Starfield and Creation Engine 2

[fishburger67]

I have been playing a lot of Red Dead Redemption 2 here lately as well as watching the videos on the forthcoming Starfield.   Red Dead Redemption 2 is insanely beautiful.  The facial expressions and eye movement and muscle movement of the horses and so on.   It is truly amazing.

 

And then I look at the trailers recently released for Starfield and I have been mostly underwhelmed by comparison.

 

However, I just watched this video:

 

 

and was reminded what you give up when you use full facial motion capture as they do in many of the later AAA titles as they did in Red Dead.

 

I have heard dozens of commentators complaining about the visuals produced by the creation engine and now believe that they guys don't fully understand what they are asking for.  Add in full motion capture and the like and the production of mods will be like you get with Red Dead and Cyberpunk and the like, i.e. basically cosmetics.   

 

At this point, it is mostly all speculation, but based on the videos we have seen, while not as realistic as motion capture, the creation engine 2 facial animations are a giant leap forward while still allowing us mod creators the ability to make meaningful, fully voiced quest mods.  Bethesda has always been eating it's own dog food and by doing so, guaranteed that us mod authors have reasonably good tools to add to their work.

 

It is my opinion that Starfield will duplicate and exceed Skyrim's mod-ability and therefore it's longevity.

 

I am starting to write mods for it now even though I have no idea what the story will be.

 

 

 

 

[bnub345]

Sometimes the fancy newer option is worse for the player. You can see this in FO4 where they voiced the PC, and it's why all of the dialogue is basically "yes, no, huh?". They didn't want to write more dialogue that would actually add to the game because then it has to be voiced and it costs a lot more. Another example is when CA switched to mocap animations in TW: Shogun 2. Previously, units just played a couple of simple animations for attack/defend/stagger. It worked out really well, if one guy got surrounded he gets hit multiple times and dies because he can't defend. Now with mocap, the surrounded guy will watch as the other guys stand in line and fight him one by one because CA didn't make any animations beyond 1v1. 

 

I think a lot of how a LL framework mod will work comes down to the animation system. Skyrim wasn't really made for paired animation, it's optimized for bonking people with a sword. About the most advanced thing Skyrim has is riding a horse, and even that is janky. If you wanted to do something really simple from scratch like make two people hold hands while they walk, it would be an extraordinary amount of work. I'm not sure how the animations are handled in Starfield, but I would be surprised if much changed. 

[spoonsinger]

In my opinion Bethesda/Microsoft arn't going to make the same mistake they did with Skyrim and will probably go down the Capcom route.  They are going to try an nickle and dime everything.

[Kendo 2]

37 minutes ago, spoonsinger said:

In my opinion Bethesda/Microsoft arn't going to make the same mistake they did with Skyrim and will probably go down the Capcom route.  They are going to try an nickle and dime everything.

 

I'll go ahead and cover all the standard responses to your post.

• "You're just hating on it to be cool."
• "It is a modding a platform."
• "You don't have any achievements on Steam so STFU."
• "Questioning Bethesda is disrespectful."
• "Learn to type."
• "Thread locked for racism."

[fishburger67]

38 minutes ago, bnub345 said:

I'm not sure how the animations are handled in Starfield, but I would be surprised if much changed. 

Sure hope you are wrong about this.

 

I do have some hope though because Todd sez us mod creators will be very happy.  Just hope he means happy about the animation changes.

[TDA]

I hope the principle will be like in Oblivion, then it will be possible to introduce dances with the real movement of the actor in the game world during the dance.

In Skyrim, this is not possible , and in Oblivion it works - the animation determines the movement of the actor in the X, Y plane - the game world.

 

But I think they'll make it work on consoles and it's going to be crap for the animators... no one will suffer with this shit, except for professional animators and programmers, they are busy people and there will be few mods.

[Kendo 2]

7 minutes ago, TDA said:

...no one will suffer with this shit, except for professional animators and programmers, they are busy people and there will be few mods.

 

All the fame and glory of this site is dependent on the programming skills of one guy and he's not even a member here.  That's how fragile the Bethesda modding ecosystem has become.  If 'the one guy' decides that he's done with Bethesda modding and doesn't allow anyone to use his ripped code then NO ADDITIONAL ANIMATIONS or replacers for the game unless someone else steps up.  And the chances of that are slim given the current talent level of Bethesda modders.

We're looking at shit rehashes of menu changes, round 2 of CBBE body slide trash and the fourth iteration of Sims/Poser/Daz hair rips.  Where's the NEW shit?  It's not happening because the current crop of modders don't know how to make 'the new shit'. but they sure can shill and Patreon whore.

 

Meh. let the whole thing come crashing down.  fuckit.

[Vader666]

2 hours ago, fishburger67 said:

It is my opinion that Starfield will duplicate and exceed Skyrim's mod-ability

 

Beth released their exporter tool for 3dsMax13 only, because that is what they were using for FO4.

Havok isn't freely available anymore, they might pack up something into the CK / release their toolset for Starfield, however if they do that it will be 3dsMax only (i suppose).

