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]

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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 ^_^
"
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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 seen in Doom3 is only the tip of the iceberg of what you will be able to do. :)

summarizing .. Hl2/Doom3/Stalker/FArcry all those games will have great stuff ,features and great graphics here and there. i expect to see very High quality stuff in the Mod Community.. it just depend of what you want to do.. for the mod community Probably for Indoors and very detailed HighPoly characters/weapons Doom3 will be the best suited game for your needs ,for Outdoors it may be Hl2 ,Farcry or Stalker. its just about what you want to do and see in a game. :)

[vann7]

Btw.. for the people interested here is another thread about this topic..
with diferent opinions about this..

http://boards.ign.com/Half-Life/b5220/50711441/p2

[Yakuza]

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.


http://www.computerandvideogames.com/openpic.php?name=..%2Fscreenshots_library%2Fdir_232%2Fvortal_pic_116405.jpg

http://www.computerandvideogames.com/openpic.php?name=..%2Fscreenshots_library%2Fdir_232%2Fvortal_pic_116405.jpg

[Kadayi]

[QUOTE=vann71)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.[/QUOTE]

The lip synch and facial expression technology shouldn't be underestimated, it opens up a lot of opportunities for creating character driven storylines beyond those normally found under the umbrella of FPS. Certainly lipsynch and facial expressions are fairly pointless in deathmatch, but deathmatch is not the be all and end of the gaming experience, there is a lot more to gaming than simply shooting everything.

If I was a adventure game writer, I'd be really excited about the possibilities of the source engine to act as the skeleton to my next project, to power the delivery and performance of my game characters and environments. Consider DX:IW, graphically you might say that it looks ok, but you could hardly say the characters are realistic, they look wooden and they act wooden through out. It isn't difficult to imagine how much better that gaming experience could of been if it was run through source.

It will probably be some time yet, but I'm looking forward to the first source powered game or mod that isn't a shooter, but is instead a detective story or some such. I just think that would be the funkiest thing to see happening with the HL² engine.

[vann7]

[QUOTE=vann71)Hl2 Lipsinc technology..

The lip synch and facial expression technology shouldn't be underestimated, it opens up a lot of opportunities for creating character driven storylines beyond those normally found under the umbrella of FPS. Certainly lipsynch and facial expressions are fairly pointless in deathmatch, but deathmatch is not the be all and end of the gaming experience, there is a lot more to gaming than simply shooting everything.

If I was a adventure game writer, I'd be really excited about the possibilities of the source engine to act as the skeleton to my next project, to power the delivery and performance of my game characters and environments. Consider DX:IW, graphically you might say that it looks ok, but you could hardly say the characters are realistic, they look wooden and they act wooden through out. It isn't difficult to imagine how much better that gaming experience could of been if it was run through source.

It will probably be some time yet, but I'm looking forward to the first source powered game or mod that isn't a shooter, but is instead a detective story or some such. I just think that would be the funkiest thing to see happening with the HL² engine.


hehe.. i was thinking about Lipsinch in Fps games.. since the only times you see lips in character is in cutscenes or long speechs , the E3 demo of the Girl speaking is not surprisinly done in something that can be called a cut scene ;) but you are right to not underestimate the technology in games ,since it have many possibilities for other types of games.. like RPgs and others..

it just that Halflife2 is a Fps game,and developers should observe carefully what features to add in a game. according to valve they have spend 2 1/2 years? in the lipsich tech :dozey: ,i would like more of that time to be used in something more visible in an action game.. something like more graphics ,more special efects or gameplay. how about delivering the game on time? :) Christmast 2003? they can later patch the game with all the addons they wish. heck but that just me... hehe Games cant be perfect in everything ,all of them need always to do tradeoff here and there. ;)

[Kon]

it just that Halflife2 is a Fps game,and developers should observe carefully what features to add in a game. according to valve they have spend 2 1/2 years? in the lipsich tech :dozey: ,i would like more of that time to be used in something more visible in an action game.. something like more graphics ,more special efects or gameplay. how about delivering the game on time? :) Christmast 2003? they can later patch the game with all the addons they wish. heck but that just me... hehe Games cant be perfect in everything ,all of them need always to do tradeoff here and there. ;)


Valve was working off what the players liked in HL1, people seemed to enjoy the interaction with the npcs a lot, and so valve jumped on this and improved this section allowing the characters a vast assortment of emotions and other stuff.. I am quite eager to see all this in the game when it comes out..

[MultiVaC]

What is all this about static normal maps? ALL normal maps are dynamic, the way polygons react to light is baked into a shader, producing the effect we see ingame. The engine calculates how to shade the normals, obviously. Static normal map is an oxymoron; it would just be a texture.

[Sparta]

Doom 3 looks cartoony, whilst the lighting looks awesome, same with monster bump maps. But the only thing Doom 3 has on Half-Life 2 is the dynamic lighting, big whoop. Whilst that is pretty damn cool (It was cool in Deus Ex 2) everything else in Doom 3 looks cartoony and plastic. I saw screenshots of a multiplayer map on Gamespot, and the lighting looked absolutely insane, but the walls were covered in some crappy plasticy-metal texture. Now come on, if you watch the Source Bink video, Half Life 2 totally canes anything Doom 3 has to offer. With the water refraction, tiles on the roof, and the slime and veins on Ant Lion Guard, you gotta admit, that Half-Life 2 just looks ALOT more realistic then Doom 3. Besides Doom 3 only really has 1 enviroment, Lots corridors and lotsa metal walls and grating. Woohoo.

Stalker looks pretty good with some of the enviroments, that beats Half-Life 2 in that department, but everything else in Stalker just looks average. As for Pacific Assault, i dont see anything special, big whoop about the guys pupil-dilating, but its not like im gonna notice his pupil-dilate when im shooting at him. Everything else just looks dodgy, water looks like chrome, i'm sure they'll fix that.

Far Cry's water looks really good, but everything else just looks average. On another note though, it sounds like a Tropical Serious Sam

Half Life 2 wins in every department but the lighting, ESPECIALLY realism (exempting the corny B-grade horror movie storyline of course)

[GRIMEY]

Funniest thread yet.

[Wolf]

Sparta I disagree with you about D3. It is going to have a lot more than just space station environments because the player is definitely going to hell, and half of the game will be seeing visible signs of hell coming to the space station...

[Yakuza]

Sparta I disagree with you about D3. It is going to have a lot more than just space station environments because the player is definitely going to hell, and half of the game will be seeing visible signs of hell coming to the space station...

Hell hmmmmm.....I wonder if they will go with Dante's version.

[Sparta]

Going to Hell in Doom 3 would make that 2 enviroments, and possibly the Mars surface at one point, so thats 3 enviroments. But come on, from what we've seen from Half Life 2 chances are its going to have ALOT more enviroments then Doom 3

[Styloid]

There are some things vann7 is saying that I just can't get.
HL2 does have dynamic, per-pixel lights, just not to the extreme of Doom3. There are many instances in the E3 videos that you can see light fall onto characters/object correctly (aside from the 'popping' into light). HL2 also has normal/specular maps on characters and objects (such as the Antlionguard in the HDR vid) becaue... they said so in the normal mapping videos (they did however, only say 'some'). The g-man talking vid also showed some self-shadowing and per-pixel lighthing.
Then there are the answers from Valve that say they have dynamic lighting. There is also the recent email saying that 'technically' you could make all the surfaces in the world respond to dynamic lighting but that it would be hard on the computer (the question was about a moving sun). I think right now a lot of this needs proof but it seems that all engines are about equal in power, it's only that, due to system limitations, there must be compromises.
The main reason I'm not completely happy with Doom3 graphics is more artistic than technical. I don't like that their shadows simply fade to gray and then black, I don't like the lack of tone in their colours, I don't like the overuse of normal maps and how they don't 'fade' with distance, I don't like how plastic/cartoony the skin looks on the doomguy and the trites, I don't like how 'dull' some textures look while other's look overly complex, I don't like the lack of imagination....

[Flyingdebris]

(Offtopic) Hold on a second... okay i don't feel like scrolling around to find the quote, but someone mentioned not being able to see an opponents's facial expresions in deathmatch....

Well shit, would that not be a kick ass thing to include? Have a small motion capture device sitting on your desk thats monitoring the placemant of some adhesive position transmitters on your face and having an ingame voice program too to sync up with it.

you could see and hear your opponent yell "holy shit" with a look of surprise on his face when you round a corner with a bigger gun.

you can actually see if you pissed someone off!

i guess its something for the future

Okay back on topic

Okay i think its time to quit beating the cow to death, its obvious that most of this is a matter of taste. Though I think we can safely agree that Doom 3 has the most advanced (not necessarily best looking) renderer. HL2 looks very very good and has many features. Stalker has great environments and innovative gameplay elements, and Farcry seems to have a very capable engine despite the fact most gamers are put off by its vacation-esque brightness

[Arno]

Going to Hell in Doom 3 would make that 2 enviroments, and possibly the Mars surface at one point, so thats 3 enviroments. But come on, from what we've seen from Half Life 2 chances are its going to have ALOT more enviroments then Doom 3
Huh? All of the HL2 screenshots and videos show City17. Most likely there are also non-urban environments and even alien environments in HL2, but so far we haven't seen anything of it.

Oh, and Doom3 also has the ruined, lost civilization underneath the surface of Mars as a 4th environment.

[Kadayi]

Okay i think its time to quit beating the cow to death, its obvious that most of this is a matter of taste. Though I think we can safely agree that Doom 3 has the most advanced (not necessarily best looking) renderer. HL2 looks very very good and has many features. Stalker has great environments and innovative gameplay elements, and Farcry seems to have a very capable engine despite the fact most gamers are put off by its vacation-esque brightness

Pretty much summarizes my thoughts also on the issue.

Huh? All of the HL2 screenshots and videos show City17. Most likely there are also non-urban environments and even alien environments in HL2, but so far we haven't seen anything of it.

The buggy stuff in the video doesn't take place in the city, it takes place by the sea. It also demonstrates that the Source engine is capable of rendering large scale terrains admirably.

[SnowBall]

I think Visually Half-Life 2 and Stalker take the cookie. DOOM3 next, expecially winning the realtime lighting, and lastly farcry. It might be pretty, but it just doesnt compair.

[jonnyapps]

hl2 got my vote after seeing the dynamic range video. doom3 uses its graphics to create an eerie atmosphere but hl2 uses its graphics to accomplish a more dynamic range of effects. for instance, the gloss on eli's eyes, the way they communicate with the viewer. animation creates a sense of realism sofar unseen elsewhere and the use of physics creates a visually wholesome image.
if i can stand on top of a building, see the sun glint off of the roof and stare miles into the distance i feel a sense of immersion. Sure Doom3 has tension but it's hardly comparable. if we tie physics to graphics in that we can 'see' them in action then again, the world becomes more realistic and the player can feel part of his surroundings. Hl2 is the only game that truly approaches this. Agree?

[6Three]

nah, your all wrong, the game that holds graphical supremacy is Goldeneye for the N64. Just look at the explosions when you shoot a desk! It made me breathless the 1, 2, 4, and 8th time I saw it!

[csmighty1]

I conquer six three, but I believe that Doom for the Game Boy Advanced holds the cream filled pie of death. I mean who can resist the graphical immersion of that sexy looking rocket launcher?

