What game holds graphical supremacy?

[Cyperion]

Everyone knows that graphics are an integral part of a game (please don't shoot me) . Even when playing awesome games like Deus Ex and System Shock 2, their graphics are always nagging at me in the back of my mind, tarnishing the experience. Developers today are looking to change this (we just have to hope graphics isnt the only thing developers concentrate on). Every game coming out in a month or two will probably feature "next gen" graphics.

Can Half-life 2 be bested? if so, which game coming out holds the best visuals?

Also, if you feel like proving your game has the best visuals, include some particularily good screenshots to back up your claims.

[Jackal hit]

i voted s.t.a.l.k.e.r. because i was/am so damned impressed with that... day/night whatever video that i saw. IMO doom3 and hl2 are very close behind. doom3 because of all the cool lighting stuff... hl2 because i love how gritty it is looking.

[synth]

Doom 3, obviously. It's another one of John Carmacks engines, and he's been on top of the field from the beginning. He's done so much with dynamic lighting, and all the Doom 3 pics look unbelievably realistic.

Half-Life 2 may have better gameplay, interaction and physics, but for graphics only I'd take Doom any day.

[Quixote]

I think a sleeper called Far Cry is going to end up on top. They have some really cool sounding ideas that will make the game look awesome and run terrific. And doom does look really cool almost photo-realistic. Its too bad that they took out coop. I remember my brothers and I saving up for our own computers and making an cable to link us together.

[Ruroni]

Doom 3.

Diehard HL2 fan though.

[Cooper]

For me it is a toss up between HL2 and D3. HL2 has this real life gritty feel to it while D3 makes it seem like I am inside a movie I think both graphics support their respective games very well.

[blahblahblah]

How well a game looks depends on how well it immerses you. Half-Life did not have revolutionary graphics but its tense gameplay made its graphics look better than it really was.

If I had to choose one right now, I would choose Doom3 for one reason. Supposedly the windows in Doom3 use the physics engine to fracture on the fly when you break them. Now that is cool.

[Insert]

Well..of what i have seen, hl2. (imo)

[Ahnteis]

Can't vote till I get a chance to see it on my screen uncompressed and antialiased/etc. Since final builds of *none* of the games are available, I guess I'll just have to wait until they're out.

[southparksam]

There is no real way to tell, until they are released of course, and we havent even seen a render from a final of these games... however, Medal Of Honour: Pacific Assault, is looking the best in my books. If the movies of the people they have been showing off are real time (which the Marketing Manager of EA: NZ assures me they are) then that is going to be a stunning looking game.
:bounce: :farmer:

[Brian Damage]

Well, I'd rather give my final opinion after I've got the games and played them... but HL2 seems to have the best graphics so far. Everything in the screenshots seems very realistic.

I personally think that D3's graphics look as though every object has been sprayed with ten coats of high-gloss varnish (and a lot of the textures seem to be a bit dodgy to me). Not to mention the rather blocky models.

Farcry looks good, but the models look a little... wrong. Strange.

Stalker I think looks cool, but it still loses out to HL2.

[_-_-SELAS-_-_]

Wow it actually took longer for this thread to become a D3 vs HL² thread than I expected... Anyways I think its a feeling what u like when it comes to HL² vs D3 gfx... My money is on HL² though :)

[SidewinderX]

Doom III jsut so much technical leverage iver all these other engines.... Carmack is a graphics god.

[CrazyHarij]

Guys. Watch the f**king Source video again. That's about the graphics the game has, but more detailed. Look at the f**king thing! Reflections , light effects and stuff that you could only dream about before!!!

[Sprafa]

Has anybody else watched the Pacific Assault vid's.
If not I say not to waste any more time. The GI looks lk FF-the movie.It's just unbeliavable that it's on real-time, I am going to upgrade my PC to play it!!!
I mean...just take a look. (http://www.fileplanet.com/section.aspx?s=94692&v=0)

[Gorgon]

I did sprafa, you r 60% right. Doom3 is better than HL2, and HL2 is = to Stalker, while Stalker is way advanced than Farcry and FarCry is way Better than MOH2(PA) :)

They all linked in relationship. ;)

[PvtRyan]

Technical and graphical supremacy are two totally different things. I think no one will argue with the fact Doom 3 is the technical superior one. But graphics is also a matter of taste, and I don't like the cold metal/plastic look of Doom 3, I don't like its style.
To me the contest is between STALKER and HL2, and I think STALKER will win. It looks a tiny bit better than HL2, but HL2 is very close behind.

Everyone seems to forget about Sabotage 1943, a very impressive looking title if you ask me. Has a very cool lighting system. But it won't even come out this year :)

[Mr. Redundant]

my vote goes to HL2, but not only because it has great visuals... it simply is my style.
Doom 3 looks brilliant, but the theme (sci fi horror) looks silly to me (give me undying anyday :D)
Far cry is another game IM looking forward to (tons) its got realistic weapons and setting, but its "overly" bright.. the tropical setting rocks, and I love the expansive levels... but its still nowhere as "gritty" as Hl2

I dont know, stalker has ... I wouldnt say bad models... err just sub par. and in contrast to the lush detailed surroundings, its glaringly abbhorent.
:/

Im buying all three... but everything aside my vote (as always) is on Hl2

[Mr. Redundant]

Everyone seems to forget about Sabotage 1943, a very impressive looking title if you ask me. Has a very cool lighting system. But it won't even come out this year :)

the what? never heard of it

however if you ask me
VAMPIRE THE MASQUERADE: BLOODLINES
is going to be the game I fall in love with... thats really my bag baby ;D

[Dougy]

played the Doom3 alpha


voted for doom 3.



nuff said.

[Bitchslapper]

waht doom 3 better graphics than Hafl-Life 2?! Dont think so.. Take a look at the BINK hl2 source video again my friends, its pure reality!! compare to all those Doom 3 screenshots. You cant compare Doom 3 with Half-Life 2 in my opinion!

[Netherscourge]

I'm not voting until I see some Doom 3 BINK videos to compare to Half Life 2. OpenGL games look awesome when they are in motion. Sometimes screenshots don't do a game justice. And who can really say HL2 is the best? None of those games are out yet for us to play or test. Voting on screenshots of ALpha/Beta versions of games is just not a fair indicator.

[mortiz]

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. video's are really impressive.

Seen the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. trailer where they blurr reality and in-game? I'll tell ya first time I saw the trailer I didn't know where reality ended and in-game began.

[Arno]

I'm not voting until I see some Doom 3 BINK videos to compare to Half Life 2. OpenGL games look awesome when they are in motion. Sometimes screenshots don't do a game justice.
There's a Doom3 video available on doom3.com (http://www.doom3.com). It's short and not in BINK format, but you'll get a pretty good idea of what the game looks like in motion.

I voted for Doom3, btw. Mainly because I have faith in Carmack's coding skillz and a guy who used to work on Shreck is doing the monster animations. It definitly shows.

[covertghost]

I would have to say that Graphics don't neccessarly make a game its all about GAMEPLAY. The original Half Life provided hours of gameplay plus all the mods. Till this day I Still play half life with all the mods.

[Bitchslapper]

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. video's are really impressive.

Seen the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. trailer where they blurr reality and in-game? I'll tell ya first time I saw the trailer I didn't know where reality ended and in-game began.

where can i see those videos?

[Netherscourge]

Isn't Carmac also helping to build a rocket engine to send someone to the moon or Mars? I forget where I read that, but it was a few months ago and really impressed me.

[Sprafa]

Isn't Carmac also helping to build a rocket engine to send someone to the moon or Mars? I forget where I read that, but it was a few months ago and really impressed me.

Is someone here taking drugs??
Carmack making a rocket engine???

[Dougy]

waht doom 3 better graphics than Hafl-Life 2?! Dont think so.. Take a look at the BINK hl2 source video again my friends, its pure reality!! compare to all those Doom 3 screenshots. You cant compare Doom 3 with Half-Life 2 in my opinion!


You are comparing moitenless shots to a Bink video.


Im comparing playing the game to a blink video.


my verdict Doom3 gfx better than Hl2's.

and that was the alpha doom3, so no doubt theyve optimized by now and cleaned up the few gfx bugs i witnessed.

[mortiz]

Carmack's also making a Time Machine to go back in time 20 years, release DooM 3 as DooM 1 and corner the market.

[Maxi]

I voted for HL2 because i like the graphics in it as a whole... Not like doom3 wich i think has ok lightning, or farcry with its super bumb maps... For me HL2 has the perfect graphics... they include the new graphics but they have an even amount of bump mapping and lightning. Also i like the way they have HDR and the stuff in source, looks awsome.

[eraser]

Is someone here taking drugs??
Carmack making a rocket engine???

No, he's right :p.

http://www.gamespy.com/quakecon2003/carmack/index3.shtml

http://slashdot.org/articles/03/08/28/1722241.shtml?tid=134&tid=160

[daveodeth]

i'm going for doom3, not nessecarily because i think there better but i prefer the sci fi empty space base look. its as close to another system shock feel i can get.

[CreedoG]

Whoever said Medal of Honor: Pacific Assault is right on the money. The facial tech in PA beats HL2 hands down. (btw, I'm an avid HL2 fanboy, and up to this point, I've HATED the MOH series). Overall graphics wise, HL and PA are totally different games (one is urbanish, one is jungle), so it's hard to do a direct comparison. But PA's overgrowth and vegetation i think looks better than far cry. And PA's water is better than all. It's totally physically simulated, so when you shoot the water, it is actually displaced. Doom3 and HL2 don't have that.

[Someone]

Hard to tell for sure without the finished products obviously, but by going on videos and screenshots, I think on pure graphics it will be Doom 3. But I personally like HL2's look better though and it has enough "bells and whistles" to make me happy.

In the end, it won't be graphics which pull me in anyway though.

[Sprafa]

Please people look at the vid's from MOH-PA.
It's just revolutions material!

[marksmanHL2 :)]

Only if someone gets a direct *working* link....


Every time I try and get those videos it fecks up....

[Sprafa]

just wait a sec...

http://gameover.sapo.pt/files/MOHPATech.mov
http://gameover.sapo.pt/files/mohpa_eb_tech_vid_2_hi.mov
http://gameover.sapo.pt/files/mohpa_tech_1_hi.mov
http://gameover.sapo.pt/files/mohpa_tech_101703_3_hi.mov
http://gameover.sapo.pt/files/mohpa_tech_101703_4_hi.mov
http://gameover.sapo.pt/files/mohpa_tech_hi1.mov


They're all yours!!!

