NeOak
Member
I tried to search for a thread that explained this but i wasn't able to find one
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What's going on with Square Enix's Luminous Engine?
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I tried to search for a thread that explained this but i wasn't able to find one
Development chain fucked up. SE had no experience making their own all purpose engine, had not the skills nor the tech or tools to do so, and ended up fast tracking it through Final Fantasy 13's development. They modified the engine on the fly as they were developing the game SPECIFICALLY TO MAKE IT WORK FOR THE GAME THEY WERE CREATING AT THE TIME,( that they were also rushing) like they would do with every game they made.
Problem was, that system was only devised for half baked pretty visuals and transitioning into pre rendered cut-scenes like the game it was based off of.
So....moving that engine to an open world MMO like FF14....well it was a disaster you could see coming.
And because of that, Versus obviously could not use it, so they had to redo another engine immediately after that, named Luminous, infact they announced Luminous a month after the disaster that was the FF14 launch.
AuthenticM
Member
I wonder why they're having such a hard time making that engine. It's not as if Japan was short on engineers. What gives ?
Exactly my point, plus they've been working on engines for years.
Its as i just stated. The main issue is their development chain is fucked from the start. Its either that they try to make the game while creating the engine at the same time, or they otherwise don't know how to make engines that can work across multiple types of games, which is the point of them making their own inhouse engine
DiipuSurotu
Banned
Maybe bad feng-shui in the SE office. Wada should have consulted a different fortune teller when he moved the headquarters. He seems to have realized this since he has now moved all the way to New York City :lol
AuthenticM
Member
But why do they have to do that, though ? Can't Square hire an engineering firm to build them the engine they want ?
Yeah I already knew this story. I don't think it's directly Wada's fault for their engine trouble thuogh.
DiipuSurotu
Banned
Agreed. I was just joking. I think SE is simply too ambitious for this task -- but also too rich to actually go bankrupt after one or even multiple failed attempts.
Because they are so big, they like to do a lot of everything in house, even though they have no idea what they are doing. Their emphasis on their top down management basically has their head in the clouds from the start. They think they can or must make everything themselves to better fit their own visions but usually end up failing these days.
My opinion? Use UE3 or UE4 and shut the fuck up. You didn't see Sakaguchi complaining about it, and they already made a few games with UE3 to start. The real headscratcher for me is that they already have UE4 fully licensed, infact they were the first licensor of the tech! Yet they continue their fools errand trying to make their own engine when they could just use UE4 for their games. Its flexible enough to make 5 games in the time its taken to even get Luminous up to scratch.
And now KH3 development is delayed because they cant figure out luminous even when it was a failure to start
And wasn't Eidos able to put together entire engines just for Hitman Absolution and Tomb Raider?
As for the Witcher 3 comparison, I think each game has advantages over the other in certain ways, even if you leave out certain preferences in art direction. We know FFXV is going to be split into large zones, whereas TW3 will be three roughly Skyrim-sized open areas. I'll admit TW3's animations look a lot less smooth but that's because it will probably have to deal with a lot more gameplay possibilities (including way too many lines of dialogue to hand-animate) and because it's probably being made on a smaller budget. In spite of all this, TW3 still looks better in areas like lighting and the detail in the environments.
As for the Witcher 3 comparison, I think each game has advantages over the other in certain ways, even if you leave out certain preferences in art direction. We know FFXV is going to be split into large zones, whereas TW3 will be three roughly Skyrim-sized open areas. I'll admit TW3's animations look a lot less smooth but that's because it will probably have to deal with a lot more gameplay possibilities (including way too many lines of dialogue to hand-animate) and because it's probably being made on a smaller budget. In spite of all this, TW3 still looks better in areas like lighting and the detail in the environments.
R10Neymarfan
Member
I really don't understand how Luminous is difficult to code for. square said two years ago that the engine was Pc made and could be super optimized. So what happened? I am thinking incompetence.
This company should just give up after this generation too much disappointment and failure to develop
This company should just give up after this generation too much disappointment and failure to develop
TW3 is being made with a stunningly small budget of $15m.
Polish budgets are different we have to remember, but yes they are doing well for themselves.
Most of that has to do specifically because they are so small. SE is so big and lumbering they trip over their own shoelaces at the first sight of a roadblock.
Oh yeah of course.
Yeah I knew you were joking, was just trying to get some serious answers. I really hope for the best.
I get the appeal of a proprietary engine both for competition and flexibility. However, it seems that more often than not using a commodity licensed one instead is a better value, especially when cross-platform performance is essential. The only really clear exceptions I can see are for 1st party stuff where they want to really customize everything to the hardware to try and squeeze out some wow factor for the console wars. Or if the design goals just require too much customization and it's easier to work from scratch and keep a leg up on competitors- for instance UbiArt or the Dead Rising engine and its focus on lots of zombies with minimal AI and as many custom tricks as possible to draw tons of them at once. Not the kind of thing a mainstream engine is likely to prioritize and key to the whole pitch of the game.
