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X2: The Return - Developer Diary #2 Feature
Derek dela Fuente
01/02/2005
TVG delves beneath the technology powering EgoSoft's visually astute space-sim...
As the launch into outer-space draws close, TotalVideoGames continues its look at X2: The Return, with our latest Developer Diary focussing on the impressive technology behind the forthcoming expansion as we chat to Martin Brenner, Lead Programmer EgoSoft...
TVG: What kind of books and media do the team read to get a focus on the very ambient space sci fi feel of the game and what also may have inspired the game?
We are all sci-fi fans. I enjoy the novels of Isaac Asimov, especially the Foundation books. Also everybody at the office likes movies - and sci-fi even more so. The biggest influence style and atmosphere wise can be attributed either to 2001 a Space Odyssey or Bladerunner. But even a small thing from any film can turn into a major influence ā“ that is the nature of sci-fi sometimes, how it can be interpreted by different people
TVG: Please give us some details about the technology behind the game and also facts about the 3D engine. What have been some of the changes since last your release and what are some of the engine goals and features?
We use a self developed programming language called KC which is loosely based on C and Java but contains a lot of special features added just for our goals. All the high level logics of our games are written in KC. KC can handle many thousands of tasks. This allows us to program the universe in a totally object oriented way. Each object can have its own task doing things from its own perspective. To get an idea of the dimension this takes imagine that our universe is made up of much more than 100 sectors, each of which has usually dozens of factories, stations and installations, each of which hosts between a few and up to 50 or more ships. Then again ships can host more ships and so on.
So the programming behind the universe, its economy and the realistic simulation of it all is probably more important to us than the underlying graphics engine.
The graphics engine used in X2-The Return is very similar to X2-The Threat. It already has all the features we need: DP3 bumpmapping, shadow generation through so called shadow volumes, etc... The visual quality however will be additionally improved by further optimisations and getting the last out of the existing 3D engine. This can already be seen in early screenshots of the new game GUI with the improved smoother fonting used.
When X2: The Threat was released, at the start of the game there were over 16,000 independent objects in the game. Donāt forget that every one of these also changes its own behaviour and tasks according to the environment around it and the actions of the player.
TVG: In terms of future releases do you expect that technology will become an ever important factor and what other aspects of X2 do you feel might not be appreciated by gamers, or noticeable, are you proud of?
If you ask about a single important feature of our games it can always only be the freedom because in the end thatās what the whole X games are all about.
Freedom of gameplay, allowing the gamer to do whatever he or she wants. The engine, the KC language, all that stuff is the tools to achieve this. As always, the goal is to make sure the player doesnāt necessarily see this technology in action, but rather can just appreciate it working well instead.
TVG: We know of XBOX development for X2 ā“ how is this going and could there be other future console targets in the foreseeable future?
Sorry but this is something we are not allowed to talk about at this moment.
TVG: Is the engine based upon the DirectX 8 or DirectX 9 API?
We use features of both APIs. Direct X 8 and 9 are quite close to each other and we started the X2 engine based on Direct X 8. By now the engine also uses some Direct X 9 features but only where it makes sense. In regard to the performance it is not so important which API you use but more which technique you use to render certain effects.
The shadows, for example, is definitely a feature that stand out in the X2 engine, and there are many ways to render them.
TVG: What is the target and min spec for X2: The Return?
256MB of memory is the minimum. Apart from that itās not exactly decided what will be printed on the box. Itās to some degree a bit of a random decision where you draw the line performance wise, because itās impossible to say if a game will run smooth on a CPU of any frequency when not looking at the rest of the system at the same time. This is sometimes something a few gamers forget. A 1GHz CPU may be fast enough for āThe Returnā when combined with a decent graphic card. Testing is carried out on all types and specifications of systems however. There are times when we feel we could pack in so much more into the game, but it is of course vitally important that the game is as widely playable as possible.
TVG: If we had to be a little controversial do you believe the graphical style of the game is possibly a little predicable? It does bear a lot or resemblance to many other space themed games. Have you tried to be very imaginative and found it did not work?
Well indeed you can exaggerate everything up to a degree where typical customers wonāt find it a plus to the game anymore. This is definitely also true for very imaginative designs. But not every spaceship and every object you find in space has to have a resemblance to objects people have seen in the past. We definitely want to have innovative and imaginative designs and push this as far as you can go without losing the mainstream customers.
TVG: How many graphic artists are working on X2 and are the graphics one of the first aspects of the game that you put together?
Currently there are 7 people working exclusively on graphic design and cut-scene rendering. Since the graphics are very work intensive, itās definitely an aspect that is being worked on all the time. The moment one project is finished, the artists are already working on the next. And the work continues up to the day the title goes gold.
TVG: What kind of thought process goes into the design of enemies and craft? It is more than mere cosmetics?
The design of the previously described alien races in the X universe are by now very precisely described through the games but even more so through the books by Helge Kautz. New characters will fit into this framework and the truly innovative alien races are those who never appeared before. And X2-The Return WILL have such characters but Iām not going to tell more about this ;)
About new spacecrafts: X2-The Return will have many new ships which will definitely show some very innovative designs. They are also more than cosmetic ā“ already in X2: The Return the design of most craft is easily attributable to its own race.
TVG: Can you talk about the cut-scenes and what kind of cinematics will X2 feature?
Good timing! A first look at our one of our new cutscenes was recently revealed on our forums in another interview with one of our cutscene artists.
To overcome probably the biggest issue that X² - The Threat had, we decided to switch from ingame cutscenes to pre-rendered movies for special dramatic plot cut scenes. It turned out that this gives so much more freedom to the artists that the fact that the videos may seem a bit different compared to the real ingame graphics are really just a small price you pay. Plus as a result, we get to put more resources to the graphics in-game.
TVG: Would you say that AI comes within the technology focus of the game and how hard does it become to improve?
Definitely!
Many people are working to enrich the AI of the game and AI does not just translate into combat AI.
X2-The Threat had introduced the so called script engine which allows writing AI modules inside the actual game. Programmers can open an editor in the game and program code that ships will execute. The true benefit of this feature is just starting now, once many devnet members have learned to use this feature. A lot of this will flow back into X² - The Return and add a lot of new NPC AI modes, custom ship upgrades, enemy behaviour, etc.
TVG: When you are creating a game, you obviously try to compare against other similar titles but what kind of comparisons do you make?
Good question, given the fact that there is really not a lot of competition in our field. Freelancer was probably the last release of a Space game, but even then the comparisons are still quite broad.
Beyond that we can really just compare single features with games from totally different sectors. We do of course always compare our current work with our previous X titles to make sure we are still driving forward. Looking back, whilst we are pleased with the previous games, in todayās gaming environment we are all extremely excited about X2: The Return.
TVG would like to thank Martin for taking the time to answer our questions; weāll have more from the team at EgoSoft next month in our continuing X2: The Return Developer Diaries.
