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H&D 2 Q&A´s
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Here you will find (old) Q&A´s from Klaas Jan (from the H&D2 hideout) and me
with Illusion Softworks
First Q&A:
Q&A with Tomas Pluharik (Ex-lead designer Hidden & Dangerous II ) Tomas
Pluharik, the lead programmer of Hidden & Dangerous II would like to
answer some questions for the Unofficial Hidden -and- Dangerous website. We
thank him for that. You can find all most important questions in this Q&A. If
you have any question and it isn`t in the Q&A, you can contact me.
Q&A Tomas Pluharik:
First I would like to thank you for answering this Q&A on such short notice.
Thank you!
Q: At first, can you give a short description of the game for those who
don`t know yet.
A: HD2 is the 3D tactical wargame from WW2. Player can fully control small
(up to four soldiers) squad of specialist in undercover missions behind enemy
lines.
Q: Hidden & Dangerous II will be build on the new LS3D engine. What are the
most important new features of this engine?
A: It is more stable and powerfull then the old one and supports most of
the graphical features (lightmapping, projected lights and shadows etc.). It
also support our motion captured single mesh characters.
Q: Will Hidden & Dangerous II contain new characters, weapons, vehicles
etc.. (if so can you tell what we can expect)
A: A lot of all. Characters - there is main character named Gary Bristol (hero)
and many others (some of them are from HD1). There is also many NPC`s in the
game.
Q: Hidden & Dangerous II has missions in Burma, London and some more
countries. What can we expect of the missions in Burma and London??
A: Burma is sabotage espionage mission against Japanese jet fighter planes
research and in London it is............... still secret.
Q: Will Hidden & Dangerous II include an editor?
A: Yes ........... no ............. don´t know. We want to release some
editing tools after the release of the game.
Q: If it includes an editor, will we be able to make real Hidden &
Dangerous II mods??
A: Yes ......... no ............ don´t know.
Q: Will Hidden & Dangerous be able to compete with other wargames like:
Commandos 2, Operation Flashpoint and Medal of Honor?
A: The bad question. Will these games be able to compete with Hidden &
Dangerous2???
Q: What are the multiplayer possibilities of Hidden & Dangerous II??
A: In short ........ Cooperative multiplayer - Nearly the same style as it
was in HD1. The function of the main character is pushed to the back.
Classical multiplayer - Multiplayer in style of TFC, Counterstrike etc. There
will be about 9 styles (TFC, Deathmatch, Kidnapping, Thief, Recon etc.). Each
style has about 3 substyles (Fraglimits, Timelimits, Sudden death etc.).
Connections - LAN, Internet only through TCP/IP.
Q: When will there be an playable demo of Hidden & Dangerous II
A: Sorry, don´t know.
Q: Most of us couldn`t go to the E3 show in LA. What was shown of Hidden &
Dangerous II over there??
A: There were four missions with fully functional interface and ordering
system, weapons, some vehicles etc.
Q: When will be the releasedate of Hidden & Dangerous II??
A: 1q 2002 how it looks know.
__________________________________________________________
Second Q&A:
Q&A with Peter Kubek (lead 3D graphics Hidden & Dangerous II )
The Hidden & Dangerous2 hideout got a change to have a little chat with
the man behind the graphics of Hidden & Dangerous II. His name is Peter Kubek
and he would like to answer some interesting questions for us. We thank him
for doing that. Here`s the Q&A:
Q - To begin with: will Hidden & Dangerous2 support ISSE or 3DNow+ ?
A - We are supporting only in the case of Direct X.
Q - Will it support A3D or EAX ?
A - We are counting with support of EAX
Q - What is the Gamestate at the moment (Alpha/Beta..) ?
A - Actually we are finishing alpha version of the game and on December we
hope we will have beta
Q - There are some NPC in the game , how will it be with animals ?
A - There will be a lot of NPCs in the game. Some of them will be passive
but some of them are active and can help you in completing mission tasks.
Q - Will there be diffrences between the PC, Playstation or the Xbox ?
A - PC and Xbox version will be nearly the same, because both platforms
have nearly the same architecture. We are only going to make some changes in
controls. So it looks the X box version will be released shortly after the PC.
