ Neo]Page 6
I am aware that there are a few players that would like to see an older looking version of the game as well. This isn't really the same as a different engine as it's not the engine that has changed so much (you could make RuneScape 2 look almost exactly as it did at launch with the current Tek3 and the forthcoming Tek5 SD), it's the content that has changed, content being models, textures and maps. Running simultaneous versions of content is very difficult and time consuming as it means we have to make and update two versions of everything in the game!
Someone also mentioned fullscreen SD, I think I did also mention resizable mode will be available too (fullscreen not being available for F2P).
I am aware that there are a few players that would like to see an older looking version of the game as well. This isn't really the same as a different engine as it's not the engine that has changed so much (you could make RuneScape 2 look almost exactly as it did at launch with the current Tek3 and the forthcoming Tek5 SD), it's the content that has changed, content being models, textures and maps. Running simultaneous versions of content is very difficult and time consuming as it means we have to make and update two versions of everything in the game!
Someone also mentioned fullscreen SD, I think I did also mention resizable mode will be available too (fullscreen not being available for F2P).
Page 6
"Also, will there be changes to the minimum system requirements?"
The minimum system requirements will not be changing with this update. If you turn off all the new SD features, your performance should be at least the same, or in many cases better under Tek5.
"Also, will there be changes to the minimum system requirements?"
The minimum system requirements will not be changing with this update. If you turn off all the new SD features, your performance should be at least the same, or in many cases better under Tek5.
Page 7
"Is the tab to help with this update?"
I'm not avoiding your question, I just can't answer it as it's a content team thing, so I don't know the answers, sorry.
"Will the particle effects, blooming and water reflections be getting added with this?"
No, they will come as the content teams begin to use the features in new and upgraded content.
"Is the tab to help with this update?"
I'm not avoiding your question, I just can't answer it as it's a content team thing, so I don't know the answers, sorry.
"Will the particle effects, blooming and water reflections be getting added with this?"
No, they will come as the content teams begin to use the features in new and upgraded content.
Page 8
"Nice, looking forwards to the new graphics, will this new platform allow us to see people on the second level if we are on the first ?"
Not currently, no
"Nice, looking forwards to the new graphics, will this new platform allow us to see people on the second level if we are on the first ?"
Not currently, no
Page 8
"Where did the RuneTek 1 screenshot come from?"
One of Andrew's very early 3D games from the later 1990s. it still works great (in fact we took the screenshot only yesterday afternoon).
"Where did the RuneTek 1 screenshot come from?"
One of Andrew's very early 3D games from the later 1990s. it still works great (in fact we took the screenshot only yesterday afternoon).
Page 10
Kingsuper1: Yes, we will have a DirectX option at some point, but not for better graphics, but better compatibility (OpenGL is a compatibility nightmare!). On launch I would expect it to look much the same as the existing HD game, but that may change as time goes on, we don't yet know.
Kingsuper1: Yes, we will have a DirectX option at some point, but not for better graphics, but better compatibility (OpenGL is a compatibility nightmare!). On launch I would expect it to look much the same as the existing HD game, but that may change as time goes on, we don't yet know.
Page 11
Repressor:
Antialiasing anything in the software game is one of the most terrifyingly slow things you can do
The minimap is now rendered by the HD engine (it was always rendered in SD, even when playing in HD before), so will look smoother, but not antialiased.
Repressor:
Antialiasing anything in the software game is one of the most terrifyingly slow things you can do
The minimap is now rendered by the HD engine (it was always rendered in SD, even when playing in HD before), so will look smoother, but not antialiased.
Page 11
"At the moment (I'm guessing...) the Content/Graphics Team has to write all the code for an entire update in both Graphics Engines - Tek3 and Tek4. Now that it's all done for one Engine (Tek5), what are the implications for the Content/Graphics Teams?"
The layer of Tek abstraction used to sit just below where the content teams write, model and map their work. So in most instances they only have to create one script/model/map. We have moved the abstraction down a level in Tek5 so that we in the engine team can now code a feature and only have to do it once, instead of once per rendering core - certainly freeing up a little of our time for others things, but it won't have a major impact on the content teams.
