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Powerful Rendering
Number Crunch
The Vicious Engine® performs at a frame rate of up to 30 fps. It can render 150,000 fully textured polygons per frame or 4,500,000 polygons per second on the Sony PlayStation®2 . Performance varies based on the desired materials and the amount of processing required during a game’s update loop. Polygon counts for Microsoft xBox range between 300,000 to 400,000 polygons per frame. For the PSP®, usage numbers are around 50,000 to 90,000 visible polygons per frame.
Animation
Animation data is generated in 3ds Max® and Maya®. The engine contains support for full-body animation blending as well as partial-body animation overrides (like running while showing upper-body pain or firing a weapon). Animation includes position, rotation, and scale support for a full range of effect possibilities. Compression algorithms are used to ensure the highest quality and playback speed while using minimal amounts of memory. Script-controlled look-at controllers provide support to aim weapons or have a character's head and eyes look at its target. Direct rotation control is also scriptable, (heading and pitch of a torso or turret).
Physics and Collision Detection
A physics system provides full-featured character movement and collision response, including jumping, crouching, sliding, and moving on and with platforms. Ray- and sphere-based collision is supported for accurate projectile movement, such as rifle and shotgun shots, guided missiles, and other special effects. Rigid-body simulation for physically correct movement of spheres, boxes, and joint-constrained compound objects is also included as a standard feature.
Networking Support
The Vicious Engine® provides full networking support for the PC, Microsoft Xbox®, Microsoft Xbox 360®, Sony PlayStation®2 and PSP® platforms. Online multiplayer support uses a client/server model. Lobby and connection tools are provided for Xbox Live® and GameSpy® integration is available for PlayStation®2. In addition, voice chat is available Microsoft Xbox® and Sony PlayStation®2.
Network synchronization is handled by replication of relevant object states. In order to reduce bandwidth usage, script-based, host-specific variables can be marked as non-replicating. To further minimize the amount of data transferred, code-based variables are grouped by how often they change (for example, an entity's position variable is in a separate group from its material skin variable, since the position changes more often). Once a variable in a group changes, the server replicates the changes to other clients. Using this system, clients can join in the middle of a game and synchronize with the server.
   
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