johnlee Posted December 18, 2008 Share Posted December 18, 2008 (edited) One of the things that I love about games like GTAIV is its "immersion" and atmosphere. The breathing, living, interactive city/world really appeals to me. Instead of a game like PMDG where all you do is fly realistic airliner simulations, or Crysis where all you do is shoot and look at pretty graphics, or GRID Racer where all you do is drive, Ship Simulator etc you get the point... GTAIV is an all-around game that includes a little of everything ######################################################################### *****UPDATE*****: [[[VIDEO EVIDENCE]]] CAPTURED ON CAMERA HERE http://www.gtaforums.com/index.php?showtopic=387319 AND REPRODUCED BELOW JUST SCROLL ALL THE WAY DOWN TO THE VERY BOTTOM OF THIS LONG OP FULL HD VERSION --> http://rapidshare.com/files/176511360/Video7_720p.wmv ############################################################################ For example of NON-smokes and mirrors game: http://www.bladeinteractive.com/hydroengine.php EDIT: People asking what is the point of my thread (and you have so I am updating..) should read threads of this nature: "Crysis doesn't have a virtual city which is a bustling metropolis. If they had made Crysis in a city of the scale of the one in GTA4 and everything played smoothed and looked that good then I would be impressed." http://www.gtaforums.com/index.php?showtopic=385601&st=40 http://www.gtaforums.com/index.php?showtop...entry1058781979 GTAIV is an all-around game that includes a little of everything.. It is like a jack of all trades but a master of none. (no expert specialization in any one area) But I like a game that ties it all together and puts it into one coherent comprehensive package even if its just a start.. But after playing around with the files on the GTAIV PC version I realized something. R* is an expert magician that is very good at creating the ILLUSION of a living breathing city and sell us the grandeur based on an elaborately and well done smokes and mirrors system. GTAIV Liberty City is essentially a blank and empty city with no cars, no pedestrians and no actions or events. After tweaking the files I figured it out myself... There are and I repeat there are no "hundreds and hundreds" of cars in LC and no "thousands of civilians and pedestrians" on the streets of Liberty City. If you have ever seen the movie "the 13th floor" you will by now know EXACTLY what I am talking about... In fact there is NOTHING at all in Liberty City EXCEPT a radius that surrounds YOU the PLAYER and inside this limited and restricted "bubble" that follows you wherever you go there are cars and peds that "materialize" and Pop-in just outside of the boundary of this radius ... WHen they drive outside of this invisible boundary or when you relocate to a different area of the city and effectively remove them from your "bubble" they are recycled and removed from the game as well... There are NO CARS, NO PEDS, NO NOTHING outside of this bubble radius and in fact at ANY GIVEN MOMENT Liberty City is 99.99% EMPTYNESS!!! When you kill a old lady there are no cops that get into cop cars and drive from their police stations to chase after you.. What happens is a "cop car" spawns right outside of the preset radius (probably like 300ft or something) and then drives towards you... IDEALLY the copcar spawns when you are not looking (camera view) at him so as to maintain the ILLUSION... or he spawns just beyond your line of sight across from the closest building etc... and then the copcar DRIVES towards you and then when the copcar gets to within 50ft of you "IT" spawns the actual flesh and bones COP-person within the car that is supposed to be driving the car..... Lets say you drive REALLY fast and lose the cops. Once you LOSE him he is GONE for good. That cop/copcar INSTANCE is erased from the game and never to be seen again. Once he is outside of your bubble zone he disappears and vanishes and quickly as he came into existence... The point is people in LC don't live their lives and blah blah blah... THEY DON"T EXIST! They have no separate existence apart of being a prop and playing the part and being called in and acting like they are real on a LOCAL level only to the extend of providing cars and people and creating the illusion of an "interactive, immersive, real and living breathing city".... When in fact it is a dead, lonely, empty, pointless and event less city and only 0.01% of the whole map has any action at any point in time... and even THAT is done on-the-fly and changes are not maintained... =============UPDATE BELOW======================================================= Okay people I realize it is impossible and quite pointless to have those thousands of peds and cars in the city being rendered and all in real time.. But we should AT LEAST