Black Ops 2: HDR, Reveal Mapping, more - The "new" engine explained (video)

Dan Bunting, Director Online for Black Ops 2, talks about the engine of the new Call of Duty game.

[MiamiACR21]

He used the term "Photo realistic" when referring to the COD engine. I appreciate his enthusiasm, but when you've only got a year to make a full-fledged game, I can only feel sad for the team that they're still working on Call of Duty; and also hope that they find success in terms of quality in this game.

[Tonester925]

I thought it was 2 years?

[Sillyace92]

"[...]the result is a much more photorealistic, and believable, setting[..]"

Context is a wonderful thing

[MiamiACR21]

It's two years for IW, and one year for Treyarch. That's how they're able to produce one after the other in such a speedy fashion, with IW's games generally coming out with more polish.

@Sillyace92: Yes, I understand I took the word out of context, but even so, using "Photo realistic" when referring to some worn out and dated engine that will never even reach, say, Halo's engine standard of texture quality in it's lifetime, is just pointless. The words "More graphically impressive" would have been better used, since no game since Crysis has come close to resembling a photo taken of the real world.

[h311rais3r]

Uh how is it 2 for iw and 1 for treyarch? Both get the same time dude

[adamant715]

Haha what? A new cod game is released by treyarch every other year. Leaving 2 years between each entry

[humbleopinion]

@MiamiACR21, I can see where your mistake might be coming from: you think they take the new IW engine each time a MW game is released.
But ever since WAW they Treyarch engine branched out from the IW engine, so effectively this new engine is a summation of 2 years of work on the previous BlackOps engine.

There's actually a huge advantage for this kind of proccess: while the engines branched out, it is still relatively easy to port new features from one branch to the other (it's not a magic press of a button but it easier than most engines at least).
So effectively with each iteration you're getting 2 years of engine overhaul work (which is similar to most games in the market) + benefits from the concurrent development of a "sibling" engine.

And it shows, since the games in the franchise keep getting marginal improvements which over a few iterations look very good. Compare the new engine to the one in the first MW and you will notice that it made quite some progress over the years, while still keeping the 60fps target that only a few select games are actually able to offer.

[InFAMOUS1]

Its 2 years for both studios. by your logic, every other year there would be NO CoD. You should check your math friend.. Example... CoD4(2007) W@W(2008) MW2 (2009) Black Ops(2010) MW3(2011) Black Ops 2(2012... And I dunno what CoDs you have played but IW don't put no polish on their games. They are unbalanced, laggy, poor design and always feel rushed. Treyarch makes well balanced and actually update their titles as the community asks for changes. You are just a troll.

[GraveLord]

Uh they got 2 years to make the game.

Infinity Ward and Treyearch takes turns releasing their games each year. Leave it to a troll to not know such a simple fact.

[Xenial]

And you honesly think 2 years is enough to make a huge difference?

[Xenial]

And you honestly think 2 years is enough to make a huge difference?

[darren_poolies]

And you honestly think 2 years is enough to make a huge difference?

I just want to fit in :(

[Muffins1223]

Acully,a good amount of games are made in around 2 years....but i hate cod

[Lazy_Sunday]

They get almost two years to dev each CoD after CoD4, not one single year. There's a team that develops the game, a team that plans for the next game while the game is still in development, a team that works on DLC and maintenance after it's release, and a team for a team that makes teams for other teams. They're just easy to pop out, since most of the components are already made for the game. I know they're turning a piece of shit, but it still takes a long time to make even a shit game. Games are hard to make, remember--I know that makes CoD inexcusable, but can you really blame Acti for trying to take advantage of an opportunity to turn a good profit without crunching the shit out of a good game?

There's a story and a lot of heart and passion under fifteen feet of crap. Call of Duty.

[fossilfern]

Still sceptical but like I have said before Treyarch, compared to IW, seem to be the only ones actually putting in any kind of effort. I liked Black Ops the only real problem was 2nd chance in that game. Lets hope they still keep mod support for the PC, unlike Infinity Ward with MW3.

[lsujester]

He can say all he wants, but the trailer I watched didn't look that great.

