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Oni: Difference between revisions
more details on Stefan Sinclair's work; better wording for Hardy's role
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However, unbeknownst to the public, development of Oni was troubled from the start. The team was young and inexperienced, and development suffered from a lack of direction. A great deal of code had been written and assets created without producing a story that was playable from start to finish. Transferring data from the professional software used for level modeling and animation into Oni wasn't even possible until the very end of 1997.<!-- | However, unbeknownst to the public, development of Oni was troubled from the start. The team was young and inexperienced, and development suffered from a lack of direction. A great deal of code had been written and assets created without producing a story that was playable from start to finish. Transferring data from the professional software used for level modeling and animation into Oni wasn't even possible until the very end of 1997.<!-- | ||
--><ref group=note><cite class="note">"After almost a year all they had were some stick figures walking in a box; hardly a killer demo, much less a new frontier in gaming. […] Eventually, Brent had a 'eureka' - just before New Year's Eve 1998, he had a breakthrough. He was able to match the power of these professional tools with their new engine." [http://web.archive.org/web/20010302193919/http://www.insidemacgames.com/previews/99/oni/oni2.shtml Inside Mac Games, "Sneak Preview: Oni", 1999].</cite></ref><!-- | --><ref group=note><cite class="note">"After almost a year all they had were some stick figures walking in a box; hardly a killer demo, much less a new frontier in gaming. […] Eventually, Brent had a 'eureka' - just before New Year's Eve 1998, he had a breakthrough. He was able to match the power of these professional tools with their new engine." [http://web.archive.org/web/20010302193919/http://www.insidemacgames.com/previews/99/oni/oni2.shtml Inside Mac Games, "Sneak Preview: Oni", 1999].</cite></ref><!-- | ||
--> | --> It became increasingly became clear to management back in Chicago that the game was not going to be ready by the end of 1999. | ||
At the same time, turnover at the Bungie West office began with the departure of the AI programmer in the summer of 1999 (a replacement would not be | When Hardy LeBel was added to the team as Design Lead in mid-1999, he leveraged his greater experience in game development to focus the development efforts and help produce a shippable product. At the same time, turnover at the Bungie West office began with the departure of the AI programmer in the summer of 1999 (a replacement would not be onboarded until January 2000).<!-- | ||
--><ref>[http://carnage.bungie.org/oniforum/oni.forum.pl?read=1808 Oni Central Forum, "I'm pretty sure Chris Butcher has joined Oni", Jan. 23, 2000].</ref><!-- | |||
--> The end of 1999 saw the departure of one of the level designers, and then Brent Pease himself (with his Project Lead title being passed to Michael Evans). | |||
LeBel | Evans, LeBel and the team began honing the gameplay, shaping the final story, and figuring out what features or content would have to be dropped in order to ship the game before it was too late; Bungie was secretly suffering from serious money problems (see {{SectionLink||Buyout}} below). In May of 2000, it was announced that multiplayer was being removed from the game due to latency issues and lack of time to create suitable arena levels for network play. The mecha enemy known as the Iron Demon and an additional level of the game were also cut due to lack of time to complete them. | ||
In June of 2000, it was announced that Bungie had been acquired by Microsoft. This caused an upset among Bungie's fan base, which mostly consisted of Mac users. They considered Microsoft to be Apple's nemesis, and now the company behind the upcoming Xbox console had taken the most popular game developer from the Mac world and would be incorporating them into their office complex in order to bring Halo to the Xbox. The effect of the acquisition on Oni's development was dire: it meant that Bungie West had a few short months to finish their work and join the rest of Bungie in Redmond, Washington. | In June of 2000, it was announced publicly that Bungie had been acquired by Microsoft. This caused an upset among Bungie's fan base, which mostly consisted of Mac users. They considered Microsoft to be Apple's nemesis, and now the company behind the upcoming Xbox console had taken the most popular game developer from the Mac world and would be incorporating them into their office complex in order to bring Halo to the Xbox. The effect of the acquisition on Oni's development was dire: it meant that Bungie West had a few short months to finish their work and join the rest of Bungie in Redmond, Washington. | ||
In order to ship the game by year-end, the Bungie West staff worked massive overtime for several months straight.<!-- | In order to ship the game by year-end, the Bungie West staff worked massive overtime for several months straight.<!-- | ||
--><ref group=note><cite class="note">Michael Evans said, "Most of us were working 14 hours a day 7 days a week" in [https://web.archive.org/web/20010128191200/http://hypothermia.gamershardware.com/interviews/interview_oni.html this interview].</cite></ref><!-- | --><ref group=note><cite class="note">Michael Evans said, "Most of us were working 14 hours a day 7 days a week" in [https://web.archive.org/web/20010128191200/http://hypothermia.gamershardware.com/interviews/interview_oni.html this interview].</cite></ref><!-- | ||
--> During this "crunch" period, the unexpected departure of the graphics programmer led to his replacement and a minor overhaul of the graphics code.<!-- | --> During this "crunch" period, the unexpected departure of the graphics programmer led to his replacement and a minor overhaul of the graphics code to fix bugs with certain graphics cards and to improve performance.<!-- | ||
--><ref>[https://archive.is/njEe3#:~:text=Fun%20fact eBay | --><ref group=note>Stefan Sinclair tells the story in the Description section of [https://archive.is/njEe3#:~:text=Fun%20fact this eBay auction] of how he was sent in by Bungie to pick up where the previous programmer left off in August 2000.<!--We know that he replaced the previous programmer in August 2000 because that's when Stefan started asking questions on the Khronos.org forum about OpenGL ^_^. It can be confirmed by looking at the dates on his source files in the Oni codebase.--> After having rewritten much of the core graphics routines, he alluded to the massive performance boost he gave the game in [https://community.khronos.org/t/how-expensive-are-redundant-state-changes/38974 this forum post].</ref><!-- | ||
--> Technical and/or gameplay issues required all 14 levels to have their geometry significantly altered over the course of 7 months.<!-- | --> Technical and/or gameplay issues required all 14 levels to have their geometry significantly altered over the course of 7 months.<!-- | ||
--><ref name="conquer" /><!-- | --><ref name="conquer" /><!-- | ||
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--> (However some hidden AI abilities have been found in Oni's engine, either disabled, unfinished, or not utilized by the game's mission scripts.) | --> (However some hidden AI abilities have been found in Oni's engine, either disabled, unfinished, or not utilized by the game's mission scripts.) | ||
There was disappointment at the cutting of some planned content was cut as well. This included an entire planned level ([[BGI|BGI HQ]]) and the highly anticipated [[Iron Demon]], the large mech shown in-game in the 1999 trailer. Gaps in the numbering of the [[GameDataFolder|game files]] led fans to believe that at least five chapters were cut before release, but this was mainly due to content that was moved around or consolidated into fewer levels.<ref name="HL cuts" /> | |||
''Further reading:'' [[Pre-beta content]], [[Pre-beta features]], [[Reviews]], [[Multiplayer]]. | ''Further reading:'' [[Pre-beta content]], [[Pre-beta features]], [[Reviews]], [[Multiplayer]]. | ||