Stallion Free
Cock Encumbered
Exactly. If a technique cheats to get the same effect convincingly, but in a more efficient manner, it should be used since it frees up resources for other things to be added.
Best graphics of any game?
- Thread starter Kleegamefan
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Exactly. If a technique cheats to get the same effect convincingly, but in a more efficient manner, it should be used since it frees up resources for other things to be added.
Metalmurphy
Member
So you don't see how none of the footprints look the same and how some of them actually crumble and flow down?
The video where it touches it with the hand shows it even better. I'd make a gif of that but my gifs always suck.
I'm not saying every single sand grain is simulated, that's absurd, but it's not a simple mesh applied. It's actually physics based to some point. If your on a slope it will behave differently.
It still got them, just not the same that you would see on something like Portal 2.
Sorry, I didn't highlight the spoiler, I thought people were still talking about the simulated ocean. Yeah that part isn't part of the ocean simulation. But the whole waves, and how the ships rocks about and objects in them react, that's completely dynamic.
I always thought that was a decal and not mesh deformation. The effect looks like some sort of pixel shader and particles.
Stallion Free
Cock Encumbered
The PC version received certain maps updated with HDR and several models replaced with the Episode 2 versions. Updates didn't extend beyond that and that screenshot showcases neither.
RoadHazard
Gold Member
The ship capsizing and the "flooding of the hallways" are two entirely different events, which very obviously (if you've played the game) use two different kinds of water tech.
Videos:
The ship capsizing (clearly uses the procedural ocean - although claiming it's actually "pouring into the ship" probably isn't very accurate)
Hallway flooding (probably uses the stuff you're talking about)
Sorry if I'm not at my best today. Someone just died and I'm hanging out here more to avoid having to deal with that than anything else.
Anyways, I actually pulled a bunch of quotes from all over the article and condensed them into one quote. They included mention of the water and how it interacts with the level. Lots of stuff pre-baked in Houdini. It's really cool to learn how they did it, mind you, but it's not 100% dynamic.
I've played the other two games, and sought mostly to comment on them. I don't believe I mentioned Uncharted 3 until other people brought it up and I based my understanding on what I'd heard before. This article seems to back that up. The game was not dynamically simulating water in real time.
And that's fine. If we were talking about aesthetics, I'd be content to let people say that whatever game is the best looking game of all time. But when someone says "what's the best graphics of all time?" then... the conversation is clearly going to be about, y'know, graphics. How many polys get pushed, dynamic and/or volumetric lighting, shit like that.
Uno Venova
Banned
That reminds me, this just dropped to 20 bucks, bought.
RoadHazard
Gold Member
Yeah, and that pre-baked stuff would be the water rushing toward Drake in the corridor, not the water he falls into as the ship capsizes. That water uses the procedurally generated ocean tech. Check out my previous post.
EDIT: I'll make it even easier for you, and quote myself!
Metalmurphy
Member
Depends on what section of the game you are talking about. Saying flat out "The game was not dynamically simulating water in real time." you'd be wrong. The sections where you actually see the ocean, and not just the water inside the cruise ship flooding it, it is dynamically simulated. How else would you never get the same motion twice?
Those sections would be the outside areas of the cruise ship, the boats battle, and the ship graveyard.
(outside of the final wave)
Also I never did say they were fully simulating the water, that would imply everything. I specifically said ocean.
That's because it always was better looking then any other game when it released. Doesn't mean it aged well, it's just that the others aged just as poorly.
Here's a definition of computer graphics:
That to me means the visual output, not the methodology behind it. Even if Halo 3 was a greater technological achievement, and I massively doubt it is, to say Uncharted 3 has 'better graphics', and to base that only on what you see seems perfectly viable.
Halo 3 is an awful looking game, if they're secretly pulling voodoo behind the scenes or not is irrelevant.
That is absurd. If it aged as well as anything else, that is the standard for how well games can age.
BruceLeeRoy
Banned
Sorry about your loss man : (
I think either I am really confused or you are. The rocking of the boat is happening because of a ocean simulator that is pushing it up and down dynamically. This is astounding since all the gunfights on the ship are affected by this random movement. It isn't prebaked. The parts of the chapter that have water rushing in and your outrunning it obviously are.
Watch this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvwEnyoro8I (It might help clarify some stuff for you.)
I guess I don't understand how your able to shrug it off when its pretty unbelievable what they did there. In fact show me one other game that does anything remotely like that
Please dont show me another game
Sorry, I didn't highlight the spoiler, I thought people were still talking about the simulated ocean. Yeah that part isn't part of the ocean simulation. But the whole waves, and how the ships rocks about and objects in them react, that's completely dynamic.
Nothing is being deformed in that gif, his footsteps and hands are just leaving a parallax-mapped texture on top of the surface. There's nothing wrong with it, and nothing really wrong with what DocSeuss is saying either.
And this makes the game not look good?
No, did I say that? Uncharted 3 looks amazing. But a few here jumped on DocSeuss here for no reason, and insist that the sand deforms and whatnot.
