Silent hill 3 WTF!!!

[zidane1strife]

http://www.playscope.com/fichiers/videos/1571/silenthill3.mov

Was going around gamers zone forum and found this....

and d'guy who started the thread say'd: "Absolutely amazing. And, according to the developers everythings' real time. Wow!"

If that's true, than i am Really really impressed.... didn't know ps2 could handle such a level of gphx... all i can say is WOW :o :o :o :o If it's for real!!!

EDIT: Oh, yeah u need quicktime 6 to view it.

[DeathKnight]

Looks like a mix between pre-rendered cinematics and game footage.

[iscariot]

Yea in an interview they said their engine is so good, all the cutscenes are rendered in real time, no need for FMV anymore. I have yet to see it but I'm sure it looks great.

[Logan Leonhart]

I saw it, and it looks amazing! :o There´s a VERY high number of polygons on the characters, and the environments look amazing. The textures look awesome as well.

If this is indeed realtime, this will be yet another example of a PS2 game that squeezes out even more power out of the machine. I can´t wait to see how FFXII looks like. 8)

[bukima]

I just watched it again, and it has all the marks of being in-game. There is a little bit of aliasing going on in most scenes (like the first one in the café), if you look at things like windows, doorframes and other straight lines. Also on Dahila's hair.

I don't think this would happen if it were CG. Awesome!

[Teasy]

There's no aliasing at all in the cafe scene AFAICS. The only aliasing I can see is in the in-game scene were she's shooting that monster with a machine gun. Strangely enough that scene also looks nowhere near as graphically impressive as the cafe scene or any of the other cut scene's. If the cutscene's are using the in-game engine in real time then why doesn't the actual gameplay look anything like the cutscene's? I think this is all wishful thinking from PS2 fans.

[Fafalada]

Teasy, the heavy noise filtering combined with a blurry capture works to cover up most aliasing artifacts.
Still... if you look at something like the cut-scene where she picks up the gun, the shadowing is a dead giveaway of it being realtime. (they appear to use blur-filtered volume shadows, the sideeffects of which I'm quite familiar with since I've been using similar technique in my current project :p )

Some other cut-scenes look like straight from SH2 as well - the one with Dahlia? - for instance. Cafe scene has some tell-tale signs of realtime CG too, although they are more subtle, and mainly static camera in that scene helps to avoid most aliasing.

[PC-Engine]

It looks good, but I don't understand how a low resolution video clip can definitively prove whether it's realtime or not :wink:

Keep in mind that FMV can also bring out aliasing artifacts :wink:

[Teasy]

Teasy, the heavy noise filtering combined with a blurry capture works to cover up most aliasing artifacts

Yeah I'd thought of that, however the video is of the same quality right the way through. So if the cut scene's aliasing artifacts are being hidden then the aliasing in the in-game scene's must also be hidden to the same degree. Yet the in-game scene's still have more visible aliasing then the cut scene's. This brought me to the conclusion that the in-game scenes simply have allot more aliasing artifacts then the cut scene's.. why is that if there both realtime?

[Fafalada]

So if the cut scene's aliasing artifacts are being hidden then the aliasing in the in-game scene's must also be hidden to the same degree. Yet the in-game scene's still have more visible aliasing then the cut scene's. This brought me to the conclusion that the in-game scenes simply have allot more aliasing artifacts then the cut scene's.. why is that if there both realtime?
As silly as it is to be debating a video for this, and even a rather blurry one at that ;) I'll bite this one more time.
One thing that is rather apparent is that camera motion in most cutscenes is slow, or even non existant most of the time, which in itself shows less aliasing. It's still pretty obvious the scenes shown are running without AA though.
Also, character shading and shadowing, as nice as it looks, visibly lacks precision or detail of offline rendered methods (I mean I'm willing to keep an open mind, but goraud shading in FMV is pushing it).

Anyway, before I say more, I just want to say I really dig how this game looks so far, and I'm anxious to see more as I liked the predecessor a lot as well. :)

But let me ask what is so impossible about this video that couldn't be done realtime? Character detail is not really different(at least not noticeably so) then it was in SH2. Indoor spaces are bigger, and shadowing is quite improved, but that's about all that I could actually say is clearly different from the video so far. (maybe framerate is also better? )
Any particular scene that looks impossible to you?

[SMarth]

Everything looks real-time to me.

[Blade]

The bar scene looks entirely like FMV.

[LogisticX]

Well, I think it looks good but not "unbelievable" IMO. The thing with the close-up portions of the video is that it is VERY likely to be running in real-time, but actual gameplay portions will not look as good as that (as has been pointed out here).

You can use replay clips in games like GT3 and sports games as an example. If you notice, in GT3 there is a lot of neat little effects you get to see in the replay that you don't when actually driving....heat shimmering (not from interlacing problems though :P ) and I believe better lighting as well just to push my point.

[Teasy]

I didn't notice this until now so forgive the late reply:

But let me ask what is so impossible about this video that couldn't be done realtime? Character detail is not really different(at least not noticeably so) then it was in SH2. Indoor spaces are bigger, and shadowing is quite improved, but that's about all that I could actually say is clearly different from the video so far. (maybe framerate is also better? )
Any particular scene that looks impossible to you?

I didn't say it looked impossible to do in realtime, although it does look far better then any other real time rendering I've seen from PS2 (the cut-scene's not in-game). I just said that some of the scene's clearly have allot more aliasing then others.. coincidentally those same scenes (that have more aliasing) are the cut-scene's. That and the general large difference in visual quality between the cut-scene's and in-game scene's leads me to believe that the cut-scene's are not done in real time. If they were then why not make the in-game scene's looks nearly as good?

As for changes over Silent Hill 2, well I was under the impresion, from others stuff I've read on Silent Hill 2 and what I've read here about Silent Hill 3, that while Silent Hill 2 has pre-rendered backgrounds (like Res Evil) Silent Hill 3 is all realtime... is this not true?

[iscariot]

Silent Hill 2 does not have pre-rendered bg's, it's all real time, unlike RE remake...

[Teasy]

Ah, ok then. I just seem to remember people mentioning Silent Hill 2 as having pre-rendered backgrounds... maybe I'm thinking of Silent Hill?

[iscariot]

no I 'think' Sh was realtime as well but I'm probably wrong with that one. Wasn't much of a PSX gamer.....

All silent hills are in real time

[mech]

If they were then why not make the in-game scene's looks nearly as good?


Because in a cut-scene you don't have to worry about physics, AI, user input, garbage collection, streaming, and a bunch of other things. Everything's pre-defined, so it's easier to get the game much better looking. For example, go play MGS2 - the cut-scenes sh*t all over the game, but they're all real-time.

[Teasy]

Because in a cut-scene you don't have to worry about physics, AI, user input, garbage collection, streaming, and a bunch of other things.

Which is why I said nearly as good instead of as good. The cut-scene's are just so much better looking then the in-game stuff.. there both in a totally different league from each other from what I remember of the video (but I'll check again tonight to make sure). I've never seen real time cut-scene's be that much better then the in-game stuff, better yeah but not that much better. That's what makes me think they're not realtime.

[marconelly!]

Teasy, they are realtime. Developer said so in an interview. The engine is also used in game but camerawork in the cut scenes is always more revealing than in-game cameras. That is why it looks better.

Btw, Silent Hill and Silent Hill 2 don't have pre-rendered backgrounds. Everything is realtime.

[Panajev2001a]

Mech, about MGS2 you're wrooong very wrooong :P :D you can move the camer and zoom in adn out in any cut-scene ( beat the game and play again )

[marconelly!]

Here are some hi-res pictures (ingame and cutscenes) This should prove not only that everything is realtime, but that in-game graphics are not much different than cut scenes (soft self shadowing, etc...)

http://www.computerandvideogames.com/screenshots_library/dir_134/vortal_pic_67343.jpg

http://www.computerandvideogames.com/screenshots_library/dir_134/vortal_pic_67346.jpg

http://www.computerandvideogames.com/screenshots_library/dir_134/vortal_pic_67328.jpg

http://www.computerandvideogames.com/screenshots_library/dir_134/vortal_pic_67327.jpg

[iscariot]

http://www.tothegame.com/screens/ps2_silenthill3/2002-08-29/screen7_large.jpg


http://www.tothegame.com/screens/ps2_silenthill3/2002-08-29/screen8_large.jpg

[Logan Leonhart]

This should prove the naysayers wrong. :) God, it looks totally amazing! 8)

[Steve Dave Part Deux]

My TV doesn't display 1024 x 780.

[marconelly!]

My TV doesn't display 1024 x 780.

Scale it down to 640x

It will only look better as textures are optimized for that resolution :D

[Ratty]

At 640 x 480 it will start to look a lot a lot more ordinary, rather than more impressive. "Jaggies" will look proportionally larger, and texture aliasing will become noticeable closer into the camera.

I must admit, I've never heard of games looking more impressive as you slash the resolution.

Those 1024 x 780 images seem to have been scaled down using some form of filter, meaning they're benefitting from AA too.

Looks great, but I think it's possible to get carried away looking at development kit sourced PR shots (similar to some of the early DoA3 images).

[randycat99]

Looks like Mr. Hanky was all up in that tub.

[randycat99]

At 640 x 480 it will start to look a lot a lot more ordinary, rather than more impressive. "Jaggies" will look proportionally larger, and texture aliasing will become noticeable closer into the camera.

I'm pretty sure you got that backwards. I've never seen an image that looked worse when scaled down. ...But when scaled up, the problems you cite are definitely likely. If these are 1024x780 looking like they do, and you scale it down to 640x480, they will look flawless (though quite a bit smaller). Expand it back up to fit a big TV screen, you might see some problems again.
Though 1024x780 is a lot of video info, so it will probably look just fine on TV.

[marconelly!]

SH2 looks ver clean and smooth on a TV. There is no reason to believe they will downgrade image quality for the sequel.


At 640 x 480 it will start to look a lot a lot more ordinary, rather than more impressive. "Jaggies" will look proportionally larger, and texture aliasing will become noticeable closer into the camera.

Not if you antialias it at least vertically (like the TV does anyways if the game outputs full frame buffer). TV also blurs pixels a little bit so that also helps.


Looks great, but I think it's possible to get carried away looking at development kit sourced PR shots (similar to some of the early DoA3 images)

Well, I think DOA3 on a TV looks really close to PR shots they've released. SH2 also looks very pristine and smooth on a TV, much like these shots do on a monitor. I think this game will be a sight to behold when it comes out :)

[PC-Engine]

I'm pretty sure you got that backwards. I've never seen an image that looked worse when scaled down. ...But when scaled up, the problems you cite are definitely likely. If these are 1024x780 looking like they do, and you scale it down to 640x480, they will look flawless (though quite a bit smaller). Expand it back up to fit a big TV screen, you might see some problems again.
Though 1024x780 is a lot of video info, so it will probably look just fine on TV.

I think the point Ratty was making is that those screenshots are rendered on a devkit in high resolution at who knows what framerate. You can't simply scale these down to 640x480 using PS and say they'll look better. The PS2 isn't going to be doing FSAA with supersampling anytime soon. This game will be rendered at 640x480 on a tv so it won't look anywhere near what these screenshots show let alone better. Taking a high res image and scaling it down to 640x480 isn't the same as rendering straight to 640x480 :wink:

Not if you antialias it at least vertically (like the TV does anyways if the game outputs full frame buffer). TV also blurs pixels a little bit so that also helps.

Playing ANY game at 640x480 on a 13" tv and not seeing aliasing is kinda expected. Most people wouldn't see PSX aliasing on a 13" neither :lol:

[randycat99]

As opposed to looking at a terrible screen capture of a PS2 screen on a relatively high resolution monitor (the one you are using to view this site), looking at a high res shot isn't such a bad compensation for what you finally get on your TV set. It is fairly certain that the TV image won't be as crystal clear as the hi-res shot on a monitor, but it will be reasonably close when it comes to smoothness of textures and antialiasing. The grainy screen capture method certainly isn't representative and only results in comments such as "Gawd that looks horrid, this game suks!", so what can you do? (rhetorical)

[RaolinDarksbane]

Why are the shots in hi-res???

[marconelly!]

IGN has these shots in smaler size, if anyone wants.

[aneep]

looking good

and thank god the screens is in high res, or else i probably can't see a thing

-aneep-

[PC-Engine]

As opposed to looking at a terrible screen capture of a PS2 screen on a relatively high resolution monitor (the one you are using to view this site), looking at a high res shot isn't such a bad compensation for what you finally get on your TV set. It is fairly certain that the TV image won't be as crystal clear as the hi-res shot on a monitor, but it will be reasonably close when it comes to smoothness of textures and antialiasing. The grainy screen capture method certainly isn't representative and only results in comments such as "Gawd that looks horrid, this game suks!", so what can you do? (rhetorical)

These are obviously PR screens. If this game is progressive, a 640x480 framebuffer grab is all it takes. If it's field rendered then a deinterlacer is all it takes.

[Ratty]

PC-Engine said:
Taking a high res image and scaling it down to 640x480 isn't the same as rendering straight to 640x480

And that's exactly the point. Using some kind of resize filter to blend all the information from a 1500 x 1100 image into a 640 x 480 image is NOT the same thing as rendering natively at 640 x 480.

I think people are confusing "zooming in" the image and "scaling up" the resolution.

And an interlaced flicker filter and TV blurring don't make up in terms of image quality for rendering at above 1.5k x 1k pixels. When the DC ran through a monitor it lost all the TV blurring / flicker filter, and still "only" ran at 640 x 480, but it usually looked a lot better than on a TV. Xbox owners who use 480p also tend to swear it looks better too.

Render these images at a lower res and they'll look worse.

And it isn't a case of this or poor quality video grabs; they could use the same process just to take ordinary sized screen buffer grabs from the development kit. It's a bout trying to show their latest game in the best possible light - there's probably lots of detail you'd miss in a low res shot that you'd notice in motion.

It looks great, and it'll still look great on a TV, just somewhat less so.

[marconelly!]

there's probably lots of detail you'd miss in a low res shot that you'd notice in motion.

Yes, I think that's the whole point.

If you absolutely must see how approximately normal resolution framegrab would look, you can always scale these shots down using 'nearest neighbour' in the photoshop. You would loose the precision that you would get from rendering to the buffer and the picture would look worse than what you'd see on a TV.

[zidane1strife]

This game will be rendered at 640x480 on a tv so it won't look anywhere near what these screenshots show

Da trailer is not highrez, and many seem just as impressed...

[marconelly!]

This game will be rendered at 640x480 on a tv so it won't look anywhere near what these screenshots show

Yeah, it sure stopped all those great looking console games to, well, look great :D

[PC-Engine]

Well obviously the art isn't going to change :wink:

[mech]

Mech, about MGS2 you're wrooong very wrooong :P :D you can move the camer and zoom in adn out in any cut-scene ( beat the game and play again )

Eh? How'm I wrong?

You can't move the camera at all. You can zoom in, and THEN you can move the camera, but only because you're looking at exactly the same stuff, zoomed in.

Because the engine knows where you've going to be looking at all times, it doesn't even need to do T&L on the fly - I read on here a while back the GS is just fed data sets that were pre-compiled.

Because in a cut-scene you don't have to worry about physics, AI, user input, garbage collection, streaming, and a bunch of other things.

Which is why I said nearly as good instead of as good. The cut-scene's are just so much better looking then the in-game stuff.. there both in a totally different league from each other from what I remember of the video (but I'll check again tonight to make sure). I've never seen real time cut-scene's be that much better then the in-game stuff, better yeah but not that much better. That's what makes me think they're not realtime.

Have you played MGS2 Teasy? Have you seen the ending?

The cut-scenes are visually MUCH more impressive than the gameplay stuff. There are scenes with 30+ characters, each looking as detailed as Snake.

[Fafalada]

You can't move the camera at all. You can zoom in, and THEN you can move the camera, but only because you're looking at exactly the same stuff, zoomed in.
Because the engine knows where you've going to be looking at all times, it doesn't even need to do T&L on the fly - I read on here a while back the GS is just fed data sets that were pre-compiled.
What you suggest would give you a Flash movie effect (all zooming or panning would be nice and 2d), not to mention the data size for a reasonably large scene would make it pretty much impossible to do without a SCSI HDD to stream the data fast enough. :P

Which isn't really the case in MGS. From what I understand it's using 'pre-compiled' display lists in cutscenes (so everything can be boiled down to a DMA send into VU1&GS without any other work from rest of the system), not pre-transformed vertices.

There are scenes with 30+ characters, each looking as detailed as Snake.
And running at ~20 fps.

[marconelly!]

"You can't move the camera at all. You can zoom in, and THEN you can move the camera, but only because you're looking at exactly the same stuff, zoomed in. "

In the upcoming 'making of MGS2' DVD, they have a section where you can edit and freely move camera around in every MGS2 cutscene.

[mech]

Regardless, my original point still stands. The graphics in the cut-scenes are a significant amount better than gameplay graphics.

Faf: 20+fps? Locked 30fps minimum, much like the rest of the game.

And what's the difference between a display list, and transformed vertices?

[marconelly!]

"Locked 30fps minimum, much like the rest of the game."

Cut scenes in MGS2: 30FPS
Gameplay: 60FPS

[Fafalada]

Faf: 20+fps? Locked 30fps minimum, much like the rest of the game.
Well I don't really know for sure, I just remember slowdown in some cutscenes and since a number of cutscenes are also 30fps to begin with, it might drop lower every now and then. But I couldn't say for sure, I didn't really pay that much attention.

And what's the difference between a display list, and transformed vertices?
Well the way I understand the term "display list", it can basically be described as a list of data&commands fed to a graphics subsystem.
In case of say, PowerVR, it does include transformed vertices, since the chip is a rasterizer.

But newer graphics subsystems are designed to do much more then just rasterization, so you'll rarely include any transformed geometry into their display lists at all.
And much like you have texture state commands that reference textures that will be used, on some of the newer systems you can reference vertex data the same way, not having to physically include it in the list.

On PS2, VU1&GS usually operate as an independant subsystem that can be entirely controlled by such a list. (leaving the rest of the system free to do whatever, as is the general idea behind "GPU"s )

[mech]

Right. Well it's the same deal though right - it means you can maximise the system's polygon pushing potential yeah?

[Berserk]

New wonderful movies! The graphics are sublime, especially the faces! The textures are good en de light and shadowaffects are well done! The most beautiful game on PS2 tot date? :shock: :D

http://ps2movies.ign.com/ps2/video/sh3_0116_1.mov
http://ps2movies.ign.com/ps2/video/sh3_0116_2.mov --> man that dog is scary! :?
http://ps2movies.ign.com/ps2/video/sh3_0116_3.mov
http://ps2movies.ign.com/ps2/video/sh3_0116_4.mov
http://ps2movies.ign.com/ps2/video/sh3_0116_5.mov
http://ps2movies.ign.com/ps2/video/sh3_0116_6.mov --> beautiful and realtime!
http://ps2movies.ign.com/ps2/video/sh3_0116_7.mov
http://ps2movies.ign.com/ps2/video/sh3_0116_8.mov --> is that bumpmapping on the walls?? wow!
http://ps2movies.ign.com/ps2/video/sh3_0116_9.mov
http://ps2movies.ign.com/ps2/video/sh3_0116_10.mov

[randycat99]

About 2.mov, kind of an extreme measure just because a dog is humping your leg. :P

I think they could open up the potential audience more if they have a mode (a war monger mode, if you will) where you get to use some cool weaponary instead of just a feeble, sharp object in your hand. :wink:

[marconelly!]

