17 replies to this topic

[Armored Yokai]

I'm not complaining but one thing i have always wondered is.... why do the mechs take so long to release? I feel as though the art team is more than capable enough to produce mechs within a week or two. Is it that the Modeling/Art/Rigging&Animations/Cryengine the reason why it takes so long to produce and add them into the game?

[CDLord HHGD]

Hopefully because they are also busy adding other things with the game.

-Maps
-Modes
-Mechanics
-Polish

[FupDup]

Too long?

Seems more like too soon to me. So many mechs with shared generic weapon and/or body geometry, stuff like animations (e.g. Clan wave 1), etc.

I'd rather have quality over quantity here. If they put more work into making dynamic geometry look actually dynamic, that would be a large improvement. We don't need to crank up the rate of bloating any more than it already has been.

[TheCharlatan]

For each mech (from what i know, which is not that much):

• artwork
  
• translation from artwork to model
  
• model then needs to be animated and hitboxes need to be done.
  
• animations and hitboxes need to be test thoroughly to make sure that they work well with each other
  
• then textures need to be applied and tested with various settings. there are a lot of camos, and each has 2-3 channels...
  
• cockpit needs to be modeled and textured (and tested with each cockpit item)
  
• sound effects specific to the mech need to be created and tested
  
• probably more steps

Each of these probably is subjected to some to-and-fro as stuff dosen't work as expected and needs to be changed.
That's a lot of work, and a lot of man-hours and testing.

[Donnybrook]

As the esteemed Charlatan has stated:

1) Concept art (which not only requires creation, but also approval and revision by committee, which always takes forever).
2) Modeling and rigging in Maya or Max.
3) Import from Maya/Max into CryEngine Sandbox Editor.
4) Massive, iterative scripting and debugging in Vehicle Editor, as while there are obvious commonalities in each mech, there are enough differences that shared assets may be difficult to manage. Movement parameters, structure and parts properties, mass distribution etc.

And that's just to get a basic working vehicle that can move. You still have weapons, variants, damage modeling, etc. not to mention all of the texturing, visual and sound effects that Charlatan already mentioned. AND then each mech has what equates to a custom UI too.

PGI is not a massive studio. That they get one mech out a month at such a high level of quality is downright astounding. If they're not in constant crunch, then their project management and dev teams deserve accolades.

[Johnny Z]

cdlord, on 03 March 2016 - 02:06 PM, said:

Hopefully because they are also busy adding other things with the game.

-Maps
-Modes
-Mechanics
-Polish

I was hoping for this the first two years. Now I know better.

[Jackal Noble]

TheCharlatan, on 03 March 2016 - 02:11 PM, said:

For each mech

• then textures need to be applied and tested with various settings. there are a lot of camos, and each has 2-3 channels...
  
• cockpit needs to be modeled and textured (and tested with each cockpit item)
  
• pagan goat sacrifices

Fify. This and only this lol.

Edited by JackalBeast, 03 March 2016 - 04:40 PM.

[Armored Yokai]

This is only my opinion I'd rather have more mechs than maps
then i'll be content

[PEEFsmash]

To be honest, of all things to criticize PGI over, they aren't slow about releasing new mechs, even when compared to other games.

[Cyborne Elemental]

Quite a few steps into making a professional quality game model, especially as complex as MWO's.

1. Create Concept art
2. Translate art into some form of workable blueprint
3. Generate Highpoly 3d mesh for Normal mapping & reference (sometimes, but not always)
4. Generate main low poly3d mesh for ingame model which will be animated
5. Unwrap UVW main low poly 3d mesh for mapping & texturing
6a. Generate bone structure for Animation keyframing and link geometry to bones for limbs.
6b. Create and Assign bones for weapon hardpoints (MWO has alot of them)
7. Keyframe each animation sequence one at a time.
8. Q&A animation sequences
9. Generate RGB texture layer for main geometry (Mwo needs to create a unique one for every single Camo layer as well)
10. Generate normal maps either from RGB layer, or highpoly Geometry model (for lighting and shading)
11.Generate Specular/occlusion/Self Illumination maps (if necessary) from RGB or scratch.
12. Generate Hitbox geometry
13. Generate collision Geometry (sometimes same as hitbox)
14. Generate Shadow or Ray-trace geometry (sometimes same as main geometry, depends on engine)
15. Code in scripts
16. QA and testing

Probably alot of little steps missing, each engine is different, but this sums it up pretty close.

And then they have to do the Cockpit, which repeats all steps above.

Then sounds for all mech actions.
Engine, Torso twist, Torso Pitch, Arm pan and pitch, startup/shutdown and any other unique sounds necessary

Its alot of work.

Edited by Mister D, 03 March 2016 - 05:18 PM.

[Rhent]

They do it to get the most revenue possible. If they released every mech possible at once, first they'd have nothing else to release to make money from and releasing a large number of mechs would get significantly less money than doing it a few times a year. People would only buy a few mechs and then a month later they would do a post like yours about how come there isn't anything to buy and state they are quitting.

[Sandpit]

OP, you're joking right?

[Sjorpha]

If it is anything PGI is really really good at, it is their ability to put out quality mech models in a time efficient workflow.

There is nothing slow about PGIs mech releases, they are in fact really fast for the quality level.

[GRiPSViGiL]

Armored Yokai, on 03 March 2016 - 02:04 PM, said:

I'm not complaining but one thing i have always wondered is.... why do the mechs take so long to release? I feel as though the art team is more than capable enough to produce mechs within a week or two. Is it that the Modeling/Art/Rigging&Animations/Cryengine the reason why it takes so long to produce and add them into the game?

WHUT? is this a serious question? This game is saturated with pointless overlapping redundant mechs.

[Armored Yokai]

GRiPSViGiL, on 03 March 2016 - 05:30 PM, said:

This game is saturated with pointless overlapping redundant mechs.

Well we need even more!

[Ted Wayz]

cdlord, on 03 March 2016 - 02:06 PM, said:

Hopefully because they are also busy adding other things with the game.

-Maps
-Modes
-Mechanics
-Polish

Slow down. PGI has unlimited resources and none of them compete with each other.

PEEFsmash, on 03 March 2016 - 04:10 PM, said:

To be honest, of all things to criticize PGI over, they aren't slow about releasing new mechs, even when compared to other games.

But those other companies are releasing other pay content and aren't solely reliant on a single revenue stream.

[Agent 0 Fortune]

I haven't n keeping close track, but they were releasing 4 packs every 6 months, I think we are on a 6week per meh cycle now (or maybe 1 per month or two).
The biggest delay is probably the camos. Every mesh has to have reach camo customized, and any new camo has to be retrofitted to all existing chassis.

[Ted Wayz]

GRiPSViGiL, on 03 March 2016 - 05:30 PM, said:

WHUT? is this a serious question? This game is saturated with pointless overlapping redundant mechs.

What? I was told there were hundreds of mechs on Sarna that were all unique, special snowflakes and that redundancy wouldn't be an issue before real mechs roamed the earth. Are you telling me they were wrong?