[Zoorado]

hl2 got my vote after seeing the dynamic range video. doom3 uses its graphics to create an eerie atmosphere but hl2 uses its graphics to accomplish a more dynamic range of effects. for instance, the gloss on eli's eyes, the way they communicate with the viewer. animation creates a sense of realism sofar unseen elsewhere and the use of physics creates a visually wholesome image.
if i can stand on top of a building, see the sun glint off of the roof and stare miles into the distance i feel a sense of immersion. Sure Doom3 has tension but it's hardly comparable. if we tie physics to graphics in that we can 'see' them in action then again, the world becomes more realistic and the player can feel part of his surroundings. Hl2 is the only game that truly approaches this. Agree?

AFAIK, DOOM 3 ties physics and sounds to graphics closer than any other game.I don't think you'll see dynamic, per-pixel accurate specular highlights and shadows on every moveable objects in HL2's gameworld.

[Sparta]

Doom 3 just uses physics to make the game look cooler, like Max Payne 2. Im sure there will be some parts where you'll have to interact with physics to solve a puzzle, but Half Life 2 definately looks like its going to beat Doom 3 in the physics department. In the sound department, I dunno i havent read anything about either of them. And chances are you'll see specular highlighting on just about every surface in Half Life 2 as well as Doom 3. If you watch the Klieners Lab video you can see specular lighting all over the place, even on Alyx's shoulder where the duct tape is.

[6Three]

I conquer six three, but I believe that Doom for the Game Boy Advanced holds the cream filled pie of death. I mean who can resist the graphical immersion of that sexy looking rocket launcher?

Conquer? As in "I Conquer your ass, all your base are belong to us" or "I Concur" as in "I agree"?

[Enigma]

Looks like HL2 is ageing and it did not even come out

[blahblahblah]

I dont quite understand how physics make a game look better. It can add to gameplay, but not graphics in the most technical sense (without gameplay judgements).

If HL2 or Doom3 physics engine was able to calculate light as a wave, then it would make the game world look awesome (soft shadows). Other than that physics is purely a gameplay aspect.

[Asus]

A few thoughts.
First, With my lights off and placing an object in front of my monitor I easily notice the shading differences between the edge of the shadow compared to at the base of the object. The exact same as in a lit room, just starts dark and gets darker.
But that's why I think Doom3's hard shadows look odd.
Shadows arn't everything though.

I really like how HL2's looks as far as lighting and the depth of the textures in DX9.
Looking at the model/wall you can really see how the light bounces off the object. Whether it gleems as if the light is directly reflected into your eyes or if the surface is at an angle that makes the light reflect away, it shows that.
HDR should improve HL2's lighting and shadows for dark rooms as well.
I think HL2's DX9 lighting + softshadows + HDR is better than RT Hard shadows only. Not just looks but also performance. ;)

Although for doom3 having RT shadows does really enhance the texture built into the model. Too bad they could not include HDR as that would be great. It would help getting it to look very close to realistic (except for the modeling part, I'm talking about shadows). If doom3 added more DX9 features that could help with lighting and how it reflects off models.

Stalker comes pretty close to what we want for shadows/lighting though. It is more advanced in it's methods maybe but I don't think it will offer anything above HL2's combination for lighting/shadow features durring actual gameplay.

[vann7]

well .. many interesting points have been said here.. lets see.. :)

Hl2 -does not support-
1) True SPeculars ..
2) real Bumpmaps,neither real NOrmal maps.
because when simulating realism in professional graphics animations they are dynamic and what Valve does is something static. even there are quotes where they have said that their Bumpmaps are static.. ;) pre-rendered. what valve do in Hl2 is a workaround painting by hand all of those "reflections". yes .its better than not having those at all ,but still they are far from realism. because those things needs a real time lighting system to work propertly. and Hl2 engine is a LIghtmap engine. with DX9 effects.

a picture speak better than words.. lets see.. what i can find...
ok.. here
look at the latest screenshot released by valve..

http://www.planethalflife.com/screenshot.asp?src=/half-life2/screenshots/01n.jpg

the speculars there in all the Gun are painted. more easily noticeable the Big one.the light comes from the sky ,but the speculars are in the left corner. there is no way to make those "speculars" that "shininess" to shine in another place of the gun. look also at the walls ,there is not a single specular there ,or Bumpmaps.the walls are perfectly smooth.(not like real life) if you look at all the screenshots of the weapons in Hl2 you will notice that -all of them- looks Opaque or atificially illuminated.
the light interaction in the characters cloths also looks artificial.

why? because HL2 lacks of real reflections and True specular/real bumpmaps ,real normalmaps. losing realism in the graphics.

http://www.planethalflife.com/screenshot.asp?src=/half-life2/screenshots/hl2_091.jpg

the "light" in the characters body and faces looks inaccurate too. very Opaque here and in other shots too much illuminated . like if the light doesnt exist at all ,or if it "exist" they are artificially illuminated. you dont need to be a rocket scientist to notice that the light illumination doesnt look natural.

thats why Idsoftware Dropped Lightmaps in their NExt engine of D3,because Surfaces and characters looks more cartoony (hanna barbera effect) and if you are not extremely carefull about the shadows they will be displayed incorrectly .

http://www.planethalflife.com/screenshot.asp?src=/half-life2/screenshots/13.jpg


if the goal is realism . the dificulty with using Painted Bumpmaps and speculars is that THEy are always in the same place. you can turn on a flashlight or another source of light and there is no way,to illuminate the painted small shadows..because ->is painted. they are always in the same place at the same angle. :dozey: an this is clearly far for realism.in the other Hand Doom3 doesnt have this dificulty ,because everthing that involves lighting is done on the fly. thats why a Halflife1 map compiling can take you up to many hours ,calculating all the lightmaps and in doom3 just seconds . maybe is because Hl1 have more accurate lighting. :)

LEvel editors and Modmakers will notice -HUge- diferences making levels for Hl2 and Doom3. another interesting topic.. :) because in Doom3 the lighting is done in realtime ,even in the editor. a more clear way to see that the speculars in Hl2 are not speculars at all ,but painted textures that simulate reflections" of your weapon .pick the crowbar or any weapon walk to a corner where there is no light and still part of the reflections and the shininess will be there in the weapon..and in the same corners :dozey: but obviously there is no way to see that until the final game is released.. :)

the "reflections" you see in Hl2 like the the Helmet of soldiers and the "glossy eye" are.-> painted textures. simulating that light is there. but is not. the water "reflections" are not reflections but painted textures.. of the sorroundings.. by the way the waters looks really cool. :) and there is no other choice since water is one of the most dificult things to recreate in games ,and even in the professional market. is very complex.. to do it in a realistic way.

yes.. Valve can make the "light" to "interact" with all surfaces.. at least make you believe light is there. and that is painting the textures,but again this technique in not accurate ,neither realistic. there is nothing wrong with lightmaps or with painted textures ,heck we have been playing all those years Amazing games QUake1/2/quake3/Unreal1/2/Ut2003/Moh:AA/battlefield/Rpgs ,adventures games ,thousands!!!....etc..with techniques like that. HDR effects are cool ,its unfortunate that HDR doesnt enhance the quality of surfaces or character in Hl2 neither.. why ? read again at the top of my post. Too many cool features in Hl2 ,but that are not used in its fullest potential.

hope people here dont take this post ,as a negative thing .Hl2 is a great game..in my opinion will be One of the most advanced in graphics in 2004,no doubt about that. this post was made to help people to understand a bit more ,the tricks that are used in that game .to make more clear ,what those new games are doing to make you believe you are looking at the real thing. :)

[MultiVaC]

I dont quite understand how physics make a game look better. It can add to gameplay, but not graphics in the most technical sense (without gameplay judgements).

If HL2 or Doom3 physics engine was able to calculate light as a wave, then it would make the game world look awesome (soft shadows). Other than that physics is purely a gameplay aspect.
Have you ever played Max Payne 2? The physics literally had NO effect on the gameplay whatsoever. This is due to the lack of a proper way to move things around. You'll get nowhere kicking boxes around, you need to pick them up, (Deus Ex 2, even though the physics were executed poorly in that game) or even better have something like HL2's manipulator. I'm pretty sure Doom 3 won't have something like that because of Carmack being his typical self and calling it a 'gimmick'.

Edit: Ok, sorry vann7, but you don't know what you're talking about. There are no 'pre rendered normal maps'. Unless of course you mean a model is rendered beforehand to create a normal map, ALL normal maps are like that. Unless Doom 3 magically thinks up its own normal maps with absoultely no reference to any previously rendered polygons it is no less 'Pre-rendered' than HL2. Also, all those surfaces that don't respond to changes in lighting: those are called TEXTURES.

[Asus]

Good post.
I know HL2's "reflections" are painted although I have not seen "reflections" in doom3 really at all. I guess it seems D3 is relying on RT lighting/shadows and maybe are having to live without a lot of DX9 features or at least just not including too many. The only footage/SS of HL2 with most uptodate DX9 implementation that I know of is the source_hdr video.
We really should wait to find out how each looks in it's own environment. These next few games will get the ball rolling so to speak. In a year or so some games will probably implement RT lighting/shadows, reflection/illumination to shape softshadows and HDR that should really improve things and the hardware will be there to support it.

[Styloid]

That is very believable and really makes a lot of sense. If that is true, though, I don't get why Valve showed/said they had normal maps that reacted to movable lights (the flashlight) in the normal map 'wall' demonstration.

[vann7]

That is very believable and really makes a lot of sense. If that is true, though, I don't get why Valve showed/said they had normal maps that reacted to movable lights (the flashlight) in the normal map 'wall' demonstration.


well , i have not seen that video.. but its clear to me ,that everything that they have done until Sept30 it is the way i have said.. :) ,and even in the latest released screenshots in this year i see the same techniques.probably what you have seen its a tech demo ,something planned for the game. but until today what i have seen is many features but not used at its fullest potential . to add those features at its fullest needs to change completly the REndering engine ,at the performance of the game will suffer badly ,its something that doesnt happen from night to day. even VAlve have said that are waiting for PS3.0 cards because their HDR is not good enough for what they want in their game. at this date the game should be already almost finished and fixing bugs.. also should be working in security againts cheats since the source code have been stolen. so "adding new features" its very unlikelly if they want to release the game in a couple of more months. however when the game is released ,they can upgrade the game ,all they want..with new features.. just like Halflife1 which was upgraded so many times.

[Asus]

Link (http://www.fileplanet.com/files/120000/129654.shtml)
Here (http://www.fileplanet.com/files/120000/129653.shtml) is a related one but the first Link is the "wall" video he was refering to.

[vann7]

Good post.
I know HL2's "reflections" are painted although I have not seen "reflections" in doom3 really at all. I guess it seems D3 is relying on RT lighting/shadows and maybe are having to live without a lot of DX9 features or at least just not including too many. The only footage/SS of HL2 with most uptodate DX9 implementation that I know of is the source_hdr video.
We really should wait to find out how each looks in it's own environment. These next few games will get the ball rolling so to speak. In a year or so some games will probably implement RT lighting/shadows, reflection/illumination to shape softshadows and HDR that should really improve things and the hardware will be there to support it.

i have never seen Reflections in Doom3 neither.. :)
when i said "reflections" i mean -Speculars reflections-. accurate light reflections ,which Doom3 really support. -Surface Reflections- in another thing.. True Surfaces Reflections and Refractions are only possible with Raytracing .. a no game will support that for a loooooong time. (funny valve use the word raytracing in their features..but later they tell is pre-rendered and static ) i guess with words anything is possible :upstare: Yes there are "surface reflections" ,walls with Mirrors in Doom3 and many old games.. but those are hacks. projected textures of the characters in the "reflective" surfaces. The day games support real surfaces reflections/refractions and caustics ,realistic water will be possible in games. :)

[Pseudonym_]

WOW, hl2 wins? I would expect the usual amount of bias on a hl2 forum, but not this much. I don't see how anyone could possibly believe that hl2 is graphically superior to D³.

