F.E.A.R. 360 video

[Acert93]

Acert - I could see them upping the detail in this game while hitting a smooth framerate as farcry saw a pretty good improvement over it's pc counterpart in a fairly short timeframe. Though as you pointed out they will probably also turn down the detail on some textures to fit 360's env better.

Far Cry was a port of the Xbox1 version with some added enhancements; the PC engine and assets are a lot more demanding than the Xbox1 version. But yeah, considering how well Condemned was done (and basically the same engine) I have no problem with them being able to port the game. Just noting the PR in there and the high bar they have set.

 

[kyleb]

THanks jb and Alstrong, I did know all about that story and just spaced it off.

 

[jpr27]

Im a little skeptical on better then the PC talk but as many pointed out Monolith on their part did a great first effort with the condemed engine. HDR is a welcome sight I believe in the 360 version there will be an extra mission where you will play as another character if I remember correctly

Co-Op would be nice but I dont see it happening and really doesnt need it. The multiplayer will probably be the run of the mill MP. I think its one of the strongest titles I have played in a long time so no need to really mess with a game that turned out as well as FEAR did on the PC.

If it does indeed look better then the PC with everything on max then I wont be disappointed. If on the otherhand it doesnt measure up I still have the PC version

 

[nintenho]

screenshots

Seems to have soft-shadowing.

 

[kyleb]

Heh, it only seems to have soft-shadows becuase you don't know what that means.

 

[AlNom]

no, those are hard edged. soft-shadows are very obvious.

 

[nintenho]

http://xbox360media.ign.com/xbox360/image/article/722/722773/fear-20060802011340741.jpg
Isn't this a soft shadow?

 

[TurnDragoZeroV2G]

Doesn't look like it. Shadows end abrubtly. Soft shadowing is supposed to remove hard edges and transition more smoothly between shadow and non-shadow.

 

[nintenho]

Meh. I thought it was just multiple shadows on one object.

 

[Acert93]

screenshots

Seems to have soft-shadowing.

Site link is dead for me, but here is an example of soft shadows in FEAR. Here is another example of soft shadows off and on. IMO Soft Shadows look very bad in Fear (some more side by sides) and they would be best off going with the hard shadows and using AA. As Anand points out the parallax mapping isn't too hot in this title either. A number of 360 games show nice POM, so we could hope they change the bullet effect as well. I doubt it, but it sure would be nice.

 

[DudeMiester]

Meh. I thought it was just multiple shadows on one object.

Ahh, the subtleties of English. "Multiple" does not equal "Soft". I know the distinction is very vague. Take the following phrases for example:

-- The pavement wasn't very multiple.
-- The store had soft types of abrasives.
-- I felt the multiplicity of a single breath against my neck.
-- The patient had a softness of excruciating symptoms.

Very hard to tell them apart. You just have to be careful about it.

 

[kyleb]

Heh, at least it is easier to explain than AA. In a thread about AA on AVSforum I made this gif using a shot from a 360 devkit along with framebuffer grabs from a PC to show that CoD2 doesn't have AA on the 360, and people there still insist I am wrong.

 

[nintenho]

Ahh, the subtleties of English. "Multiple" does not equal "Soft". I know the distinction is very vague. Take the following phrases for example:

-- The pavement wasn't very multiple.
-- The store had soft types of abrasives.
-- I felt the multiplicity of a single breath against my neck.
-- The patient had a softness of excruciating symptoms.

Very hard to tell them apart. You just have to be careful about it.

What the hell are you talking about? Where the shadows intersect it's darker but not enough, right?

 

[Tap In]

...
But there is some definate PR in there like the 360 has "a lot more horsepower... [and we realised we had] some more room to work with" and when we "brought [Fear] over to the 360 we had extra room" for effects like HDR and he claims they also resed up some of the particle effects. But the big claims: "Fear altogether looks better on the 360 than PC" and "you turn all the detail sliders up for on the PC and then we added more" and that is what the 360 version is. ....

well PR or not, I hope he is correct.

It gives me a warm fuzzy after seeing how Prey 360 turned out compared to PC.

maybe some guys are finally figuring how to get this box to work the way it was designed to.

 

[kyleb]

What the hell are you talking about? Where the shadows intersect it's darker but not enough, right?

No, he is talking about how the edges of the shadows are sharp rather than soft.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

What the hell are you talking about? Where the shadows intersect it's darker but not enough, right?

A shadow is caused by occlusion of light. Where an object occludes the light with a distinct edge, it causes a hard shadow. This is like an on/off switch for an area where there is no light (from that light source) next to areas where there is light. A soft shadow is formed where instead of the light either being occluded or not, it is occluded by an increasing amount. This produces a soft gradation from light to dark, and the soft shadow.

Soft shadows are caused by light source having a size, and the degree of edge softness varies from distance of the occluding object to the shadowed surface. I don't know any game that produces this effect (or how yo'd go about it ina realtime environment). Soft shadows are mostly just achieved by blurring the shadow uniformly which works okay in some cases, but in other looks wrong. Hard shadows won't ever be wrong in that respect, but they aren't natural looking in most cases.

 

[nintenho]

A shadow is caused by occlusion of light. Where an object occludes the light with a distinct edge, it causes a hard shadow. This is like an on/off switch for an area where there is no light (from that light source) next to areas where there is light. A soft shadow is formed where instead of the light either being occluded or not, it is occluded by an increasing amount. This produces a soft gradation from light to dark, and the soft shadow.

Soft shadows are caused by light source having a size, and the degree of edge softness varies from distance of the occluding object to the shadowed surface. I don't know any game that produces this effect (or how yo'd go about it ina realtime environment). Soft shadows are mostly just achieved by blurring the shadow uniformly which works okay in some cases, but in other looks wrong. Hard shadows won't ever be wrong in that respect, but they aren't natural looking in most cases.

Oh. Stupid me.

 

[AlNom]

Slated for a November 2 release date

IGN Preview

 

[nintenho]

Seems optimistic. Definitely worth checking out if you didn't play it on PC.

 

[mckmas8808]

This game is coming to PS3 also. Just not yet announced.

Who do you work for? And how do you know?