GDC Talk Slides Available for Download: Building Brink's SMART System

(badman) #1

A new blog post has been added:

GDC Talk Slides Available for Download: Building Brink’s SMART System

Ever wanted to know how Brink’s SMART system actually works? Gameplay Programmer Arne-Olav ‘ao’ Hallingstad tackled this very subject at GDC San Francisco this year, walking people through the game’s iconic freedom of movement system and covering everything from early prototype all the way to final implementation. If you weren’t able to make it - or just want to refresh your memory - Arne’s talk Vault, Slide, Mantle: Building Brink’s SMART System, is now available in our Publications section, where you can find the original slides along with explanatory notes.

Incidentally, if you’ve never explored the Publications section before, we’ve got a host of other talks available there that are full of Facts and Knowledge:

[ul]
[li]So You Want to be a Game Developer?[/li]> [li]Punching Above Your Weight: Small Art Teams, Big Games[/li]> [li]Inside Brink’s AI[/li]> [li]Preferred Rendering with OpenGL[/li]> [li]Guns Have Wheels: Designing Great Weapon Audio[/li]> [/ul]
Have a look!

(amazinglarry) #2

Keep these coming, definitely! They’re a ton of fun to look at, even for reasons beyond educational. Although I make them required viewing for some of my friends working on our small projects.

Thanks for having the means and will to have em!

(tokamak) #3

I always like screenshots of how Brink could’ve looked like.

(tangoliber) #4

Great presentation.

The third person animations is one of the best things about Brink. The game can look pretty good in motion because of all the people vaulting and mantling around you. It can make the game feel very fluid and alive.

(.Chris.) #5

[QUOTE=tangoliber;400348]Great presentation.

The third person animations is one of the best things about Brink. The game can look pretty good in motion because of all the people vaulting and mantling around you. It can make the game feel very fluid and alive.[/QUOTE]

Shame it had the opposite effect in 1st person.

(light_sh4v0r) #6

It says login to download, and clicking the button gets me a 404.
The button links to http://www.splashdamage.com/login/index.php

(badman) #7

This is fixed now. Have another try! :slight_smile:

(Mustang) #8

Questions?

  1. Shimmying was dropped, but what exactly was this mechanic?
  2. Will we be seeing SMART again? (In the infamous Unannounced Game perhaps)
(Exedore) #9

Shimmying is the same thing you see in 3rd person games… being able to freeze a mantle while still hanging down, and moving left or right, hand over hand.

(amazinglarry) #10

I hope we see SMART again, although maybe hook up a ‘psychic’ link to the player so that 20% of the time when they didn’t want to vault or climb, they won’t. :slight_smile:

(Mustang) #11

For me the main issue was after sprinting I wanted to crouch and continue walking forward, all that was needed was separate crouch and slide buttons and I’d have been happy. Instead you had to stop sprinting, wait to slow down, crouch, then start walking again… valuable seconds that saw me shot in the face on several occasions.

(tangoliber) #12

I had that problem too, but I think there isn’t anything wrong with it in principle. (I’m pretty sure you don’t have to wait to slow down before you crouch… you can crouch the instant after you stop running, right?) It makes sense that you would have to stop running before you crouch…or else you would have forward momentum… The problem is just that it isn’t what we are used to.

(amazinglarry) #13

Yeah but eeehh… it doesn’t have to make sense necessarily for it to be good gameplay, especially for twitchier games like ET was. That’s only my opinion, though.

(tangoliber) #14

I agree that mechanics don’t have to be realistic to be good gameplay… I’m just wondering if it would be a bad mechanic if it was something we were always used to? We have to account for momentum in Tribes or something. Maybe if our slides were affected by how fast we were moving (and if we could build speed overtime or from wall-jumping), it might lead to more skill-based movement. But I don’t know.