PS3 Lair

[Yondaime]

So, es gab ein neues 1up Show Video nach der TGS, in dem u.a. auch Lair sehr ausführlich gezeigt wurde (neben Resistance, Gears of War, Monster Kingdom, Crackdown...).
Da das mit Julian Eggebrecht geführte Interview recht interessant war, habe ich mich entschlossen, diese 10 Minuten schrittweise in schriftlicher Form wiederzugeben.

Ok, here we go:
_______________________

I. Über die Steuerung und den Sixaxis

Sam Kennedy (1up editor-in-chief): "We've here all obviously [been] surprised about the motion sensoring controller at E3. Now, was that something that you had intended for the game all along or was that something that, you know, later on you realized that or made aware of that by Sony and then you added that into the game?"

Julian Eggebrecht: " No, actually it was always our dream thing for Lair when we designed the whole game we always thought that, ok, we need massive CPU, we need massive graphics and we need a jump in control. We actually did it for Rogue Leader back then when they designed the Gamecube, we were begging Nintendo to put in Motion Control because we know that for flight games you can do a lot with it. And then for Lair when we designed it around the dragons, we knew that, wow, you're holding the reins of a massive beast, so it would be not only cool to actually have the tilt control, the gyro stuff, but actually the gestures what we do in [Lair]. So things where you basically can attack other creatures physically as opposed to just using the old controls. So actually in early discussions about the PS3 hardware we asked the controller designer for the platform if they please could include it. I don't know if my word made any difference there but I certainly was thrilled like crazy that they actually did it (smiles). There was a plan B and for a while we worked on the plan B that there was this pure stick implementation, but believe me, with pure stick gameplay this doesn't play half as good. "

JE: "Just in the pure flight part you get such a wider range of analog motion because it is..the motion controller is supposed to do little thing which you have on the analog stick, ehm, but the main thing really is beyond that is all of the gesture stuff, where we could simplify pretty complex button layouts for so many moves. So, you want to do a 180° you just do this whip up (shows how this is done)- one get rid off one button. If you basically want to scoop forward, you dash down. If you want to go sideways and dodge things you just go quickly that or that (moves left and right) and you can just get rid off a ton of buttons. So, you can see I can literally play the whole game single-handedly. Because it's only two buttons and everything else, I can do like this, I can do like that, dodge it (shows some moves)- and it's not very complicated and it's also not.. what people don't realize is it's you don't have to do huge motions, it's not like I'm gonna make a monkey out of me (shows some weird movements) but I can go actually very subtle in my movements and this thing [the Sixaxis] actually detects it very suddenly and very well. Let's move up to one of these dragons, oh, and the flight is an obvious thing but we're also doing a lot on the ground, so again, the analogy being you're riding the dragon, so you're actually moving the dragon on the ground with the motion controller. And if you want to stomp down, you actually hit the controller down, things like that. So, it gives the game a complete physiciality and a visceral feeling which connects you with the creature better than anything you could do on an analog stick, no doubt about it. "

__________________________

II. Warum ein Fantasy Shooter/ Luft- Nahkampf

JE: " When we finished Rebel Strike and knew that the next hardware generation would be coming around, I was asking myself how do we take every single thing we've ever done to the next level. And one of the obvious takeaways was, well, if we stick to craft, flight craft and if we stick to linear gameplay where you only can land at certain spots that will never lead anywhere. So that has led us to, wow, so we need creatures, because with creatures we can do the long range combat like these fireballs here which are similar to what we did in the past but then also the locking on and getting up close with the enemies, because you suddenly have these guys [the dragons] which can get next to each other and actually fight up close. So that was one thing where you would have that and then the motion control was the obvious next step where we also would get to a next generation with the control itself. (shows dragon vs dragon infight)."

___________________________

III: Über die Technik in Lair und der PS3:

SK:" How does it feel to be working on the PS3 with the most like limitless power?"

JE: " Ehm, it's unbelievable! It's taxing for a developer, but for a developer like us, we don't see that as a negative thing. I mean, when we finish this, we will probably have touched half of the system power - at the maximum- which in previous generations often times you could say: << Well, yeah, we can already tell, right now, that we can get to 80% on the first go and maybe a 100% on the next go, which essentially was the case with Rebel Strike and Rogue Leader before that.>> On the PS3, I can say, when we ship this, there's so much more to go the next 5-7 years of the hardware life cycle and that's actually what Sony always has been very good at. It's a system which has limitless power for quite a while."

SK: " Is there something that maybe you could kind of point out to me and our viewers, like something that is unique to the PS3 in terms of visuals and technology or something you could say: << This is only possible on the PS3!>>?"

JE: "Well, one of the things which clearly is only possible on the PS3 is actually running a game with complex graphics like this in 1080p, which Lair is actually. So we are running natively in 1080p, not upscaled or cheated or anything. Then - when you look at the whole game world here, it's a seemless experience, so we're handling at the same time on Cell, not only these dragons and about on the bridge, we're handling the A.I. for about 3,000 troops, all of these particle systems, also the whole landscape engine back there. The landscape what you see is 32 x 32 miles and it's about 50 times more detailed than what we had in terms of landsacpe on the Gamecube. Now, on top of that, the whole light system, if you would wait here 10 minutes you would see the sun rise actually in realtime above the landscape. So all of that is not pre-baked, it's all realtime lighting. We've got volumetric fog and we've got very very complex animated creatures. If I go a little bit closer here on the dragon and show you a little bit the detail , that detail togehter with all of the other elements in the scene and actually, if you look down here on the ocean, that's a full fluid sim driving those ocean waves which basically Cell just does on the side there for us. So, yeah, you can't do this [on any other system] (smiles).
Both the landscape as well as every single object which you see is actually running through Cell and is being..is going through a process called "progressive mesh/ mash" [?] which basically means it's being LoD'd seemlessly the whole time. Every single bit. So you can get really really up close. That's why we can land on this bridge without getting any cuts or anything and it still holds up and is as detailed as something you would expect from a ground game actually. So every single polygon is going through Cell, then, once we've fassaged[?] it and generated all of them, all of these troops here, for example and applied physics and everything else, then we actually send it to RSX which then is rendering everything."

