Water tech *spawn

[Sigfried1977]

The water in Ratchet & Clank: a Crack in Time looks really neat. It's basically the same as in Resistance 2, but the exaggerated refractions and the caustics (or whatever you call the effect) blended with the cartoony art style make the end result look a lot more cohesive and "believable".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcwWuFoEQc4

 

[ps2rocks]

Hey, back from an intrinsic leave heh, I really get amazed by the "console technologies" everyday. Often getting to know what was and now is being accomplished by such little resources on consoles' with only their proportionately immense processing power. Like the other day I came to realize how extensive use of normal-mapping was done in PS2's Matrix: Path of Neo, and the Hitman: Blood Money. Amazing... to say the least even when there was not a proper gpu residing in there.

Anyways, I'm really stoked by the Killzone 3 water. Its amazing how they are producing multi-height 3D waves. Can't say they're procedural or not but they are damn best in describing what "most realistic" really means. The frozen-water-fluidity feel nailed by Uncharted-2 for shallow water is amazingly translated to huge water body in the same scope. Here the water is heavy, turbulent, but again its nowhere near oil-ish... and its rather impressive that it does not get placid upto the very distant its being rendered upon. One word... Amazing!!! and a question: "Does consoles' relying mostly on CPU(like EmotionEngine-PS2 or Cell-PS3) rather than GPU(PC's case) is really what sets them apart?"

A little scene:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDbtOVS-sok

 

[L. Scofield]

I don't know. The motion is good, but shading wise it's nothing special (funnily, in screenshots looks like solid ground) and has very low geometry.

 

[nightshade]

well I think we've been through this already, no matter how it looks or how much geometry it uses...in the end its very close and accurate to portraying a real life sea wave in a storm when compared to most other games.

 

[Neb]

I don't know. The motion is good, but shading wise it's nothing special (funnily, in screenshots looks like solid ground) and has very low geometry.

From a tech POV that seems quite basic but artistic and design wise the final impression is nice. Btw there are some RTS sims (IIRC ship simualtor) with same waves design/art but more shading and more complex mesh. Anyway it's more of a design and art product than technical feat and the result is good. How people find RAGE so good looking despite of being simple techwise besides their streaming system compared to other games. Art, colors, movement animation.

 

[L. Scofield]

True, but look at the thread title : "Water tech"

 

[Billy Idol]

From a tech POV that seems quite basic but artistic and design wise the final impression is nice. Btw there are some RTS sims (IIRC ship simualtor) with same waves design/art but more shading and more complex mesh. Anyway it's more of a design and art product than technical feat and the result is good. How people find RAGE so good looking despite of being simple techwise besides their streaming system compared to other games. Art, colors, movement animation.

If we are talking about RAGE and water tech...this is indeed the only thing that looked meh...it even looked ultra meh!
In the demo level 'the well', there was water (which can be shocked with an electro bolt) - and some pipes had leaks, where water streamed out...and this looked awful, it did not even had an impact when hitting the floor.

BTW, this was something I noticed in Crysis 2 as well (in this game the water looked good): when some water fountains (can be even seen in the vids, when they are outside on the roof) hit the ground...no splash or anything happens...looks kind of weird, especially compared to the otherwise good looking water/physics stuff. But I suppose that this is work in progress as they had lots of details otherwise in this game...

 

[patsu]

well I think we've been through this already, no matter how it looks or how much geometry it uses...in the end its very close and accurate to portraying a real life sea wave in a storm when compared to most other games.

Yes, this segment gives me a more familiar feel of KZ2's Helghast. Would like to see it in 3D since Jimmy Fallon seems to love it so much. They should have walked over the cliff and let us interact with the water.

KZ2 has always given me a very unique feel of "I'm there !". The "dancing light" and "travelling smoke" play a big part. In U2, the ice glitters sometimes. If we go near the cliff, we should have water droplets on our goggles, which should freeze shortly (Are those really water ?). Goggles should also fog up when entering a warm building.

When they fight indoor in the trailer, it's like any other shooters so far, except more pretty. Not sure about the melee yet. Hope they continue to improve enemy AI and animation.

EDIT:
Hulst mentioned that the animation consists of more than one real-time calculated layers ? What exactly are they doing here ? I vaguely remember the ice sheet will break also. But I could be wrong here.

 

[nightshade]

BTW, this was something I noticed in Crysis 2 as well (in this game the water looked good): when some water fountains (can be even seen in the vids, when they are outside on the roof) hit the ground...no splash or anything happens...looks kind of weird, especially compared to the otherwise good looking water/physics stuff. But I suppose that this is work in progress as they had lots of details otherwise in this game...

I remember this one cave level in Crysis Warhead, the whole level was filled with knee high water yet there was almost no reflection/refraction. Infact you won't even notice that there's some water unless you make splash by firing or jumping. If you ask me then I'll say that the inland water in both Crysis games have quite average to poor animation...sea water on the other hand is nice looking. (though the ripples are very basic)

 

[Kasersky]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iFG6DAx02_w&fmt=22

i like the way mafia2 water looks, among other i think it looks the most believable.