have probability density matrix and a functional (not atomic) representation of calculating the most likely events (accidents, murders, fights) that would happen THROUGHOUT the city WITHOUT the engine having to render it, and without the game actually dedicating resources to spawning these characters. Currently there is NO such thing, the whole city (absent our own BUBBLE) is EMPTY with not even a prediction/probability calculation of what all should be happening in different parts and regions while we are not physically present. Also, why is there no system of caching interactions with peds/cops/cars and having them being saved to a cache file on the HDD when they leave our "bubble" and dematerialized and bring back those attributes and changes and our history of interactions the next time we meet inside the "bubble" are they are "rematerialized"? EXAMPLE: Say we get into a fight with a cop and hurt or injury him badly and cripple his leg and damage his car... Say we RUN away fast and he is outside our bubble, so the game still "erases" him from rendering and from system ram/memory as before, but this time just before recycling him the game saves a cache of his attributes/changed attributes to a file on the hard drive, so the NEXT time we bump into him again and he reenters our Bubble/zone/radius he is rematerialized with the same attributes as we last saw him with the crumbled car and damaged knee etc!!! Another example, say we are stalking a hot chick and we stalk her for "hours" but we are not careful and get hit by a car. By the time we get up she may have gotten around across the corner and then the game "got rid of her" and "she" is gone forever! When the game erases people to save memory why can they not incorporate a something like a 5minute system where it caches to harddrive and remembers all the NPCs that it erased during the last five minute period (their health level, location, direction and heading, etc) and whenever we SHOULD cross paths again (say I turn the corner and expect to see her again) she is rematerialized just before I turn the corner??? Basically and what I am saying is that our interactions and changes in the game do not "stick" and are forgotten and erased and recycled VERY soon after.. What is the point of a sandbox environment if the sand doesn't keep its shape and doesn't remember our changes? What if every time you built a sand castle and it disappears the moment you look away from it? In the END how does GTAIV differ CATEGORICALLY from any other game? How is it in any way a living breathing city when the interactions are not even saved and nothing you do matters one way or another outside of your 100ft bubble and 30 second memory span of the game? And I repeat : Why is there no system of caching interactions with peds/cops/cars and having them being saved to a cache file on the HDD when they leave our "bubble" and dematerialized and bring back those attributes and changes and our history of interactions the next time we meet inside the "bubble" are they are "rematerialized"? This would solve two things: 1. It would emulate a "real city" from a functional (instead of atomic) level and increase the REALISM because it is simulating a embodied city reather than a simple smokes and mirrors sytem 2. Since cars, peds, actions are still taken offscreen and recycled once they exit our personal bubble and only the changed attributes are "remembered" and cached to a file on the harddrive to be "reapplied" the next time these generic NPC's are spawned according to when the system calculates/predicts we SHOULD meet again, then this totally resolved the memory and cpu cycle issue of rendering, spawning and doing atomic calculations on each of the things in the city... Conclusion: Implementation of a system like I mentioned above will not take significantly more cpu cycles or ram usage and will only result in a margin performance hit but increase the "alive immersing factor" by orders of magnitude... NPCs, Cars and other objects are still being recycled and erased from Ram and CPU once they leave our boundary, but the different is the changes (like a dented car, or a hurt ped) are saved and cached to a file in the hdd and reinstatnitated the moment we came back into contact with said NPC/Car/Cop and the changes and attributes are reapplied to the generic NPC being spawned to make them "who they were when we last saw them" This method is STILL an emulating system, but a much better one that increases the REALISM by orders of magnitude while only taking a very marginal performance hit on modern systems. As a one last example: right now when we shoot someone and the cops come it is very unrealistic ... They materialized just around the corner.... Now I am NOTTTT suggesting we actually render the cop at the cop station, render him putting on a uniform