Poniżej parę technicznych informacji - dla pisemka "Next-Generation" - po
angielsku.

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Witcher

   Witcher: In short.
   -----------------------

   Witcher is a fantasy adventure with a bit of action and RPG, and it's based
   on the character created by the best Polish fantasy writer Andrzej
   Sapkowski. It's quite adult-oriented, not because of sex or violence,
   but also because of the subjects raised.

   The whole world (backgrounds, characters) is 3D, and the camera is used
   the way it was never used before...


   Witcher: The story.
   ------------------------

   Witcher is a special profession, something between assassin and wizard.
   Whenever a village or a town is harrassed by a monster, people hire
   witchers. But to become a witcher one has to pass very hard test (for
   example a Trial of Grass). It's only possible after years of training which
   involves using drugs and special spells. After such training witcher is
   no longer like average human: he can see in the dark, move faster than
   a common man, etc. So, whenever there is trouble, people call witcher.
   And they hate him.

   Geralt is the best witcher ever. He passed one additional test noone
   else survived. There are a lot of things that show he is not a common
   man, but the most striking one is his white, long hairs.

   Geralt is also known as Butcher of Blaviken.

   The game tells a story of Geralt, a hated witcher, a man for the dirty
   job. The story of his lover sorceress, a bard named Jaskier and a knight
   enchanted in a dragon. Geralt's fight with a banshee. How Jaskier has
   released a genius. How Geralt became a witcher. What is the true
   sacrifice, and why elves kill humans in forests.

   And, of course, about the slaughter in Blaviken.

   The gameplay.
   ---------------------------

   Witcher is a fantasy action adventure for adults. The term 'for adults'
   does not mean the game is just about sex/violence. It means that there will
   be some serious, psychological stuff. We are not heading in the same
   direction the creators of Carmageddon or Postal go. When someone says
   'game for adults' people usually think either of sex or violence, while
   there is more to that term than that. We might give the player some sex and
   violence, but next to that Witcher will raise some moral issues to think
   about. If you have seen 'Blade Runner' or 'Bad Lieutenant', or played and
   enjoyed 'I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream' or 'Final Fantasy VII', you
   know what we mean.

   The whole adventure is non-linear, with various paths to reach the
   end (and player does not have to go through them all).

   There is a great interaction with an environment: different sounds when
   witcher walks over different surfaces, dynamic light on walls when witcher
   holds a torch, sparks when witcher hits the stone wall with the sword, etc.

   Two interesting things we implemented in Witcher engine are adventure
   engine and fighting engine. The first engine is a complete change from
   the ones seen in 3rd person adventures (Resident Evil, Alone in the Dark).
   Usually a player controlled a hero more like a car than a human, having
   to correctly stand very near the object he wanted to examine. We have
   developed more user friendly system, where witcher himself can find a way
   to the object.

   Fighting engine is what we believe is a next-step in turn-based battles
   a la Final Fantasy 7. FF7 implemented Active Battle System, with time
   bars for every person (so it's turn-based and real-time at the same time).
   We are toying with the idea of adding a possibility of real, by-player
   control over the attack or defence. For example let's say everyone in the
   battle has 1 second of time. It's time for monster attack. Monster has,
   let's say, 5 seconds to make an attack. Geralt's stats show that his
   defence time is 0.12 sec. The player can defend one time during the monster
   attack. When the player orders Geralt to defend, then Geralt will defend
   himself for 0.12 sec. But monster has 5 seconds to attack, and can choose
   any moment during that 5 seconds...

   Of course heroes' stats will improve during the game and Geralt might
   finish with 2 seconds of defence time. The same goes for his attack time,
   etc.

   If the idea turns out unplayable, then we will finish with mutated
   version of Active Battle System. One of the enhancements is to make time
   bars charge depending on the quality of the move (strong move takes more
   time to pull off, etc.).

