Little things in game engines that the devs always seem to miss

[Kadoodle]

1. In a physics engine: Almost always, developers seem to neglect the fact that gravity is acceleration. Why is it that when I jump off a high place I almost always find myself falling at a constant speed? I mean, there is a little bit of acceleration at the start of the fall, but then you stop accelerating and fall at a constant speed.

2. In graphics engines, developers never seem to realize that all their colors look gray and dull even when they are supposed to be bright? Would it kill them to make things a little less desaturated and up the contrast a little? I mean, you look at Assassin's creed and it's kind of ridiculous how poor the lighting and color can be in certain places.

3. Why is it always so light at night? THE MOON IS NOT THAT BRIGHT, guys. The ground shouldn't be perfectly visible. It should be difficult to see. I go outside right now and I see blackness, and it contrasts sharply against any lit areas. Look at assassin's creed 2 and brotherhood (again I use AC as an example for poor lighting) to see the worst of this sort of thing. Even if the city has torches and lights, the alleyways should be darker, and there needs to be more contrast; a whole street shouldn't be a pinkish-orange glow. Furthermore, there should be less people outside.

4. Physics engine: Why is that dead body half inside that other one? Come on, work on the collision detection, guys.

5. Graphics engine: Why is it that when I look down in a first person shooter I can't see my feet? I mean a few FPSs actually get it right (most notably the F.E.A.R. series) in that you can see your own body. F.E.A.R. was really good at that, especially with the martial arts that you could perform. Seeing your waist, legs, and torso do a scissor kick from first person is awesome. In other words, I shouldn't feel like I'm a floating camera with arms and a gun.


That's all that comes to mind right now for me. How about you guys?

 

[Wyes]

1. In a physics engine: Almost always, developers seem to neglect the fact that gravity is acceleration. Why is it that when I jump off a high place I almost always find myself falling at a constant speed? I mean, there is a little bit of acceleration at the start of the fall, but then you stop accelerating and fall at a constant speed.

3. Why is it always so light at night? THE MOON IS NOT THAT BRIGHT, guys. The ground shouldn't be perfectly visible. It should be difficult to see. I go outside right now and I see blackness, and it contrasts sharply against any lit areas. Look at assassin's creed 2 and brotherhood (again I use AC as an example for poor lighting) to see the worst of this sort of thing. Even if the city has torches and lights, the alleyways should be darker, and there needs to be more contrast; a whole street shouldn't be a pinkish-orange glow. Furthermore, there should be less people outside.

1. Because this is what actually happens in real life. Yes, gravity is constant acceleration, but bodies in atmospheres have an upper bound on the velocities they reach due to friction. Though, this bound in games always seems to be way too slow...

3. Acceptable Breaks from Reality [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AcceptableBreaksFromReality]. Some games really benefit from darkness, like the STALKER games and survival horror games and the like, but plenty of games don't. I don't foresee Assassin's Creed benefiting from true darkness at night.

 

[aprildog18]

Battlefield: Why can I get out of a vehicle moving faster than 50 mph with no damage?

Not really a game engine thing, but also in Battlefield. Who keeps leaving the keys in the ignition so that the other team can use steal it >:[

 

[burningdragoon]

The title seems to imply (or state, w/e) that you are talking about things that are missing by, for lack of a better word, accident and not deliberate design decisions. If you only want things 'accidentally' left out of engines, then at least 1,3 and 5 don't really apply.

1 - falls under 'good enough' simulation since oversimulation can have all sorts of problems.
3 - covered by others, acceptable breaks from reality. You still need to be able to see. Movies do this a lot too.
5 - though this one does actually bug me a lot, I'd assume that in most cases it has to do with legs being in the way, which is why in some games (Halo comes to mind) they only show up sometimes and in others (MGS4 for example) legs will disappear when you start to aim over them. Not to mention how unrealistic the angle actually is if you look straight down.

The game you mentioned had a use for first-person leg animation, so obviously there was use for seeing your leg. But yes, that bugs me.

Now, to play along, I offer 2 simple words: Fucking reflections.

Oh man, I am so amused by this post of mine.

 

[Jedoro]

When I have a magazine-fed weapon with X capacity, but doesn't go to X+1 when I reload. That round doesn't magically go back into the magazine when it's removed, dammit.

EDIT: One game that tries to fix this but does it wrong is Battlefield 3. People don't carry a loose round per magazine so they can reload an empty weapon, chamber one, then shove one of those loose rounds into the magazine.

 

[Kadoodle]

1. In a physics engine: Almost always, developers seem to neglect the fact that gravity is acceleration. Why is it that when I jump off a high place I almost always find myself falling at a constant speed? I mean, there is a little bit of acceleration at the start of the fall, but then you stop accelerating and fall at a constant speed.