miles away and driving from the station all the way to our location, BUTTTT we could represent and simulate this from a FUNCTIONAL (rather than atomic) level and increase the realism, embodiemnt, and immserive factor by orders of magnitude! How? We need not render or spawn the cop or car from the station and waste cpu/ram at all! The game intelligently calculates how long it SHOULD take the cop to arrive based on the time of day, the distance from the station, the current traffic levels, weather (if it is rainy or foggy he will be "predicted" to go slower) etc and the cops shows up in a REALISTIC time frame and all this is calculated from precached probability lookup tables without ahving to waste ram or cpu cycles by actually rendering him or spawning his character and car objects into Ram. SO again the cop will still materialed in much the same way outside the bubble compared to how it is done right now, but because of behind the scenes calculations of predicting /estimating how long it SHOULD take we give him a realistic time or arrival that is calculated on the fly based on current player location, level of crime as reported by peds calling it in, the traffic, the weather system, etc.... This could EASILY by done and will not tax the system but increase realism by a ton! something like COP_ArrivalTime = LevelofStars * (PlayerDistanceFromClosestsCopStation + TrafficCongestionCoefficent + BadWeatherCoefficent - NumberofPedsReportingIncident) instead of right now where it is the equalivent of COP_ArrivalTime = as soon as you can spawn one ======My last update to this post======================================== I am getting tired of people making excuses for R* saying it is all for our benefit of future proof... I have the following remarks to make about "future proof" why I recently discovered that the PC version of GTAIV has a built in 20ft cap on rendering peds and drivers in CARS??? Even on the most power system today with all settings maxed out in the PC version of GTAIV peds and drivers in cars don't appear until you are as close as 20 feet away from them!!!! And there seems to be no way around this!!! http://www.gtaforums.com/index.php?showtopic=385426 SEE VIDEO EXAMPLE HERE: -> http://blip.tv/file/1591319 ============ So let me get this right, the PC version is permanently HANDICAPPED (see : http://www.gtaforums.com/index.php?showtopic=385426) for NO REASON AT ALL!!! and it has worse graphics at worse framerates YET needs exponentially more RAM, is more than twice as large in size as the 360 version, more harddrive space, more CPU and GPU cycles and they said they have made it future proof??? How is it future proof? The way I see it the 20ft ped-in-car-cap will still exists in 2088, except by then the activations servers for Live and Rockstar Social Club would have went offline and there would be no more support from R*, MS, or Sony the Securom makers so what is a quantum computer to do??? How is it "future proof" when it has already been proven by millions of gamers that the same GTAIV game runs perfectly well on a vastly inferior system with better graphics and better framerates than the top of the line pcs can do today??? This game is over 6 months old, it is already "aged" in the gaming world, it played just fine on a console system that was realized back in 2005 and they do a half ass sloppy port to PC and put a crap load of DRM and rootkits on the game and slap it with a hefty price tag plus ridiculous going through hoops and it runs slower and looks suckier even on state of the art PC that is 100X more powerful than xbox and they have the audacity to call these optimizations "future proof" Maybe in the future all our games will render peds in cars at 2ft radius at the rate this is going???? A game that was released well over half a year ago that has already been proven by millions to run perfectly well on a far inferior console system released way back in 2005 now comes out on the pc and runs slower, with poorer graphics even on the most state of the art computer systems that overpower any next-gen console by orders of magnitude now needs more ram, more cpu, more gpu and more hdd on even so renders slower and poorer than ever before! This is progress???? This is future proof???? Maybe if I code a FPS that looks like crap with graphics worse than the original Rainbow Six by Tom Clancy and is so horribly unoptimized and ridden with bugs and crap that it runs 1fps on a hypothetically NSA quantum computer I could sell it for $500 million bucks because it is FUTURE PROOF???? ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////// BELOW IS ADDENDUM Reproduced from LOCKED thread here http://www.gtaforums.com/index.php?showtopic=387319 per CharmingCharlie request to "easily put this information in the other long arse topic you created" This is not a rant. Hear me out, below I have detailed and explained and demonstrated in empirical terms the utter fallacy of GTAIV Liberty City being a truly "living breathing interactive city with thousands of peds and hundreds of cars" on the streets at once. Go here to read about what I refer to as the "bubble" of GTAIV. http://www.gtaforums.com/index.php?showtopic=385479&hl= ############################# Video Evidence : http://bochen360.blip.tv/#1618568 http://bochen360.blip.tv/#1618574 FULL HD VERSION --> http://rapidshare.com/files/176511360/Video7_720p.wmv ############################# As it turns out the "bubble" is about a radius of a mere 50 meters or less and is much smaller than what we quality gamers would have expected from such a so called "immersive" and interactive game/ sandbox environment et al. Under this new light, it now makes even less since for us to accept the pathetic excuse that Rockstar has been "future proofing" this game and that its intricate calculations and all that require more system resources and is more taxing on the PC than sayCrysis from Crytek. I have empirically shown that categorically speaking GTAIV is no different (categorically) than any other FPS shooter such as Crysis. As least not in the "immersive, living breathing city" department... It also certainly fares worst in graphics, in framerates, and in raw physics, so what gives?? Edit: see my relevant thread titled "Peds & Drivers in Cars have 30 feet draw distance! & all grayed out at 50meters!" at http://www.gtaforums.com/index.php?showtopic=385426 * The game (GTAIV) employs an elaborate smokes and mirrors system and is an expert magician at creating the paper thin mere illusion of an illusion of a living breathing city while in practice I have been able to capture on camera its "cheap magic trick, overused spawning, and extensive rubber-banding" behind the scenes trickery and fraud on ironically the games own video editor and replay system. Had the PC version not included this I would never have been able to empirically prove the limited "bubble" radius of this game and thus show the lack of true immersion and all the tricks the game plays on the averagejoe gamer. The game tries very hard to never get "caught in the act" by playing switch-a-roo and bait and switch on us the gamer the moment our camera angle turns away and we are no longer looking at someone/something... ========================== In my two video demos below you can see I am playing the sandbox system and trying to see how many buses in downtown Star Junction area that I can collect at once. Knowing the game has a terrible habit of erasing cars and people just around the corner or when we turn our backs, I was able to collect 3 buses together before the game decided it should undo my changes to the sandbox and erase my sand castle and recycle the buses for more lame same old tricks of spawning "realistic cars and traffic" in its place... http://bochen360.blip.tv/#1618568 http://bochen360.blip.tv/#1618574 http://blip.tv/file/1610101 http://blip.tv/file/1610107 FULL HD VERSION --> http://rapidshare.com/files/176511360/Video7_720p.wmv Please feel free to share and post comments and your personal observations of the game below.. Edited December 24, 2008 by johnlee Link to comment https://gtaforums.com/topic/385479-the-illusion-of-a-living-breathing-city/ Share on other sites More sharing options...
Inky Posted December 18, 2008 Share Posted December 18, 2008 Well, uh...yeah. Did you honestly expect the game to be constantly calculating thousands of peds even if they're on another island or something? Link to comment https://gtaforums.com/topic/385479-the-illusion-of-a-living-breathing-city/#findComment-1058781071 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Smurfen Posted December 18, 2008 Share Posted December 18, 2008 no sh*t sherlock Link to comment https://gtaforums.com/topic/385479-the-illusion-of-a-living-breathing-city/#findComment-1058781074 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vicetopia Posted December 18, 2008 Share Posted December 18, 2008 Man, what are you on about? You can only physically see things within that "radius bubble" around your character, anyway. The idea is to emulate a living, breathing city within that bubble. That's their goal, and they did a good job with it in GTA4. Link to comment https://gtaforums.com/topic/385479-the-illusion-of-a-living-breathing-city/#findComment-1058781076 Share on other sites More sharing options...
arewenotmen Posted December 18, 2008 Share Posted December 18, 2008 What did you expect exactly, even more CPU & GPU time wasted on things you can't see? Modelling several million people and cars? Link to comment https://gtaforums.com/topic/385479-the-illusion-of-a-living-breathing-city/#findComment-1058781078 Share on other sites More sharing options...