Randy, in some of the older SH3 trailers, you could see your character using a machine gun, causing some serious damage on enemies :) So worry not, heavier weaponry is in game this time.

I have just watched those videos, and holly crap... this game is definitely going to be one of the best looking games, regardless of platform, when it gets released later this year.

[randycat99]

Machine guns?! Ya can't battle native evil with just bullets! (Though a grenade launcher certainly would be cool 8) ) Might as well just hold up a holy cross at it and hope that kills it! :wink:

[Blade]

I saw a high-res screenshot of Silent Hill 3 today, and all of a sudden I was a lot less impressed.

It's good looking, but nothing that's going to murder the competition..

[JF_Aidan_Pryde]

Haven't we been through this shit before? PR shots are always high res for promotional purposes, but that doesn't change the fact that the game looks great. FFS.

[marconelly!]

Some of the new high res screens. Obviously the game is designed to work in 640x resolution, not in something this high, where every polygon edge can become visible (problem with all PC games in my humble opinion)

http://www.konami.com/usa/newsimages/silenthill3/images/screen12.jpg
http://image.com.com/gamespot/images/2003/news/01/16/konami/silenthill3_screen004.jpg
http://image.com.com/gamespot/images/2003/news/01/16/konami/silenthill3_screen001.jpg

[randycat99]

That is some mad Kah-razy scenery!

[Berserk]

Nex gorEgeous screens! :D



http://image.com.com/gamespot/images/2003/news/01/16/konami/silenthill3_screen003.jpg
http://image.com.com/gamespot/images/2003/news/01/16/konami/silenthill3_screen005.jpg
http://image.com.com/gamespot/images/2003/news/01/16/konami/silenthill3_screen006.jpg
http://image.com.com/gamespot/images/2003/news/01/16/konami/silenthill3_screen007.jpg
http://image.com.com/gamespot/images/2003/news/01/16/konami/silenthill3_screen008.jpg
http://image.com.com/gamespot/images/2003/news/01/16/konami/silenthill3_screen009.jpg
http://image.com.com/gamespot/images/2003/news/01/16/konami/silenthill3_screen010.jpg
http://image.com.com/gamespot/images/2003/news/01/16/konami/silenthill3_screen011.jpg
http://image.com.com/gamespot/images/2003/news/01/16/konami/silenthill3_screen012.jpg
http://image.com.com/gamespot/images/2003/news/01/16/konami/silenthill3_screen013.jpg
http://image.com.com/gamespot/images/2003/news/01/16/konami/silenthill3_screen014.jpg
http://image.com.com/gamespot/images/2003/news/01/16/konami/silenthill3_screen015.jpg
http://image.com.com/gamespot/images/2003/news/01/16/konami/silenthill3_screen016.jpg

[_phil_]

Pretty conlusive exemple of what talent and design can do to an obsolete hardware.
I think ICo team has been the first to design 'with' the hardware ,and not against. I hope to see more of that phenomen later in ps2 's life span.

edit: *keyboard dislexy*

[zurich]

Nod, the lighting in the videos is almost as good as the Xbox SH2's perpixel flashlight.

[aneep]

makes me wonder how they plan to top that in the Xbox version...

-referring to the rumor that the game will be ported to the Xbox in 2004, a rumor that has appeared in several french sites, probably as a response after Shinji Mikami said something about Poena (Punishment), a survival horror he's working on on the Xbox (also reported mostly by foreign websites)

-aneep-

[RaolinDarksbane]

I will be surprised if they port it over considering how many units SH2:RD sold.

SH3 looks really good, definitely buying it.

[ZoP]

waiting here for Glonk to come and try bashing the game.

[marconelly!]

Nod, the lighting in the videos is almost as good as the Xbox SH2's perpixel flashlight.
Heh, besides the light circle having smooth, round edges, the actual lighting (on the characters and such) in the Xbox version was pretty much the same looking as in the PS2 version. In this sequel, they have actually improved the way light affects the look of the models. As an example, just watch the scene where they sit in the car. Lighting is much more dramatic and realistic looking. Even in the scenes where the light is not nearly as dramatic, you can see those very subtle changes in shading when the characters move their heads, that make everything so much more realistic. The shadowing engine is also drastically improved. The game is just much better looking than SH2 was.

It is still very easy to tell SH3(screens and videos) is vertex lighting, sorry. :oops:

[marconelly!]

Oh, I'm not saying it can't be seen that it uses vertex lighting - although, honestly, I could see it from the videos, and from the released screenshots only few can clue you in that it indeed uses vertex lighting - it is just that the way objects look when lit is much better and more realistic. For example, people's faces appear to have more depth to them, etc.

http://ps2movies.ign.com/ps2/video/sh3_0116_6.mov

My fave video there. Love the selfshadowing on Mr Douglas and the way he animates. :shock:

[Panajev2001a]

uhm... maybe because the 3D model are more detailed in SH3 hence smaller triangles hence better end result with vertex lighting ?

[marconelly!]

Yeah, facial animation is flat out amazing in this game. So much effort obviously went into it.

Pana, it could be, but I don't think it's just that. Faces in SH2 also had distinct nose, rounded cheeks, etc, but their faces still looked much more 'flat' than here.

[Panajev2001a]

Marconelly, when the face is round already adding polys will add minimally to general detail, but will get you considerably better lighting... IMHO as SH2 models were detailed already...

another thing they give you is better animation if you spend time animating denser 3D meshes as you have more vertices you can shift around and such...

[marconelly!]

I see what you mean. However, I think there are other things that can contribute to quality of vertex lighting. For example, the calculation for the light fall off from lit to non-lit area may be done better or worse, perhaps?

I don't know if I'm making any sense, but with vertex lighting, every triangle in the lit area, basically has some kind of 'light gradient' painted over the main texture. Now, I think there must be different ways to calculate that gradient's position and angle as to minimize the triangular look popping out.

[Panajev2001a]

Are you talking about different ways of interpolating the lighting values coming from the tree vertices in the triangle ?... but how much can be done in that area ( and it doesn;t sound that easy to do either )... /me starts thinking

[Glonk]

waiting here for Glonk to come and try bashing the game.
Who're you?

I'm not going to bash the game because I've never liked the Silent Hill series to begin with, just not my bag.

The graphics look impressive though. :)

[marconelly!]

I will admit, I don't know the math behind that type of lighting, I only know how it looks like. For example, in SH2, you can observe the edges of your light cone and in some rooms (especially the corridors) clearly see the triangular angles, where it fades to darkness. Now, when you slowly move the light around you can see that the light gradient actually moves across that triangle. It's not like each triangle has only one fixed way the light affects it, the light intensity actually changes over each triangle. I'm not sure if that process can theoretically be improved or not, though.

[aneep]

I will be surprised if they port it over considering how many units SH2:RD sold.

SH3 looks really good, definitely buying it.

for a late port, i'm sure that much would have covered the porting expenses already, not to mentioned MS probably have paid Konami to port that in the 1st place to boost the launch line up

we'll see i guess

-aneep-

[zidane1strife]

Yeah, facial animation is flat out amazing in this game. So much effort obviously went into it.


I agree, this facial animation is far superior than previous efforts on ps2 like FFX, etc.

[PC-Engine]

I will admit, I don't know the math behind that type of lighting, I only know how it looks like. For example, in SH2, you can observe the edges of your light cone and in some rooms (especially the corridors) clearly see the triangular angles, where it fades to darkness. Now, when you slowly move the light around you can see that the light gradient actually moves across that triangle. It's not like each triangle has only one fixed way the light affects it, the light intensity actually changes over each triangle. I'm not sure if that process can theoretically be improved or not, though.

You mean like gourad shading vs flat shading :?:

[marconelly!]

You mean like gourad shading vs flat shading
Yes, something like that!

It may all be just higher poly models and better art direction, choices of color and texturing, I don't know. It just does look much better in the end, everything has much more depth and believability to it.

For example - shading this subtle, yet dramatic in the same time, was nowhere near like this in SH2:

http://image.com.com/gamespot/images/2002/vgnews/092302/silenthill3/sh3_screen014.jpg
http://image.com.com/gamespot/images/2002/vgnews/092302/silenthill3/sh3_screen013.jpg

[LogisticX]

I think this is the closest game that comes to looking like FF: TSW movie's graphics thus far. Sure there could be other games with more "bump mapping" "super extra combobulated textures" and whatnot, but I mean wow... their skin actually likes like....skin. Not to mention the hair.

[Lazy8s]

LogisticX:
think this is the closest game that comes to looking like FF: TSW movie's graphics thus far. Sure there could be other games with more "bump mapping" "super extra combobulated textures" and whatnot, but I mean wow... their skin actually likes like....skin. Not to mention the hair.
While it looks good, the skin on that girl's SH3 model looks too textured to be natural. I prefer the Shenhua skin tones where you can see the skin rosy in some spots and paler in others like on a real face. The same effect was used for the humans in the movie Shrek, doing a good job to convey the subtle redness that makes skin look realistic.

[archie4oz]

A "rosy blush" would look totally wrong for SH3's lighting and mood...

[marconelly!]

The same effect was used for the humans in the movie Shrek, doing a good job to convey the subtle redness that makes skin look realistic.
Which made both people in Shenmue and people in Shrek more cartoonish looking than they look in reality (that was the goal of Shrek designers, you can see it the making of material - they had to 'cartoonize' their people because they were too realistic looking, initially). People DO have very textured skins, actually, with all kinds of irregularities, tiny specks, wrinkles and pores. The more you remove that textured look, the more they look like cartoon characters, and that was obviously not the goal of SH3, or FF:TSW for that matter:

http://www.finalfantasy-spiritwithin.com/www/images/i06.jpg

A "rosy blush" would look totally wrong for SH3's lighting and mood...
Precisely. As an example - look no further than Fatal Frame. A horror game with simillar mood, that uses that kind of character modeling and texturing. It look completely wrong and out of place.

[Lazy8s]

The surfacing on real skin is very intricate with pores, hairs, and all that. But, what I was pointing out is that those SH3 models could use a more realistic flush of color variance. Instead, it looks pale and flat all over, like there's no blood flowing through their body.

I'm not suggesting bright, rosey tones or cartoonish saturation. You can keep the moody atmosphere of the graphics while still having subtle flushing of the skin. Translucency layers or more and better texturing can help to allow for that finer grade of detailing.

[marconelly!]

Realistic color variance is obviously the matter of art direction, and even more the result of coloured lighting. Take a look at David Fincher movies to see examples of completely non-rosy looking skins. Still, very gritty and realistic looking in their own way. The actual coloring and atmosphere of SH3 reminds me a lot of his movie 'Seven':

http://www.cinema-scoping.com/web_graphics/seven1.jpg
http://www.plymouthchurch.org/media/Seven.gif

I think this game goes for that. The more you eliminate that rosy look, the less baby-faced and less innocent the characters will look.

Btw, I just noticed that in some screens there are blue blood vessels below her hand's skin. They really took that extra step whan making those textures.

[randycat99]

Also consider the movie Minority Report, where the art direction specifically called for a *very* washed-out, organically-colorless look. I thought there was something wrong with my TV the first time I watched it on DVD, but it makes a lot of sense given the story focus and is confirmed as such in the "about the movie" featurettes.

There's also the Three Kings where the initial look was intentionally bleached out and very pale in color.

I think it is fairly aggreeable that many movies dealing with horror/evil/death employ a subdued, faded color look (especially in people's faces). Certainly, one wouldn't find themself all flush and bloomed when faced with contexts and situations like that in real life.

prefer the Shenhua skin tones where you can see the skin rosy in some spots and paler in others like on a real face

can we have a pic of Shenhua? :D

[marconelly!]

Here are some:

This looks like a video capture from the intro -
http://image.com.com/gamespot/images/screenshots/dc/shenmue/shenmue_b2_screen002.jpg

And this seems to be a photography of the TV screen -
http://www.itsmyphotos.com/shenmue/images/13.jpg

[randycat99]

Uhh, looks like she just had sex! :oops:

[Lazy8s]

He was joking about having the picture posted again. But, it'd be difficult to make any comparisons between the skin tones from these shots. For one, when you see it running through VGA, the Shenhua model has a strikingly realistic dispersion of flush across her face (you can only make it out to a small degree in the bottom shot which looks like it was photographed off of a screen). Also, the Silent Hill 3 shots we're using for comparison are doctored.

Since we're talking about skin portrayal, here's a shot from the Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within movie -

http://www.finalfantasy-spiritwithin.com/www/images/i16.jpg

[Vince]

Since we're talking about skin portrayal

Well, it's your opinion so thats cool, but Shenmue overall isn't anywhere near as realistic as a FF or SH in the potreyal of the human figure. The Shenmue pictures above are great examples; the face is far to symmetric in structure and the textures - while widely used as a source of grandeous texturing - would probobly make someone like Ken Perlin rip his eyes out and burn them for the [texture's] portreyal of nature.

Ohh yeah, almost forgot:

For one, when you see it running through VGA, the Shenhua model has a strikingly realistic dispersion of flush across her face.... Also, the Silent Hill 3 shots we're using for comparison are doctored.

:roll:... lol

lazy8, just let it go, please. :)
If anything, Xbox is the one to look out for great graphics.

[marconelly!]

Since we're talking about skin portrayal, here's a shot from the Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within movie -
Actually, the picture I posted above is the extreme closup (and very clean, direct render) of the face of that same girl from your picture. You just can't make out all that detail from the smaller vidcap you posted.

Here's another, higher quality cap that has lighting simillar to those used for SH3:

http://www.finalfantasy-spiritwithin.com/www/images/i11.jpg

And a full model used in SH3:

http://www.konamityo.com/sh3/chara/imgs/chara_he.jpg

SH3 has the more realistic human like skin texture, Shenhua looks like your average plastic smooth anime character.

[Lazy8s]

I'm talking about the subtle variations in tone across the surface of the face. Compared to Shenhua's, the SH3 facial skin looks like they repeated the texture more - resulting in more abrupt changes from pale to darker areas. It doesn't strike me as too natural looking in that regard. The SH3 face is definitely lit more realistically, though... no argument there.

When you look at the Final Fantasy movie shots, you can see subtle grades of redness around the cheeks and nose where blood vessels are more concentrated at the surface (much more realistic). While not quite as good, the Shenhua model also does a good job of showing the inherent patchiness of real skin.

As far as art styling goes - yes, it's quite obvious the Shenhua model goes for a more cartoonish design. I'm not debating which face is trying to mimic real proportions or realistic stylings more than other. I'm just talking about the representation of making skin look like skin.

[LogisticX]

So because the skin style of FF:TSW is more akin to SH3, then Shenmue's representation of skin is therefore, more realistic than FF:TSW? :?:

[Lazy8s]

LogisticX:
So because the skin style of FF:TSW...
I'll avoid using such a nebulous term as "skin style", since that doesn't really say anything. I've been specifically talking about the dispersion of pigmentation across various regions of the face (blotches of redness and white). It's a subtle effect, but one that gives skin surface a realistic touch depending on how well it's done.
...is more akin to SH3, then Shenmue's representation of skin is therefore, more realistic than FF:TSW?
No. I never said FF:TSW skin wasn't done well - not sure where you guys have been getting that from. I pointed out FF:TSW as an example because I thought it was done the best, actually.

As far as representing proper grades of pigmentation goes, I'd say Shenhua is closer to that girl from FF:TSW than SH3 models are. The characteristics that Silent Hill 3 skin shares with the FF:TSW is the more realistic approach to modeling the human head (narrower face, imperfections), and of course the lighting. But when you zoom in really close on that Shenhua head (or in the Shenmue head demos) and when you compare that to a Silent Hill 3 extreme close-up, the skin on the Silent Hill 3 models will reveal a more textured look - this is in contrast to the natural translucency (letting you spot pigmentation beneath the skin) that you could see when zooming in on the surface of Shenhua's facial skin.

[Vince]

Lazy, with all due repect, you're perhaps the most inconsistent poster on here. It's really getting old, very quickly. Shenhua looking more like FF: TSW than SH3? :roll: ^2. Shenhua is pretty shitty from the perspective of a true portreyal of the human, or natural, figure. Like I said before, Ken Perlin would smack you for the way you talk.

Compared to Shenhua's, the SH3 facial skin looks like they repeated the texture more - resulting in more abrupt changes from pale to darker areas. It doesn't strike me as too natural looking in that regard.
As far as art styling goes - yes, it's quite obvious the Shenhua model goes for a more cartoonish design.

So, Silent Hill3 is less natural looking compared to Shenhua, while Shenua is quite obviously going for a more cartoonish design?

So, based on that, you're saying that not only is Shenhua more natural, it's also more cartoonish... what horse-shit. Time to shut up.

Can you double talk anymore? Is that even a linguistic possibility?

[Lazy8s]

Vince:
So, Silent Hill3 is less natural looking compared to Shenhua,
I didn't say that. I said the surfacing on the skin was less natural looking. They look pale white all over - save for the lighting/shading. I already explained what I was talking about before:
"I've been specifically talking about the dispersion of pigmentation across various regions of the face (blotches of redness and white). It's a subtle effect, but one that gives skin surface a realistic touch depending on how well it's done."
while Shenua is quite obviously going for a more cartoonish design?
The Shenhua character model, not the surfacing of the skin, is taking a more cartoonish approach. I was simply pointing out the different artistic approaches taken in the character designs - you know, like how the Dead or Alive 3 characters are more cartoonish in art direction than the Tekken 4 characters, yet that doesn't make their attributes any less detailed.

[marconelly!]

Lazy, I know that you often subscribe to some kind of internal logic that I can't get grasp of, but if blushness of the face is what you are looking for, that girl from SH3 actually exhibits it under normal, uncolored light. Here's one picture where you can see that quite clearly:

http://members.fortunecity.com/jozefx/sh3_1.jpg

The skin doesn't look pale all over and had obvious (abeit slight) redness on cheeks and some on the nose. Of course, that is all gone as soon as different coloured lighting kicks in.

Btw, this is the picture where you can see faint glimpse of blue blood vessels on her hand.

[Lazy8s]

Yes, that's exactly what I'm talking about marconelly!. And you're right, the SH3 face does exhibit some natural redness - I didn't mean to imply it was devoid of all tone and flat-shaded. It just isn't applied enough in subtle grades across the face to keep them from looking unnaturally pale (at least compared with the Final Fantasy models and Shenhua model above.)

It doesn't even have to be a rosey blush or in contrast with the game's mood. Shenhua is modeled to be cartoonish in the first place, so her color saturation is obviously cranked up high to begin with. That doesn't mean that there's not a ton of grade variation across her skin, though. The SH3 models could've looked more natural by having a fuller flush all over while still keeping the saturation low and only mildly noticeable.

She is in Silent Hill. How could anyone not have a "dead" and pale face there? :D

[PC-Engine]

http://www.itsmyphotos.com/shenmue/images/DSCF0005.jpg

[Crusher]

It doesn't matter how realistic the models get, the animators will always fail when trying to do things like lip movement that looks realistic and matches the voice.

[Vince]

And this texturing is supposed to be good how? It's so symmetrical, totally unnatural - if you really want to analyze this beyond the exception job done subconsciously by the brain - that is, the unbiased brain. Look at the skin color under each eye, down to the very faint but visible 'dots' that are the equilaterally placed on each side of the nose. Down to the same 'mark' about an inch to each side and above the mouth.

