Lego Bricks Require More Polygons Than World of Warcraft Avatars

[Corohan]

How impressive, they managed to create a game that looks better than the one released in 2004.

 

[Nouw]

Why is there a Lego game?

Lego is for building stuff.

It's a game for buildings stuff!

I've been tracking this game for a long time and good to see quality control. To be fair, pretty much most games being released nowadays have better graphics than WoW.

 

[Twilight_guy]

Maybe they are just using more rounded edges. More round = more polys. Maybe its just going to be a very complex landscape too, I don't know. It is interesting though.

 

[Sonic Doctor]

Why is there a Lego game?

Lego is for building stuff.

That's the point, building stuff. If you have read the other thread about this earlier, it tells that players will collect pieces as they play and then be able to build stuff.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/7.235243-Lego-Universe-Has-Immense-Levels-of-Phallus-Protection

I thing I wonder is, it sounds quiet restrictive. I think Lego has been studying the competition though. Out of both threads, I am surprised nobody mention the game Roblox. Technically, some other people made an online "lego" creation game before Lego did. Granted they got sued, and had to change all the brick tops to squares with R's on them.

I don't know all the facts, but I'm guessing that Lego might drop the ball on this one, because it looks like they are going to make it like a normal MMO with quests, but it sound like the building will be pretty restrictive (The using of bricks you gain in quests).

I love the concept of Roblox, because basically, you become a member for free. You get to download the creation software, and then you can create whatever kind of model you want. Plus, if you know how to use Lau scripting, you can make even better stuff. The point is that when you create a model or "place" as the game calls it, you can upload it to the site and you can play around in it with your little avatar, and so can anybody else that plays the game. The majority of the game content is user created.

 

[Samah]

I's just one more reason WOW is pulling in 11 million subscribers when so many MMOs are struggling to get near 1 million. Blizzard understand the importance of making the game look good without needing high specs, by using talented artists instead of just throwing processing power at high end graphics.

This.

Awesome. I might play this game, just to build a massive, iron-fisted dictatorship that enslaves 12-year-olds as a means of national income.

You need to play Recettear.

They have more polygons... good for them but I would still rather stare at a night elf

*bows down before mighty wisdom*

Seriously though, this sounds like the kind of game that would benefit from realtime raytracing. Given that most blocks would be a single colour, you wouldn't need to be mapping texels. Also, tracing entities made from a few primitives is going to be a crapload faster than something complicated like a character model in other games.

 

[Zing]

WoW is a 6 year old game. I don't see how that's weird..

 

[Sonic Doctor]

Why is there a Lego game?

Lego is for building stuff.

It's a game for buildings stuff!

I've been tracking this game for a long time and good to see quality control. To be fair, pretty much most games being released nowadays have better graphics than WoW.

Since you said you have been tracking the game, I have a question. How free is the model building? Is the play pretty much restricted to the blocks people find in game, or can a player pretty much make anything.

The reason I ask this is because I wonder if it will be as restriction free as the online game Roblox is. Cause Roblox is initially free. On a free account, you download the software and creator stuff, and can upload one model/place for your avatar to run around in and other players can run around in what you make as well. Of course you can upload more places, if you become a paying member. I like the premise that a majority of the games are user created, granted that they all aren't fantastic games, but I have seen some amazing stuff, from people that know how to use game scripting. I feel that this lego game just won't feel fantastic unless it has the creation freedom that Roblox does.

Here is a video of a Doctor Who place I made. The video quality isn't that great but it is good enough for an example. It is actually the first video I have ever uploaded to the youtube. The suit my avatar is wearing, I made with ms paint and uploaded it to the Roblox site. The hair, tie, stethoscope, and face I got from the site catalog.

 

[Reliq]

Well, actually its pretty true. WoW is based on very low poly models, very basic in terms of modeling, mostly because they lack definition on the features that is achieved through textures. Now a simple lego brick, despite being a cube also has those bumps on top you have to model out, to model a single circular bump you need to increase poly count on all faces to keep the polys as quads, else you get really messed up results when rendering and optimizing.

