Hedgehog Engine - To Stay or Go

[Frogging101]

People say "use this engine" or "use that engine" while others go "can that engine keep up with Sonic speeds" so... could someone do a basic test, mod a game using one of these engines and make a First Person Shooter go Sonic-speed, see if the game would keep up?

Would also need to design a map that allows you to progress through it in a linear fashion with detailed objects and textures along the way (FPS maps are not linear). But you're on the right track if we want to determine the capability of these engines to load things at high speeds. Maybe give the source engine or the CryEngine 3 a try (I don't even like to think about that engine, it reminds me of the disappointment that was Crysis 2. The engine is amazing though). Or the Unreal Engine 3 (through use of the free UDK). Loads of options, really.

Edited November 12, 2012 by Frogging101

[tenchibr]

I don't care about HE, but as a milestone, it stands as proof that Sonic Team programmers can come up with something good on their own, without using other engines.

I would like to see a HE 2.0.

[Strickerx5]

For the tasks that the HE has been given so far, I'd say it's done a fine job. In terms of the future, what ever engine can perform the best at the given task is fine in my book. There are benefits to using an in or an out house engine, but keep in mind that sonic is a unique situation. You have a character whose world is cartoon based and can run fast. Why do I get the feeling that if a sonic game were to be made on say... the unreal engine they would try and make it look something like 06 (more realistic). The engines mentioned here (correct me if I'm wrong) haven't been used in that situation, and probably for a reason.

Also, sonic games are going to be data intense in the first place. I mean, just look at Sonic 1. The purpose of it was to push the boundaries of the Genesis. There is the slightest of chances that other engines can't do that properly with sonic. They wern't made with these specific aspects in mind like the HE was. If I had to choose, I would say that Sega should just keep updating the current engine and make an HE 2.0. Keep in mind that I am no expert when it comes to this sort of stuff (I'm just starting to take computer science classes and what not XD). I would be fine with whichever route they decide to take as long as it pushes current tech and still retains sonic's cartoon like style, like unleashed did for it's time. Though some may disagree on the effectiveness of the HE, it did have some pretty great moments in unleashed. That running on water section in Holaska day still looks sexy as hell XD.

[Cortez]

Is it bad that I naturally expected Sonic to die as he fell into the water o.O

[Phos]

Alright, background information. The Hedgehog Engine has been in production since early 2005 and was first intended to be used for Sonic the Hedgehog (2006). As that couldn't happen, it was moved to Unleashed. I think that they tried with Secret Rings as I remember seeing a picture with the Secret Rings model and onrails gameplay but with this engine, can't find it now though. XD

This probably isn't correct, 06's planned real time day night cycles and the HE's precalculated lightmaps are at odds with one another.

[Diogenes]

It gives us visuals that are full of color and wonder! Why would anyone want brown and grey again?

Because, of course, there is literally no way to have color in games besides the hedgehog engine. Sega literally invented color.

[Diogenes]

I don't know enough about rendering engines to talk about it, but other people in the thread have made a fair case for its replacement.

And regardless, acting as if ditching the hedgehog engine means the games will become monochrome is a bullshit argument.

[Diogenes]

If that's your point, then why the BS "lol i dont want brown gamez" argument?

[Tornado]

That's not what I'm trying to say. There's no reason for them to switch engines. It's been praised for it's utility and performance.

No it hasn't. It in fact has very real problems with both of those things on current hardware. That's why Sonic Generations didn't have as many graphical effects as Unleashed, but it ran at a more stable framerate.

And that's completely ignoring the can of worms regarding how if the engine demands the current Modern Sonic gameplay because it was designed around it, so if you ever want to have something different from a main Sonic title it's basically useless.

Edited November 14, 2012 by Tornado

[Tornado]

The engine was designed for/alongside Sonic Unleashed, which was a 360 game through and through designed right in the middle of that system's life that didn't even come out on the PC. If it can't function properly on the hardware it was primarily designed for without making compromises to the graphics and/or level design, then the benefits from moving to another one should be pretty straightforward.

Edited November 14, 2012 by Tornado

[Diogenes]

Isn't that more to blame on the hardware? I have the PC version of Generations and on max settings and even forced setting with Nvidia I run a smooth 60fps.

A poorly programmed engine is always going to do worse with whatever hardware you have than an efficiently running engine would. It's like a shopping cart with a bad wheel; sure you can go faster if you push harder, but wouldn't it be better to have a cart that's not fighting against you?

[Candescence]

I'm amused by how nearly all the arguments for keeping the Hedgehog Engine boils down to "it's functional" and "IT'S PWETTY1111!!!!!"

