2 new doom screen shots. [Archive]

Nexiss

31-Jul-2002, 03:40

Very nice texturing, but the shadows can kind of give away the actual (lower) polygon detail that is present. I also noticed what appeared to be a lighting artifact (although it was very small and probably wouldn't be noticable in the game). Not to take away from it, because it looks amazing.

LittlePenny

31-Jul-2002, 03:48

I think the thing you are going to notice with next-gen games is that the screen shots will not be half as satisfactory as watching the game in motion. Quite the opposite of olden days ala "Trespasser". Is it just me, or does the scientist look kinda like Carmack without hair?

RussSchultz

31-Jul-2002, 03:58

I had no idea Carmack was so pudgy and deformed.

(But yes, I think I do see a resemblence in the face)

31-Jul-2002, 04:02

Question..... were they done on the nv30? 8)

RussSchultz

31-Jul-2002, 04:18

Why don't you ask him?

31-Jul-2002, 04:27

Why don't you ask him?

Because it wasn't a serious question Russ.

nooneyouknow

31-Jul-2002, 05:04

Carmack has mentioned many times that he is doing much more cool things with bump-mapping and other texture enhancing effects vs. high-poly characters. They are purposely low-poly characters.

Pete

31-Jul-2002, 05:31

The real-time shadows should hopefully make up for the seemingly low-poly models.

elimc

31-Jul-2002, 06:56

When is this game supposed to be released, anyway?

marco

31-Jul-2002, 07:01

Incredible shots, however, I wish they would do something about the connection between the head and the body. That always has been a problem with ID software.
And this is from a true ID software fan....
The game is to be released somewhere early next year.....remember "when it's done".....

Oh I just found the shots, so I placed the url on the frontpage, of course your guys had found them already....he I just woke up...

Oompa Loompa

31-Jul-2002, 07:12

Extremely nice. Yes, the visor looks terrific, but check out his teeth! Damn, that is a nice shader, or per-pixel lighting on a detail texture, or whatever.

Yeah, there are a few defects. Note that the "scientist's" shadow doesn't even partially occlude the display screen. Understandable for an alpha.

I have fairly low expectations for Doom3 as a game, but here's hoping lots of people license the engine!

Fuz

31-Jul-2002, 08:22

cybamerc

31-Jul-2002, 08:27

Not to say it doesn't look good because it certainly does but either these screens were taken on a "low-end" gfx card or the gfx have been seriously downgraded since the Doom tech was first shown. Self-shadowing is used very sparsely, there are major skinning issues and it looks to me like they are using diffuse vertex lighting in those screens. And I bet the game will still run like crap on a minimum spec system.

It's still a huge step forward as far as PC gfx are concerned though.

31-Jul-2002, 10:56

Until you see it in motion, those shots don't really do it justice.
You have to see the Doom III Legacy video, the high res version that runs at proper frame rates, not the one that ran at about 0.5 fps that every one saw.

I can upload it to some where for you guys to download.

If you can upload the DoomIII Legacy HIGH Res Running at normal FPS
than please do so!!! Because I have only seen the "slow" version and it
realy left me wanting to see the motion.

PC-Engine

31-Jul-2002, 11:11

So this was what all the ranting and raving was about? :-?

It doesn't look too impressive.

pascal

31-Jul-2002, 12:09

Impressive but the movies are much more impressive than the screenshots.

With relativally low poly count it will be more dependent on the GPU than on the CPU. Probably id is concentrating the fire on the GPU side.

31-Jul-2002, 13:50

nice but still some issues, look at the shadows on the first screen shoot. The one with the "professor" looks like it should have show a shadow on that bottom corner of the blue screen. Other than that not too bad.

NTD

31-Jul-2002, 13:59

http://www.ati.com/products/pc/radeon9700/testimonials.html

There's like a minute of D3 footage in this video, check it out.

Colourless

31-Jul-2002, 14:00

The small screen is probably set to be a light emitting surface, and as such, it's brightness ends up getting rid of the shadow. Adding a little bit of glare, or even glow around the edges of the monitor, would make things look slightly better.

Just giving an example of 'real life'. I'm currently sitting here, with a a light behind me, and I can't see my shadow being cast on my monitor, but I can see it being cast on the plastic edges.

pascal

31-Jul-2002, 14:15

I hope this game have some 16/9 option to save some pixels and have a high resolution at the same time (remenber MDK?).

Gollum

31-Jul-2002, 14:16

The intro shot is pretty cool, except for the weird behaviour of the professor's shadow and a few other minor details. The second shot however sucks badly IMO. Sure, the characters still look way better than anything out today or tomorrow (and only motion will show the true advantage of the high-detail bumpmapping), but the environment could almost be from the original Unreal with some real-time, low-poly shadows thrown in... :-?

