New engines make everything look so plastic :(

[phusnikn]

Why do all these new engines have superb background textures looking almost real at times ? but yet the character models all look so fake and plastic clay like ?

Here is some up coming models from the EQ2 engine, i've seen this plastic look on alot of the new 3D engines coming out with there so called photorealistic textures. I mean common who are they fooling ?

Seems the more realistic game designers try to make humans look the more unrealistic they seem.


Here is a good write up that covers the art work in the up coming mmorpg EQ2 compared to older games.

http://www.u.arizona.edu/~hramsdel/crusade.htm
Is this what future engines 2005-2006 will produce ???

Some of EQ2's models Ewuuuuuu!!!

Lineage 2 using older 2001-2002 Unreal 2.0 engine which does not seem to suffer from this clay like problem found in the newer engines.

I'm not sure what's causing most of the newer stuff to produce this plastic clay like graphics if someone could shed some light it would be cool, I'm a first year compsci student so i'm very new to the field.

 

[Ostsol]

The reason is probably because they use the same basic lighting equation for everything. The fact of the matter is that skin does not interact with light in the same way as brick, which is similarily different from plastic. Game developers really need to take a look at the shaders that ATI, NVidia, and other companies are releasing.

 

[jvd]

Everquest does not look that bad. Esp in motion they don't have the plasticy look.

If you check out the videos you will also see the plasticy look is dimished . see if u can find the willow video (fan made from beta) To see what i mean

 

[Fodder]

Rendering people, especially faces is interesting, I think unless you're prepared to go all out on it and make realistic faces an important part of your technology, the best choice is to go for a more stylistic, cartoony approach. HL2/Source is a great example of what can be done today, the reflective eyes work so well that I'm surprised I haven't seen all the latest games copying it (after all, they've had 18 months), where Doom 3 is really let down by the eyes and teeth on the characters. The aforementioned Lineage II, and say World of Warcraft, while not being as good technically as EQ2, still look better, because the devs understand the limits of technology and have really imbued their character models and textures with a sense of style to compensate. JVD, if you look back at your post, you'll see the better looking EQ2 characters are the ones that stray further from 'realism', while all the humans look like store mannequins.

 

[Diplo]

I think it's because everything appears to be made from the same material and thus reflects light in the same manner, thus speculative highlights all appear the same, regardless of whether it's stone, skin, metal etc.

Remember, though, this kind of per-pixel lighting is relatively new to realtime 3D and still quite expensive to perform. As hardware improves and software routines get more efficient then you'll no-doubt see characters constructed from many more types of material.

 

[cloudscapes]

They like putting bump/specular lighting on *everything*. It's like lense flares from several years ago, it's a Shiny New Gimmick Of The Year(tm), thus to make out game look cool we need it.

Soon, if it hasn't started already, we'll be seeing much more realistic lighting models for characters.

 

[Dutch Guy]

They like putting bump/specular lighting on *everything*. It's like lense flares from several years ago, it's a Shiny New Gimmick Of The Year(tm), thus to make out game look cool we need it.

Soon, if it hasn't started already, we'll be seeing much more realistic lighting models for characters.

Excactly, if I play Far Cry I can't help but laugh at the way it looks, it's just way too colourful and OTT.

Why not concentrate on making it look more like real life?

If they can figure out a way to make wood look like wood and metal like metal, that would make so much difference.

 

[AlNom]

Everquest does not look that bad. Esp in motion they don't have the plasticy look.
...
http://eq2.ogaming.com/gallery/albums/album09/priest.sized.jpg

yeah! She looks like she's wearing stone carved armour!

 

[jvd]

and say World of Warcraft, while not being as good technically as EQ2, still look better, because the devs understand the limits of technology and have really imbued their character models and textures with a sense of style to compensate

So your saying blocky low polygon models that were top of the line mabye 4 or 5 years ago looks better than eq2 ? Have you had time to play with either of them ?