Hl2 looks decent enough, but cmon. It's an average engine with some new dx9 shaders. Thats all! Nothing else is special or very impressive about it graphically.

*The static lighting is glitchy(shadow errors are common throughout all the media released so far, and in some cases is plain ugly)

*The textures are very grainy when viewed up close(at distances of 3 or 4 ft.)

*Effects such as Normal maps and Specular maps are dissapointingly sparse(as apposed to D³ where EVERY surface has Normal and Specular maps) . I mean, we have seen Normal maps on a total of 1(rock surface) wall, and specular maps on a total of 1(tile wall from bugbait) wall. The HDRI video should not be included because those effects have not been seen in other media, and because the HDRI video was a tech demo of Source's dx9 capabilities and NOT a demo of how hl2 will look upon release.

*The animation is laughable at many places(such as Alyx in the Kliener's Lab bink video.) Just watch that bink again and tell me if you would be impressed with that in-game. The animation for the crouched walk those allies do in the Barricade is also very goofy. D³ on the other hand is some of the best animation I have ever seen in a game, and not the usual goofy poses you get in older games and in hl2.

*The effects in the D³ engine are top-notch. The glass breaking effect, the fire, animated Normal maps, hell there are a total of 32 effects from the point a gun is fired to the point the bullet impacts the target, including physically simulated projectiles which are not in hl2.


Don't get defensive and start flaming, I'm not saying hl2 looks bad. It looks very decent. But it's just a series of small evolutionary steps(upping polycount a bit, put in supoprt for purdy Dx9 shaders, thats about it.). This is the bare minimum you would expect from a next gen game. Small incremental steps. D³, on the other hand, changes graphics on a fundamental and revolutionary(as opposed to evolutionary) way. Instead of adding small hacks to existing technology like hl2, D³ creates new technology from the ground up. Every surface can have the detail of a 500k poly object, and with true dynamic lighting moving over it real-time and casting shadows. Nothing that hl2 has can compete with that graphically. It's a no-brainer.

[flupke]

DOOM III for sure... It's like the doom3 graphics are 1 massive beatifully designed object. Well it's hard to explain. All other games have graphics which look beautiful but you can see that the 'animals' aren't 1 object. Doom3 is perfect for that.

http://doom3maps.ngz-network.de/images/screenshots/scs4.jpg
http://doom3maps.ngz-network.de/images/screenshots/scs19.jpg
http://doom3maps.ngz-network.de/images/screenshots/scs35.jpg

Like, these are REALLY real-life object. It's like you can touch & hold that structure. It's like real metal. I've never felt that before... Not even HL2 gives me that feeling.

[flupke]

WOW, hl2 wins? I would expect the usual amount of bias on a hl2 forum, but not this much. I don't see how anyone could possibly believe that hl2 is graphically superior to D³.

Hl2 looks decent enough, but cmon. It's an average engine with some new dx9 shaders. Thats all! Nothing else is special or very impressive about it graphically.

*The static lighting is glitchy(shadow errors are common throughout all the media released so far, and in some cases is plain ugly)

*The textures are very grainy when viewed up close(at distances of 3 or 4 ft.)

*Effects such as Normal maps and Specular maps are dissapointingly sparse(as apposed to D³ where EVERY surface has Normal and Specular maps) . I mean, we have seen Normal maps on a total of 1(rock surface) wall, and specular maps on a total of 1(tile wall from bugbait) wall. The HDRI video should not be included because those effects have not been seen in other media, and because the HDRI video was a tech demo of Source's dx9 capabilities and NOT a demo of how hl2 will look upon release.

*The animation is laughable at many places(such as Alyx in the Kliener's Lab bink video.) Just watch that bink again and tell me if you would be impressed with that in-game. The animation for the crouched walk those allies do in the Barricade is also very goofy. D³ on the other hand is some of the best animation I have ever seen in a game, and not the usual goofy poses you get in older games and in hl2.

*The effects in the D³ engine are top-notch. The glass breaking effect, the fire, animated Normal maps, hell there are a total of 32 effects from the point a gun is fired to the point the bullet impacts the target, including physically simulated projectiles which are not in hl2.


Don't get defensive and start flaming, I'm not saying hl2 looks bad. It looks very decent. But it's just a series of small evolutionary steps(upping polycount a bit, put in supoprt for purdy Dx9 shaders, thats about it.). This is the bare minimum you would expect from a next gen game. Small incremental steps. D³, on the other hand, changes graphics on a fundamental and revolutionary(as opposed to evolutionary) way. Instead of adding small hacks to existing technology like hl2, D³ creates new technology from the ground up. Every surface can have the detail of a 500k poly object, and with true dynamic lighting moving over it real-time and casting shadows. Nothing that hl2 has can compete with that graphically. It's a no-brainer.

Yeah, well this is the perfect explanation for my post above. Truly perfectly done :)

[Sparta]

Dude, we've only seen 1 video with Half Life 2's graphics up full, if we saw every video like that then it still would be a very close race, but Half Life 2 would still win for realism, i'm looking at Doom 3 screenies now (Mmmmmm Shiny) but whilst they looks with the metal and all they still have the graniness of Half Life 2 but Doom 3 just looks too much like freakin plastic. Its like im in some kind of shiny world with plastic mannequin-kinda things chasing me.

The only thing HL2 can't do is the dynamic lighting. Those 500k poly object surfaces are created using bump-maps, the same thing HL2 can do. Its jsut that Doom 3 uses 100 times as much as HL2 from what we've seen. But if everything was done up like it is in the Source HDR video, then HL2 wins hands down over Doom 3. Every surface but the wood had bump-maps on them and the light was reflecting off multiple surfaces. Not to mention the specular bump-mapping on the Ant Lion Guard is twice as cool as anything in Doom 3, and 3 times as realistic.

[Pseudonym_]

I don't equate graphical quality to realism. hl2 clearly goes for more realistic(real world) visuals, while D³ strives for more sci-fi, stylized visuals. Those are just the styles of the two games. But that doesn't really mean anything. We are talking about graphical capability, not which game looks more "real-world" like.

It's like Carmack said, they could have either added to the existing technology and created a more realistic looking game the way hl2 did(hl2 surpasses D³ in that area IMO), or they could create new technology from the ground up to create a realistic acting environment (D³ does this better, hands down). One of these two approaches is a small evolutionary step, the other revolutionizes what is capable in games.

Which one you like better depends on personal taste, but D³ is obviously superior as far as graphical technology is concerned. No other engine is as advanced graphically.

As far as the plastic argument goes, the only instances where the game ever had a plastic look to me was in the alpha. Every official screenshot does not have this "plastic" effect.

What is plastic about this (http://www.doom3world.org/gallery/doom3/gamestar_1203//images/doom3_gamestar_1203_04.jpg) ?
or this (http://planetdoom.com/images/screenshots/official/16l.jpg) ?

Looks incredible to me.

[Styloid]

Just imagine what each game would look like on each other's engine. HL2 would look glossy and plastic, losing its oil painting/movie-like look. Doom 3 would not have it's real-time shadows and self-shadowing, losing its CG-like look. I'd say that they both made the right decision with what type of graphics they should use and I don't think there can really be that much criticism on that. That leaves the rest up to taste (as said so many times before).

[vann7]

I don't equate graphical quality to realism. hl2 clearly goes for more realistic(real world) visuals, while D³ strives for more sci-fi, stylized visuals. Those are just the styles of the two games. But that doesn't really mean anything. We are talking about graphical capability, not which game looks more "real-world" like.


good analogy.. :)
Hl2 use (realistic) art for the game ,but using less realistic techniques (commonly used in games) for the graphics and Doom3 use less realistic art (Sci-fi) for the game but with more natural techniques ,(that are commonly used in professional graphics).

each game have a diferent style in Art.. Sci-fi versus Real word art. What many people dont know is that you can use HL2 art textures of (real word) in Doom3 and Sci-fi art textures of doom3 in Hl2. it will be fun to see Mods of HL2 in Doom3 and mods of Doom3 in Hl2. that way people will see the real capabilities of each game. but as other have said ,each game engine was designed for the needs of each game developers .there is no way for doom3 to be playable with the huge outdoors in Hl2 +Ps2.0 of water and no way for Hl2 to be playable with a RT lighting system like Doom3. every engine was done for diferent goals in mind. :)

[Sparta]

Ok you've convinced me, Doom 3 and HL2 are both better then each other in certain ways.

[jonbob]

Well, people thought that Zelda game (Windwaker I think) looked rubbish too, but then they played it...

[PvtRyan]

Vann7, seriously, what the hell are you talking about? There are no such things in HL2 as painted on reflections, the reflections are done dynamically. And this doesn't mean it has some heavy raytracing engine, it's done in other ways. The thing you're pointing at (probably) is the reflections games like UT2003 uses. That game uses static pre-rendered maps to simulate relflection of it's surroundings, thus it doesn't reflect dynamic things as player models. HL2 does reflect everyhting, also players and objects.
And static normal maps? Isn't that a contradiction? The appearance of normal maps in HL2 changes with the angle you look at them, this is calculated realtime. The don't selfshade like in Doom 3 (not sure if Far Cry does though) but they do react to lights like your flashlight. For some bumpmapping examples, watch the bugbait video, all white tiles are bump and specular mapped.

So I'm not exactly sure what you're point is, but fact is reflections are dynamic, and reflect dynamic stuff like players. Possibly things like the crowbar uses static maps of the surrounding to render it's reflections (cube mapping) because this doesn't need to be accurate.
Reflections are refractions are shader effects, you could call this faking the effect but the end-result is the same.

[Flyingdebris]

well now, hl2 DOES reflect.... the plot thickens

[Dile]

Quite an unfriendly poll to me...

How can we determine which is nicer if they aren't even complete games!

Come on people, get real!

[vann7]

There are no such things in HL2 as painted on reflections, the reflections are done dynamically. And this doesn't mean it has some heavy raytracing engine, it's done in other ways. The thing you're pointing at (probably) is the reflections games like UT2003 uses. That game uses static pre-rendered maps to simulate relflection of it's surroundings, thus it doesn't reflect dynamic things as player models. HL2 does reflect everyhting, also players and objects.
And static normal maps? Isn't that a contradiction? The appearance of normal maps in HL2 changes with the angle you look at them, this is calculated realtime. The don't selfshade like in Doom 3 (not sure if Far Cry does though) but they do react to lights like your flashlight. For some bumpmapping examples, watch the bugbait video, all white tiles are bump and specular mapped.

So I'm not exactly sure what you're point is, but fact is reflections are dynamic, and reflect dynamic stuff like players. Possibly things like the crowbar uses static maps of the surrounding to render it's reflections (cube mapping) because this doesn't need to be accurate.
Reflections are refractions are shader effects, you could call this faking the effect but the end-result is the same.


Painted "reflections" or (projected images textures) can be "dynamic".the only thing you need to do is animate the prerendered image (of an object) something that you want to be "reflected". and you get the look of reflections.. "reflections" in games for years have been "dynamic" .. but that doest mean anything .Unreal1 back at the time of quake2 have "dynamic" "reflective" floors that "reflect" objects and players in motion ... but they are Pre-rendered textures projected and animated in the surfaces. quake3 also have the same "reflections" since there were mirrors in that game.

if you notice the screenshot you have posted.. the splash of the water -is not reflected in the water" . neither the man? projected textures /images /objects is not real reflections. what you see as "surfaces reflections" in Hl2 and all games is just a Trick. because this doesn't need to be accurate. but also because for real surfaces reflections in a game you need a real time raytracing engine!

and yes.. the word NOrmalmaps,Bumpmaps/Speculars and the word static is a contradiction.because those things are dynamic and in RT in the real life. but that doesnt means that those tricks coould not be used in a game.and Hl2 ,like many other games does that. look just that the angle of the Bumpmaps/Normals whatever is always the same. just need to be very close to the surface to observe that.

possibily not,All weapons in Hl2 ,characters use static Speculars .. (painted textures of shininess).surfaces maybe not that much ,because its very easy to notice the fake there. and there is not such a thing like reflective water in a game my friend .dont believe for a second in that.is not reflective at all technically speaking ,in any game you can name. Projective maybe. this is not saying that those techniques are wrong.. Programming tricks have been used in games since they exist.
as others have pointed out REalism not necessarily mean Better, it just about what you want to do in a game.

