kreed q&a

[Dima]

Remember the AMAZING video of Kreed that was released some time ago?

Well, today, cuttingtheedge.com managed to interview the developers of this AMAZING game.

The interview can be located here:

http://www.cuttingtheedge.com/the_views/interviews/2001/kreed/kreed1.shtm

My jaw was on the floor as I was wathing the game's AMAZING engine in action! This is honestly the way I thought the new DOOM game would look when it's released!

While the X-Tend engine is still not as advanced in terms of features as the new DOOM engine, it's looks are most definetly on par with id's latest creation!

I highly recommend reading the interview and getting to know the features of this AMAZING engine.

P.S

For anyone intrested in viewing this AMAZING engine in action, you can download the movie that was first shown on ECTS 2001 here:

http://www.burut.ru/download/video/New_creed_egine03.exe

P.S.S

Features of the X-Tend engine (the most sagnificant ones I assume):

Multireflection: stands for multiple game area reflection in reflecting surfaces (i.e. one mirror reflects another one). This makes the game more realistic and satisfies physical laws. Particle system: enables variation of complex physical effects like explosions, fire and steam, water splashes, crashing glass, etc. which consist of small particles.


Dual-texture shadow mapping techniques: a way of shadowing. Unfortunately, the use of this feature in Kreed will be limited, since it demands much computing power per each light source. Another shadowing technology will be used instead.


Self-shadowing: when a character casts a shadow on himself.


Realistic light maps: They are constructed according to the natural laws of light dispersion to make the scene look more realistic. There are different kinds of maps, like global illumination, reflection and refraction surface.


Character skeleton animation: a so-called skeleton is used for object's animation (a set of hierarchically related coordinates system) which represents an exact copy of the human body model.


Procedural textures: some texture maps are mathematically generated, not artist made.


Portals: the technology of showing only the visible parts of the level.


The most intresting parts of the interview:

Let's start off with the amazing X-Tend engine. Can you please give us some specs on the engine and what it is capable of. Will Kreed use the X-Tend engine to its full potential or is the X-Tend engine a little beyond its time?

Dmitri "And" Andreev:
One of the most obvious X-Tend Engine features are EMBM fluids rendering, 3D fog, detailed light maps, per pixel model and weapons lighting, a large number of polygons in models and at different levels, etc. It's clear for understanding that only 6th generation graphic cards allow for most extensive use of X-Tend Engine's features.

At the moment the X-Tend Engine is used to it's full potential in Kreed, but we believe that its development will not stop on this project.


How long has the X-Tend engine/Kreed been in development?

Dmitri "RCL" Reckman
About 9 months.


The X-Tend engine closely resembles the Doom 3 engine. Is that because both engines are using the Geforce 3 to its fullest ability? If somebody didn't know better, if they saw a screenshot they may think it WAS the Doom 3 engine.

Dmitri "And" Andreev:
Yes, they seem similar since they both use latest 3d achievements, we set very high
technological standards for ourselves, but having so many features demands our constant attention on the speed, on the amount of the FPS during playing all this beauty.

Actually we don't know so much about Doom's engine's technical specifications.


Can you give us some specs on the characters in the game and how many polygons, bones, etc. they will have?

Aleksey Vlasov:
A typical game character will include about 4000 polygons and about 90 (sometimes up to 120) bones.


Is the X-Tend engine capable of rendering outdoor environments? If so, what type of human and alien environments will gamers be seeing? Weather effects?

Aleksey Vlasov:
Our engine is designed for in-door spaces. However Kreed will use some kind of open spaces, too. They will demonstrate all possible weather effects, such as rain, snow, etc which are no problem for us.


Will map shadows cast realistically on enemies and weapons?

Dmitri "And" Andreev:
Yep.


Parts of the interview which provide information that the X-Tend engine is not as advanced as the new DOOM engine:

Will weapons have their own lighting? If a fan is casting a moving shadow on the ground and somebody pulls out a flame thrower, will the shadow move to the to new light source? If not, how many years off could a feature like this be?

Dmitri "And" Andreev:
No, moving light sources will cast no shadows. A lot depends on graphic accelerators. We hope that later, when new generations appear this will be possible.


I highly recommend reading the interview and getting a good look at what might become new DOOM'S direct opponent!

[Lord FlatHead]

Goddammit Dima, stop saying "AMAZING !!!!!1111" for a second or two. It's giving me flashbacks to Steve Jobs and his horrible MacWorld speeches.

Anyway, back to Kreed. I admit at first I was overthrown by the looks of this engine, though reading this has tempered my enthusiasm a little. I certainly wouldn't call it a Doom 3 Killer, neither in the technology department or the gameplay department. It's just a very good effort, I'm sure it'll shine in many departments when it comes out, though I'm not going to lose any sleep over it.

[999cop]

bah, i've seen these screenshots already and i posted about it like a few weeks ago.

stop saying amazing...

***Dima is an amazing guy***

[Zaldron]

I'm amazingly amazed...

This thing is more complex than Unreal2 when it comes to the rendering system. Weird huh? I mean, who are these guys?

[Dima]

Part 2 of the Kreed Q&A has been posted on cuttingtheedge.com.

The interview today deals with general game questions (graphics, system requirements, storyline, multiplayer, release date, demo plans, etc...).

Once again, I highly recommend reading this interview to get a good look at this HOT game.

The interview can be located here:

http://www.cuttingtheedge.com/the_views/interviews/2001/kreed/kreed2.shtm


Here are the more intresting parts of the interview:

What are the system specs for the game? (minimum/recommended)

Dmitri "RCL" Reckman:
Minimum: Pentium-II/Celeron class CPU, 5th generation graphic accelerator, 128Mb free(!) RAM, Any soundcard, reasonable amount of hdd space
Recommended: Pentium-III class CPU, 6th generation graphic accelerator, 256Mb RAM, Soundcard with EAX support, reasonable amount of hdd space.


The X-Tend engine as we mentioned is extremely impressive and resembles the "Doom 3" engine, (from what little we know about it) which is being developed by John Carmack with id Software. Do you feel John Carmack is receiving too much attention at what he does and how well he does it? The X-Tend engine seems to be right up there with their engine. You're in Russia, but you have heard of John Carmack, haven't you? :)

Dmitri "And" Andreev:
Yes, we have.

[EsH]

That's one increadible engine. Either they've reached the penultimate application of static lightmapping, or they've opened up a whole new area. The shadow mapping looks especially good. I guess the advantage here is that you can do soft shadows properly, with distance fall off and all that. The one thing Doom3 looks like it's going to be stuck with is hard-edge shadows for the dynamic shadowing, so this new engine isn't entirely out-classed by id's. Kreed's engine is going to be a wonderful showpiece for what next-gen hardware is going to be able to do, the way Quake was sort of a showpiece for FP proccessors, I guess. I think Carmack made a comment, back at some quakecon, that one of the things that prevents computer game compentitions from being televised is that the games just don't have the visual appeal to entice lay people to watch. It looks like now, in a more general sense, games are really pushing past that. The environments in creed in a lot a ways just look better than stuff you'd see in a proffesional, pre-rendered film.