I agree with those saying sceenshots will rarely do the engine justice though. If you take a look at the engine in motion from E3's videos (Doom Legacy and the handcam gameplay vid) or the footage from ATI's 9700 developer testimonials, you can't help but be amazed by at least some of it...

Reverend

31-Jul-2002, 16:16

The scientist's shadow on the machine looks unimpressive but I guess that's due to the amount of hype about this game that I've absorbed.

These two should be from a R300 I think.

Fuz

31-Jul-2002, 16:17

If any one wants to check out the Legacy video, or the E3 gameplay footage, you can download them from me.

203.100.233.112, Port 21, L/P = b3d/b3d

I will leave it up for a couple of hours.

Fuz

KnightBreed

31-Jul-2002, 16:33

Hyp-X

31-Jul-2002, 16:58

Why are most of the shadows entirely black, while some are partially transparent (the soldier's shadow in the background of the first pic)?

Is the opaque shadowing an inherant flaw of stencil shadow volumes?

LOL

Shadows doesn't have color, nor opacity.
Lights have.
A shadow is only a lack of light (sort of).

There can be multiple light sources, so at a given surface it is possible that some light is blocked by an object, while an other light still illuminates it.

A surface point is black when non of the lights can hit that surface point, and the point does not have self-illumination (like the screen).

In the real world however there is an effect called radiosity, which means that any point of a lit surface that is not black, bounces off light (thats why you can see it actually) and so acts as a lightsource. It is far too complex to calculate radiosity in real-time, so it is usually replaced with an ambient light. Setting the ambient to black is one of the things that makes Doom3 so unrealistic.

KnightBreed

31-Jul-2002, 17:16

LOL

Shadows doesn't have color, nor opacity.
Lights have.
A shadow is only a lack of light (sort of).

Good to see you find my ignorance on the matter amusing. :roll:

LittlePenny

31-Jul-2002, 17:51

Wow, such critics!

Hyp-X

31-Jul-2002, 18:27

Good to see you find my ignorance on the matter amusing. :roll:

I apologize for sounding so rude. :oops:

I can see why you thought that shadows are transparent polygons or textures, as a lot of games implemented it like that because it was more simple. (But not correct/realistic.)

The new thing in Doom3 is that it tries to do as correct lighting calculations as possible. It's not perfect though. Maybe JC's next engine that'll be based on NV30. :)

fresh

31-Jul-2002, 18:45

Shadows will be pure black in D3 I believe. This is because of the way he's rendering his scenes. First he renders the whole scene to the zbuffer (writes to the colour buffer are disabled). Then for each light he casts the shadow volumes and draws the scene using that light's parameters. Then he moves on to the next light. So the number of passes is equal to the # of lights. This is how I understood he did it, and that's why you get pure black shadows. I suppose he could render just an ambient lit scene in the first pass, but it'd be missing bump mapping and might look like ass.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, as I've been known to hit the ol' crack pipe once in a while :)

Boke

31-Jul-2002, 20:16

Nah... the shadows won't all be black... It would look like hell.
Look at the soldier in the background in the first pic... his shadow is not black.

Just a guess... He is probably calculating the shadows strength based on the objects distance from the light source. Objects very close to a light source would cast a nearly black shadow if other light sources were not present.

Silent_One

31-Jul-2002, 20:53

"Look at the soldier in the background in the first pic... his shadow is not black."

Well the answer could be simple...it's NOT a shadow. Read this over at VE:

#108 by mister9000 at 01:10 AM PST on 07/31/2002
Ah crap.. forgot something.

The "shadow" you guys are seeing in the back of the first shot (the soldier standing in the distance) doesn't look like a shadow. I believe its a reflection of the model on the wall. If you notice, it only shows up on the one particular piece of the wall; presumably there's a mirror stage on that surface, reflecting the model. Not a shadow.

Also.....

#107 by mister9000 at 01:08 AM PST on 07/31/2002
To answer the burning question of "Why is the computer screen not in the shadow," I believe I can settle it for you.

There is most likely a sorting issue with the shadows (projected texture) and the computer monitor shader. The shadow is being drawn and then the monitor.
I'm willing to guess this is something that has already been fixed by the guys at id Software (please learn how to type/spell their name correctly).

Most of the time screenshots are taken by someone at the publisher and NOT someone at the developer. I've been through that first hand... had screenshots of brick walls released by the marketing department.

Chill out folks, the game is going to blow us all away.
John "Hal9000" Schuch
Gray Matter Studios"

Could explain alot....

KnightBreed

31-Jul-2002, 21:07

Good to see you find my ignorance on the matter amusing. :roll:

I apologize for sounding so rude. :oops:

No problem. :)

I can see why you thought that shadows are transparent polygons or textures, as a lot of games implemented it like that because it was more simple. (But not correct/realistic.)
Just to make sure I understand correctly:

Doom3's engine sends out rays from the various light sources. Polygon meshes create "shadow volumes" in regions where they block the light rays. Any vertex that is inside this volume doesn't get lit - i.e. it stays black or gray or whatever shade, based on the ambient light.