Or you just use displacement maps on a 12poly(or 6 quads if your into that) cube

 

[AngryMongoose]

I should hope they have more polygons; they have a 6 year advance on technology.

 

[Keava]

Or you just use displacement maps on a 12poly(or 6 quads if your into that) cube

If you want to make CGI or terrain, not sure how it would work with the lego bricks inside such MMO. Guess it depends how the engine uses and calculates everything, and displacement map in the end just adds the geometry in render time, increasing the end polygon count anyway. Keep in mind the cube also needs to be hollow from the bottom.

If doing something like this would be that easy in games im pretty sure they would use it more often instead slaughtering our hardware all the time <.>

 

[DTWolfwood]

So is this lego game gonna be like Minecraft HD? with lego avatars?

 

[magma]

Not to mention that WoW will be 6 years old in November... It's not hard to imagine that a current model created for any game would have more polygons than something in WoW.

*snip*

Yeah, but even the 16 sided one is still blatantly obvious in its not actually roundness (I can clearly see all the sides). And in the article, it says that the people at LEGO have a very high standard. They would probably take one look at that 16 sided thing you have there and say, "No way, that sucks, try again." (cookie for the reference, not that I'll remember to come back and see if anyone got it >_> )

Actually Samurai is using an incorrect shader in his examples, with the correct shader the sides where it is isn't round will look round; the real issue is the silhouette of the edges of the caps which need a fairly high polygon count to be as round as in preview pictures of the Lego MMO.

 

[magma]

Well, actually its pretty true. WoW is based on very low poly models, very basic in terms of modeling, mostly because they lack definition on the features that is achieved through textures. Now a simple lego brick, despite being a cube also has those bumps on top you have to model out, to model a single circular bump you need to increase poly count on all faces to keep the polys as quads, else you get really messed up results when rendering and optimizing.

Or you just use displacement maps on a 12poly(or 6 quads if your into that) cube

@Keava: Hard surface modelling doesn't require you to be anal about edge looping to achieve positive results. That being said the bumps on top don't have to be modelled into the rest saving several triangles on top of the model.

@Reliq: Displacement maps usually use a ton more resources than a lot of polygons. A polygon (or "poly") is a 4 sided shape, you meant "tri". I also haven't heard of a game that uses displacement maps (or of any real-time engine capable of handling them) since normal maps use little resources and give a similar result if the model is done well.

 

[Reliq]

Or you just use displacement maps on a 12poly(or 6 quads if your into that) cube

If you want to make CGI or terrain, not sure how it would work with the lego bricks inside such MMO. Guess it depends how the engine uses and calculates everything, and displacement map in the end just adds the geometry in render time, increasing the end polygon count anyway. Keep in mind the cube also needs to be hollow from the bottom.

If doing something like this would be that easy in games im pretty sure they would use it more often instead slaughtering our hardware all the time <.>

As far as i know there are several game engines that use displacement mapping rather than heavy polygon models. But if this is more or less efficient in the end I wouldnt know. Since i have hardly any experience with engine programming. But your z-brush example was exactly what i was going for, even though it was mostly me trying to be funny.

 

[FallenJellyDoughnut]

*opens up Blender, makes a rectangle with some cylanders on top*
Yep, sounds pretty complicated to me.

 

[LtWiesel]

So, my brick-mage will fling bricks at brick-enemys, which die and split into many bricks...

hmm i geuss i stay with my low polygon elf mage, riding my non-brick netherdrake.

 

[thiosk]

My guess is that while a Lego brick in real life might be simple, it has perfectly rounded male and female connector points. Where the circular male connectors touch the top of a Lego brick isn't just a stiff right angle, but a smooth curve. And don't forget that the bottom of a Lego piece is usually even more complicated than the top.