[Dile]

Why don't you just e-mail Valve?
I guess they would answer all your questions.

[vann7]

ok.. this is probably my last post.. :)
unless i find something new that will like to discuss..

Look at this interview of VAlve..

http://www.hl2source.com/?content=interviews&article=1

-------------------------------------------------------------------
Hoaxer: What kind of shadows are used in Source engine - are they fully dynamic, or are they partially static lightmaps - do you use a combination of lightmaps and dynamic shadows?

Gabe Newell: We use a combination of dynamic and static lighting. Objects that move cast dynamic shadows whereas static objects cast, well, static shadows that are cheaper. On DX9 you get soft dynamic shadows as well. We also have a full radiosity solution :angel: for static bumped lighting (bump maps work with static lights). If you were to put a static light next to a bump-mapped object, the light direction would be correct (traditionally light maps and bump maps have been mutually exclusive).

-----------------------------------------------------------------

and If you were to use a Dynamic light close to a static bumpmapped object it will look not correct. just turn on a FLashlight and illumate in diferent angles a bumpmapped surface. nothing wrong with that ,since those tehcniques used in HL2 are very smart for FASt performance and good quality .far more advanced that what we have seen in many games in the past. the only trade off is that those features like BUmps/speculars/Normals are not used at its fullest potential.same with HDR lighting effects.. not used at its fullest potential.
and True reflections (the reflections of surfaces and objects on others)are not real reflections in any game ,but projections ,since those things are too expensive for being done in the real way in RT in today games .

[OCybrManO]

You don't need a raytracing engine to do proper reflections/refractions of your vision (doesn't affect the actual lighting). Shaders can do it just as well. The only thing a raytracing engine would add that would be very hard (if not impossible) to do properly with shaders is caustics (which, in current games, should be faked because of the massive overhead) and proper reflection of the light itself (like if you shine a light into a mirror)... and I haven't even seen any media of the amazing Doom3 showing those abilities. All Doom3 has that is "new" is per-pixel lighting (it's "new" because it is used on everything instead of only certain objects)... that is evolutionary, not revolutionary.

Revolutionary would be games with real-time multi-bounce (light doesn't completely stop when it hits a surface, unlike Doom 3) photon mapping. I say it can be done in under 5 years if hardware designers see lighting as a top priority. Without any hardware support for it programmers have been able to get the render time down to several seconds for simple scenes.

I'm not trying to say Doom3 looks bad. It looks great... but it's not a revolutionary step forward for gaming.

[Asus]

I think why some ppl put D3 down is because it is a game that uses realistic lighting and to some ppl the models become like toys, plastic or clay because other than light there is not much that makes it look realistic to them.
I think the lighting makes it look realistic to just about everybody but what does it become when it is realistic? Plastic/Clay or Metal/Flesh? Comes down to individual interpretation.
Some ppl will identify with HL2's facial detail and say...thats real even though it is clearly a game. Because they can identify with the character they say it is real rather than lighting.
I agree, D3 and stalker are better than HL2 behind the scenes but whats up front is what counts and that is all personal judgement.
That is what makes H2 #1 in graphics possible...oh yeah plus this is hl2.net

[Styloid]

and If you were to use a Dynamic light close to a static bumpmapped object it will look not correct. just turn on a FLashlight and illumate in diferent angles a bumpmapped surface.

So in the 'wall' video, they showed a clip of a flashlight shining on a normal mapped cave wall and said that it reacts accurately... that was... faked somehow?

[vann7]

So in the 'wall' video, they showed a clip of a flashlight shining on a normal mapped cave wall and said that it reacts accurately... that was... faked somehow?

Indeed..

HAve not seen that video.. downloading it now.. im on a slow conection ..:) if anyone can post screenshots ,only to not download again a video if i have seen it. but unless you have not noticed this.. even Valve admits their Bumpmaps are static..for the people that doesnt know what this means ,it means they are somehow ->faked . because Static bumps is a contradiction about what bumpsmaps really are..

I think thats the main reason a feature like that is used in few places in Hl2. its because their bumps need to be used very carefully in few places because static bumpmaps will only look "to be correctly" with static light. WHat i think Valve is doing is using more than one Static texture bumpmapped at times.."when it looks that is dynamic" one for this angle and another for this other.. etc.. in other words it Swap static textures!! on the fly.. but in other times is more Obvious since there is not swapping at all ,and you see clearly that some shadows are impossible to iluminate ..in Bug bait video on the floor i saw this...im really sure that if you manage turn on the flashlight and illunminate a crater in the floor in that level,moving slowly the light you will see the swapping of textures . in E3_techvideo of the cave wall with BUmpmaps and water same too.. i think i have seen videos that the water in that demo doesnt reflect the main character . only the cave..that can be fixed projecting an image of the player on the water. but its a clear sign that Reflections /True reflections are not there . with True REflections like the Ones you can get with RAytracing Proffesional Software if a flashight illuminate the water ,the light will deflect inside the water and in the walls of the cave. Nice eh.. :) Gdevelopers can only dream to do this one day.. :) the Static Bumps is not something that you will notice if you are playing the game ,but if you look at it directly at diferent angles ,it can look weird.
this shows that Valve is very Creative and that they are working Really hard (because to do something like that should require a lot of effort.)to simulate realism in their game. It is a smart idea. but its still a workaround and it can be Dificult to implement it in the game, to look correctly if you have not enough expertise of a proffesional Artist..if you are a level editor or MOdmaker how easy will be for them to do something like that. Dark places seems the best place to use that technique ,since there is more dificult to notice the swapping of textures there.

[Pseudonym_]

All Doom3 has that is "new" is per-pixel lighting (it's "new" because it is used on everything instead of only certain objects)... that is evolutionary, not revolutionary.

Revolutionary means "bringing about a major or fundamental change". What is so new about D³ is the unified lighting system. Every surface is treated the same, and casts shadows on every other surface. This is indeed a major and fundamental change in how RT games are rendered, and therefore the D³ engine is revolutionary gaming technology. There is nothing revolutionary about hl2 because its the same old technology with small additions and improvements. The technique hl2 uses for rendering "dynamic" shadows has been used for quite a while now, as has using a mixture of static lighting maps and projected shadow maps. In this age of gaming technology, with games such as DeusEx:IW, Doom³, and Thief3, the projected shadow maps used in hl2 is a very primitive technique for creating "dynamic" shadows, and I doubt we will see any more use of this technique in the future.

What Carmack is doing with the new D³ engine is creating a rendering system that acts more like it should. The D³ engine has hard edged shadows and what not, but this is just the first generation of this new technology. What is important is that the lighting acts like it should, and that we start moving away from static light maps. The technology will be added to just like gaming technology always has been, but it is vital to the progression of graphics that we lay down the groundwork now so that we can start improving upon it. That is why the D³ technology is revolutionary, because it throws out the old technology and sparks the age where graphics can reach a much higher level of integrity and consistancy than they ever would have if we remained on the path we are now, just adding small hacks to the same old static and inconsistant methods of lgihting we used in the past.

[Pseudonym_]

So in the 'wall' video, they showed a clip of a flashlight shining on a normal mapped cave wall and said that it reacts accurately... that was... faked somehow?

Vann7 is right, I just think you misunderstood what he was trying to say.

In the wall video when the guy says the "lighting information is accurate", he is referring to the fact that the area of illumination on the wall will follow the contour of the normal map. What I mean is, suppose you had a 1 poly object with that same "rock wall" normal map on it like he had in Softimage. When he says the lighting information is accurate, he means that the circle of illumination the flashlight will project onto the wall will fallow the contour of the normal map, instead of being a perfect circle as it would be on a 1poly object without a normal map. Does that make sense?

But what you will not see is the lighting on the wall istelf change due to the flashlight, because the highlights and shadows are baked into the wall texture during the compilation of the map. This is what vann7 was trying to say, I think. Watch the wall video again and you will see that even when the flashlight is pointed right at a part of the wall that is in shadow, the shadow remains unaffected by the introduction of the new light source. This is why a unified lighting system is the future, and static light maps will very soon be obsolete.

Check out that cool dynamic effect that he gets when he moves the lighting rig around inside of Softimage. you will never get that in hl2, the part where he shines the flashlight on the wall in-game isnt nearly as impressive. You will get that effect in D³ though.

[Subz]

oh cmon.what game do you think is gonna win in a hl2 forum.

anyways doom3 and stalker are graphically more impressive than hl2 i really beleive this. just check out high-res screens of all 3 games.

[Caminante]

well .. many interesting points have been said here.. lets see.. :)

Hl2 -does not support-
1) True SPeculars ..
2) real Bumpmaps,neither real NOrmal maps.
because when simulating realism in professional graphics animations they are dynamic and what Valve does is something static. even there are quotes where they have said that their Bumpmaps are static.. ;) pre-rendered. what valve do in Hl2 is a workaround painting by hand all of those "reflections". yes .its better than not having those at all ,but still they are far from realism. because those things needs a real time lighting system to work propertly. and Hl2 engine is a LIghtmap engine. with DX9 effects.

a picture speak better than words.. lets see.. what i can find...
ok.. here
look at the latest screenshot released by valve..

http://www.planethalflife.com/screenshot.asp?src=/half-life2/screenshots/01n.jpg

the speculars there in all the Gun are painted. more easily noticeable the Big one.the light comes from the sky ,but the speculars are in the left corner. there is no way to make those "speculars" that "shininess" to shine in another place of the gun. look also at the walls ,there is not a single specular there ,or Bumpmaps.the walls are perfectly smooth.(not like real life) if you look at all the screenshots of the weapons in Hl2 you will notice that -all of them- looks Opaque or atificially illuminated.
the light interaction in the characters cloths also looks artificial.

why? because HL2 lacks of real reflections and True specular/real bumpmaps ,real normalmaps. losing realism in the graphics.

http://www.planethalflife.com/screenshot.asp?src=/half-life2/screenshots/hl2_091.jpg

the "light" in the characters body and faces looks inaccurate too. very Opaque here and in other shots too much illuminated . like if the light doesnt exist at all ,or if it "exist" they are artificially illuminated. you dont need to be a rocket scientist to notice that the light illumination doesnt look natural.

thats why Idsoftware Dropped Lightmaps in their NExt engine of D3,because Surfaces and characters looks more cartoony (hanna barbera effect) and if you are not extremely carefull about the shadows they will be displayed incorrectly .

http://www.planethalflife.com/screenshot.asp?src=/half-life2/screenshots/13.jpg


if the goal is realism . the dificulty with using Painted Bumpmaps and speculars is that THEy are always in the same place. you can turn on a flashlight or another source of light and there is no way,to illuminate the painted small shadows..because ->is painted. they are always in the same place at the same angle. :dozey: an this is clearly far for realism.in the other Hand Doom3 doesnt have this dificulty ,because everthing that involves lighting is done on the fly. thats why a Halflife1 map compiling can take you up to many hours ,calculating all the lightmaps and in doom3 just seconds . maybe is because Hl1 have more accurate lighting. :)