SK: " How come it is that you guys have a game in 1080p with so much going on and so many beautiful visuals and a lot of the -well, not a lot- but some of the other titles for PS3 don't have 1080p?"

JE: "Ehm, I think it partly comes down to really really really thinking into the system and understanding how you get the maximum out of it in terms of fill rate which is basically one of the limiting things when you come to 1080p. So you have to have mathematical algorithms which are very good in terms of determining what you actually want to draw on screen. Once you've done that, actually the power of the RSX is really really plentiful to actually run in 1080p, so I would expect for second generation and third generation games that pretty much every single game will switch over to running in 1080p actually. "

____________________________


IV. Release Datum und sonstiges:

SK: " Are you guys at all Panzer Dragoon fans?"

JE (laughs): " I am a Panzer Dragoon fan and that's why consciously there is no single bit of Panzer Dragoon in here. No lock on or the whole linear gameplay, so no Panzer Dragoon elements, no. I love the series way too much to rip it off.""

SK: " So, when does the game release?"

JE: "Eh, spring of 07!"

SK: "Well, thank you very much for talking with us. It looks excellent."

JE: "Well, thank you."

 

[Darji]

Coole Idee darüber habe ich im Warforum auch gerade angesprochen

Freue mich schon das ganze Interview zu lesen^^

 

[Yondaime]

edit: wieder ein bisschen mehr vom Interview, sry, dauert heute länger, da ich noch kurz einkaufen muss und nebenher für meine Prüfung am Mi lernen muss.

 

[Yondaime]

So, hab wieder mit dem Aufschreiben angefangen. Comments erwünscht, nachher wirds richtig spannend, wenn er über die Technik von Lair im Speziellen und der PS3 im Allgemeinen spricht.

 

[Snake Eater]

Junge, Du hasch au zuviel Zeit oder ???

Ich guck´mir des mal an wenn Du sagsch, dass es sich lohnt - bis spaeter

Noch was anderes faellt mir da gerade ein: weiß eigentlich irgendjemand, ob man im Verlauf des Spiels die Drachen wechseln kann ???

 

[frames60]

Habe mir grade das Gameplay-Video von der TGS nochmal genau angeschaut... also, dass is definitiv das beeindruckenste Spiel dass ich bisher gesehen habe... :o

Das sind TAUSENDE Soldaten auf der Brücke, dazu die Kampfstiere oder was das sein soll, im Himmel die ganzen Drachen, die Lichteffekte, das Wasser sieht absolut phantastisch aus, dazu die Sichtweite und das alles in 1080p... einfach nur Wahnsinn...

 

[Snake Eater]

Es ist definitiv eines der allerschoensten Next Generation Spiele, kein Zweifel.
Ich finde, dass es so einen eigenen Look, der es irgendwie fast schon einzigartig aussehen laesst, hat und dazu noch das wirklich sehr gute Gegner Design - sehr gut gelungen !!!

 

[Yondaime]

Sry, falsch gesetzt.

 

[Gatsu]

Schlagt mich, aber ich habs mir viel besser vorgestellt.
Was ist aus der Grafik vom ersten Trailer geworden?

 

[Yondaime]

Schlagt mich, aber ich habs mir viel besser vorgestellt.
Was ist aus der Grafik vom ersten Trailer geworden?

Glaub mir, das liegt am abgefilmten Material.

 

[Noah]

Schlagt mich, aber ich habs mir viel besser vorgestellt.
Was ist aus der Grafik vom ersten Trailer geworden?

:-?

Also entweder sehe ich nicht richtig aber ich finde es sogar beeindruckender als der erste Trailer!

 

[Darji]

seh ich auch so Trailer ist erreicht. und das obwohl das Spiel erst zu 35% fertiggestellt ist.

 

[Snake Eater]

Also die IGN HD-Movies sahen auch mindestens so aus wie die ganzen gezeigten Trailer, daher ist es wie bei so vielen Playstation 3 Spielen absolut noetig mindestens einen HD-Film anzuschauen

 

[Gatsu]

Welcher Trailer ist das?
Ich kenn nur einen von der TGS und der war echt enttäuschend.

 

[Darji]

dann nenne mir mal spiele auf der 360 die da rankommen und auch noch soviel Gegner effekte usw bieten?^^

 

[Yondaime]

Technik Abschnitt hinzugefügt (geht aber noch viel länger).

 

[Gatsu]

Hat dir schonmal jemand gesagt das du leicht paranoid bist?

 

[Yondaime]

Ich hab so ein Einlogg Problem. Ich muss mich immer neu anmelden, wenn ich was posten will. :cry:

 

[Darji]

Ja die hatte ich acuh mal aber nach einem Restart waren sie wieder weg. Und nie vergessen: Erst "oben" anmelden^^

 

[frames60]

Schlagt mich, aber ich habs mir viel besser vorgestellt.
Was ist aus der Grafik vom ersten Trailer geworden?

Es ist die gleiche, nur regnet´s grad net...

PS: Was für´n TGS-Trailer? Da wurde das Spiel dich spielbar gezeigt? :-?