"At the moment (I'm guessing...) the Content/Graphics Team has to write all the code for an entire update in both Graphics Engines - Tek3 and Tek4. Now that it's all done for one Engine (Tek5), what are the implications for the Content/Graphics Teams?"
The layer of Tek abstraction used to sit just below where the content teams write, model and map their work. So in most instances they only have to create one script/model/map. We have moved the abstraction down a level in Tek5 so that we in the engine team can now code a feature and only have to do it once, instead of once per rendering core - certainly freeing up a little of our time for others things, but it won't have a major impact on the content teams.
Page 11
"How's progress going on implementing specular lighting?"
You already have specular lighting in HD! (See the shiny bits on your armour etc.)
"How's progress going on implementing specular lighting?"
You already have specular lighting in HD! (See the shiny bits on your armour etc.)
Page 12
Tomt1960: We will support as many of the render platforms on as many OSes as we can - the new improved SD should certainly work just fine on Linux
Tomt1960: We will support as many of the render platforms on as many OSes as we can - the new improved SD should certainly work just fine on Linux
Page 12
The features are present, but not used by any content yet in the game.
The features are present, but not used by any content yet in the game.
Page 12
Zofrea1: HD performance should be as it is now, or perhaps a little better depending on your PC. SD performance will again be similar, but as you turn on the new SD features you will lose a little performance, so it's up to you how much you want to use.
Zofrea1: HD performance should be as it is now, or perhaps a little better depending on your PC. SD performance will again be similar, but as you turn on the new SD features you will lose a little performance, so it's up to you how much you want to use.
Page 14
Grunts: SD should run just as well as it does at the moment for you, with a slight hit for switching on the new features.
"Have the content teams got any projects atm in development to put them to good use, or are they just in the early stages, planning?"
I can't really comment on content projects at the moment, sorry.
Grunts: SD should run just as well as it does at the moment for you, with a slight hit for switching on the new features.
"Have the content teams got any projects atm in development to put them to good use, or are they just in the early stages, planning?"
I can't really comment on content projects at the moment, sorry.
Page 14
"Will some strange shadows be fixed?
I'm talking about some bats in the agility arena who have their shadow floating in the air, when they aren't above something. Player planted trees have no shadow and the shadow of moving objects (like myself) has a different angle as the one of static objects (like trees)."
We haven't done much about the NPC & player shadows with this update, we have experimented with improving them during development, but it might be a while before we can get it to a stage we're happy with.
"Will some strange shadows be fixed?
I'm talking about some bats in the agility arena who have their shadow floating in the air, when they aren't above something. Player planted trees have no shadow and the shadow of moving objects (like myself) has a different angle as the one of static objects (like trees)."
We haven't done much about the NPC & player shadows with this update, we have experimented with improving them during development, but it might be a while before we can get it to a stage we're happy with.
Page 15
Nygu: In effect yes. If you remember when we first launched HD you had to choose between HD and SD before entering the game - those were the two different engines. We subsequently managed to cram them into one applet to allow you to switch, but it wasn't the tidiest way of doing things!
Nygu: In effect yes. If you remember when we first launched HD you had to choose between HD and SD before entering the game - those were the two different engines. We subsequently managed to cram them into one applet to allow you to switch, but it wasn't the tidiest way of doing things!
Page 15
"So..If I turn all the new SD features, will it still run faster than HD with every option set to the lowest setting? "
I can't promise anything as it depends on your graphics card and CPU, but hopefully yes.
"So..If I turn all the new SD features, will it still run faster than HD with every option set to the lowest setting? "
I can't promise anything as it depends on your graphics card and CPU, but hopefully yes.
Page 15
"So some of the new graphic options won't affect existing content at all?"
It depends on the content and graphics features as they all work differently. I think it's a 'wait and see' for that one, sorry!
"So some of the new graphic options won't affect existing content at all?"
It depends on the content and graphics features as they all work differently. I think it's a 'wait and see' for that one, sorry!
[Close]
I kinda ranted about wanting the old graphic back.. maybe it was a rant. I kinda rant or politely gesture depending on my mood.