The PS2 will be tougher one. We do not exactly know what changes must be done
to the game and lot of things will appear during the conversion. It is clear
now that we should spare memory (maps, models etc.).
Q - How long are you working on one map ?
A - It depends on the size of the map. Smaller maps can be done in 15 -25
days and larger one can be done in 30 -40 days.
Q - Will or is the engine used by other games from Talon or other companies?
A - Illusion Softworks is now developping some games running under LS3D
engine. We are quite contend with this engine so we are planning to develop
one more game running under LS3D after release of HD2.
Q - How will the german soldier react if he discovers 'enemy' footsteps
A - It depends on what you mean with "enemy footsteps". He can investigate
suspisious things if he will be alerted but most of the enenmies are not
superior trackers of Dakota tribe so in most cases he will ignore such things.
Q - Is the view distance set further than in Hidden & Dangerous ?
A - The LS3D is a powerfull tool so we can afford greater view distances
than in Hidden & Dangerous1. For example in Hidden & Dangerous1 was maximal
used distance 250m but in Hidden & Dangerous2 we have view distances over 500
m. We have also missions with lower view distances - 40 -50 m but it mostly
depends on weather conditions.
Q - Will there be again an censored german version ?
A - There will be censored vesion in Germany once again. Maybe you
recognized that E3 trailer was also censored (we removed swastikas).
Q - Will the engine support compressed Textures or T&L?
A - Of course the game is supporting the texture compression and T&L.
Q - Why didn`t the Hidden & Dangerous II team pick a existing engine (like
the Quake III engine) ?
A - Quake 3 is quite good engine but doesn`t suit our needs. That is why
we decided to develop our own engine. LS3D was developed by 4 people. They
included most of the things which we want to get installed there. New egnine
can handle a lot of polygons (about 30,000 in field of view), realtime shadows,
light maps, morphing etc.
Q - How big will the Hidden & Dangerous II levels be ?
A - We were trying to have the sizes of the levels as different as it was
in HD1. We have maps from 300x300m to the gigants like 4km long map.
Q - Whats the program where you make the levels in ?
A - We are creating levels in 3D studio MAX and textures in Adobe
photoshop.
Q - How for example will the german caracters act to the gameplay ?
A - Germans are mainly your enemies but there are some important NPCs
which act to you also friendly.
Q - Will there be diffrent (male) models?
A - Characters in game are differentiated by face (100 types), colour of
hair etc.
Q - What will be the final system requirements ?
A - We didn’t make final decision in question of optimal configuration. It
will be more clear after release of self rolling demo.At present we are
counting with P2 500 Mhz and 32 VRAM. We are trying, that also players with
low tech configurations can set by switches reasonable compromise between
grapphics and frame rate.
Q - Will the engine support breakable things like glass ?
A - We have developed system for destroying small or medium objects in the
scene so you can destroy most of the objects in the level.
Q - Will be multiplayer supported through gamespy (or other multiplayer
stations) ?
A - The game will support all big servers including Gamespy.
Q - How many hours a day is the team working on Hidden & Dangerous II ?
A - We are working on the game about 9 hours a day. Shift starts at 9
o´clock and ends at 19 o´clock. But when we are hunting deadlines we are
working through the nights and weekends, what is real joy for our girlfriends
Q - Will there be a expansion pack for Hidden & Dangerous II ? (like Fight
for Freedom/DB)
A - It is highly probable that after release of HD2 we will start work on
expansion pack. This expansion pack will include more interesting missions for
example missions on East front.
Q - Will there be other movies avaivable before the launch of Hidden &
Dangerous2 or the demo arrives ?
A - We are planning at least one trailer, one selfrolling demo and multiplayer
demo.
Q - Will there be a Hidden & Dangerous III ?
A - Now it is prior to finish HD2 and about development of HD3 will be
more clear after players feed back on HD2. I would like to do game with
different theme after games like Hidden & Dangerous1, Hidden & Dangerous:Fight
for Freedom, Hidden & Dangerous1(DC) and Hidden & Dangerous 2.
Q - What games are you playing at this moment ?
A - I like playing games like a SWAT3, Rainbow six and Rogue spear. I also
like strategies like a Shogun Total war or Age of Empires. But the best one is
of course Hidden and Dangerous
_____________________________________________________________
Third Q&A:
Q&A with Denis Cerny (lead LS3D engine programmer)
First we want to say thanks to Denis Cerny, for making some time to answer
these questions. If you have questions for our next Q&A (person unknown)
please let us know on the forum, or by contacting us.