3. Why is it always so light at night? THE MOON IS NOT THAT BRIGHT, guys. The ground shouldn't be perfectly visible. It should be difficult to see. I go outside right now and I see blackness, and it contrasts sharply against any lit areas. Look at assassin's creed 2 and brotherhood (again I use AC as an example for poor lighting) to see the worst of this sort of thing. Even if the city has torches and lights, the alleyways should be darker, and there needs to be more contrast; a whole street shouldn't be a pinkish-orange glow. Furthermore, there should be less people outside.

1. Because this is what actually happens in real life. Yes, gravity is constant acceleration, but bodies in atmospheres have an upper bound on the velocities they reach due to friction. Though, this bound in games always seems to be way too slow...

3. Acceptable Breaks from Reality [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AcceptableBreaksFromReality]. Some games really benefit from darkness, like the STALKER games and survival horror games and the like, but plenty of games don't. I don't foresee Assassin's Creed benefiting from true darkness at night.

Assassin's Creed. It's a game about assassins. People who stealthily kill other people. I'd think that darkness would play an important factor in the whole stealth thing.

 

[Stabinbac]

1. Game physics have little to do with reality. It's usually a compromise between what feels good, and what the engine can handle without complications.

2. This has nothing to do with engines. Over saturation and dull colors is an artistic choice.

3. Squinting at a monitor to see things for an extended period of time isn't fun. It's also an artistic choice. Movies do the same thing.

There's also a tradeoff with the engine performance. Realistic lighting transitions between dark and light areas can be complex, and require far more effort than many devs have resources for. Sometimes baking a bit of light into the entire scene just makes more sense.

Go play Doom 3 . You'll be begging for some good bland ambient lighting.

4. Collision detection requires processing power. Making every item collide perfectly with every other is a horrendous waste of power.

5. Feet are another model that has to be loaded, drawn, and animated. That's all taking away from other places in the game. You also have to ensure the feet are behaving properly and can handle awkward terrain. More wasted resources on something that is fine to just not do.


Video games are a complex combination of artistic choices and resource compromises. I'd say just relax, analyze the games more as a whole experience, and appreciate the differences and quirks.

 

[Xeorm]

1. It's fairly close, and objects will achieve terminal velocity fairly quickly. It's also easier for the player to deal with, generally.

2. This seems to be a recent artistic bent, and up to personal tastes really.

3. I agree, light generally isn't that bright, but really it's just there for the player. A skilled assassin would probably be able to get around quite well in a lot of darkness. A player would have no idea. You can think f it as assassin senses if you really prefer

4. Would be ideal, but yes, getting good collision detection that doesn't sap too much cpu is difficult.

5. I believe this is mainly due to the character not having a neck and issues with clipping. Remember, the camera is typically located somewhere in the head region, sometimes in the model. How would you decide which parts are able to be shown, without having odd issues of where clipping starts? If you're looking straight down, for example, you'd see nothing since you're looking into your neck. But if you move your camera up, you'd suddenly see feet in front of you? It would look rather confusing, no?

 

[Frostwhisper21]

I don't really have a problem with any of those except I do agree with #4... but it's rather minimal to me. If it doesn't sacrifice anything else it's nice to have (Arkham City does it rather well surprisingly).

And yeah... the lighting i'm fine with because it's purposeful for gameplay.. Honestly unless it's a multiplayer game i really prefer brightness solely due to convenience. I even turn the brightness UP most of the time.

 

[the spud]

The times when an engine requires that the game remember all the changes you make to the game world, and then subsequently eats all your console's RAM. Yeah, I hate that kind.

 

[isometry]

1. In a physics engine: Almost always, developers seem to neglect the fact that gravity is acceleration. Why is it that when I jump off a high place I almost always find myself falling at a constant speed? I mean, there is a little bit of acceleration at the start of the fall, but then you stop accelerating and fall at a constant speed.

This is mostly a perception issue, human vision doesn't feed us a lot of intuition about acceleration; in real life acceleration is something we feel, not something we see.

Someone above mentioned terminal velocity, but all the games I've tested projectile motion in use simple drag-free constant acceleration. It's just kind of hard to see that without marking distances and timing with a stopwatch.

 

[lacktheknack]

"Grand RPG" Engines: Why do you advertise that I can get through any situation using combat, stealth or diplomacy, and then not give me experience for diplomaticifying my way through a nigh-impossible block? Elder Scrolls actually had the potential to do this right (Speechcraft), but there's not enough situations where diplomacy is useful (say, in the "kill this person" missions, perfect for combat and stealth-assassination builds, but your glib merchant build has to be content with not taking the quest).

I know this wouldn't work with monsters in current form, but why not add a taming skill?

 

[Hal10k]

1. In a physics engine: Almost always, developers seem to neglect the fact that gravity is acceleration. Why is it that when I jump off a high place I almost always find myself falling at a constant speed? I mean, there is a little bit of acceleration at the start of the fall, but then you stop accelerating and fall at a constant speed.

