Unreal Engine 5 for KCD3

[Joey]

I recently watched an interview about "WarHorse" that mentioned a possible switch to Unreal Engine 5 for "Kingdom Come: Deliverance 3." In my opinion, they should not switch to Unreal Engine 5; I believe CryEngine is better. Most of the games developed with Unreal Engine 5 that I have played have significant optimization issues, leading to what I consider unoptimized experiences.

What do you think? Should they switch to Unreal Engine 5 for "Kingdom Come: Deliverance 3"? Personally, I don't want to see another game using Unreal Engine 5, especially since many independent and AAA studios are adopting it.

[Gobblebird]

UE5 sucks, all the game runs like ass. KCD2 runs well.

[cniudae]

UE is good for third person and good third party assets, but for them who are doing their own thing, current engine is better

[waterdaca]

Where did you read this? Source?

The game's director himself said around the time of the release that CryEngine is much more efficient for making games like this than any Unreal Engine. And he's absolutely right, their game proves it.
UE5 is one of the biggest disappointments of the current generation, even though many people developed with it.

Your article seems like fake news to me.

[makbthemf]

1) CryEngine couldn't depict more than 30 NPCs for a mass battle in KCD1. And even such a number dropped FPS dramatically. In KCD2, Warhorse was forced to make close-combat battles as a series of small 5x5 fights.

2) Most possible story continuations, except the Vienna game about rescuing Vaclav, require mass battles of at least 100 soldiers on every side (game about guerillia warfare against Rozhemberks in Moravia), or even thousands of soldiers on every side (Hussite wars). The only technology that guarantees such a depiction is Nanites from UE5.

3) CryEngine is outdated and has limited support. Also, Warhorse has basically developed the fork of the engine for medieval purposes, which conflicts with basic first-person shooter logic. That's why horses are stalling after cutscenes sometimes, for example.

[makbthemf]

Originally posted by cniudae:

UE is good for third person and good third party assets, but for them who are doing their own thing, current engine is better

And why have you descided that the next game in the franchise would be FPV RPG like KCD1 or 2? ;-)

[Tenchuu Khan]

Everyone and their.... oh wait, don't want to get banned again, but everyone knows that UE5 sucks

[space]

i think it should be on the kex engine

[smoketrees]

Considering how much worse 2 was than 1 I honestly wouldn't even be surprised in a full conversion to slop.

[rumpelstiltskin]

Originally posted by makbthemf:

Most possible story continuations, except the Vienna game about rescuing Vaclav, require mass battles of at least 100 soldiers on every side (game about guerillia warfare against Rozhemberks in Moravia), or even thousands of soldiers on every side (Hussite wars). The only technology that guarantees such a depiction is Nanites from UE5.

the purpose of nanite is to provide unprecedented amount of details on objects. it absolutely won't help in rendering objects with "normal" amount of details (if anything, it'll likely make it slower). and in case of skinned meshes in particular (e.g. animated characters), it's limited to displacement-style effects (kind of like 3d texture overlay), not arbitrary full geometry.

[makbthemf]

Originally posted by rumpelstiltskin:

the purpose of nanite is to provide unprecedented amount of details on objects. it absolutely won't help in rendering objects with "normal" amount of details (if anything, it'll likely make it slower). and in case of skinned meshes in particular (e.g. animated characters), it's limited to displacement-style effects (kind of like 3d texture overlay), not arbitrary full geometry.

Manor Lords in the standard 3rd-person view camera mode is looking like KCD1 on medium or high settings because of the highly detailed environment, which set the vibes. While in the "birds-eye" camera mode, it can perform battles involving hundreds of soldiers because the environment does not need to be rendered as good as in the 3rd-person camera mode.

The game about guerilla against Rozhemberks could use a similar gimmick - in story-related interactions with complicated 3D animations, the game would utilize full-detailed models and enviroment, while in battle interactions - simplified models, animations + nanites to reduce the quality of environment. After all, it's cheaper to make several standardized models of characters than hundreds and thousands of houses, carts, trees, e.t.c.

[rumpelstiltskin]

Originally posted by makbthemf:

Originally posted by rumpelstiltskin:

the purpose of nanite is to provide unprecedented amount of details on objects. it absolutely won't help in rendering objects with "normal" amount of details (if anything, it'll likely make it slower). and in case of skinned meshes in particular (e.g. animated characters), it's limited to displacement-style effects (kind of like 3d texture overlay), not arbitrary full geometry.

Manor Lords in the standard 3rd-person view camera mode is looking like KCD1 on medium or high settings because of the highly detailed environment, which set the vibes. While in the "birds-eye" camera mode, it can perform battles involving hundreds of soldiers because the environment does not need to be rendered as good as in the 3rd-person camera mode.

The game about guerilla against Rozhemberks could use a similar gimmick - in story-related interactions with complicated 3D animations, the game would utilize full-detailed models and enviroment, while in battle interactions - simplified models, animations + nanites to reduce the quality of environment. After all, it's cheaper to make several standardized models of characters than hundreds and thousands of houses, carts, trees, e.t.c.

again, nanite doesn't help in "reducing quality". its purpose it to provide subpixel details to meshes. no one uses it to get more speed.
and kcd doesn't need bird-eye view rendering of battles, since it doesn't have any bird-eye gameplay (e.g. rts-like). and if it's just a cinematic, might as well be pre-rendered.

[Humpenstilzchen]

I don´t believe they actually considered switching to UE5. I think you made this up.

