TF2: Technology
TeamFortress 2: BrotherHood of Arms is running off of a much improved/revamped
Half-Life engine. This section will cover improvements on that engine, so if your new to TeamFortress2 and have never played Half-Life, I suggest checking out PlanetHalf-Life's
Half-Life Technology Page.
MRM Technology
Check out Sierra's Page on MRM. Simply put, MRM is the ability to scale the number of polygons in an object, the farther away, the fewer the poly's, up close you'll see highly detailed face features, since you wouldn't be able too see these when a player is far away it really doesn't matter. This adds two major features, first, the models look way better because of the shear number of more polygons in it. (Gordon Freeman looks like a stick figure compared to these guys) Allows since the models are scaled down as needed, your game runs much smoother.
MRM has yet another advantage, Valve has designed the game in such a way that, you select a framerate, and the game adjusts the model quality, details, and settings accordingly. This happens during the game, if all the sudden your attacked by a whole squad of enemies, their poly count will drop so you can keep your framerate up and do battle, and when they leave the detail will go back up to where it was.I've played many games where all of a sudden all hell breaks loose and if your not on the greatest machine, all you get is screenshots of what is going on, then your dead. This sounds like a great
remedy.
Parametic Animation
Parametic Animation is the meshing of multiple animations at once. Current games have to select what animation is the most important, a player may be jumping, but then get killed, so the system would have to stop the "jump" animation and start the "mid-air death" animation. Parametic Animation will eliminate this problem, because a player can be running, jumping, firing, taking damage, and the system will "merge" them all together, giving higher priority to the more important ones. (pain ect.)
Among the others listed, check out what else Parametric Animation will be able to do:
Our characters don't actually strafe. In real life, no-one strafes.
Instead, they run one way, and aim to the left or right. Parametric animation allows us to "lie" with our animation to make the game seem more real. So, when you're strafing left and firing, everyone else actually sees you running to the left and firing to the right.
On a further little discussion about models, I read in a rather old interview (way back when TF2 was going to be an add-on to Half-Life) and it had a little tid-bit with Valve stating plans to have the ability to incorporate your clan logo onto a player's skin automatically. In a little follow-up to make sure all the information is accurate, Valve supplied us with the following response:
We've got some new technology that lets us provide a much greater ability
to customize your character. We haven't decided exactly what we'll let players do with it yet.
Voice Communication
Proper communication with your team will be an important factor in Team Fortress 2. The game will feature voice communication in the game using many different systems to avoid lag. Most of these settings depend on your internet connection, if your on a slow modem, you will only get messages from the commander (Because they matter most and give you your orders) and the quality of the sound will not be as good, but non-the-less audible and well worth having. Your character's lips will also synch to your own talk, so your friends will know who is talking. You can download some examples of this off the Files page. [Note: Spy's have the ability to intercept
enemy's voice communications for more on that, check out the Classes page] Also, Half-Life introduced the gamer to different sounds when in different surroundings. Voice communication will be no exception, the farther away a player is, the quieter the sound, if you move into a room, the voice echo's.
Vehicles
For a while there was the possibility that players could control (drive) certain vehicles
in the game, but the decision was made to not put time into that, as Valve would rather fine tune and balance all the other things in the game. Now vehicles will be used as respawn points, depending on the map, your respawn in the back of a tank, helicopter, or truck, and be dropped of at the appropriate location. (Note: this is not true in all maps, check out the Maps page for further details)
TF2 has also added vehicles (already handily implemented in the Half-Life engine). Trucks, tanks, Armored Personnel Carries, Helicopters, and amphibious vehicles (just to name a few) will all make appearances, and are vital to the reality them. For instance, players won't just appear on the map when the game begins or when they respawn, instead, they might be carried back into action in an armored vehicle, or they might parachute in from a passing plane. Tanks might serve as support for troops, or enemy vehicles might be a map objective. At any rate, you've never seen anything like this before.
Combat System
Not a whole lot of information is known about this, other than something that
came up in an interview with Valve The most
common reaction to hearing about this was "wow":
TF2's slower and more strategical than TFC. Our combat is mostly fought in more dense environments, with lots of cover. The combat system is complex, but designed in a way that it mirrors player's intuition, and rewards instinctive behaviours. So if an enemy sniper has you pinned down from a window above, and you jump up and shower the window with bullets to cover your squad's sprint across a courtyard, the combat system
recognize that, and rewards you by making it harder for the Sniper to aim effectively. Suppression fire, overwatch, and other standard military tactics actually make a difference in the combat system, instead of just being good tactics.
Volumetric Fog
Something that (for me) is hard to describe, but I'll give it a go anyway. Using the pic for reference, you can see that there are going to be smoke grenades in TF2. Also we'll see variations of gas grenades to, (specifics are unknown at this time) but, Gas, Smoke, Fog, Flames, and even some explosions will all use the same system that will make them very powerful, and realistic. In a wide open area, the effect a "cloud" has is very spread out, and not very dense, but in a small room, it will be near impossible to see, and will billow out a door, down a hall, as the volume of a room dictates.
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