It seems these days that Japanese developers are the last main holdout, which is interesting to guess the reasons. While by and large the results are decent it seems that with the need to counter increasing costs and maintain reasonable development periods will lead away from the uncertainty inherent in implementing a strong foundation that will be able to accommodate other projects in the future along with reasonable documentation and resources for the next team to build off of. Early games in the generation seem especially at risk with the added work of doing all of that on top of the rest of the game development.
Companies like Epic don't have the stress of trying to balance the goals of building a title with the development and testing of the engine in happening in parallel. Between of their focus and tons of experience building tools and support resources for every platform under the sun it also means that porting and code can be highly portable with expected results. Finally hiring additional developers from a wide pool of people with familiarity is possible on something like UE if there is a need to increase headcount outside of the company.
It seems these days that Japanese developers are the last main holdout, which is interesting to guess the reasons. While by and large the results are decent it seems that with the need to counter increasing costs and maintain reasonable development periods will lead away from the uncertainty inherent in implementing a strong foundation that will be able to accommodate other projects in the future along with reasonable documentation and resources for the next team to build off of. Early games in the generation seem especially at risk with the added work of doing all of that on top of the rest of the game development.
Companies like Epic don't have the stress of trying to balance the goals of building a title with the development and testing of the engine in happening in parallel. Between of their focus and tons of experience building tools and support resources for every platform under the sun it also means that porting and code can be highly portable with expected results. Finally hiring additional developers from a wide pool of people with familiarity is possible on something like UE if there is a need to increase headcount outside of the company.
D
Deleted member 17706
Unconfirmed Member
I remember hearing in that live technical demonstration that the previous development environment had been "merged" (統合 in Japanese) with Luminous engine to form their production environment for XV.
Since Fox came up a few times I'll add that while it may not have been worth making it cross-gen the results are quite impressive. It scales quite well and I was quite impressed how it looked on both current and last gen machines and between vendors. As people have pointed out it seems to have been well laid out as it has already demonstrated being able to tackle the very different demands of MGS and sporting games. Just the fact that they went ahead and implemented it so quickly shows confidence that it will be able to accommodate their needs as they arise in the future.
I'd be very curious if this puts them in a good place for PC in the same way that Capcom was well positioned last gen for solid ports without a major investment or re-implementation. MT put them in a great position to improve their brand with PC users and the recent Dead Rising 3 port (non-MT) is just more evidence that it wasn't because they decided to pour money into the effort. Assuming similar budgets the DR3 port is abysmal when compared to stuff like RE5/6 that runs better and scales just as well as many of the UE3 ports that got dumped on PC users last generation without a second thought and seemed aimed at just cashing in on the ease of barebones porting.
I'd be very curious if this puts them in a good place for PC in the same way that Capcom was well positioned last gen for solid ports without a major investment or re-implementation. MT put them in a great position to improve their brand with PC users and the recent Dead Rising 3 port (non-MT) is just more evidence that it wasn't because they decided to pour money into the effort. Assuming similar budgets the DR3 port is abysmal when compared to stuff like RE5/6 that runs better and scales just as well as many of the UE3 ports that got dumped on PC users last generation without a second thought and seemed aimed at just cashing in on the ease of barebones porting.
I feel like history continues to repeat itself over at Square Enix. They were super pumped to promote Luminous following E3 2012 but after its last showing at the PS4 unveil there has been nothing. It's worth noting I've also heard the R&D department has been downsized quite a bit since then.
Kagari, do you know why they dont use middleware to solve the issue? Like do you have any info on that? Using the UE4 license and engine they have rights to would seem like a better endeavor than continously just making bad decision after bad decision with no end in sight
Also you changed your avatar and tag back...
They always just aim too high and strive to reach that goal no matter what it takes, I don't think middleware will provide them what they want. There must be a sense of pride in it or something. They seem to be really adamant in having in-game models match the pre-rendered ones to the point where they want to just drag and drop the CG model into the actual game. They've actually accomplished that, but now there are other problems. Middleware isn't a solution in their minds, even if it's a better way to actually ship games on time.
Well yeah, i know they want to develop games "their way". But its destroying the company....they can't blame HD development or people not buying their shit if they waste all their money acting like its the last millennium.
Its gotten to the point where its not even "shipping games on time", and more like shipping any games at all literally. They've only developed 3 sequels to the same franchise in the past 8 years on consoles outside of FFARR, and only because they could reuse all the assets and engine tools they wanted with no budget to speak of
Just make games and ship them on time, its not like UE4 can't produce good results with the right artists. Look at GGXRD, that looks like a next gen game already and its using a gpu only twice as strong as the one in the 360 with 1gb ram. And that's with a development house waaay smaller than SE.