[PvtRyan]

Whoever said Medal of Honor: Pacific Assault is right on the money. The facial tech in PA beats HL2 hands down. (btw, I'm an avid HL2 fanboy, and up to this point, I've HATED the MOH series). Overall graphics wise, HL and PA are totally different games (one is urbanish, one is jungle), so it's hard to do a direct comparison. But PA's overgrowth and vegetation i think looks better than far cry. And PA's water is better than all. It's totally physically simulated, so when you shoot the water, it is actually displaced. Doom3 and HL2 don't have that.

Can't agree with you on the facial thing. It's great they have 50 muscles in their face, but the results don't really show that. It's a lot harder to see the emotion they're expressing than in HL2. More bones doesn't necessarily make the facials better.

[thehunter1320]

instead o this being a "my game's dick is bigger than your game's dick" contest... it's a "my game's dick looks better than your game's dick" the apocolyps is near :)

[chu]

I think all four are extraordinarily amazing. I love Far Cry's outdoor environments, I love HL2's gritty city, and I love Doom 3's dark, terrifying, "wtf is going to be around that corner" approach.

I am equaly excited about all three, ( I havn't seen or heard much about Stalker) But I am probably more excited about Far Cry because it will be the first one out, hopefully.

[MrMan16]

I voted for H2. The graphics are extraordianry. I love it. Doom 3's graphics are nice, but I dont particularly love all the dark shadows, though it goes great for the style of the game. H2's graphics jsut has that feeling. Like, H1's graphics werent groundbreaking, but to me, they jsut had a feeling. It made the graphics seem better, which was already posted. I think we should all look at the source video again....

Offtopic: I dont see so much in STALKER. From the videos that I have seen, it just doesnt look as FUN.

:cheers:

[Kadayi]

From a purely graphical viewpoint I voted D³ because I think that it edges it over the competition because of the bump map complexity of the creatures. However I have a lot of reservations about D³ with regard to other aspects (ability to render large numbers/large areas effectively).

Environmentally I'd say that Stalker is slightly more impressive than HL² looks wise(I've dabbled with the alpha and the outdoor environments are unnervingly realistic if a little grim). However HL² wins hands down compared to the other two with respect to human character animation.

It is all a bit scissors, paper stone between those 3 in my book (far cry leaves me cold unfortunately....it's just too dayglo)

[chu]

Well I finally saw most of the HL2 bink videos, yes finally. Wow, all I had seen before was some shatty video recording of the game.

Graphics wise, I say Doom 3 is better. But as far as in-game environments go I think HL2 will be better. You've seen one space colony, you've seen em all.

I also saw a tech demo for the crytek engine (Far Cry). I was really impressed by that as well.

Plus I saw a teaser for Stalker. It looks good but I don't know. Looked kind of boring. Eh, we'll see.

Be in mind I am in the past with dial up. I am sure these vids are old to you but they're furking new to me.

So my list for visual graphics supremecy goes:

Doom 3
HL2
Far Cry
Stalker

For environment:

HL2, Far Cry
Doom 3
Stalker

When is MoH PA suppose to come out? I dloaded a couple of those movies and it looks good too. Only thing I didn't like is when the guy shoots the water, the ripples looked way too big and fat, but I never shot a gun at water so wtf do I know.

edit/

And another thing. In the HL2 Traptown vid, I got a cringe when I saw the combine at the top of the stairs ( where Gordon shoots the heater at him with the Grav gun). If the AI is suppose to be superb, why wasn't he taking cover in the next room or something. He just stands there casualy reloading while Gordon approaches him with the heater.

Is the AI that advanced that it calculated for that combine to notice that it appears that Gordon can't seem to hurt him, so he just stands there and reloads knowing that there was nothing Gordon could do, but wait! "Oh wait! I think he is going to propel that heater at me!! Maybe I should duck inside this doorway, ooops too late I'm dead."

[MultiVaC]

Doom3 may have good tech, but they just did a pretty crap job in the artwork section if you ask me. The Doom3 world looks like it's been constructed out of 3 elements: Rubber, clay, and plastic. It looks all soft and fake, like action figures in a toy playset. They soft edges contrast the ugly sharp shadows and doesn't look real at all. A lot of the monsters don't scare me at all. I'm sorry, but I think they just look... well... stupid.

[blahblahblah]

I think you also have to consider what each game is trying to accomplish.

From what I have seen of HL2 screenshots (no vids, only have 56K), it looks really good in certain areas (interior areas), but I am disappointed with the graphics quality in other areas (like the city itself). Overall though, HL2 awesome (for what it is trying to accomplish).

Doom3 on the other hand looks awesome with its bumpmapping and lighting/shadows. It may look fake to some but I think it looks better than if the HL2 engine was used to create Doom3.

Far Cry doesn't do much for me besides its incredibly long draw distance (1 kilometer) which is about time in video games. I am getting tired of seeing so much fog in games. Other than that it looks like a run of the mill graphics engine to me.

STALKER has me really excited because its gameplay is looking like Morrowind (great game) but with much more grit and realism. Its graphics engine looks great, it just seems like it does not use enough pixel shading and bumpmapping to take it to the next level (graphics-wise).

Verdict: Doom3 with HL2 and Stalker in a close second.

Side Note:
I think most people have forgotten or too young to remember what type of graphic miracles that John Carmack has done. (Quake anyone?)

[chu]

Yeah blah, I am on 56k too. I just went through that xburn place and ordered a couple cd's with hl2 vids and other vids on it.

Far Cry is more than your "run of the mill" engine and offers more than just a long draw distance. It too has dynamic lighting, poly bumping, realistic physics, etc.

[MultiVaC]

Well yeah, fake can be good in games. But Doom3 is saying "Look at me, I'm scary!!!!11!!" and to me, fake isn't scary. I think to fear has to really hit home, create something familiar yet twisted and horrible. I can't really relate to an uberspacemarine fighting demons from Hell who have rocket launchers on Mars. I can relate to someone in a realistic looking broken down city, lost and unprepared for the shadows, concealed enemies, mystery and harsh bleakness that Doom3 doesn't seem to offer. It doesn't matter how good your engine is, you have to use it well. Just my thoughts, of course.

[Letters]

Yeah, the thought of being alone in a very dark place with all manner of horrible things creeping around that want to kill me doesn't scare me either. :p

It'll be awesome if D3 pulls that off well.

[blahblahblah]

Elfurher

HL is not even remotely realistic but it still proved to be somewhat scary in certain parts. Hell, I cant even remotely relate to HL. To say that is the requirement of being scary is completely misssing the point of video games or horror in general.

You have my definition of fake confused also, when I say fake I mean how it looks. In specific, some of the bumpmapping on the monsters makes the monsters look like plastic. But to say fake will hurt the quality or the goal of the game is crazy. I've been playing games long enough to remember when monsters and grunts alike used to have square necks. Yet, when I played those games I was immersed to an incredible extent.

I'll guarrantee that Doom3 will scare the pants off you if you do three things. 1) Play it late at night (1:00 am does the trick for me). 2) Play with the lights off. 3) Use headphones (forget that fancy audio stuff, I'm old school).

[MultiVaC]

I never said HL is scary. It's not, and doesn't claim to be. I don't mean Operation Flashpoint realistic, just believeable. Things should make sense. And yes, I do think fake looking does hurt the game when the goal is to scare you. We have much higher standards now than we did in the days of square-necked enemies, so I don't think that applies. Every plastic looking enemy is a reminder that I can retreat back into my world with a single keystroke. Games with places and creatures that are realistic could haunt me even after I shut off my computer (FYI I haven't found a game that truely gets it right) because I can imagine them on the street at night without it feeling out of place. They can be hideous and not right, but shiny-looking skeleton with rocket launchers on its shoulders? No.

[blahblahblah]

I think my square necked analogy is still if not more valid. Take the most recent game I've played Call of Duty. A fantastic game but it still is not what I would call perfect or believable. However, my mind, when I get immersed in the game can take those innaccuries (whatever they may be) and toss them out the window. If you have never played a video game that does this, I pity you, as you have not experienced what PC gaming can do.

It sounds like you want a game that provides the same experience as the movies Seven or 8mm. If you expect that from a game, I suggest you change your expectations for games because that probably will never happen.

P.S.
Anyone who says Seven or 8mm and does not believe they qualify as disturbing yet realistic enough to imagine them in real life is probably lying. Oh yeah, watching the T.V. versions (on USA network) of Seven and 8mm dont count.

[Bastion]

STALKER all the way the grafx & night/day/rain/thunder is so damn cool its gonna be the dark horse that kills all games. I was really excited about HL2 but after all the drama and lies and the fact that STALKERS grafx/game feel/sounds/physics= just mind blowing. I think im going to get my money back from my 2 pre-ordered copys of HL2.I think once ppl see the depth of stalker , it just seems never ending.

PS: Gabe good luck :thumbs:

[Wolf]

D3 is technically impressive but from what I've seen of its art direction and cliche premise I really fail to see what is so visually impressive about it. I'm just not buying people saying "But *OMG* dude!! it's got a unified renderer" as a come back to 'It looks pretty uninspired'. Aesthetics are subjective and I know I personally fail to be inspired by fairly low poly claymation creatures covered in overly glossy bump-maps designed to off-set the grey-scale that comes from all the hard-shadows...

Don't get me wrong, I'm sure it will be a fun on-rails weekend shooter with plenty of hairy moments...

[daveodeth]

is it me or does the water in the HL2 docks video look really inviting, it's just so clear.

[Caminante]

Doom 3, obviously. It's another one of John Carmacks engines, and he's been on top of the field from the beginning. He's done so much with dynamic lighting, and all the Doom 3 pics look unbelievably realistic.

Half-Life 2 may have better gameplay, interaction and physics, but for graphics only I'd take Doom any day.

Who is to say that Doom3's game core won't include a good physics engine and so forth? Anyways, my pic is STALKER, that game is looking better then D3 and HL2 put toguether.

[MrD]

Why is EverQuest2 not in this list??

Eh?

[Fiddle]

Because everquest 2's entire world looks like it's been painted on and locked in a state of suspended animation. I've never seen such a static looking piece of crap. That game looks terrible lol.

...*votes for Doom III*

[Zoorado]

Graphical supremacy is easy to judge in technical terms, but much harder to do so when comparing pure aesthetics. Technically, DOOM 3 should be unparalleled. It is going to be the pioneer for a whole new generation of game engines (with full per-pixel processing + unified dynamic lighting across all surfaces). When Carmack invented lightmaps during the end of Quake's development, little did he know that this new (in 1996) piece of tech is about to be prominently used in games of the next 8 years. I expect DOOM 3 to have (close to) the kind of technological impact Quake had during its days.

But if you are comparing the artistic qualities of the games' graphics, then it all boils down to a matter of taste. So far, I like the artwork of both DOOM 3 and Half-life 2 equally. STALKER has sub-standard character models, and Far Cry is just too colourful for me.

