Author: John Merlino
Date: 19:54:58 04/04/02
Go up one level in this thread
On April 04, 2002 at 22:45:47, Keith Evans wrote: >On April 04, 2002 at 16:38:26, John Merlino wrote: > >>On April 04, 2002 at 16:06:52, Roy Eassa wrote: >> >>>On April 04, 2002 at 16:02:15, John Merlino wrote: >>> >>>>On April 04, 2002 at 07:41:43, Randy Adams wrote: >>>> >>>> >>>>The next version of Chessmaster (due to be released in about four months) is >>>>going to have true 3D boards and pieces that are, IMHO, incredible. I would >>>>definitely go so far as to say they are "photo-realistic". There will be >>>>approximately 30 different boards and 30 different piece sets (more or less) >>>>that you will be able to combine, size and rotate any way that you like. There >>>>will also be about 10 "flat" piece sets, for people who like to play on a 2D >>>>board. >>>> >>>>Although there has been very little optimization that has been done, I could >>>>send any who are interested some screenshots. Just send me a private e-mail at >>>>jmerlino@ubisoft.com if you are interested. >>>> >>>>jm >>> >>> >>>How about simple, clear 2D pieces (and board) that can be resized to ANY size >>>and still look smooth? >> >>Not as easy as you might think. This pretty much requires using a chess font, >>which was attempted with Chessmaster 7000 (the "Vector Board"). But we had only >>one font and it did not look very good at all at smaller sizes. "Hinting" a font >>so that it can look good at many different sizes is a very difficult and >>time-consuming process (and quite expensive if you have a company that >>specializes in fonts do it for you -- as we did). Forcing users to use Windows' >>"font smoothing" option is another possibility, but it shouldn't be required >>just to make CM look good. >> >... >>jm > >But I don't think that it's any easier to create a 3D board that can be sized to >any size and look good than it is do do that for 2D. You would still need some >form of hinting. I understand why you would prefer to work on the 3D sets - it's >because they look good on the box and will sell copies. (Plus the developers are >probably having fun.) But I can't believe that they solve the legibility problem >that Roy is concerned about. > >When you use/test Chessmaster 9000 do you prefer to use the 3D board now? > >Keith (who just wishes that CM9 would support Win2k and get rid of the annoying >copy protection) With 3D, DirectX and the video cards handle almost all of it for you (assuming you've coded it properly). With fonts, you have to deal with many annoying issues (decisions on min/max sizes, font smoothing, some non-English versions of Windows, etc.) But, yes, one of the biggest requests we've had (for the last several versions) was true 3D boards/pieces. So, we felt that the speed of the hardware had finally reached the point where we could have the pieces look as good as we wanted and not end up with crappy framerates. The minimum spec card, though, is probably going to be a 16MB card, and we may recommend a 32MB card. Of course, it also depends on which features the card supports, but that is probably going to be our guideline. Some 4MB cards we tested worked fine on the lowest poly-count pieces, and some 32MB cards chunk away on the mid-range stuff. This is, however, before optimization. jm (who unfortunately must tell you that CM9000 will not support Win2K, but that you might not have a problem with the copy protection it is going to have ;-)
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