Dev Blog 22/02/18

[parsehtml][IMG]https://www.taleworlds.com/Images/News/blog_post_28_taleworldswebsite.jpg[/IMG] One of the most important (and complicated) tasks during the development process of Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord was to develop our engine. Using a proprietary engine instead of licensing an existing one might look like an unnecessary complication, but it’s actually vital for what we want Bannerlord to be. For a start, the game would not be a moddable as it is going to be without it! Our engine programmer Gökhan Uras explains a bit more about the engine of Bannerlord in this week’s dev blog. [/parsehtml]Read more at: https://www.taleworlds.com/en/Games/Bannerlord/Blog/47

 

[NordicMelon]

"Our editor is very feature rich! It contains smaller tools like a resource browser, particle editor, cloth editor, atmosphere editor, skeleton editor, flora editor, material editor and texture editor. "
Yeah, but can I mod it so everyone is a naked Harlaus who constantly has feasts with everyone including enemy kingdoms?

 

[JuanNieve]

Sergeant mode looks cool, but maybe if you are not a lord and only a mercenary you can keep the control of your own troops.

 

[NPC99]

I'm concerned about a resource browser. It suggests departmentalised editing where modellers only need to browse meshes as they work primarily in Blender or Zbrush etc. That works fine in a studio environment, but fails to recognise the tiny size of most mod teams - some are just one individual. Where that's the case the functionality of OpenBRF is essential, especially when rigging/tweaking other peoples OSP meshes. I had hoped such functionality would make its way into Bannerlord modding tools, but resource browser doesn't sound much more than a viewer. Hopefully, the skeleton editor will cover copying and pasting rigging between meshes.

 

[KhergitLancer80]

Can someone enlighten me about what benefit does increasing CPU performance brings to players ?

Our game is pretty CPU intensive and uses it for things like AI, combat and physics calculations. Offloading the work to the CPU and increasing the efficiency allows us to have faster loading times and larger battles.

Thanks for the answer !

Enjoyed the blog, you have not written about next week Callum. What do we expect?

You will have to come back next week to find out!

Callum, you know how to hype people yo know.
That can be a good thing or a bad thing though.

 

[Emad addin Zinky]

When the game will be released ☺☺

 

[Duchess Skye]

Mentioned something about C# scripts.

I take this as the game will be far more versatile in terms of modding, adding features etc. And just to think about what mods such as Nova Aetas did to the limited Python scripting of Warband, this makes me excited.

 

[FBohler]

The engine isn't finished yet? Looks like it isn't coming out this year then.

 

[kalarhan]

The engine isn't finished yet?

you should perceive these changes as releasing updates and patches to it in-house

or if you need a analogy: you buy a simple model of a car. Then you replace the wheels. You install electric windows. You change the lights color. Upgrades. The car was working before them, each new upgrade just makes it "better".

 

[Dest45]

The engine isn't finished yet?

you should perceive these changes as releasing updates and patches to it in-house

or if you need a analogy: you buy a simple model of a car. Then you replace the wheels. You install electric windows. You change the lights color. Upgrades. The car was working before them, each new upgrade just makes it "better".

but that stock car is already on the market this isn’t

 

[Kortze26]

The engine isn't finished yet?

you should perceive these changes as releasing updates and patches to it in-house

or if you need a analogy: you buy a simple model of a car. Then you replace the wheels. You install electric windows. You change the lights color. Upgrades. The car was working before them, each new upgrade just makes it "better".

but that stock car is already on the market this isn’t

Maybe, more understandable to say that it is "whole" but not "crystalline" or complete to the expected performance specs declared for release.

 

[kalarhan]

complete to the expected performance specs declared for release.

maybe it is already, as we have no idea what the "expected performance" is 

1. We need a scene to load in 10 seconds
2. We have the engine doing it in 9.98766231 seconds
3. Working to improve it to 9.734293412 seconds
4. Planning on a update to improve it to 9.654123 seconds

 

[Dethikus]

The engine isn't finished yet?

you should perceive these changes as releasing updates and patches to it in-house

or if you need a analogy: you buy a simple model of a car. Then you replace the wheels. You install electric windows. You change the lights color. Upgrades. The car was working before them, each new upgrade just makes it "better".