[MiamiACR21]

Trailers are only a small taste of what's to come. But I see where you're coming from, and I understand the actual footage from the trailer was a bit scatterbrained, but the story itself seems to have been taken in an interesting direction. So it will either impress almost everyone, or it will impress almost no one. Time will tell, and they've still got time left on the development side of things; so lets cross our fingers and hope they pull something incredible, or close to it.

We win nothing if they don't, and we aim to lose 60 dollars at that. Let's cross our fingers and hope other trailers will paint a picture for us, on how good the game could be, and that it'll be 60 dollars well spent.

@Morganfell: I'm replying to Isujesters comment while taking the game as a whole into consideration, story included. Call of Duty doesn't have to worry about gameplay, it's solid and the controls are tighter than a nuns... well, they're tight. Story and graphics are all it has to worry about at this point, while correcting flaws in Mutiplayer Design while they're at it.

[morganfell]

But this article isn't about the story, it is about the technology and in that department the most successful FPS series in the last 4 years has some of the most outdated looking technology.

Having certain capabilities in an engine is utterly useless if the team cannot capitalize on those strengths. Plenty of dev teams have made crap looking titles with the Unreal 3 engine and that is a great piece of technology.

Treyarch and 2025 can make all of the claims they want about their engine but if it doesn't bear out in the game then the technology is little more than a fat whitepaper to impress investors.

That said, the engine in it's current state will get the job done because the biggest issue with CoD that requires the most corrective action isn't the way it looks.

Even more impacting to the discerning gamer is the fact no great engine will save a title if the gameplay itself is broken.

[enfestid]

Don't call it a new engine
It's been here for years

[enfestid]

For those that obviously don't get it: it was a parody of the lyrics in "Mama Said Knock You Out."

[Hicken]

You're expecting too much out of n4g members, man.

[Ultra_Gizmo_64]

Good one.

[Tonester925]

He looks like Brian Wilson

[theDECAY]

No, no, no, he looks like Brian Wilson.

[Anti-Fanboyer]

Nothing we haven't seen before.

[InTheLab]

Just like to point out that you people are crazy if you think 2 full years are going into CoD titles. I'd give it 15 months at best with the rest going to marketing and map packs.

[x800]

How have they been casting shadows all this time in the engine? all mind tricks lol?

[Asgaro]

This engine originated in 1999.
Just saying.
1999.

[theDECAY]

That's a ridiculous argument. Every one know's that it was created in 1999, but was not first used until 2005 for COD4 and it was HEAVILY modified.

[NarooN]

So? Valve's Source/Goldsrc engines are based off the id tech 2/3 engines as well.

Engines can easily advance with time and work. Just that in CoD's case, they don't do too much since they're so adamant about keeping the game locked at 60fps. Yeah, CoD games don't have beast graphics, but that's mainly because of the framerate.

They could do a lot more on PC for obvious reasons, but the PC versions are just console ports, so it doesn't matter anyway.

[theDECAY]

The Unreal Engine originated in 1998, and people are still using modified versions of that engine. I don't hear you whining about that.

It's not the engine, it's fine, its just the rehash of the same stuff every year. It's not like the graphics and physics are going to be getting much better on these older consoles.

[NarooN]

Exactly. Just goes to show how far people will go to hate on something they don't really know much about in the first place.

[SegataShanshiro]

New engine lolololol just look at the cd when this game comes out it's gonna say: this product contains software technology licensed from Id software (id technology) 1999-2012....thats right, call of duty is and will always be a QUAKE 3 mod....prove me wrong fanboys

[Bakkies]

Nope, no disagreement here.
Fun fact for people who didn't know: You can use most(if not all) of the Quake 3 console commands in COD4.

[0neShot]

These kids talking about the engine are like narrow minded people who don't know what they're talking about. They just say it's old, it's from 1999 without even knowing technically how game engines work, how it's modified, hardware dependency, etc.

[Statix]

HDR? Welcome to 2005.

