I will stress here that the final game has pared back water compared to that UE3 demo.
Water tech *spawn
- Thread starter Mobius1aic
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Forgetting the level with the copious amounts of blood or the water boss? You may not see fluids often, but you ought to replay those sections. Try suiciding at the end of the worm level just to walk around the blood.
Unless by "pared" back you simply mean "not many instances of being able to walk up to and shoot water". Sure you don't get a spare building to toss in at will, but hell, just try shooting a few of the imulsion pools at the very end of the game. Plenty of ammo to spare on the Brumak. You'll get to see the waves interact as you generate new ones as you keep shooting, especially since the initial waves have a shorter distance before reflecting from a hard surface and dissipating.
I find it a little worse than that tech demo, but maybe its just my shoddy memory. Been over a year since I played the SP & I've been playing the MP on a regular basis. Its definitely scaled back in the MP though.
Johnny_Physics
Newcomer
That isn't true, a fluid surface is made up of two parts, simulation and detail. Detail animates the detail texture while the simulation part is a vertex animation, both are used.
Just download the UDK and try it out yourself.
scooby_dooby
Legend
What's impressive about using FFT anyways? Is that the whole point of FAST fourier transform? It's fast?
All I know is we've been using FFT in flash for about the last 3 or 4 years, and it's a fairly low cost operation in the browser. Though there's no way to tell what adobe is doing under the hood...
All I know is we've been using FFT in flash for about the last 3 or 4 years, and it's a fairly low cost operation in the browser. Though there's no way to tell what adobe is doing under the hood...
Silent_Buddha
Legend
HDR isn't related to Ray Tracing though is it? After all, HDR only allows for a greater color variety (larger color pallete to preserve high contrast details, ability to exceed light limits to reproduce light effects and preserve brightness, etc.) for any given scene.
Ray Tracing I always assumed to be, well, tracing rays that represents how the light interacts with objects, including reflection, refraction, and then tracing those rays as they bounce to other object, and in turn bounce to other objects, etc... And then final image is rendered.
Regards,
SB
Ray Tracing I always assumed to be, well, tracing rays that represents how the light interacts with objects, including reflection, refraction, and then tracing those rays as they bounce to other object, and in turn bounce to other objects, etc... And then final image is rendered.
Regards,
SB
It looks very nice too. Rather excellent, though Crysis supposedly uses FFT (I think someone here said that), it's just that it's not interactive like Resistance 2's water as the game is obviously a much less controlling by design [Crysis that is]. Not sure how Killzone 2's water works, but it almost looks like some kind of multilayering technique that has a non oscillating upper layer for effect on coastlines, and an under oscillating layer that either really is 3D geometry (FFT?) or some kind of parallax effect to make it look 3D. I'm not too sure. It looks damn good, however I can't help but complain that it does look a bit pixel-ated probably from being only 1280 x 720. Hard to complain, as the game in entirety looks excellent and moves even better with the huge amount of environmental animation (flags, etc). I think Crysis is underrated in this aspect too, as it seems every branch of palm tree and branch of leaves quivers in the wind on it's own, and in turn is reflected in the quivering shadows created by the foliage. It looks excellent, and its one reason I think Far Cry 2 pails to Crysis' pure artistry in environment creation. It's the little details that really count. Crysis and Killzone 2 nailed that. Back to topic.......I really hope Crysis 2 and CryEngine 3.0 support interactive fluid surfaces, and maybe in 3D for the always included, but always hated sewer level!
I think KZ2 didn't had any reflection or refraction maps for water, they had it running in engine but it was too late to introduce it in the game (they mentioned this in the "Bullet" commercial). Also the water doesn't produces any ripples, be it dynamic or animated....and the sprite made when you shoot looks more like dust than water.It still looks nice, which is a remarkable achievement considering the water is still not doing some of the core stuff needed for rendering water...I guess its mostly due to the the way the water moves which gives it a good look.
And I saw more reflections in FC2's water than I did in Crysis' (vanilla), btw there's this one level in Warhead where you go through tunnel filled with almost knee high water, but you never feel the place to be water logged simply cause the water stays dead without any kind of movement or refraction, or even reflection. Unless you jump & produce a splash sprite or shoot at ground, you won't even notice that there's some water present in the area.
And I saw more reflections in FC2's water than I did in Crysis' (vanilla), btw there's this one level in Warhead where you go through tunnel filled with almost knee high water, but you never feel the place to be water logged simply cause the water stays dead without any kind of movement or refraction, or even reflection. Unless you jump & produce a splash sprite or shoot at ground, you won't even notice that there's some water present in the area.