   Apart from that one may expect many spectacular special effects during
   the battles: Geralt's companion during his journey will be his lover
   sorceress, a bard, a dragon enchanted in knight along with his
   she-warriors, etc. - it all allows for cool spells, stabs, etc. Not to
   mention the monsters and their capabilites Geralt has to fight with...


   Witcher: Technology.
   -------------------------

   More about programming and such is described in Reflux and Haunted City
   chapters (MMX, 3Dfx and such), so let's take a look at unique things.

   Witcher is seen from 3rd person perspective, much like Resident Evil.
   However, all locations are real 3D, thus allowing us for some really cool
   effects, like real-time shadows or light sources. This also let us use
   much less memory for the locations, since all we have to keep is one
   location and multiple camera positions.

   The camera system is completely different than in other games of the
   genre. Usually there are preset cameras (prerendered backgrounds), while
   we can configure it any way we want. We don't like the setting? We don't
   have to render the scene again, just move camera in a different place
   in a few seconds. Because our engine also allows for any kind of lens,
   in summary we can have as many cameras as we want, in any position and
   with any perspective. But there is more. Usually the view switches to
   a different camera when a player enters a specific place in the location.
   The program has to have a mask map of cameras depending on player's
   position. In Witcher we have automatic cameras, which intelligently choose
   the best view for the player in scene. Finally, the cameras have a little
   inertia, so they gently follow the player when he moves, not only proving
   the scene is real 3D (what gives a player a better impression of being
   there), but also giving more dramatic, cinematic effect.

   Of course from time to time we switch from auto to preset mode, for
   special scenes. In such cases camera moves independently on a preset path.
   This is used whenever there is a cut-scene (all cut-scenes are real-time
   3D).

   The level of detail in location is much higher than in any other 3D game
   (bigger polygon count), thanks to the fact we don't have to render the
   whole environment (level), just its part. We have also developed a few
   quite neat 3D tricks, starting from a mutated version of well known
   bounding boxes trick, ending on fancy 3D polygon clipping.

   ***

   Now a bit about the editor. In current implementation of our Witcher
   editor, we have four separate editing modes: Lights, Cameras, Objects and
   Gameplay.
 
   In Lights mode, we are able to add/remove and set the light on any position
   in space, with total control over RGB, range, intensity, etc. The objects
   lit by these lights cast soft shadows. We are also able to control ambient
   light for the whole scene.

   In Cameras mode we can add/remove and set the camera any way we want
   (including lens focus). A scene can have up to 10 cameras (actually this
   is only limited by the amount of numeric keys :)

   Objects mode is the most complicated mode: here we set the descriptions and
   actions for the animated/non-animated objects. It's too early now to reveal
   all features, but for example we are able to mix morphed and key-framed
   animations for the object(s) - this means we can have a key-framed wizard
   who can shake his staff to morph it into a match (so he can hide it behind
   his ear), still being one object.

   Gameplay mode is quite obvious... However we have to mention that Witcher
   is only halfly script-based, the other half is hard-coded (hard wired into
   the code). The reason is that we are adding *a lot* of one time special
   effects (like real-time blurring after Geralt drinks one of the magic 
   mixtures), which appear only one time in game, for only a few seconds, yet 
   takes days to code! We believe such things greatly enhance the game's 
   atmosphere and are well worth the effort.

   Witcher: So what's so special?
   -----------------------------------
 
    1. Witcher is based on Andrzej Sapkowski's stories. Sapkowski is absolute
      number one in Poland, and his fantasy series about witcher Geralt is
      a megahit. And for a reason: it's a very good reading, full of
      imagination, a great vision of a fantasy world. And - the most
      important - catching reader's attention from the very first word.
      However, we did not choose Witcher because he is a commercial success.
      We chose him because we think it's an ideal material for an adventure
      game.

   2. Flexible 3D engine, with automatic, moving camera system. Soft shadows
      (with a total control over attenuation, range and direction), real-time
      light sources, morphed and key-framed animation, etc.

   3. Breath-taking art. We know, we know... It sounds like an advertisment.
      But whenever we look at the locations and textures, we always wonder
      how it is possible that is not prerendered art.