 

[Neb]

I'll see if I can find the video to the Protal 2 water tech video/document. It also explained how they did the water for L4D2. Really impressive results and solutions.

 

[Mobius1aic]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iFG6DAx02_w&fmt=22

i like the way mafia2 water looks, among other i think it looks the most believable.

It looks good, but still looks very flat.

 

[ps2rocks]

I'll see if I can find the video to the Protal 2 water tech video/document. It also explained how they did the water for L4D2. Really impressive results and solutions.

I totally believe that Valve's Source Engine water is the most prettiest of 2D water ever. What had they accomplished back 6 years is astonishing. Prettiness-wise it even trumped Crysis at places. It boasted a great physics as well. Though the tech itself is quite old and low-poly everything shows its days, alongside water-margins that are now totally tangents with the dry world, stark lines without any curviness where water touches the land. Still its pretty impressive with reflections and all.

@Kasersky, yeah I really really loved the Mafia 2 water, really pretty

 

[Neb]

I totally believe that Valve's Source Engine water is the most prettiest of 2D water ever. What had they accomplished back 6 years is astonishing.

L4D2 and Portal 2 has greatly improved water from HL2. But yes the water from HL2 is still impressive.

This is also impressive with GPGPU (Just Cause 2).

Also like the 3D water with detailed shading onsurface for Arma 2. The waves are quite big.

http://forum.beyond3d.com/showpost.php?p=1452843&postcount=1481

L4D2.

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/images/09/nov/l4d2/gall/l2gall008bg.jpg

Also saw this "Pirates of the Caribbean: Armada of the Damned".

http://xbox360.ign.com/dor/objects/...nveiled-20090526112603132.html?page=mediaFull

Prettiness-wise it even trumped Crysis at places. It boasted a great physics as well.

Well it is 2D but the kind of physics you see there for water collision/buoyancy is about same in Crysis and many other games. I would disagree about HL2 water having much on Crysis water types but L4D2 and Portal 2 Water sure does.

Though the tech itself is quite old and low-poly everything shows its days, alongside water-margins that are now totally tangents with the dry world, stark lines without any curviness where water touches the land. Still its pretty impressive with reflections and all.

But your reffering to old implementation. The newer one is greatly superior and quite costly and tech heavy. The newer implementation is the one I am reffering to and there a tech documents for how they do it.

 

[ps2rocks]

L4D2 and Portal 2 has greatly improved water from HL2. But yes the water from HL2 is still impressive.

This is also impressive with GPGPU (Just Cause 2).

Yes, that picture is particularly impressive, the L4D2 water having vegetations over it and having almost SSAO-ish shadows being casted on the water surface by them is really pleasant for the eye. They've done the water texture multi-layered That is what they've done within L4D2 for shadows, although I've learned that even that water effect got glitched sooo much, there are forums flooded with the problem, amazing for that but that's Valve for ya'. Their games always crashed but their sheer greatness speak for themselves.

Good water but really, really flat, actually too flat for my taste and doesn't even have real-time reflections???, if all else isn't there:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7jQ0OsyUEyI

Also the new Portal 2 water is also really impressive, its rather 3-layered I believe, a step up from L4D2:

Portal 2 Water Effects:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eyOEWRZiSII&feature=fvw

While seeing that mostly everything from trees to characters to props and environment are really low-poly, I truly believe they should step-up the more killer aspects of their engine like visual physics... be it cloth or water, but should be visual, thats what GPUs are for, right?

 

[Neb]

They've done the water texture multi-layered That is what they've done within L4D2 for shadows, although I've learned that even that water effect got glitched sooo much, there are forums flooded with the problem, amazing for that but that's Valve for ya'. Their games always crashed but their sheer greatness speak for themselves.

I have have 5 of their games and neither one has ever crashed with or without mods. Cant say anything about L4D series though.

Good water but really, really flat, actually too flat for my taste and doesn't even have real-time reflections???, if all else isn't there:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7jQ0OsyUEyI

It has realtime reflections or you havent set it to highest settings for your video. I assume you played it or is it someone elses video? If it reflects everything I dont know but previous games do (read below).

HL2/Orange Box on PC has water reflecting everything on water in realtime aswell as particle effects.

Also being flat water doesn't mean it is bad technically. By you highly praised U2 water is 2D surface with simple low-res riple shader. Still looks good except IMO ocean water in train scene for example (low-res, static reflection using cubemap and awful shading).

Also the new Portal 2 water is also really impressive, its rather 3-layered I believe, a step up from L4D2:

Portal 2 Water Effects:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eyOEWRZiSII&feature=fvw

Yes it looks very nice.

While seeing that mostly everything from trees to characters to props and environment are really low-poly,...

You see wrong then, characters have upwards 20-40k polygons. That is not bad, also environment has fairly standard polygon budget. While nothing spectacular so in comparision is barely any console game I've seen talking about polygon budgets (talking about 'AAA' ones). Just take a look at screenshot and weapon for example, thats quite a big budget there for weapons to model all those curved surfaces.