I thought lego was keeping the penises OUT of lego mmo. Good god this paragraph has it all. Perfectly rounded, male female, touching, stiff, smooth curves, bottoms, and complicated female parts.

Jesus christ save us from this.

 

[BehattedWanderer]

Well, this is the Lego Group we're talking about, a group with an insane quality control department. And, really, I'm okay with Lego Universe being more graphically impressive than a Wow character. Lego Creator, Lego Racers, Lego Island all had simplistic adaptations of what was a Lego brick, but now it looks like our virtual Legos will be just as impressive as our physical Legos. Score!

And cheaper to keep up as a hobby. Have you SEEN what LEGO? sets cost these days?

Tell me about it. I just dropped $100 on one set. Admittedly, it was the Tecnic[sup]TM[/sup] Mobile Crane, and the thing is currently taking up my entire table, but the point remains the same. I'm currently casting my eyes on another set, one that plans to sink me about $179 in the hole. Still not sure about that one, though.

 

[Nouw]

Why is there a Lego game?

Lego is for building stuff.

It's a game for buildings stuff!

I've been tracking this game for a long time and good to see quality control. To be fair, pretty much most games being released nowadays have better graphics than WoW.

Since you said you have been tracking the game, I have a question. How free is the model building? Is the play pretty much restricted to the blocks people find in game, or can a player pretty much make anything.

The reason I ask this is because I wonder if it will be as restriction free as the online game Roblox is. Cause Roblox is initially free. On a free account, you download the software and creator stuff, and can upload one model/place for your avatar to run around in and other players can run around in what you make as well. Of course you can upload more places, if you become a paying member. I like the premise that a majority of the games are user created, granted that they all aren't fantastic games, but I have seen some amazing stuff, from people that know how to use game scripting. I feel that this lego game just won't feel fantastic unless it has the creation freedom that Roblox does.

Here is a video of a Doctor Who place I made. The video quality isn't that great but it is good enough for an example. It is actually the first video I have ever uploaded to the youtube. The suit my avatar is wearing, I made with ms paint and uploaded it to the Roblox site. The hair, tie, stethoscope, and face I got from the site catalog.

The player can pretty much build from anything as far as I know. I should have noted I've been tracking it but not as much in detail.

 

[Sonic Doctor]

Why is there a Lego game?

Lego is for building stuff.

It's a game for buildings stuff!

I've been tracking this game for a long time and good to see quality control. To be fair, pretty much most games being released nowadays have better graphics than WoW.

Since you said you have been tracking the game, I have a question. How free is the model building? Is the play pretty much restricted to the blocks people find in game, or can a player pretty much make anything.

The reason I ask this is because I wonder if it will be as restriction free as the online game Roblox is. Cause Roblox is initially free. On a free account, you download the software and creator stuff, and can upload one model/place for your avatar to run around in and other players can run around in what you make as well. Of course you can upload more places, if you become a paying member. I like the premise that a majority of the games are user created, granted that they all aren't fantastic games, but I have seen some amazing stuff, from people that know how to use game scripting. I feel that this lego game just won't feel fantastic unless it has the creation freedom that Roblox does.

Here is a video of a Doctor Who place I made. The video quality isn't that great but it is good enough for an example. It is actually the first video I have ever uploaded to the youtube. The suit my avatar is wearing, I made with ms paint and uploaded it to the Roblox site. The hair, tie, stethoscope, and face I got from the site catalog.

The player can pretty much build from anything as far as I know. I should have noted I've been tracking it but not as much in detail.

Thanks for the info.

I still wonder how it will turn out. I also wonder how long, they have had the game planned. If they really got the idea from Roblox(partly). Roblox has been around for at least three years, and suffered one lawsuit from Lego. Roblox ended up having to change their round top connectors on the blocks to square ones with big R's in them.

Considering my experience with Roblox, all I have to say now is that Lego better invest in some awesome top of the line servers that can handle just about anything. Because even if you have an great computer and internet connection, the game still lags like crazy a majority of the time.