LEvel editors and Modmakers will notice -HUge- diferences making levels for Hl2 and Doom3. another interesting topic.. :) because in Doom3 the lighting is done in realtime ,even in the editor. a more clear way to see that the speculars in Hl2 are not speculars at all ,but painted textures that simulate reflections" of your weapon .pick the crowbar or any weapon walk to a corner where there is no light and still part of the reflections and the shininess will be there in the weapon..and in the same corners :dozey: but obviously there is no way to see that until the final game is released.. :)

the "reflections" you see in Hl2 like the the Helmet of soldiers and the "glossy eye" are.-> painted textures. simulating that light is there. but is not. the water "reflections" are not reflections but painted textures.. of the sorroundings.. by the way the waters looks really cool. :) and there is no other choice since water is one of the most dificult things to recreate in games ,and even in the professional market. is very complex.. to do it in a realistic way.

yes.. Valve can make the "light" to "interact" with all surfaces.. at least make you believe light is there. and that is painting the textures,but again this technique in not accurate ,neither realistic. there is nothing wrong with lightmaps or with painted textures ,heck we have been playing all those years Amazing games QUake1/2/quake3/Unreal1/2/Ut2003/Moh:AA/battlefield/Rpgs ,adventures games ,thousands!!!....etc..with techniques like that. HDR effects are cool ,its unfortunate that HDR doesnt enhance the quality of surfaces or character in Hl2 neither.. why ? read again at the top of my post. Too many cool features in Hl2 ,but that are not used in its fullest potential.

hope people here dont take this post ,as a negative thing .Hl2 is a great game..in my opinion will be One of the most advanced in graphics in 2004,no doubt about that. this post was made to help people to understand a bit more ,the tricks that are used in that game .to make more clear ,what those new games are doing to make you believe you are looking at the real thing. :)

vann7 and you seem to be one the few people around here with commun sence. By the way, these HL2 screene shown are the most horrible yet, they don't look any better then any actual game out there. And yes, it's true, HL2 water effects look outstanding indeed - kudos to Valve, i was really blewn away when i first saw them:thumbup:. Nonetheless, Valve did not do a so great job in the water's edge, thus making the surfaces look too edgy or in other words a straight line. Perhaps this would be address is the future - although i doubt it. Heck even UT2003's engine horrible water effets renders the interatction bettween the water and shore more natural then does the more "advance" HL2's engine.

The bottom line is that, all this feature -IMO- does not make HL2 graphics the best around. The game's geometry levels are too simplistic and not having some sort of semi-dynamic lighting and shadowing effects implemented, makes it all look too commun.

[Sparta]

Oh for the love of god people, we've only seen 1 video where HL2 Graphics were up full. I think its best to end this argument now and resume when we've all PLAYED THE GAMES

Besides, Games like S.T.A.L.K.E.R and Doom 3 are all showing as much of their graphics as they can because thats the main thing their riding on to help sell the game (Since Doom 3 only has 4 player multi-player, I'd be advertising the graphics as well, and STALKER just sounds dull, like a hunting game except with mutants)

Half Life 2 doesnt need to establish itself graphically because everyone already knows the main reason people will buy it is because of the Multiplayer and the Mods(I'm getting it for Singleplayer though) This is what will topple the other games coming out this year, not the graphics, but the multiplayer. What good is this "Per Pixel shading" crap for us right now if the main reason games are still being played for is because of the multiplayer? Counter-strike is still being played by hundreds of thousands of people, and the games out-dated like anything.

Besides, STALKER and DOOM 3 are showing off how graphically advanced they're engines can be rather then how flexibile and scalable they can be, like what Half Life 2 is going to demonstrate through its Modding tools. If it is as Scalable and moddable as vavle says it is, then the Source engine could be modified to do the exact same things Doom 3 and STALKER can

[Pseudonym_]

Besides, Games like S.T.A.L.K.E.R and Doom 3 are all showing as much of their graphics as they can because thats the main thing their riding on to help sell the game

Hardly. Both D³ and Stalker offer much more than graphics, and there is no reason to believe otherwise. Stalkers main selling point is the scale of the world, freedom of choice, and the ability to take the story in multiple directions, plus the co-op is highly anticipated. Doom³, by all indications, is a very story driven, atmospheric, immersive, thrilling horror game. Plus the fact that the D³ is completely moddable. Dont kid yourself into thinking that the only reason people say these games are graphically superior to hl2 is that its all the developers can offer.

This is what will topple the other games coming out this year, not the graphics, but the multiplayer.

I find this highly amusing considering that Valve refuses to give away the slightest details of the Mp component of hl2. the fact that they have stated they dont want to say anything about MP until the game is already out only points to the conclusion that they dont see it as a selling point, and infact arent very confident about it. On the same vein, newell doesnt seem very confident in hl2 at all, which worries me.

What good is this "Per Pixel shading" crap for us right now if the main reason games are still being played for is because of the multiplayer? Counter-strike is still being played by hundreds of thousands of people, and the games out-dated like anything.

What good is graphical improvements? only good to the graphical quality of the game. Dont tell me you would rather play cs2 with halflife quality graphics rather than hl2 quality graphics. Graphics certaintly arent the most important thing in a MP game, but players will always want better graphics in their games. No one is playing cs tonight because they like they favor 50 poly models over 3000 poly models.

Besides, STALKER and DOOM 3 are showing off how graphically advanced they're engines can be rather then how flexibile and scalable they can be

I cant speak for Stalker, but Doom³ can be played with 1ghz and a geforce3. Sounds plenty scaleable to me at this point in time. It wont look as neat as the high quality screenshots, but neither will hl2. Dont kid yourself into thinking that when valve developers say it will work fine on low end comps that they mean it will look anywhere near as good as the official screenshots. It will be downright ugly when played on minimum specs, just like all other games.


Since Doom 3 only has 4 player multi-player, I'd be advertising the graphics as well

People who have gotten their hands on Doom³ MP have given it nothing but rave reviews so far, and to hear them describe it it sounds like a MP experience which is origonal and fresh in this age of CS clones and shitty true combat/ww2 mods. I dont understand where you guys who bash the MP(which you have never played) get the idea that a small scale game cannot be fun, especially when ALL previews of D³ MP are as positive as they are. Whatever.

Doesnt matter, since the MP is 4 player by default and is easily changed to whatever you want.


like what Half Life 2 is going to demonstrate through its Modding tools.

Again, I dont know about Stalker. Last I heard the developers were still deciding wether they should release the map editor. Doom³, on the other hand, will be 100% moddable.

If it is as Scalable and moddable as vavle says it is, then the Source engine could be modified to do the exact same things Doom 3 and STALKER can

Stalker.....maybe. Doom³? Wont happen. Anything is possible with talented modders, just look at Tenebrea(sp?). But you would basically have to rewrite the entire render engine to get hl2 anywhere near Doom³. No one will do that. No reason to since Doom³ will already be out.



What you did here is what usually happens when graphical debates are started on a hl2 forum. hl2ers start to feel threatened so they divert attention from graphics to some other aspect of the game(moddability and MP, in your case). This is a discussion about graphics, you cant throw in random non-graphical aspects of a game into the discussion. Thats a whole other debate, and one which D³ or Stalker could easily compete with hl2.

Im tired..........

[Caminante]

Sparta you are talking as though you had the opportunity to play both game STALKER and Doom3 and also had a chance to try the SDK as well. Fanboy!

[vann7]

vann7 and you seem to be one the few people around here with common sence. By the way, these HL2 screene shown are the most horrible yet, they don't look any better then any actual game out there. And yes, it's true, HL2 water effects look outstanding indeed - kudos to Valve, i was really blewn away when i first saw them:thumbup:. Nonetheless, Valve did not do a so great job in the water's edge, thus making the surfaces look too edgy or in other words a straight line. Perhaps this would be address is the future - although i doubt it. Heck even UT2003's engine horrible water effets renders the interatction bettween the water and shore more natural then does the more "advance" HL2's engine.

The bottom line is that, all this feature -IMO- does not make HL2 graphics the best around. The game's geometry levels are too simplistic and not having some sort of semi-dynamic lighting and shadowing effects implemented, makes it all look too commun.

hehe.. thanks for the compliments.. im just learning like most people here.. :) This forum is the source of most technical information correct and incorrect i have ever seen. the fact is that most of the the things i have learned from Doom3 and Hl2 comes from this Forum.. Lol!! and of course with a little background i have in Animation software. :) you dont need to know a single line of programming to know the tricks that games can use to simulate realism ,since almost all those tricks can be used too in 3danimation software like Max/Lightwave and XSI and many others to make things faster with less hours of waiting. ;)

but remember that "Best" graphics its a matter of opinion.. since Realism is not synonym of Better . it just depend of your goal.. the movies [Toy story,A bug life] have no better graphics ,neither worse than Final FAntasy :SW. the movie. it just a diferent Art for a diferent purpose. i still see GIants citizen kabuto ,as a miracle in graphics ,one of the most good looking game in all times.. the engine of that game was perfect for that style :) even if the technology behind that is already really old , but it just my opinion because i like that style of graphics.. Technology alone doesnt make graphics too look good. its the artists behind the tech the ones that makes the biggest diference.

to speak about more advanced technology is a diferent story..
because the more advanced an engine is ,the more freedom you give to the artists. but also this is not a guarantee the graphics will be "better".the talent of the artist is what makes the biggest diference. and Hl2 without doubt is made by one of the most talented Gdevelopers in the industry. .same with the developers of Stalker ,D3,FArcry,and HALO2 that nobody have mentioned it.. and deserves to be in that list .if it were not by the BIG limitations of the hardware inside the Xbox.. im really sure that those developers have the potentials to steal the show to All those other games .. in Graphics /dx9 effects and in gameplay . :)

[Sui]

posted by vann7
"Best" graphics its a matter of opinion
the words..... so true.......

[PvtRyan]

Vann7 is right, I just think you misunderstood what he was trying to say.

In the wall video when the guy says the "lighting information is accurate", he is referring to the fact that the area of illumination on the wall will follow the contour of the normal map. What I mean is, suppose you had a 1 poly object with that same "rock wall" normal map on it like he had in Softimage. When he says the lighting information is accurate, he means that the circle of illumination the flashlight will project onto the wall will fallow the contour of the normal map, instead of being a perfect circle as it would be on a 1poly object without a normal map. Does that make sense?

But what you will not see is the lighting on the wall istelf change due to the flashlight, because the highlights and shadows are baked into the wall texture during the compilation of the map. This is what vann7 was trying to say, I think. Watch the wall video again and you will see that even when the flashlight is pointed right at a part of the wall that is in shadow, the shadow remains unaffected by the introduction of the new light source. This is why a unified lighting system is the future, and static light maps will very soon be obsolete.

Check out that cool dynamic effect that he gets when he moves the lighting rig around inside of Softimage. you will never get that in hl2, the part where he shines the flashlight on the wall in-game isnt nearly as impressive. You will get that effect in D³ though.

I now I see what he meant. But that isn't really a "static" normalmap, it still contains the direction and height of the polygons, but it's in the nature of lightmaps that they don't react to new lighting information of the normal maps.

But about the reflections, everything can be reflected, it's not just the enviroment stored in a reflection map that the water reflects, but also characters, objects, SFX (water splashes)
You don't have to have a RT engine to do dynamic reflections, shaders can accomplish the same effect. But they can't do REAL refractions, they won't actually bend the lightbeams or create caustic effects. This won't be done in realtime for a long long time, altough current hardware is capable of doing realtime photon mapping (showed at some SIGGRAPH I believe)

But I totally agree with Vann7's approach to taste, I also think Giants is still one of the best looking games. It's not the technology that does it, it's the art and style. And to me, the crisp textures make Stalker and HL2 a lot better looking than Doom 3, and no fancy lighting is gonna change that.