Autodesk stopped giving away free student licenses for 3dsMax for anyone, you have to show them a certificate proving you're actually studying at a university.

 

So unless Starfield-CK will have .fbx import or someone creates a toolset for blender, it might be that people have to set jolly roger to be able to make stuff for Starfield.

[Fotogen]

5 minutes ago, Vader666 said:

Havok isn't freely available anymore,

Havok is owned by Microsoft. Microsoft owns Bethesda.

[bnub345]

3 hours ago, Vader666 said:

 

Beth released their exporter tool for 3dsMax13 only, because that is what they were using for FO4.

Havok isn't freely available anymore, they might pack up something into the CK / release their toolset for Starfield, however if they do that it will be 3dsMax only (i suppose).

Autodesk stopped giving away free student licenses for 3dsMax for anyone, you have to show them a certificate proving you're actually studying at a university.

 

So unless Starfield-CK will have .fbx import or someone creates a toolset for blender, it might be that people have to set jolly roger to be able to make stuff for Starfield.

 

Havok isn't publicly available because it was taken over by Microsoft. As they now also own Bethesda, hopefully that means the tools will be more accessible (ha who I am kidding).  

 

I don't think anyone modding skyrim/fo4 is using legitimate 3dsmax copies anyway. The 2012/13 version hasn't been available in forever, and no one other than a professional animator is going to shell out thousands of dollars for a 3 year license, or whatever scam Adobe is running these days. 

 

Edit: Looked it up, $5000 for a 3 year license, and you don't own it so you have to pay up every 3 years or it's gone. And it's owned by Autodesk, which is pretty close to Adobe in my defense. 

Edited July 28, 2022 by bnub345

[Kendo 2]

25 minutes ago, Fotogen said:

Havok is owned by Microsoft. Microsoft owns Bethesda.

Hence total lockout of Havok, and that happened at acquisition.

[Pamatronic]

4 hours ago, TDA said:

I hope the principle will be like in Oblivion, then it will be possible to introduce dances with the real movement of the actor in the game world during the dance.

In Skyrim, this is not possible , and in Oblivion it works - the animation determines the movement of the actor in the X, Y plane - the game world.

The Fuck are you talking about? Of course its possible in skyrim. Every dodge or combat overhaul mod does it. Admittedly, you have to know how Nemesis works or be on good terms with Fore, but thats still far away from Impossible.
Seriously, I hate to break it to you, but Oblivion is technically inferior to games running on later engines. This isn't gonna change just because you refuse to move on.

[Pamatronic]

2 hours ago, Vader666 said:

Autodesk stopped giving away free student licenses for 3dsMax for anyone, you have to show them a certificate proving you're actually studying at a university.

This wont work if you are in the US, but in most European countries, being a student is basically free, soo....
 

2 hours ago, bnub345 said:

I don't think anyone modding skyrim/fo4 is using legitimate 3dsmax copies anyway. The 2012/13 version hasn't been available in forever,

true, while trying to get my hands on it myself, I´ve stumbled upon some reddit threads were people actually called them trying to purchase a copy of 2012. To no avail...
But on the bright side, I cannot for the life of me imagine that Beth is still using that version for startfield.

[davisev5225]

3 hours ago, Pamatronic said:

But on the bright side, I cannot for the life of me imagine that Beth is still using that version for startfield.

 

They're still using the ANCIENT Gamebryo engine, refusing to move on to newer, better engines that have come out since.  I'm willing to bet that they're still using 3DSMax 2012 because they licensed it, it's on auto-pay, and it's cheaper than getting newer software and re-training their artists.

[TDA]

4 hours ago, Pamatronic said:

The Fuck are you talking about? Of course its possible in skyrim. Every dodge or combat overhaul mod does it. Admittedly, you have to know how Nemesis works or be on good terms with Fore, but thats still far away from Impossible.
Seriously, I hate to break it to you, but Oblivion is technically inferior to games running on later engines. This isn't gonna change just because you refuse to move on.

 

Is Nemesis compatible with FNIS? I didn't know...

I meant the principle of how animation works in Oblivion, where the animation completely controls the actor (except for controlling the state on the Z axis, this is controlled by Havok)

, also tags of facial expressions and sounds! there you can insert it into the animation file with all the other movements, but in Skyrim, you need to write scripts to just open the mouth of the actor - this is mega stupid

[27X]

3 minutes ago, t.ara said:

You ´ll quickly calming down from your illusions/modding-enterprises related to this game quite fast. Anyway can´t I personally understand to mod into such a genre of game for different reasons, specially because of missing access, which will hold on for years. A next creaton kit is a nice additional add-on, but it doesn ´t allow to step into the deep way of modding.

Instead it ´s better to invest time into a start-up-project which has free access and which will be unique in genre to one ´s suiting taste.

As I personally do not like SCIENCE FICTION, I simply have no interest to this. All the game creators at the moment seem to be on the same TRIP. Lot of work, lot of....

 

 

the scene for this will be about the same size as skyrim's aka quadruple what FO is.