Metalmurphy
Member
I never said it deformed, I said it's not pre-rendered and is dynamic. I don't know how they done it, I also don't know how it's just a " parallax-mapped texture on top of the surface". How would they achieve with that all the different footprints that actually animate and crumble down depending on the slope?
Do you have a source for that?
I was actually reading about Uncharted 2 snow the other day and it wasn't that, it was some sort of shader use for vertex blending or something like that, iirc.
It does not deform in real time but it's not pre rendered either, those effects you see are done in real time, otherwise he won't be able to leave the prints exactly where he walked. They use parallex mapping to project the footprints and marks according to where the character is positioned as mentioned in the very article you quoted.
Most people have mentioned the things I wanted to say already but I'll correct you on one point. Halo 3 does not uses tessellation (of any sort), Halo Reach like Halo Wars uses the Hull shader to do tessellation for terrain generation and this is the most Xbox 360 hardware can do with regards to this effect, also it's very different from the displacement map techniques and adaptive tessellation seen in DX11.
It's like a square foot of water is delayed by that guy. That's why dynamic water always looks so shit, they can never make it look like water. It's always way too 'lumpy'? It's like it's made out of huge sheets or bubbles, not water molecules.
That's one thing Alice 2 did great, with it's PhysX stuff, it used it for this thick oil stuff, which is perfect, because it looks like horrible thick sticky shit, it would never look good if they did it with water.
Fire is another thing no one seems to be able to do well.
That's one thing Alice 2 did great, with it's PhysX stuff, it used it for this thick oil stuff, which is perfect, because it looks like horrible thick sticky shit, it would never look good if they did it with water.
Fire is another thing no one seems to be able to do well.
Krappadizzle
Member
I always thought the same thing too. I remember the minute I was walking around in the sand, that I immediately thought of it as essentially a golden/brownish version of the snow from U2.
dr. apocalipsis
Banned
Look at his neck. Sand is deforming the shadow or someone is cutting his head.
Actual sand is not a flat surface, so shadows *can't* be flat. Guy, stop arguing this, it's common sense. You can minimize the deformation with the right perspective, but it still there.
As long as surfaces aren't flat, shadows can't be flat. Same mechanics applies here, only its more subtle in sand because there is no 90º angles.
Obviously it's not a shadowing problem, it's a flat surface acting as sand. And not even nicely done textures can mask that.
It is scripted. Scripted doesn't mean a recorded cut scene. Scripted mean there is no real calculations behind the elements behaviour and interactuation.
Water at Halo 3 it's scripted. That water trail following you, interacting with you, it's a script, not a water simulation physics engine.
This is not an interesting topic. I made up a clarification about a misconception. That's all. I have no more interest in arguing how the shadows works at real life, when it's obvious how it works for everyone here.
Tell that to the guy above. He is actually refuting how shadows cast at real world. Tell that to the guy below, who also talks about a non scripted physic model to animate water.
It's clear you don't have a right understanding of what a script is. They are talking about procedural water. There is no simulation or physic involved there. It's just a cheap way of generate something like water, a forest or even a city without having to desing and store it in memory. That's why it's different every run, because it is being generated everytime. That doesn't mean water obeys mother nature. Much less water is being taken from somewhere to fill anything, as somebody suggest. Game is not calculating sand or water behaviour, is running scripts ND did after research such behaviour.
http://youtu.be/5nXurC9hMXg?t=1m45s
Uncharted 3 looks so good to be a PS3 game. There is no need to cheat people into thinking it is doing things that are way beyond their capabilities or needs.
I think I have been clear enough, so I hope we can have an agree here and stop this nonsense subtopic.
Kisses.
No, that's how it looks when played on weak hardware like the GCN. When you play it on something that can handle it's high res assets, it's a proper looking game.
Not sure how people still aren't getting this, it's not a difficult concept to grasp.
Anyway, I thought ODST looked pretty good too.
They must have played the console version or the PC version on a really low spec rig. The game still wows me today.
Metalmurphy
Member
So by your definition, every single game ever made will be scripted. Well "technically" you are correct, I'll give you that.
... A simulation doesn't need to obey the laws of nature to be a simulation. And when people say scripted they do mean something that has been coded to behave to one specific way instead of being based on dynamic parameters, causing the end result to be as well dynamic.
The ocean in U3 IS simulated and dynamic. It isn't scripted.
The section where drake is escaping the flooding water, THAT is scripted, it always behaves the same.
It's actually been constantly updated and is running on a significantly updated iteration of the same engine it was built with. I believe they actually improved a lot of the asset quality as well. I actually feel like Far Cry presents a more consistent visual design, but Half-Life does look more photorealistic.
Judging by some of the comments, people seemed to think it was dynamically simulating the sand, when it really isn't. I was attempting to correct that misperception.
As for Halo 3, I've heard several times that it's tesselated. Actually, the first time I heard about it, I was actually looking up whether or not the Cell was capable of tesselation. I consume this tech stuff like a motherfucker, so if you've got a link for something explaining just how it is that Halo 3's water is so different from normal water, I'd love to read up on it. Anything to distract myself today.