In older games, however, shadows are either lightmaps, pre-rendered when the map is loaded, or textures, projected off of world models.

Boke

31-Jul-2002, 21:10

"Well the answer could be simple...it's NOT a shadow"
"I believe its a reflection of the model on the wall."

Possible.. but not likely ( IMO ).

"To answer the burning question of "Why is the computer screen not in the shadow," I believe I can settle it for you."

"There is most likely a sorting issue with the shadows (projected texture) and the computer monitor shader. The shadow is being drawn and then the monitor."

The computer screen emits its own light. A shadow should not be cast on it. The shadow is being cast correctly.... Try casting a shadow on your computer screen with a your hand held in front of a flashlight. If you see a shadow at all, it will hardly be noticeable.

KnightBreed

31-Jul-2002, 21:54

The computer screen emits its own light. A shadow should not be cast on it. The shadow is being cast correctly.... Try casting a shadow on your computer screen with a your hand held in front of a flashlight. If you see a shadow at all, it will hardly be noticeable.
Remember the game's content is far from being complete. It's possible the mapper simply forgot to make the computer screen a light source.

Another question:

How are shadow volumes handled in an instance where you have 2 opposing light sources in a room with a character standing in the middle? Are the light rays assigned intensity values to determine which light "overpowers" the other? Would the shadow end up a transparent gray on one side, and no shadow on the other side?

02-Aug-2002, 22:41

demalion

03-Aug-2002, 01:46

But why are the big pipes up in the screen so ugly corny.... ?
Finally any need for for Ati's Truform ? :roll:

It's a bit the same as in the Wolfman-demo: Great bot but ugly scenery :(

http://www.shacknews.com/screens.x/doom3/DOOM+3/1/073002/shot0233.jpg

up

Heh, there are plenty of games that would benefit from Truform. ;) NwN DOES benefit from Truform, too bad its crash on save bug still manifests when you have it on.

I think the game needs motion to be done justice...the polygon flaws will likely not stand out much at all then, atleast on the top of the line cards at the time of the release with all settings maximum. ;) Atleast, I hope so. Let's not forget to notice all the rather awesome texturing and details in things like the soldier's face and goggles while caught up in the sharp edges and hard shadows.

Laa-Yosh

05-Aug-2002, 18:04

I have to argue with you on the ambient light, Hyp-X.

It's a very unrealistic method to use, and has been present in offline renderers for decades now as a legacy from the old days, when every light source was expensive for the calculations. Nowadays every skilled lighting artist would/should start with setting the ambient to 0.0 and use fill lights to remove black areas from the scene.

As for Doom3, you're right that adding an ambient light would kill the black areas; however it's a horroristic game, meant to have enemies hiding in the dark to surprise you. Also, there's an artistic approach to it as well, as totally black areas will bring a lot of contrast to the scenes - and this in turn will make the visuals more dramatic.

Adding an ambient lightsource would kill this contrast; as this kind of light is directionless, it will not produce any shading on the objects, everything will appear to be flat. This will also remove depth from the image, making it more cartoon-like. Still, with a low strength (0.1-0.2) it can have a good effect, but not in Doom3...

On the long term, I think that realtime engines will present serious decisions; the more pre-processing you can add (baking in some default lighting to objects and characters), the less you'll have to do with computation-intensive realtime lights. However, precalculated data will require more storage space, and more work hours from the artists to generate it. Finding the optimal balance will be very important...

8ender

07-Aug-2002, 13:44

I think were murdering doom3 by being too critical of these screenshots. My guess is that this is marketing drivel released by a marketing team that doesnt understand what "high detail" means in the game settings.

Just look at the shots, they're teaser shots. The kind of shots you see in a magazine.

id Software doesnt want to give out screenshots that hold up to critical analysis, they want to release screenshots that make the young-uns grab for daddy's credit card or that generally impress the layman gamer.

Remember, christmas is coming up.

I predict that Doom3 is going to be exactly like Quake3; A trendsetter engine that is going to make your eyes melt with its beautiful graphics.

At that point, id Software will license the engine and make a lot of money like with its quake3 engine. Years later, game studios will start rolling out their Doom Engine based games and the spotlight will once again be on id Software. At this point, id rolls out another engine to suceed Doom3.

id Software makes game engines like ati makes video cards. Quake3 felt more like an interactive tech demo than a game and I predict that Doom3 will be the same way.

It wasn't until all the Quake3 mods came out that I felt that quake3 was a complete game. id doesn't mess around with plots, dialouge, FMV or anything else that costs extra money.

They simply release a game similar to that 3Dmark2001 car demo except they add more levels, characters and make it multiplay.