Ok here are some preliminary shots. I'll post a zoomed out shot with a directional light source later. I'll also go into more detail explaining what animations are occuring etc. and compare them with some different SH3 shots that are easier to compare. Gotta go now. Keep in mind that these are from a monitor through my camera. Not highres devkit, or a capture card.
Shenmue:
1. Real time movable camera
2. Real time movable light source
3. Fine hair animates very nicely
4. Demo includes detailed torso and background.
5. Polygon detail is very close to SH3.
6. Lighting is not as good as SH3..expected
7. No self shadowing not a hardware limitation IMO. Developer decision.
SH3:
1. High res devkit images resampled down and antialiased
2. Cutscene with no movable camera or light source.
3. Polygon detail is sparse in some places like the guys ears.
4. Hair does not animate.
5. LOD is used when camera zooms out to allow two fairly detailed characters in cutscene. Interior of car is low poly, low texture detail.
Ok so after examining these pics, is it really unreasonable for any person to be unimpressed by the cutscene in SH3? DC has aproximately 1/3 the processing power of PS2. It came out 18 months before PS2 and used older technology. Shenmue has been out for over 2 years. SH3 isn't even out yet. If I hadn't seen Shenmue over 2 years ago, I would've been very impressed by the cutscene in SH3
Anyway here are a couple shots of the game environment. The color pallete was a developer decision so that's why it looks so vibrant and unrealistic. Again this is a DC game not GC not Xbox
The environments in SH3 aren't that much better than Shenmue either which is surprising considering the PS2 is 3 times more powerful than DC. I think it's pretty obvious why I'm not impressed by SH3, Halo 2, and Doom III
Comments are welcome 8)