Again, as I said, this hardly 'realism' or reminiscent of the natural world where imperfections are everywhere; the one embraced and sufficiently talked about by Perlin and others who have done extensive research into this.

The texturing is definitely not that impressive, compared to the realism in a DoomIII or Silent Hill 3 or FF:TSW.

The more colorful argument is just BS as it's clearly an artistic choice and the 'Old man' pictures are among the best examples I've ever seen of a realistic portreyal of the human face - this guy needs to move on with his life.

[marconelly!]

It doesn't matter how realistic the models get, the animators will always fail when trying to do things like lip movement that looks realistic and matches the voice.
I agree. Even the high profile CGI movies suffer from that in certain scenes. Still, of all the realtime cutscenes I've seen, SH3 is doing the most admirable job in facial animation.

[JacksBleedingEyes]

The texturing is definitely not that impressive, compared to the realism in a DoomIII or Silent Hill 3 or FF:TSW.

NOOOOO , Vince what are you doing? Your allowing the flood gates for comments such as "but the DC is soo old and has inferior hardware" to be open, you know what PC-Engine is like.


The SH3 models could've looked more natural by having a fuller flush all over while still keeping the saturation low and only mildly noticeable.

As for the SH3 models, they look pretty anime to me. If you find a girl that looks anything like that, i'll cut my right hand off. Stylised anime, and the reason why the they all look pale, is IMHO art direction.

[JF_Aidan_Pryde]

Anime skin looks flat shaded. I think what you mean is that the skin in SH3 looks more like the comic book idea. Gritty but not 'real-world' realistic.

[Lazy8s]

JacksBleedingEyes:
NOOOOO , Vince what are you doing? Your allowing the flood gates for comments such as "but the DC is soo old and has inferior hardware" to be open,
Um, I'd would've though what I'm about to point out goes without saying, but directly comparing a game like Silent Hill 3 or Doom III to Shenmue without considering scale is ridiculous without needing to consider the hardware they're on.

Forget Dreamcast, Xbox, and PS2... the scale of what's being put on screen in that example selection of games is completely different! A survival horror game like Silent Hill 3 has these small rooms with obscured views in every direction, and has like only a few characters on screen at max. Of course it's going to be tuned for high detail models. Are action games garbage in the technical department just because they don't sport the immediate detail levels of a one-on-one fighter?

Expect a completely different engine for Silent Hill 3 and Doom III, with completely less focus on lighting and character detail, if they were set outside in a bustling metropolis. For as much as Shenmue gets downplayed by some here, you'd think it would have been totally surpassed in what it does by lots of games. I'm not sure what games some of you have been playing, but I sure wouldn't mind someone pointing out another game(s) with significantly better visuals at its scale of detail.

Show me another game that allows up to 50 NPCs on screen simultaneously within environments with towering structures in every direction and so much diversity at every point. The only games I can think of with worlds that try a similar display scale are games like Morrowind and Enclave, and even they don't have such meticulous detailing with dozens of NPCs walking about, shopping, leaning down to examine produce, etc in environments packed with so much detail. Then you have games like State of Emergency, The Getaway, and Grand Theft Auto 3 which allow for much larger chunks of map, but I don't feel they compare favorably in the graphics department to start with.

The truth is, all machines will drop out of Silent-Hill-levels of detail once you throw the processing requirements of large scale characters and environments at it. That's not to say that Konami hasn't done a very amazing job tuning their engine for its level of detail, but the reason Shenmue gets so much mention by some is because we can see that few games have really ever provided a good challenge for it at its own level of detail after all this time.

[Logan Leonhart]

The obvious question is, if SH3 is so "easy" to portray on any system, why aren´t there any games that reach the level of detail of its world? And no, those fake Shenmue face demos do not count. I´m not a programmer, but I imagine it´s very easy for a system in this generation to concentrate all of it´s power in rendering a single CG quality face, no matter how underpowered compared to PS2 it is. However, SH3 is doing it realtime.
Really, websites, fans, everyone but diehard DC fans do not recognize that even Shenmue 2 is outdated in the graphics department. Basically, all I hear when people try to show off Shenmue´s graphics is how great those demos are. Look at the real time graphics, and the images speak for themselves. Bringing up face demos doesn´t change that the in game graphics are lacking nowadays.
I´d also like to know what is really the arguement against SH3´s skin textures. They look very realistic to me, with facial imperfections, different shades of the same color being applied on the skin, even blue veins are present in a subtle matter, just like in real life. and if the claim is that her skin isn´t "rosy enough, without enough rosy spots here and there", here´s a clue: people have different skin tones.
DC nostalgics should really give it up.

[mech]

50 NPCs on the screen at one time? MGS2.

I think you're looking back a little too fondly on Shenmue - there's shitloads of pop-in, the NPCs fade in and out constantly, the textures on the characters are generally average at best (check out Ryo's blurry jacket!!), the environments aren't that amazing, the shadows are blocky and glitchy, the lighting on the outdoor scenes is static...

The cut-scenes were fairly impressive at the time, but do not in any way hold up to today's games. Get over it. Goddamn Dreamcast fanboys, you'll be telling us Shenmue is still the hottest thing since sliced bread when the PS4 and XBox 3 come out...

[marconelly!]

Shenmue does a lot of things well, graphically all things considered, but the game is basically structured like a series of rooms - it just happens that those rooms contain geometry that represents outside view. Once you exit the 'room' you have to wait a good chunk of time for the next scene to load. That not only allows programmers to put a lot of detail into each of those scenes, but to also handpick the objects from the grand scene that are going to be visible on the horizon in that particular 'room'. In that sense it's not much different from the silent hill games, especially considering that SH3 promisses a lot of larger, and still very detailed environments to explore, as opposed to SH2.

Logan, those shenmue face demos are in fact also realtime, but the point is, while being rendered on the screen, there really isn't much else there. You can see upper part of their torso, some very simplistic background and that's it.

Can we have a pic of Mario's head you see when you start up Mario64? :shock:

[marconelly!]

http://gln64.emulation64.com/images/mario1_big.jpg

[Logan Leonhart]

Logan, those shenmue face demos are in fact also realtime, but the point is, while being rendered on the screen, there really isn't much else there. You can see upper part of their torso, some very simplistic background and that's it.

Well, that´s what I meant by "fake demos". It´s just that sometimes these people that like to go on and on about Shenmue on DC make me somewhat mad, as if it were the best looking game of the generation or something of the sort, while using face demos to support their claim.

Hey, looking at that SM64 screenshot, you could even say that most games do not reach the level of detail in Mario´s face, so it still competes graphically.:D

[PC-Engine]

Obviously you have no clue as to the scope of the Shenmue engine. We are talking about the engine being held back by the DC :wink:
The engine itself is above anything out there so far. I'd like to see an updated Shenmue engine running on current hardware and see someone try to best it :wink:

And I'm not talking about a port :P

[Lazy8s]

Logan Leonhart:
The obvious question is, if SH3 is so "easy" to portray on any system, why aren´t there any games that reach the level of detail of its world?
Who said SH3 was "easy" to portray!? I think its a technically outstanding game... no ifs, ands, or buts. That's why it's going to end up being one of the best-looking games of its scale when it releases.

It's also quite logical that it can't be directly compared to a game with Shenmue scale considering you'll never have dozens of NPCs walking around in open and non-obscured environments. Guess what could happen in Shenmue if you restricted it to only four or so characters on-screen max? You could devote all that geometry and processing to making each character that much more detailed. Take the game off the streets where you can see well over hundreds of meters into the distance with no environmental obscurity, and throw it into some enclosed rooms... and watch as you can increase the lighting quite significantly.
And no, those fake Shenmue face demos do not count.
Apparently you were so impressed with the following screenshot, that you thought it was part of the head demo. It's not. It's from an in-game cinema:

http://www.itsmyphotos.com/shenmue/images/13.jpg
That screenshot is from in-game cinema in Shenmue - same as with those Silent Hill 3 shots (except the SH3 shots aren't real-time at all, actually - they were rendered at a much higher res than the PS2 will actually be doing and then downsampled... adds that extra kick of clarity.) Another thing about Silent Hill 3 cut-scenes (and also some cut-scenes from Shenmue II), is the letterboxing. Reduce the amount of screen to render, and you can up the graphics somewhat. Just another of the many things certain cut-scenes allow you to do.

Here's Silent Hill 3 outdoors:

http://www.playscope.com/fichiers/photos/1571/sh3_039.jpg
I´m not a programmer, but I imagine it´s very easy for a system in this generation to concentrate all of it´s power in rendering a single CG quality face, no matter how underpowered compared to PS2 it is. However, SH3 is doing it realtime.
That Shenmue shot of the girl's face above is being rendered in a scene with her full character model standing at the edge of a cliff next to a forest and overlooking a long, winding river. An eagle flies through the canyon and shows that it's actually quite a vast environment with rolling hills, rocky ledges and all. Much larger and with better visibility than a survival horror game.
Really, websites, fans, everyone but diehard DC fans do not recognize that even Shenmue 2 is outdated in the graphics department.
Then surely you'll have no trouble pointing out some other games with graphics of its scale that look significantly better.

The Getaway? Nah, post some screenshots. While it does have a large world map, that's a sacrifice it makes for a plague of the "sameness" all over its world that haunts every game like that (Crazy Taxi, Grand Theft Auto, Super Runabout, Driver, etc.)
Basically, all I hear when people try to show off Shenmue´s graphics is how great those demos are. Look at the real time graphics, and the images speak for themselves. Bringing up face demos doesn´t change that the in game graphics are lacking nowadays.
The in-game graphics are amazing. You can take a screenshot from anywhere in the whole Hong Kong or Yokosuka map, and I'd be able to tell you exactly where Ryo is and which NPCs are off in the distance. Why? Because each storefront, each block, each park, and each person is fully modeled with high geometry and distinctive enough textures that's it's all easily recognizeable from each other. There storefronts each have their own signs, decorations, fully modeled doors and windows, and other distinctions... and there's rows upon rows of them mixed with parks and skyscrapers all within the same chunk of city. What other games have such a fully expressed world with such a level of detail?

Then there's tons of things that form its believable package that are so subtle most people take it for granted. Ever notice how you can talk to any character, no matter what they're doing, and they'll actually animate a response from their current position? What I mean is, if someone's bending over looking at flowers and you talk to them, they'll stay bent over but realistically turn at their waist and arch their neck up to meet your eyes when answering. Most games only have characters react from a limited set of key points of animation, because it would require a very in-depth engine to accomodate something as sophisticated as what Shenmue is doing. Dozens of characters simultaneously on-screen go about their daily routine, walking about the storefronts, shopping, opening doors, sitting down at a restuarant table, drinking tea, getting up, manuevering their way through pedestrian traffic, and all the while transitioning through each set of animations seamlessly and with no load time interruptions within an area. And that's just a small sampling. There's also the people who work in the stores, kneed the dough, take launch breaks, get on and off bikes, talk to each other, etc. that represents just a small portion of the variety of NPCs. Really... what other game does that?

There's a whole lot more that has to be tracked. Notice any one of the hundreds of characters... let them walk away from you for about fifteen minutes of real time. Now, go off and head in the direction they went. You'll find them exactly where they're supposed to be, even a half-mile across the map through several Quarters. And the game tracks hundreds of characters like that, mind you. I once left the game on pause with Ryo standing in front of the door to a general store (NPCs still pathfind and wander about while in pause) for about twenty minutes, and when I came back to the game, there was a crowd of over thirty NPCs bunched up because a line had formed outside the store. One of the main characters was on their way to another location at the time when the crowd interrupted her. I finally was able to let her through, and I eventually ran into her again several minutes later in another section of the city exactly where she should have been factoring in her interrupted progress and the dispersion of the huge crowd.

The game also does real-time lip synching, another pretty impressive feat for the time.
I´d also like to know what is really the arguement against SH3´s skin textures. They look very realistic to me, with facial imperfections, different shades of the same color being applied on the skin, even blue veins are present in a subtle matter, just like in real life. and if the claim is that her skin isn´t "rosy enough, without enough rosy spots here and there", here´s a clue: people have different skin tones.
I just think they could've used better skin surfacing textures:

http://www.playscope.com/fichiers/photos/1571/sh3_041.jpg
mech:
50 NPCs on the screen at one time? MGS2.
The problem with the example of those guards is that they don't have the variations in detail levels or are enclosed within as detailed environments as you get in Shenmue. MGS2 looks alright, and the framerate makes it fairly impressive. But, the game's scale is hardly comparable here. Unless you can remind me (pics would help if you could find some) of some environments in MGS2 with as much variation and detail on-screen as say, Dobuita or the Wise Man's Quarter from the Shenmue series...
I think you're looking back a little too fondly on Shenmue - there's shitloads of pop-in,
There's no pop-in for the environment at all. I'd think you were talking about the characters, except you go on to list that as a separate criticism...
the NPCs fade in and out constantly,
True. But, in Shenmue II, this happens at their draw horizon because the game allows the partially unscripted possibility that any one from a list of hundreds of NPCs could be walking onto the screen at any time. It's obviously not going to keep hundreds of character models in RAM at all times, so they have be dynamically spooled off the disc when they wander in from a new chunk of town. However, this isn't a problem with geometry load as many would assume, for you can easily let those "fading" characters approach your view, as well as another ten if you wanted, and they wouldn't suddenly start disappearing once they were within the view horizon. Unfortunately, the draw horizon for NPCs is set too close for Ryo's running speed, so that's why they appear to fade in. But again, the engine has no problem pushing the required geometry for them once they've already been accessed off the disc.
when the at the same the textures on the characters are generally average at best (check out Ryo's blurry jacket!!),
You can't forget scale, though. What other game has so many different characters in such detailed and varied environments without turning into GTA3/Crazy-Taxi blurred textures?
the environments aren't that amazing,
Then you won't mind pointing out a game with more detailed environments which allows you to see at least a few city blocks at a time.
the shadows are blocky and glitchy,
Blocky yes. Then again, tons of characters are all getting their own shadows.

Glitchy? Remember that scene where Ryo finds Charlie at the Tatoo parlor? Remember when he walks up to the curtain and his shadow bends across the corrugated ripples perfectly? The shadows bend and deform just as well as any game.
the lighting on the outdoor scenes is static...
No. In Shenmue II, there are time control options at certain points which allow you to fast forward the hours in only a few seconds. You can clearly see the shadows bending and the lighting dynamically coloring the environment with the movement of the sun. Of course it's no Silent Hill 3, but then again this game isn't enclosed in small, little rooms.

The game does have a lot of rough visual aspects admittedly (something that happens when you try to represent environments and character counts of such scale), but I was surprised at how nice it cleans up when displayed with its 480p output. If you ever seen progressive scan, you know it has a pretty noticeable effect on image improvement, which is something your example of MGS2 at least doesn't output at. I believe MGS2 outputs at a lower res of 448i.

marconelly!:
Shenmue does a lot of things well, graphically all things considered, but the game is basically structured like a series of rooms - it just happens that those rooms contain geometry that represents outside view.
This criticism doesn't make sense in the way you mean it to. The thing that makes outside harder to render than inside is the fact that you don't have walls and ceilings almost always useful in occlusion; you have the much longer view distances. Shenmue's outdoors has these lengthy view distances. You can see well over a hundred meters down any open pathway with no fogging or environmental fade-in (as well as into the sky for vertical elevation details), so it's as outdoor in the truest sense of frame rendering as anything can be. When you look out into the distance, you're seeing that stuff, and it's being rendered. No tricks there.

What you mean to actually be criticizing is just how small each "level" actually is, and that is a quite valid point. There's no doubt that the limited area size allows Shenmue to pack in more variation of detail (as opposed to somehow upping frame-load capacity) into each section than a game like Morrowind, Jak and Daxter, or the upcoming Fable gets to do. This is because each area of Shenmue's world gets its own data set for new textures and geometry. But that applies primarily to how much variation can be used (and has the annoying drawback of load times)... not some trick that makes Shenmue's outdoor environments any less processor intensive or at all similar to the rendering scale of indoor environments.
but to also handpick the objects from the grand scene that are going to be visible on the horizon in that particular 'room'.
True. With more control over what the player will be seeing, you can "tune" things better. Still, that doesn't make it any less "outdoors" or make the rendering requirement any less. It just makes view prediction more scripted.
In that sense it's not much different from the silent hill games, especially considering that SH3 promisses a lot of larger, and still very detailed environments to explore, as opposed to SH2.
The views in Silent Hill locations are very scripted and controlled. And they're indoors, which is a big difference since it benefits from small, enclosed spaces with ceilings and walls.

The outdoor locations I've seen have view distances heavily obscured, and that is the one thing which actually makes an outdoor location similar to an indoor room. It''s not letting you look out far into huge areas, and there's not a clear view of dozens of people walking out way down the street. This is where the scale of the two games differ heavily, even in Silent Hill 3's "outdoor" environments.
Logan, those shenmue face demos are in fact also realtime, but the point is, while being rendered on the screen, there really isn't much else there. You can see upper part of their torso, some very simplistic background and that's it.
Well... the Shenhua picture there has a full character in a vast, unobscured environment.

The Xiuying shot there is from the head demo, but it has her full apartment behind her if you look closely, with detailed martial arts move-scrolls on the walls and her bed and everything. Looking at Shenhua's facial detail and comparing it to her's, it's not hard to imagine they could have easily displayed Xiuying in full if the head demo had been intended to be a room demo or something. It's not like any of the head demos ever dropped a frame or anything, no matter what you did with the zooming and lighting. So, it obviously wasn't being stressed to the max, especially seeing as how Shenhua from the in-game cut-scene looks nigh identical to the Shenhua head demo (even with the ear change, I actually think her face might look even more fleshed out in the in-game shot):

Head Demo:

http://www.itsmyphotos.com/shenmue/images/11.jpg


In-Game Cut-Scene:

http://www.itsmyphotos.com/shenmue/images/13.jpg

[marconelly!]

I believe MGS2 outputs at a lower res of 448i.
No... It outputs exactly 448i on PS2. It doesn't output 448p, though, but the game obviously does use full frame buffers (you can never see any sign of dreaded intrlace line doubling when it slows down)

This is where the scale of the two games differ heavily, even in Silent Hill 3's "outdoor" environments.
I must say I haven't see much of those, so I won't say anything about it.

The views in Silent Hill locations are very scripted and controlled. And they're indoors, which is a big difference since it benefits from small, enclosed spaces with ceilings and walls.
That is very true, but my point was that any time creators of Shenmue see any kind of slowdown, they could either delete some of the objects from the scene, or simplify the geometry for that particular scene manually, not caring about any kind of automatic LOD algorithm. In that sense, although outdoors, that game's scenes had almost as much control over what is displayed as games that render classic rooms.


Btw, when you mentioned Jak & Daxter, which I forgot about. In my opinion that game in particular is in every way more impressive than Shenmue, graphically. It looks completely different though, but the variation of detail, constant 60FPS framerate, very solid (multi)texturing with mipmapping, and insane amounts of geometry are all there, as well as very nicely done and abundant particle effects. Plus it has no visible loading pauses.

