Graphical engines: PSO and PSU

[landman]

I was in discussion with a friend who stated that PSU was using the same graphical engine that ST developed for PSO in 2000, and me saying he was wrong, that the game look different and he can't appreciate it just looking pictures (he was comparing the two forest pictures…)

Of course I am not sure about I was saying, I don't understand a single thing about graphical engines or programming, but for me PSO had normal/good graphics for a Dreamcast and PSU has excellent graphics for a PS2...

So I would like to know the truth (engine names, versions, anything) and have proof to shout my friends mouth or to recognise my error (or dig a hole and not come out)

This is not PSO vs. PSU topic, my friend is not a PSO defender or player, he is just a “bad” graphics hatter

[Weeaboolits]

I seriously doubt the engine is the same, PSO didn't have tile shake.

[DurakkenX]

PSO and PSU uses similliar engines and both in house developed and prolly PSU's is a later generation of PSO's.

[Skuda]

I don't know much, but from what I understand, they either went 1 of 2 ways on this.

1) Built a new engine from scratch (most likely)

or

2) Modified the old PSO engine. (least likely)

[DurakkenX]

even if it's not the same engine or based on the same base engine it will show to be a lot alike since both were built by the same people and while the coding may be a little bit more streamlined it will still use all the same basic stuff

[landman]

Then, what improvements have you seen in this new or similar engine?

Fore example:
- Boobies physics

[SolRiver]

PSU engine is defintely different (or a major add-on) to the PSO engine.

Having the ability to shift the face/eyes/lip would be a pretty challenging/tedious deed for an online game programming wise. I believe they spend most of their time on the character creation part of the engine. The most major change are there.

While other part of the world, PSU and PSO are still quite close, with PSU able to load more things at once. We didn't get to see as detailed graphic when PSU come out would probably mainly be caused by ST's focus on where to finish the project.

Since PSU focused so much on character creation, their base kind of lagged behind compared to many games out there. What I want to see now is expansion of PSU, because now that the base engine is out and over with, the texture and polygon buff might come at a more dramatic rate.

I assume ST also did not have enough money to out source too much making texture and render more detailed models...

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: SolRiver on 2007-03-13 03:02 ]</font>

[DurakkenX]

you gotta understand an engine is also a very complex program and is often used in games you never think you'd not see it in and doesn't control just graphics, but physics and mechanics and whatever else there is. And because it is long and complex companies often shell out cash for a great engine or use in house stock engines.

Since PSU and PSO is a unique genre it is likely that they used the same engine or simply streamlined and modified what was wanted in ^.^

But then if you look at how the game works you pretty much have to say that it's a patched together mesh of new code and old code and they are not always workable together... One example of what they changed probably to fix a glaring problem was how damage is registered and calculated...and then there are hit boxes that have been extremely enlarged v.v

basically in PSU it
registers whether you are in range or not
checks the hit/miss
calculates the dmg if hit
performs the animation

in PSO it
performs the animation
calculates the dmg
checks if you're in range or not
checks whether you are hit or not

PSO's is actually better >.>

[ryeenae]

I think the character models look much better, but alot of the plants specifically look pretty similar. I mean, they're just three planes thrown together, the same technique used by Animal Crossing (a port of a frickin' N64 game). Nice to see they're moving forward. Also, I really miss being able to actually see everyone's character. Anyone playing on PS2 knows that there's no way in hell that more than a few models can be loaded at once. In my opinion I think it makes the game feel really impersonal, but maybe that's just me. -_-

[Pure-chan]

On 2007-03-13 03:10, DurakkenX wrote:

basically in PSU it
registers whether you are in range or not
checks the hit/miss
calculates the dmg if hit
performs the animation

in PSO it
performs the animation
calculates the dmg
checks if you're in range or not
checks whether you are hit or not

PSO's is actually better >.>

...better if you omit damage canceling from pso rafoie spam. T-T