[MrD]

Yeah, I concede, the graphics in EQ2 are not as good as HL2 or D3. But way to start talking utter crap btw! I am glad you are so informed ...

Yeah the graphics are cartoony looking. Completely deliberately i might add, and it certainly is no bad thing. It *is* a fantasy game afterall! How you can call a world "static" when you've only seen screenshots, well that really makes me laugh.

The game, by no stretch of the imagination, looks "terrible". Maybe you were exagerating a bit, or just generally being childish. Or maybe its time you got your eyes tested? "lol"

[FoB_Ed]

I voted for S.T.A.L.K.E.R, the graphics look more realistic. They have that gritty feel that Far Cry and Doom 3 seem to lack., and everything doesn't look plasticy and shiny


Stalker: http://www.gamespot.com/pc/action/stalkeroblivionlost/screens.html?page=120

Doom 3: http://www.gamespot.com/pc/action/doom3/screens.html?page=75

HL2: Don't need to show you guys, you know what HL2 looks like

Far Cry: http://www.gamespot.com/pc/action/farcry/screens.html?page=219



Doom 3 and Far Cry both have excellent graphics, but they don't capture that realistic feel that HL2 and Stalker do.

[X-Vector]

Killer 7 (http://www.gamespot.com/gamecube/action/killer7/screenindex.html), no contest.

As for the runners-up, I concur with Wolf (on the DooM III bit) and Zoorado (on the rest) with the addition that I'm really, really attracted by HL2's visual style.
I think it's a great mix between the familiar and the excitingly new.

[Letters]

Really the only thing to completely 'wow' me in terms of graphics so far has been the Half-Life 2 docks video.

But I've only seen the D3 trailers, and nothing else of that...

It's really hard to tell a game's graphics by still screenshots.

[crabcakes66]

to me doom3's gfx are not that great, i dont know why people like them, i think its more of a fanboy jump on the wagon kind of thing, like HL2 was....realistic my ass....... Hl2 looks pretty good, awsome character models.


but overall i have to say stalker...the enviroments look incredible.

I voted for S.T.A.L.K.E.R, the graphics look more realistic. They have that gritty feel that Far Cry and Doom 3 seem to lack., and everything doesn't look plasticy and shiny


Stalker: http://www.gamespot.com/pc/action/stalkeroblivionlost/screens.html?page=120

Doom 3: http://www.gamespot.com/pc/action/doom3/screens.html?page=75

HL2: Don't need to show you guys, you know what HL2 looks like

Far Cry: http://www.gamespot.com/pc/action/farcry/screens.html?page=219



Doom 3 and Far Cry both have excellent graphics, but they don't capture that realistic feel that HL2 and Stalker do.

just look at those screenshots......its pretty easy to tell what game looks more "realistic"

the stalker screenie looks almost like a real picture FFS.

[[daniom]]

I think it's a great mix between the familiar and the excitingly new.

Good words there! i think that is the reason why all of those in this poll who has chosen HL2. Anyway i chosen Half-Life 2 of course, no doubt about it. :cheese:

[nc17]

Pole is closed now but i would vote for doom3, doom3 is the most visually pleasing but hl2 has the most dynamic gfx

Farcry is a close 3rd and stalker looks pretty good but it looks like the ut2003 engine with dx9 effects so its no even on the radar right now

[vann7]

my vote goes to Doom3.. :)

dont miss CWG D3 screenshots...

http://www.computergaming.com/slideshow2/0,4617,a=108300,00.asp

[DrEvil]

The stalker engine is unbelievable. definetely superior to what i have seen so far of the other games.

[[daniom]]

The stalker engine is unbelievable. definetely superior to what i have seen so far of the other games.

I really really like the sky graphics in S.T.A.L.K.E.R!! but is there any physics in this game?

[FoB_Ed]

realistic my ass....... Hl2 looks pretty good, awsome character models.


I meant it seems more realistic than, say, doom 3, because it holds a more gritty feel that is more like RL. In doom 3 everything's made of shiny metal that looks like plastic. I didn't mean that the graphics were incredibly real looking, just that they were more, um, believable

[Murray_H]

HL2 for me, it still wows me when i watch it.

Stalker looks a little too faded for me and the foliage annoys me.

Doom 3 looks like plastic and like Brian said, the models are blocky and the textures just seem odd -like they have been stretched or something. Its hard to explain, just that something looks odd.

And Far Cry - it just seems too unreal for me, the other 3 titles seem to have made a jump into the semi-real, semi-game, but Far Cry seems to defiantely have a place in the game world. The textures are too clean i think.

[GRIMEY]

If you ask this question on a doom3 forum, doom3 would get the most votes. The same thing would probably happen on a stalker/far cry/other forum.

IMO nothing can compare to Doom3's visuals. ID have done it again.

[Kadayi]

']I really really like the sky graphics in S.T.A.L.K.E.R!! but is there any physics in this game?

Yes it uses an intergrated physics engine. One of the bigger trailers demonstrates the physics, try Fileplanet or some such site to obtain it, it's worth a view.

[OCybrManO]

Doom 3 just takes what every other modern engine can do a tiny step further... instead of having normal maps only where they are needed and only using dynamic shadows when needed they just make everything done the same way all the time. It may look neat but it's just as much of a gimmick as people say the physics are in HL2... and it's quite a resource hog. I'm not saying the Doom 3 engine doesn't serve its purpose, because it does so in spades. It just isn't as versatile as the other engines (specifically, the Source engine). If you want a horror mod with the best mood lighting possible at the expense of detail in other areas you should indeed use Doom 3. For everything else I would recommend modding HL2... because it is just the most well-rounded of all the games/engines that should be released in the next few months.

[GRIMEY]

"It just isn't as versatile as the other engines"

Rubbish.

"I would recommend modding HL2... because it is just the most well-rounded of all the games/engines that should be released in the next few months."

Because you've got the final copy of HL2, Doom3, FarCry and a few other games not currently released, right?

[Caminante]

Man, are this boards so full of people who won't pay attention to detail?! This people saying that, "Doom3 looks as though, it was build of plastic and clay", obvioulsy don't have a clue of what they are saying nor have any artistic talent -not like there is anything wrong with it however.

Apparently, all this HL2's fanboys had never seen a kick ass engine such as D3s, so they bash on it, because they are not use to see dynamic lighting and shadowing in games.

HL2 is going to be just great, the engine isn't all that from what i've seen thus far. Character are low polygon, the texture sux and the level's geometry levels are too simplistic as compare to STALKERs. The only thing that has impressed me so far from HL2 is the water effects, that is about it. The game inherrited the annoying edginess from the previous engine.


Although i will buy all the games mentioned, HL2, D3, FarCry and Stalker, the later is clearly the winner over here -no need to get into detail- and period, just watch the trailers and you will get a clear picture of how the final product will look like.

[Dougy]

i hate to burst the "doom 3 is plastic" whores bubbles but in motion they dont look like plastic.

[crabcakes66]

please dont tell me what i see.

doom3's overall artwork and general design are not that impressive.....

Running down corridor after corridor popping plastic demons is not my idea of a good looking game.


this thread is not about what game has quasimatic 2000 lighting and shadows.... Its about what game LOOKS the best.

[blahblahblah]

doom3's overall artwork and general design are not that impressive.....
How is it not impressive. Sounds more like a bias then an observation.

Running down corridor after corridor popping plastic demons is not my idea of a good looking game.
Substitute plastic demons with generic aliens and military and you get Half-Life and Half-Life2.

this thread is not about what game has quasimatic 2000 lighting and shadows.... Its about what game LOOKS the best.
Lighting and shadows play a huge part in determining how a game looks. Go find a game that allows you to choose between software and hardware rendering. Notice a difference? I bet you do. The more advanced the lighting and shadowing that are used in the game the better the game will look.

[Kadayi]

i hate to burst the "doom 3 is plastic" whores bubbles but in motion they dont look like plastic.

But they do look grey, pretty much every creature in the D³ videos was grey or a similar tone. Great skins, but no colour going on at all.

[Murray_H]

The marine's face in D3 is quite plasticy, compare the texture on that with the texture on the g-man's face for example

[crabcakes66]

How is it not impressive. Sounds more like a bias then an observation.

mabey your confusing that with an opinion.


Substitute plastic demons with generic aliens and military and you get Half-Life and Half-Life2.


wait....is that the call of a "biased" doom3 fanboy? talk about being a hypocrite.....





Lighting and shadows play a huge part in determining how a game looks. Go find a game that allows you to choose between software and hardware rendering. Notice a difference? I bet you do. The more advanced the lighting and shadowing that are used in the game the better the game will look.


....this is a load of crap.....technologies/effects mean nothing if you dont use them properly.

Doom3 is a showcase, not a game.

[Dougy]

But they do look grey, pretty much every creature in the D³ videos was grey or a similar tone. Great skins, but no colour going on at all.


who cares is they look grey?

grey doesnt mean plastic.

saying they look plasticy is just the sign of a fanboy who cant take HL2 being blown away in the GFX department.


im not a D3 fan, i have no plans to buy it and i dont even know when its supposed to be released, im just saying that D3 looks way better than Hl2

[crabcakes66]

who cares is they look grey?

grey doesnt mean plastic.

saying they look plasticy is just the sign of a fanboy who cant take HL2 being blown away in the GFX department.


im not a D3 fan, i have no plans to buy it and i dont even know when its supposed to be released, im just saying that D3 looks way better than Hl2


Knight/dougy..... you have always hated HL2.....you have never said anything good about it.....why are you even a member of these forums if HL2 sucks so badly?


Calling someone a fanboy and then saying they cant take your opinion that a differant game looks better, doesnt help your case much.

you can say say your not a D3 fanboy all you want...but you still act like one.

[marksmanHL2 :)]

I choose HL2. Because I am a fanboi. j/k

I choose it because it seems to be the best engine for gfx with multiplayer and flexibility generally speaking. Plus I will be able to map for it. Which is nice.
AND valve said they could update the engine with new stuff if they wanted through steam.


And another opinion/comment. Won't it be funny when all games look the same. i.e totally realistic with nothing visual to make it look like a game. :D
No more of these threads for a start! :P

[MultiVaC]

Holy fricken SHIT. Can you guys grasp the concept of an opinion? If people say that the appearance of Doom3 looks artificial and uninspired, that's personal preference. You guys are just being ridiculous, crying "fanboy, fanboy". I guess it's wrong to show a preference to HL2's artistic direction on an HL2 FORUM. Read some of the previous posts, they're filled with "IMO", "I think", "My idea". Oh, and one more thing. My vote went to Stalker. Maybe you shouldn't be so judgemental.

