Could Dreamcast et al handle this/that fighter? *spawn

looks decent. In fact, I bought a Matrox G400 back in the day just because of bump mapping --and 32 bit rendering.

 

I was talking about this. Bumpmap finally being supported on the Dreamcast emulator redream. Apparently Rayman 2 used it for the environments.

 

That just looks like a noise texture to me. I think the original Unreal was one of the first to do this but it was common back then.

 

yeah, i'm pretty sure it's a "detail texture"

 

Wrong. Two emu authors identified that Rayman 2 used bumpmap on the DC for 2 different dc emulators, reicast and redream .Maybe wasn't the best use of bumpmap but it was still bumpmapping. can't find the exact link but here's an example of it being discussed for reicast year back.
https://github.com/reicast/reicast-emulator/issues/12

 

Perhaps the reason it looks like a detail texture is bump mapping isn't being applied? From the link:

"It's not really fixed. Just crudely passing the texture through without applying bump mapping. Better than just a flat shaded purple poly."

 

I am not sure what I am reading. I suppose the emu doesn't apply the bump mapping but it is applied when running on the DC?

 

The emulator doesn't apply bumpmap till it was fixed recetnly. Back then it would just show purple textures (the bump map) so he allowed it to read the bumpmap texture but not apply it as hack to get around the purple texture. The real hardware applies bump mapping so it doesn't have that problem.

I was showing that link as one of the convos of when they first realized rayman 2 used bumpmaps very heavily. It isn't the only game, the redream author recently mentioned some part of death crimson ox uses bump mapping as well. I guess if the light source isn't dynamic we won't even notice what games had bump mapping on the Dreamcast .

 

Is your comparison screenshot showing bump-mappnig then? Because it sure as heck doesn't look like bump mapping and exactly the same results of that screenshot can be achieve with just a second texture. Have you any video footage of bumps in action?

 

So the fact that two emulators has recognized this as bump mapping and added bump mapping to tackle this game specifically has no weight to because the visuals do not please you?
I could waste my time and go fetch the bump texture from a running emu but I am just going to take both emu authors words for it. To be honest the use is probably like a noise texture but guess what? It was implemented using Dreamcast bumpmap feature makes it bump mapping. Not my fault Ubisoft wasn't more creative when using bunp mapping.

Also those comparison shot came from the redream emu author himself during an update of features for redream.

 

It has no weight because the evidence doesn't support it, but as I said, you can't really spot bump mapping in stills. Hence my polite request (and your unnecessarily less than polite reply ) for a video.

Actually, looking closer, they do look like bumps. There's a clear light-at-top/dark-at-bottom synergy within the noise.



But, without seeing it in motion, this could just be how the noise in the texture is.

 

hmmmmm the right image (without bumpmaping) shows the bridge having a bumpmap/normalmap (the same as the image on the left)

 

Could just be painted onto the texture though.

 

I wonder if it's bump map or something emulating/mimicking it? I believe some PS2 games mimicked it buy applying a map of speculars on surfaces.

 

As Dreamcast had hardware for bump-mapping, why doubt it?

 

Interesting

 

My apologies for being rude. I was busy with something else when I responded.

Back to Rayman 2. It's not really debateable wether it's bumpmapping or not. They made shitty use of it, they used it as a way to make the ground noisy , you aren't wrong about this. But think about this the emulators already did multitexturing but this feature wasn't visible. All emulators were forced to add bump map support in order to display this noisy bumpmap at all, no way around it. It's so badly used most people didn't even realized it was bumpmapping till much later. It's recognized as one of the few games to use the feature extensively. Here's a video with it on , I doubt it will change your opinion but wether you believe it or not it is what it is.

 

Still very hard to tell. Obviously seeing the emulator running, we only get the emulated implementation. If the question is 'did Rayman on DC have bump mapping?' then we should see the Dreamcast, not something else.

And it doesn't really matter though, unless discussing why bump mapping wasn't prevalent. The results shown so far, including Rayman if we accept the emu authors, show bump mapping didn't amount to much on DC. I guess until we have a clear dynamically lit bumped surface, it's as nebulous as the fabled 'normal mapped games' on PS2.

 

I am inclined to remove my Dreamcast and copy of Rayman 2 from storage just to see what is actually going on here. I doubt I'd be able to capture it properly on video though. That, plus there's a chance I'll get into the mood to beat Rayman 2 again .