Chronicles of Riddick

[Ug Lee]

Anyone else played the demo? Most impressive. A couple of niggly issues, for example what looks like an overused blur filter of sorts and some wonky arm/weapon animation when turning around at speed, but other than that...

The little details all add up. The fact that Riddick is fully modelled means that you can look down and see his legs/feet move as you walk. His torso and head casts a shadow over the weapon depending on where the nearest light source is. Shooting bullets into the wall will show a red ring with each hole that cools off after a few seconds.

Probably the part that impresses me the most in the demo is this area in a tunnel that is fogged up. If you zoom ahead you will see two guys slowly walking into view (well a very limited view as you can just make out silhouettes), with their laser sightings and searchlights barely piercing the fog. Then when you line them up and blast them, the tunnel lights up every time your muzzle flashes. The two guys drop dead and the tunnel returns to darknes.

Overall the demo impressed me enough to say that I'm purchasing the full game without hesitation. At a guess I would say that the lighting system works like Doom 3's (obviously certain limitations are in place). Though if anyone has any insider knowledge behind the Riddick visuals I'd be interested in hearing from them. Of course the game isn't anything approaching Far Cry levels, but for a console game...

 

[Farid]

The game is developed by Starbreeze Studios, a Swedish studio formed with people from the democoding scene, they created the demo "Into The Shadows" (a game that was cancelled for budget reasons....) in 1995, a demo that pushed all the 486 of that time to their max.
Thoses guys are excellent coders, the Chronicles of Riddick engine have almost all the effects possible on a Xbox (Stencil shadowing, Dot3, HDR-like, etc).

 

[Clashman]

Into the Shadows, I was trying to remember what the title of that was about a month ago. Anyone know where I could find some more information on that game? Screenshots or anything like that? I used to have a couple PC gamer features on it, (it might have even been an older mag, like Computer Game Review), but can't seem to find them anymore.

 

[Farid]

Into the Shadows, I was trying to remember what the title of that was about a month ago. Anyone know where I could find some more information on that game? Screenshots or anything like that? I used to have a couple PC gamer features on it, (it might have even been an older mag, like Computer Game Review), but can't seem to find them anymore.

Here's a Link with some info about the Into the Shadows demo.
And that's the demo (3Mo)(may require a Dos emulator like dosbox)

 

[Dural]

Anyone else played the demo? Most impressive. A couple of niggly issues, for example what looks like an overused blur filter of sorts and some wonky arm/weapon animation when turning around at speed, but other than that...

I played the demo and though it was great. Also, according to Starbreeze the demo was blurry due to a bug.

 

[Ug Lee]

I finished the full game and am most impressed. Maybe it's the shock of playing a very decent Hollywood tie-in.

The blur bug is gone. There is still some of that blur in the game, but it looks to be used more as a DOF effect in certain areas.

Overall the graphics are spectacular. A good sign for future Xbox titles, and something of a benchmark for the Doom 3 conversion to reach.

A question I have regarding the graphics for any/everyone -

The HDR effect, how is that achieved? I've seen some small HDR-like effects before in Xbox titles, but not to the extent that's used in Riddick. I didn't think the hardware was capable of it.

 

[Laa-Yosh]

That's probably because "HDR effects" as used today are actually some selective bloom filters, which have nothing to do with the rendering precision or range. You can do it in Photoshop or a similar image editing app yourself... see this Gamasutra article as well:

http://www.gamasutra.com/features/20040526/james_01.shtml

Where HDR can help dramatically is stuff like mapped reflections, where you'd normally see a loss of contrast; the reflection of a strong lightsource object like a white bounce card (illuminated by a spotlight) would be as strong as the person standing in front of it, if the enviroment texture had a 0-1 range only.
In the real world, you'd see the reflection of the white card almost totally clearly (this is what we usually simulate with specular highlights), but everything else would reflect so dimly that you probably wouldn't see it. Just take a look at your own eye in a mirror.

