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Indivisible: Lab Zero's Action-RPG! (General Discussion)

Mike_Z said:
Specified dates, or at least a range. If it comes to that situation I don't know what their take on push-it-out-now vs when-it's-done will be, but mine will be when-it's-done. I'll ask, though.
I think the public beta will help assuage people's anger if it were to be delayed.
Thank you for answer. I hope you'll be able to reach agreement with them if need be.
 
Could be a captain obvious question but, Indivi official "L0 streams dev/ updates on the Indivi Proto on Steam" would be after Christmasvacation?
 
I'd prob hazard a guess and would believe that'd be the case, since they won't be starting till after the holidays... least what I remember reading in here... some... where..
 
Wenzel said:
Could be a captain obvious question but, Indivi official "L0 streams dev/ updates on the Indivi Proto on Steam" would be after Christmasvacation?
Kit Ballard said:
I'd prob hazard a guess and would believe that'd be the case, since they won't be starting till after the holidays... least what I remember reading in here... some... where..
Found this:
Not-So-Saint said:
They plan to start in January. Since they need to set up office and such. Also to rest after prototype creating and IGG stress.

It's not exactly official unless I missed Not-So-Saint's role in Lab Zero somewhere (it could happen, I'm prone to forgetting/not remembering people's online handles), but I wouldn't expect anything 'til January. Look at it this way: we helped fund a Merry Christmas! Yegads, somebody get all this sap off of me, it's so sticky...
 
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ReeVyZo.png
 
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infected melon said:
those cheeks...so that's where the incarnations hide, it's the inner realm!
The final dungeon turns out to be the cheeks, which apparently are the stuff nightmares are made of
 
Wenzel said:
Could be a captain obvious question but, Indivi official "L0 streams dev/ updates on the Indivi Proto on Steam" would be after Christmasvacation?
Considering I'm attempting to be asleep until mid-January, this sounds about right.
 
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The Dave said:
It's not exactly official unless I missed Not-So-Saint's role in Lab Zero somewhere (it could happen, I'm prone to forgetting/not remembering people's online handles), but I wouldn't expect anything 'til January.
Nah, I'm not in the team.
I'm just simple Russian guy, I've got vodka in my blood so I dance with brown bears and my soul is torn apart.
As for my post it was based on Peter's words on GAF.
 
So I have a question. I've seen people ask why Indivisible won't be ported to the Wii U. The response is that the Wii U doesn't have enough ram to support it.

So why does 2D animation use so much ram? Is it just the engine or does every 2D game use that much ram?
 
LionOhDay said:
So I have a question. I've seen people ask why Indivisible won't be ported to the Wii U. The response is that the Wii U doesn't have enough ram to support it.

So why does 2D animation use so much ram? Is it just the engine or does every 2D game use that much ram?
Think, if you will, to Gifs. For every animation, it has to load the whole thing into memory: The detail of the sprite and how large it is. Some gifs reach the megs in size, just for a single animation. Well, for a sprite to play properly, it has to load all the animations. That means the "Wait" animation and it's entire frame set, and what ever else that chains from it (say attacks, jumping, what not).

3D animation, on the other hand is much easier on memory. The game loads the model, which is in a few megs. That's it. Any animations that is needed for the model is stored in another file and is read in a few Kb. here's a good example: Super Smash Bros Brawl's models are pretty low. Take my Kit Ballard Move set. Kit comes in at 2.48 MB. Her move set and damage values come in at 3.66Mb. That's it. Sprites for this high of quality animation will surpass a 3D's models by leaps and bounds.
 
LionOhDay said:
So I have a question. I've seen people ask why Indivisible won't be ported to the Wii U. The response is that the Wii U doesn't have enough ram to support it.

So why does 2D animation use so much ram? Is it just the engine or does every 2D game use that much ram?
I think I can explain this one!

Basically, 2D frames are textures, skins for a set of coordinates. 3D games have textures, too, but these are linked to models and can be moved around more easily, so you only really need to load textures once per area. Sprite-based 2D games load new textures every single frame, which is how Double can easily turn into Parasoul, Filia, Peacock, Squigly, Ms. Valentine, etc, etc. So that's the equivalent of loading a small 3D city sixty times per second. And it needs to have a bunch of different ones ready to access at any moment because the computer doesn't know what the player's going to do, unlike a pre-planned cutscene where you can front-load the files. So, it's all in the RAM.
 