3. Why is it always so light at night? THE MOON IS NOT THAT BRIGHT, guys. The ground shouldn't be perfectly visible. It should be difficult to see. I go outside right now and I see blackness, and it contrasts sharply against any lit areas. Look at assassin's creed 2 and brotherhood (again I use AC as an example for poor lighting) to see the worst of this sort of thing. Even if the city has torches and lights, the alleyways should be darker, and there needs to be more contrast; a whole street shouldn't be a pinkish-orange glow. Furthermore, there should be less people outside.

1. Because this is what actually happens in real life. Yes, gravity is constant acceleration, but bodies in atmospheres have an upper bound on the velocities they reach due to friction. Though, this bound in games always seems to be way too slow...

3. Acceptable Breaks from Reality [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AcceptableBreaksFromReality]. Some games really benefit from darkness, like the STALKER games and survival horror games and the like, but plenty of games don't. I don't foresee Assassin's Creed benefiting from true darkness at night.

Assassin's Creed. It's a game about assassins. People who stealthily kill other people. I'd think that darkness would play an important factor in the whole stealth thing.

If it was structured like Thief or Splinter Cell, then you'd be right. But Assassin's Creed is structured like Assassin's Creed, meaning that the primary aspect of the gameplay revolves around getting free-running and blending in with crowds. Both of these tasks require large amounts of light to easily accomplish. Ergo, the cities in Assassin's Creed are bio luminescent.

 

[Reaper195]

1: You generally don't fall very far in games, with a few exceptions, and you accelerate at not an incredibly high speed. That, and a video game trying to calculate/simulate actual gravity would make any game almost impossible to play with how taxed the console/computer would be.

2: Because the world is not as fucking colourful as Halo! In Assassins Creed, buildings were made of stone, and they didn't bother painting them. So why would a game developer specifically focusing (Ish) in authenticity make something different when it wasn't?

3: There was a mod in Fallout 3 that gave the game realistic night time. It was impossible to play.

4: Similar to 1. Because sometimes it's better to simply not add something that no one except pedantic assholes would even bother noticing. That, and why dedicate processing power to something that isn't vital, not atmosphere breaking?

5: First person shooter.....why bother creating a full character model that you never see?

 

[Thaluikhain]

When I have a magazine-fed weapon with X capacity, but doesn't go to X+1 when I reload. That round doesn't magically go back into the magazine when it's removed, dammit.

Well, they could be open bolt weapons, though that wouldn't work if they are using real life guns which aren't.

Rainbow 6: Raven Shield had this right...if you use the whole magazine and reload, you have one less round than if you use half and then reload, so you reload again afterwards if you want. It'd be useful if you could have reloaded the first time from an almost empty magazine, though.

...

Though, how many of these complaints are things they've got "wrong", or things people ahve chosen to do for the sake of style or simplicity?

 

[Vicarious Vangaurd]

When I have a magazine-fed weapon with X capacity, but doesn't go to X+1 when I reload. That round doesn't magically go back into the magazine when it's removed, dammit.

EDIT: One game that tries to fix this but does it wrong is Battlefield 3. People don't carry a loose round per magazine so they can reload an empty weapon, chamber one, then shove one of those loose rounds into the magazine.

I don't understand what you're saying, because battlefield 3 features hot reloads a.k.a. if you do not use every round in the magazine there is still a round in the chamber so when you reload a fresh magazine you get all of the ammo in the magazine plus the round that is still in the chamber.

Basically let's say you have a gun with a 30 round mag and you fire 27 rounds from that mag. When you reload a fresh mag there will be 31 rounds in the gun because there's still one round in the chamber of the gun. If you fired all 31 rounds after that and reloaded you'd have 30 rounds because there would be no round left in the chamber.

Unless of course you're speaking of how magazines don't stay empty after fired so if you use all of your magazines there won't be half empty ones when you reload.

 

[Jedoro]

When I have a magazine-fed weapon with X capacity, but doesn't go to X+1 when I reload. That round doesn't magically go back into the magazine when it's removed, dammit.

EDIT: One game that tries to fix this but does it wrong is Battlefield 3. People don't carry a loose round per magazine so they can reload an empty weapon, chamber one, then shove one of those loose rounds into the magazine.

I don't understand what you're saying, because battlefield 3 features hot reloads a.k.a. if you do not use every round in the magazine there is still a round in the chamber so when you reload a fresh magazine you get all of the ammo in the magazine plus the round that is still in the chamber.

Basically let's say you have a gun with a 30 round mag and you fire 27 rounds from that mag. When you reload a fresh mag there will be 31 rounds in the gun because there's still one round in the chamber of the gun. If you fired all 31 rounds after that and reloaded you'd have 30 rounds because there would be no round left in the chamber.

Unless of course you're speaking of how magazines don't stay empty after fired so if you use all of your magazines there won't be half empty ones when you reload.

No, what I was referring to was your extra ammo capacity. Say, you start with the M4. You'll start with 31 in the mag, but then have 124 or 217 extra rounds, depending on perks. It's those extra 4 and 7 that bug me.