It's fairly obvious at this point that the only real reason people have for keeping it is because it was used to make some games that people liked. Sadly, if that was a justified reason for keeping any engine, Half-Life 2 would have been made in GoldSrc, and thank goodness that ain't the case. There are engines out there that are better in virtually every way, and don't constrain gameplay like the Hedgehog Engine does (the "Modern" gameplay itself is also fundamentally restrictive, there's literally little else new you can actually do with it, but that's for another topic). It's a fundamentally outdated engine that has long been surpassed, and can't even run well on the hardware it was designed for, because it's very badly optimized. Keeping the engine will just be holding the games back in the long run. In this case, it would be far better for Sonic Team to just get another existing engine that will serve their needs just as well. It's served its purpose, and it would be better off retired in favor of something better.

[Frogging101]

I'm amused by how nearly all the arguments for keeping the Hedgehog Engine boils down to "it's functional" and "IT'S PWETTY1111!!!!!"

It's fairly obvious at this point that the only real reason people have for keeping it is because it was used to make some games that people liked. Sadly, if that was a justified reason for keeping any engine, Half-Life 2 would have been made in GoldSrc, and thank goodness that ain't the case. There are engines out there that are better in virtually every way, and don't constrain gameplay like the Hedgehog Engine does (the "Modern" gameplay itself is also fundamentally restrictive, there's literally little else new you can actually do with it, but that's for another topic). It's a fundamentally outdated engine that has long been surpassed, and can't even run well on the hardware it was designed for, because it's very badly optimized. Keeping the engine will just be holding the games back in the long run. In this case, it would be far better for Sonic Team to just get another existing engine that will serve their needs just as well. It's served its purpose, and it would be better off retired in favor of something better.

Fair enough, but making game engines is not a trivial undertaking. It takes a lot of time and a lot of money. And going with someone else's engine could be just as restrictive, because chances are that the third party engine will not be designed with sonic-speed gameplay in mind. I think that if they decide to go with a new engine, then they better have more than enough resources to do so or else it will be full of bugs.

There are fair arguments on both sides. If they keep the hedgehog engine, fine. They've shown they can do well with it. And if they decide to make a new game engine, that's fine too as long as they have the resources to do it right. A new engine would be nice because designing it from scratch lets them potentially focus on optimizing it to work with new gameplay styles which will work better in the long run compared to modifying an existing engine.

[Dark Qiviut]

One hundred percent to stay. Quite frankly, scrapping it at this point is an extremely HORRIBLE idea. The huge advantage the Hedgehog Engine has, besides its lighting, is the fact that it's a branded engine built in-house. Compared to other engines exemplified, Sonic Team has researched and learned the ins and outs of the Hedgehog Engine. Scrapping it and starting over with either a new in-house engine or an engine they bought forces Sonic Team to spend a long time studying it. And a chunk of time to study engines equals hundreds of thousands of dollars wasted. Furthermore, buying an outsourced engine may have serious restrictions on how much to tinker with it.

Instead of scrapping the Hedgehog Engine, improve it. Millions of dollars were spent on their graphics engine with the intent to use it on consoles with better performance, current and future ones. Yoshahisa Hashimoto once answered that the Hedgehog Engine was scaled back in Unleashed HD because it was too powerful. Improving the HE itself is a much more cost-effective way of improving the way the games look and run. With Sega scaling back so much already, they need to develop games that result in not costing such a fortune. Improving the HE is one way.

And I

this sort of question/statement once before here over a year ago.

[ArtFenix]

My main issue with the HE is that almost in every level you can see the objects appearing right before your eyes! Primal examples are the beginning of Planet Wisp modern and Speed highway (when you run down the building). This and when you skip some points the level doesn't load at all. I think it looks ugly and I'm sure there are better engines without such flaws.

HE does look pretty though but hey, there are a lot of engines that look pretty as well.

[Sky]

My main issue with the HE is that almost in every level you can see the objects appearing right before your eyes! Primal examples are the beginning of Planet Wisp modern and Speed highway (when you run down the building). This and when you skip some points the level doesn't load at all. I think it looks ugly and I'm sure there are better engines without such flaws.

HE does look pretty though but hey, there are a lot of engines that look pretty as well.

I'm going to come out of lurking to say this: it's not the Hedgehog Engine's fault if objects appear right before your eyes. It's Sonic Team's fault. When Sonic Team sets an object down in a level, they need to specify a range to which the object appears/works, so 1000 objects aren't active at the same time. And if it's stage geometry appearing and disappearing right before your eyes, it's still not the Hedgehog Engine's fault. It's how Sonic Team places the terrain loaders and unloaders.