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Psychonauts blowing past Indivisible's current funding in 4 days feels so strange. Not that I have anything against Double Fine. For all the complaints they received, I don't regret backing Broken Age and rather enjoyed the first act, though I lost interest by the time act 2 came out. This was just such a draining marathon of a campaign, and this is coming from someone on the easy side of it.

Mike, what are your thoughts on Bombastic/Xi Go? The versus mode didn't feel like it was geared towards serious competitive play(maybe that was just my opponents), but I thought the single-player mode had a really nice balance of mechanics.
 
Every frame is a unique image that needs to be loaded, whereas 3D models are just the models where the only thing changing is where the model's joints need to be during the animation. Example:
3D model - "Move your arm out to the side." "Here are the x,y,z coordinates."
2D animation - "Move your arm out to the side." "Here's ten whole other fucking images of the same person where his arm is gradually moving out to the side."

EDIT: There are actually a few more things that make up the 3D model. The model, the rigging skeleton, the texture map, maybe another thing, fuck, I can't rembember anything from my 3D modelling class. But yeah, it's basically "load three things" to "load a bajillion things."

Also, since Lab Zero elects to use raster images, each pixel in the image is a unique hexidecimal value to tell the computer what color this little dot on the computer screen is going to be. For every one, itty-bitty dot on your screen, here is an eight digit alphanumerical value for it that designates its color. Lab Zero's sprites are fucking huge. All the little dots that make up that image have their own hexidecimal value.
 
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Verdant Brave said:
EDIT: There are actually a few more things that make up the 3D model. The model, the rigging skeleton, the texture map, maybe another thing, fuck, I can't rembember anything from my 3D modelling class. But yeah, it's basically "load three things" to "load a bajillion things."
It's prob the "Light Map"
 
How much RAM does Indivisible need? Wii U's not that underpowered, and if Skullgirls could run on PS3's 512MB (technically 256MB main + 256MB video which is harder to work with) I would be surprised if Indivisible now needs more than Wii U's 2GB. (I know, I know, they're not the same game. I can understand Indivisible may need more than SG did, but is it really >4x more?)
 
They already said it'd need more RAM than the Wii U has. It's the same reason they're not considering a Vita port
 
Don't forget it's vastly underpowered. If they're having this much trouble porting Skullgirls to the Vita, which is (if I'm remembering right, you can shoot me later) slightly equal or lil more powerful than a WiiU, doesn't bode well for a WiiU version XD

edit:
Went ahead and did a lil research:
PS4 -
upload_2015-12-8_19-25-30.png

WiiU -
CPU
IBM Power®-based multi-core microprocessor

IBM has revealed it to be a 45nm chip, with embedded DRAM. Additionally, the CPU is based on the same chip that is used in the Watson supercomputer, implying it is a Power7 model. (Source: Kotaku)
A hacker known as Hector Martin said that the CPU clocks in at about 1.23 GHZ.
Previously rumored to be roughly 50% more powerful than PS3. (Source: IGN)

GPU
AMD Radeon-based High Definition GPU

Anandtek's teardown has revealed that the size of the GPU is close to that of the RV740 GPU. The RV740 is actually a HD 4770, which is different from the rumours that suggested an ATI HD 4800 series GPU or HD 6700 series GPU. Comparatively, the Xbox 360 has a Radeon X1800 equivelant GPU. However, this may be false as the GPU was probably very heavily modified to fit the standards of the Wii U console size.
Reports from 2011 suggest it is based on the RV770 architecture, unlike previous reports which merely pointed to the general R700 series and supports DirectX 10.1
This chip is used in ATi's Radeon HD 4800 series cards
"Eyefinity-like multi-display tech for up to four SD video streams"
According rumors about details leaked by a Ubisoft employee just before E3 2012, the console uses an AMD Radeon HD 6770 and supports DirectX 11
Note that none of this is official from Nintendo
Sources: Engadget, GameWatch[1]
Rumors say that the Wii U's GPU is a GPGPU
RAM
The Wii U has 2GB of RAM. 1GB of RAM is allocated to system functions. Examples of system functions include TVii and Mii-verse. The other 1GB is allocated for games.