[PC-Engine]

JSR on DC had no visible loading :idea:

[Lazy8s]

marconelly!:
No... It outputs exactly 448i on PS2.
That's what I meant. I said "res of 448i" to indicate the exact resolution, and used the modifier "lower" to imply that it was lower than the 480p. Sorry for the wording confusion.
Btw, when you mentioned Jak & Daxter, which I forgot about. In my opinion that game in particular is in every way more impressive than Shenmue, graphically. It looks completely different though, but the variation of detail, constant 60FPS framerate, very solid (multi)texturing with mipmapping, and insane amounts of geometry are all there, as well as very nicely done and abundant particle effects. Plus it has no visible loading pauses.
The framerate, view distances, seamless world, and geometry are all very impressive in Jak and Daxter... a well thought-out engine indeed for PS2. But you can't honestly tell me that, even with the differences to art styles, you think it surpasses Shenmue for how detail-packed specific areas are.

Think about it... The Stand Quarter in Kowloon, with all those stands adorned with individually styled canopies waving in the wind, and all those different cooking pots and trinkets covering each one. Or the tightly packed White Dynasty Quarter in Wan Chai - the one were you tear down through the row of stands during that exceptionally long QTE... throwing people into the stands, breaking them apart in real-time. Tables overturning, stuff falling off of them, debris scattering, ducks escaping, clouds of flour getting kicked into the air. Jak and Daxter's world was never textured that heavily or had such a concentration of detail like that. And neither did Ratchet and Clank for that matter.

And yeah, I understand your point that the Jak and Daxter engine went for a more cartoonish expression, but in regards to platformer graphics:
Sonic Adventure 2 DC >> Jak and Daxter PS2

[marconelly!]

I just don't think Sonic 2 is better looking than J&D, or has more impressive technology, it does run in progressive scan mode, but that is about the only thing it has going for it in this comparision, IMO.


True, there are places in Shenmue that are really detail packed, but J&D is no slouch either. I mean, it would be hard to argue that it doesn't have more polys on screen even though it runs at 60FPS. There are places in J&D where you can look at the whole overworld below you and it looks just jam-packed. The very beginning of the game as you walk out of the shack is one such place - just rotate the camera around, and the whole village below you fills the screen. And it's not like things repeat there. It looks very distinctive actually, with a lot of detail. Besides, rarely in J&D you can find a texture that is really low-res. Yes, the game is cartoonish so that makes people dismiss it from the beginning, but even when you zoom into things in 1st person mode, it still looks quite sharp for the most part. Also, what it lacks in extra added detail you can find in Shenmue, it makes up for in special effects that use particles, multitexturing, heat distortion etc...

Aesthetics aside, just from the pure technological point of view, I think it's doing more.

R&C is not a good example for me in this case as it has much worse texturing than J&D (but probably has even more geometry)

Lazy8 1000 words post strikes again! :shock:
Even the Xbox had troubles improving the greatness of Shenmue graphics! :cry:

[zidane1strife]

Actually we should forget cutscenes(shenmue), and go into a head demo fight...

FFSW v.s. Shenmue faces... winner is... u know...

As for impressive engines, look at my sig... and the main char. is double textured(fake reflections...)

[mech]

http://dcmedia.ign.com/media/news/image/E32K/Sega_Shenmue/bg11.jpg

http://dcmedia.ign.com/media/news/image/E32K/Sega_Shenmue/bg12.jpg

From the Xbox version:

http://image.com.com/gamespot/images/2002/xbox/shenmue2/s_screen003.jpg

http://image.com.com/gamespot/images/2002/xbox/shenmue2/s_screen004.jpg

http://www.rpgamer.com/games/shenmue/shenmue2/screens/sim-shenmue2-0007.jpg

http://www.rpgamer.com/games/shenmue/shenmue2/screens/sim-shenmue2-0005.jpg

Please, explain to me again how that's meant to look so amazing. I'm yet to see this "50 NPCs", let alone with that much detail anywhere. Post some pics rather than these goddamn face pics.

[Vince]

God damned heathen!! How dare you talk of our mutual God, Shenmue, in that demeaning tone? As if you didn’t just cream in your pants looking at that exquisite visual stimulation that is more pleasureful than any mere mortal can provide. If only I could transcend time and space and become part of the gleeful community known as Shenmue; a place where people like and accept me for who I am! Ahh, Utopia at last….

<head hits desk>Ahh… um.. as for you, “You shall be banished to reading my excerpts, each a minimum of 2,000 words, from the good book of Shenmue. For, only in the good book (and the inevitable self-inflicted electro-shock therapy that you shall commence, by way of tongue-in-socket, to escape the horror) will the truth be revealed to you.

[Logan Leonhart]

Lazy8s, despite how contradicting with your username you are, but I´m not going to read the whole 2000 words from an excerpt of the Shenmue bible. The screenshots, specially the DC ones speak for themselves.
Look at the blurry textures, look at the aliasing, look at the low poligon low polygon count, look at the mediocre lightning. the only thing that looks moderately great is Ryo, and Ryo only.
That´s what I´m referring to when talking about the real game.

[Phil]

These shenmue discussions always suprise me again. Upon looking at the above posted screens, it really does refresh my memory of when I once played the game and I really can not see where this game is so amazing graphically speaking. Taking everything into account, I really do find the Getaway to be more impressive, that is when including everything from character detail into objects and texturing and the framerate. Of course, someone could post screens again, but I honestly think that they would not do the game justice.

As for Jak & Daxter, very nicely put Marconelly. I actually wanted to bring it up myself, as I still find it one of the prettiest PS2 games out. Lazy8s, have you even seen D&J in action or are you basing your arguement of screens? Because having withnessed both Shenmue and J&D, I must say that the latter absolutely slams the first when you take again framerate and on going effects into consideration. As Marconelly already pointed out, J&D might have those cartoonish graphics, but if you look at them closely, the amount of varied textures in most sceneries is quite amazing. If you really can't find anything about the texturing, I strongly suggest you play the game from start til scratch...

And you'll be hard put to find graphical errors in this one - I've played it through multiple times and have yet got to see frame drops or any sort of pop-ups.

BTW; what's your arguement anyway? That if Silent Hill 3 were placed in a city scenery with as many characters as seen in Shenmue, it wouldn't look better or what? Somehow I missed the point of this discussion and I would greatly appreciate it if you could lay me in on what you're exactly arguing. Thanks...

[iscariot]

couple new pics


http://image.com.com/gamespot/images/2003/news/01/22/silenthill3/sh3_screen007.jpg

http://image.com.com/gamespot/images/2003/news/01/22/silenthill3/sh3_screen001.jpg

http://image.com.com/gamespot/images/2003/news/01/22/silenthill3/sh3_screen010.jpg

http://image.com.com/gamespot/images/2003/news/01/22/silenthill3/sh3_screen005.jpg

the rest are at GS if you want to check 'em out.......

[PC-Engine]

enclosed rooms :oops:

[Fafalada]

couple new pics
http://image.com.com/gamespot/images/2003/news/01/22/silenthill3/sh3_screen007.jpg

Agh :shock:
Look at the door texture.
I see color banding...!
...it's a 4bit map, call the texture police :!:

[mech]

enclosed rooms :oops:

You're an idiot.

http://image.com.com/gamespot/images/2003/news/01/22/silenthill3/sh3_screen001.jpg

:shock: :shock: :shock:

[cybamerc]

The shadowing looks seriously fucked up in pic 2... nice texture variety though.

[archie4oz]

...it's a 4bit map, call the texture police!

*snicker*

And yeah, I understand your point that the Jak and Daxter engine went for a more cartoonish expression, but in regards to platformer graphics:
Sonic Adventure 2 DC >> Jak and Daxter PS2

I declare that Jak & Daxter shits on Sonic Adventure 2 DC for the sole reason that Naughty Dog had the gall to roll their own Lisp compiler...

Let's hear it for functional programming! WOOOO WOOOO! :P

[Laa-Yosh]

Regarding human skin...

The first and most important feature of realistic skin is not texture; rather the shader itself. Real human skin is affected by the underlying tissue, which is built up from living cells - tiny sacks full of liquid. You see, about 60% of the human body is water. So human skin is highly translucent, and because of the lack of homogenity, the light rays are refracted many, many times. The color of the light is also highly affected; because our tissues are full of blood (most of the time) the light will get a red tint before leaving the body. So you could say that if you illuminate one side of the body, the other will get illuminated as well, from the inside; and that light will get scattered a lot, too. You can also see this effect easily if you place your hand in front of a light source - you can even see that your bones will block the light, but there's no hard outline of them because of the scattering effect.

This is a relatively new invention in the 3D industry, from the past 3-4 years and it is called sub surface scattering (SSS). Note that there are many other materials with similar qualities; fruits (grape, orange without its , vax and most fluids come into mind (like a glass of milk or orange juice).

There are two main approaches to create a shader with subsurface scattering - you can write a precise algorythm or you can fake it.
Gollum in the LOTR movie used a very sophisticated custom-written subsurface scattering shader. The result was immmense render times and thus Weta had to expand their renderfarm to some 700 machines AFAIK.
3D artists without the resources of a movie studio have developed tricky shading networks to fake the usual effects of SSS. These can look almost as convincing, except for detailed areas like ears, and render a lot faster most of the time. Steve Stahlberg, whose work you may already know (pretty looking rendered chicks most of the time) has written a cool article on this topic, you can read it here:
http://www.optidigit.com/stevens/shadetut.html

I will use two of his images to illustrate the differences that even a fake SSS shader can make.
Before:
http://www.optidigit.com/stevens/shadetut4.jpg

After:
http://www.optidigit.com/stevens/shadetut2.jpg

Then you also have to add specular highlights; it is a misconception that skin does not have specularity. Note that human skin's specularity changes highly depending on the surface normal's angle relative to the viewpoint (which is also common for many materials).
http://www.optidigit.com/stevens/shadetut1.jpg

(I'd much rather use images of my own, but I unfortunately can't release them yet...)

Note that this scattering effect is prominent even if you desaturate the image, or just suck out reds from it. You can also detect it from greater distances, when you can't see the little pores and speckles in the skin. That's why human skin in movies like Se7en will still look like human skin, even if it's not reddish - and that's why most realtime games can't present realistic looking humans yet. Neither SH3 nor Shenmue has such complexity in the characters' shaders (even is SH3's lighting is more complex) so the characters in both look artificial.
Nvidia's fairy demo on the GeForce FX, however, used a fake subsurface scattering shader - the difference can be spotted. The Xbox might be able to produce such effects but I doubt that it'd have the GPU power to do it. PS3 and Xbox2 should both be able to use such shaders, though. There is room for improvement in the next gen :)

Texture detail is the second most important quality of human skin, IMHO. SH3 fares better in this, with more realistic subtleties which obviously required a lot more man months from the art department. FFTSW also had really nices textures, which were quite similar to SH3. In fact I wouldn't be surprised if some ex-Square texture artist would turn out to be working on this game... Their influence is certainly there :)
Both games lack specular and bump textures, though. Outcast 2 looked like it could be even better than SH3 in the human skin area, as it used both detailed textures and specular maps - too bad the project seems to be dead now.

So once again I'd sum it up: more complex shaders are the next step for realistic materials, both human skin and anything else - metals, cloth, wood etc. More textures will be needed for each surface as well; in the end, producing assets will cost more and more money, and time.

[Fafalada]

The shadowing looks seriously fucked up in pic 2... nice texture variety though.
It's typical artifact for doing the cheaper 'darken the volume' version of stencil shadows (when you allow self shadowing that is). Weird thing is that I couldn't spot it in all pics that might show it, so either they are just good at choosing screens to hide it, or they are throwign multiple methods around again like they did in SH2.

archie,
that's no laughing matter, we must act immediately, such textures cannot be tolerated 8)
As for 'Goal tending', I think they took it a bit Far :P but all the more worthy of admiration they stuck with it yeah.

[PC-Engine]

You're an idiot.

Heh, but you're the one who's missng the point. Go read Lazy8s post before you get your panties in a bunch :oops:

Shaddup you fools! Shenmue would have pissed all over SH3 and then changed to a new set of panties easily. :x

[marconelly!]

Laa yosh, on that page you linked to, the guy explains that the shader used to simulate sub skin refractions was something much simpler - a toon shader as far as I can see?

Specular highlites when applied to a skin, can look both good and unnatural. For a skin to look like that, it would have to be quite sweaty or greasy, and even then it would require quite a strong directional light. If you look youself in the mirror (or look at the people around you in the room) you will see that they don't look anything like that. There are no highlites that you can compare to those on that picture.

Cybamerc - on that picture, I think lighting comes from above, so that would be a shadow of her head on the rest of her body? In the videos you can see simillar scenes with very intensive self shadowing, and in motion it looks much more 'normal'

[mech]

Great post Laa-Yosh.

PC-Engine - What point? I read his post. It doesn't change the fact that SH3 has better textures, more geometry and just plain looks better. Or that many games have accomplished better looking engines than Shenmue that work in multiple situations. Or that Shenmue's engine chugged like hell.

[PC-Engine]

The Shenmue engine was being held back by the DC. In other words the engine itself is much more sophisticated than the SH3 engine. SH3 looks good graphically, but the engine isn't managing anything near Shenmue's. That was Lazy8s point :)

[Lazy8s]

mech:
Please, explain to me again how that's meant to look so amazing. I'm yet to see this "50 NPCs", let alone with that much detail anywhere. Post some pics rather than these goddamn face pics.
I don't have access to any collection of screenshots. I'm just using the pictures that people have already dug out in another thread.

The Shenhua face pic is used simply because it's one of the few representations of the game where its scale was optimized to be at least slightly more conservative and screenshot friendly than normal. Just like with any game that takes place in large, open spaces, screenshots which focus in on small sections will look unflattering when not optimized to just that specific region. Wouldn't be too hard to make Grand Theft Auto 3 look a lot like a PSone game in screenshots showing only zoomed in views and isolated parts of the city blocks. However, anyone that's played GTA3 knows that the impressiveness comes partly from the scale of it all - the crowds of people all reacting to the chaos, the larger views of the city, etc.

I was confused at how anyone would not find Shenmue at least somewhat impressive, but I've begun to realize that some of you probably haven't played through the game and visited those locations from the way you've been referring to them. For instance, in that very unflattering Shenmue shot above with the Jamaican guy kicking in the air, all you're probably judging it on is the blocky-looking proportions and the laughable texturing on the shoe's sole. When I see that screen, though, I'm reminded that he's that one guy operating that little hot dog truck on the opposite end of the massive Harbor area at which you can turn around to see a large cruise ship docked at the other end, several warehouse districts to all sides, and a gigantic steel rig overlooking a picturesque view of the ocean (complete with seagulls flying above and pigeons scattering about). Those are the details you'll see when you're moving the character around, but the game obviously lowers the camera angle and zooms in on isolated parts of the environment when you're conversing with someone, like in that pic.

Unfortunately, almost all the screenshots I've ever seen taken of the game do a poor job representing its scale. The shots usually either show him talking to someone (the camera gets pulled in to an isolated view of the surrounding area) or fail to show what the engine really allows.

AM2 improved the engine for the sequel to allow up to 50 NPCs on screen at the same time; they wanted to better convey the busy and crowded culture in Hong Kong. While you won't usually see anywhere near that many people all together, the possibility does exist that they could all bunch up like that since they roam about with autonomy from one another. In the Thousand White Qr. near the Acrobat fighter, in gambling establishments, in street fights, at the dojos, and in some of the busy cafe districts, you'll often see upwards of thirty or more characters at the same time. If you really wanted, you could plug up a main pathway, pull up the item menu, and just sit back and watch for about twenty minutes as passerbys start to fill up behind you on their way to their destinations. I once caused this by accident and saw around 40 characters together.

To do justice to games of this scale, fly-bys and panaromic shots do best to show what's truly going on, and the Shenmue series has tons of these. In fact, in one particular scene, I was absolutely floored when Ryo was practicing a Tai Chi routine outside a cave in Guilin during the breaking of dawn. He was standing near the edge of a cliff, and the game's sweeping camera pulled out to reveal this immense valley formed from steep mountain ridges on all sides and a beautiful waterfall just out in the distance. You could see all the incredibly detailed terrain and long views all together, and it reaffirms to the player that those are the kinds of scenes that best convey the visual intent of the engine.

And there are so many views like that which you get throughout the game while walking around or entering a new area. They convincingly deliver the crowded and bustling feeling of the Hong Kong streets, the majestic feeling of the mountain regions in China, and the towering scale of the walled city - Kowloon. Even the indoor locations are surprisingly well-lit and moody. These screenshots you've been looking at show primarily limited views of Ryo conversing or shots of specific characters.... I'd really suggest you play through some of the areas in each game if you truly care to understand why some people find it impressive and even consider it a benchmark in some respects.

Phil:
Lazy8s, have you even seen D&J in action or are you basing your arguement of screens?
No, I've seen it some. I definitely agree with you that Jak and Daxter is most impressive in many ways, especially when you get a view where you can look out across a big stretch of the level (like when you can look out over the village in the beginning like Marconelly mentioned).
As Marconelly already pointed out, J&D might have those cartoonish graphics, but if you look at them closely, the amount of varied textures in most sceneries is quite amazing. If you really can't find anything about the texturing, I strongly suggest you play the game from start til scratch...
I'm not sure how anyone can deny that the game is very sparsely textured. The textures that are there are quite nice, but the overall look has a distinctly flat-shaded, cartoonish style to it.
BTW; what's your arguement anyway? That if Silent Hill 3 were placed in a city scenery with as many characters as seen in Shenmue, it wouldn't look better or what? Somehow I missed the point of this discussion and I would greatly appreciate it if you could lay me in on what you're exactly arguing. Thanks...
In the beginning, I was mentioning how I felt the Silent Hill 3 characters looked very well modeled, but could stand to use a more realistic dispersion of skin flushing. Example:

[img]http://www.playscope.com/fichiers/photos/1571/sh3_041.jpg[/quote]
I did bring in an example from Shenmue which I felt showed improvement in the specific characteristic I was talking about. The discussion inevitably turned into people discrediting Shenmue's overall graphics, though. So, in the midst of talking about some other games with great graphics (Silent Hill 3, Jak and Daxter), all I've been trying to do is point out the things that still makes Shenmue look great when you see it running.

Changing topics now, thanks for the explanation about the appearance of skin, Laa-Yosh. Yes, that natural translucency was the appearance I was nitpicking on, and something I felt the texture work on the Shenhua face gave a better illusion of (even though neither game was performing SSS or even employing a separate effect to fake its appearance). Those models you posted show how the true effect combined with a host of other elements (lighting, highlighting) can allow skin to start looking more natural.

[Bowie]

The first two Silent Hill games had Shenmue-like city environments that the main characters could walk around in and explore. We still haven't seen the city environment in Silent Hill 3. Also, the game isn't out and still has about a half a year of development left. So how about we wait till it comes to compare graphic engines?


Btw, I have both Shenmue 1 and 2 and at no point are there 50 NPCs displayed. At most there's around 20 at the martial arts school in Wan Chai. It also slows down there. The Shenmue engine could probably display 50 NPCs but only if the polygon models were cut in half.

[marconelly!]

On the pic Lazy8 posted, isn't that specular highlighting on her face? If not, it looks heck of a lot simillar to the highlites on the laayosh's picture.

http://www.playscope.com/fichiers/photos/1571/sh3_041.jpg[/quote]

[Phil]

The Shenmue engine was being held back by the DC. In other words the engine itself is much more sophisticated than the SH3 engine. SH3 looks good graphically, but the engine isn't managing anything near Shenmue's. That was Lazy8s point

If this is the point we're argueing, then with all due respect, I can not find anything sophisticated about an engine that is being held back by its own hardware. Shenmue was developed for Dreamcast and therefore should be able to use the hardware at its limits but not more. Saying that the engine might be capable of more, but the hardware is the deciding limiter is kind of pointless isn't it? It's like saying the MGS2 engine could handle over 100 soldiers on screen all packed in with that amazing rain particle, but doesn't because the hardware would be the deciding limiter. In the end, what you get on screen is what you get. Going by what Bowie states about the hardware not even coping with 20 NPCs on screen, why argue about 50? To me, a more sophisticated engine is one that can use the hardware in its most efficiant way without having to fight with "limiting" hardware.

