CEDEC2022, a conference for game-centric developers, will be held online in 2022 as well. Talking about how to respond to open world game development in From Software’s action RPG “ELDEN RING”, “Introduction of case studies of engineer efforts to respond to the open field of ELDEN RING” will be delivered to you.
Ryu Matsumoto, sub-leader of the design section of FromSoftware, was on stage for this session. He is the system design director for this work, and the system designer for 2015’s Bloodborne.
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In order to make the world of “ELDEN RING” bigger than “DARK SOULS III”?
Elden Ring, FromSoftware’s first open-world game, has a huge map compared to 2016’s Dark Souls III. “High Wall of Lothric” in “DARK SOULS III” has an area of 216m x 220m. , It is quite large at 6100m x 7400m even including areas such as the sea where it is impossible to move.open map”).
During the development of “ELDEN RING”, an open field dotted with underground maps and small-scale dungeons was created as “open map”, “Stormville Castle” and other well-crafted maps such as “Legacy Map”(“Stormville Castle” is also about 3.6 times larger than “High Wall of Lothric”).
The battles in the gameplay are not much different from the previous titles, but it is necessary to deal with various issues such as mass production costs, data management, debugging, etc. for that reason,Automate/streamline as much as possible the parts that were made by handin data management, it is inevitable to adjust the map load and improve the efficiency of debugging.
In the past work “DARK SOULS III”, since it is composed of maps that have been elaborated, data is managed for each map. In addition, measures are taken to make it difficult for users to notice loading, such as loading the continuation map in the background when moving near the connection between maps.
On the other hand, in “ELDEN RING”, the legacy map is basically the same as the previous work, but the vast open map introduces open grid control. This is a method of dividing the four sides into a square grid and managing it, starting with the smallest size of 256m x 256m, the medium size of 512m x 512, and the large size of 1024m x 1024.this isBy limiting the placements that need to be widely loaded, the explosion of the number of loads is suppressed., because the purpose is to maintain the quality of the distant view. Also, if a huge or moving enemy is set on a small grid, it cannot be controlled away from the player, so it is necessary to control it on a large grid.
In the map composition of the past work “DARK SOULS III”, the area where the player can act is created as a map part, and animations and destructible objects are placed as objects. On the other hand, in “ELDEN RING”, the map parts are narrowed down to the terrain shape,Decrease the uniqueness of the data and reduce the number of things that are only used in one place by making something like something that can be interacted with as an asset.to handle memory efficiently.
Automate NavMesh Generation to Control Allies and Enemies
Navmesh is data used by enemies and allies to search for a movement route, and it is possible to determine the shortest route that avoids obstacles and confirm whether the destination after stepping is safe. In “DARK SOULS III”, it was created from the hit shape of the map parts, and special behavior such as jumping was generated by setting data with the graphic editor. As a matter of course, “ELDEN RING” is an open map, and since jumping etc. are implemented for the player,It is impossible to follow the way of past works as it is. Therefore, the structure of the NavMesh has been modified.
In “ELDEN RING”, enemies also perform jumping and jumping actions on a vast map. Therefore, edge data that can be jumped and jumped off is automatically generated. The conditions for automatic generation of edge data are that “the width and distance are within a certain range”, “the size of both nav meshes is above a certain level”, and “there is no obstruction between them”.
On the other hand, huge enemies that exist in various places cannot use normal data because the rules are different, such as “ignoring some steps and obstacles”. Even if you ignore the NavMesh and approach it in a straight line, obstacles will block your path or cause you to fall into the sea, so you can’t use it as a decent enemy. Therefore, we built a route for the player by creating a dedicated navmesh for the giant enemy, ignoring some steps and obstacles.
Automation in the development of “ELDEN RING” also applies to tests and databases
“ELDEN RING” uses not only maps but also information maps to display detailed data on comments and placements. In addition, in the automatic test, we automatically run every morning for all maps and all platforms in the title under development, collecting not only the frame rate but also the CPU/GPU load, memory status, error information, etc. (Also collects the load of multiplayer assumptions and changes in weather). These are very useful, but because the results are displayed in a line graph, it was difficult to grasp where on the map the data occurred.
What these details were asking for was a memory/performance check to see things like framerate. Memory check is an unavoidable problem because it causes problems including forced termination when the amount of usage increases extremely. for that reason,By linking the previous information map and the burden of the frame rate, the state of the frame rate drop is displayed as a heat map and a pin is placed at the place where the frame rate drops extremely.makes the burden visible.
It seems that the performance check was carried out after confirming the situation from the results of the automatic test by regularizing the meeting with the related parties, and after identifying the problems. For memory checks, one person is assigned to be in charge, and alerts are issued periodically for suspicious parts, and each person is proceeding with allocation adjustments and data reduction measures. Because these are deep-rooted problems that involve various factors,Being able to visualize automatically helped developmentand analyze.
During the development of “ELDEN RING”, there were cases where we wanted to know data dependencies for various purposes. This applies not only to the relationship between data used in cutscenes, unused data, and maps using specified assets, but also to reduce the weight of the network test version by not including unnecessary data.In particular, since “ELDEN RING” is a large-scale work, it is difficult to maintain a high-precision state with human power because the document management will be replaced from time to time.. Searching for files is also expensive and impractical, so we built a dependency database to solve these problems.
The dependency database is, as the name suggests, a tool that manages the dependency database. You can use the viewer to access various information, and not only list the characters and assets used in the specified cutscene, but also browse, search, and output the textures used. In addition, the database is updated daily, and the contents of each update are analyzed and dependencies are registered. Utilizing these will lead to listing at low cost.
We are also working to reduce the drawing load, which is not limited to “ELDEN RING”. In the past, the graphic designer controlled the drawing by setting it manually.Due to cost issues, a function to automatically generate drawing settings was developed for SEKIRO, which was released in 2019.. As I mentioned earlier, “ELDEN RING” not only introduced jumps, but also introduced assets, which increased the number of drawing elements explosively.Porting the drawing automation mechanism developed in “SEKIRO”(“ELDEN RING” was based on the same engine as “SEKIRO”, so it was easy to port).
How did “ELDEN RING” pursue automation and efficiency?
The last is a summary. In order to build a vast open world world, looking back at this announcement, we will change the management structure of the map, introduce assets, automate the navigation mesh, visualize performance problems, list data dependencies, and optimize drawing settings. such asPursuing efficiency and automation for every elementwas doing.
In order to incorporate these ideas, we have to consider various things, such as clearly stating what we want to do, verifying problems after introduction, reaching agreements with related parties, organizing the priority of responses, and parallel responses in mass production work. need to do it. In Flåm, the design staff enters here and handles it. In this announcement, the designers were involved in various responses to the introduction of assets and problems with the navigation mesh.
In addition, the designer is also involved in the design of the game system, and is involved in the “ashes system” and “sign collection system”. Finally, the session ended by stating that “ELDEN RING” was a groping development.
That’s all for today’s announcement. Listening to the session, I can infer that From Software, which has been running through the 2010s with the “Dark Souls” series at the top, has been a craftsmanship, meticulous and delicate development style that raises quality. In order to deal with the giant of the open world, we have no choice but to pursue automation and efficiency deeply, but it seems that we have been able to deal with it so as not to break the development style so far as much as possible. It seems to be.