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Well before I made my post, I played the beginning of the PSN available KZ2 demo. The water at the beginning is definitely running reflections. I didn't think to look for refraction, but I would expect it to be there. As for FC2 water reflectiveness. It would make sense for calmer bodies of water to reflect more, but I find FC2's water to be way too flat and uninspiring. I'd also argue that it reflects a little too much at times. Sure it looks good for what it needs to do, but it could look much better.
Billy Idol
Legend
I still think that UC2 had some of the best water I experienced - it looks suberb with all the reflections and movement.
I like KZ2 graphics a lot, but I don't think that its water is special. In fact, some of the animated water (there are occasions, where you fight near the sea and water ponds a puddle and goes away rythmically) looks extremely pixelated when you look close...I am not sure if the reflections on the water are real reflections of surroundings or just a simple effect - compare this to the marvelous UC2 water tech, e.g.:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rt_L9QRVwws&feature=related
I like KZ2 graphics a lot, but I don't think that its water is special. In fact, some of the animated water (there are occasions, where you fight near the sea and water ponds a puddle and goes away rythmically) looks extremely pixelated when you look close...I am not sure if the reflections on the water are real reflections of surroundings or just a simple effect - compare this to the marvelous UC2 water tech, e.g.:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rt_L9QRVwws&feature=related
Billy Idol
Legend
Yeah it's true! I just quoted it as I thought the water looked great due to the flash light interacting with the water surface when I played it yesterday
But it is of course weird that the water does not change Drake's animations - this was something Uncharted 1 did back then! I don't know why the changed it in UC2 - the water in the above video however moves and waves around on a scripted basis!
There's always this video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O9l1kmD8FHg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O9l1kmD8FHg
Probably a gameplay decision rather than technical...just like how the flashlight in UC2 is controlled by the camera movements instead of the actual flashlight on Drake's body...compare this to UC1 where the light from the torch came from the torch itself.
Actually in that level the water is moving vigorously, it'll be impossible for the water to interact with drake & produce any kind of rippling in this case. To stress my point you could take a look at any other water body in UC2 be it SP or MP which has "still water", like puddles & pools...you'll notice that the water does reacts to everything that touches it.
Is probably becouse it has reflections for pretty much all water surfaces which few games and they are not Crysis nor U2. Both those lack in parts or use cubemaps to fake reflections (Crysis only ocean has full reflections, limited for rivers). Funny becouse Far Cry 1 had reflections on all water surfaces and reflected everything.
EDIT: Anyway if for Warhead you're talking about the tunnel or cave then it has distortion for sub surface objects/terrain. Just enable the flashlight or shot down the roof lights and pick them up and use em as flashlights to see! ^^
Anyway I find Anno1404 to have more impressive water than Crysis and others not just becouse it is highly detailed deformable 3D water mesh far into horisontbeing physics based with refractions, HQ shader effects, very high res reflections, sub surface rendering with caustics and more. Impressed me a lot. I actually have a dev video about their water implementation. ^^
Close view.
http://img51.imageshack.us/img51/378/anno14045.jpg
http://img64.imageshack.us/img64/6844/anno14041.jpg
http://img197.imageshack.us/img197/8171/anno1404.jpg
Water high view overview.
http://img197.imageshack.us/img197/4026/anno14043.jpg
http://img41.imageshack.us/img41/8499/anno14044.jpg
http://img196.imageshack.us/img196/9969/anno14046.jpg
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Well the water in Far Cry looks unreasonably glassy and homogeneous. It's still pleasing to look at though thanks to the colors of the environment.
Mr. Domino
Regular
It's a shame that Naughty Dog couldn't use their advanced water effect they had made while developing the first Uncharted. Hopefully in Ucharted 3 they can finally implement it.
They showed it in their U1 post mortem presentation at GDC: http://www.gametrailers.com/user-movie/uncharted-gdc-post-mortem/180700 (the water is shown at 38 seconds in).
They showed it in their U1 post mortem presentation at GDC: http://www.gametrailers.com/user-movie/uncharted-gdc-post-mortem/180700 (the water is shown at 38 seconds in).
Silent_Buddha
Legend
Aye, definitely some of the best, if not "the" best water in a game so far. Just wish I could zoom in a little closer in that game like the previous Anno.
Regards,
SB
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