Everyone and their dog knows how bad UE is when it comes to having many npcs with extensive routines and schedules on your screen.

That is infact the main reason they rolled with Cry Engine. UE can´t handle something like Kuttenberg for example.

[makbthemf]

Originally posted by rumpelstiltskin:

again, nanite doesn't help in "reducing quality". its purpose it to provide subpixel details to meshes. no one uses it to get more speed.

The official statement on the page of Nanites tech on the Epic Games website:

During import — meshes are analyzed and broken down into hierarchical clusters of triangle groups.
During rendering — clusters are swapped on the fly at varying levels of detail based on the camera view and connect perfectly without cracks to neighboring clusters within the same object. Data is streamed in on demand so that only visible detail needs to reside in memory. Nanite runs in its own rendering pass that completely bypasses traditional draw calls. Visualization modes can be used to inspect the Nanite pipeline.

Source: https://dev.epicgames.com/documentation/en-us/unreal-engine/nanite-virtualized-geometry-in-unreal-engine

The opportunity to change clusters of triangles in environmental details dynamically literally allows to make a more detailed environment with less resource usage.

Originally posted by rumpelstiltskin:

and kcd doesn't need bird-eye view rendering of battles, since it doesn't have any bird-eye gameplay (e.g. rts-like). and if it's just a cinematic, might as well be pre-rendered.

Yeah, that's why the Kingdome Come franchise's game about war against Rozhemberks would definitely have another subtitle, not "Deliverence". Because events of the story require changing the gameplay formula and hence branding. ;-)

Aside jokes - the lore of KCD2 is too big for CrapEngine limitations even now. Suchdol siege battles are just 5x5 combats in different parts of the wall, and the other castle is empty - it's easy to check via "photomode". Rozhemberk guerilla requires depicting battles like 100 x 200, which would be never possible on CrapEngine and on any engine with a modern gameplay formula of KCD1\2. Everybody understands that, including Daniel Vavra, who has been heating the audience about gameplay formula change since 2018.

P.S.: Bohemia is already delivered from the Sigismund. So by most chances, even the Viena game, which is quite possible on CryEngine, will have a different subtitle.

[EricHVela]

If they know CryEngine, they should stick to CryEngine. There's no easy path to migrate from CryEngine to UE. (Only Unity and UE are fairly painless transitions between them in either direction.)

If they're going to eject their entire development team, then they can start over with whatever engine they choose, but I think that's not a good idea. KCD has a style that a new team will not be able to replicate.

I love UE to bits, and it's the only engine I still use with development (after so many different engines that were openly accessible over the decades), but it's not a solution to development issues. Developers should stick with what they know and fix their development problems where they're comfortable.

No engine will solve development issues. No engine really causes them, either. It's all about the developers handling their engines.

Now, there could be issues with CryTek because they occasionally lawyered-up to complain about stuff. That could force a developer to switch to something else.

UE is extremely perilous to people unfamiliar with it. It allows all kinds of innovation because it doesn't stop people from trying crazy stuff which also means people can do things wrong and it still won't stop them.

[rumpelstiltskin]

Originally posted by makbthemf:

Originally posted by rumpelstiltskin:

again, nanite doesn't help in "reducing quality". its purpose it to provide subpixel details to meshes. no one uses it to get more speed.

The official statement on the page of Nanites tech on the Epic Games website:

During import — meshes are analyzed and broken down into hierarchical clusters of triangle groups.
During rendering — clusters are swapped on the fly at varying levels of detail based on the camera view and connect perfectly without cracks to neighboring clusters within the same object. Data is streamed in on demand so that only visible detail needs to reside in memory. Nanite runs in its own rendering pass that completely bypasses traditional draw calls. Visualization modes can be used to inspect the Nanite pipeline.

Source: https://dev.epicgames.com/documentation/en-us/unreal-engine/nanite-virtualized-geometry-in-unreal-engine

The opportunity to change clusters of triangles in environmental details dynamically literally allows to make a more detailed environment with less resource usage.

dude, i know what nanite is. dynamic level of detail (LOD) changing is nothing new, it's been used in games since forever (including cryengine). nanite just makes it more gradual, and, most importantly, working well with subpixel details. when such details are not needed it provides no benefits whatsoever. in fact, i'm not even sure manor lords uses it (most ue5 games don't).

Originally posted by rumpelstiltskin:

and kcd doesn't need bird-eye view rendering of battles, since it doesn't have any bird-eye gameplay (e.g. rts-like). and if it's just a cinematic, might as well be pre-rendered.

Yeah, that's why the Kingdome Come franchise's game about war against Rozhemberks would definitely have another subtitle, not "Deliverence". Because events of the story require changing the gameplay formula and hence branding. ;-)

Aside jokes - the lore of KCD2 is too big for CrapEngine limitations even now. Suchdol siege battles are just 5x5 combats in different parts of the wall, and the other castle is empty - it's easy to check via "photomode". Rozhemberk guerilla requires depicting battles like 100 x 200, which would be never possible on CrapEngine and on any engine with a modern gameplay formula of KCD1\2. Everybody understands that, including Daniel Vavra, who has been heating the audience about gameplay formula change since 2018.

P.S.: Bohemia is already delivered from the Sigismund. So by most chances, even the Viena game, which is quite possible on CryEngine, will have a different subtitle.

well, single-character rpgs just can't have any meaningful gameplay in a massive battle scenario. even if one pulls it off tech-wise, it'll be messy, annoying to play, and unnecessary. it just has to be designed around smaller skirmishes, even if some big war is the overarching theme.