Q- How long did it take to build the engine?
A- About 2 years
Q- Wich tools did you used ?
A- Visual Studio for PC, Codewarrior for PS2.
Q- What specified the engine ( what is the maximums of polys.etc.)
A- As for polygons count, it depends on type of the scene. For example,
one big object in scene may contain about 300.000 faces, but if you have a lot
of objects in scene with many effects, the count of polygons in wiev can be
only 5.000. Otherwice LS3D engine supports standart texturing and lighting
processes including alpha operations, singlemesh, particle system, multiple
animation blending, blending with poses, lightmaping, realtime shadows,
texture projectors, billboards, morph and singlemesh morph, lensflare and glow
effects, occluders sectors, large country caching system, texture comprimation
and others. As for sound, engine support 3D sound, mp3, EAX and Dolby Digital
systems. AVI and MPEG videos can be played. All features are designed for all
standart 3D accelerated graphic cards and sound cards from all main
manufakturers.
Q- What are the odds that are given to you to create the engine?
A- We created a playstation equivalent to old Insanity engine. Our engine
becomed simply better.
Q- What are the maximum size of the textures
A- It depend on used graphic card. Usualy 1024x1024 pixels.
Q- Why doesn`t the engine support OpenGl?
A- It is not necesary and time is money.
Q- Why not an existing engine ? It´s real known that to build an engine costs
a lot of time and money.
A- We dont now about other complex 3D engine for many of Illusion Softworks
games.
Q- Did you implented all the things wich you wanted to put in ?
A- Yes, I implented all the thing I wanted.
Q- Have you solved the polygon clipping problems that were so evident in
Hidden & Dangerous 1? (different surfaces meshing together, arms and legs
sticking through walls, etc.)
A- There was not our problems :-).
Q- Did you make "special" differences between the engine uses for Hidden &
Dangerous2 and
Mafia?
A- No, more engines = more problems and mistakes.
Q- Does the engine influences, for example, the system requirements?
A- Of course.
Q- What will be the final system requirements anyway???!!
A- It depend on game designers, you must ask HD team for this. But I can say,
no special hardware will be required.
Q- How many hours a day do you work on the engine?
A- With mindstream about 14.
Q- When the engine is finished, does it mean that you don`t have a job to do
anymore?
A- No, we will do our own game, PS2 conversions of others LS3D engine based
games and than a new generation of engine.
Q- Are you able to work well with the team?? A- Yes, Iam able to work very
well with the team. Q- Are you also involved with the programming of the A.I
of the soldiers??
A- AI is not a part of LS3D engine (every good game need specific AI)
Q- Are soldiers going to be limping if they get shot in the leg?
A- Yes, every part of human body can be specificaly damaged.
Q- Devil's Bridge introduced us to the idea of verticle elevation like no
other game has before. Just take a look at the 'grand canyon' mission with the
Greek partisans. Is this type of extreme height going to be modeled in Hidden
& Dangerous2 missions?
A- Im not sure, but its possible.
______________________________________________________________________
And at last the Q&A with Lonley Cat Games the makers of H&D Deluxe:
Q&A SESSION WITH LONELYCATGAMES
Q- what are the most important new features of Hidden & Dangerous deluxe?
A- Primarily update to DirectX 8.1, support for Win2k/XP, utilization of
latest graphics technology hw-accelerated vertex shaders, bump mapping,
real-time shadows on characters and vehicles, lightmapping, and other graphics
improvements.
Q- how much people have worked on it?
A- In Lonely Cat Games, four people were working on the project. Then there
was great testing support from Illusion Softworks and Take2, which feedback
helped a lot in fine-tuning the game and finding all possible bugs. And also
producers, marketing, etc.
Q- What was the main reason to make Hidden & Dangerous deluxe?
A- The main reason was to increase the life cycle of the product (obviously).
Of course different parties had different reasons for making this version. For
Illusion Softworks the aim was probably to prepare players for Hidden &
Dangerous2, for Lonely Cat it was chance to become more visible before our own
game will be out.
Q- Was it fun to work on? Lots of people there already finished Hidden &
Dangerous 1.
