PA Replay and Spectating tech

Last fall I posted in some threads about the tech we are developing. Today you guys got to see the result of a lot of R&D being applied to server replication and live replays. This thread is to discuss the tech and it's possible implications for the game.

The basic idea is that the output of the sim is recorded into a database as a series of curves over time. The client then tells the server which subset of space and time that it wants to see and also in what direction. The history server then sends the player the subset of information that represents what they are asking for. All the client does is sample this data at time 't' see that you can see the current state.

For the most part things like animations, fx and rendering are completely done on the client. This does present some unique challenges that have been interesting to work on.

I was impressed. I've never seen anything like that before Neutrino... and if you're supporting previous versions of PA all the way back to v1.0... that will be a first.

As Expected of Uber, Totally blowing away expectations, when you're done with this it'll stand head and shoulders above any competitor!

Is Resuming from a Replay still part of all this? Seems like it should be...

Mike

Honestly while i am not tech savvy i have looked into the issues with replays, and what you came up with is actually kinda revolutionary.


It essentially makes replays a fluid action, rather than a solid record and play, the implications for Esports are pretty huge.

Real graphs? Interpolated? Polynomial?

Yes, that's the plan. The basic idea is that we inject the state for the replay back into the system and then say "go". That part is not implemented yet but we've thought through most of it.

Amazing uber. Revolutionary thumbs up. Just as revolutionary as strategic zoom for me.

Linear but there is room to get fancier as we go. The curv rep is also complicated by the need to cull in space/time.

The replay system is really impressive.

The first thing that I thought when you showed off the live replay feature was "No way! These guys are making Achron!"

But can we do that with previous versions aswell? How can the client get the data from previous versions to play the replays of them?

Sounds realy weird. But you already proved it working. Good job thumps up.

Afaik i can say from my math study using quadratic equations for handwriting interpolation, worked wonders over linearic. Especially after failure approximation. But that was all graphical.

When you are done with PA i would love to read some papers about it.

So, my question again: How much data do you need to store to be able to display a replay?

Crosspost, sorry, but this thread is more suited for the question.

Will you be able to have one of your secondary windows showing a replay while playing in real time in your other window(s)?

What happens if a Peewee goes back and kills its own factory before it gets built?

What's going to stop a player from going putting like a hundred tanks at the enemy's spawn point and killing him before he even starts the game?

I think you are mixing up PA with Achron. In PA you might be able to view the past, but you wont be able to change it. At least I hope that's how it is. xD

You can view what happened in the past, not change it. You may be able to start a game from an arbitrary point in a replay though, but that would be mainly for single player games. Imagine your save game is an entire game replay; loose the battle and you can choose to start the game again from any point in time.*

(This is still hypothetical, but what we're working towards.)

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time travel would be really revolutionary.
But I suppose handling different timelines simultaneous might get a bit confusing ... and determining a winner or even an end temporally speaking would be a real challenge.

These two statements conflict. If you can view and resume a game from any arbitrary time, you can totally alter the time stream. But the ramifications are complex enough to demand its own game!

The current replay system definitely looks like it could support an Achron 2.