Poll about image quality

[darkblu]

But I don't believe the missing lights indicate a texture layer missing. It wouldn't make sense to blend a "lights on" layer onto the "lights off" layer, which is clearly visible.

i.e. unless the 'lights' feature is achieved through a detail texture (which then would be used also elsewhere in the game, and so is supposed to blend with whatever is underneath it). also, it's a fact that on all 4 corridor shots all r350 shots exhibit the 'lights' and all gffx shots don't - don't you find that odd wrt to the 'lights flickering' scenario?

Flickering lights was just an explanation that came to my mind when I compared those shots. It's not very likely.

The detail texture idea doesn't make sense. You only use detail textures on close objects, and only where appropriate.

i lost you here - you think that in that corridor the walls are far enough so that those 'light wiring' details should not be visible or something? as re appropriateness, obviously the map artists responsible for this corridor find said detail on the background walls appropriate.

Furthermore, they're high-frequency and repeated several times across a surface.

they generally exhibit higher freqs than the base tex, and repeat several times across a surface if the visible part of the surface is large enough. but anyway, if you find disturbing calling the lights wiring on those shots a detail tex, then call it a feature tex, same with me.

 

[OpenGL guy]

One thing that's apparent is that the AA quality on the GeForce FX is pretty low.

ATI's AA looks pretty bad in Halo too. 8)

I don't get it.

 

[Hyp-X]

I don't get it.

Maybe he meant something like this?

Unfortunately Halo does not currently support antialiasing so we are unable to bring you those numbers.

Of course, we have gotten plenty of emails pointing out the hack that allows AA to work with Halo. This involves adding a flag to tell Halo to DisableRenderTargets for your particular video card. The problem with this is that rendered textures are used all throughout the game, and many of the awesome PS2.0 effects are lost. Water effects disappear, walls go from dirty and grimy looking to plastic and shiny, and the image quality we get from the hack takes away too much to be worth it in our opinion.

 

[Xmas]

i lost you here - you think that in that corridor the walls are far enough so that those 'light wiring' details should not be visible or something? as re appropriateness, obviously the map artists responsible for this corridor find said detail on the background walls appropriate.

No, I think the lights should be visible from any distance, and therefore it doesn't make sense to implement them as detail textures.

What I meant with appropriateness is that you don't go throwing additional texture layers on polygons if you can realize the same appearance using it all combined in one texture layer.

For example, look at the lights in the lower left corner. On the FX shots, you see the pipework and the lamps in "off" state. Now think about it, if you want to show the lamps in "on" state, do you use an additive-blended "light" layer that's perfectly aligned to the underlying layer? No, you use two different base textures, one for the lights on and one for the lights off state, because that saves you one texture layer.

they generally exhibit higher freqs than the base tex, and repeat several times across a surface if the visible part of the surface is large enough. but anyway, if you find disturbing calling the lights wiring on those shots a detail tex, then call it a feature tex, same with me.

The point is, you don't use several aligned texture layers if you can avoid it.

 

[darkblu]

What I meant with appropriateness is that you don't go throwing additional texture layers on polygons if you can realize the same appearance using it all combined in one texture layer.

For example, look at the lights in the lower left corner. On the FX shots, you see the pipework and the lamps in "off" state. Now think about it, if you want to show the lamps in "on" state, do you use an additive-blended "light" layer that's perfectly aligned to the underlying layer? No, you use two different base textures, one for the lights on and one for the lights off state, because that saves you one texture layer.

<snip>

The point is, you don't use several aligned texture layers if you can avoid it.

you're looking at it in the context of one particular scene only. the 'light wires' would make perfect sense to be on a separate detail (or if you prefer 'feature') texture layer if those same 'light wires' were used at several place over different base textures across the level (or the whole game).

consider this, you have N surfaces in this game where your artists think a 'light wiring' would look cool. do you come up with two versions for each one of those N original base textures -- one clean and one with pre-baked 'light wiring' or do you keep just the original N base textures and come up with one 'light wiring' texture to blend over at spots the artists deem apt?

 

[John Reynolds]

Maybe he meant something like this?

Unfortunately Halo does not currently support antialiasing so we are unable to bring you those numbers.

Of course, we have gotten plenty of emails pointing out the hack that allows AA to work with Halo. This involves adding a flag to tell Halo to DisableRenderTargets for your particular video card. The problem with this is that rendered textures are used all throughout the game, and many of the awesome PS2.0 effects are lost. Water effects disappear, walls go from dirty and grimy looking to plastic and shiny, and the image quality we get from the hack takes away too much to be worth it in our opinion.

That's exactly what I meant. And having tried the demo I gotta' agree with Ailuros.

 

[kipper67]

Have you set your monitor to extremely low brightness, or why aren't you able to see the lights, and the (existing) pipework on the GeForce shots?

It's alright , I've spotted the part of the shot you are all looking at now, so we are talking about the same thing just in a different place.

I can cancel the optician's appointment now

Mark

 

[Hyp-X]

What I meant with appropriateness is that you don't go throwing additional texture layers on polygons if you can realize the same appearance using it all combined in one texture layer.

Let's say (simple model, no specular, per vertex lighting):

ps.1.1
tex t0     // diffuse map
tex t1     // self illumination map
mad r0, t0, v0, t1

How do you combine diffuse with self illumination?
(Unless self illumination is b/w.)

I think a missing texture layer is not out-of-question.

 

[OpenGL guy]

I don't get it.

Maybe he meant something like this?

Unfortunately Halo does not currently support antialiasing so we are unable to bring you those numbers.

Of course, we have gotten plenty of emails pointing out the hack that allows AA to work with Halo. This involves adding a flag to tell Halo to DisableRenderTargets for your particular video card. The problem with this is that rendered textures are used all throughout the game, and many of the awesome PS2.0 effects are lost. Water effects disappear, walls go from dirty and grimy looking to plastic and shiny, and the image quality we get from the hack takes away too much to be worth it in our opinion.

I still don't see the correlation. I commented on the Unreal 2 shots, where the AA quality on the Radeon is clearly superior... so superior it almost looks like there is no AA at all on the FX shots.

Then John mentions something about Halo... What does this have to do with Unreal 2? AA works in other games with PS 2.0 effects and render targets (TRAOD, for example), so how is the fact that AA doesn't work in Halo, which appears to be an application issue, somehow relevant to Unreal 2?

 

[Hyp-X]

I commented on the Unreal 2 shots,

What Unreal 2 shots???
Noone mentioned Unreal 2 in this thread.
Not even you in your comment:

They both look terrible but they are not quite the same frame so comparison is IMHO useless.

One thing that's apparent is that the AA quality on the GeForce FX is pretty low.

Tahir was appearently speaking of the topic at hand, which is about two Halo screenshots.
And btw these are non-AA screenshots (non-surprisingly).

 

[THe_KELRaTH]

Unreal II

www.jlmay.f2s.com/NV35u-9800XT x4aa Max AF.jpg

Left: NV35 @ x4aa x8af
Right: 9800XT @ x4aa x16af (as if I had to mention it )

... and for those that have forgotten... www.jlmay.f2s.com/NV30-ATIAA.jpg