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No Man's Sky gets released like, soon, I guess ¯\_()_/¯

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Those two creatures are generated from the same base skeleton
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From a talk on animations in NMS streaming this second
http://events.nucl.ai/stream/

Where's this from? what video?
 
Here's an album from the IK and animation mapping nucl.ai talk.
http://imgur.com/a/G7TV1

The talk was mostly math, code and various in-depth character animation tech talk, but there were some some bits of general info in there, like at the time of shipping, the team consisted of 12 programmers and 5 artists. One programmer dealt with the animation, but he got a bit of help from another programmer near the end of development. No dedicated animators, the artists all did various things from modeling, texturing, rigging, animating etc.

Also, at the very end, one of the questions was "How many base skeletons are there in the game?" on what he answered something like "Spoilers! Bit more than 10... actually I'm not sure these days. More than 10, less than 20."

Some interesting pics:
 
Soo freaking close now. Some of these new creature gifs are pretty dope. I can't wait to discover a bunch for myself for the very first time and possibly name a few. ;)
 
Smart way to handle the evolution/animation by basing it on the path the creature takes and having the axes follow accordingly based on their connectivity.

So, what kind of post-DLC releases does everyone want?

Obviously there's ships/weapons, but I'd like to see behavioral modifiers/filters.

- Gravity modifiers; Animal modifiers (aggressive; swarming; etc)
- Unstable planets (imagine a timer set on a planet before it breaks apart/disintegrates) where you have to rescue a person or recover an item.
- Generate water; structures. Makeshift animal pens, physics simulator; etc
- Basically, something that lets you replicate those fun sounding bugs that were posted earlier. Tweaks would extend the lifetime of exploration videos online letting others replicate your settings.
 
they said that it's not possible to add new variables to procedural because would break the entire game

Yeah they've said they will want community feedback on what changes people would like post-launch. But they're gonna have to explain what suggestions we can give, that won't break the universe.

And those animations are great.
 
They also mention that Ammo is a finite resource in that video as well.

Seems there is a lot of resource management going on. You need Ammo for your gun, your weapon has a heat / cooldown gauge, your ship requires fuel, you need to refill the protection layers for your suit.

Crafting your ammo does seem on the extreme side. I'm guessing it'd be easy to fall into an endless crafting loop when mining too many resources makes the Sentinels angry -> use ammo to fight them off -> need to craft more ammo -> mine more ammo materials. Well, it's another reason for me to avoid ground combat. ;) Is your multitool's weapon mode the only thing that's gated, or any use of the multitool?

It'd honestly be nice if there was an "easy" mode that's unlocked after reaching the center that lets you explore without worrying about resources.

They may have procedurally generated their interiors, like the interiors of the buildings. Might make the chances of derelicts having interiors more likely?

I really hope this is the case! It'd be a bit silly to walk up to a giant derelict ship and get a "Mine for Scrap" pop-up action.


Nice find...hope this talk gets uploaded. They often still look like their feet slide a bit above the ground when they walk, but overall the animations are more fluid than some of the older footage.
 
Let's do a headcount of the talent that works for Hello Games so far.

Sean Murray who is former Criterion who worked on the Burnout series and Black as a Technical Lead.

Grant Duncan who is an Artist that worked for Climax and Sumo Digital, notable projects were Virtua Tennis and Outrun 2 / 2006

Simon Carter formerly of Lionhead and Bullfrog who did work on the Fable series as a Lead Programmer and both Magic Carpet and Dungeon Keeper with both Level Design and Programming.

Harry Denholm who also former Lionhead and worked for a company called NaturalMotion and did work on an engine called Eurphoria which was used by Rockstar for GTA and RDR.

Gareth Bourn another former Lionhead who did QA work for Fable II and QA work for MediaMolecule on LittleBigPlanet.

Charles Tangora is former Naughty Dog who is physics programmer.

I'm sure there are others but these are the only ones I know that worked on rather major projects over the years.
 
Let's do a headcount of the talent that works for Hello Games so far.

Sean Murray who is former Criterion who worked on the Burnout series and Black as a Technical Lead.

Grant Duncan who is an Artist that worked for Climax and Sumo Digital, notable projects were Virtua Tennis and Outrun 2 / 2006

Simon Carter formerly of Lionhead and Bullfrog who did work on the Fable series as a Lead Programmer and both Magic Carpet and Dungeon Keeper with both Level Design and Programming.