creat3d22 Posted December 18, 2008 Share Posted December 18, 2008 (edited) Congratulations, you've just figured out how modern video games work. If you had a fully simulated city where thousands (millions?) of peds went through their daily "lives", the game wouldn't even load. It's the same in every game, there's nothing going on outside of a defined radius around the player... This should be common knowledge by now... EDIT: BTW what's PMDG?? I keep seeing references to it... Edited December 18, 2008 by creat3d22 Link to comment https://gtaforums.com/topic/385479-the-illusion-of-a-living-breathing-city/#findComment-1058781082 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alucard155 Posted December 18, 2008 Share Posted December 18, 2008 Can u imagine what kind of system you would need to be able to pull that off??? Link to comment https://gtaforums.com/topic/385479-the-illusion-of-a-living-breathing-city/#findComment-1058781084 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Smurfen Posted December 18, 2008 Share Posted December 18, 2008 whats the point of pulling it off? Link to comment https://gtaforums.com/topic/385479-the-illusion-of-a-living-breathing-city/#findComment-1058781089 Share on other sites More sharing options...
thegoldenvision Posted December 18, 2008 Share Posted December 18, 2008 Wow, what an abject retard. I heard a rumour that the CRIMES you COMMIT in this game are not REAL crimes at all, but VIRTUAL crimes that do not even EXIST outside of the ARTIFICIAL environment those CROOKS at Rockstar have created. They did not FOOL me! Link to comment https://gtaforums.com/topic/385479-the-illusion-of-a-living-breathing-city/#findComment-1058781090 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alucard155 Posted December 18, 2008 Share Posted December 18, 2008 Bring out some more NASA computers boys!!! Link to comment https://gtaforums.com/topic/385479-the-illusion-of-a-living-breathing-city/#findComment-1058781092 Share on other sites More sharing options...
creat3d22 Posted December 18, 2008 Share Posted December 18, 2008 Wow, what an abject retard. I heard a rumour that the CRIMES you COMMIT in this game are not REAL crimes at all, but VIRTUAL crimes that do not even EXIST outside of the ARTIFICIAL environment those CROOKS at Rockstar have created. They did not FOOL me! Hell yeah, we won't get easily duped by these cretins who think they can put a veil over our eyes! WE DEMAND REALITY! Link to comment https://gtaforums.com/topic/385479-the-illusion-of-a-living-breathing-city/#findComment-1058781094 Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnlee Posted December 18, 2008 Author Share Posted December 18, 2008 Man, what are you on about?You can only physically see things within that "radius bubble" around your character, anyway. The idea is to emulate a living, breathing city within that bubble. That's their goal, and they did a good job with it in GTA4. "Lets say you drive REALLY fast and lose the cops. Once you LOSE him he is GONE for good. That cop/copcar INSTANCE is erased from the game and never to be seen again. Once he is outside of your bubble zone he disappears and vanishes and quickly as he came into existence..." The problem with this is in REAL LIFE the cop would still KEEP LOOKING, KEEP SEARCHING, KEEP HUNTING, even if he "lost sight of you" for a while.... Imagine in real life if people and things didn't exists the moment you stopped looking at them... So that means soldiers in Iraq are no longer getting killed, babes are no longer being born, politicians are no longer winning elections all BECAUSE I am not physically in Iraq, I am not visiting hospitals and I am not watching CNN? Link to comment https://gtaforums.com/topic/385479-the-illusion-of-a-living-breathing-city/#findComment-1058781097 Share on other sites More sharing options...
iamnotyou Posted December 18, 2008 Share Posted December 18, 2008 While your point is valid, it is a bit obvious. It is like thinking those Goombas at the end of the level in Mario actually exist before you get there. That is how video games work, they just do it in different ways. Like in Neverwinter Nights, and alot of first person shooters, the enemies do not even exist in the game until you hit a certain "trigger". Another example, but not of NPC spawning, more of hardware limitation, is that in Silent Hill 1, the fog was there because the PS1 hardware was so limited and it was a good way to hide the fact that not much was drawn at far distances, and when it was it was crud. One of the things I love to do is find these little tricks devs do to help immersion, and flesh our their world. It really is all smoke and mirrors. Link to comment https://gtaforums.com/topic/385479-the-illusion-of-a-living-breathing-city/#findComment-1058781102 Share on other sites More sharing options...