[Sui]

And to me, the crisp textures make Stalker and HL2 a lot better looking than Doom 3, and no fancy lighting is gonna change that.
yes but that is DARN GOOD lighting lol

[Murray_H]

I find this highly amusing considering that Valve refuses to give away the slightest details of the Mp component of hl2. the fact that they have stated they dont want to say anything about MP until the game is already out only points to the conclusion that they dont see it as a selling point, and infact arent very confident about it. On the same vein, newell doesnt seem very confident in hl2 at all, which worries me.

Right. They keep the development of a game secret for 5 years. If it wasn't so special, why keep it a secret? Have you seen the 40min interview with Gabe (stream it off Gamespot if you haven't)? He says he is keeping MP a secret cos he wants a few surprises for the gamer - when he says this he is smiling and looking pretty excited about it. If it was just a bog-standard DM affair, why all the secrecy?

And where does this lack of confidence for HL2 from Gabe come from? 5 years he has been working on this, and for those 5 years he's been dying to tell someone apart from within Valve or family members about this (its all in the interview). If you are basing this lack of confidence on the media blackout recently, i would say that the only thing Gabe is trying to keep quiet on is the release date so he doesn't disappoint any more people when he is forced to set an unrealistic target to keep the masses happy, knowing he can't achieve it, resulting in more disappointment.

[MultiVaC]

It's funny, Psuedonym only seems to come around when Doom 3 is being discussed. Similar behavior to a certain obnoxious troll we all remember.

[Styloid]

It's funny, Psuedonym only seems to come around when Doom 3 is being discussed. Similar behavior to a certain obnoxious troll we all remember.
Heh.... unfortunately it seems to be a pretty common behaviour....

[Yakuza]

well I am about to play the FarCry Demo so I can tell you guys what I think.

[OCybrManO]

Revolutionary means "bringing about a major or fundamental change". What is so new about D³ is the unified lighting system. Every surface is treated the same, and casts shadows on every other surface. This is indeed a major and fundamental change in how RT games are rendered, and therefore the D³ engine is revolutionary gaming technology. There is nothing revolutionary about hl2 because its the same old technology with small additions and improvements. The technique hl2 uses for rendering "dynamic" shadows has been used for quite a while now, as has using a mixture of static lighting maps and projected shadow maps. In this age of gaming technology, with games such as DeusEx:IW, Doom³, and Thief3, the projected shadow maps used in hl2 is a very primitive technique for creating "dynamic" shadows, and I doubt we will see any more use of this technique in the future.

What Carmack is doing with the new D³ engine is creating a rendering system that acts more like it should. The D³ engine has hard edged shadows and what not, but this is just the first generation of this new technology. What is important is that the lighting acts like it should, and that we start moving away from static light maps. The technology will be added to just like gaming technology always has been, but it is vital to the progression of graphics that we lay down the groundwork now so that we can start improving upon it. That is why the D³ technology is revolutionary, because it throws out the old technology and sparks the age where graphics can reach a much higher level of integrity and consistancy than they ever would have if we remained on the path we are now, just adding small hacks to the same old static and inconsistant methods of lgihting we used in the past.
I wouldn't say any technology that old (from what I have seen, nothing in Doom3 is actually new) is "revolutionary" no matter how good it looks. iD's Unified Lighting Architecture is not revolutionary. It is a small step from the standard of sparsely used stencil shadows and bump/normal maps toward the general direction of realistic lighting (except that it doesn't look any more realistic... just a bit more dynamic). If someone were to say "I like buttered toast... but there's not enough butter" and put a whole stick of butter on one piece of toast it would not be a revolutionary idea (using more of something is not a revolutionary idea). If iD didn't do it someone else would have done it... like the open source engines that were doing something similar (though not making a full-fledged game out of it) before anyone knew it would be in Doom 3.

A revolutionary change in games would be something like:
* Totally unscripted AI that learns everything it knows, yet still makes for a compelling singleplayer experience
* Lighting that realistically simulates all aspects of light including caustics, wave characteristics, and light bounced off objects in turn lighting other objects (that's something I want to see in a game... because it really helps in 3D renders)
* A game that relies heavily on advanced fluid dynamics (not just simple bouyancy calculations like HL2)
... etc.

[vann7]

A revolutionary change in games would be something like:
* Lighting that realistically simulates all aspects of light including caustics, wave characteristics, and light bounced off objects in turn lighting other objects (that's something I want to see in a game... because it really helps in 3D renders)
* A game that relies heavily on advanced fluid dynamics (not just simple bouyancy calculations like HL2)
... etc.

ARe you ready ,to wait the time for games to do that? something like ~20 years!! because realisitc fluids and water with caustics in needs nothing less than Photonmapping in realtime . and water consists of billions of particles all interacting with each other with light.. mm.. how about 50 years?.. :)

What you are asking is something at the level of the the latest CG effects in the latest Films like Star Wars:atack of the clones and Finding Nemo..and even Beyond since Movies usually composite many times CG graphics with digitall shots of real life.. hehe

from quake3 to Doom3 i see a complete revolution ,RT lighting and self shadows with accurate light reflections and Normals . :)

[-JeZ-]

Yakuza, I've been looking for the FarCry demo. Where'd you get it from?

[Caminante]

I wouldn't say any technology that old (from what I have seen, nothing in Doom3 is actually new) is "revolutionary" no matter how good it looks. iD's Unified Lighting Architecture is not revolutionary. It is a small step from the standard of sparsely used stencil shadows and bump/normal maps toward the general direction of realistic lighting (except that it doesn't look any more realistic... just a bit more dynamic). If someone were to say "I like buttered toast... but there's not enough butter" and put a whole stick of butter on one piece of toast it would not be a revolutionary idea (using more of something is not a revolutionary idea). If iD didn't do it someone else would have done it... like the open source engines that were doing something similar (though not making a full-fledged game out of it) before anyone knew it would be in Doom 3.

A revolutionary change in games would be something like:
* Totally unscripted AI that learns everything it knows, yet still makes for a compelling singleplayer experience
* Lighting that realistically simulates all aspects of light including caustics, wave characteristics, and light bounced off objects in turn lighting other objects (that's something I want to see in a game... because it really helps in 3D renders)
* A game that relies heavily on advanced fluid dynamics (not just simple bouyancy calculations like HL2)
... etc.

You know what is your problem; you just won't give credict where is due period. I've shown or rather posted screen after screen, so that you could draw a vissual comparation between both engine rendering and yet, you still won't admit it.

[The Dark Elf]

This is turning into another pissing contest guys. Put away your dicks or I lock the thread.

[PvtRyan]

ARe you ready ,to wait the time for games to do that? something like ~20 years!! because realisitc fluids and water with caustics in needs nothing less than Photonmapping in realtime . and water consists of billions of particles all interacting with each other with light.. mm.. how about 50 years?.. :)




Photon mapping can be done realtime.

http://graphics.stanford.edu/papers/photongfx/

The divx video is quite impressive, all rendered on a 5800 Ultra.

[Wolf]

I wish you guys would stop swapping the poll question out from 'graphical supremacy' to 'most advanced lighting renderer + cutting edge features like per-pixel collision, glass fracture, custom physics etc etc'.

You don't seem to understand that 'graphics' isn't just the how capable a certain part of the renderer is - it is what the game actually looks like which will *gasp* include animated art assets, environments and effects. If you want to start a new poll be my guest, I'll even vote D3 like everyone else should. You don't seem to comprehend how absurd it is when you quote technical specs to people when they say D3 doesn't look very compelling or they are amazed at the graphics of HL2 facial expressions...

[Pseudonym_]

Your right, it's the end result that matters to people. Not technical details.

Just look. No one here with any reason left in him could look at this and tell me it is not the most graphically advanced piece of software in gaming.......

[marksmanHL2 :)]

WOW!


Not even i thought doom3 was THAT good. Blimy...


Yeah, its the winner gfx wise in my opinion! Well now it is...

[vann7]

Photon mapping can be done realtime.

http://graphics.stanford.edu/papers/photongfx/

The divx video is quite impressive, all rendered on a 5800 Ultra.

yes.. thats impressive for a video card.have seen thet video before. but notice that what they have done is in a very small controlled enviroment. when you want Water in a scene to behave in a natural way ,the complexity of the scene increase by a magnitude so far beyond than a single raytraced sphere ball in a small room. Believe.. if i tell you that accurate water is extremely dificult to simulate .. even in non-realtime aplications with software that can do True Photonmapping. usually when is done in a movie is done always in the cheapiest way possible ,with more computers than the ones available at ATI and Nvidia together. ;)

[Dougy]

after playing far cry demo on full settings im willing to say anybody who voted for that should be shot.

[vann7]

Your right, it's the end result that matters to people. Not technical details.

Just look. No one here with any reason left in him could look at this and tell me it is not the most graphically advanced piece of software in gaming.......

thanks for the Pic.. :)

looks much better that the low quality scans released by magazines. the beauty of Doom3 engine ,is that it makes no diference between CHaracters/weapons and enviroments,when it comes to Lighting and Physicseverything is threated in the same way by the REnderer. means ,that every surface can look as detailed as any other thing , Ex..as the weapons and the marine guy. most of the art released in doom3 is just the minimun of what it posible in D3. Mod makers and level editors challenge will be the temptation to not use as much graphics as they will like ,since the performance of today computer is still many ways behind of the technology in the game. :)

[OCybrManO]

How was I not giving credit where it is due? I keep saying that I think Doom 3 looks great (even better than HL2 in many aspects)... but the technology itself is not revolutionary, or even new (I didn't say HL2 was, either). That's the credit it deserves. If I hadn't seen nearly a dozen engines made by college students that do the same thing and known how to do it myself I might have been more impressed.

A video game engine doesn't have to do everything the exact same way it is done in real life to get similar results. If it did, there wouldn't be any video games since computers aren't fast enough to simulate any cool aspects of nature (exactly) in real time. I saw a great real-time water physics demonstration a while back (combined with shaders it would look even better)... and as someone else said there is also real-time photon mapping. Computers don't quite have the computational power to handle both of those and a game at the same time... but 50 years? Imagine where we were 50 years ago... 50 years seems like a lot more now, eh? I said 5 years because with the advent of PCI Express you could have (in addition to the video card) a card that is dedicated entirely to physics calculations (the CS301 shows what kind of math processing power you could get out of a regular PCI card... enough to get a desktop PC on the "500 Most Powerful Supercomputers" list) and either a card dedicated to photon mapping calculations or a video card that has hardware support for it. Dedicated hardware support is faster and requires less power than something done entirely in software on programmable hardware. We probably won't be there in 5 years (because of the lack of people working on hardware like that)... but it is possible.

[CrazyHarij]

Maybe it's because of my fanboyizm but I think the pseudo-realistic over-bumpmapped graphics aren't that good. Better having it lightened up and crisp&clean as HL2. But that screenie Pseudonym posted indeed looks good.. But you can clearly see the low amoun of polygons they've used, especially on the dudes left (our right) arm , looks kinda weird.

But I guess time will tell, in the end it's the gameplay that matters.

[Kadayi]

I think D³ is without a doubt the most advanced engine from the viewpoint of this poll. However given ID's track record for bland SP gameplay, I'm more interested to see what other developers do with the technology if at all.