As i said things look less plasticy in motion with eq2 .

yeah! She looks like she's wearing stone carved armour!

actually its the pattern in the cloak. I've actually seen that in motion and it looks very good


As i've said the game does look better in motion. Find the willow video



I agree that lineage 2 looks good in still shots . But in motion the chars just look flat . Same goes with wow (though its lower polygon and looks worse than lineage 2 in general) when you play eq2 everything has depth and makes the agme look more realistic .


edit found the video http://files.eq2haven.com/uploads/willow.avi/url]

 

[Fodder]

So your saying blocky low polygon models that were top of the line mabye 4 or 5 years ago looks better than eq2 ?

Yes, because they don't give the 'tried but failed' impression. They don't need to look realistic because Blizzard visibly aimed for a more cartoony style, where with EQ2 they've aimed for realistic human characters and fallen very short. Some bits of the EQ2 engine look good, but together it all seems just a bit unnatural, like a below-average pre-render. Nonetheless, I sympathise with your blind faith in SOE.

Edit: Vid appears to be a dead link.

 

[flick556]

I think I remember in some interview they are starting to change the look of skin in EQ2

I think devs are starting to take this complaint seriously

 

[jvd]

So your saying blocky low polygon models that were top of the line mabye 4 or 5 years ago looks better than eq2 ?

Yes, because they don't give the 'tried but failed' impression. They don't need to look realistic because Blizzard visibly aimed for a more cartoony style, where with EQ2 they've aimed for realistic human characters and fallen very short. Some bits of the EQ2 engine look good, but together it all seems just a bit unnatural, like a below-average pre-render. Nonetheless, I sympathise with your blind faith in SOE.

Edit: Vid appears to be a dead link.

Heh. To me the wow engine is a didn't give a crap . At least eq2 tried .

I loaded up wow beta and was playing at 1027x768 6x fsaa and 16aniso on my 9700pro . The graphics were on par with coh . Not a good visual impresion. Heck it looks worse than the udate to eqlive.

Alot of people are posting pics that are older . Check out the video i linked to and you will see the shinny is almost completely gone (only thing still shinny is hair)

 

[Fodder]

Edit: Vid appears to be a dead link.

Or if you'd rather it like this ...

Not Found

The requested URL /uploads/willow.avi was not found on this server.

Additionally, a 404 Not Found error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request.

Apache/1.3.31 Server at files.eq2haven.com Port 80

 

[jvd]

hmm i dunno why its down now , if u im me on aim i will send it (up for a few more mins )

but here is a link to the website http://files.eq2haven.com/

 

[GameCat]

In the case of EQ2, it mostly seems like a case of bad artists. Most of the humanoid figures are very strangely built and posed and the horrible hair makes matters even worse. In some cases it's due to tech reasons, like the material system only allowing for phong lighting --> no specular colour --> all highlights are white --> everything looks plastic. But a large part of it seems to be game artists simply not trained on prducing decent materials, unless the programmers are completely useless, they wouldn't force every shader to have hugh white shiny highlights.

That said, doing human skin well is HARD. Increasing poly count to more realistic levels might actually lower realism unless you up the shading accordingly as well. Fantasy unrealistic art=cool, semi realistic mannequins=creepy.

 

[Ostsol]

Technical nitpick: Phong does include specular into his lighting equation. What you're trying to say is that it only supports diffuse lighting. Anyway, though, might the highlights be a low-exponent specular?

 

[Scali]

Technical nitpick: Phong does include specular into his lighting equation. What you're trying to say is that it only supports diffuse lighting. Anyway, though, might the highlights be a low-exponent specular?

I think he meant that the specular colour can't be specified, and it defaults to white. That's something I've seen often in games anyway, like FarCry for example.

 

[Ostsol]

Technical nitpick: Phong does include specular into his lighting equation. What you're trying to say is that it only supports diffuse lighting. Anyway, though, might the highlights be a low-exponent specular?

I think he meant that the specular colour can't be specified, and it defaults to white. That's something I've seen often in games anyway, like FarCry for example.

Yeah, I understood that point. This actually leads into something about the Source engine that I really like: using cubemaps for specular.

 

[GameCat]

Scali is right. What I tried to say was just that the classic Phong lighting equation only allows for white specular highlights, which makes everything look plastic. Obviously, it does allow for specular lighting, not just diffuse.

 

[Thunderbird]

Oh ya! Thunderbirds baby!