creat3d22 Posted December 18, 2008 Share Posted December 18, 2008 The problem with this is in REAL LIFE the cop would still KEEP LOOKING, KEEP SEARCHING, KEEP HUNTING, even if he "lost sight of you" for a while.... Imagine in real life if people and things didn't exists the moment you stopped looking at them... So that means soldiers in Iraq are no longer getting killed, babes are no longer being born, politicians are no longer winning elections all BECAUSE I am not physically in Iraq, I am not visiting hospitals and I am not watching CNN? Dude are you high or something? I'VE FIGURED IT OUT!!!! PEOPLE ARE MADE OUT OF POLYGONS!!!!! MY SKIN IS A TEXTURE!! WHEN I SHAVE, I'M APPLYING A MESHSMOOTH MODIFIER OVER MY BODY'S MODEL! Link to comment https://gtaforums.com/topic/385479-the-illusion-of-a-living-breathing-city/#findComment-1058781105 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jc84144 Posted December 18, 2008 Share Posted December 18, 2008 What a dumb ass. Link to comment https://gtaforums.com/topic/385479-the-illusion-of-a-living-breathing-city/#findComment-1058781106 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gutslab Posted December 18, 2008 Share Posted December 18, 2008 A few things I'll say. First, could you imagine if indeed they tried to make an actual living city? You would need even a stronger computer to be able to render all of that. Second, I don't think this would bug most people, this idea that only "0.01%" of the city is active. For example, if I'm in a fight with some bum, I'm not really concerned about the guy getting busted by police two islands away. If anything imo, they should have it like vice city where you went through one/two second loading screens before that area was broadcast. This would put less of a stress on the cpu. Also, you say it's not really alive, but I could target a ped and follow them for hours if I wanted to. The people may not exist due to the way R* coded this game, as you mentioned, but if I were to follow a ped they would engage in different activities(smoking, talking on cell) while going to their destination, whatever that might be. You are basically right about LC being mostly empty depending on the location you're at, but it stills creates an awesome "immersive atmosphere" imo. Link to comment https://gtaforums.com/topic/385479-the-illusion-of-a-living-breathing-city/#findComment-1058781108 Share on other sites More sharing options...
camdean Posted December 18, 2008 Share Posted December 18, 2008 Time for the pill, young man !! Link to comment https://gtaforums.com/topic/385479-the-illusion-of-a-living-breathing-city/#findComment-1058781112 Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnlee Posted December 18, 2008 Author Share Posted December 18, 2008 A few things I'll say. First, could you imagine if indeed they tried to make an actual living city? You would need even a stronger computer to be able to render all of that. Second, I don't think this would bug most people, this idea that only "0.01%" of the city is active. For example, if I'm in a fight with some bum, I'm not really concerned about the guy getting busted by police two islands away. If anything imo, they should have it like vice city where you went through one/two second loading screens before that area was broadcast. This would put less of a stress on the cpu. Also, you say it's not really alive, but I could target a ped and follow them for hours if I wanted to. The people may not exist due to the way R* coded this game, as you mentioned, but if I were to follow a ped they would engage in different activities(smoking, talking on cell) while going to their destination, whatever that might be. You are basically right about LC being mostly empty depending on the location you're at, but it stills creates an awesome "immersive atmosphere" imo. Whens you "follow him for hours" he is always INSIDE your bubble/zone... But everything and everyone else you saw or came in contact with during that hour has LONG SINCE "disappeared" and recycled countless times in the game... They left your zone and they got vaporized into digital oblivion. Link to comment https://gtaforums.com/topic/385479-the-illusion-of-a-living-breathing-city/#findComment-1058781127 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chevyboy Posted December 18, 2008 Share Posted December 18, 2008 Man, what are you on about?You can only physically see things within that "radius bubble" around your character, anyway. The idea is to emulate a living, breathing city within that bubble. That's their goal, and they did a good job with it in GTA4. "Lets say you drive REALLY fast and lose the cops. Once you LOSE him he is GONE for good. That cop/copcar INSTANCE is erased from the game and never to be seen again. Once he is outside of your bubble zone he disappears and vanishes and quickly as he came into existence..." The problem with this is in REAL LIFE the cop would still KEEP LOOKING, KEEP SEARCHING, KEEP HUNTING, even if he "lost sight of you" for a while.... Imagine in real life if people and things didn't exists the moment you stopped looking at them... So that means soldiers in Iraq are no longer getting killed, babes are no longer being born, politicians are no longer winning elections all BECAUSE I am not physically in Iraq, I am not visiting hospitals and I am not watching CNN? If you want to get technical I doubt very much Nicko could withstand a barrage of bullets and keep going with great efficiency. You are taking this whole "living and breathing" city thing just a tad to far... Then again your right, I want to spend my entire time playing the game running from the cops, only to lose them but have to keep running and never actually be able to PLAY the game. Take the game for what its worth, the most realistic TO DATE sandbox game that does a great job of EMULATING a living and breathing city. I don't recall once being promised (nor wanting to be promised such a thing) a 100% realistic city where everything is to scale and everything is a mimic of reality in every way. Link to comment https://gtaforums.com/topic/385479-the-illusion-of-a-living-breathing-city/#findComment-1058781129 Share on other sites More sharing options...