But "unfortunately" this effect isn't dramatic enough, so marketing people jumped on the flashy thing that's usually possible without HDRI as well

 

[Lazy8s]

Starbreeze worked on the sharply textured Enclave earlier for the Xbox. For perspective on their level of dedication, they house former SEGA Saturn masochists, from the defunct dev Scavenger.

 

[AlNom]

great coding

Hope the PC port is done well too ala the enclave pc port

 

[London Geezer]

Is this a Xbox-to-PC conversion or a PC-to-Xbox-conversion-that-strangely-got-released-on-Xbox-first?

 

[Nick Laslett]

Is Chronicals of Riddick the next generation of graphics for Xbox games?

i.e. Better that Rallisport 2, Ninja Gaiden, Panzer Dragoon.

 

[London Geezer]

Is Serena Williams gonna win Wimbledon?

 

[[maven]]

Is Chronicals of Riddick the next generation of graphics for Xbox games?

i.e. Better that Rallisport 2, Ninja Gaiden, Panzer Dragoon.

I would argue that Riddick and Rallisport 2 are on the same level of technical achievement in regards to graphics, just with a very different focus.

 

[overclocked]

Didn´t know about this game before i read this thread.. Strange
It look´s great and is this based on the movie to follow up to Pitch Black?

 

[Eronarn]

Yes, overclocked (I just watched Pitch Black last night 'cause I hadn't seen it in years, great movie. Better than Chronicles of Riddick.)

 

[AlNom]

]

Is Chronicals of Riddick the next generation of graphics for Xbox games?

i.e. Better that Rallisport 2, Ninja Gaiden, Panzer Dragoon.

I would argue that Riddick and Rallisport 2 are on the same level of technical achievement in regards to graphics, just with a very different focus.

I hope it's a sign of upcoming/unnannounced titles for the xbox. The game certainly runs well (good frame rate). However, I think the graphics may just be used for close quarters types of games.... I certainly wouldn't mind a Silent Hill or Fatal Frame game using this engine

This would definitely be a benchmark against the Doom 3 port

Is this a Xbox-to-PC conversion or a PC-to-Xbox-conversion-that-strangely-got-released-on-Xbox-first?

xbox-to-PC. I guess it's the same situation with Enclave.

and likewise, this would be benchmarked against Doom 3 on PC

 

[Goldni]

Yeah I'm enjoying this game alot. Great bumpmapping throughout. Probably only 2nd to Halo's use of BM. Some of the textures are'nt very clean (especially close up) but otherwise great lighting and gorgous.

I have noticed that it contains mostly small areas. Not really any large areas ala Metroid Prime or Halo. Guess that would tax the engine too much..but not a big deal for me. Maybe Starbreeze can open up the size of the rooms and levels in thier next game. A good buy for me though. I dont know why this game reminds me of Shadow Man though.

 

[Ug Lee]

That's probably because "HDR effects" as used today are actually some selective bloom filters, which have nothing to do with the rendering precision or range. You can do it in Photoshop or a similar image editing app yourself... see this Gamasutra article as well:

http://www.gamasutra.com/features/20040526/james_01.shtml

Thanks for the heads up on the Gamasutra article, as well as the brain dump. A good read.

 

[Ug Lee]

Didn´t know about this game before i read this thread.. Strange
It look´s great and is this based on the movie to follow up to Pitch Black?

Yep it's definitely a sleeper game. It's snuck up on a lot of people, myself included as I was expecting the usual Hollywood tie-in slop.

But the game is set before Pitch Black. If you play through the game then watch Pitch Black, the flow is nearly seamless. The Chronicles movie is set a bit after Pitch Black.

I also read that there's a Riddick anime coming out that tells the small story of what happens between Pitch Black and the Chronicles movie.

The game itself is really linear, but if you buy into the character, the story etc it's one hell of a ride.

 

[Freak'n Big Panda]

riddick anime?? Well that is surprising... i wonder if it will be good. I think they should have just kept it live action thought, going from one type to another nvr seems to make a good movie (animatrix anyone?).