I'm not sure how anyone can deny that the game is very sparsely textured. The textures that are there are quite nice, but the overall look has a distinctly flat-shaded, cartoonish style to it.

Of course it has a cartoonish style to it, and perhaps this is the main reason why most people dismiss its texturing without even taking a good long look at it. Just take one of the cave sceneries where you'll see different patches of texturing on rocks and all lighted differently accoarding to fire or other light sources. Consider also that this games run at double the framerate, so does the Getaway aswell (despite it having very frequent slowdowns).

I did bring in an example from Shenmue which I felt showed improvement in the specific characteristic I was talking about. The discussion inevitably turned into people discrediting Shenmue's overall graphics, though. So, in the midst of talking about some other games with great graphics (Silent Hill 3, Jak and Daxter), all I've been trying to do is point out the things that still makes Shenmue look great when you see it running.

Fine. Personally, I think the characters look great in Silent Hill 3 and that a lot goes down to artistic choice/talent. I believe the characters in that form as they are presented in the screens above fit great into the gritty atmospheric scenery and I can't see how 'different' skin textures (as you tried to explain with the Shenhua screen) might do a better job... but hey, that's just my opinion. ;)

[PC-Engine]

If this is the point we're argueing, then with all due respect, I can not find anything sophisticated about an engine that is being held back by its own hardware. Shenmue was developed for Dreamcast and therefore should be able to use the hardware at its limits but not more. Saying that the engine might be capable of more, but the hardware is the deciding limiter is kind of pointless isn't it? It's like saying the MGS2 engine could handle over 100 soldiers on screen all packed in with that amazing rain particle, but doesn't because the hardware would be the deciding limiter. In the end, what you get on screen is what you get. Going by what Bowie states about the hardware not even coping with 20 NPCs on screen, why argue about 50? To me, a more sophisticated engine is one that can use the hardware in its most efficiant way without having to fight with "limiting" hardware.

What if the engine was programmed specifically for PS2 or Xbox? Answer: it would look a lot prettier than the DC version and at the same time still be as complex with regard to management of many different immersion/detail factors. All we have on Xbox is a PORT with minor upgrades.

[Lazy8s]

Phil:
Going by what Bowie states about the hardware not even coping with 20 NPCs on screen, why argue about 50?
The framerate does weird things in places regardless of how many people are on screen... not too different from a lot of adventure games in that sense.

There's a hidden dojo with the same number of people elsewhere in the game, and it doesn't have slowdown like that there. There are more than a few gambling spots with about 30 people that have no slowdown. When I had almost 40 people because I was blocking the entrance to one of the general stores, the framerate didn't change at that spot.

Then again, I've been near the fountain in Aberdeen with only one person, and it did slowdown. So, in some places, it's not really so dependent on the NPC load. You have to remember that this game is constantly streaming the life routine animations for any number of the 1000+ cast of characters off the disc at any one time plus handling a lot of other little tracking tasks, so seeing slowdown in Shenmue II DC was not at all uncommon (some places worse than others). Still, it generally wasn't the NPC load that affected slowdown... it was usually something to do with the environment.

[Lazy8s]

Phil:
Of course it has a cartoonish style to it, and perhaps this is the main reason why most people dismiss its texturing without even taking a good long look at it.
I took a good long look at it. I would not dismiss anything from a technical standpoint just because of its style, but that whole engine pushes so little in the way of texture quantity (in relation to our comparison) that many polygons simply look flat-shaded. Overall the engine is quite impressive, but it does so while balancing other elements ahead of texturing. I mean, Sonic Adventure 2 runs at 60hz too (full frame pro-scan even), but the two games are worlds apart in how concentrated they are with textures. And worlds apart in geometric complexity too... in Jak's favor, of course.

[Laa-Yosh]

Laa yosh, on that page you linked to, the guy explains that the shader used to simulate sub skin refractions was something much simpler - a toon shader as far as I can see?

Yes, that's his method... There are other ways though, for example I use a combination of applying a bit of self-illumination in the lit areas of the skin based on a Fresnel-term; and I transition between a desaturated, and a more reddish version of the skin texture, based on how much light the surface receives.
Steve prefers the cartoon shader partially because he's aiming at a more illustrative look.
The fake nature of this shader is evident on the ears and the nose, by the way - but because the effect is so subtle in reality, you can go a long way in fooling the viewer with such tricks. And also, you could alo paint mask textures to make SSS look different on various parts of the body...

[quote]Specular highlites when applied to a skin, can look both good and unnatural. For a skin to look like that, it would have to be quite sweaty or greasy, and even then it would require quite a strong directional light. If you look youself in the mirror (or look at the people around you in the room) you will see that they don't look anything like that. There are no highlites that you can compare to those on that picture.

There are, just take a look at your average Hollywood movie :) It depends on lighting.
Under real-world lighting conditions, most of the illumination is not primary but light reflected from walls, the sky, and other things. Such light is diffuse and thus it will not create speculer highlights. Photo shootings, videoclips and such will also use large white screens to scatter the light coming from the spotlights.
Some Hollywood movie settings will, however, use direct illumination to create high contrast images. This is very common in night shoots... Thus, the image above has such strong specular highlights intentionally, because of the harsh lighting that Stahlberg has used.

[mech]

I don't get your logic PC-Engine.

The DC was holding the Shenmue engine back... but... when it was on Xbox it looked identical. But that was just a PORT... what they needed to do was rewrite the engine for Xbox hardware, and then it'll be awesome.

But.. that would be a new engine. I mean, the engine was written for Dreamcast, it's probably got all sorts of quirks because it wasn't meant for ultra-powerful hardware. So if they re-wrote it so it didn't have those quirks, it'd be a new engine.

You're acting like their engine has some revolutionary design behind it... but it doesn't, I mean it's a pretty basic engine. There are a number of other engines that are equally as impressive, they just do different things (MGS2 for impressive graphics, GTA:VC for massive sprawling landscape). I mean, if someone else (like Konami) re-wrote Shenmue with the same design doc, I'm pretty sure they'd be able to make a game pretty much identical. There's nothing particularly revolutionary going on - it WAS impressive at the time, just as MGS2 was impressive at the time. Why cling to it the way you guys do? It's been surpassed - get over it.

[Phil]

PC-Engine

What if the engine was programmed specifically for PS2 or Xbox? Answer: it would look a lot prettier than the DC version and at the same time still be as complex with regard to management of many different immersion/detail factors. All we have on Xbox is a PORT with minor upgrades.

Well, it isn't and this wasn't exactly what anyone was argueing. You were argueing that the Shenmue engine is much more sophisticated than the SH3 engine. If and how sophisticated a Shenmue engine optimized for PS2 or Xbox would be, remains highly speculative and therefore questionable. In its currrent form on Dreamcast hardware (and in development for several years if I remember correctly), I don't think it's as sophisticated as you make it to be.

Lazy8s

The framerate does weird things in places regardless of how many people are on screen... not too different from a lot of adventure games in that sense.

There's a hidden dojo with the same number of people elsewhere in the game, and it doesn't have slowdown like that there. There are more than a few gambling spots with about 30 people that have no slowdown. When I had almost 40 people because I was blocking the entrance to one of the general stores, the framerate didn't change at that spot.

Then again, I've been near the fountain in Aberdeen with only one person, and it did slowdown. So, in some places, it's not really so dependent on the NPC load. You have to remember that this game is constantly streaming the life routine animations for any number of the 1000+ cast of characters off the disc at any one time plus handling a lot of other little tracking tasks, so seeing slowdown in Shenmue II DC was not at all uncommon (some places worse than others). Still, it generally wasn't the NPC load that affected slowdown... it was usually something to do with the environment.

And this engine is supposed to be sophisticated? What ever the reason for slowdown may be, it certainly has a basis and shows the limitation of the hardware in one way or the other.

I took a good long look at it. I would not dismiss anything from a technical standpoint just because of its style, but that whole engine pushes so little in the way of texture quantity (in relation to our comparison) that many polygons simply look flat-shaded. Overall the engine is quite impressive, but it does so while balancing other elements ahead of texturing. I mean, Sonic Adventure 2 runs at 60hz too (full frame pro-scan even), but the two games are worlds apart in how concentrated they are with textures. And worlds apart in geometric complexity too... in Jak's favor, of course.

Why are we suddenly comparing it with Sonic Adventures 2? To my knowledge, we were comparing it to Shenmue, because you wanted 'us' to present a game that looks significantly better than Shenmue. I agree with Marconelly with Jak & Daxter, as the fact that the game runs at a smooth 60 fps with awesome lightning, as good texturing and a seamless world that's being streamed without visible loading, validates to it being graphically better in probably every single aspect. Sonic Adventure 2 of course has nice texturing, but that's a completely different game and I honestly haven't played it long enough to truly compare. That game was never apart of the discussion though to beginn with, so I find it quite amusing why it was brought up in the first place.

As for texturing. I really wish I had the time to find screens that would do the game justice but I really can't. It's evident enough though to have it running beside me and considering the insane amount of geometry the engine is pushing, I personally think Naughty Dog did a wonderful job. You can read up on various reviews (IGN comes to mind, GameSpot's review is locked to members only unfortunately) of the game that will show that many people at the time were impressed by the texturing and all the other aspects and put it over many PS2 games graphically at the time.

If you ever have the time to play the game one more time, I suggest you check out one of the cave sceneries. In there, you will see various light sources all responsible for making textures light up differently accoarding to where you're standing. This can be seen fairly impressive in the spidercave. Also once there, take a look at the detail on the rocks and on various objects - then take into account how much geometry is going on in that single area. :wink:

[iscariot]

IGN comes to mind, GameSpot's review is locked to members only unfortunately)

well, only because I care :oops:

GS review excerpt:

Naughty Dog has spoken at length about the graphics engine for Jak and Daxter, and the results are impressive. Built from the ground up to use both vector units of the PlayStation 2, the game engine used for Jak and Daxter can draw an inordinate number of polygons. As mentioned earlier, the horizon stretches on forever, and anything you can see you can travel to as long as the proper items have been collected. In some of the earlier outdoor levels, the sprawling terrain can cause the frame rates to fluctuate wildly, but it's rarely detrimental to the gameplay. The character design for the game is reportedly the result of focus testing aimed at achieving a look that would appeal to both Asia and North America, and the result is pure Disney. And like Disney's productions, fluid animation brings Jak and Daxter to life. Though just a handful of moves are included in the game, watching Daxter try to hold on to Jak while he's engaged in combat is a sight to see. Special effects are at a premium in virtually every area of the game. Heat blurring is used extensively throughout the game as well as real-time lighting. Considering the PlayStation 2 has long been criticized for its lack of texturing abilities, the texture variety and clarity in Jak and Daxter is staggering. The high-resolution textures feature vivid colors with no hint of pixelation whatsoever. The game's story is told via real-time cinemas complete with full facial animation that is perfectly synched with the dialogue. Easily one of the PlayStation 2's most visually impressive games, Jak and Daxter sets the bar for what is expected of future games on the console.

[PC-Engine]

For an engine that came out over 3 years ago, yes it IS impressive :wink:

It still hasn't been bested AFAIK not even by a game that hasn't even been out yet :lol:

[Bowie]

What do you think is so superior about the Shenmue engine? I can name a couple of engines on the Dreamcast that are better. JSR features cel-shading, the main character casts a shadow volume, buildings cast shadow volumes, and it features seamless loading areas. Quake 3 Arena features fully light-mapped environments, specular maps, and real-time tesselated curved surfaces.

In comparison, the Shenmue engine only pumps out a lot of single-textured polygons and the main character casts a shadow volume. What Shenmue has over other games is an attention to detail. But what is detail? It's just texture mapped polygons. Games just use their polygons in different ways. For example, Jak and Daxter uses its polygons for a huge draw distance and to make everything rounded. Shenmue in comparison has a much shorter draw distance and displays a lot of varied objects. There's no reason why Naughty Dog couldn't reduce the draw distance to make everything look as detailed as Shenmue.

[LogisticX]

For an engine that came out over 3 years ago, yes it IS impressive

It still hasn't been bested AFAIK not even by a game that hasn't even been out yet

:roll:
So hows that wool over your eyes working for you?

[PC-Engine]

I'm not talking about only graphics. I'm taking about the immersion :wink:

In other words what's being managed by the game engine.

Oh and my computer monitor isn't covered in wool :P :wink:

[Bowie]

Well if it's immersion you're talking about, well I was immersed in Ultima 7 far more than Shenmue. Some people have been immersed in Everquest enough to ruin their lives. Heck, I've even heard of people dying from playing counterstrike for over 24 hours straight.

Anyways, this thread is about graphics.

[marconelly!]

There are, just take a look at your average Hollywood movie It depends on lighting.
Under real-world lighting conditions, most of the illumination is not primary but light reflected from walls, the sky, and other things. Such light is diffuse and thus it will not create speculer highlights. Photo shootings, videoclips and such will also use large white screens to scatter the light coming from the spotlights.
Some Hollywood movie settings will, however, use direct illumination to create high contrast images. This is very common in night shoots... Thus, the image above has such strong specular highlights intentionally, because of the harsh lighting that Stahlberg has used.
That's just what I was thinking, but thanks for clarifying.

So what about that picture of older woman that I linked to on top of this page? Are those specular hilites or not? That face looks quite different than faces on some other pictures that don't have highlites like that at all. Perhaps they utilize those hilites only with an appropriate lighting setting?

[archie4oz]

Perhaps they utilize those hilites only with an appropriate lighting setting?

Perhaps... They could be using maps from homomorphically factorized BRDFs that are keyed to and loaded when entering particular environments or rooms...


And one other thing about Jak and Daxter that really impressed me was the sophistication of the IK structures, and vertex morphing of the characters themselves (Daxter in particular). While they weren't "realistic" (which is fine by me), the attention to detail (down to animated UVs for pupils which so many game characters lack) and depth of expression make them far more significant standouts than whether some character "looks more realistic"...

[Fafalada]

Not to mention J&D doesn't repeat some 5 or so different textures a hundred times across the screen like a certain other platformer 8)

[marconelly!]

Not to mention J&D doesn't repeat some 5 or so different textures a hundred times across the screen like a certain other platformer
Nothing comes to mind... :?

[Lazy8s]

To elaborate more on the sophistication of the Shenmue engine, you have to consider what it's presenting and how that differs from other games. Think of it in a "Making of Shenmue" kind of way.

AM2 wanted to make a highly immersive world that suspended realization of common videogame trappings. Instead of an action or adventure game where believability goes only as far as the stage for that particular scene has been set, Shenmue allows the seamless transitioning of an always running, dynamic system.

Think back to MGS2 or a Final Fantasy game. Imagine your adventure has you cross paths with a character such as a guard. What would happen if you decided to just watch that guard? Would you see him get tired from his shift eventually and leave his post? Would he go home, via a fully working transportation system to his fully modeled house/apartment? Would he ever stop to eat? Does he have a name and a backstory? Do any of these factors even matter?

Of course not, because the believability of your situation is scripted for that one scene. It's like dressing a stage for a single act at a time in a play, and that's quite acceptable for most story-based adventure games.

Shenmue presents a simulation of a real world for Ryo's exploration and adventure, though. You could follow that shopkeeper you happened upon as they dusted their antiques and sat behind the counter writing on forms, to when they closed up shop for lunch and headed down the street to the burger shop, to when they sat down on the bench and ate that burger, to when they got up again and headed back to their shop to re-open it, and to when they finally closed for the day and started walking out to their apartment at a nearby complex (or perhaps to the bus station down the street to go to their home in another part of town.) The engine transitions between all these actions as you watch it, without pausing to reset the stage or skip over the continuity parts where doors have to be opened, bodies re-oriented from moving to standing to bending and sitting into chairs. And this is happening for hundreds of characters all the time, as morning turns to night, and as clear weather turns rainy and back again.

The time of day (and date) is dynamic and the weather unscripted, and the characters life routines are influenced by this. For example, at a certain point in the storyline progression, the flower shop girl Nozomi will head off to Sakuragoaka Park where she'll get harassed by some thugs. But, she'll go to this park only on a day it isn't raining (makes sense), so this event won't take place until this progression has been reached and it also so happens that the weather is fair. If you're trying to meet up with certain characters to question them, you need to know where they are and at what time they'll be there, taking into account conditions. Some people stay nearer to their houses during inclement weather.

The whole map is laid out to be more than just scenery. People have family, acquaintences, jobs, and homes. The convenience store is clerked in shifts by different characters for different days. And although that kind of stuff is just content, it's compelling nonetheless within the framework of what the engine is presenting. The Mishima family, consisting of the mother Fusayo, the eldest daughter Mayumi, and the youngest daughter Megumi, all share a facial resemblence like families do; they live in a house you can visit in the neighborhood down the hill from yours, Sakuragaoka. The mother has a complex life history I won't waste time going into here (you could read it on the Shenmue Passport disc, get clues in-game, or read the strategy guide), but her daily routine starts her at home at 8:00AM, shopping to Yaokatsu Produce, to Komine Bakery, to Tamura Quality Meats, to Mary's Patches and Embroidery Shop, to Uokichi Seafood, and then back to her porch by 1:45PM. She goes into her house at 3:00PM, returning outside to gossip with some other ladies from the neighborhood thirty minutes later by the telephone booth. She leaves them back for home at 7:00PM, and then returns outside to sweep her porch from 7:50PM to 8:30PM. And Mrs. Mishima is just some random character you'd never even have to meet if you didn't want to during your progression through the story.

The engine isn't just throwing out a bunch of texture mapped polys. It's allowing all these things and all this movement to take place around you. If you stayed within one part of the map, you could see random characters wandering in during the day and behaving differently with individual daily routines, without the game ever stopping for a loading screen. So, it's seamless in that way as opposed to Jak and Daxter's seamless terrain loading engine.

Ryo throws off multiple shadows that deform correctly even over complex terrain when near multiple light sources. When walking and stopping on a sloped surface, he rebalances his weight more on one leg realistically. Same with stairs. The game knows how many times you've looked at different stuff and how many times you bumped into things (all in the Shenmue Passport stats). It probably has the most spoken dialogue of any game ever, allowing almost any character to tell you the directions from where they presently are to almost any location you happen to be asking about. To accomodate so much speech, Shenmue employs real-time lip synching. When you see Ryo's hand reach out for something, you can see the intricate lines and the veins beneath his skin flex. Even the animals - the dogs, birds, and cats - have life routines. The development of one particular kitten is tied into the diet of food and attention you give her. When it's raining, you can stand under the awning of a building and watch the rain drip off infront of you and splash on the ground.

The indoor locations are lit very convincingly for mood. Outside, the time of day and position of the sun are reflected in lighting, coloring, direction and length of shadows, and lens flare.

The game dynamically mixes background music, ambient sounds, conversation speech, and localized sound effects by distance from source.

The pathfinding AI for the characters will have them back off, readjust and wait, or line up single-file at congested doorways and destinations. Body parts bend, twist, and flex at joints with real-time interpolation between animations. Instead of having to return to a very limited set of keypoint animations to execute a new behavior, a character can turn their neck, body and eyes to face you for conversation even if they're kneeling or working on something else.