RAM is provided by Samsung
Wii U Daily Rumors
In early December 2011, Wii U Daily reported hardware information supposedly received from a Japanese developer. They consisted of:

Quad-core, 3 GHz PowerPC-based 45 nm CPU, very similar to the Xbox 360 chip.
768kb of DRAM “embedded” with the CPU, and shared between CPU and GPU
Unknown, 40 nm ATi-based GPU
While Wii U Daily suggested that this would put the Wii U on par with the Xbox 360 in terms of performance[2], PCMag.com clarified, that not only were some of the details inevitably misreported, but that just the processor specs would, " ' In terms of raw power, ... put the Wii U way ahead of the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.' "

Vita -
228px-Fixed_techs.jpg

ok, I just got corrected XD
 
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@J-Boogie said:
It's the same reason they're not considering a Vita port
That's not entirely accurate, here is a post Mike made about the problems with putting Skullgirls on the Vita just for the sake of clarification.
Mike_Z said:
A lot of it has to do with the fact that we're doing HD 2D in an architecture that was built for 3D, which means we do things it hates like updating textures each frame, having shaders that do math depending on other textures that can't be optimized or order-changed, and not using ANY of the built-in hardware stuff (like the single instruction that gives you a full lighting calculation) because we don't need it. Also none of us are graphics guys. :^P
Just doing the extra step of palettizing the characters is slow on the Vita because it's 2 dependent texture lookups - even at half the size of the PS3's sprites, it's much slower than the PS3 for performing the exact same work.
The PS3 was powerful enough for this to not matter, since we display many fewer polys than most 3D games do. The Vita is...not, really.
 
There are reasons besides the system architecture for us to not put Indivisible on the WiiU:

- The WiiU sold very poorly. There is not enough of an install base to justify a port which would take more effort than the xBone port. It may not feel that way to WiiU owners, but it's reality. Even if all the rest of the reasons didn't exist, this alone means no. Even if we sold a copy to every single WiiU owner, that's not as many as selling a copy to 35% of PS4 owners. Not. Worth. Doing.

- The existence of the NX guarantees the WiiU will be irrelevant to make games for by the time Indivisible will be released. This bit, Nintendo did to themselves. :^( We wouldn't do a PS2 port now, so we won't do a WiiU port for 2018. :^P
 
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That I totally get, disappointing as it is. I was just wondering about that statement on RAM.
 
missingno said:
That I totally get, disappointing as it is. I was just wondering about that statement on RAM.
PS4 and xBone have 8GB of RAM and allow developers to access 4.5-to-5 GB of that. WiiU has 2GB of RAM and allows developers to access 1GB of it.
So the WiiU has less than 25% the available memory on the PS4 and xBone. That's...pretty crap, honestly. In terms of memory the WiiU is closer to the PS3/360 than the PS4/xBone.

Ignoring the entire 3D vs 2D argument or any game engine architecture discussion, we're surely going to use more than 25% of the available memory on the consoles we are targeting, which would disqualify a WiiU port just based on that. Regardless of how big the individual assets are, since the memory is available we WILL load things into it for later use so that we don't have to display loading screens or wait to load them later on. Ergo, making a WiiU port would require significant changes to the engine to accommodate the fact that we can't precache as much, which would be even more work than just the port itself. For, as I said before, significantly less payoff.

For a practical example of the difference caching assets makes, look at the PS1 port of Chrono Trigger. The load times between areas / pause menu are significantly worse than on SNES. On SNES, since it's a cartridge, those assets are "always in memory", whereas on PS1 it re-reads them from the CD each time. Since both ports need to reload those assets each time you switch areas or whatnot, the SNES port is way faster at doing that.

One notable thing is that in 3D you can shrink textures by say 10% and not cost yourself a huge amount of visual fidelity but save the space. With 2D art this is not possible, the visual difference will be HUGELY noticeable so we couldn't just make the assets smaller and get back memory that way.
 
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@Mike_Z You would not mind if we quote you on this when talking to people about Indivisible and the WiiU outside of this forum?
 
I mean, I posted it publicly, so sure?
I understand that WiiU owners are upset about not getting ports of games from other consoles, but wishing things were different doesn't change reality. It's underpowered, has less memory, and sold many fewer units than the PS4/xBone, plus it is about to be obsoleted by the NX. Those are facts. A WiiU port of a game releasing in 2018 doesn't make a lot of sense.
 
AdenPhoenix said:
That's not entirely accurate, here is a post Mike made about the problems with putting Skullgirls on the Vita just for the sake of clarification.
But Indivisible isn't Skullgirls. They've already said it'll be taking up more RAM than Skullgirls. And considering the Vita has 512 MB of RAM and 128 MB of V RAM I don't see how that makes what I said inaccurate?
 