...I truly believe they should step-up the more killer aspects of their engine like visual physics... be it cloth or water, but should be visual, thats what GPUs are for, right?

Thats up to them, GPUs or CPUs have been doing such stuff for long time. In very advanced form you got some early IIRC 2005 year PhysX games. But it seems they so far have limited themselves to lowest common denominator be it low-end budget PCs or 360/PS3 perfomance. hardware on PC been ready for the heavy stuff since 2005 and several games already uses it since years ago in different form be it water, smoke etc mainly in PhysX GPU/CPU accelerated games.

 

[Neb]

BTW, this was something I noticed in Crysis 2 as well (in this game the water looked good): when some water fountains (can be even seen in the vids, when they are outside on the roof) hit the ground...no splash or anything happens...looks kind of weird, especially compared to the otherwise good looking water/physics stuff. But I suppose that this is work in progress as they had lots of details otherwise in this game...

Yeah the water stream particle effect lacked a splash with makes it look strange when hitting ground. Cant understand why they would cut out splash effect for it yet have a fairly particle rich water stream.

But in Crysis games the water in say fountains, rivers etc where fairly good to very good quality (depends on area) with nice rippling, chromatic aberattion effect etc and dynamic ripples around your body/camera (ripple shading, not splashes "ripple" effect). Though they didn't reflect surroundings. Their reflections working in such way that it would draw everything reflected in 3D doubling rendering load for reflected area. Even better is their rain shader with material and characters getting wet with rain drops pouring down their body and ripple/water effect on leveled surfaces was in awfully high resolution and quality, you could even zoom in and it was still tremendously detailed.

Though obviously the ocean is the most impressive part with the complex shading, effects, FFT, geometry budget, shading draw distance etc. I assume Crysis 2 will do same. I really hope devs switch to CE3, as water tech there is nothing coming even close of doing all the tech effects CE2/CE3 does in Crysis games for surface and underwater.

 

[AlNom]

Cant understand why they would cut out splash effect for it yet have a fairly particle rich water stream.

While it is an additional load to fillrate/blending, it could just be unfinished work. I mean, even Bioshock 1 folks spent some time trying to get it looking adequate. (There's a presentation floating *ahem* around somewhere on art & tech.)

Their reflections working in such way that it would draw everything reflected in 3D doubling rendering load for reflected area.

mm... yeah. That'd require an additional buffer and more pixel work... even worse if you're going to do explosions/smoke in there too.

 

[Neb]

While it is an additional load to fillrate/blending, it could just be unfinished work. I mean, even Bioshock 1 folks spent some time trying to get it looking adequate. (There's a presentation floating *ahem* around somewhere on art & tech.)

If it is load then they better cut down on something else that doesn't stick out as much. Going to check out presentation, thanks.

mm... yeah. That'd require an additional buffer and more pixel work... even worse if you're going to do explosions/smoke in there too.

Yeah the ocean alone is already a killer reflection wise. Since it reflects everything one can see how much reflections impact perfomance by disabling them. If using configs with extended LOD ranges it's a must to reduce water reflection update rate a bit from default or one ends up with millions of polygons and lots of shading on the reflections alone per frame!

 

[ps2rocks]

Nebula, to a certain extent that is right, the settings really aren't that high in that L4D2 vid, but considering that equivalent to even the likes of some big console hitters lately would not be justifiable. HL2 tech is what it is, its old and its plain, not bad by any standard, but not thwarting any big console hitter as well, and that includes L4D2's PC version as well.

Also I've played only two Valve games: HL1 and HL2, and both have been serious glitch-fests, especially the second one, pretty as it may be but damn it had its share of grudges, from graphical to stage-ending glitches etc.

Also being flat water doesn't mean it is bad technically. By you highly praised U2 water is 2D surface with simple low-res ripple shader. Still looks good except IMO ocean water in train scene for example (low-res, static reflection using cubemap and awful shading).

Obviously its not bad at all, Mafia 2 etc really have amazing looking water and stuff though it ends up being a texture detail, thats all.
OK I don't know low res ripple-shader in U2, the point where Drake jumps into that swimming pool, it was like megaton kick-ass, totally can't make of low-res stuff, and also that having a 80k character model in there with other physics flying around and huge draw-distances, tangible vegetation in really amazing looking jungle etc etc, and especially that organic-collision-deformation like "moving-platforms" with shifting physics... its a wonder they even bothered about considering water interactions(more questions for Valve being on PC) and damn that U2 water with real-time reflections, proper transparency and that 'ripple' effects is certainly a 1up+, obviously questioning what Valve and lots of other PC devs have been doing with so called ultra-powerful GPUs except higher resolutions.
Also I do wonder why even that low-res, static reflection using cubemap and awful shading as in that train sequence of U2 is not employed in any PC big-hitters for the ocean... even when everyone points out the blandness of a lot of 'em there?