[Programming] Decision making and vehicles

KurtR

I am learning some basic programming on the side of modeling/sculpting these days. I am interested in a few things concerned with vehicles and choices developers make when programming them. Ive notice that Ubisoft got really good vehicle code in The Crew, but GR Wildlands and partly Watch Dogs 2 has poor physics implemented. Is there something written about the subject or someone with the knowledge who could say something more about decisions made when coding vehicles ( or similar scenarios) both the thought process and the amount of work it takes to get good vehicle code done?

Also, why is code from lets say The Crew not used in GRW. What branches/decisions are made when deciding on all these things and why is code within a studio not re-used or customized to a new game?

jaker3278

The programmers work of real life physics reactions to obtain good results, they are working closely with the physics engine of the game and using functions provided by it to then model things such as suspension behavior and torque.  You would have to speak to someone in the particular studio to find out why they made different decisions for different games. It is very likely that if the game is using the same engine they aren't going to do the work twice, maybe they have different setups for different vehicles that thats what you are experiencing. 

KurtR

jaker3278 said:

The programmers work of real life physics reactions to obtain good results, they are working closely with the physics engine of the game and using functions provided by it to then model things such as suspension behavior and torque.  You would have to speak to someone in the particular studio to find out why they made different decisions for different games. It is very likely that if the game is using the same engine they aren't going to do the work twice, maybe they have different setups for different vehicles that thats what you are experiencing. 

Thanks for response, jaker. I am however searching for how the physics engine in relation to written code in games are worked out in more depth. Especially decision making, barnstorming, time consumption, the code itself etc etc. Im interested in the code (which I am guessing no one releases) or something approximate written on the topic that goes beyond the basics of physics, which I can use for some in-depth study to better understand why ex. wildlands has poor physics implemented on ground vehicles, while The Crew has good physics implemented.

On the surface there is an easy answer to this. The Crew is a car game, so the budget is leaning towards working out vehicles, while GRW is a stealth game and it might be that it was only a matter of balancing out the budget. Which I bet it was. GRW invested a lot of time in creating a good World Machine pipeline. But it would be interesting to somehow gain some insight into how different, both in time spent on code and lines of code, the two were worked out.

I understand that there's not much shared on the topic, but I thought I would see if there were something more in-depth out there

jaker3278

Do you know anything about Newtonian Laws and understand them and do you have any experience in c++, can you do sums. If you have the basics then going to the Unreal 4 forums and looking at all the documentation they have very good code documentation. I would definitely suggest that you go and do the blueprint code in UE4 its not as easy as it sounds and they are all C++ code made visible. 

I dont think you are ever going to find out why Studios did what they did for certain games, you are going up the wrong alley if you think you are going to find out enough information to satisfy you. You much better off learning about physics in your own way and trying to do things with physics in a free game engine.  

KurtR

Yes, I do have some experience in c/c# and C++, and also understand the basics of blueprints. I'm probably not asking my question the correct way. It's not really just about the code, even though that is part of my questions as well. But its about everything from sorting out some UML charts, to brainstomring and decision making in a project setting. Especially the decision making processes is interesting in relation to time and budget.

But your probably right. Since its such an abstract and wast topic, Ill probably not find what I am looking for, but sometimes people have written some interesting articles, found some talks or other sources of materials that is interesting and closes the knowledge gap some. Reading the documentation over at UE4 or writing code will not give me exactly what I am looking for, but it def. helps.

jaker3278

Okay, keep an eye out for that kind of info, you might get someone from a studio come and join in the discussion if your lucky. I watch the Star Citizen weekly studio reports that gives you a cool insight into how they structure and deploy their team. 

KurtR

Ah, thanks for the tip, Jaker. Ill check that out as well.