[RohZima]

16 minutes ago, 27X said:

 

the scene for this will be about the same size as skyrim's aka quadruple what FO is.

 

Based on what? That seems very optimistic.

[27X]

based on social buzz, amount of SW and ME discords already recruiting and other scifi modding sites and the fact no one gives five fucks about apocalyptic settings except George Miller.

[Pamatronic]

1 hour ago, TDA said:

Is Nemesis compatible with FNIS? I didn't know...

Nemesis can read FNIS generated behavior files, so yeah the two aren't mutually exclusive

 

1 hour ago, TDA said:

I meant the principle of how animation works in Oblivion, where the animation completely controls the actor (except for controlling the state on the Z axis, this is controlled by Havok)

As mentioned earlier, this isn't really something unique to oblivion. Animations in skyrim are perfectly capable of controlling actual movement, sounds, and pretty much everything else.
It just has to be properly defined in the bahavior files, and by default, FNIS just doesnt support more complex stuff.
Sounds can be easily done, but movement/facials would require a some special in build function like Fore did for TKdodge or acrobatic jump. (Or you use nemesis and do it yourself)

But the baseline is, you can pretty much put every form of commands into animations, (Decap for example...), you just have to know how to get it into the behavior files.
The only difference to oblivion is probably the accessibility. There just arent many people around who truly understand Skyrims behavior files good enough to make something truly interesting with it.

[Pamatronic]

1 hour ago, 27X said:

the scene for this will be about the same size as skyrim's aka quadruple what FO is.

I would argue that High-Fantasy still beats Sci-fi in terms of popularity, but yeah, it will probably totally eclipse FO

[RohZima]

17 minutes ago, Pamatronic said:

I would argue that High-Fantasy still beats Sci-fi in terms of popularity, but yeah, it will probably totally eclipse FO

 

Poor FO4. Even FONV arguably surpassed it in modding.

[fishburger67]

11 hours ago, Vader666 said:

 

Beth released their exporter tool for 3dsMax13 only, because that is what they were using for FO4.

Havok isn't freely available anymore, they might pack up something into the CK / release their toolset for Starfield, however if they do that it will be 3dsMax only (i suppose).

Autodesk stopped giving away free student licenses for 3dsMax for anyone, you have to show them a certificate proving you're actually studying at a university.

 

So unless Starfield-CK will have .fbx import or someone creates a toolset for blender, it might be that people have to set jolly roger to be able to make stuff for Starfield.

 

11 hours ago, Fotogen said:

Havok is owned by Microsoft. Microsoft owns Bethesda.

 

11 hours ago, bnub345 said:

 

Havok isn't publicly available because it was taken over by Microsoft. As they now also own Bethesda, hopefully that means the tools will be more accessible (ha who I am kidding).  

 

I don't think anyone modding skyrim/fo4 is using legitimate 3dsmax copies anyway. The 2012/13 version hasn't been available in forever, and no one other than a professional animator is going to shell out thousands of dollars for a 3 year license, or whatever scam Adobe is running these days. 

 

Edit: Looked it up, $5000 for a 3 year license, and you don't own it so you have to pay up every 3 years or it's gone. And it's owned by Autodesk, which is pretty close to Adobe in my defense. 

 

The report is that havok has been replaced.  This comes originally from linkedin post by the guy who did the work and you can still find it if you google search it.

 

I don't know if that is good or bad because I didn't find havok that intrusive, just a little janky.

 

And from the mouth of Todd Howard

 

"For our modding community, we actually think this game is going to be a dream."  which is a bold statement given how much you can do with Skyrim.

Edited July 28, 2022 by fishburger67

[fishburger67]

2 hours ago, RohZima said:

 

Poor FO4. Even FONV arguably surpassed it in modding.

FO4 suffered because of a voiced protagonist.  The kind of mods I do could not be done because of the voiced protagonist.  However, FO4 modding is still pretty vibrant, i.e. 3rd behind Skyrm and SSE and almost 10x any other non-beth game.  FO4 is VERY popular and I expect it to be played actively 10 years from now.  FO4 has almost 2x the mods of FONV.

Edited July 28, 2022 by fishburger67

[fishburger67]

2 hours ago, t.ara said:

So SCI-FI is best business, caused by statistics.

In the past, let ´s say it was more genre-creation by feel, wish or by a dream. And indie-labels you can not compare with the grand-players on the market

I'd say GTA's success pretty much trashes that argument.

[RohZima]

18 minutes ago, fishburger67 said:

FO4 suffered because of a voiced protagonist.  The kind of mods I do could not be done because of the voiced protagonist.  However, FO4 modding is still pretty vibrant, i.e. 3rd behind Skyrm and SSE and almost 10x any other non-beth game.  FO4 is VERY popular and I expect it to be played actively 10 years from now.  FO4 has almost 2x the mods of FONV.

 

I love Fallout 4 - it's one of my favorite games ever made. I don't have the same optimism for it's longevity as you though because I think Starfield will crush it because it's too similar. Because modding is such an occupation and the games you choose to mod requires so much "love & attention" I think a lot of people will choose one or the other.