The game creates its conversations from dialogue sets in real-time to avoid repetition. So for instance, if you happen to ask the same question to the same person more than once, they'll usually have multiple ways of delivering the same piece of information. Ryo will have multiple ways of responding, sometimes questioning more specifically, sometimes responding with the curt "I see", or sometimes thanking the person for the help. The generated responses depend upon the mood and tone of the conversation, and Ryo's face animates dynamically to match the emotion of the speech with eyes that squint and blink, a mouth that can frown or smile, and his brow that can furrow. There are more subtle touches to the facial animation then that, and all of the other 1000+ characters match their face to the tone of the conversation to some extent too - beat the Lucky Hit stand owners several times in a row, and they'll acquire a sadder expression when they say something like, "Here. Take your money!"

The game doesn't even fully express the flexibility of the engine and tools, though. During development, AM2 showed numerous tech demonstrations regarding the games' Magic Time and Magic Weather systems. There are videos of the camera pulled way above the neighborhood of Sakuragoaka where you watch the sky and trees change with the passing of the day and seasons. Leaves fell from the trees, snow built up on the ground and melted, and the trees eventually became full of foliage again. Since your story progresses from day to day, you can't time lapse things to see it all. But, if you play long enough in the story, you will see holiday decorations put up around Dobuita for Christmas, a man dress in a Santa suit to advertise the shops, and certain characters wearing traditional Japanese Komonos for the New Year's holiday.

You better believe that one of the largest and most technically proficient development teams ever, with a budget high in the tens of millions, and a development duration of several years would be able to put together some sophisticated toolsets, development processes, and an engine for this project. They created techniques for facial modeling and animation that allowed them to make a cast of hundreds of unique looking characters which could all react and animate their expressions in real-time. The characters are individually clothed and skinned and they react to their daily duties and the environment with seamless animation transitions. Sure, MGS2 has some sweet looking animation - the developers were able to have motion-capture actors play out the pre-scripted cut-scenes, and they could interpolate with some IK during the in-game stuff to give everything amazing smoothness. But for Shenmue, not every scenario is a pre-dressed set on the game's stage... instead, everything has to look natural as your character moves among a dynamic world where progression isn't so linear, and where there's a certain level of freedom and randomness to what you'll encounter and the behavior you'll see. Making all that animate like a real-life town, of which you are free to move about, was quite the challenge.

In summary, the game had to push enough geometry to convey realistically-styled locales with dozens of individually modeled characters at once. It had to be able to load them dynamically while you played for new people and new behavior mixing. It had to push enough texture information to allow booths and stands and different storefronts all over the place within cities and nature environments. All of that had to be highly interactive enough at times to allow you to knock those booths over and break them apart. The items on top had to react properly to physics and fall over appropriately. The engine had to allow changing time and weather and seasons, and it had to track how all that influenced character behavior. It had to allow lots of sound mixing. It had to allow large panaromic shots as well as micro-scale detailing. It had to allow for expressive human and animal faces to deliver the emotion of the scenes in the story. AM2 had to make quite the impressive engine to cover such daunting requirements, and the result is the Shenmue engine.

Remember, this game was made and shipped into the hands of hundreds of thousands of gamers in Japan back in 1999 before the PS2 was even out yet, let alone before games like MGS2 or Jak and Daxter would ever see completion (and games like Silent Hill 3 aren't even out yet.) This was done on 1998 Dreamcast hardware, not on fifteen month newer and 50% more expensive PS2 hardware. Don't be too surprised to see some of the more impressive engines of the future come out of SEGA and AM2.

Phil:
Why are we suddenly comparing it with Sonic Adventures 2? To my knowledge, we were comparing it to Shenmue, because you wanted 'us' to present a game that looks significantly better than Shenmue.
I used Sonic Adventure 2 DC as an example only to point out that Jak and Daxter's cartoony theme and 60 fps refresh was not fully responsible for its minimally textured look. Sonic is cartoony as well (though, not trying to achieve the exact same look, of course), but it's concentration of texturing is strikingly higher than J&D. However, you can just as easily substitute Shenmue back as the example, for it's just as concetrated with texturing variety on virtually every new surface as Sonic Adventure 2 DC is (the textures certainly aren't as pretty though, since there so much more stuff to do.)
I agree with Marconelly with Jak & Daxter, as the fact that the game runs at a smooth 60 fps with awesome lightning, as good texturing and a seamless world that's being streamed without visible loading, validates to it being graphically better in probably every single aspect.
Come on now... Shenmue just throws around so much more texture variety that it really isn't a comparison in that one regard. Whether or not its cartoony, Jak and Daxter's surfaces just look much more pastel and smooth than the busy surface patterns in Shenmue. Looking out across distant views shows that farther geometry may not even be using texture maps at all after a certain visibility distance.
It's evident enough though to have it running beside me and considering the insane amount of geometry the engine is pushing, I personally think Naughty Dog did a wonderful job.
I definitely agree here.
You can read up on various reviews (IGN comes to mind, GameSpot's review is locked to members only unfortunately) of the game that will show that many people at the time were impressed by the texturing and all the other aspects and put it over many PS2 games graphically at the time.
There's nothing technically wrong with the textures that are there. I'm just saying they are very sparsely distributed by comparison.

[Logan Leonhart]

Lazy, give it up. We´ve seen the screens and we´ve all seen the game. No matter how many 2000 word essays you write about how much you love Shenmue in a poetic way, nothing is going to change about it.
You are thinking too highly of a game that doesn´t exist in reality. Shenmue´s outdoor lightning is static. It´s textures are average at best. It features slowdown, shimmering, aliasing. All of the characters on screen except for Ryo are decidedly low polygon, and definitely not too impressive. Poetry doesn´t change any of this.
Ok, it has several scripted life rutines. That´s good, and shows how much attention to detail Shenmue has. We all now that, for better or worse, Shenmue is filled with all of these unnecesary and unimportant elements that make it seem that the world the character is living in is, to an extent, alive. You won´t see anyone arguing over this, afterall, so much wasted money had to reflect upon something.
However, as I said, there´s not a single reason for this poorly lit, jagged game, complete with pop up, shimmering and low polygon counts to be the best game available graphics wise.
Seriously, are you in love with this game? Because writing 2000 word essays about unimportant elements and blowing them out of proportion makes me wonder. Personally, and taking the risk of sounding childish, I don´t give a crap if an NPC dusts his store, goes to a couple of places and then goes home. I also don´t give a crap about elements that do not have any bearing on gameplay. And most importantly, I don´t highly of a game that is not only very slow, but also quite boring to play.

[Vince]

2,298 words. 11,119 characters. 185 lines. 13 paragraphs.

All of them complete and utter ecstasy. And they thought Viagra worked well.

[JF_Aidan_Pryde]

For an engine that came out over 3 years ago, yes it IS impressive :wink:

It still hasn't been bested AFAIK not even by a game that hasn't even been out yet :lol:

Change AFAIK -> IMHO. Take out the 'H' if you feel more comfortable.

[KOF]

Wow, Lazy8s, those were some beautiful writings. :D (took me about an hour to read the whole thing ^D^)

I can understand your infatuations about Shen Mue. Afterall, who can blame him for being so immersed into a something called 'art'? With Shen Mue, you either "get" it or don't get it "at all".

Such phenomenons can be found in other games series too. Heck, there are some hardcore King of Fighters fans who can pinpoint every details of character sprites and can determine whether a certain character's clothing is created out of silk or cotton...all out of this 13years outdated hardware. (of course, SNK was responsible for such details in the first place. ;P )

I love Shen Mue, not because of technological measures, but because of other nitty gritty details Lazy8s has mentioned. Shen Mue's graphical engine was awesome back in the day, but today, just as you guys say, it's outdated and has been surpassed by many others. Even taking graphical measures into account, it didn't really look that hot...even back in the day. I remember some people in SegaX board going "ugh.." over some screenshots of NPCs. At that time, I wasn't unsure whether this game was graphcally matching Unreal (a pinnacle of graphic evolution at that period, just as Doom3 *will* be) and still am unsure now.

But really, such things did not matter to me and won't matter to me, because I was amazed by something else. Right, Shen Mue was filled with artistic genius that was embodied with great details,...and that's what really matters to me. I have to actually thank Ozymandis here for giving me a proper definition for 'artistic quality', because that was something that was lingering my mind, but couldn't really realize it to be something tangible until he told me. ;D

When I first played Skies of Arcadia, I noticed something 'beautiful' & 'ugly' at the same time. :P It was ugly because the engine wasn't technically impressive. Character models wise, I *think* I've seen better modelling and texturing from Zelda : OotT. ;p but on the other hand, I found it beautiful because the artistic talent was used to create a very original and fresh mood for this story, that I loved how the scenes were unfold from day1.

I see &amp; clearly understand when people slam down 'NPC time routine' as an useless feature. but to me, they aren't useless. Even though interactions between majority of them are hampered to "I'm sorry. I don't want to talk to you", I can familiarize them and feel like I could say "Hi~" whenever I remember a similiar face. :) In Shen Mue2, it's even better because I can follow them around and learn more about their lives by observing their daily routines. Some may call me "a sick crazy stalker", that I <precisely> am. because that's exactly what I'm doing. >;D

How many people have lifted up *every* objects in Shen Mue and examined them all around? How many people have visited *every* rooms(about 300) in ghost buildings? Very few I'd say, because none of them are relevent to the actual gameplay. And that's the reason why I love Shen Mue. Most people will only care about the completion, while sickos like me go around all 300 rooms in every apartment buildings and say "Wow, each room is somewhat different from the other!" As someone mentioned, it's all about immersion factor. You could find it in other adventure games like Lucas adventure games (I did...to a certain extent in 'The Day of the Tentacle', a great game btw...erm, actually, all Lucasarts adventure games are great^p^) You could find it in any other games too. I'm playing Zelda : LttP on GBA right now. It's really a chore to play because of its repetitive hack &amp; slash routine and same ol' dungeons. If I was a NES owner back in the 80s, my opinion on Zelda might have changed...>_&lt; (I sometimes question my consistency on taste of games...grumble) but whether or not I'm having the fun or not, I could never slam down Zelda : LttP as being uninspired game. This game has lot of thing to do...completely unnecessary from main gameplay path, and that's why some people consider it as the best game ever and that, I could understand.

Oops, did not mean to post another 2k words essay. I did take that into consideration. T_T As one of my most respected member of this board, Mr.Kolgar says, "It's all about the games, really!"

...And last but not least, glad to see another Shen Mue and overall DC lover, Lazy8s. :D Enjoyed your opinion on Grandia2 too...although I have my own disagreement about Grandia2 being 'great'. :P

[Lazy8s]

I'm not sure where some of you (this only applies to the people who've been irrational in this topic) get off feeling all righteous about tearing into Shenmue against your choice of games in this example. I could lie to myself or play Devil's Advocate just as easily as you have, criticizing the technical elements in your choices of games against more recent Xbox efforts if I wanted to sound as irrational. And no matter how "poetic" you got defending your examples, it wouldn't change the fact that games from more powerful hardware like Xbox would be delivering them the technical smackdown.

How hard would it be for me to complain about the shimmering, alaising, lack of "sufficient" geometry, lack of advanced textuing effects, lack of proper filtering, lack of adequate mip-mapping, lack of "sufficient" lighting, lower than standard screen resolution, lack of texture variety, lack of pro-scan output, and/or lack of true 5.1 sound separation during gameplay in your choices against Xbox's finest like PDO, DOA3, NBA 2K3 720p, and DOA: BV? Maybe I should try to rationalize by calling you bitter PS2 fans or something.

It wouldn't take too deep of a thought process to form arguments like that, you know...

[Lazy8s]

KOF:
How many people have lifted up *every* objects in Shen Mue and examined them all around? How many people have visited *every* rooms(about 300) in ghost buildings? Very few I'd say, because none of them are relevent to the actual gameplay. And that's the reason why I love Shen Mue. Most people will only care about the completion, while sickos like me go around all 300 rooms in every apartment buildings and say "Wow, each room is somewhat different from the other!"
I certainly relate, KOF! Some games capture player's imaginations and tune them into the game world much more than they experience with other games. For a lot of people, I know ICO was another one of those games.

[Fafalada]

Marc,
I was exagerating of course ;) but the game I meant was the one mentioned before in platformer comparison to J&amp;D. If you ever played it, the repetition of textures goes to the point where the world really looks like it's made out of tiles, like in the old 2d games.
And it's not that games in general don't repeat textures a lot - they do, but most also do at least Some effort to hide that... (in case of J&amp;D, quite a bit of effort).
Besides, typical platformers are all on rails to begin with, so they perceptually cram more "detail" on screen at a given moment.
Crash PS2 does that pretty well, if you can stomach the frightening art to get that far in the game.
And the game is nowhere near J&amp;D in most technical aspects - it doesn't need to be.

[KOF]

Marc,
I was exagerating of course ;) but the game I meant was the one mentioned before in platformer comparison to J&D. If you ever played it, the repetition of textures goes to the point where the world really looks like it's made out of tiles, like in the old 2d games.
And it's not that games in general don't repeat textures a lot - they do, but most also do at least Some effort to hide that... (in case of J&D, quite a bit of effort).
Besides, typical platformers are all on rails to begin with, so they perceptually cram more "detail" on screen at a given moment.
Crash PS2 does that pretty well, if you can stomach the frightening art to get that far in the game.
And the game is nowhere near J&D in most technical aspects - it doesn't need to be.

Fafalada, do you mean Sonic Adventure2? o.O Plz don't leave me puzzled. ;P

[Vince]

782 words. 3694 characters. 63 lines. 1 paragraph.

What a disappointment - KOF, you disgust the most imminent being that is Shenmue. Truthfully, I never realised the how much of an impact video games have on some people - I'm in a state of shock actually.

[Fafalada]

Kof, I think I meant the first one, if I am not mixing things up :P I don't think I ever played part 2, just saw it on demo kiosks.

[KOF]

782 words. 3694 characters. 63 lines. 1 paragraph.

What a disappointment - KOF, you disgust the most imminent being that is Shenmue. Truthfully, I never realised the how much of an impact video games have on some people - I'm in a state of shock actually.

;D Yes, compared to Late8s, I still have a lot to learn. Shen Mue disgusting? Maybe...but not as disgusting as your shitty attitude. ;D

[Lazy8s]

Word of advice, Vince:
Never get into modern game design.

If you think picking apart the details and mechanics that make up a game (and I do mean all of it) ends at several hundred words/characters/paragraphs, you'd never want to see a game's design document. You'd never even want to see one chapter of it.

[PC-Engine]

For an engine that came out over 3 years ago, yes it IS impressive :wink:

It still hasn't been bested AFAIK not even by a game that hasn't even been out yet :lol:

Change AFAIK -> IMHO. Take out the 'H' if you feel more comfortable.

Hehe read Lazy8s in depth analysis of the Shenmue engine and come back here and show me a better engine...if you can :wink:

[Phil]

Lazy8s,

Admittadly, Shenmue is impressive no doubt about that. I was merely argueing the sophistication of the engine from a graphical point of view (since this debate did start rolling because of graphics).

I used Sonic Adventure 2 DC as an example only to point out that Jak and Daxter's cartoony theme and 60 fps refresh was not fully responsible for its minimally textured look. Sonic is cartoony as well (though, not trying to achieve the exact same look, of course), but it's concentration of texturing is strikingly higher than J&D. However, you can just as easily substitute Shenmue back as the example, for it's just as concetrated with texturing variety on virtually every new surface as Sonic Adventure 2 DC is (the textures certainly aren't as pretty though, since there so much more stuff to do.)

Obviously both have different styles. I'd say Sonic Adventure 2 definately goes for the more realistic cartoony look (especially forrest locations) which results in more realistic looking texturing. That however doesn't mean that one is pushing way more textures. When comparing both, also consider that J&D is pushing way more geometry, therefore, there's also more to be textured. That's why you'll see better textures in indoor locations opposed to outdoor ones. For a better insight of comparing the two, I would have to play SA2 again though...

Anyway, the comparasment was never between SA2 and J&D, it was between J&D and Shenmue.

Come on now... Shenmue just throws around so much more texture variety that it really isn't a comparison in that one regard. Whether or not its cartoony, Jak and Daxter's surfaces just look much more pastel and smooth than the busy surface patterns in Shenmue. Looking out across distant views shows that farther geometry may not even be using texture maps at all after a certain visibility distance.

As I said, Jak & Daxter runs at double the framerate, has more geometry and things going on. Texture variety is definately not a problem in J&D, that I am sure many will be able to confirm (did you read the GS review?). For a rather nice comparasment, I think those screens posted of Shenmue rather end this arguement fairly quick.

How hard would it be for me to complain about the shimmering, alaising, lack of "sufficient" geometry, lack of advanced textuing effects, lack of proper filtering, lack of adequate mip-mapping, lack of "sufficient" lighting, lower than standard screen resolution, lack of texture variety, lack of pro-scan output, and/or lack of true 5.1 sound separation during gameplay in your choices against Xbox's finest like PDO, DOA3, NBA 2K3 720p, and DOA: BV? Maybe I should try to rationalize by calling you bitter PS2 fans or something.

You can call us bitter or anything you like, but I would prefer to have a game that makes use of my prefered console in a most efficiant way. That means at best, no slowdown, minor graphical glitches, smooth framerate etc. Do you think I enjoyed the slowdown in the GTA3? I actually hate it as much as I would dislike the graphical problems Shenmue has to cope with. I rarely use games with above mentioned problems in my comparasments anyway.

PC-Engine

Hehe read Lazy8s in depth analysis of the Shenmue engine and come back here and show me a better engine...if you can

There are many, but it's pretty obvious that every development team puts their effort into different things: Team Soho for intance used their effort to capture city London in all its glory and aimed their engine to cope with a city of this scape with massive traffic, reasonably good AI, staggering realism and insane textures throughout the city all at 60 fps. While they came a bit short, especially with framerate, it sure is a fine peace of work. Then you have Konami that used their efforts to create a movie-like experience with also staggering realism where swat-teams hunt you down with never before seen AI in action. Pack that with brilliant directing and life-like weather effects and you have something very impressive also. Not to mention the engine that can cope with physics, being able to shoot practically anythinga and watch it burst in a correct realistic way. Then you have Naughty Dog who aimed to bring an entiry world all into one game without a single loading screen inluding realtime based day/night cycle, brilliant characters and animation and a breathtaking draw distance, making it possible to view the entire world from anywhere. I'm sure there are many others that have managed to create impressive engines - they just used their efforts in different ways to produce different experiences. Not saying that any of these are better than AM2s efforts of course, but that they are at least as impressive. ;)

[Lazy8s]

Phil:
You can call us bitter or anything you like, but I would prefer to have a game that makes use of my prefered console in a most efficiant way.
I'm in agreement with you about games that exhibit good polish. The "bitter" comment wasn't directed at you, as my paranthesis stated it was meant for the people who were only looking at this discussion from one point of view. You expressed your views most thoughtfully, so I understood and appreciated your viewpoint.

Let it go Lazy8....let it go.... :oops:

[zidane1strife]

in your choices against Xbox's finest like PDO, DOA3, NBA 2K3 720p, and DOA: BV? Maybe I should try to rationalize by calling you bitter PS2 fans or something.