creat3d22 Posted December 18, 2008 Share Posted December 18, 2008 Whens you "follow him for hours" he is always INSIDE your bubble/zone... But everything and everyone he saw or came in contact with during that hour has LONG SINCE "disappeared" and recycled countless times in the game... How does that make you feel? Link to comment https://gtaforums.com/topic/385479-the-illusion-of-a-living-breathing-city/#findComment-1058781130 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gutslab Posted December 18, 2008 Share Posted December 18, 2008 A few things I'll say. First, could you imagine if indeed they tried to make an actual living city? You would need even a stronger computer to be able to render all of that. Second, I don't think this would bug most people, this idea that only "0.01%" of the city is active. For example, if I'm in a fight with some bum, I'm not really concerned about the guy getting busted by police two islands away. If anything imo, they should have it like vice city where you went through one/two second loading screens before that area was broadcast. This would put less of a stress on the cpu. Also, you say it's not really alive, but I could target a ped and follow them for hours if I wanted to. The people may not exist due to the way R* coded this game, as you mentioned, but if I were to follow a ped they would engage in different activities(smoking, talking on cell) while going to their destination, whatever that might be. You are basically right about LC being mostly empty depending on the location you're at, but it stills creates an awesome "immersive atmosphere" imo. Whens you "follow him for hours" he is always INSIDE your bubble/zone... But everything and everyone else you saw or came in contact with during that hour has LONG SINCE "disappeared" and recycled countless times in the game... They left your zone and they got vaporized into digital oblivion. oh no RIP all fallen peds Link to comment https://gtaforums.com/topic/385479-the-illusion-of-a-living-breathing-city/#findComment-1058781147 Share on other sites More sharing options...
longboardskier Posted December 18, 2008 Share Posted December 18, 2008 Is this the first video game you've ever played? Ever? Link to comment https://gtaforums.com/topic/385479-the-illusion-of-a-living-breathing-city/#findComment-1058781152 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jc84144 Posted December 18, 2008 Share Posted December 18, 2008 A few things I'll say. First, could you imagine if indeed they tried to make an actual living city? You would need even a stronger computer to be able to render all of that. Second, I don't think this would bug most people, this idea that only "0.01%" of the city is active. For example, if I'm in a fight with some bum, I'm not really concerned about the guy getting busted by police two islands away. If anything imo, they should have it like vice city where you went through one/two second loading screens before that area was broadcast. This would put less of a stress on the cpu. Also, you say it's not really alive, but I could target a ped and follow them for hours if I wanted to. The people may not exist due to the way R* coded this game, as you mentioned, but if I were to follow a ped they would engage in different activities(smoking, talking on cell) while going to their destination, whatever that might be. You are basically right about LC being mostly empty depending on the location you're at, but it stills creates an awesome "immersive atmosphere" imo. Whens you "follow him for hours" he is always INSIDE your bubble/zone... But everything and everyone else you saw or came in contact with during that hour has LONG SINCE "disappeared" and recycled countless times in the game... They left your zone and they got vaporized into digital oblivion. Yes. We get it. (we got it 20 years ago) Link to comment https://gtaforums.com/topic/385479-the-illusion-of-a-living-breathing-city/#findComment-1058781153 Share on other sites More sharing options...
creat3d22 Posted December 18, 2008 Share Posted December 18, 2008 oh no RIP all fallen peds Folks, this is Robert, an old friend of mine. Robert was killed on the Algonquin - Dukes Expressway by a drunken illegal immigrant driving recklessly in a Patriot. I will forever miss him Link to comment https://gtaforums.com/topic/385479-the-illusion-of-a-living-breathing-city/#findComment-1058781155 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vicetopia Posted December 18, 2008 Share Posted December 18, 2008 It's funny, but really... it's not... Link to comment https://gtaforums.com/topic/385479-the-illusion-of-a-living-breathing-city/#findComment-1058781157 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jc84144 Posted December 18, 2008 Share Posted December 18, 2008 oh no RIP all fallen peds Folks, this is Robert, an old friend of mine. Robert was killed on the Algonquin - Dukes Expressway by a drunken illegal immigrant driving recklessly in a Patriot. I will forever miss him And if that didn't kill him the edge of your "bubble" will Link to comment https://gtaforums.com/topic/385479-the-illusion-of-a-living-breathing-city/#findComment-1058781160 Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnlee Posted December 18, 2008 Author Share Posted December 18, 2008 I didn't write this to rant or get people mad at me... Seriously... Maybe I didn't make myself clear... =============UPDATE======================================================= Okay people I realize it is impossible and quite pointless to have those thousands of peds and cars in the city being rendered and all in real time.. But we should AT LEAST have probability density matrix and a functional (not atomic) representation of calculating the most likely events (accidents, murders, fights) that would happen THROUGHOUT the city WITHOUT the engine having to render it, and without the game actually dedicating resources to spawning these characters. Currently there is NO such thing, the whole city (absent our own BUBBLE) is EMPTY with not even a prediction/probability calculation of what all should be happening in different parts and regions while we are not physically present. Also, why is there no system of caching interactions with peds/cops/cars and having them being saved to a cache file on the HDD when they leave our "bubble" and dematerialized and bring back those attributes and changes and our history of interactions the next time we meet inside the "bubble" are they are "rematerialized"? EXAMPLE: Say we get into a fight with a cop and hurt or injury him badly and cripple his leg and damage his car... Say we RUN away fast and he is outside our bubble, so the game still "erases" him from rendering and from system ram/memory as before, but this time just before recycling him the game saves a cache of his attributes/changed attributes to a file on the hard drive, so the NEXT time we bump into him again and he reenters our Bubble/zone/radius he is rematerialized with the same attributes as we last saw him with the crumbled car and damaged knee etc!!! Link to comment https://gtaforums.com/topic/385479-the-illusion-of-a-living-breathing-city/#findComment-1058781177 Share on other sites More sharing options...
IcepickFIA Posted December 18, 2008 Share Posted December 18, 2008 There are NO CARS, NO PEDS, NO NOTHING outside of this bubble radius and in fact at ANY GIVEN MOMENT Liberty City is 99.99% EMPTYNESS!!! No it's not an empty city, it is grey space. The map spawns just outside your bubble too. Link to comment https://gtaforums.com/topic/385479-the-illusion-of-a-living-breathing-city/#findComment-1058781178 Share on other sites More sharing options...
creat3d22 Posted December 18, 2008 Share Posted December 18, 2008 There is no spoon Seriously we're not mad at you... we're just having fun Link to comment https://gtaforums.com/topic/385479-the-illusion-of-a-living-breathing-city/#findComment-1058781179 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jc84144 Posted December 18, 2008 Share Posted December 18, 2008 What I don't get is this dude is going on as if he is the first guy to of realised it, and we really need several long posts to get it through our thick skulls. Where the reality is everyone already knew this, it's not weird and it's nothing special. He needs to get over it already and just enjoy the game. Link to comment https://gtaforums.com/topic/385479-the-illusion-of-a-living-breathing-city/#findComment-1058781193 Share on other sites More sharing options...
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