[BlackKnight]

Not only has HDR been in SO many games (first game I recall is Farcry 1, Crytek actually decided to patch it in since it was such a great affect that they were experimenting with), but he talks about light coming in and bouncing off of surfaces and lighting other places. That isn't HDR, that's radiosity lighting. Radiosity lighting has been in games since HL1 as static (not real-time, pre-baked) and BF3 and Crysis 2 (Crysis 2 on PC only) does real-time radiosity lighting.

HDR is when you are in a dark building and look outside, all you see is white, since your eyes/the camera exposure is adjusted to the dark interior, you step outside, and the eyes/camera adjusts and now you can see, but you look back inside the building and its pitch black. This is hard to do and is takes more memory and tone mapping and so on.

So it is really strange to me the way he went about explaining HDR.

Oh yea, and blending textures? Wtf? Again, I know Farcry 1 did so but I think it even goes back before that. It is like bragging about catching up.

[artdafoo]

Who these effs trying to kid , looks like the same old shit.

[trenso1]

Who are they trying to fool?

[PersonMan]

You know... the Porsche hasn't really changed in many, many years. Nobody seems to be complaining about that.

Just sayin'

[Tomonobu Itagaki]

Except that Call of Duty is more Lada than Porsche.

[ChiVoLok0]

It's rare for people to buy a Porsche every year which is the complete opposite for COD most of the time.

[PersonMan]

Touché... you got me there.

I meant: CoD obviously has something special about it or people wouldn't buy it or play it. The developers and publishers are only giving people MORE of what they like. What's so bad about that?

[mynameisEvil]

Games are not cars.

Let's think about this, shall we? The Porsche 911 has, for the most part, maintained the same appearance since it's inception. They'll maybe make one bit higher, extend another bit at another time, etc. but it is, essentially, the same looking car. This is fine. Visually, cars are not making the huge jumps games are, but even cars have slight updates at times.

With Call of Duty, the visuals haven't been improved at all since 2009. Even in 2009, the engine looked dated because it's an engine from 1999. This "slight upgrade" that they're talking about here, however, isn't even evident at all.

Also, most games evolve in terms of gameplay very quickly, just as new bits and pieces come out for automobiles. With Call of Duty, the gameplay hasn't changed either. It is seriously a game stuck in 2007 - Half a decade ago.

It's high time for Call of Duty to either start upgrading exponentially or just stopping entirely (I'm in favor of the latter, to be honest). We WANTED more Call of Duty 4, and we got W@W, MW2, and Black Ops. With MW3, the series has officially worn out its welcome and, for most core gamers, we just don't want any more. It's like asking for a second cheeseburger, but getting 5 more.

[Bakkies]

No reason to be hating on them, they are just the developers trying to do the best job with the task they were given in the limited time frame.

[frankboy2012]

An engine which was ripped from quake 1999,12-13years later with the exeption of cod4 who says you cant dress a terd :) any who i hope they do take a gamble atleast they are trying.If they keep it to just a bit of change of scenery with a few new weapons people will moan and say oh black ops 2.5 shoulda been dlc expansion pack blah blah blah judging by the trailer they are taking a gamble and people are still moaning saying OMG this is a fail cannot believe they have gone all halo ops well my opinion its time for a change.

[Oldman100]

It took some time but I've managed to translate his cryptic message.

"We've updated our ancient engine to make it slightly less ancient. We're hoping these minor enhancements will persuade you to buy the same looking and playing game you've experienced 5 years ago"

[Euthanasia78]

It's funny that COD has gone from a respected franchise to a pimped out Hollywood street lady in just a few years. I can't wait to see the COD true Hollywood story on E!

[TheObserver]

HDR? That is sad.... Half-Life 2 updated with HDR ages ago. IN 2004!!! They are nearly a decade late.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wik...

[xtreampro]

New engine? if that's the case then the team working on BO2 have absolutely no talent if the game literally looks like N.O.V.A 3 (the best looking iPhone game).

[SegataShanshiro]

Go to hell, dont even try to defent this crap of engine and reused gameplay. Cod will.always be a Quake 3 mod like it or not and no matter what the devs say about it, the proof is on the disc itself....contains Id software technology