Is there a character chart with all the guest characters with Red on it? Was looking around and couldn't find one.

offtopic: This info about how games run and work is interesting to me
 
@J-Boogie said:
But Indivisible isn't Skullgirls.
Nor did I say it was, considering they're both 2D games on the same engine I'd imagine if memory weren't also an issue it would have a lot of the same problems Skullgirls has faced, I could be completely wrong, Mike could give an actual answer, but the fact there are other problems and that they didn't choose to make it all makes this irrelevant and this conversation redundant.

@J-Boogie said:
I don't see how that makes what I said inaccurate?
You said it was the reason there wasn't a Vita version being considered, I simply quoted what I would imagine is evidence of other reasons for it not being an option. Is memory a problem? Certainly, it's just not the lone reason.
 
If you say something is inaccurate then source something else you're trying or seemingly trying to say the situations are similar. I say they're not.

Yes, RAM wouldn't be the only reason why they wouldn't do a port. But that doesn't change the fact that it's a major reason. Mike himself just said it a few posts above. And Peter as well mentioned it here:
http://m.neogaf.com/showpost.php?p=183925997

So that still doesn't show how what I said was inaccurate. Now, I don't want to continue this derail any further so I'll just say that we now need 13,986 bucks until the animated opening.
 
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Oh, I didn't see this.
missingno said:
Wii U's 2GB
1GB. Remember, they use half the RAM for the OS.
missingno said:
if Skullgirls could run on PS3's 512MB (technically 256MB main + 256MB video which is harder to work with)
Remember the 8-bit sprites on PS3/360 when you tag out? Yeah.
SG can't load more than around 3 characters at once on those consoles (2 point characters + 4x assist-only data).
Loading 6 full characters, as on PS4 or PC, takes up around 800 MB. Not including backgrounds etc.
Loading 6 full characters that are half-size on Vita takes around 450 MB, not including backgrounds etc.

missingno said:
I would be surprised if Indivisible now needs more than Wii U's 2GB. (I know, I know, they're not the same game. I can understand Indivisible may need more than SG did, but is it really >4x more?)
Yes. Have a relevant link. :^)

SG loaded 3 characters (as I said above), a smallish HUD, one music track at a time, and a background that was limited to 25MB including textures. It barely fit on PS3.

The Indivisible PROTOTYPE loaded 4 characters, 5 monsters, a complicated HUD, weapon select, 5 music tracks (intro/dungeon/lake/battle/boss), and a background that was around 200MB. It would not have fit on PS3. And that's just the prototype, with characters and enemies that can't do everything they'll be able to do in the final game, and a background that is not as big as any section of final Indivisible will be nor of the level of quality we want in the final game. The final game would also have more monster types active at once, more animated things in the level, etc.

We'd also like to do things such as keeping the Inner Realm loaded so that there isn't a loading screen every time you want to visit it, keep the current area loaded while you are in it, keep all Incarnations loaded so that it doesn't have to load them when you switch, keep the areas adjacent to the ones you're in loaded so that you can walk seamlessly everywhere...all of which takes memory. True, we could NOT do these things, but then the player's experience would be worse, and we're not willing to accept that either.

[edit]
It would be nice if people would trust anything we said, as opposed to ALWAYS thinking we're talking out our butts.
 
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Mike_Z said:
We'd also like to do things such as keeping the Inner Realm loaded so that there isn't a loading screen every time you want to visit it, keep the current area loaded while you are in it, keep all Incarnations loaded so that it doesn't have to load them when you switch, keep the areas adjacent to the ones you're in loaded so that you can walk seamlessly everywhere...all of which takes memory.
...I feel bad for that poor RAM. I may need to upgrade my toaster by then.
 
While suggestions are usually bad juju (I honestly couldn't think of a better word here >.>), might I offer an idea: While I know you're going for a full on "no load" experience, would it be pretty tough to keep in memory ~20 Incarnations? An idea would be kind of like Castle Crashers had their weapons. Put all the playable incarns in a room, that you don't map change too but can't "leave the Inner World" from. Making you walk back to a certain point would possibly give you enough time to swap out data of the incarns that was taken out/put in.

...unless I missed som'in <.>
 
Kit Ballard said:
might I offer an idea:
It's quite alright, you don't have to.
Kit Ballard said:
While I know you're going for a full on "no load" experience, would it be pretty tough to keep in memory ~20 Incarnations?
No. :^) It's part of what we designed for.
 
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