As promised, we were able to get your questions over to the Insomniac team. Here’s what they had to say:

1. I would like to know if Insomniac takes inspiration for some of its weapons (especially in Resistance) from real world weapons?

Nathan Fouts, Weapons Programmer: Absolutely. We like taking modern-day weapons as inspiration and building on those. We also like taking physics phenomenon and natural occurrences and trying to blend them with weapons. For instance, the air-fuel grenade was based on real weapons but also on slower fluid dynamics, while the Hedgehog grenade was based on ”Bouncing Betty” mines and Cholla cactus. The look of a homing tag locked on the environment using the Bullseye was inspired by the classic Bohr model of the atom (with bullets homing on the tag mimicking swirling electrons).

2. Is there any technical reason why you did not implement a sixaxis view/aim control feature (Resistance)?

Marcus Smith, Project Manager: There was no technical reason. In fact, we did implement such camera controls, but as with everything here at Insomniac, an idea has to be put in and tried before it can be considered a bonafide feature of the game. In the case of SIXAXIS control of the camera, we discovered it detracted from the gameplay experience because people were constantly moving the controller involuntarily (especially during firefights).

FPS games have to be extremely camera-conscious and anything that takes away from the user experience is a bad thing. During playtests, we noticed people tend to stick with a particular way of holding the controller while they play- a comfortable position that is different for each individual - and many times this position interfered with camera movement tied to the SIXAXIS.
So, we made a design decision early on (after trying it out) that any SIXAXIS control schemes would be limited to optional action. For example, the player can shake off an enemy grab-hold OR they can mash the “triangle” button. In multiplayer, you can activate your map by rotating the controller, but you can also use the directional buttons.

3. Do you have any plans to develop downloadable PSN title..?

Ted Price: Founder/CEO: Yes.

4. Is Clank going to play a bigger role in R&CF:ToD compared to the previous games?

Brian Allgeier, Design Director: Clank will be playing a much bigger role than he did in Ratchet: Deadlocked. I can’t say too much now, but he’ll learn more about his “spiritual side” and discover some new abilities. We’ve put more emphasis on Clank in both the story and gameplay and there will certainly be some surprises for players.

5. How far are you going with motion control for Ratchet and Clank?

Brian Allgeier: We’ve been playing around with SIXAXIS control for both our weapons and gadgets. One of the weapons we’ve already revealed is the Tornado Launcher. It fires out a whirlwind that can be controlled by tilting the controller and causing it to travel towards enemies and swallow them up along with other random debris. This allows the player to manipulate the tornado while at the same time maintaining control of Ratchet. There’s a bit of a learning curve, but once you get the hang of it, it can be quite strategic and rewarding.

6. Will you keep your engine in-house or license it to other companies for a fee? And why?

Mike Acton, Engine Director: We have absolutely no plans on licensing our current Playstation 3 technology. Fundamentally, Insomniac has a commitment to quality and to be a quality middleware provider you must be absolutely committed to the successes of your licensees, and right now we are not prepared to divide our focus. We are totally committed to our own titles and making the best games we can for the PlayStation 3. That said, we know we have knowledge and experience on this platform that other studios could benefit from. We‘ve been able to work with some of our friends to help them improve upon their technology and share some of our work without going so far as being a solution-provider.

7. How much can you crank up the resolutions of the textures with the texture streaming that you apparently have implemented in your engine?

Mike Acton: Improving the quality of detail near the camera, without sacrificing the signature Insomniac long view, has been an important focus through the development of Rachet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction. While I can confirm that we are actively working on a texture streaming solution, it is only part of the picture. We’re using our experience with the RSX to tweak our render pipeline and shaders to give our artists the ability to bring a lot more detail to the front while still maintaining the rock-solid framerate our players expect. For example: better detail mapping, better normal mapping, and better lighting. As to exactly how much, I can’t say. Every level, every character and every effect requires a different balance, and honestly we haven’t finished working all those issues out yet. One thing I can say though is that our artists are doing a great job of taking advantage of each of the improvements we roll out and the game looks better every day.

8. How much does the progressive mesh differ from the original PS2 R&C-engine in terms of scale?

Al Hastings, Chief Technical Officer: Our level-of-detail techniques are actually much simpler on PS3 than they were on PS2. We made the decision to steer away from doing heavy amounts of geometry processing on the SPUs, so instead we’ve focused on techniques that can be implemented directly on the graphics chip. There are a lot of trade-offs with this approach, but ultimately we like the fact that it gives us more flexibility in our engine and it frees up the SPUs for gameplay related processing.

9. For the original R&C-engine you guys used (And ND) Game Object Oriented Assembly-language, which was something unique I believe, are you taking a similar approach with the PS3 and the new engine to get the utmost out of it or is it mainly C/C++ ?

Al Hastings: The original PlayStation 2 R&C engine made use of some very fast code for rendering static geometry with smooth level-of-detail that was developed by Naughty Dog. We used this for rendering most of our background environments, and it was vital in allowing us to have large, open worlds and still run at 60hz.

But beyond this, our engine and their engine were completely different. Ours was written in C/C++ and assembly while their engine, like you say, was written in a custom language called GOAL. I think we could have benefited a lot from other cool tech features Naughty Dog had in its Jak & Daxter games, but integrating features from one engine to another is often a lot trickier than it seems — and it’s even more difficult when they are written in two completely different languages.

So far on the PS3, we are using C/C++ and assembly just like we were on PS2. And I think Naughty Dog has switched over to this too, for better or worse.