A- Fun but also a hard work. As usually it started with fun and enthusiasm,
and finished as hard task. I don't think that the fact people had already
played Hidden & Dangerous1 would affect our inspiration to work on the project.
I admit making a re-make like this is not such a challenge as presenting a new
game to audience, but on the other hand, summarizing the time and resources it
took, and effect the project produces, this rework was a successful project,
at least for LCG.
Q- How long have you worked on Hidden & Dangerous deluxe?
A- Originally planned 3 months expanded to about 5 and half months.
Practically the features design was frozen after 3 months, the rest of time we
tuned the game to make it perfect (pretty hard task for any game).
Q- how much levels will be included in Hidden & Dangerous deluxe?
A- There'll be 32 missions, which include 23 ones from original Hidden &
Dangerous, and 9 from Hidden & Dangerous Fight for Freedom (data disk). Also
there're two small demo missions accompanying the game editor as examples.
Q- How does it feel not being able to finish HD2?
A- Depends as for whom. There're not many people in LCG who would have chance
to work on Hidden & Dangerous2, so they generally do not matter, and working
on Deluxe version gave them an idea how development of such a game as Hidden &
Dangerous looks like. But most people here do not have any feeling about
developing Hidden & Dangerous2, and those who would care, already found their
area of realization in LCG's title in development, Atlantica.
Q- can you tell a little introduction to the atlantica game?
A- This should be a near-fantasy action game. The controls should be more
action-based than those in Hidden & Dangerous (faster feedback, less realistic,
but we think more playable). Player will meet many character in the game, some
of which will be friendly, others will be enemies, and some will be just
something between those two. This means there'll be some kind of communication
with NPCs, strong story, but also real action!
Q- Why "Atlantica"? Tired of wargames?
A- Practically yes. With our next game, we do not want to fit between many WW2
games being released now, and rather we're looking for different time where we
could place the game story, and which would be an interesting for the player.
There's also fact that with Atlantica we do not need strictly follow
historical details, like look of weapons or vehicles, but rather our designers
have more freedom in bringing their own version of how Atlantis civilization
could look like. And we can also extend the possible realism by adding
mystical elements, which is not possible in realistic war shooter.
Q- What is the releasedate of Atlantica? Or isn`t this sure yet?
A- Not announced yet.
Q- Will Lonelycatgames make more games in the "fantasy" genre or can we also
expect some "realistic" games?
A- We will see how successful will Atlantica be. Can't tell anything right now.
Q- What are the most favourite games you play at the moment?
A- Jedi Knight, MOH, Serious Sam. Practically we play only demos of most games,
which fulfills our professional interest in getting the feel of the games and
technology.
Q- Why did you decided to develop deluxe so quick?
A- What quick means? Original game was released in 1999, which is three years
ago, so this is the right time to come with Deluxe version. Regarding the
decision to make such a version, first plans go back to one year ago, so
decisions were handled for several months before actual work started.
Q- When will deluxe be released in America?
A- This is what many players ask, and we can't answer. Such a decision is not
what we would affect, so I'm sorry we cannot answer this because we in LCG
just do not know. Hopefully it will be soon.
Q- Will we see someday an new mission for deluxe maked with the editor from
you ;-) ?
A- No. We planned a full mission when we worked on Deluxe version, and even
came to stage when some graphics was prepared, but due to other duties and
next project, this mission was cancelled. But we hope to see some professional
mission from players someday.
Q- Will we get an patch for deluxe wich is eliminating the last "bugs" (e.g.
all soldiers with one skin..) ?
A- Practically, there's no bug for now which we plan to address in patch.
Soldiers with one skin is one of few design
decision in Deluxe version which downgrades functionality of original game. We
do not consider this a bug, rather this is a design issue resulting from
switching to single-mesh characters, and lack of time for implementation of
changing the face textures. But this doesn't affect the playability and we do
not plan to address this in a patch.
Q- Will there be differences between the european and the american versions?
A- So far we did not make any special American version, so for now I can tell
no. But before the game really comes out in America, we may receive request
for making a unique version. Anyway, any possible changes are in available
languages, not in functionality of the game.
Thanks to Michal Bacik from Lonelycatgames to have the time to answer all
those questions. Thanks!
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