[OCybrManO]

HL2 is going to be just great, the engine isn't all that from what i've seen thus far. Character are low polygon, the texture sux and the level's geometry levels are too simplistic as compare to STALKERs. The only thing that has impressed me so far from HL2 is the water effects, that is about it. The game inherrited the annoying edginess from the previous engine.
Someone doesn't know his facts. You call the characters low-poly in HL2? What are Doom3 characters? Ultra-low-poly? Just look at the profiles of the characters. Almost every detail on the Doom3 characters is normal mapped on. The textures in Doom3 are also quite a bit less detailed because each model has to have 3 or 4 layers and normal maps can not be compressed very well... this is partially what gives it the "plastic" look that many people say it has (the other part is them over emphasizing the lighting).

Doom 3's lighting is made for dark survival horror games with lots of tight corridors and almost entirely indoor levels... a genre in which HL2 does not reside. Why would Valve waste all those CPU/GPU resources on something their game doesn't even need? They designed their game to look great and (almost more importantly) be very well-rounded (good in many aspects instead of just one) without the requirements being off the charts. I think they did a good job from what I've seen so far.

If all you want is a survival horror game with survival horror mods (or whatever else requires that much dynamic lighting) then Doom3 is a great choice. If you want a highly varied experience Doom3 would probably be the last choice... whereas HL2 will (and, really, already does) have a huge and varied mod scene in addition to HL2 itself. I'm not sure what kind of mods STALKER and Far Cry will have... but if their engines work the way I'm almost positive they do (or at least Far Cry) then there will be more restrictions on their modding capabilities than those of HL2. Speaking of STALKER...

Personally, I think STALKER's environments look great, but I honestly don't see how they are so much better than HL2. Same with the player models. It looks great... but beyond that it's hard to judge.

Also, considering that the videos we have seen of HL2 had lots of placeholders and we were told that they don't even include DX9 effects (except for the HDR video) I don't see how people can say that it will look horrible.

Doom 3 looks great. Far Cry looks great. STALKER looks great. HL2 (or what we've seen of it) looks great. I don't know... HL2 just happens to look the best overall, in my opinion. I just like the way that it all fits together. There's something to be said about the feel of the movement and netcode, as well... both of which I would assume are at least as good in HL2 as they were in HL (I think this was a big factor in HL's, and its mods', survival). As for the other games... I have no idea how they will perform in those aspects. We can only hope for the best.

[Caminante]

Someone doesn't know his facts. You call the characters low-poly in HL2? What are Doom3 characters? Ultra-low-poly? Just look at the profiles of the characters. Almost every detail on the Doom3 characters is normal mapped on. The textures in Doom3 are also quite a bit less detailed because each model has to have 3 or 4 layers and normal maps can not be compressed very well... this is partially what gives it the "plastic" look that many people say it has (the other part is them over emphasizing the lighting).

Doom 3's lighting is made for dark survival horror games with lots of tight corridors and almost entirely indoor levels... a genre in which HL2 does not reside. Why would Valve waste all those CPU/GPU resources on something their game doesn't even need? They designed their game to look great and (almost more importantly) be very well-rounded (good in many aspects instead of just one) without the requirements being off the charts. I think they did a good job from what I've seen so far.

If all you want is a survival horror game with survival horror mods (or whatever else requires that much dynamic lighting) then Doom3 is a great choice. If you want a highly varied experience Doom3 would probably be the last choice... whereas HL2 will (and, really, already does) have a huge and varied mod scene in addition to HL2 itself. I'm not sure what kind of mods STALKER and Far Cry will have... but if their engines work the way I'm almost positive they do (or at least Far Cry) then there will be more restrictions on their modding capabilities than those of HL2. Speaking of STALKER...

Personally, I think STALKER's environments look great, but I honestly don't see how they are so much better than HL2. Same with the player models. It looks great... but beyond that it's hard to judge.

Also, considering that the videos we have seen of HL2 had lots of placeholders and we were told that they don't even include DX9 effects (except for the HDR video) I don't see how people can say that it will look horrible.

Doom 3 looks great. Far Cry looks great. STALKER looks great. HL2 (or what we've seen of it) looks great. I don't know... HL2 just happens to look the best overall, in my opinion. I just like the way that it all fits together. There's something to be said about the feel of the movement and netcode, as well... both of which I would assume are at least as good in HL2 as they were in HL (I think this was a big factor in HL's, and its mods', survival). As for the other games... I have no idea how they will perform in those aspects. We can only hope for the best.


True, i don't know my facts and your are obviosly bias. Lets not get into technical detail over here. Nonetheless, and with all due respect Sir. you most be blind to state that D3's character are ultra low poly - i'll recomend you a good thick pair of glasses for those blindly eyez of yours. Your explanation about texturing layering and so forth contradict the obvious.

All D3's character look better then any HL2, they may be "normal mapped" but the way the light interacts with the surfaces, it makes appear fully bump-mapped, something that HL2 does not.

This is regarding the bias STALKER vrs HL2 outdooor enviroment comparation. Although, i would love to wait untill you get a good pair of glasses, unfortunately, i am not able to wait a couple of weeks. HL2's outdoor maps are plain and simple, whereas, STALKER are more detailed and polished with ten times the geometry level- not need to get into further detail and for computer's sake look at some of the STALKER media!

[OCybrManO]

* Doom 3's characters easily have lower polycounts than HL2, STALKER, or Far Cry characters... if you don't know what a polygon is, look it up.
* Normal mapping is a more advanced version of bump mapping. Both HL2 and Doom3 can do normal mapping.
* The more texture layers that have to be rendered the slower it will render.
* If textures can't be compressed you can't use as many of them or they will have to be smaller.
* The smaller the textures are the less detail they can show, making the textures look fuzzy/blocky/smooth.
How does that contradict the fact that Doom3 models have lower polycounts because they couldn't afford to use high-poly models and high-res normal maps at the same time? Even as it is you still need a beast of a computer for it to look as good as in the screenshots.

If anything the detail difference between HL2 and STALKER outdoor levels might be something like 1.2x. The only thing I see a lot more of in STALKER are little 4 poly bushes and plants all over the ground. None of the other geometry looks amazing. Though, in your defense, the HL2 textures do get fuzzy in the distance (anisotropic filtering was probably off) in most of the screenshots. I'm not saying STALKER looks worse than HL2 in outdoor environments, but the difference isn't as big as you are making it out to be. I said HL2 was probably more versatile/well-rounded... not the absolute best at everything.

[NSPIRE]

DOOM III imo. Pretty much a toss-up between that and HL2, though... damned close.

[Quixote]

How do you guys even know how versitile it is or isn't neither game is out yet. Either, both, or neither engine could be complete crap or absolute goodness. Right now all we have is hype and frankly how easy and versitile can an engine be when the games have been long delayed?

Bah, I say. Bah!!!

Edit: and far cry is using technology to that makes very low poly count models look like they are high poly count. I wouldn't be surprized if they end up having the lowest of the group.

[OCybrManO]

There is only one way to make things looks like they are a higher polycount than they really are... normal/bump mapping. Doom3 has much better use of this technology.

The versatility of the engine is the range of different types of mods that are capable of being made using the engine... not how long it takes to make content for the games. That would be ease of use. Valve is known to have great support for the mod community and HL2 is supposed to be even better for modding than HL was... which will be awesome if it is true.

Doom 3's unified lighting architecture would not be suited to huge, highly detailed outdoor environments as seen in STALKER.
Far Cry and STALKER are both primarily made to do outdoor scenes... games like that usually have trouble with other environments (This definately looks like the case for Far Cry from the screenshots and video I have seen of indoor areas. Though, I'm not sure about STALKER as I haven't actually seen any indoor areas other than one the size of a barn... but I hear it's also supposed to do indoor areas well).
HL2's Source is a brush-based engine (great for indoor maps) with displacement maps (generated by Hammer) used to make flat brushes into curved terrain. It's not the best way to make terrain but it allows more flexibility than traditional methods.

The X-Ray engine (STALKER) looks impressive... I just hope there are a lot of cool mods for it. I would hate for something like that to go to waste. I'm definately going to buy HL2, Doom3, and S.T.A.L.K.E.R. but I'm not sure about Far Cry (I'll probably end up getting it, unless I'm strapped for cash).

[Ownzed]

aaaah whatever! I think they all have good graphics:) But i myself think HL2 has the best:)

[Asus]

Game Graphics IMO
#1 HL2
HL2 I think has it best overall for graphics. HL2's environment is graphicly pleasing and beleavable. Wood looks like wood and stone looks like stone. With the addition of HDR, lighting is much improved + soft shadows (I am bias toward soft vs hard shadows, sry). I like the detail of all the models (especially the NPC's faces) and the general overall appeal of textures. I think it is the most "realistic" looking between the games even though the tech specs on how it works isnt as realistic (e.i. multipule realtime lighting in D3).
I perfer it's general environment and NIC graphics as well as the debris and weapons. It has a good solid realistic 3d skybox along with good graphics for weather.

#2 Doom3
I like the general idea behind Doom3's bump mapping and not using textures but rather having the model portray the detail. Parts of it look great and other parts look like, well, plastic or clay.
I think the realtime lighting by multiple sources really helps with the graphic appeal although I also think it takes away from it in a way as well and might be why parts look like "clay". The graphics in the environment really are only improved in only one way, lighting. The models do look good with the bump mapping though but it just does not come accross quite as realistic as HL2. I don't see myself being able to reach out and touch it, believably...unless you consider it clay, then it is very believable. jk!

#3 Stalker
I love stalkers environment graphics for the most part. Trees and plants look very good and are probably the most realistic. Because it is mostly outdoors that is important for Stalker. It also has a good quality 3D skybox and weather. The buildings are good but not as good IMO to HL2 (just because something looks ravaged and has detail to show that doesn't mean it looks better than something that is not ravaged). I think the guns need improvement and I tend not to care for the cartoonish (textures are fine but the shape can be exaggerated) look on some of the faces or models. While it has great environments and equal lighting to HL2 (except maybe HDR), I don't care for the models, guns or the style of the models. But the environment is really great and is what could pull it above 3rd if my opinion changes.

#4 FarCry (Tied)
I love how it adds so much viewable distance and does not take away from the number of plants or detail. Although I don't think the detail of the textures themselves have been really improved from previous games, the amount has. The game looks otherwise average for graphics.

#4 Pacific Assault (Tied)
Other than the viewable distance, facial features the differences between Farcry and PA are not as easy to spot. They both look about the same quality as far as graphics go but then again there as not been as much released on both of these games.

[blahblahblah]

Asus, you're right about one thing, soft shadows look so much better than hard shadows.

[Shuzer]

Asus, you're right about one thing, soft shadows look so much better than hard shadows.