I don't like the way Far Cry or Doom 3 look. Far Cry has that horrible fake fruit look to everything, like the whole game has been covered in flubber material. And Doom 3 has that very chunky look to it, like everything in there is built for giants or the blind.
As for HL2's updates, there have been a few, that's true, when the 360 port came out, there were some improvements made to it, and they were brought back into the Steam game later I believe, but it's not radical.
To Far Away Times
Member
Am I the only one who thinks most 3D games are still pretty ugly? I mean, some are very technically impressive, but most 3D games tend to go for realism, and then it starts to look kinda bad.
I think 2D looks better because it's abstract to begin with, so I'm less apt to try to compare it visually to a real life object. Something like KOF XIII or BlazBlue just looks fantastic to me, but maybe that's the art direction and the hand drawn look.
I think 2D looks better because it's abstract to begin with, so I'm less apt to try to compare it visually to a real life object. Something like KOF XIII or BlazBlue just looks fantastic to me, but maybe that's the art direction and the hand drawn look.
Cryostasis jelly water comes to mind.
Metalmurphy
Member
You can have similar results with 3D games as well. Just look at games like Journey or Okami.
I'm the opposite, because 2D is so heavily stylized, it's more subject to my personal taste, and it's mostly shit. The modern Marios are all ugly, Super Meat Boy is disgusting, BlazBlue looks bad, that Dragon's Crown someone posted yesterday is hideous. There's almost nothing I like in 2D, PixelJunk Eden was beautiful, but the other PixelJunks are bad, SoundShapes is nice though.
With 3D, I'd say I like a far higher percentage of games visually.
EDIT: This is a thread about pretty, so...
Well it's what I think the game is doing. How the the hand/footprint textures are made is probably clever though.
Nah, Far Cry does look fucking weird. I won't deny that. It's too... hypercolorful. I enjoy it because it's such a fun synesthetic trip.
Doom 3 has this... id-look to the way things are modeled--you can see it in Rage, too. Still, what that game can do with lighting is absolutely stunning.
Half-Life 2 was updated when the Orange Box came out, if I remember correctly, not to mention the whole hullabaloo about HDR (they even released Lost Coast to showcase it) being put into the game.
It's a bit like someone putting sikkmod or Wulfen's texture packs on Doom 3 (which, incidentally, makes Doom 3 look absolutely stunning). So long as a game receives some engine tweaks after its release, it can continue to look good, but there's no way Half-Life 2 looked as good as it currently does upon its release.
RoadHazard
Gold Member
Yeah, this is what I (and I think pretty much everyone in the world except for dr. apocalipsis) mean by "scripted". And that doesn't apply to the sand nor the ocean in U3.
I don't think HDR was ever added to HL2, it's in the Episodes though.
Stallion Free
Cock Encumbered
It was added in certain maps.
All of the examples you give of ugly games are pretty ugly, but are you only talking of modern games?
There were plenty of ugly games in the previous generations certainly, but there were plenty I loved too, SMB3/Yoshi's Island both looked great. Many of the Final Fantasies look beautiful (although artistically, I think a lot less of Chrono Trigger than most).
While I did have systems in those days, it wasn't until the PS1 generation that I really got into games, maybe 3D was an influence.
H_Prestige
Banned
Because it looks good?
How anyone tries to breakdown "what looks good" in terms of numbers and shit is beyond me.
And really, dude? The 90's?
Eh, most of the best looking 2D games are arcade games. I think most home console 2D games were always kinda primitive and ugly looking tbh. Not all of course, but most. What do you think of Metal Slug? That's probably my favorite 2D game, visually.
I like the way some of Cave's earlier games look too (ESP Ra De, Guwange, Dodonpachi Daioujou, namely) look even if they have CG prerendered sprites. It didn't become a problem until later on.
The Metal Slug games do indeed look fantastic, but I don't see any real difference with the arcade games in the early days. I don't like the way SF2 looks for example, or any of the Mortal Kombats. I think in a sense enjoying things like Final Fantasy is an extension of liking games that are closer to realism. At that time, a platformer is much more likely to be stylized, the Final Fantasies were too of course, but it's just much harder to tell.
Horse Detective
Why the long case?
Ah man I want to shit in that toilet.
Trunchisholm
Member
Those screenshots are bullshots, though. The PS3 R&C games are all sub-HD (960x702) with 2X MSAA. They're not that clean, not by a long shot. They are good-looking games, especially seeing as they are 60 fps.
That reminds me that Banjo-Kazooie: N&B doesn't get much love. It's one of the best-looking cartoony games this generation. Pop-in in Showdown Town aside, it is simply gorgeous. Viva Piñata: TiP is also quite the looker. Those games push the 360 hardware really hard, and they are both 720p with 2X AA. What I wouldn't give for a classic Banjo game using the N&B engine...
therealminime
Member
I'm playing A Crack In Time right now for the first time and the game doesn't look anywhere near that good in game. The pre-rendered cutscenes as amazingly good looking, but in game doesn't look like that.
I also agree that Banjo Kazzoie: Nuts and Bolts looks great.
I also agree that Banjo Kazzoie: Nuts and Bolts looks great.
