[360] Alan Wake - Still awake

I'll have to recheck it then, but the visual difference is more than obvious to me.

 

Well they can use higher quality assets & still be real time.The model of Chris in gameplay is near about 15k & it cutscene its 20k but there is a big difference in lighting & shading, almost as if its something from the next gen. Its still real time though cause your current costume gets reflected in cutscenes.

Won't daytime be more taxing than night ?
I mean in most of the games I've played the performance seems to have an impact while its daytime, especially during dusk & dawn when the shadows are the longest during that particular part of the day.Night would mean they'd need to have shadows only for areas that's exposed to lighting rather than everything.

 

only the very first cutscene in RE5 is prerendered (i wonder why because it has nothing special) the others are all real time. Even the ending in the volcano, which i thought at first was CG, is realtime, the costume changes apply to every cutscene apart from the first one.

 

Alan Wake GIF are not CG all are ingame using ingame assets... According to Remedy...

Sorry cutscenes not GIF..lol..

 

I don't recall any of that sort. Certainly my costume selection still applied in the cutscenes.

Maybe a platform difference? I played on PS3.

 

Yes, I recall the PS3 RE5 cutscenes were prerecorded realtime xbox360 cutscenes, which were realtime in xbox360 and recorded for use in the PS3 port.
Edit: now that doesn't make sense, if you played on Ps3 and the costume changes were reflected in cutscenes... well, this is getting off topic anyway (sorry, I think I'm to blame for bringing this up a few of posts up)

Back to Alan Wake. This is (the) one game I've been considering getting an xbox360 for. This gen is seriously lacking a good survial horror game (RE5 wasn't it, that game calling itself a Silent Hill game definitely wasn't it, maybe Alan Wake will finally be it)

 

All Re5 cutscenes are realtime on both 360 and PS3.

The one thing that is upgraded compared to actual gameplay is the lighting (i think the character models remain the same in terms of polygons).

 

You're right. Case closed.
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/face-off-resident-evil-5-article?page=2

 

Don't forget dead space !

 

Alan Wake doesn't look like a Survival Horror game to me at all. The only proper Survival Horror games this gen have been Siren and SH Homecoming. Dead Space is just as action oriented as RE5.

 

I'm pretty stoked about this game. The Head of Franchise Development at Remedy had this to say about classification, which I think is a nice summation: (http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2010/04/stay-in-the-light-hands-on-with-alan-wake.ars)

I agree that this isn't a survival, nor horror game! I love the episodic delivery system and how it is not a linear experience.

 

in dead space you face the horror of the monsters, and you must survive them !

 

After the first cinema all of them are in game.

The Cinematic Experience

The potential on the Framework MT engine is best expressed by Resident Evil 5's cut-scenes. Aside from the intro movie, every single cinematic in the game is fully rendered by the game itself in real time. Here, where Capcom has full control of the camera, we see effects being manually turned on and off and tweaked according to the director's taste. Chris, Sheva, and the other main characters are displayed with greater detail (higher-polygon 3D models, definitely on facial features) and more effects - different shadowing models are used according to the effect the director is going for, and also with an eye on performance. Superior depth-of-field effects are in evidence, along with additional post-processing parses such as a noise filter.

It's quite amazing to think that the same engine is capable of visuals that are so much better than the in-game graphics. It seems to be the case that three detail levels are available to Capcom - close-ups on the characters see the introduction of more detailed models with additional animation points. There's a 'mid-way' detail level with less complex animation and shadow effects and finally there's the usual game engine setting.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/face-off-resident-evil-5-article?page=2

 

I assume with most games youve played the lights dont cast shadows unlike alan wake (from what Ive seen, Im not sure if this is with all lights though)

The reason in doom3 why you couldnt use the torch and shoot the gun at the same time was the hardware at the time couldnt handle it at a decent FPS (two lights/shadows covering a major percentage of the screen at once), carmack said he would of preferred to allow the player to have both going at once but they changed the gameplay to only allow only either the gun or the torch.

 

Well, Doom 3 is also a 5 year old game & used stencil shadowing

What I wanna say is the shouldn't shadows be more taxing during dusk & dawn compared to night as during night time there are only a few local lights which produce small/short shadows, while in dusk & dawn you have very long shadows for every object with the sun being the global light source. As for an example...I'll mention Stalker Clear sky here, it had a huge performance hit during dusk & dawn mainly due to long shadows & the full resolution God Rays. [Alan Wake has God rays too, but yes they should be a 1/4th or 1/2 reso buffer]

 

the sun is a directional light, those as well as spotlights are the quickest to do since they one require shadows to be generated in one direction + with the sun theres only a single one
point lights OTOH require multiple shadow renders for each single light (up to 6 per light!!!)

heres an image from one of my games, with the sun at dusk

there Im generating 1 shadowmap for the sun
1 shadowmap for the spotlight
and theres prolly about 3 point lights onscreen
thus Im generating 3 * 3-6 shadowmaps for the pointlights = (9->18 shadowmaps) this is why so few games have pointlights that cast shadows

 

4 page interview from Gamasutra.

Matias Myllyrinne: The Advent Of Alan Wake
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/4321/matias_myllyrinne_the_advent_of_.php

 

Great Article!
Man, this first screenshot (http://www.gamasutra.com/db_area/images/feature/4321/aw1.jpg) looks unbelievable good!!

 

Yeah I think the daytime scenes look alot better than night...hopefully you get to roam around the town alot in the daytime.

 

yes daytime looks great but I think we'll be surprised just how good the nighttime looks with the way they are playing with light sources and creating atmosphere... I have the feeling it's the kind of thing that just will look PHENOMENAL on an HDTV in its full glory.