Kalarhan keepin the troops moral up. I need this. Begone FBholer 

 

[Kortze26]

complete to the expected performance specs declared for release.

maybe it is already, as we have no idea what the "expected performance" is 

1. We need a scene to load in 10 seconds
2. We have the engine doing it in 9.98766231 seconds
3. Working to improve it to 9.734293412 seconds
4. Planning on a update to improve it to 9.654123 seconds

I believe these standards are set initially by Armagan, and supported throughout Taleworlds by each arm agreeing to meet the standards and working diligently under tight-lipped secrecy to meet those standards.  Once a consensus is reached that each department has met those standards, then altogether the crystallization of the release engine will undergo massive load testing then if no other tweaking will be needed, only then, will the release window be unveiled to both TW and the customer base.

 

[DeusPuppy]

HEY YOU!

Calm down and Keep Waiting for Bannerlord.

Thank you for your Attention

 

[Iberian Wolf]

Also, last time asking (since I know you read these and dont wanna spam the same question), will we be getting an overland map editor? I think (and hope) we will (pretty certain because of all the modding tools and help) Im just too curious.

+1 . I'm not sure if you read it, but I have asked about the same thing on a different post, and actually gkh answered that he could not talk about it at that moment. Which was not a "no", so I take it they are at least looking into it. Although I would be quite surprised if we don't get an overland map editor considering the plethora of editors they are going to release.

Nice blog guys, and really hyped for what we're gonna have next week...maybe the new website? 

 

[NPC99]

Also, last time asking (since I know you read these and dont wanna spam the same question), will we be getting an overland map editor? I think (and hope) we will (pretty certain because of all the modding tools and help) Im just too curious.

+1 . I'm not sure if you read it, but I have asked about the same thing on a different post, and actually gkh answered that he could not talk about it at that moment. Which was not a "no", so I take it they are at least looking into it. Although I would be quite surprised if we don't get an overland map editor considering the plethora of editors they are going to release.

Nice blog guys, and really hyped for what we're gonna have next week...maybe the new website?

gkx answered - gkh is a typo.

It won’t be my last time of asking for a campaign map editor. 

 

[Horik6697]

Oh God, I said to myself that I would not come back to TaleWorld's Forums until the game release and that KDC: Deliverance would help to kill some time, but I can't help  it, it's stronger than me. And now there's a surprise next week so well, **** me right?

Very good blog indeed, very informative. It's very nice indeed to see you guys concerning about CPU performance and seeing such a level of progress. Can't wait untill next week!

 

[Nikolai Ludovik]

WHAT DO YOU CURRENTLY WORK ON?
“I am juggling a few things these days. I am finalising a very big refactor on the agent rendering system which improved our CPU performance by nearly 15%. I am at the polishing stage of contact hardening shadows for high-end configurations and along with this I am trying to find optimisations to shadow rendering.

I have a friend of mine who is planning to get into game development and has some programming experience. He told me that when developing games, performance improvements are done in the last stage of the development cycle. And I refer to the normal development cycle, not the early-access games (like Rust that do performance and development at the same stuff, breaking and fixing it again and again, like they did, for example.)
(Because if you do performance at the same time, when you change/add stuff later down the road or change plans, you can break it and then need to do it again)
Or so I've been told.

I know many might regard this as improbable, but I have a pretty, pretty strong feeling that the game does not have a long way to come out to us. I hope they will get it in summer 2018, but that is a [size=8pt]small[/size] hope.

 

[kalarhan]

I know many might regard this as improbable, but I have a pretty, pretty strong feeling that the game does not have a long way to come out to us.

the engine is very important. The game can't be built or even run without it. However, remember to not mix it with the actual game. They could "finish" the engine and take another year or longer to complete the gameplay aspects.

 

[Nikolai Ludovik]

I know many might regard this as improbable, but I have a pretty, pretty strong feeling that the game does not have a long way to come out to us.

the engine is very important. The game can't be built or even run without it. However, remember to not mix it with the actual game. They could "finish" the engine and take another year or longer to complete the gameplay aspects.

Finishing shadows does not look like mixing the engine with the actual game. It looks like the game to me.