All this lighting talk does mean shit if the engine simply doesn't support/provide other developers with a versatile enough platform upon which to build their games. If I'm a developer when I'm about to fork out a $million+ for an engine I'm going to be looking for the engine that offers me the greatest scope and potential for securing an audience as well as driving my product. I look at D³ and to my mind it just looks like it is going to be prohibitive on both fronts.

[Pseudonym_]

OCybrManO, the problem with what your saying is revolutionary doesn't have to mean drastically new. The examples your giving as revolutionary aren't even possible with current hardware. Sure it will work ok on a sphere or something, but putting it in a game is another matter.

Doom³ is changing the way games are rendered by throwing out the old, primitive method of static light maps with a more realistic lighting model. What this does is fundamentally change how rendering is done in a RT game, and that is exactly the definition of revolutionary. Fundamentally changing how something is done = revolutionary.

However given ID's track record for bland SP gameplay

id has always been about simple, fast, fun gameplay. But with Doom³ they are taking a new approach. For the first time they are making a SP game that is story driven and is meant to induce emotions(mostly fear). You make it sound as if they have been trying to do this all along but have failed, therefore we should not be optimistic about Doom³. Thats just not true. They have never tried to make this kind of game before, because they were always focusing on a more simplistic gameplay that you could just jump right into and have a blast.

id is the most talented group of developers around. They have been in the game ever since they invented it, and every game they have made has been a hit, and every generation of technology they have introduced has been top of the line for it's time.

All this lighting talk does mean shit if the engine simply doesn't support/provide other developers with a versatile enough platform upon which to build their games. If I'm a developer when I'm about to fork out a $million+ for an engine I'm going to be looking for the engine that offers me the greatest scope and potential for securing an audience as well as driving my product. I look at D³ and to my mind it just looks like it is going to be prohibitive on both fronts.

No game company makes 3d engines that are used in FPS as much as id's engines. Doom³ is no different. It's a very flexible engine, and developers are jumping all over it. So far there are 3 developers that we know of(which means there is prolly a few we don't) who are working with the engine as we speak, and it is rumored that AvP3 developers intend of using the D³ engine. When the Doom³ engine hits the market, developers will jump all over it just like they have with id's other engines. Source has what, 1 liscensee? And bloodlines is ugly as shit. Dont tell me developers will favor Source over D³ engine when there is nothing that Source can do better, which there isn't really. The only thing Source has the upper hand on is lip-sync, which is minor.

[marksmanHL2 :)]

Lip synch and online play....


Which isnt small at all. Sorry, but I had to point that out.

Also, I reckon its very likely that its easier to work with.

[Pseudonym_]

Lip synch and online play....

Online play how? I hope your not gonna answer "it's only 4 players", because thats not true. The engine is not limited to 4 players, and id had their reasons for making it 4 players.

And lip-sync IS minor, because in hl2 it looks silly. the mouth just flaps about. it doesn't look nearly as good as the macworld facial animations for D³.

[marksmanHL2 :)]

Yes Lip synch is minor. (and it doesn't look sily in hl2....) I meant online play isnt.


And I know DOOM3 can handle more than 4 players. But HL2 is very likely to have beter netcode and support for other networking... stuff...


I can't really be arsed to argue today so bah. You win.

Edit: Doesn't mean i wont b bk tomorrow...... ;)

[Pseudonym_]

Now your just making random claims with no basis. There is no reason to believe that hl2 will have better netcode and all the rest. id is not new to writing netcode.

and it doesn't look sily in hl2....)

I better rephrase that.

What valve has done with real-time lip-synching is great, and it does look good in-game. But then again, the motion of the mouth is very rigid and not as fluid as you would expect, and it's not perfect and frequently the lips don't keep up with the words. It's great cosidering it's real time, but it does not look better than what a professional game animator can do by hand animating it the way they do in D³. Check out the macworld video and you will see that the mouth movements are much more realistic. They are hand animated as apposed to real-time, but professional developers aren't shy about animating it themselves anyway. The lip-synching is great for the mod community though.

[marksmanHL2 :)]

Yeah yeah your right.



But erm, you have no clue either really do you.
You make claims on things you don't really know about as well. Such as bloodlines being the only game lisenced to source. You say that the source can't do anything beter. Yet how do you know?
Source could easily outdo DOOM3s engine in terms of netcode. I have read that the whole engine is geared towards online play. That has to count for something.....



Also, how big are DOOM3s single player maps (Bare with me here)
I bet they are small in comparison to HL2s, right?
Because if they are whats to say that HL2s source couldn't achieve the same level of detail on the smaller sized enviroments?




Anyway, I said I wouldn't argue with you. But meh, gets me irritated....

[Pseudonym_]

You make claims on things you don't really know about as well. Such as bloodlines being the only game lisenced to source.

I suppose there very well could be one or two more we don't know about, but thats just speculation.

You say that the source can't do anything beter. Yet how do you know?


Going by the technical specs, since it's all we have ATM.

Source could easily outdo DOOM3s engine in terms of netcode. I have read that the whole engine is geared towards online play. That has to count for something.....

Yes, it easily could, or D³ could easily outdo hl2. All I was saying is that there is no reason to believe that hl2's netcode is even decent, let alone superior to any other game. We just don't know. You said hl2 is likely to have better netcode, and there is no reason to believe this is true considering what we know ATM.

I bet they are small in comparison to HL2s, right?

Nope. People get confused between engine limitations and design decisions.

D³ is capable of large sprawling terrain(as has been stated by journalists who saw it demonstrated when willits popped a buggy out and drove it around the martian terrain). D³ is features small corrdiors as a design decision, in order to induce certaint feelings of claustrophobie/helpelssness/the feeling that something can jump out at any moment/vulnerability in the player. It's not a engine limitation.

Because if they are whats to say that HL2s source couldn't achieve the same level of detail on the smaller sized enviroments?

As far as strict polygonal detail, im sure it could. But what makes D³ amazingly detailed is the normal maps on every surface, and hl2 wont have that. It could theoretically, but it wont as we have seen.

:naughty:

[PvtRyan]

Pseudonym_ nobody is arguing that Doom 3 is the technically more advanced engine nobody. But choosing an engine doesn't only depend on what cool stuff it can do, but if that stuff fits your game. And if I were to make a game like bloodlines, I would go with Source. For a number of reasons:

- Outdoor city enviroments, while Doom 3 excels in indoor enviroments the outdoor is, from what we've seen, plain ugly compared to the rest. Reminds me of UT or Quake 3 but with bumpmapping . It has NO atmosphere, none. Because the Doom 3 lighting engine isn't suitable for this kind of stuff, lightmaps have a rare advantage here.

- Characters, Bloodlines is a mix between RPG and FPS, and NPC interaction has high priority. I must admit Troika still hasn't done a very good job on modeling, but the animation and lip sync is outstanding.

- Atmospheric indoor enviroments using the radiosity calculations of the lightmap rendering. A church in Doom 3 would be dark with hard shadows where the light comes in through the colored windows. Maybe some candle light to light things up, but it wouldn't look as good (though it's technically more advanced) as a church rendered with lightmaps with radiosity lighting on them and coloured shadows on the floor where the light comes in through the led in glass windows.

So you see, plenty of reasons to take an inferior, in technical aspect, engine.

And I too think Doom 3 isn't a revolution, no current engine is a revolution, there are more engines out there who dumped lightmaps or atleast partially, totally dumping them is evolution. And I do agree we need to dump lightmaps, but current hardware can't replace all the tasks of lightmaps with fully dynamic lighting like in Doom 3.
A revolution would be to do models in NURMS, use displacement mapping, use photon mapping, don't use shaders to do stuff like refracting, let the engine do on the fly breaking objects in a realistic way etc etc.
And this will come, but in small steps, because that's how engine developement goes, in small steps, every new engine is an evolution, never a revolution (that is since the creation of 3D engines)

And id has indeed the most talented people out there, but it's the same id that had absolutely no confidence in Valve when they knocked on id's door because they looked for an engine they would build there first game on; Half-Life
And we all know how that turned out :cheese:

[marksmanHL2 :)]

Nice post PvtRyan but you put nurms instead of nurbs ;)



And yeah Pseudonym_ i agree, the point is that this is all really speculation in a way. Oh and I know its the more advanced engine. No denying that really....


Meh, I am gona go now, I feel ill and i am tired. I need a shower an all..... :p

[PvtRyan]

Nice post PvtRyan but you put nurms instead of nurbs ;)



And yeah Pseudonym_ i agree, the point is that this is all really speculation in a way. Oh and I know its the more advanced engine. No denying that really....


Meh, I am gona go now, I feel ill and i am tired. I need a shower an all..... :p

NURMS is a modeling way :)
It's on the fly subdeviding, smoothening out a model when needed.
NURBS will be converted to triangles in the game anyway, so that would make no difference ;)

[Pseudonym_]

Good post for the most part, PvtRyan, except I don't see whats so awesome about city environments like this (http://image.com.com/gamespot/images/2003/e3/0512/pc_vampiremasq05120900_screen001.jpg). IMO D³ engine could do it better. Same with this (http://image.com.com/gamespot/images/2003/e3/0512/pc_vampiremasq05120900_screen002.jpg) church. Doesn't look impressive to me, could easily pass for a game that has been out for a few years.

I have mixed feelings with the characters. Some of them look decent, like the bartender, others look rediculous, like this (http://image.com.com/gamespot/images/2003/e3/0512/pc_vampiremasq05120900_screen003.jpg) pos.


Anyway, D³ is a very capable engine. The martian city shown in the e3 vid a few years ago looked dope(plus it was huge). There is no doubt in my mind that Bloodlines would look just as good if not better on the D³ engine, even though it does have it's weaknesses.

EDIT:

BTW, I'm sure the D³ engine could do the stained glass window effect nicely. Just look at the stained glass windows in the thief3 vids, which uses a similar unified lighting model to D³. The thing is, id just hasn't shown us the stained glass windows on the martian base ;)

[marksmanHL2 :)]

NURMS is a modeling way
It's on the fly subdeviding, smoothening out a model when needed.
NURBS will be converted to triangles in the game anyway, so that would make no difference


Damn.... Well ok then. I look stupid. :monkee: = me


And btw, I am not all that impressed with bloodlines myself to be honest. I don't know why exactly. It does not seem very, well, refined i guess is the word.
Plus I aint a fan of vampire games......

[OCybrManO]

It is harder to make a non-unified lighting system that uses a lot of hacks to cut corners as much as possible without affecting the visual quality than it is to go the easy way and make everything act the same whether or not it needs to be the same (come on... give Valve a break on the graphics... it's only their second game and their first new engine). The reason people make the extra effort to cut corners is to put that excess processing power to better use. Why do developers make engines that require you to compile your map ahead of time? Precalculating static lighting, removing things that will never be seen, and other optimizations help the game run faster. Any professional game programmer (or team) worth his salary could have made an engine with the same features as Doom 3. The engine is like a brute force approach to graphics. It may look good in the screenshots/videos but it sure is a CPU/GPU hog if you want it to look like the screenshots even at lower resolutions on anything but a top-of-the line computer (and still get a playable framerate). I've heard that the low-end people have to turn off the fancy shadows and possibly the normal mapping to make it playable. That's the entire game! I hope that's not what they are using to call it scalable. I don't know... we'll see when we get our hands on the full version.

What's the revolutionary part? Doing something that most other people have been avoiding because they don't need it is not a fundnamental change in the way games will be made. It's called "using what you need to do the job right". It's just another evolutionary step (albeit, a very pretty one) in video game graphics. If we were to jump from entirely static lighting to Doom3 lighting I would call that a revolutionary step... but we went from "moving things have dynamic shadows" to "all things have dynamic shadows". The engine brings nothing to the table that hasn't been done before (fully dynamic shadows, skipping the compiler, normal maps, etc)... except maybe tight code (John Carmack is very efficient) and having all of those features in one game that actually uses them effectively. It's not quite revolutionary, but it is very impressive.

