Actually, you quoting me AND clarifying information is EXACTLY what I needed to hear. This clarifies some of the misinformation that's out there.It seemed like a few things in this thread should be cleared up.
Saints Row 1 through 4 are all technically on what would be called the same engine. The larger gap that occurred between 2 & 3 was because we revamped our in-house tools and pipelines for creating content. There were some large-ish changes to gameside stuff (one of the biggest being a new renderer), SR3 is a lot closer to SR2 than you think.
We are not licensing an engine from a group called CTG, we have an internal group that we call the "Core Technology Group" (or CTG) that are responsible for creating/maintaining code that is able to be used across multiple game projects. This is to share both some level of code (like our wrapper around Havok) as well as tools and pipelines. We had tried to make a tools group work for a while but it didn't really work out until SR3 and the changes that I mentioned above happened. Also it's worth noting that SR3 & 4 are not using a CTG engine in the usual sense of the word, just a bunch of common libraries and tools that we've developed internally over the years. But it would take a lot to start a game from scratch with them as compared to an engine like Unreal or whatever. We are trying to "fix" that for our Next-Gen games that we work on and make it easier on ourselves.
A lot of the problems that people had with content or "look" of SR3 probably has more to do with the fact that we built a whole new city. That meant that none of the content that we built in SR1/2 could be brought over for free like we could in SR2. And as discussed above, everyone was getting used to a whole new tool set (even though it wasn't a new engine) and a few of the other new engine upgrades that were introduced.
Which is exactly what happened.
In retrospect, I didn't mean to pick on HugeSaintsRowFan's quotes so much but he had the things worth quoting. I hope this clears somethings up.
SPOILERS My experience with Saints Row IV.
- Thread starter SonicInTheRow
- Start date
Well, it IS a new rendering engine. I guess the problem is "Game engine" can mean a lot of things.
Remember when Bethesda finally dropped the Gamebryo rendering engine for Skyrim and everyone said "Wow, it's a whole new engine finally!" without realizing that anything that wasn't rendering (well, except for havok physics which was oblivion added) was the same stuff they've been using since the Morrowind (and probably Daggerfall) days? Just with stuff added and dummied out (including leftovers from FO3 even)? It's a new rendering engine, but a lot of the rest is still the same thing, but a lot was also changed, where's the line drawn?
I guess it also does raise the question what makes an engine an engine.. if you use the same scripting methods, but have changed the internal designs of the formats although kept the internal names the same, is it still the same engine under the hood?
For that matter then, supposedly the rendering was changed again, but how much of the formats are the same? Was it easy to drop in SR3 assets into SR4 or did it require retooling even if the pipeline was probably more defined this time? Supposedly a lot was the same, but I guess the question is more how similar the games are aside from what was changed, meaning will it be easy-ish to convert stuff back and forth for any modding purposes (once we have better knowledge of the formats, of course)?
Remember when Bethesda finally dropped the Gamebryo rendering engine for Skyrim and everyone said "Wow, it's a whole new engine finally!" without realizing that anything that wasn't rendering (well, except for havok physics which was oblivion added) was the same stuff they've been using since the Morrowind (and probably Daggerfall) days? Just with stuff added and dummied out (including leftovers from FO3 even)? It's a new rendering engine, but a lot of the rest is still the same thing, but a lot was also changed, where's the line drawn?
I guess it also does raise the question what makes an engine an engine.. if you use the same scripting methods, but have changed the internal designs of the formats although kept the internal names the same, is it still the same engine under the hood?
For that matter then, supposedly the rendering was changed again, but how much of the formats are the same? Was it easy to drop in SR3 assets into SR4 or did it require retooling even if the pipeline was probably more defined this time? Supposedly a lot was the same, but I guess the question is more how similar the games are aside from what was changed, meaning will it be easy-ish to convert stuff back and forth for any modding purposes (once we have better knowledge of the formats, of course)?
![[V] Ramius](/forum/data/avatars/m/47/47610.jpg?1373554359){kind=avatar}
[V] Ramius
Volition Staff
You make a reasonable point. However I would point out that even in what you said it was "Gamebryo rendering engine" not "Gamebryo game engine". Sure, from SR2 to 3 you could say we swapped out our rendering "engine". Same goes for something like Havok, a physics engine not a game engine. But there is a lot of other systems that need to be be handled by a game engine that have nothing to do with rendering. If someone dropped a rendering engine off on your computer it would probably take you a long time before you had anything that looked like a game. However if someone dropped a proper game engine in front of you, say Unreal or even GameMaker, in very short order you could have simple games up and running. It's also worth noting that the renderer is the thing that probably has the most immediate impact on the player because it affects everything the player sees so making PR talking about that sort of change makes a lot of sense even if it's only a small part of the whole game.