Agreed.

And I agree with most of what Asus said. I don't agree FarCry looks average for graphics, though. FarCry is still my #1 most anticipated game (probably because it's got the best chance of being out first..), followed by HL2, STALKER then Doom 3.

[Asus]

I probably havnt seen enough of Far Cry to give it my fair opinion. Some SS and some videos. Even though almost none of this is fair since the games are not released yet.
Although the HDR HL2 video is key.

[Shuzer]

Although the HDR HL2 video is key.

yep.. all the other bink videos look crappy compared to it :)

[Styloid]

I voted HL2 but now that I think about it, I definitely had a bias. I realized that some people consider nothing but what they've seen (which is actually good) but I was mixing up my ideas into what I see. For example, when I look at the ant lions in bugbait, I kind of relate them to the guard seen in the HDR vid. Likewise I don't really see many of textures in the vid to be 'final products', though they may be. I've also been wondering about what the shaders in source will really accomplish- valve have said things like motion blur, depth of field, HDR, better shadowing techniques, tone mapping,etc.. but how much of these have we actually seen? not much. Yet, how much do these things affect my judgement? I think quite a bit.
Anyways, I think that people will just have tastes as to what they consider better graphics (though sometimes they can't explain it so well) and you can't expect to change that opinion by telling them they're wrong.... maybe some form of brainwashing would work...

[Caminante]

There is only one way to make things looks like they are a higher polycount than they really are... normal/bump mapping. Doom3 has much better use of this technology.

The versatility of the engine is the range of different types of mods that are capable of being made using the engine... not how long it takes to make content for the games. That would be ease of use. Valve is known to have great support for the mod community and HL2 is supposed to be even better for modding than HL was... which will be awesome if it is true.

Doom 3's unified lighting architecture would not be suited to huge, highly detailed outdoor environments as seen in STALKER.
Far Cry and STALKER are both primarily made to do outdoor scenes... games like that usually have trouble with other environments (This definately looks like the case for Far Cry from the screenshots and video I have seen of indoor areas. Though, I'm not sure about STALKER as I haven't actually seen any indoor areas other than one the size of a barn... but I hear it's also supposed to do indoor areas well).
HL2's Source is a brush-based engine (great for indoor maps) with displacement maps (generated by Hammer) used to make flat brushes into curved terrain. It's not the best way to make terrain but it allows more flexibility than traditional methods.

The X-Ray engine (STALKER) looks impressive... I just hope there are a lot of cool mods for it. I would hate for something like that to go to waste. I'm definately going to buy HL2, Doom3, and S.T.A.L.K.E.R. but I'm not sure about Far Cry (I'll probably end up getting it, unless I'm strapped for cash).

Now you are talking out of your own mule. :) Actually, both Far Cry and STALKER are caple of handlying either indoor and outdoors enviroments alike with out any problems at all. You are talking as though, you've played all this game before. You are such of HL2 fanboy that, haven't even taken the time to check all the other games media and can't seem to stop from making bias statements.

[cadaver]

Doom3 may have good tech, but they just did a pretty crap job in the artwork section if you ask me. The Doom3 world looks like it's been constructed out of 3 elements: Rubber, clay, and plastic. It looks all soft and fake, like action figures in a toy playset. They soft edges contrast the ugly sharp shadows and doesn't look real at all. A lot of the monsters don't scare me at all. I'm sorry, but I think they just look... well... stupid.


what about the spitting "crocodile" monster in hl2... that is a stupid looking creature. hope valve removes that one.

I go for D3

[SubKamran]

The graphics for Doom3 are amazing but I vote HL2 since the environments look way too convincing.

[Sprafa]

PA wins all the way in its liquid simulation system and facial animations from all other candidates.
And it I'm not sure if the whole aging tech are just other NPc models or generated. If it is real-time generated it should be great.
However its lightning looks too artificial (sort of like Far Cry) and most NPC animations seem to have too few frames.

Doom 3 engine seems to have awsome bump-mapping tech and lighting but the the closed, small env. killed it for me.

Source wins overall with HDR, great facial animations, and if you see Vampires-the masquerade: Bloodlines, it seems to have great adaptability.

[daveodeth]

what is the HL2 HDR?

[Sprafa]

what is the HL2 HDR?


High-Dynamic range Rendering.
The final vid to come out was x-clusivily made to show that

[Asus]

Yeah, if you download any HL2 Video...make sure you include this one.
Link (http://www.fileplanet.com/files/130000/130227.shtml)
The other bink videos do not fully show how the end graphics will be.

[maximus0402]

Deus Ex: Invisible war

[marksmanHL2 :)]

I hope thats a joke......

[Koldfire]

S.T.A.L.K.E.R for graphics and enviornment/atmosphere.

Hl2 has long since been outdated in the graphics department. should have came out in december like it was supposed to.


Even Painkiller looks betetr than hl2 and has better physics.

[maximus0402]

None of these games are out......screenshots and video give you a crappy presentation of a product. As far as I'm concerned Half-life 2 wins. it would win if they had everything they promised it to be and still used the halflife1 engine. Story, gameplay, and flat out IMMERSION is the key to the best game. Graphics is part of the immersion factor, but only part of it. If people say doom3 looks better...who cares....to me carmack and crew have always been focused on multiplayer and done crappy on story everytime. look at quake 1 ...all technology crappy game. doom ...weak story, but basically mindless killing...there has not been 1 single game carmike has done where the story was awesome....I can have a game completly top of the line graphics...complete photorealistic can't even tell I am in a game or looking out the window...if it doesnt have a good story or gameplay...it sucks and is incredibly boring...ok anyways let me get off my tangent and say...yes DEUS EX Invisible war is so far the best.....you know why???? graphics use the latest direct x9 features and its actually out in stores(not in beta version or whatever) and the story is incredible just like the first one.

[PvtRyan]

S.T.A.L.K.E.R for graphics and enviornment/atmosphere.

Hl2 has long since been outdated in the graphics department. should have came out in december like it was supposed to.


Even Painkiller looks betetr than hl2 and has better physics.

First of all, Painkiller (in the current state of developement, the leak is 2 weeks old) does NOT look better than HL2, it looks great, but that's mostly because of the high res textures. The physics are Havok 2.0, while HL2 uses a heavily modified version of it. So the physics are certainly not better than HL2's. And it's wrong to judge an alpha, I know, but the physics were kind of buggy (and it's supposed to come out in March) It still kicks ass though, greatest actionscenes since Serious Sam :D

[OCybrManO]

I have seen plenty of indoor screenshots of Far Cry and they don't look good. I have seen at most two indoor screenshots of STALKER even after hours of looking for STALKER media... both of which were very good (that and the fact that the developers said they designed it to do both indoor and outdoor scenes well is why I said "but I hear it's also supposed to do indoor areas well").

HL2 is "outdated"? Hehe... funny. It might not have the most amazing graphics of all video games... but it's far from outdated. I have no doubts that HL2 will be an incredible value in the long run... as much or even more than Half-Life. Half-Life, although it looked pretty good, was "outdated" (as you people seem to say if a couple of games look a bit better in certain areas) when it was released... that being said, it's still in use more than five years later.

How do we know that they aren't using this time to make some things look better? I mean, they aren't showing us anything new at all... and they haven't for months. I don't know... maybe it's just wishful thinking.

[Styloid]

I think one of the best judges of computer game graphics is to let someone who has never played a computer game, never heard of CGI and never watched Matrix, LOTR, etc. Watch or play the game and let them decide. They won't be biased by hearing stuff like "normal mapping" or "shaders" or "real-time lighting" etc.. They would just decide by their sight. So far I've only seen one instance of this and it went the way of HL2 but one person doesn't really mean anything. You'd have to take a survey of many, many people... and then they might just choose World of Warcraft...

[Flyingdebris]

None of these games are out......screenshots and video give you a crappy presentation of a product. As far as I'm concerned Half-life 2 wins. it would win if they had everything they promised it to be and still used the halflife1 engine. Story, gameplay, and flat out IMMERSION is the key to the best game. Graphics is part of the immersion factor, but only part of it. If people say doom3 looks better...who cares....to me carmack and crew have always been focused on multiplayer and done crappy on story everytime. look at quake 1 ...all technology crappy game. doom ...weak story, but basically mindless killing...there has not been 1 single game carmike has done where the story was awesome....I can have a game completly top of the line graphics...complete photorealistic can't even tell I am in a game or looking out the window...if it doesnt have a good story or gameplay...it sucks and is incredibly boring...ok anyways let me get off my tangent and say...yes DEUS EX Invisible war is so far the best.....you know why???? graphics use the latest direct x9 features and its actually out in stores(not in beta version or whatever) and the story is incredible just like the first one.

i think you missed the point, like many other here. The point is not which is the better game (i see this has turned into another x versus y debate) This thread was supposed to discuss which looked better. Gameplay is not the issue at hand at the current moment in time.

Me, i'm an even split between doom 3 and halflife 2. Doom 3 happens to work primarily with shadows and claustrophobic atmosphere while hl2 works primarily with light and and not so confined spaces (usually) I like em both really. BTW i personally don't notice that plasticness everyone talks about, as long as it looks good to me, thats all i care about.

Stalker looks fairly interesting. Their player models look pretty good. They didn't really blow my mind or anything, however the weapon models were some of the most detailed i've ever seen, and large expanisive rural/urban areas do give halflife 2 a run for its money. I hear it also has day and night cycles which are really quite a nice touch.

Farcry, i'm not sure what to think. Honestly, i think its a really awesome engine being able to represent tropical areas in a believable way. The only thing i don't like is that the enemy soldiers look. Their arms look weird, when their biceps show they look like double stack icecream scoops, aka not natural. the ones with sleeves cave some strange edge. The pictures of the blue goggle wearing guys looks pretty cool though. my only other bone to pick is that all this time i was under the impression that the game was all about some guy versus some people. Now their new screenshots feature monsters. I get the feeling that they were tacked on

[Caminante]

S.T.A.L.K.E.R for graphics and enviornment/atmosphere.

Hl2 has long since been outdated in the graphics department. should have came out in december like it was supposed to.


Even Painkiller looks betetr than hl2 and has better physics.

I'm glad you mentioned Painkiller. It's actually looking pretty good. Valve will be facing some tough competition when it finally release HL2 in 2005 from a lesser practically unheard of company. Anywho, i'll buy HL2 either way, but it won't definally be all "that" as people are depicting it will be like.

[Caminante]

I have seen plenty of indoor screenshots of Far Cry and they don't look good. I have seen at most two indoor screenshots of STALKER even after hours of looking for STALKER media... both of which were very good (that and the fact that the developers said they designed it to do both indoor and outdoor scenes well is why I said "but I hear it's also supposed to do indoor areas well").