Harry Denholm who also former Lionhead and worked for a company called NaturalMotion and did work on an engine called Eurphoria which was used by Rockstar for GTA and RDR.

Gareth Bourn another former Lionhead who did QA work for Fable II and QA work for MediaMolecule on LittleBigPlanet.

Charles Tangora is former Naughty Dog who is physics programmer.

I'm sure there are others but these are the only ones I know that worked on rather major projects over the years.

Yep, huge talent at Hello Games. There guys deserve every success they can with the game, So they can keep making games.
 
Well most reviewers want to complete a game for review which doing so in this is getting to the center of the universe. I imagine that is not something Hello Games wants to be completed pre-release.

Then there is the online aspects of the game and the community that will form outside of the game. So that may make it so it isn't played at all pre-release. Kinda like Destiny and Division did.

I just wonder if this is a game we don't get a review for until a week after release.

I thought someone said recently it was set to have an embargo until Aug 5.
 

There no indication that a lawsuit is confirmed from that article.

Besides, I find it funny that this is coming up right before release. No Man's Sky has been in development for 4 years and they bring this up after the game goes Gold?

If it wasn't about trying to cash in on the potential success of the game. Bad enough that article doesn't even mention that Genicap is developing their own game.

Don't need to go out on a limb here. It's about as obvious as it can be.
"We just want a seat at the table" "We're making a game too!" "We would love to trade technology"

Uh huh, yeah okay.
 
They did indeed use the/a "superformula". Didn't know that math formulas were patentable.

They aren't. But you can patent their application, so in this case using the superformula to get "2D or 3D objects", which looks like exactly what HG is doing..

I hope it doesn't get delayed, I couldn't stand that. We've all been waiting for so long..

Anyhow, in the off chance that this Dutch company wants to enforce the patent and cease nms production, I hope that Sony will step in and pay all that is due in order not to delay the release again. I can't see HG shelling out this kind of money to a big company.


EDIT: It's also true that all these dutch guys have as proof is some statement in an interview. For all we know HG may have found something better, or may have tweaked the formula, so that it's not exactly the one described in the patent.

So well, talking about lawsuits without even being sure if violation actually took place sounds a little bit scummy. And a little bit suspicious, since the game is releasing in two weeks and since the claimant is developing a game as well.
 
So I have been very cold on No Man's Sky from the beginning because I just didn't understand the point, it seemed kind of aimless and lonely (stop typing your fire at me for one moment).

I love the art style, the music (from what we have heard so far) and then I realised what is missing for me; co-op!

I feel taking that lonely aspect out of it and allowing people to join up and explore together would really push me into the same hype zone as other people.
 
So I have been very cold on No Man's Sky from the beginning because I just didn't understand the point, it seemed kind of aimless and lonely (stop typing your fire at me for one moment).

I love the art style, the music (from what we have heard so far) and then I realised what is missing for me; co-op!

I feel taking that lonely aspect out of it and allowing people to join up and explore together would really push me into the same hype zone as other people.

Being the lone adventurer is something I'm really looking forward to. And I'm sure NPC's will make it feel slightly less lonely.
 
God dammit at that lawsuit. Could they really halt shipment this close to release?

From the article:

In an interview with Business Insider (via NeoGaf) last year, Murray discussed using a formula from a Belgium-based plant geneticist named Johan Gielis. According to Geilis, his "superformula" was "a modified version of the equation for a circle" that allowed a computer to generate a generous amount of natural shapes (like animals, shells, snowflakes and more).

Unfortunately, Geilis is a part of the Dutch company - he's the CRO and he has patented the application of the "superformula." Geilis could only patent the application, considering patenting mathematical formulas isn't allowed.

In 2004, Geilis patented the concept of using his fomula to "create 2-D images, 3-D images and/or animations."

You'd think if Murray knew the actual guy that did the formula he'd also have researched if an application of it had been patented. Doesn't look great.
 
And I'm sure NPC's will make it feel slightly less lonely.

I hope so but unless there is a strong narrative, I can't see it really coming together.
Imagine a universe filled with Skyrim/Oblivion shopkeepers. I also remember something about having to learn the language of the NPCs, so you can decipher the two lines of dialog.

I don't mean to be a negative nancy but it is super strange they haven't revealed the important stuff. We have seen exploring and fighting, sure. But not much else.
 
If it wasn't about trying to cash in on the potential success of the game. Bad enough that article doesn't even mention that Genicap is developing their own game.

