The technical side of Katamari Damacy
by Kyrah Abattoir · in Game Design and Creative Issues · 01/30/2010 (8:28 pm) · 3 replies
Quick summary the goal in katamari ,damacy was to roll a ball catching small objects on it and as the ball grow bigger with the junk accumulated on it to grab bigger and bigger objects.
example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cwhFH75OCDs
In "We love katamari" the last level require from you to gros your katamari from a couple meters to a gigantic 18000km size, becoming neary as big as the earth itself (you can then start catching stars and comets)
Okay after this introduction, what fascinate me is that the game let you "grow" bigger and bigger and forst you will roll around in busy streets and then you will tear buildings from it, and finally whole continents, i was wondering what kind of techniques where used to allow this seemingly endless "fragmentation" of the whole game level.
One of my hypothesis is that at certain sizes, the game discretely swap between identical levels that are fragmented at a different size, example:
-5cm to 10cm katamari, a very detailed room of a building
-10cm to 30cm same room but without all the smaller objects+ garden
-30cm to 3 meters can't enter the room anymore so garden plus city streets
etc...
The game is pretty low key in term of graphics for a playstation 2, but still sometimes the sheer amount of details onscreen is amazing.
Anybody else has an idea how they managed this aparent "constant growing" ?
example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cwhFH75OCDs
In "We love katamari" the last level require from you to gros your katamari from a couple meters to a gigantic 18000km size, becoming neary as big as the earth itself (you can then start catching stars and comets)
Okay after this introduction, what fascinate me is that the game let you "grow" bigger and bigger and forst you will roll around in busy streets and then you will tear buildings from it, and finally whole continents, i was wondering what kind of techniques where used to allow this seemingly endless "fragmentation" of the whole game level.
One of my hypothesis is that at certain sizes, the game discretely swap between identical levels that are fragmented at a different size, example:
-5cm to 10cm katamari, a very detailed room of a building
-10cm to 30cm same room but without all the smaller objects+ garden
-30cm to 3 meters can't enter the room anymore so garden plus city streets
etc...
The game is pretty low key in term of graphics for a playstation 2, but still sometimes the sheer amount of details onscreen is amazing.
Anybody else has an idea how they managed this aparent "constant growing" ?
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#2
The pieces of "obtainable" items are divided into categories by size. Items two (or more) sizes smaller than you (so, [your size] [next size down] [second size down]) are culled out or deleted (their contribution to your sizing would be negligible) while every object in size classes above you are always visible. Certain objects are either dub divided and swapped (when they are really big comparatively) and some are simply culled out entirely until later.
Each time your katamari grows, objects that still render have their textures swapped.
From a level building standpoint, they only have to focus the tiny details in a small area of the map. For example, you start in a certain house/room, picking up thumb tacks and dominoes. They don't have to build the other houses with thumb tacks/dominoes or things at that level because you will never be able to get there when you're small.
02/01/2010 (6:29 pm)
Once you reach certain benchmarks, your katamari would become simplified (internally) and the camera would back out. I noticed this when playing - your objects that are buried inside your katamari disappear and the inner "sphere" expands. It doesn't just hold your entire library of items from start to finish. The pieces of "obtainable" items are divided into categories by size. Items two (or more) sizes smaller than you (so, [your size] [next size down] [second size down]) are culled out or deleted (their contribution to your sizing would be negligible) while every object in size classes above you are always visible. Certain objects are either dub divided and swapped (when they are really big comparatively) and some are simply culled out entirely until later.
Each time your katamari grows, objects that still render have their textures swapped.
From a level building standpoint, they only have to focus the tiny details in a small area of the map. For example, you start in a certain house/room, picking up thumb tacks and dominoes. They don't have to build the other houses with thumb tacks/dominoes or things at that level because you will never be able to get there when you're small.
#3
Yes for the katamari itself i guessed as much that only the most visible objects are kept on the katamari.
02/02/2010 (2:15 am)
Nod, that's what the blur effect at the "key" sizes felt to me. a trick to hide the fact that we are culling the smaller objects and replacing static things by dynamic objects.Yes for the katamari itself i guessed as much that only the most visible objects are kept on the katamari.
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