[Frogging101]

My main issue with the HE is that almost in every level you can see the objects appearing right before your eyes! Primal examples are the beginning of Planet Wisp modern and Speed highway (when you run down the building). This and when you skip some points the level doesn't load at all. I think it looks ugly and I'm sure there are better engines without such flaws.

HE does look pretty though but hey, there are a lot of engines that look pretty as well.

I've never had this problem with pop-in (objects appearing right before your eyes). I probably don't play on the same platform as you though (I play on PC).

[Blue Blood]

I'm going to come out of lurking to say this: it's not the Hedgehog Engine's fault if objects appear right before your eyes. It's Sonic Team's fault. When Sonic Team sets an object down in a level, they need to specify a range to which the object appears/works, so 1000 objects aren't active at the same time. And if it's stage geometry appearing and disappearing right before your eyes, it's still not the Hedgehog Engine's fault. It's how Sonic Team places the terrain loaders and unloaders.

Um

All that is based on the engine they use. They have to cut back on a lot of things- output resolution, texture and model quality, special effects, draw distance and more- to get the game to run smoothly. It's the Hedgehog Engine's fault if it can't handle the very thing it was built for.

Edited November 19, 2012 by Blue Blood

[ArtFenix]

I'm going to come out of lurking to say this: it's not the Hedgehog Engine's fault if objects appear right before your eyes. It's Sonic Team's fault. When Sonic Team sets an object down in a level, they need to specify a range to which the object appears/works, so 1000 objects aren't active at the same time. And if it's stage geometry appearing and disappearing right before your eyes, it's still not the Hedgehog Engine's fault. It's how Sonic Team places the terrain loaders and unloaders.

I see. Well then, it's a shame they cannot use their own engine properly.

I've never had this problem with pop-in (objects appearing right before your eyes). I probably don't play on the same platform as you though (I play on PC).

You must've missed this issue because I played on PC as well and it sure is happening every time.

It's the Hedgehog Engine's fault if it can't handle the very thing it was built for.

Well, that's what I thought of too.

[Frogging101]

You must've missed this issue because I played on PC as well and it sure is happening every time.

Really? Well, next time I play Generations I'll keep an eye out for it.

Um

All that is based on the engine they use. They have to cut back on a lot of things- output resolution, texture and model quality, special effects, draw distance and more- to get the game to run smoothly. It's the Hedgehog Engine's fault if it can't handle the very thing it was built for.

But the thing is, it's actually pretty difficult to make a fast-moving game with decent graphics on consoles because you need to have the console load a lot of textures and models in a very short time due to the speed that the player moves through the level, and you don't have much RAM to work with in terms of pre-caching the data ahead of time. The RAM is loaded form the CD or hard drive, and the less RAM you have the less level data you can store ahead of time before it needs to be displayed, so the RAM buffer just barely "keeps up" with the rendering, which causes the noticeable delay. There are hardware limitations in play here as well.

[Blue Blood]

There are hardware limitations in play here as well.

Which is why an engine is supposed to be made to work well within the confines of the hardware.

Edited November 20, 2012 by Blue Blood

[UltDevilDoom]

Sega is still using the Hedgehog Engine? I thought that stopped after Unleashed.

[Tornado]

I'm going to come out of lurking to say this: it's not the Hedgehog Engine's fault if objects appear right before your eyes. It's Sonic Team's fault. When Sonic Team sets an object down in a level, they need to specify a range to which the object appears/works, so 1000 objects aren't active at the same time. And if it's stage geometry appearing and disappearing right before your eyes, it's still not the Hedgehog Engine's fault. It's how Sonic Team places the terrain loaders and unloaders.

If Sonic Team can't make the engine that they designed operate properly for the gameplay that they designed it for despite all of the "patches" they have to put on it to get it to work as well as it does, that kind of points towards it being the engine's fault.

[Frogging101]

Which is why an engine is supposed to be made to work well within the confines of the hardware.

Indeed. And I think they did a very good job of balancing graphics quality with performance within the hardware limitations. That small amount of pop-in you see would be much worse if they hadn't optimized it heavily. It looks good and it runs well (not without a couple of imperfections, but it still runs well).

Edited November 20, 2012 by Frogging101

[ArtFenix]

Sega is still using the Hedgehog Engine? I thought that stopped after Unleashed.

How on Earth could you think so? I mean, Generations looks exactly like Unleashed and it's obvious they use the same engines.