Hi everyone!
In the previous episodes we told you about US and Japanese Tech Trees,
game maps, signal flags, and camouflage in our game.
Today we invite you to the heart of World of Warships - its game engine.
Full speed ahead!
As a rule, when we talk about the engine, we mean the game client.
Other than that, there is the server engine. And together they make up a single technology...
...It is responsible for connecting the game client and the server, processing sound and graphics,
and working with different input-output devices, such as the mouse and keyboard.
A game engine is the central software component of any video game.
It consists of two parts.
One is the server platform: it enables millions of players to participate in the game simultaneously.
The user account data is stored here.
The server also calculates the game mechanics and carries out many important functions.
The server platform interacts with the second part of the engine - the game client.
It is responsible for processing graphics, interfaces, sound, physics, and many other things.
And all this must work together as a single instrument, processing data in real time.
For both World of Tanks and World of Warships, we use the server part developed by BigWorld.
It's almost identical, we have a slightly different version, and of course the logic differs:
they have tanks, we've got ships.
However, the server engine is the same as in other Wargaming projects.
Though all Wargaming projects have the same server engine, the client parts of the games differ considerably.
For this reason, the developers left the server side almost unchanged,
while putting serious efforts into improving the client part of the game engine...
From the start, the BigWorld engine had an outdated client.
The server part was, and still is, in excellent shape.
And we had the task of adapting the client part to our requirements.
...There were Korean MMO games that first used this technology.
I don’t think anyone remembers them today, not only here in Russia, but in Korea as well.
As you can see, our teams from Minsk, Saint Petersburg, and Kiev were able to rework the technology
in such a way that instead of characters running around and flying dragons,
we now have World War II battlefields, tanks, and ships...
The client part of the game engine is, in essence, the interface of any game,
and World of Warships is no exception.
The Saint Petersburg developers considerably modified the original BigWorld renderer,
which is a program responsible for the visual component of the game.
The specifics of the new project required it.
Warships are the main characters of our game, and I think it's safe to say that they are our largest characters ever.
A ship can be up to 300 meters long, but, at the same time, even the smallest part must be highly detailed.
Of course, in the first place, we seek to make our ships as close to the real life as possible.
At the same time, they must be visually attractive from an artistic point of view.
This sets high standards on the control of detail.
If you get carried away, the game will overload even the most modern PC hardware.
At the same time, if you don't use enough detail, you won't get the necessary level of visual quality.
The water is another very important element of the game.
In World of Warships it is truly unique.
The water looks different on each map: it is dark gray in northern regions
and light blue with sun glares near tropical islands.
Waves run on the surface, the water is rippled by a ships' wake and shell explosions.
But it wasn't always like that...
...The engine was designed for elves, and elves didn't have an ocean.
They have mountains and mountain rivers.
If you just go ahead and fill large areas with water in BigWorld,
first of all, it will look like one big river, and second, the landscape will still be visible underneath,
and we don't need that.
That's why we had to rework the structure of the scene.
...Our water is really unique. It can reflect sun rays and glare, the sky, and the sun itself.
Our artists can set up an enormous number of physical parameters for the water.
Not only water, but the game graphics as a whole are one of the most complex elements of World of Warships.
At any moment in the game you can see the whole map, then move to any place with the help of binoculars,
and then return back to your ship.
And all this must happen without additional loading and delays.
These requirements posed a serious challenge for developers...
...Continuous control, observing constant balance, and multiple tests are important.
At first, we test it inside the department of 3D content creation,
and then we transfer it to an external testing department.
Sometimes, even the programmers come and tell us that an object has too many polygons.
However, we can't forbid using high levels of detail, no matter the difficulties.
...We draw even the smallest rivets, doors, and windows.
On the one hand, we draw all the technical details: different fixtures and parts.
Even if we don't show something in geometry, we try to draw it in the textures as well as possible...
At the same time, we should always keep in mind that our players have very different computers.
That's why the developers test the game engine on dozens of different hardware configurations,
starting with gaming laptops and ending with outdated office desktops.
However, even such a thorough testing can't guarantee error-free performance:
it is players who often find problems, thus helping the developers to further improve the game...
...In our projects we always lay the groundwork for future prospects.
We are going to introduce a range of new technologies in different areas.
We work on renderer technologies that will allow us to take the graphics to a whole new level.
Besides this, we are planning and working on new features and visual effects such as particles,
explosions, ship deformation, and so on.
The texture details are getting better.
The more pixels, the more details, and the more realistic the picture looks.
Of course, the more pixels an artist has at their disposal,
the more visually attractive the ships can be...
Work on the World of Warships game engine continues.
In future the developers are going to take the visual effects of the game to a cinematic level...
In the end we want to have the most epic game about warships in the world.
It must be as epic as a cinema blockbuster:
with huge explosions, the roar of aircraft flying by, and with visual effects that look as real as possible.