HL2 is "outdated"? Hehe... funny. It might not have the most amazing graphics of all video games... but it's far from outdated. I have no doubts that HL2 will be an incredible value in the long run... as much or even more than Half-Life. Half-Life, although it looked pretty good, was "outdated" (as you people seem to say if a couple of games look a bit better in certain areas) when it was released... that being said, it's still in use more than five years later.

How do we know that they aren't using this time to make some things look better? I mean, they aren't showing us anything new at all... and they haven't for months. I don't know... maybe it's just wishful thinking.

I'm trully glad you finally decided to watch some of the STALKER media - i hope you watched all the trailers. However, as usual you did not finish your homework, FarCry's indoors enviroments actually look pretty good, the contain a mixture of static and dynamic shadowing and lighting, that almost rivals Doom3, and haven't seen so far in any of HL2 media either being on Blink or .jph format.

[PvtRyan]

I'm trully glad you finally decided to watch some of the STALKER media - i hope you watched all the trailers. However, as usual you did not finish your homework, FarCry's indoors enviroments actually look pretty good, the contain a mixture of static and dynamic shadowing and lighting, that almost rivals Doom3, and haven't seen so far in any of HL2 media either being on Blink or .jph format.

The HL2 indoor scenes look better imho, due to the fact that HL2 uses indirect illumination which it bakes on the lightmaps, Doom 3 nor Far Cry have this because they render the lighting in realtime and indirect illumination is too heavy to do RT.
The lighting in Doom 3 and Far Cry is harsh, very hard and dark shadows. HL2 doesn't have this, but looks nice and smooth, altough not dynamic.

[OCybrManO]

"However, as usual you did not finish your homework, FarCry's indoors enviroments actually look pretty good"
Does my homework include agreeing with you? If so, I'm not going to be finishing my homework any time soon. The indoor areas look simple and unoriginal.

[vann7]

ok Guys.. let me give you now my ideas about this..
First.. "best" is subjective.. and a thing about personal opinion..
FOr some people Quake3 looks "better" and for others Unreal Tournament..
its the same thing here.. when discussing about Halflife2 vs Doom3 graphics..
"which one looks better" it just a matter of tastes ... Britney spears or Cameron DIaz.. i like more the first one ,but other may like more the last one. :)

however ,still it is possible to say wich game looks more closer to the real life. both are far for realism ,but more closer than never, each one use a diferent aproach to make you believe you are looking at "realism".

Hl2 use to achieve realism..
1)very high quality Textures ,and Pixel shaders (for water and Fire ) and some fancy HDR effects.. because everthing in the lighting departments is mostly workaround or tricks here and there.

Doom3 use..
1)Advance lighting techniques to produce Dinamic Lighting in real time/ REal time Bumpmaps / Normal maps/Real time specular maps/Diffuse maps../realtime shadows. and as a bonus very detailed characters/weapons

all that is good to do something like this..
http://www.doomworld.com/php/screenie.php?dir=/pcgamer_dec2002/

which one looks better to you is a matter of taste. for some one game may look plastic and for others the other game may look like Toons ,wich game follow a more closer aproach to the real thing is a diferent story... and here i will like to quote someone ..

quote:
"Lighting is critical to making people think a game is real."
Andy Thompson, director of advanced technology marketing for ATI Technologies...

and he was right! this is not an opinion ,this is a well know Fact, if you work in the 3dindustry as a game developer/artist or just for fun :) . and i will go further than that. Lighting is the MOST! important ingredient to achieve realism. not one of the most ,but the MOST! ..no more ,no less.. take your digitalcamera and fire and shot in a dark room with very poor ligthing and even if it is a picture of the *real life *,it may not look realistic. ;)
Lighting makes All the diference.. and here is where Doom3 follow a -more closer aproach to realism - another step ,than any other game. with its unified realtime per-pixel lighting.

the future is per-pixel lighting engines.. or any other NEW thing where Lighting is first class citizen. you can do much more and more easily that any other engine that can't do that.. ask any game developer .. and they will tell you that this is simple the truth. Valve in the other hand their engine is mainly based on Lightmaps as their primary lighting technique. something that have been said carmack *invented* some years ago in quake1. :)

http://www.3dengines.net/feat/?f=4&page=8

however there have been many upgrades from static to dynamic lightmaps ,and more resolutions ,but still is something that idsofware dropped completly from their next game.even it is "baked" or "Raytraced" ,and other game developers will follow/,and thats including Valve ,just notice that from all those NExt generation games..
HL2/Doom3/Hl2/Farcry and Stalker only the first one doesnt support perpixel lighting.

realism can be achieved with ..
1)high quality lighting that interact with everything..
2)High resolution textures ..
3)high polygons counts and or good quality bummapping
4)specialeffects Ps2,0 .. "HDR"..Fire/water..

the number #1 is Critical , without lights ,colors doesnt exist. the best quality is the lighting and the more natural it behave ,the best quality will be your graphics. the less natural the light behave ,the less realism you will see in your graphics.

the biggest challenge to Valve to achieve more realism in Hl2 is an engine limitation,exactly their lack of a realtime unified per pixel engine -in their engine that can interact on the fly in real time-with everything.
the real way light behaves.. light interact with everything ,not just with pre-selected things.why because effects like Bumpmaps/Normalmaps/speculars.. need real time perpixel lighting to look natural and correct.. that why Hl2 E3 demos almost doesnt use Bumpmaps ,because in that game it only works at special situations.->with static shadow maps. that why most walls in Hl2 are too smooth (flat) , same with speculars with are static.."painted" there are no accurate reflections in Hl2 ,in Doom3 there is not a single surface and single character that is not with extra detail (bumpmapped). no single surface or character than doesnt cast a realtime specular light ,no other game do that. at all times.. very few like Stalker and FArcry do it sometimes. but at all times is the way it should be if you want to be closer to realism.

just look at your keyboard and notice the beautifull specular of the light shining at ..maybe at one corner.. if you move your keyboard to a diferent angle or a diferent part of the room the specular will be in another place.. not at the same place.. right? that is what happens in most games that use Lightmaps. ;)

the biggest challenge to Idsoftware to achieve realism in -> Doom3 [an indoors game] is mainly a hardware limitation ,your computer power .but this is something that will not be an issue in the future since every six months we will have more powerfull Cpus and video cards. to handle more detailed custom models and very high resolution textures wich Doom3 also support. BTW. it just means that Mod makers will be able to push more by a great margin the graphics in Doom3 than mod makers in Hl2. out of the box. but things are not that easy because its is well know that Hl2 support PS2.0.. (allow more fancy speciall efects ,,water..fire) and Doom3 engine not..? and also Valve developers upgrades their engine frequently ,so in the future you can be sure to see more cool stuff in that game.

quote:
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
For centuries, artists have tried to capture the effects of light to present an image just as the eye sees it; Monet meticulously painted every spot of sunlight on the London's Parliament building at different times of the day. Today's game developers struggle with the same thing. "It's about creating a suspension of disbelief, and the thing that lets you do that is lighting," says Andy Thompson, director of advanced technology marketing for ATI Technologies, the Ontario-based company that manufactures Radeon graphics cards. "Lighting is critical to making people think a game is real."

To induce that level of fear, Carmack knew he had to eliminate what he refers to as "the Hanna-Barbera effect." In Road Runner cartoons, he says, you can always tell which boulder is going to fall, because it's a slightly different hue than the static background. The light doesn't look right. Until now, lighting effects in games were dictated by graphics cards in a limiting way. Games couldn't render general-purpose dynamic shadows, Carmack says, so they used light maps, static dark patches essentially painted on a surface.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
read the full article here..

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.05/doom.html?pg=1&topic=&topic_set=

the "hanna barbera effect" is the Barbie face ,of characters or the painted look (like Toons) of everything.

every game have its shortcomming ,, its unfortunate that Doom3 doesnt have PS2.0 so will not have nice looking water or fire.. maybe there is no water in mars :) and that Hal life2 doesnt have perpixel lighting like Doom3..
maybe its because its not possible to have it all.. :)

[Caminante]

The HL2 indoor scenes look better imho, due to the fact that HL2 uses indirect illumination which it bakes on the lightmaps, Doom 3 nor Far Cry have this because they render the lighting in realtime and indirect illumination is too heavy to do RT.
The lighting in Doom 3 and Far Cry is harsh, very hard and dark shadows. HL2 doesn't have this, but looks nice and smooth, altough not dynamic.

Another fanboy :dork: Perhaps you'd need to take at this Far Cry (http://www.3dgamers.com/screenshots/games/farcry/13.html) and Doom3 (http://www.3dgamers.com/screenshots/games/doom3/3.html) and you'd displasantly surprice to find out that, this two gaming ingens are capable of renderring both "soft" and "hard" shadows. By the way, the reason why shadows appear to be too dark and hard on Doom3 is because, even in real life - just in case you haven't noticed it- when, a very bright light source iluminates a very dark room -such as the ones in D3- it usually makes to appear too dark the places which the light can't reach.


To be honest, when i found out that, HL2 won't be capable of such of thing, although the engine is pretty capable, i was very disapointed that Valve did not think of that. Kudos to both ID Software and Kritec engine for that. :D

[frances_farmer]

Hl2 use to achieve realism..
1)very high quality Textures ,and Pixel shaders (for water and Fire ) and some fancy HDR effects.. because everthing in the lighting departments is mostly workaround or tricks here and there.

Doom3 use..
1)Advance lighting techniques to produce Dinamic Lighting in real time/ REal time Bumpmaps / Normal maps/Real time specular maps/Diffuse maps../realtime shadows. and as a bonus very detailed characters/weapons

err you missed:

specular maps
bump maps
normal maps
diffuse maps

for Half-Life 2. oh half-life 2 also has water refraction ^_^

[Caminante]

ok Guys.. let me give you now my ideas about this..
First.. "best" is subjective.. and a thing about personal opinion..
FOr some people Quake3 looks "better" and for others Unreal Tournament..
its the same thing here.. when discussing about Halflife2 vs Doom3 graphics..
"which one looks better" it just a matter of tastes ... Britney spears or Cameron DIaz.. i like more the first one ,but other may like more the last one. :)

however ,still it is possible to say wich game looks more closer to the real life. both are far for realism ,but more closer than never, each one use a diferent aproach to make you believe you are looking at "realism".

Hl2 use to achieve realism..
1)very high quality Textures ,and Pixel shaders (for water and Fire ) and some fancy HDR effects.. because everthing in the lighting departments is mostly workaround or tricks here and there.