They just don't make the right decisions at all, even basic common sense ones.
Square is an old and successful Japanese company with a lot politics and people with seniority.
Square has a ton of really talented people that have a hard time being productive due to poor management and stubbornness to use internal tools. I think it would be best to stick to the plan when it comes to FFXV as it is more than half-way done already, but it may be in their best interest to seek alternatives when it comes to KH3 and other projects.
Square has a ton of really talented people that have a hard time being productive due to poor management and stubbornness to use internal tools. I think it would be best to stick to the plan when it comes to FFXV as it is more than half-way done already, but it may be in their best interest to seek alternatives when it comes to KH3 and other projects.
Speaking of middleware, many of the effects in the Agni's trailer (motion blur, DoF, some lighting) were licensed from a middleware studio so they're clearly not against it.
Yeah,when you spend a year to make a tech demo to an engine that clearly isnt ready for prime time if it ever will be, show it off at 3 major industry conventions, then find out you've got issues actually making games with the thing, you've fucked up something fierce.
Its like the whole point of luminous was some guy in an office handing down an order "make an engine that can do visual works CG in real time". Ok...but what about the games!? That's some Ken kutaragi level shit, even worse!
Does this mean that they are back to designing engines like in the PS2 days? If yes then wth, why make a custom engine that you won't use in the future?
The question now is, if the tech team stumbles into problems while making the engine, is it really a decision making problem overall like mentioned here, or is it more of a technical setback of not knowing what to expect?
I actually like the fact that they tried to make their own engine. Luminous till now looks like it is the best engine out of all the announced ones, and compared to most of the new engines, it can actually render hair.
Seriously, is rendering hair THAT hard?
In general I found that Japanese games tend to make more convincing hair compared to Western ones. That's speaking in general.
Proper hair with good physics will take a while, that I am sure of. Then again, games like the new Alice have really good hair physics without really taking away too much from the resources like TressFX. So maybe there is hope?
I guess those two examples above show western devs trying to make really good hair, lol. This is speaking AAA games only of course. If not mistaken, I remember EVE online screens with really good hair physics.
I remember when SE wanted to actually license out the Crystal tools engine but eventually decided against it.
I wouldn't be surprised if they originally wanted to license out Luminous as well.
It wouldn't be surprising if KH3 switched from a fully Luminous game to the Ebony+Luminous hybrid that FFXV is using.
I wouldn't be surprised if they originally wanted to license out Luminous as well.
It wouldn't be surprising if KH3 switched from a fully Luminous game to the Ebony+Luminous hybrid that FFXV is using.
eyeball_kid
Member
It kind of boggles my mind at the hubris of SE, that they think they could whip together a next-gen engine when they don't really have a great track record at doing so. Perhaps senior execs felt their pride was in jeopardy if Konami could build a competent engine and they didn't have one? Is there an aversion by Japanese companies to use western engines like Unity?
That's because fantastic hair is really important.
That's because fantastic hair is really important.
EatinOlives
Member
I find talk like this such a fascinating read. I never really thought about it in that light but yes, I think Square is showing the telltalle signs of having serious problems with Luminous. No way in hell is a hybrid approach for their next big Final Fantasy installment what they had in mind when they were showing off Luminous tech demos.
For years people have been clamoring for Square's return to form and for a while it has seemed that it was coming. First the show-stopping FFXV trailer from last year, then the information floodgates at TGS this year, with a demo coming in March, A Realm Reborn being one of the top new MMOs of today despite the original FFXIV being truly horrid, and them finally being able to churn out XIII-2 and LR in a reasonable amount of time, not to mention all the interviews about what happened and what they've done to fix it has made a pretty solid case for the return to form. But the serious troubles with the Luminous Engine that we now know is plaguing XV development and has halted Kingdom Hearts 3 casts more doubt. Again.
Seriously, when will Square's struggles be over? I'm hard pressed to find any other developer struggling this much for this long.
I doubt anyone would want to actually use Crystal Tools over, say, UE3.
For years people have been clamoring for Square's return to form and for a while it has seemed that it was coming. First the show-stopping FFXV trailer from last year, then the information floodgates at TGS this year, with a demo coming in March, A Realm Reborn being one of the top new MMOs of today despite the original FFXIV being truly horrid, and them finally being able to churn out XIII-2 and LR in a reasonable amount of time, not to mention all the interviews about what happened and what they've done to fix it has made a pretty solid case for the return to form. But the serious troubles with the Luminous Engine that we now know is plaguing XV development and has halted Kingdom Hearts 3 casts more doubt. Again.
Seriously, when will Square's struggles be over? I'm hard pressed to find any other developer struggling this much for this long.
I doubt anyone would want to actually use Crystal Tools over, say, UE3.
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