Hmmm, so it's okay in areas like doa3's water, but not ps2? So many of those probs. are ok when present on xbox titles, but not on ps2 titles? Slowdown, aliasing, shimmering ok in one console, but not in another?
Well ok 8) [/quote]

[Vince]

Word of advice, Vince:
Never get into modern game design.

If you think picking apart the details and mechanics that make up a game (and I do mean all of it) ends at several hundred words/characters/paragraphs, you'd never want to see a game's design document. You'd never even want to see one chapter of it.

Please, don't lecture me. I've gotten into my fair share of arguments here over the inability of linguistics to portrey an event (ie. the necessity of graphics in the portreyal of gameplay). You're really not telling us anything new or exciting.

What I'm sick of if this utter obsession with Shenmue as it is some pinnacle in game design that nobody can topple. It's a shitty engine by todays standards, what does it do technically that Lithtech or Unreal Warfare can't? You haven't stated anything technical, everything is this "It's so big and everything has a back story..." That doesn't mean shit.


You know what, I had a long reply that talked about the technical aspects - but it would have fallen on ears deafened by bias, so instead I pose this question:

What can the Shenmue Engine do that LithTech, Unreal Warfare, or Renderware can't?

Especially when you consider that the time saved by using a 3rd part engine can allow for them to impliment game specific features and added time for content creation.

[Lazy8s]

Vince:
What can the Shenmue Engine do that LithTech, Unreal Warfare, or Renderware can't?
I don't really know a lot about any of these engines beyond what I can experience from play, but I'm sure AM2 and SEGA would've jumped at the opportunity to use a pre-made engine like LithTech, Unreal Warfare, or Renderware had it been flexible (or available) enough to pull off their design requirements. It's not like SEGA's above licensing tools... some of their recent multiplatform titles are using Renderware and other such platforms.

Considering I don't see a lot of other titles which simulate worlds on quite the same scale Shenmue does (The Getaway simulates one on a larger scale, Silent Hill 2 on a smaller scale) with a bunch of dynamic systems at work like weather, time, unscripted facial expression changing, lip synching, high-level animation interpolating, etc., I'd guess the Shenmue engine better suits what AM2 needed. That's why they spent years of R&D on it and upgraded their studios and tools for it.

You have to remember that, at the time, this was the culmination of all the pioneering work they had done in the past years on defining how 3D models could interact with one another. When they introduced Virtua Racing and Vitua Fighter, they had all sorts of challenges to overcome that few had tackled before. Things like making a fighter responsive even though, by nature, the models are acting out pre-recorded motion-capture sequences. Interrupts, blending, and interpolating within animation sets, while simultaenously calculating high-level collision detection and physics for separate body limbs had to be addressed. You had to feel like you were in control. They had to refine the concept of a camera and a viewpoint within 3D space with these early flat-shaded, smoothly animating games.

What Shenmue allowed them to do was to take everything they had learned and make it work within the framework of a single engine, within a massive world system. Indeed, you can see modified racing and Virtua Fighter engines integrated together within different parts of the game. The engine is one part of the design that allows Shenmue to present such a unique mix of gameplay.

Can multiplatform engines like LithTech, Unreal Warfare, or Renderware push more geometry, lighting, textures, etc etc on new machines than we saw in Shenmue? I'm sure they can. If only defining engine usefulness was quite that easy, though...

[BoddoZerg]

WTF happened to this thread? 10 page essays about the artistic talent of a game that >90% of gamers will agree is ugly? Ugh.

I'm actually quite sick of the whole "Video Games = Art" bullsh!t that people spew. Its every bit as much crap as proclaiming Britney Spears great art on the same level as Mozart. You want art? Go to a museum or a concert or watch a play. The "video games as art" movement is marketing bullsh!t that is digested and regurgitated as scripture by those who lack the artistic taste to realise what isn't.

The level of interactivity and artwork in even the most tastefully done games (Shenmue, Panzer Dragoon Orta, etc) are only great for what they are - games. For all the hype about interactivity, the amount of interactivity in a video game is utterly minimal. (compared to reality or imagination) Yet, the artistic sacrifices in order to maintain interactivity are great. A movie can script every camera angle, every lighting angle, etc. A game can't, except for non-interactive cutscenes. Games are games; they're something you play, not some work of art to be admired. Artwork can make a game much more appealing - but to claim that an outdated and slow-paced game is superior to everything since then because of some bohemian sense of poetry... that is bullsh!t.

Moreover, the art of a painter from 500 years ago is every bit as beautiful now as it was centuries ago. In contrast, the pixelated art of a videogame certainly degrades from "awe inspiring" to "total yuck" within 10 years. Running the AI for 100 NPCs on screen may seem incredible for the '90s, but will it mean anything to people in 2030? Of course not. The most sophisticated AI programming for today will surely seem absurdly stiff and artificual in 20 years. If there is a definitive proof that video games are not art, it is this very fact. True art has longevity. Video game "art" does not. We have many orders of magnitude of hardware to go indeed, before machines will be powerful enough to run games that truly are "art".

Give it up, please. 3000 words of undeserved praise is enough.

[Vince]

Lazy, Renderware, which isn't exactly known for it's amazing efficiency, is already doing that with the Grand Theft Auto Series. It's hardly anything amazing - what Shenmue is though, is a polished, well thought out game, but nothing amazing.

Its every bit as much crap as proclaiming Britney Spears great art on the same level as Mozart.

Buddy, anyone that can make 10lbs of plastic and silicon move like that - I'd consider an artist. :wink: (just trying to inject some humor... oh well)

Seriously, though.. I can't agree more with you on Video Games. My kid isn't going to see a Video Game or PC until he's 31. Our society is way to dependent upon electronic education, communications and entertainment and it shows; but alas.. I'm just 'backward'

[BoddoZerg]

No, videogames are clearly headed toward increasing sophistication, and perhaps some day they will be worthy of the title "art". It's just that right now the potential for interactivity is laughable, as CPU limited as we are.

Why aren't there any great painters from 10,000 B.C.? How come you don't see any great silent movies from the 19th century? The answer is obvious - technology. People of 10,000 years ago made drawings - but they were crude images made with low quality dyes or etchings scratched out in stone walls. The technology to make a painting into a work of art was not yet available; surely there were cavemen with the potential artistic talent, but at best their creations were crude, limited by their materials. There were moving pictures in the 19th century - but they were tiny, jerky, and limited to a few minutes in length; there simply was no potential for artistic storytelling through them. A silent movie can be a work of art, but not when it's a tiny-screened, 2-minute strip of film.

In terms of expression through the creation of virtual worlds, we are in the same state now as caveman painters in 10,000 B.C., or filmmakers circa 1890. The technology to express emotion and creativity is simply not there. Just look at computer gaming AI. No matter how hard the developer tries, they behave totally fake. Human players quickly pick up on the quirks and inconsistencies of programmed AI, giving the lie to the illusion and showing the ugly, boolean-governed heart of computer logic. No one will ever mistake a FPS bot player for a human player, let alone believe a computer-controlled NPC to be a living entity. The interactivity of worlds is terribly stunted and minimal. And that's because we are limited by our technology. The most powerful CPUs in the world cannot realistically simulate a living being, let alone thousands of them interacting in a virtual world.

Yet, who knows what the future will hold? In 20, 30, maybe 50 years, we might be seeing amazing works of art through computer-generated imagery and truly interactive, immersive, imaginative worlds. But to extol current-day computer games, hobbled by the limitations of memory, processing power, and graphics card, to extol these things as "art" is an exercise in self-deception.

[marconelly!]

True art has longevity. Video game "art" does not.
How can you say that in 100 years people will not look back and admire todays games for what they were? Perhaps as a some kind of retro art form? Even today, I've even seen several instalations selling for insane amounts of money that constituted of hacked Super Mario ROMs that loop clouds and other graphics tiles over and over.

Best looking 2D games certainly look as good today as they were looking back then. I dare to say that today's best looking 3D games will remain their beauty even when something technologically more complex emerges. I find it hard to imagine that art direction in Ico or Rez, and their visuals, will disgust me in ten years. And I'm usually very good in judgements of that kind.

[marconelly!]

The technology to express emotion and creativity is simply not there.
How can you say this after playing Ico? Seriously? If that game has not evoke any kind of emotion from you, I don't see how any film could. I know several people who think absolutely the same about the game, starting with my wife, so it's not just the geeky me who thinks that.

ow come you don't see any great silent movies from the 19th century?
Battleship Potemkin (1925) is just as crude, jerky and technologically bound as the 19th century movies but is widely regarded as a work of art. It simply took someone with a vision to use that crude technology in a meaningful way.

[Lazy8s]

Off topic and just to annoy you, BoddoZerg:

Virtua Fighter is showcased at the Smithsonian.

[LogisticX]

Well BoddoZerg, you do have an interesting point of view on things, however the main thing to keep in mind is that the term 'art' is one of the most ambiguous terms in society.

The definition of art is anything created by humanity..and well, everything around you can be classified as art in reality. The keyboard, mouse and monitor you are using right now to view this board were all DESIGNED and created by an individual. Clearly when looking at anything and paying attention to it, you can see that it can all be looked at as art. The shape of a spoon, the curvature and design on a plate, it really doesn't matter. Technology isn't what determines art, its human perception. What one may consider junk is another man's treasure.

[Berserk]

SCANS from a german magazine! It shows the new monster (fat one), the weapons you can use and more of the beatufil and sick environments of this amazing game! 8)

These are really the best graphics I Have ever seen on the PS2! The magazine also says that the makers have based the art of this game on the Japanese version of The Ring which I recommend to see in the cinema.

The new fat monster is really well done! This game will be another exclusive AAA title for the PS2 library!

http://members.lycos.co.uk/guairow/silenthill3/SH3-1.jpg
http://members.lycos.co.uk/guairow/silenthill3/SH3-2.jpg
http://members.lycos.co.uk/guairow/silenthill3/SH3-3.jpg
http://members.lycos.co.uk/guairow/silenthill3/SH3-4.jpg
http://members.lycos.co.uk/guairow/silenthill3/SH3-Weapons.jpg


PS: If you think the scans are too big I wil just put the url to the screens.

[McFly]

Interesting read. The textures are amazing!

Fredi

[Berserk]

New screens froms scans: 8)


http://members.lycos.co.uk/guairow/shill3/SH3-7.jpg
http://members.lycos.co.uk/guairow/shill3/SH3-8.jpg
http://members.lycos.co.uk/guairow/shill3/SH3-9.jpg
http://members.lycos.co.uk/guairow/shill3/SH3-10.jpg
http://members.lycos.co.uk/guairow/shill3/SH3-11.jpg
http://members.lycos.co.uk/guairow/shill3/SH3-12.jpg

NEW CHARACTER!! And look at that detail and this in real time 3d???

http://members.lycos.co.uk/guairow/shill3/Douglas&Vincent.jpg

[TTP]

:shock: :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock:

[iscariot]

http://www.newtechnix.com/Webmasters/supertony/Images/News_PS2_Silent_Hill_3_57.jpg

Otacon?

Best character models ever

[Phil]

Simply amazing.... :shock: It's quite amazing to see this running on the PS2.. 8)

[london-boy]

Simply amazing.... :shock: It's quite amazing to see this running on the PS2.. 8)




definately..... looks absolutely amazing. only thing thats missing is progressive scan. if they put that i'll be the happiest boy alive.

[wazoo]

How different is this from the OLD MAN demo from Square ??

It seems we are just getting precomputed cutscenes of this caliber.

[Panajev2001a]

well both are real-time :)

similarities end there...

[Tiberius]

How different is this from the OLD MAN demo from Square ??

It seems we are just getting precomputed cutscenes of this caliber.

the old man's picture

http://www.gaming-age.com/specials/faces/ps2demo2.jpg

[Blade]

That's astounding for a PS2 game, or any console game for that matter. :shock:

Albeit, the backgrounds in these high-detail close-ups always tend to look drab..

[Tahir2]

Like the thread title says.. WTF!?!?
:P

[marconelly!]

Albeit, the backgrounds in these high-detail close-ups always tend to look drab..
Keep in mind that they probably blur backgrounds using depth of field when they focus on a character. MGS2 did that all that time in it's cut scenes.

[Kolgar]

And Ken Kutaragi had the last laugh after all... :D

Kolgar

[Panajev2001a]

:D

You called for Kutaragi ?

Here he is...


http://pub6.picturehost.co.uk/Kutaragi.jpg


in the background U Can't Touch This is playing

[iscariot]

:lol:

[london-boy]

:D

You called for Kutaragi ?

Here he is...


http://pub6.picturehost.co.uk/Kutaragi.jpg


in the background U Can't Touch This is playing



WTF!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Phil]

Did anyone read the above article posted from that german magazine? It says something about Konami trying out new stuff with "animated"-textures. Thanks to that, it apparently makes it possible for the game to animate blood on characters etc. Can't remember seeing in-game footage showing off this feature, but I suppose it adds to the realism greatly.

Anyone have some more details regarding this feature? Apparently, Konami are quite proud of it and showed a few things in the past (...that I probably missed so far).


EDIT: just some stupid typos.. "!£!!"*)(ç"!

[london-boy]

Did anyone read the above article posted from that german magazine? It says something about Konami trying out some new stuff, with "animated"-textures. Thanks to that, it's apparently makes it possible for the game to animated blood on characters etc. Can't remember seeing in-game footage showing off this feature, but I suppose it adds to the realism greatly.

Anyone have some more details regarding this feature? Apparently, Konami are quite proud of it and showed a few things in the past (...that I probably missed so far).



not that i'd be the best one to answer that, but i read somewhere that it's some kind of Procedural Texturing being used there... havent seen it in action but people say it looks unbelievably good...

[Phil]

not that i'd be the best one to answer that, but i read somewhere that it's some kind of Procedural Texturing being used there... havent seen it in action but people say it looks unbelievably good..

Hehe, well I just read it again and it was shown as a technical demo about a year ago. There are parts in the game where you'll see blood running down the monsters which is done using this technique.

Adding to that, the magazine is also impressed with the water, that, accoarding to them, looks very realistc while you walk as Heather through the sewers.

Wow, can't wait! I really should play part 1 and 2 first though...

[london-boy]

not that i'd be the best one to answer that, but i read somewhere that it's some kind of Procedural Texturing being used there... havent seen it in action but people say it looks unbelievably good..

Hehe, well I just read it again and it was shown as a technical demo about a year ago. There are parts in the game where you'll see blood running down the monsters which is done using this technique.

Adding to that, the magazine is also impressed with the water, that, accoarding to them, looks very realistc while you walk as Heather through the sewers.

Wow, can't wait! I really should play part 1 and 2 first though...


SINCE WE'RE TALKING ABOUT IT.... the only game i can think of with interiors as detailed as The Getaway is Silent Hill 2.... :D
The Getaway has way more polygon details though.

anyone know the release date of SH3 in europe?

[mr]

May 23rd (http://www.planetps2.com/shasylum/main.html)

[Phil]

Normally, we Europeans are considered the poor relations by the videogames giants. Blaming the need to translate games and instruction manuals into the various European languages, as well converting the gaming to work on the PAL tv standard, publishers normally make us wait before we're allowed to hand over our hard-earned pounds and euros for games that the rest of the world has been enjoying for up to a year beforehand.

So, whenever we hear news of a game that puts Europe first - especially a high profile game from a Japanese publisher - it puts a big, stupid grin on our face (not much change there, then).

Konami's Silent Hill 3 is such a game. The latest installment in the critically-acclaimed survival horror franchise will be released in the UK on 23 May - and that, according to Konami of Europe, means we'll get the game 'several' weeks before Japan and the US. They can just get in the queue behind us. In your face, Japan! In your face, America!

and I say... WTF? :shock: 8)

*muahahhahahahahha*

Source (http://www1.cex.co.uk/cex_feature.asp?ct=1&id=6408)

[london-boy]

Normally, we Europeans are considered the poor relations by the videogames giants. Blaming the need to translate games and instruction manuals into the various European languages, as well converting the gaming to work on the PAL tv standard, publishers normally make us wait before we're allowed to hand over our hard-earned pounds and euros for games that the rest of the world has been enjoying for up to a year beforehand.

So, whenever we hear news of a game that puts Europe first - especially a high profile game from a Japanese publisher - it puts a big, stupid grin on our face (not much change there, then).

Konami's Silent Hill 3 is such a game. The latest installment in the critically-acclaimed survival horror franchise will be released in the UK on 23 May - and that, according to Konami of Europe, means we'll get the game 'several' weeks before Japan and the US. They can just get in the queue behind us. In your face, Japan! In your face, America!

and I say... WTF? :shock: 8)

Source (http://www1.cex.co.uk/cex_feature.asp?ct=1&id=6408)

:shock: :shock: :shock:

ehehehe.... 8) :twisted:

[ChryZ]

The graphics are outstanding, but the real magic is the atmosphere.
Graphics, sound effects, voice acting and the music ... everything
sums up, it builds and sucks you in ... my gosh, SH2 caused me
a few serious panic attacks, incl. tachycardia (racing heart).

I am really looking forward to visit Silent Hill again.

[marconelly!]

Did anyone read the above article posted from that german magazine? It says something about Konami trying out new stuff with "animated"-textures. Thanks to that, it apparently makes it possible for the game to animate blood on characters etc. Can't remember seeing in-game footage showing off this feature, but I suppose it adds to the realism greatly.
You can see that effect at work in the last (third) trailer. There is a part of it that displays a merry-go-around where you can see weird looking trails of blood moving towards the center of it. It really does look very disturing and is very well done.

Also, to anyone watching this - pay attention to a few seconds long segment with that creep crawling on the ceiling. It's just awesome looking and animated.

[archie4oz]

not that i'd be the best one to answer that, but i read somewhere that it's some kind of Procedural Texturing being used there... havent seen it in action but people say it looks unbelievably good...

Animated UVs aren't anything new really (J&amp;D used them for animating the character's pupils), although Konami's implimentation is rather nice...

Adding to that, the magazine is also impressed with the water, that, accoarding to them, looks very realistc while you walk as Heather through the sewers.

Actually the water is pretty easy. ICO is a pretty good example that has excellent surface distortion (first and second order waves), refraction along with visible floor. The REALLY impressive stuff is when you've got floor caustics (and god rays if you're submersed) and reflected caustics...

[marconelly!]

Archie, have you played SH3? Is that water they are talking about simillar to what was done in ICO (beautiful looking water, IMO)

[ChryZ]

Did anyone read the above article posted from that german magazine? It says something about Konami trying out new stuff with "animated"-textures.

Just saw a preview on TV (netherlands/V8, donno the name of the game-show, actually first time I've saw the show). They showed some footage, in one scene all the walls were bleeding in motion, guess that was the "animated-textures"-fx. Looked very cool indeed ...

[megateto]

I'd simply like to point to three (I hope) new videos, from C&VG:

The article:

http://www.computerandvideogames.com/r/?page=http://www.computerandvideogames.com/news/news_story.php(que)id=88526


The videos:

Hi rez:

http://movies.computerandvideogames.com/40799/sh1large.wmv

http://movies.computerandvideogames.com/40799/sh2large.wmv

http://movies.computerandvideogames.com/40799/sh3large.wmv

Low rez :

http://movies.computerandvideogames.com/40799/sh1small.wmv

http://movies.computerandvideogames.com/40799/sh2small.wmv

http://movies.computerandvideogames.com/40799/sh3small.wmv

[marconelly!]

These videos are terrible quality, though. The new OPM has a very good video of SH3. First time that I got to see it on a TV screen, and it looks really sweet.