Anyway, it's the artists that make the game look great... not the features. It doesn't matter how "advanced" the engine is if the talent behind the art is... well, talentless. If you don't have modelers that are great with high-poly modeling and normal mapping your Doom3 mod will look like shit. Most of Doom 3's appeal comes from the normal mapping. If you take that away it's just average. If you can't use that feature you should go to another engine (unless you need dynamic lighting at all costs).

Why do you assume Doom 3 has great netcode and HL2's is crap? iD's latest games had shitty netcode compared to Half-Life. iD is not known for their netcode.

EDIT: Yeah, I don't think Bloodlines looks all that impessive, either. Vampire games should be done on an engine with proper lighting for dark environments... like... oh what's that game... you know... the one with all the dynamic lighting.

[PvtRyan]

Bloodlines was just an example really, because you brought it up ;)
My point was, that if I were to make a game like Bloodlines, I'd choose Source, that doesn't mean I feel that Troika used Source to its fullest potential. :)
I'm not blown away by Bloodlines, it looks good but it's not up to the level of HL2.

And I do think that Doom 3 has a very capable engine, but it's also a specialized engine, out side of that specialism, the game colapses under it's own technical gizmos. In other words, it's still very limited by PC capabilities. Once those are not a problem anymore, it could implement things like realtime radiosity and photon mapping, and then lightmaps would be useless. But until then, lightmaps do have their advantages.

[harrys]

It is harder to make a non-unified lighting system that uses a lot of hacks to cut corners as much as possible without affecting the visual quality than it is to go the easy way and make everything act the same whether or not it needs to be the same (come on... give Valve a break on the graphics... it's only their second game and their first new engine). The reason people make the extra effort to cut corners is to put that excess processing power to better use. Why do developers make engines that require you to compile your map ahead of time? Precalculating static lighting, removing things that will never be seen, and other optimizations help the game run faster. Any professional game programmer (or team) worth his salary could have made an engine with the same features as Doom 3. The engine is like a brute force approach to graphics. It may look good in the screenshots/videos but it sure is a CPU/GPU hog if you want it to look like the screenshots even at lower resolutions on anything but a top-of-the line computer (and still get a playable framerate). I've heard that the low-end people have to turn off the fancy shadows and possibly the normal mapping to make it playable. That's the entire game! I hope that's not what they are using to call it scalable. I don't know... we'll see when we get our hands on the full version.

What's the revolutionary part? Doing something that most other people have been avoiding because they don't need it is not a fundnamental change in the way games will be made. It's called "using what you need to do the job right". It's just another evolutionary step (albeit, a very pretty one) in video game graphics. If we were to jump from entirely static lighting to Doom3 lighting I would call that a revolutionary step... but we went from "moving things have dynamic shadows" to "all things have dynamic shadows". The engine brings nothing to the table that hasn't been done before (fully dynamic shadows, skipping the compiler, normal maps, etc)... except maybe tight code (John Carmack is very efficient) and having all of those features in one game that actually uses them effectively. It's not quite revolutionary, but it is very impressive.

Anyway, it's the artists that make the game look great... not the features. It doesn't matter how "advanced" the engine is if the talent behind the art is... well, talentless. If you don't have modelers that are great with high-poly modeling and normal mapping your Doom3 mod will look like shit. Most of Doom 3's appeal comes from the normal mapping. If you take that away it's just average. If you can't use that feature you should go to another engine (unless you need dynamic lighting at all costs).

Why do you assume Doom 3 has great netcode and HL2's is crap? iD's latest games had shitty netcode compared to Half-Life. iD is not known for their netcode.

EDIT: Yeah, I don't think Bloodlines looks all that impessive, either. Vampire games should be done on an engine with proper lighting for dark environments... like... oh what's that game... you know... the one with all the dynamic lighting.

IF you don't see the difference you obviously don't know shit about 3d game engines. DOOM3 engine is revolutionary because it uses realtime unifiied lighting meaning you don't have to pre-compile lights. Show me a game which does unified lighting. Dynamic lighting and shadows are totally are done in previous games(even quake 2 had it) but they are not done in truely dynamic way.
And also do some research before makiing dubious claims, most of Quake based games have very good netcode.

[PvtRyan]

IF you don't see the difference you obviously don't know shit about 3d game engines. DOOM3 engine is revolutionary because it uses realtime unifiied lighting meaning you don't have to pre-compile lights. Show me a game which does unified lighting. Dynamic lighting and shadows are totally are done in previous games(even quake 2 had it) but they are not done in truely dynamic way.
And also do some research before makiing dubious claims, most of Quake based games have very good netcode.

I've seen many examples of graphics students who made Doom 3 like engines, even some that seem to surpass it if given enough time.

And games like Deus Ex 2 and Thief 3 approach Doom 3 pretty nicely (not anywhere near the same gfx though) but Doom 3 is just that and more of the same. No revolution, a revolution would be if you totally changed the way games are rendered, which it doesn't.

[harrys]

I've seen many examples of graphics students who made Doom 3 like engines, even some that seem to surpass it if given enough time.

And games like Deus Ex 2 and Thief 3 approach Doom 3 pretty nicely (not anywhere near the same gfx though) but Doom 3 is just that and more of the same. No revolution, a revolution would be if you totally changed the way games are rendered, which it doesn't.

Revolution something when there is a fundamental change in process. Reason why I said revolutionary because most of the features in D3 engine are fundamentally different than game engines

[Kadayi]

id has always been about simple, fast, fun gameplay. But with Doom³ they are taking a new approach. For the first time they are making a SP game that is story driven and is meant to induce emotions(mostly fear). You make it sound as if they have been trying to do this all along but have failed, therefore we should not be optimistic about Doom³. Thats just not true. They have never tried to make this kind of game before, because they were always focusing on a more simplistic gameplay that you could just jump right into and have a blast.

D³ has the same postage stamp sized 'plot' as D¹, D²,Q¹ and Q². There are rooms, there are monsters (without rhyme or reason) you shoot them, or they eat you. Please don't try and convince us there are diamonds where there is only dust. ID make very good FPS engines, but that is all they make, FPS engines.

[Styloid]

I wouldn't say that Doom3 is revolutionary because calculating lighting in real-time has been done before and *could* have been done in a professional game by any other company with a big enough reputation and selling power to sell something that will barely run on most casual gamers' (crappy) computers and also takes away popular elements in games (like large environments, large amount of enemies, large multiplayer, etc). I've brought up the example before but Chaser's CloakNT engine could do real-time lighting but had to opt out of it because of the high systme requirements. It's good that someone has the guts to do it but it's not like they're somehow 'enlightened' and have somehow brought this brand new technology to earth...

[Zoorado]

I wouldn't say that Doom3 is revolutionary because calculating lighting in real-time has been done before and *could* have been done in a professional game by any other company with a big enough reputation and selling power to sell something that will barely run on most casual gamers' (crappy) computers and also takes away popular elements in games (like large environments, large amount of enemies, large multiplayer, etc). I've brought up the example before but Chaser's CloakNT engine could do real-time lighting but had to opt out of it because of the high systme requirements. It's good that someone has the guts to do it but it's not like they're somehow 'enlightened' and have somehow brought this brand new technology to earth...

DOOM 3 is revolutionary not only because of its lighting. Sure, it has the first completely unified and dynamic real-time lighting engine in a game, but that's not all. It's the unprecedentedly tight integration of this lighting engine with equally versatile and capable proprietary physics and sound engines that make the technology behind DOOM 3 'revolutionary'. Every physical entity visible stresses the lighting/graphics engine as much as it does to the other two aspects of the renderer. This results in an unequivocally generalised renderer, from lighting to particles to physics to sound: a true quantum leap above any other game on the horizon.

D³ has the same postage stamp sized 'plot' as D¹, D²,Q¹ and Q². There are rooms, there are monsters (without rhyme or reason) you shoot them, or they eat you. Please don't try and convince us there are diamonds where there is only dust. ID make very good FPS engines, but that is all they make, FPS engines.

You are obviously prejudiced against id. Tell us only after you've played DOOM 3.

[Wolf]

D³ has the same postage stamp sized 'plot' as D¹, D²,Q¹ and Q². There are rooms, there are monsters (without rhyme or reason) you shoot them, or they eat you. Please don't try and convince us there are diamonds where there is only dust. ID make very good FPS engines, but that is all they make, FPS engines.
I agree though I think we should give D3 a chance free of preconception when it comes out.

But yes, ultimately I think saying id are the most talented game devs without qualification is absurd. Clearly Carmack is an amazing coder and they have probably one of the best animators in business as well as generally occupying a special place in the game industry, but seriously any evaluation of 'the best' should go on past history and include having innovative and interesting design brains which id have never had IMO. id isn't even close to the design prowess of game houses like Troika, Irrational Games, ISA (pre-IW), Illusion Softworks, Piranha Bytes, Blizzard, Monolith, Relic, Rockstar etc etc... Now you might say, id has never attempted those kind of games - but come on, if id is content to churn out derivative shallow SP games (Q2, RtCW) then their reputation will suffer in non-tech areas.... Nostalgia can only go so far...

[Kadayi]

You are obviously prejudiced against id. Tell us only after you've played DOOM 3.

LOL you honestly think I'm going to bother buying another tech demo from ID? Hell I was fool enough to buy Doom off them, and naive enough to think Quake might be an improvement. :dozey:

[Norlan]

LOL you honestly think I'm going to bother buying another tech demo from ID? Hell I was fool enough to buy Doom off them, and naive enough to think Quake might be an improvement. :dozey:If you have actually tried to think about it, id didn't spend over the past 4 years doing nothing but programming.

[cadaver]

I`ve said doom3 before, but after discovering(little bit late but..) STALKER I may have changed my mind. stalker is going to be the ultimate gaming experience though :thumbs:

[lePobz]

I just can't believe solitaire isn't in the list. It's a graphical masterpiece!

[Murray_H]

One thing that bothers me about Doom 3 is the mod side to it - if it has taken the developers of the game, with their masses of artists, coders and sound technicians, a shit load of time and then some to get it working just right, how the hell is a small time mod team gonna make something that is even half as complex as Doom 3, that looks good and functions properly?

[Pseudonym_]

if it has taken the developers of the game, with their masses of artists, coders and sound technicians, a shit load of time and then some to get it working just right

id software don't have masses of developers. they are a relatively small team. They have always kept their numbers low, thats how they like to operate.


I really don't see what your worrying about. It's not abnormal for a game to take this long to develope. They started hl2 what 5 years ago? Don't sweat it.

By your standards hl2 will be even harder to mod for than D³, since it was under development slightly longer. :cool:

[Bad^Hat]

I think Half-Life 2 is the best all-round graphical game of the above. Doom 3 is alot more impressive in some ways but it has the feeling of being really cramped. FarCry is nice, but from the screens I'd say it falls behind just a little, although I've never played the SP demo on full details. STALKER looks nice but I've yet to see any gameplay in action so, meh.

[Art_Crime]

You know, I was at first really impressed with STALKER's graphics, am still am for the most part. But I noticed they cut corners...

In one of the movies, he opens a car door and the texture is completely flat and ugly looking!

[CrazyHarij]

Wow, this is thread sure is old! :D

http://www.halflife2.net/forums/showpost.php?p=333987&postcount=14

Wow.. was that really me? 12th january.. damn, that's way back.

[Asuka]

HL2

But doom 3 was very close.

[neptuneuk]

check the sig