L. Scofield
Veteran
Most of the environment lighting is pre-calculated, IIRC
Rage (id Software)
- Thread starter Alucardx23
- Start date
Sigfried1977
Legend
All I'm saying is that Starbreeze did basically the same stuff Carmack did yet are rarely given any of the credit. Yeah, the image quality took a serious nosedive at certain points in the game (though it was by no means a very frequent issue. I replayed the game half a dozend times), but then Riddick also had large environments with more than 3 enemies (that had something you could actually call A.I.) at one time. Besides, Doom 3 on the original Xbox was heavily compromised as well, with the textures on creatures being downright laughable at times. The flashlight didn't cast shadows anymore either and the windows that let you get a glance of the Mars surface in the PC version were conveniently barred or removed entirely. Some chunks of the levels were completely missing. It also wasn't ported by Id.
Silent_Buddha
Legend
Yeah, I'm one of the ones that when Doom III was released was sitting there going, "this is what some people are raving about? This? It's nothing special."
And then after playing it thinking, "Wow bland graphics, repetitive levels, poor gameplay, low poly characters, NOTHING like Doom 1 or 2, ummmm, ok people are just insane..."
But hey it had the Tech Checklist. So I guess that's why some people raved about it's graphics.
On the other hand, I look at Rage and I'm thinking, wow, this looks GOOD.
If my choice is between a tech checklist that looks bland and uninteresting (Doom III) and a tech with pre-baked this or that which looks good (Rage) I'll take the one with less checkmarks on the tech checklist.
Regards,
SB
Did Starbreeze release a techdemo of their tech back in Jan 2001? Did any of their devs independently came up with a more elegant and fast way to determine whether a pixel is or isn't in shadow? "All they did" is what the Tenebrae guys did for their Quake Mod, CryTek did for the indoor parts of FarCry or Ion Storm did for Thief 3 (which was released 2 months before Riddick): they saw the Macworld 2001 DOOM 3 Engine video and employed similar techniques. DOOM 3's graphics were old hat when the game was released because id had demonstrated them 3.5 years prior.
With that said, I quite liked Riddick but it wasn't released "shortly after". The Console version came out 1 month before DOOM 3 and the PC version came out four months afterwards. Regardless, it was slower in comparable scenes, and many of the character models were not manifold meshes to improve performance which meant you had a lot of shadow artefacts, especially noticeable in cutscenes.
Anyway, I'm quite surprised Rage is winning so many awards. They must have shown something really special behind closed doors. From all the publicly released videos I've seen, Killzone 3 was the most impressive to me. Maybe Bethesda is throwing their weight around too?
Sigfried1977
Legend
All they did was release a great game instead of cooking up a glorified tech demo in 3 years. Apparently so did Crytek and Ion Storm. Good for them.
A good portion of them are still dynamic which contribute to the atmosphere greatly. Also the dynamic lights in kz2 go far beyond just in the environment, they're pretty much everywhere such as lights on every soldier's bodysuit, projectiles, grenades, lightning, vehicles and muzzle flash etc. That's why the game looks so alive and engaging, which is a critical feature missing in Rage. I love the outdoor textures in rage for sure, in still it does look almost photorealistic but everything just look so static. The lack of special fx, particles and OMB are just inevitable for going 60fps, what a shame.
Last edited by a moderator:
Well of course!. Post-apocalyptic desert will have working lights and streetlamps everywhere, amirite?
You know I was actually going to say that lol now that I thought of it. The visual direction suits the deserted setting more or less so I guess id can get away from it somehow. But still, an incomplete checklist is incomplete.Well of course!. Post-apocalyptic desert will have working lights and streetlamps everywhere, amirite?
Cookie Monster
Newcomer
Last edited by a moderator:
Billy Idol
Legend
Hm, I think that all games available make compromise in their tech...so does id with Rage!
The goal they have to achieve is to make the best of the available tech and put it in the "best light" in providing the right settings and art which pronounce the good stuff of the tech, and avoids situations where the gamer gets impacted with tech deficiences...I think this is something every game dev team has to achieve at the end, so does id with Rage!
The goal they have to achieve is to make the best of the available tech and put it in the "best light" in providing the right settings and art which pronounce the good stuff of the tech, and avoids situations where the gamer gets impacted with tech deficiences...I think this is something every game dev team has to achieve at the end, so does id with Rage!
You know that Rage has dynamic lighting, right? Environmental lights can turn on and off, muzzle flash illuminates scenes, etc. The same mix of static and dynamic techniques as in 90% of games is usable here, just with some underlying limits removed.
I'm not implying that Rage is best of breed in these aspects, just pointing out that it is not as singularly static and limited as some of you appear to believe. Sometimes it feels like Carmack is a magician who explained how a trick is done, and now that you know the secret that's all you can see.
No need to get defensive. You were asking why Starbreeze weren't given credit for the technical features in their engine, whilst it's natural for pioneers to be credited while followers are not. As for the games themselves, that's an entirely different, and subjective, discussion.
Heh, I think the problem is the 60fps mind-jump. We're so used to half that framerate that we instantly compare a game to any other. For instance, in one of those four movies Billy Idol posted above there's a scene where a spinning wind gauge is not casting a shadow where its pole is. I'm particularly sensitive to shadow artefacts so I noticed that right away and it bothered me. OTOH, once I remind myself the game is playing at 60fps I can forgive, which I absolutely wouldn't do if the game was your regular 30fps jaunt.
What vid is that? I'd like to check it out. And isn't bulletstorm 30?
I thought Bulletstorm was 30.
Kameradschaft
Regular
Here it is: http://gamersyde.com/news_bulletstorm_walkthrough-9623_en.html
The 60fps and the great IQ makes me believe that it's from the PC version...a great looking game based on UE3 running at 60fps on the consoles? not likely.
Back on topic I'm surprised that Rage is being compared to Killzone 3 by some people here, Rage supposedly runs at double the frame-rate...these comparisons could have a point if we were talking about Doom 4 which is supposed to be 30fps with bumped up visuals.
I still don't get why Id hasn't released a 720p/60fps video of their E3 demo yet though.