Doom3 use..
1)Advance lighting techniques to produce Dinamic Lighting in real time/ REal time Bumpmaps / Normal maps/Real time specular maps/Diffuse maps../realtime shadows. and as a bonus very detailed characters/weapons

all that is good to do something like this..
http://www.doomworld.com/php/screenie.php?dir=/pcgamer_dec2002/

which one looks better to you is a matter of taste. for some one game may look plastic and for others the other game may look like Toons ,wich game follow a more closer aproach to the real thing is a diferent story... and here i will like to quote someone ..

quote:
"Lighting is critical to making people think a game is real."
Andy Thompson, director of advanced technology marketing for ATI Technologies...

and he was right! this is not an opinion ,this is a well know Fact, if you work in the 3dindustry as a game developer/artist or just for fun :) . and i will go further than that. Lighting is the MOST! important ingredient to achieve realism. not one of the most ,but the MOST! ..no more ,no less.. take your digitalcamera and fire and shot in a dark room with very poor ligthing and even if it is a picture of the *real life *,it may not look realistic. ;)
Lighting makes All the diference.. and here is where Doom3 follow a -more closer aproach to realism - another step ,than any other game. with its unified realtime per-pixel lighting.

the future is per-pixel lighting engines.. or any other NEW thing where Lighting is first class citizen. you can do much more and more easily that any other engine that can't do that.. ask any game developer .. and they will tell you that this is simple the truth. Valve in the other hand their engine is mainly based on Lightmaps as their primary lighting technique. something that have been said carmack *invented* some years ago in quake1. :)

http://www.3dengines.net/feat/?f=4&page=8

however there have been many upgrades from static to dynamic lightmaps ,and more resolutions ,but still is something that idsofware dropped completly from their next game.even it is "baked" or "Raytraced" ,and other game developers will follow/,and thats including Valve ,just notice that from all those NExt generation games..
HL2/Doom3/Hl2/Farcry and Stalker only the first one doesnt support perpixel lighting.

realism can be achieved with ..
1)high quality lighting that interact with everything..
2)High resolution textures ..
3)high polygons counts and or good quality bummapping
4)specialeffects Ps2,0 .. "HDR"..Fire/water..

the number #1 is Critical , without lights ,colors doesnt exist. the best quality is the lighting and the more natural it behave ,the best quality will be your graphics. the less natural the light behave ,the less realism you will see in your graphics.

the biggest challenge to Valve to achieve more realism in Hl2 is an engine limitation,exactly their lack of a realtime unified per pixel engine -in their engine that can interact on the fly in real time-with everything.
the real way light behaves.. light interact with everything ,not just with pre-selected things.why because effects like Bumpmaps/Normalmaps/speculars.. need real time perpixel lighting to look natural and correct.. that why Hl2 E3 demos almost doesnt use Bumpmaps ,because in that game it only works at special situations.->with static shadow maps. that why most walls in Hl2 are too smooth (flat) , same with speculars with are static.."painted" there are no accurate reflections in Hl2 ,in Doom3 there is not a single surface and single character that is not with extra detail (bumpmapped). no single surface or character than doesnt cast a realtime specular light ,no other game do that. at all times.. very few like Stalker and FArcry do it sometimes. but at all times is the way it should be if you want to be closer to realism.

just look at your keyboard and notice the beautifull specular of the light shining at ..maybe at one corner.. if you move your keyboard to a diferent angle or a diferent part of the room the specular will be in another place.. not at the same place.. right? that is what happens in most games that use Lightmaps. ;)

the biggest challenge to Idsoftware to achieve realism in -> Doom3 [an indoors game] is mainly a hardware limitation ,your computer power .but this is something that will not be an issue in the future since every six months we will have more powerfull Cpus and video cards. to handle more detailed custom models and very high resolution textures wich Doom3 also support. BTW. it just means that Mod makers will be able to push more by a great margin the graphics in Doom3 than mod makers in Hl2. out of the box. but things are not that easy because its is well know that Hl2 support PS2.0.. (allow more fancy speciall efects ,,water..fire) and Doom3 engine not..? and also Valve developers upgrades their engine frequently ,so in the future you can be sure to see more cool stuff in that game.

quote:
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
For centuries, artists have tried to capture the effects of light to present an image just as the eye sees it; Monet meticulously painted every spot of sunlight on the London's Parliament building at different times of the day. Today's game developers struggle with the same thing. "It's about creating a suspension of disbelief, and the thing that lets you do that is lighting," says Andy Thompson, director of advanced technology marketing for ATI Technologies, the Ontario-based company that manufactures Radeon graphics cards. "Lighting is critical to making people think a game is real."

To induce that level of fear, Carmack knew he had to eliminate what he refers to as "the Hanna-Barbera effect." In Road Runner cartoons, he says, you can always tell which boulder is going to fall, because it's a slightly different hue than the static background. The light doesn't look right. Until now, lighting effects in games were dictated by graphics cards in a limiting way. Games couldn't render general-purpose dynamic shadows, Carmack says, so they used light maps, static dark patches essentially painted on a surface.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
read the full article here..

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.05/doom.html?pg=1&topic=&topic_set=

the "hanna barbera effect" is the Barbie face ,of characters or the painted look (like Toons) of everything.

every game have its shortcomming ,, its unfortunate that Doom3 doesnt have PS2.0 so will not have nice looking water or fire.. maybe there is no water in mars :) and that Hal life2 doesnt have perpixel lighting like Doom3..
maybe its because its not possible to have it all.. :)

Owesome reply and very detailed indeed, i most say. However, whether Doom3's engine will be able to render nice water and fire effects has yet to be seen - which i'm most certain, it definably will- in more detail. There seems to be fire on some of the media but, but it can't be clearly appreciated to jump to conclusions . In this board lurks SOME of the most narrowest minded, stuborn, fanatic and other wise dumb people ever.

[PvtRyan]

Vann7, you're right that lighting IS very important (I don't agree with that it's the MOST important thing though) but Doom 3 lighting is everything but realistic. Granted, it uses very nice techniques to render all shadows realtime and stuff. But this is not the way real light works. Real light doesn't hit the surface and disappears, it bounces around and spreads color around the room. Or so called color bleeding. HL2 uses this indirect illumination to render the lightmaps. IMHO these look much more realistic, ALTOUGH they are not realtime rendered. Doom 3 has shadows that are too sharp and too dark.

It doesn't look realistic, it just uses a fancy way of calculating shadows, which fits the gameplay of Doom perfectly, but just wouldn't work in HL2. That kind of lighting is a waste of resources in games like HL2. I do feel lightmaps look better, IF used in the right wat. Of course, the main drawback is that they aren't dynamic, but that is fine in the case of HL2 gameplay.

[Wolf]

'In this board lurks SOME of the most narrowest minded, stuborn, fanatic and other wise dumb people ever.'

Plenty of fanboys on both sides.

Personally, I've yet to meet a single passionate D3 advocate who understands the difference between art assets, aesthetics, fisual videdility and technical engine specs when it comes to speaking about 'graphics'...

I follow tech as much as the next person and understand it very well, but I don't confuse my appreciation of a game's graphics with specs - and argue merely by trying to overwhelm the other people with as many technical buzzwords as I can...

For myself, I will say this - until I see a completely unified renderer that doesn't sacrifice poly budgets, soft shadows, texture resolution, AI resources, outdoor and n-creature on screen capabilities, and hardware scalability then I will be happy with a more balanced approach.... You fanboys speak about D3's lighting as if it can do subsurface scattering and cook dinner for you - blah blah... We all know unified lighting is the way of the future but at the moment the trade-offs for what you get are not necessarily worth it depending on the kind of game experience you're trying to create (the primary example being Deus Ex Invisible War)...

FYI - If I had a choice between HL2 having unified lighting OR less developed facial animation tech, AI and smaller environment - then I'd choose the facial animation, AI and wide spaces every single time. You might want to consider why that's the case...

[Caminante]

'In this board lurks SOME of the most narrowest minded, stuborn, fanatic and other wise dumb people ever.'

Plenty of fanboys on both sides.

Personally, I've yet to meet a single passionate D3 advocate who understands the difference between art assets, aesthetics, fisual videdility and technical engine specs when it comes to speaking about 'graphics'...

I follow tech as much as the next person and understand it very well, but I don't confuse my appreciation of a game's graphics with specs - and argue merely by trying to overwhelm the other people with as many technical buzzwords as I can...

For myself, I will say this - until I see a completely unified renderer that doesn't sacrifice poly budgets, soft shadows, texture resolution, AI resources, outdoor and n-creature on screen capabilities, and hardware scalability then I will be happy with a more balanced approach.... You fanboys speak about D3's lighting as if it can do subsurface scattering and cook dinner for you - blah blah... We all know unified lighting is the way of the future but at the moment the trade-offs for what you get are not necessarily worth it depending on the kind of game experience you're trying to create (the primary example being Deus Ex Invisible War)...

FYI - If I had a choice between HL2 having unified lighting OR less developed facial animation tech, AI and smaller environment - then I'd choose the facial animation, AI and wide spaces every single time. You might want to consider why that's the case...

Actually, i'm no fanboy of either game, as a matter of fact, i've stated several times already that, i will buy both games regarless. The game's graphics as whole aren't all that. As for Deus Ex2 running like a dog on most systems - if that what you ment- it's mainly due to bad coding, not actual hardware limiation.

And if we are going to talk about Doom3's -which i'm no fan- shadowing and lightning rendering not being or feel realistic, why not talk then about why games developers can't implement more high-textures graphics, odors and physical pain to emulate real life a bit more accurate? To me, D3's lighting and shadowing effects look outstanding.

I get quite sick everytime i hear about HL2's "face expretions or facial animation" feature. Say.... do you plan in looking at all the characters faces animations the whole game, or perhaps ask the enemy to let you look at their faces for a minute before you kill them or something? That feature will only be useful on the cut-scenes not throughout the whole game, you are just another fanboy in the bunch.

[Kadayi]

I get quite sick everytime i hear about HL2's "face expretions or facial animation" feature. Say.... do you plan in looking at all the characters faces animations the whole game, or perhaps ask the enemy to let you look at their faces for a minute before you kill them or something? That feature will only be useful on the cut-scenes not throughout the whole game, you are just another fanboy in the bunch.

The facial animation/lip synching aspect of HL² introduces far more opportunities for mod/game development from a storyline viewpoint than any amount of fancy lighting protocols ever will.

[Wolf]

ROFL he's either VERY unimaginative or hasn't ever enjoyed a game that has even a smidgen more NPC depth than your typical blast-em up / hack and slash game -ie. none.

He should seriously go and read the three Gamespot Troika developer diaries for Bloodlines and see what an actual RPG developer appreciates about such a 'useless' feature...

The funniest thing is he completely fails to see the irony of calling facial animation gimmicky and superficial while singing about unified lighting.... :p

[Caminante]

The facial animation/lip synching aspect of HL² introduces far more opportunities for mod/game development from a storyline viewpoint than any amount of fancy lighting protocols ever will.

What does that exactly has to do with who has the best graphics? I can't really see how that is going to make game graphicaly better...?

[ferd]

The prettiest gfx? Stalker, because they are really realistic, and not exagerated like in D3. Why not D3 of Far Cry? Because the movinf footage of Far Cry just doesn't look right, some flashy sky's and water...but cartoonie models, and fluo green trees. Same with D3, nice light effects all the rest looks cartoony to me, and absolutely not realistic, D3 wont make me feel scared.
Then there is HL2, a lot of ppl seem to forget, that there is no PC of GFX card yet that can run HL2 at its fullest. And even when that happens and the hardware is up to it (lets say the next winter) Valve still has this high resolution texture pack...(remember?) wich will give HL2 another graphical boost, assuring that it will remain a graphically highstanding game for lets say 2 years atleast imo.
Also the gfx in HL2 feel much more natural, and absolutely not cartoony. Some screens make me feel scared (some BINK movies really did scare me) because the game is alive. And not some kind of plastic hi-tec toy we get stuffed with every year. But looking only at gfx (meaning screens and movies) then Stalker looks the best imo. :D

[Arno]

FYI - If I had a choice between HL2 having unified lighting OR less developed facial animation tech, AI and smaller environment - then I'd choose the facial animation, AI and wide spaces every single time. You might want to consider why that's the case...
Well, duh. That's because HL2 aims for large, open environments. The Source engine was made with that in mind. The Doom3 engine is designed for high-detail, claustrophobic environments. Trying to make HL2 on the Doom3 engine is just as dumb as trying to make a Doom3-game on the source engine. Each game engine has different strengths and weaknesses. The unified lighting system would indeed add little to HL2, but in a survival horror game such as Doom3 it makes a world of difference.

[Kadayi]

What does that exactly has to do with who has the best graphics? I can't really see how that is going to make game graphicaly better...?

LOL, lets see:-

The facial animation/lip synching aspect of HL² introduces far more opportunities for mod/game development from a storyline viewpoint than any amount of fancy lighting protocols ever will.

If I'm a mod, which game engine am I going to pick to promote my mod on? D³ with it's fancy per pixel lighting, or HL² with it's immersive gameplay feature set?
I voted for D³ in the poll, because from a purely graphical perspective it is technically a more advanced renderer, but that is a rather narrow criteria to gauge an engine by.

[Hudson]

Doom III

carmack is my home boy

[Baal]

HL2 because it's the only one I've actually played ;)

But you couldn't go wrong picking any of them as far as I'm concerned...all though I haven't seen anything on Far Cry.

The water is what impresses me about HL2.

[DiSTuRbEd]

HL2 because it's the only one I've actually played ;)


BAN HIM!*#%$%$

[Wolf]

'Well, duh. That's because HL2 aims for large, open environments. The Source engine was made with that in mind. The Doom3 engine is designed for high-detail, claustrophobic environments. Trying to make HL2 on the Doom3 engine is just as dumb as trying to make a Doom3-game on the source engine. Each game engine has different strengths and weaknesses. The unified lighting system would indeed add little to HL2, but in a survival horror game such as Doom3 it makes a world of difference.'

I agree completely. In fact if you read my posts above as well that was my whole point. Engine / game design is about trade-offs and I happen to think Source is great at what it does and trying to add unified lighting would eat into its feature-set.

The moment we get properly unified lighting with a Source-like feature set and nothing sacrificed ie - resources sucked away from lots of high polys creatures and vast environments, high res textures, AI, soft shadows etc etc then you can sign me up as an official card carrying member of 'lightmaps are dead'... (Stalker has a chance at this, though we'll have to see about their NPC models and animation)

Until such time then I'm happy to let the technophiles jump up and down about the best shadowing renderer technology until they're blue in the face.

[PvtRyan]

Actually, i'm no fanboy of either game, as a matter of fact, i've stated several times already that, i will buy both games regarless. The game's graphics as whole aren't all that. As for Deus Ex2 running like a dog on most systems - if that what you ment- it's mainly due to bad coding, not actual hardware limiation.

DX2 was badly coded, yes, but also hardware limitations play a role. And this means Doom 3 will only run with pretty stuff on a Geforce 4+

And if we are going to talk about Doom3's -which i'm no fan- shadowing and lightning rendering not being or feel realistic, why not talk then about why games developers can't implement more high-textures graphics, odors and physical pain to emulate real life a bit more accurate? To me, D3's lighting and shadowing effects look outstanding.

I haven't said it isn't advanced, it's just not realistic. In real life, shadows aren't that sharp or have such a high contrast with the enviroment. This is something you can't get around yet with current hardware. But since Doom 3 has a fully dynamic lighting system, you see these unrealistic shadows everyhwere. Which gives it a fake look. Lightmaps have the advantage that they don't have to be rendered realtime and thus you can bake much better looking effects in them, which is performance wise impossible with a dynamic lighting system. BUT, the drawback of lightmaps is that they are static and don't react to changing lights.

I get quite sick everytime i hear about HL2's "face expretions or facial animation" feature. Say.... do you plan in looking at all the characters faces animations the whole game, or perhaps ask the enemy to let you look at their faces for a minute before you kill them or something? That feature will only be useful on the cut-scenes not throughout the whole game, you are just another fanboy in the bunch.

So you're fine with movie actors with a paper bag on their heads, since facial expressions don't matter? Facial expressions are gonna be a big part of the game, because interaction with NPC's plays a large role, they don't just serve as cannon fodder. But also as friends and allies, and decent facial expressions are a thing you can't afford to miss then. Even in combat, the expressions of the allies NPC's fighting by your side will be an important detail, it'll make a difference, you'll see.



Hmmmmm......

[vann7]

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quote Caminante:
"By the way, the reason why shadows appear to be too dark and hard on Doom3 is because, even in real life - just in case you haven't noticed it- when, a very bright light source iluminates a very dark room -such as the ones in D3- it usually makes to appear too dark the places which the light can't reach."
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Indeed.. in real life.. shadows are Both.. Soft and Hardedge.. it depends of the intensity of the lighting ,the enviroment where the light is ,and the distance where the object is from the light..
just look at the shadows of your hand at your table ,the more closer is to the surface the more hardedge ,the more closer is to the light the more softer is.. if you do the test in completely dark room with a very powerfull flashligh .you will see some of the Doom3 hardedge shadows in action.. :)
in a very dark enviroment ,with a very intense but small area light ,lighting ,shadows are Hardedge ,just like Doom3. SHadows in Doom3 are good enough for the dark enviroment of that game. for outside .. is a difernet story ,since everything there is mostly soft.

other points discussed here are very interesting..

1)Hl2 Lipsinc technology..
no doubt that technology is revolutionary in game and i expect to see many games using it..
but in my opinion , i think is too much for nothing ,that should be the last thing to be added in a game ,when there is nothing more to add ,since the Technology ,affect very slightly (if any) the graphics or the gameplay. since you dont see the lips of others in a deathmatch or a single play game ,because you are just doing that->playing ,that can be more useful for CUt scenes or intros..
that you usually skip with the mouse button.. nobody wants to listen long discourses ,they just want to play .:) whenever there is a close shot of the mouth of the character.. but in gaming most people would not notice it.


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quote by Frances Farmer:
"err you missed:

specular maps
bump maps
normal maps
diffuse maps

for Half-Life 2. oh half-life 2 also has water refraction ^_^
"
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nope ,Hl2 Speculars/normal maps?/Bummaps/ are all static! they use pre-rendered stuff ,baked lightmaps to do that. all those features needs a real time lighting to look natural or realistic.. speculars and *Bumpmaps are -dynamic- in real life.
*btw.. Bumpmaps doesnt exist in real life.. but they are the best feature to simulate irregular surfaces geometry ,at very few performance cost ,the only thing that goes closer to that is DIsplacement mapping ,and it have been said that only PS3.0 in incomming hardware will be able to simulate properly that. same with HDR effects.. wich even valve have told that today DIrectx9 cards simulation is still not good enough. that they are waiting for PS3.0 hardware to fix that.

and yes.. Doom3 will have water and fire effects ,but i think (from a Mod community point of view) it will be limited to Ps1.3 and Ps1,4. nothing diferent that we have already seen in Quake3 or Call of duty.. i hope to see and update to Doom3 here ,since Ps2.0 allows more advanced cool effects. and it is true that Doom3 lights also cant be called realistic ,since the real light bounces in every surfaces ,and difracts colors everywhere ,but still the game has the closer aproach to realism ,than any other game ,is not a revolution in Computer graphics ,not in the Proffesional market ,or movies.. but in games it is.

and no game in the near or long future support -REfractions-.. you need a raytracing engine to do that. and there is no way to do something like that in realtime in a game, video cards are not there yet. what you see in Hl2 water is just a static texture projected in the dynamic water ,(enviroment mapping) ,or maybe is the other way.. a dynamic texture in a static water :) cant remember well ,need to see again E3 videos ..is the same thing that have been used in many years in games.

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quote:Ferd..
Valve still has this high resolution texture pack...(remember?) wich will give HL2 another graphical boost, assuring that it will remain a graphically highstanding game for lets say 2 years atleast imo.
quote:
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indeed.. a BIG PLUS! for the mod community , but it will be good to know that the same texture pack can be used in Doom3 , since the game also support -ultra- high quality textures too , remember that the game engine was made to last at least 5 more years, longer than quake3.. quake3 have 3years and still is being used in latest games like Call of duty . :)

but the Biggest advantage of Hl2 ,is that was made by developers that give great support to the MOd Community. not that Idsoftware doesnt do it too ,they also support the Mod community. its that Valve goes to another LEvel here , never heard before of Mods in a game (day of defeat)developing at the same time that the retail game . :) means that i expect to see many cool stuff in that game from the Mod coomunity ,with greater quality than the original game..

and finally Outdoors should be another advantage of Hl2 ,since Doom3 Outdoors will be limited by its greater features ,realtime lighting ,since the performance will not be there with this generation of video cards for maps as bigger as the ones we have seen in the Coast of Hl2.. anyone remember the benchmarks of Doom3 that were done most likely in small indoors maps .

a side note.. im very curious what Mod makers will be able to do Vehicles in Doom3 since Idsoftware added the code ,as a gift ,to be used in the game .


from a Mod making point of view .. the only limitation i see in StalKer is their very Cartoonish look of their Characters and weapons.. :( , also their animations.. if you are a character modeler , your paradise ,will be Doom3 since that game allows VERY HIGH Polycounts Models and weapons.. what you have s