[zidane1strife]

Well, they posted some new pics at the GA they're...

http://yatesfox.com/SilentHill/SilentHill3/Screens1/New-24-03-03_01.jpg :shock:

http://yatesfox.com/SilentHill/SilentHill3/Screens1/New-24-03-03_02.jpg

http://yatesfox.com/SilentHill/SilentHill3/Screens1/New-24-03-03_03.jpg

...Quite nice actually.

EDIT: Thanks to Solidsnakex.

Oh, yeah sometimes the pics don't come up(probably b/w probs.)... If you can't see the pics, either click with the left button and hit 'show picture' or refresh...

[Fafalada]

:shock: Their character modellers are freaking insane. (I mean, in a good way, although those that make monsters must be insane both ways I guess... :P)

Anyway, looks like they might be taking some shortcuts with shadows after all, although it's hard to say until I see it on TV (or see some actual high res movies).

[DeanoC]

SH3 looks lovely but then what do you expect? Konami built an awesome engine for SH2 (and I know better than anybody here, I've seen the code for all 3 skus of SH2 :-) ).

Even SH2 didn't fully use the SH2 engine (if that makes sense). I got the feeling that it got really good too late for it to be used fully. Some examples of this are that the ingame James has more polygons the the cutscene James! The highest poly in-game character in SH2 was just over 30,000 tris (the end game demon) and had both bones and morphs (for facial animation and moving hair). The highest poly count per frame was over 250,000 triangles IIRC. But those poly counts are exceptions (ingame James is around 7000), so if they've managed to get these kind of number throughout SH3...

Given the time and SH2 XBox version (which helped with new light models etc), it makes sense that the PS2 engine for SH3 would be awesome.

BTW There may be non PS2 versions of SH3 as well, so the high res screen shots could be off another version (like PC....)

[marconelly!]

The highest poly in-game character in SH2 was just over 30,000 tris (the end game demon) and had both bones and morphs (for facial animation and moving hair)
*SPOILER*

You mean the very last demon you fight in the game? The one Maria transforms into?

*END SPOLIER

If so, I don't remember it had any moving hair...

so the high res screen shots could be off another version (like PC....)
Or, way more likely, they could be from the PS2 devkits. It wouldn't be a first time konami did that (ZOE2) That is not to say there won't be other versions coming, but it's highly unlikely they are co-developed (Konami staff even denied it several times)

[Fafalada]

Devkits don't have any more capability to render highres then a standard PS2 does.

Of course, just for purpose of screenshots, you can ignore the framerate and do a nice hi-res render in multiple passes.

[chaphack]

I am wary of those hires PS2 screens.....

I just got ZOE2(it is good, but short...) and well, it is not as sharp and clean as those old screens. Image quality looks very much like any 480i PS2 games on big screen TV. ie not too good.

I think PS2 developers should keep to getting normal 640x448 screens, without any photoshop FSAA. A better representation of a PS2 game. You know that hires and FSAA does wonder on the graphics wow impact.

[marconelly!]

Well, name me ONE game on any platform that lived up to those hi-res screens completely, because I can't think of any.

ZOE2 has very filtered output, no visible flicker of any kind and overall looks awesome in the image quality department, as much as it can be on normal TV screens. The overall impression from it's output is about the same as from those screens because you don't get to study the static picture but watch the game in motion. Same complints were for DOA3, I gave them this same answer and I still stand by it.

[chaphack]

I know, that is why i think console game developers should stick to using *real* screens. If you look close up at ZOE2, you can see some ugly pixels, made worse on larger TVs without progressive scan. Very much different from the pixel smooth screens KCE released. :oops:

[marconelly!]

Well, I only have 20" TV so it all looks neat and tight.

When the 1080i becomes norm next gen (and when I become richer!) I'll buy something bigger :P

[chaphack]

well marc, what i meant was, for you to look close up to your 20" TV with ZOE2, and try to extrapolate it. That is what others, with larger TV, experienced with PS2 image. Something like that. :D

Pixels pixels shinning brightly. :oops:

[TTP]

Do you ave a 4000" TV chap?

[marconelly!]

Well, ZOE2 has as good image quality as one can expect from an interlaced game that uses full frame buffers (no flicker, it's filtered). As far as PS2 games go, I think it's on par or even better than MGS2. I have tried number of Xbox games on this same TV, and they don't look any better in that regard. You can always tell where the pixels are, no matter what, if you try really hard.

Games simply don't look well with big screen interlaced TVs in general, there's little that can be done about it, I guess.

[chaphack]

Do you ave a 4000" TV chap?

i wished! :shock:

[Grall]

How do you more knowledgeable dudes think Konami makes this game look so good, regarding texture resolution etc?

Do they do a lot of decals/multitexturing perhaps, or do they do like, a hires base 8-bit greyscale luminance map with a lower-res color map on top perhaps?

Just have to say this game looks friggin awesome, I can't wait until I can pop that disc into my PS2! :D

I even have that pic with the decrepid-looking old buildings/fog as windows background!


*G*

[london-boy]

The highest poly in-game character in SH2 was just over 30,000 tris (the end game demon) and had both bones and morphs (for facial animation and moving hair)
*SPOILER*

You mean the very last demon you fight in the game? The one Maria transforms into?

*END SPOLIER



are we sure that's the one we're talking about here???
i cant really remember, someone should post a pic, but i can't recall it being extremely detailed or anything..... but i've got this hole in my brain, i really can't remember the model.....

[Fafalada]

I know, that is why i think console game developers should stick to using *real* screens
If you can make all devs follow that rule at the same time, it might work. But as long as at least a few are doing it, others can only follow suit if they don't want to be left behind - PR works that way.

How do you more knowledgeable dudes think Konami makes this game look so good, regarding texture resolution etc?
When you can throw say, 100mb worth of textures towards two characters and a 4x4meter room, it's not exactly difficult to make it look higher res then the same texture budget spanned over a 6x6kilometer city stage. ;)

Do they do a lot of decals/multitexturing perhaps, or do they do like, a hires base 8-bit greyscale luminance map with a lower-res color map on top perhaps?
Luminance compression works pretty much perfect with just 4bit luminance maps, and still looks very good with 2bit ones too. The drawback is that textures compressed that way can't really be mipmapped in any reasonable way, so it limits what you can use them for.
Which goes back to previous point again - in games with mostly small interiors it's far more usable then something bigger outdoor.
Although I wouldn't know if they actually use it, there's no visual clue you could use to figure that out. :P

[Grall]

Faf,

I'm sure you're right regarding the texturing of a small room, but this outdoors scene, it is a lot bigger than 4x4 meters! Granted, the ground is a tiled texture and so is the fence on the left, but the buildings don't seem to have any repeating textures at all... extremely impressive. Though I suppose this game does run at 30fps, which gives it a greater texturing budget than one running at 60...

And why is luminance mapping hard to mipmap? If both intensity and color maps are shrunk by an equal amount per mip level, shouldn't it look good anyway?


*G*

[Fafalada]

I'm sure you're right regarding the texturing of a small room, but this outdoors scene, it is a lot bigger than 4x4 meters! Granted, the ground is a tiled texture and so is the fence on the left, but the buildings don't seem to have any repeating textures at all... extremely impressive. Though I suppose this game does run at 30fps, which gives it a greater texturing budget than one running at 60...
Well, personally I don't think a PS2 game should ever really have problems with per frame texture budget, but that's just IMO. People tend to forget that 32mb of main memory isn't all that much though. Anyway, SH comes with a bonus of short draw distance, so it should make that question even more a moot point.
As for total budget, as most adventure games, when you have the benefit of "area loads" , doesn't matter much if they are outdoor, you effectivelly have a lot more memory to play with then games of type that can't do that.

And why is luminance mapping hard to mipmap? If both intensity and color maps are shrunk by an equal amount per mip level, shouldn't it look good anyway?
For one, mipmapping paletted texture with any kind of filter will reduce number of colors available per mipmap, which is highly undesirable with say... 2bit luminance maps.
Also, color map is typically at least 4-8 times smaller in each dimension. That means that when your luminance mipmap is 64x64, your color map would already be 1x1...
There's other issues too, but it'd take too long to go through all that. In the end it just isn't usable as a general approach, but it comes handy for things that don't really need mipmaps. It's really nice for skymaps for instance...

[DeanoC]

The highest poly in-game character in SH2 was just over 30,000 tris (the end game demon) and had both bones and morphs (for facial animation and moving hair)
*SPOILER*

You mean the very last demon you fight in the game? The one Maria transforms into?

*END SPOLIER

If so, I don't remember it had any moving hair...

so the high res screen shots could be off another version (like PC....)
Or, way more likely, they could be from the PS2 devkits. It wouldn't be a first time konami did that (ZOE2) That is not to say there won't be other versions coming, but it's highly unlikely they are co-developed (Konami staff even denied it several times)

*SPOILER*
Not the demon but the Mary pre-transform (its not the same model as the other Mary's). The last Mary/Maria (multiple ending so you don't always get Mary) is known as the end-game demon, you have to excuse me, in that I often use the internal SH2 terms. Ask me about Sea Cucumber's and how they are vital to SH2 :-)

The really best model in SH2 is end-game Mary (pre-transform Demon and bedside cutscene). The attenuation to detail is amazing, hair, eyes, figure nails, even things like for folds in her skirt and top.

*END SPOLIER

It was trying to give a subtle hint about there probably are non-PS2 versions of SH3.... Trust me on this :-) I almost worked on SH3PC....

I'm not in touch with Konami these days so things may have changed but as of 6 months ago....

[marconelly!]

As for total budget, as most adventure games, when you have the benefit of "area loads"
That's another thing I was going to ask you. Load times in SH2 were really short between the rooms: 3, 4, 5 seconds or so. What do you think it loads during that time? It obviously doesn't replace the whole 32MBs of memory...

It was trying to give a subtle hint about there probably are non-PS2 versions of SH3
I thought the game might be released one day on PC, much like SH2 did (after all, SH3 trailer was on the SH2 PC disk) but the screens released so far are all obviously from the PS2 version. For example, you can spot vertex lighting in places, which PC version of SH2 didn't have. Konami often releases high res screens of their PS2 games, that is nothing new. What really interests me is if there is going to be an Xbox version, especially after all the claims from Konami that they will not develop any more for it (in Japan, that is). I'd hate to buy a game that comes out sooner, only to find out few months later that the version for Xbox is coming, and will have additional scenarios or something like that.

[Squeak]

Well, personally I don't think a PS2 game should ever really have problems with per frame texture budget, but that's just IMO. People tend to forget that 32mb of main memory isn't all that much though

But GC and even DC seems to do a lot better though, with 24Mb and 16Mb of main memory respectively.

[Fafalada]

That's another thing I was going to ask you. Load times in SH2 were really short between the rooms: 3, 4, 5 seconds or so. What do you think it loads during that time? It obviously doesn't replace the whole 32MBs of memory...
I figure DeanoC could better answer that question for SH2 specifically, given his inside knowledge?

Anyway, I can just debate what CAN be done in that time.
5seconds is enough to load up to 20mb of raw DVD data. With some simple compression on the files that could actually end up filling entire 32mb.

Obviously though, you don't get to spend all 32mb for loaded data, there's code and other allocations that use up more then their fair share of memory, as well as certain things you always keep like main character etc.
Outside those persistant types of data, I have little doubt you could replace everything else with every load - if you need to (ie. from one room to the other All the environment texture data could be swapped).

But GC and even DC seems to do a lot better though, with 24Mb and 16Mb of main memory respectively.
There were threads going forver about this before, so I'll just stick with we agree to disagree line here.

[london-boy]

That's another thing I was going to ask you. Load times in SH2 were really short between the rooms: 3, 4, 5 seconds or so. What do you think it loads during that time? It obviously doesn't replace the whole 32MBs of memory...
I figure DeanoC could better answer that question for SH2 specifically, given his inside knowledge?

Anyway, I can just debate what CAN be done in that time.
5seconds is enough to load up to 20mb of raw DVD data. With some simple compression on the files that could actually end up filling entire 32mb.

Obviously though, you don't get to spend all 32mb for loaded data, there's code and other allocations that use up more then their fair share of memory, as well as certain things you always keep like main character etc.
Outside those persistant types of data, I have little doubt you could replace everything else with every load - if you need to (ie. from one room to the other All the environment texture data could be swapped).

But GC and even DC seems to do a lot better though, with 24Mb and 16Mb of main memory respectively.
There were threads going forver about this before, so I'll just stick with we agree to disagree line here.



right, faf, what always made me wonder, is.... if 5 secs is enough to fill up almost 32megs of memory, then why on earth do we have some games that take AGES to load??? really, i just don't get it..... some games are in the order of 30 seconds, which in theory would be enough to fill up more than 100Mb of memory.......... :? :?

[DeanoC]

That's another thing I was going to ask you. Load times in SH2 were really short between the rooms: 3, 4, 5 seconds or so. What do you think it loads during that time? It obviously doesn't replace the whole 32MBs of memory...
I figure DeanoC could better answer that question for SH2 specifically, given his inside knowledge?


I'll try, SH2 streams alot of data using a multi-threaded IO loader. All data is pre-processed into the target platform format, so its mainly actual disk time your seeing. No code is loaded per level/room just graphics data. Faf's assumptions are about right, it trys to keep characters in memory (XBox and PC also hold some other objects always loaded). Things like enviroment map aren't loaded every time.


It was trying to give a subtle hint about there probably are non-PS2 versions of SH3
I thought the game might be released one day on PC, much like SH2 did (after all, SH3 trailer was on the SH2 PC disk) but the screens released so far are all obviously from the PS2 version. For example, you can spot vertex lighting in places, which PC version of SH2 didn't have. Konami often releases high res screens of their PS2 games, that is nothing new. What really interests me is if there is going to be an Xbox version, especially after all the claims from Konami that they will not develop any more for it (in Japan, that is). I'd hate to buy a game that comes out sooner, only to find out few months later that the version for Xbox is coming, and will have additional scenarios or something like that.

As of six months ago, there were early proof of concepts on several platforms, whether they will ever be made I can't say.

Actually SH2 does use vertex lighting in some places(all versions including XBox and PC). I'm glad you can't notice the vertex lighting on the PC version, but we use it I assure you.

The game basically has 2 types of objects, the world enviroment and characters (though its used for lots of things that aren't 'characters' (like cars) ). The world uses a complex pixel shader light model where availible (XBox and decent PC's), it has per-pixel specular exponent, per-pixel spot-light and a few other goodies. The characters have a different specular (env map style) but no per-pixel lighting, all lighting is done via vertex lighting (vertex shader if you have hardware or fixed function if your don't)

All characters on all versions use vertex lighting. If you look very closely at the enemys at the edge of the spot-light, you will notice it 'pop' the same on all 3 versions.

[marconelly!]

As of six months ago, there were early proof of concepts on several platforms, whether they will ever be made I can't say.
Do you have any estimation when could we hear about any of those versions, if they indeed exist? I know it took them really long time to make SH3 for PS2 (it's completed now, just not released), so if they started concepts for those ports just several months ago, it might take quite some time? Or not?

Actually SH2 does use vertex lighting in some places(all versions including XBox and PC). I'm glad you can't notice the vertex lighting on the PC version, but we use it I assure you.
Ah, interesting. Anyways, I'm still sure those shots released so far are all from PS2, as the vertex lighting is visible in places where pixel ligting was used on PC/Xbox version (floors and walls, basically)

[DeanoC]

As of six months ago, there were early proof of concepts on several platforms, whether they will ever be made I can't say.
Do you have any estimation when could we hear about any of those versions, if they indeed exist? I know it took them really long time to make SH3 for PS2 (it's completed now, just not released), so if they started concepts for those ports just several months ago, it might take quite some time? Or not?


A conversion would likely take between 6 to 9 months from a completed game. If they did the conversion at the same time as making the lead version, they could (in theory) be released at the same time. I do know they hadn't decided (6 months) wether to do any PC version internally or externally (which is why I know anything...), so I can presume that any PC version that had at that time wasn't very far along.

And of course if sales of the ports of SH2 were rubbish, any work they had done on SH3 could have been scrapped.


Actually SH2 does use vertex lighting in some places(all versions including XBox and PC). I'm glad you can't notice the vertex lighting on the PC version, but we use it I assure you.
Ah, interesting. Anyways, I'm still sure those shots released so far are all from PS2, as the vertex lighting is visible in places where pixel ligting was used on PC/Xbox version (floors and walls, basically)

Your probably right, but it wouldn't be that unusual for a early PC version to be using the same method as the PS2. Or they could be using a crap PC video card :-( (we fell back to world vertex lighting for some cards)

[Fafalada]

right, faf, what always made me wonder, is.... if 5 secs is enough to fill up almost 32megs of memory, then why on earth do we have some games that take AGES to load???really, i just don't get it..... some games are in the order of 30 seconds, which in theory would be enough to fill up more than 100Mb of memory..........
Actually I have experienced games with load times of 1 minute and more. Not only on console either, but on PCs with hdds Much faster then any optical drive could be.
To answer the question - as I've said before (maybe not on this board, but anyway), loading times are one of those things that really are almost entirely up to the developer.
People credit different things to hardware vs. developer effort, and really, load times in current console hw are one thing where by far the most credit should be given to the effort from devs - hardware is rarely the limiting factor.

Your probably right, but it wouldn't be that unusual for a early PC version to be using the same method as the PS2. Or they could be using a crap PC video card (we fell back to world vertex lighting for some cards)
I just thought I'd point this though - going through the hoops of releasing touched up highres screens, you'd want to use the build with most up to date CG. Now if the planned multiplatform versions would be very close together, I could see another version being very up-to-date feature wise, but I kinda doubt it if it was planned with 6-9months gap.
I mean, we have PC version of our code running too, but it's lacking a lot of graphical touches simply because there's no need for them at this point in time.

[jvd]

game looks good , if it gets good reviews i might just have to pick it up .

[marconelly!]

DeanoC, thanks for your answers. I guess I'll wait few months after the PS2 version is out and see what happens. Then again, if the soundtrack with game purchase offer is time limited, I'll have to buy PS2 version still :P

Btw, those high res screens have started appearing almost a year ago, so there's pretty much no chance they are from the PC version ;)

Faf, does that mean at one point in future a PC version of your racer might be in cards?

[Fafalada]

Marc, not to my knowledge.
PC stuff main purpose was to help debug/development, particularly early on when PS2 tools were sorely lacking.

[DeanoC]

DeanoC, thanks for your answers. I guess I'll wait few months after the PS2 version is out and see what happens. Then again, if the soundtrack with game purchase offer is time limited, I'll have to buy PS2 version still :P

The PC version of SH2 almost had the soundtrack CD with it, but the deal fell through at the last minute (The Konami soundtrack people are a different company than Konami game people, they couldn't agree royalty terms :-( ). Quite alot of sizeing (amount of CDs) were based on the 3rd CD being mostly used for the CD soundtrack.


Btw, those high res screens have started appearing almost a year ago, so there's pretty much no chance they are from the PC version ;)

I know, I was just playing devils advocate :-) I have no doubt that the PS2 version is completely seperate from any other version. Having seen the way KOJ coded SH2, they made it as a single platform game with almost no consideration for easy porting (which is why they push the PS2 so hard). I'd imagine they are doing the same for SH3

[ChryZ]

new 120sec trailer:

http://mms.gpara.com/silenthill3/sh3.wmv

including bleeding-walls/floor-animated-textures sfx

[chaphack]

Maybe it is the poor video compression, but am i seeing more polygon edges now? :?: