• How The Train Level In Uncharted 2 Works
    15 replies, posted
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6AmZ4lpXn70 Was on my recommended videos for whatever reason and I found it pretty interesting. I liked how basically to simulate constant movement the train is just on a massive circle track.
I really loved the train level, it had better pacing and encounter design than any other level. The Useless Podcast guys talked about making a train level in their Ratchet & Clank 2 playthrough, and pretty well describe everything that sucks about train levels, namely that making the track backgrounds look interesting is a pain in the ass, making curves in the track look smooth is impossible, and boosting the velocity of particle effects so that they actually stay on screen instead of rushing past in the opposite direction makes them look really weird. https://youtu.be/7dMiICXX3qY?t=7m33s
I've always wondered how they did those levels, funny to see that it wasn't as complicated as I thought.
Little tricks like this rarely ever are. Complicated = expensive
Honestly kind of impressed the train is actually moving, thought they'd just move the scenery instead
I love watching videos like these.
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/927a34c9d04244e302a90a6e04b6f2a3.png Hey, as long as it works
IMO it's actually more complicated than I expected. Most games just move the scenery around the train and get on with it. Or have a very simple moving train with the most complex part being the actual looping part. But ND straight up has a moving train that has a full loop, and then loads in other loops as the scene progresses. Honestly, I would have been impressed with a single loop (that's a serious ton of work) but the fact they have multiple, honestly blows me away - I guess that's Naughty Dog quality right there for ya'.
I think the main factor with this is how complicated or unique you want the scenery. Its probably the least complicated way to do it in terms of planning and coding time as the majority of the work just goes into constructing the level, and it might have been pretty easy for them to just build the track loop and get it working then start shoveling in generic scenery the whole way which has the added bonus of making sure the player never feels like they have seen the same place before but also giving the impression it's endless. Probably less effort than devising a system to both keep the train on the same loop and transition it to the new tracks without the player experiencing any kind of jankyness, all while having scenery that doesn't repeat constantly. The rest of the level is probably just culled and then all they need is some clever camera tricks to mask the transition.
Getting combat and general gameplay, and physics working on moving platforms is non-trivial. Looks like they just stream in a new level when the scene change happens - that's also non-trivial, but likely the easiest way (plus, you get a free-lunch for making that work, since it can be used anywhere in the game again.)
This is exactly the kind of thing I was thinking about when I posted that lol
I'm pretty sure Crysis: Warhead's train level actually moves through the map. I haven't played it in a long time but I remember nothing ever repeated and you could fall off it and go catch up. I want to know how they did these train levels in the later games because it those you could get off the train to get onto a vehicle
This reminds me of how, in FFXIV, a recent boss fight involved a segment where he blows the entire party into the air and you have to dodge projectiles that are being shot up from below for a while. After thinking about it, it becomes apparent that the devs just have you walking around on an invisible platform like usual, and change the player animations to a falling/skydiving animation (there's even a debuff on your debuff bar that seems to control it, hah). As the segment ends, the new scenery for the second phase of the fight where all the surrounding forest is blown down is moved into place as if you're 'fallen back to the ground'. https://youtu.be/fYh_PYNTzIs?t=159 About 2:45 if the timestamp doesn't work.
Doesnt this guy do really creepy porn?
Many of these sequences utilize un-avoidable dangers that smoothly transition the gameplay. By later games I assume you mean 4; and in that one the truck and cars always move in a way that forces you to play in a certain way; despite it actually not feeling like it. Like for example, when you finally climb onto the truck you can decide to stay on the truck or jump off; if you stay on the truck something happens that forces you to jump onto a nearby car that will always pull up right next to you when this happens. Once on the car a group of enemies will swarm you (same thing will happen if you jump off of the truck onto a car early) and force you into a position where you have to kill them or be killed in-game. As soon as you kill the last enemy a scripted event (like the truck exploding earlier) will happen where someone jumps onto your car and forces you onto the bike where you're then forced onto a linear path; etcetera.
I guess the best tricks are often the simplest.
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