Don't need to go out on a limb here. It's about as obvious as it can be.
"We just want a seat at the table" "We're making a game too!" "We would love to trade technology"

Johan Gieles who came up with the Superformula is a co-founder of the company, and he's registered several patents, so it seems like a reasonable defense of the patents. There is plenty of prior use of the Superformula in computer graphics applications, so I'm not sure why NMS is being targeted here or if Gieles has gone after other companies in the past. I imagine it's probably it's the biggest target for a lawsuit they've found though.

It seems odd to me that Hello would use this technique without investigating the patent history behind it.

The only thing I can conclude is that this game is cursed.
 
One of the design philosphies of the game was to make you feel lonely.

And there is no need to show everything there is to a game before it releases. Especially when it is already selling well before release. One of the most important things, Sean said about this game, was to discover things for yourself. Figuring out things with tbe community ect. I for one, love it when everything there is to do in a game isnt spoiled before you get your hands on it.
 
So I have been very cold on No Man's Sky from the beginning because I just didn't understand the point, it seemed kind of aimless and lonely (stop typing your fire at me for one moment).

I love the art style, the music (from what we have heard so far) and then I realised what is missing for me; co-op!

I feel taking that lonely aspect out of it and allowing people to join up and explore together would really push me into the same hype zone as other people.

I'm not usually a big co-op / multiplayer guy but I do wish there was some way to share coordinates in the game. Even if the act of sharing coordinates consumed some sort of in game resource, it would be nice to share the location of an interesting planet with a friend or plan some kind of secret meeting in the depths of a hidden asteroid belt.
 
I hope so but unless there is a strong narrative, I can't see it really coming together.
Imagine a universe filled with Skyrim/Oblivion shopkeepers. I also remember something about having to learn the language of the NPCs, so you can decipher the two lines of dialog.

I don't mean to be a negative nancy but it is super strange they haven't revealed the important stuff. We have seen exploring and fighting, sure. But not much else.

We've seen crafting.
 
I'm not usually a big co-op / multiplayer guy but I do wish there was some way to share coordinates in the game. Even if the act of sharing coordinates consumed some sort of in game resource, it would be nice to share the location of an interesting planet with a friend or plan some kind of secret meeting in the depths of a hidden asteroid belt.
Your friends show up on your galactic map.

I think there discoveries do as well. They have not been concrete about what info shows up on your map other than they will in some form. So you might be able to share coordinates with friends.
 
I'm not usually a big co-op / multiplayer guy but I do wish there was some way to share coordinates in the game. Even if the act of sharing coordinates consumed some sort of in game resource, it would be nice to share the location of an interesting planet with a friend or plan some kind of secret meeting in the depths of a hidden asteroid belt.

Hear, hear!
 
And yeah I really hope this fucking stupid ass lawsuit doesn't trip things up at the last minute here. The game is done and we're this fucking close. Hopefully it's too late for anything to happen since the wheels are in motion in terms of release schedule.

Your friends show up on your galactic map.

Totally awesome, did not know that. Is there cross platform play?
 
I hope so but unless there is a strong narrative, I can't see it really coming together.
Imagine a universe filled with Skyrim/Oblivion shopkeepers. I also remember something about having to learn the language of the NPCs, so you can decipher the two lines of dialog.

I don't mean to be a negative nancy but it is super strange they haven't revealed the important stuff. We have seen exploring and fighting, sure. But not much else.

They've revealed exploration, trading, combat, and survival. Those are the important things in the game. If they are not important things to you, it's not a game you'd be interested in. Co-op wouldn't change that.

This game was built with a vision of solitary, somewhat lonely exploration in space. It's a very particular vision and won't resonate with people who demand that every game be a shared, social experience.
 
I feel that "No Man's Sky" will be a perfect end to a long day.

I can picture myself coming home from a long day of work and waiting till my wife and children are asleep to fire up my PS4 with a glass of Shiraz in my hand and Spotify pumping in my ear...goodbye world.
 
I feel that "No Man's Sky" will be a perfect end to a long day.

I can picture myself coming home from a long day of work and waiting till my wife and children are asleep to fire up my PS4 with a glass of Shiraz in my hand and Spotify pumping in my ear...goodbye world.

Replace shiraz with a special plant and that sounds like my plan. May call off work to get a clean 30 hours to play straight.
 
Tall enemy crab was exciting for me. I've mentioned it before but discovering all these creatures is what I'm looking forward to the most.
 
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