As far as I am aware, from SR3 to 4 most of the assets stayed pretty much the same. At least in the general sense. We have a lot of asset types and I doubt we have [V] folks on here that represent every single type of asset we have, so there may be some cases where that's not quite true. There were probably additions for new SR4 features as well that make porting more or less difficult. The ease or difficulty in moving those kinds of assets will best be left to whenever there is any sort of SDK for that sort of thing (but I don't know what sort of plans are in place for it).
That's a good point that the rendering engine is the big thing for PR purposes. I mean, if you said "Wow, we changed the underlying game engine and tightened up performance, our AI is a hell of a lot better now, and you wouldn't believe how easy it is to make content all across the board now!" but didn't change the rendering, people would go "WTF it looks the same what a rip off". Which is sad in a way. Casualty of the push for graphical supremacy, because I know I'd prefer a better game engine.
Though I guess I should note that 'game engine' should be the game engine, not the 'whole engine' if you're going to swap out parts. Then again, considering naming your fancy engine and such is probably only good if you want to market it (either as PR or for liscencing to others), I imagine it's not exactly high on the priority to note what parts are what. Although maybe I'm wrong here, and it was decided quickly what to call it for one reason or another.
Although isn't Gamebryo only a rendering engine? It's fairly versatile, used in a lot of stuff, but the impression I got was it's more like say the stuff RAD puts out, where you tweak it until it's how you want, then drop it atop your actual core game engine. And then, if you change the parts of the underlying game engine, where does it become the next one? With my example of Bethesda, FO3 changed their game engine a lot.. but at the same time it seems they kept a lot the same too, probably to make asset creation nice and familiar. But is it the same engine? Or do they just add a version number and call it a day?
I guess at this point I'd say if you can more or less convert things between them with tweaking needed of course since as noted there's changes and features, it's enough of a similar engine to qualify. Of course, I guess it's also different from the engine coding end, if you can point and say "We just took all this source, and then changed this stuff and this stuff to add these bits in, so it's the same thing just better".. but sadly all we get is the finished product where we can't see all that stuff.
As long as we can manage some level of porting I guess, without having to have the original sources (well, say 3d studio models or whatever you use, xtbls and the binaries made from them kind of are the original material always being compiled text files), it's all good.
And now of course to wait. I'm glad to hear the game is shaping up. I loved SR3, even if SR2 still has a bigger place in my heart, and that sets a good track record. Part of me worries we're falling into hype here and we're gonna suddenly ban people for threatening to challenge that it might not be the most awesome thing ever created in the history of all time, particularly since the game hasn't been released.. but I have a pretty good idea what to expect from a Saints Row game and it looks like it takes that, then cranks it up to 12, because going to 11 isn't good enough.
Though I guess I should note that 'game engine' should be the game engine, not the 'whole engine' if you're going to swap out parts. Then again, considering naming your fancy engine and such is probably only good if you want to market it (either as PR or for liscencing to others), I imagine it's not exactly high on the priority to note what parts are what. Although maybe I'm wrong here, and it was decided quickly what to call it for one reason or another.
Although isn't Gamebryo only a rendering engine? It's fairly versatile, used in a lot of stuff, but the impression I got was it's more like say the stuff RAD puts out, where you tweak it until it's how you want, then drop it atop your actual core game engine. And then, if you change the parts of the underlying game engine, where does it become the next one? With my example of Bethesda, FO3 changed their game engine a lot.. but at the same time it seems they kept a lot the same too, probably to make asset creation nice and familiar. But is it the same engine? Or do they just add a version number and call it a day?
I guess at this point I'd say if you can more or less convert things between them with tweaking needed of course since as noted there's changes and features, it's enough of a similar engine to qualify. Of course, I guess it's also different from the engine coding end, if you can point and say "We just took all this source, and then changed this stuff and this stuff to add these bits in, so it's the same thing just better".. but sadly all we get is the finished product where we can't see all that stuff.
As long as we can manage some level of porting I guess, without having to have the original sources (well, say 3d studio models or whatever you use, xtbls and the binaries made from them kind of are the original material always being compiled text files), it's all good.
And now of course to wait. I'm glad to hear the game is shaping up. I loved SR3, even if SR2 still has a bigger place in my heart, and that sets a good track record. Part of me worries we're falling into hype here and we're gonna suddenly ban people for threatening to challenge that it might not be the most awesome thing ever created in the history of all time, particularly since the game hasn't been released.. but I have a pretty good idea what to expect from a Saints Row game and it looks like it takes that, then cranks it up to 12, because going to 11 isn't good enough.
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[V] IdolNinja
Volition Staff
As long as people are respectful, then we're not going to shut down any opinions, good or bad.