ZOE2 tgs trailer

[zidane1strife]

Hey if we're gonna go praising old h/w why not bring in the psx and n64... i mean many of the late psx/n64 title can still pass off as cheapo next gen games....

 

[Johnny Awesome]

PC-Engine:

Don't bother anymore. PS2 fans don't want to admit that the PS2 is deficient in areas it shouldn't be. The Shenmue head demos are comparable to the Silent Hill 3 cutscenes. Anyone who can't see that is blind. The in-game graphics in Shenmue are a mixed bag, but there is more detail in the texturing than in Silent Hill 3. That's not suprising, given the DC's great VQ compression.

I'll be the first to admit that the average PS2 game has finally risen above the average DC game in terms of visuals, but the best on both platforms are still quite comparable, depending on your tastes. Sonic Adventure 2, Ecco, Shenmue, and PSO are all extremely nice looking games. Of course the PS2 is better at geometry and lighting, which PS2 fans focus on while ingoring the worse texturing.

But at least Silent Hill 3 and ZOE2 have given PS2 owners something positive to compare to Shenmue. Now they don't have to fall back on their previous favorite: "But where is the gameplay? Graphics aren't everything you know" argument regarding Shenmue.

Someone like me would say the same thing about SH3.

 

[Guest]

PC-Engine:

Don't bother anymore. PS2 fans don't want to admit that the PS2 is deficient in areas it shouldn't be. The Shenmue head demos are comparable to the Silent Hill 3 cutscenes. Anyone who can't see that is blind. The in-game graphics in Shenmue are a mixed bag, but there is more detail in the texturing than in Silent Hill 3. That's not suprising, given the DC's great VQ compression.

I'll be the first to admit that the average PS2 game has finally risen above the average DC game in terms of visuals, but the best on both platforms are still quite comparable, depending on your tastes. Sonic Adventure 2, Ecco, Shenmue, and PSO are all extremely nice looking games. Of course the PS2 is better at geometry and lighting, which PS2 fans focus on while ingoring the worse texturing.

But at least Silent Hill 3 and ZOE2 have given PS2 owners something positive to compare to Shenmue. Now they don't have to fall back on their previous favorite: "But where is the gameplay? Graphics aren't everything you know" argument regarding Shenmue.

Someone like me would say the same thing about SH3.

*yawnzz* where is Mr Big Rolleyes when you need him.
Bitter DC fanboys are scary, very scary.

 

[marconelly!]

The Shenmue head demos are comparable to the Silent Hill 3 cutscenes.

The Shenmue head demos are also comparable to Final Fantasy TSW renders. Not favorably if I can say

The in-game graphics in Shenmue are a mixed bag, but there is more detail in the texturing than in Silent Hill 3.

Sorry, but...

SH2 already had better textures than Shenmue. If you have an Xbox version, you can see that for yourself, as it's virtually identical to PS2 SH2, except for the vertex lighting on the walls.

 

[PC-Engine]

Someone like me would say the same thing about SH3.

indeed Shenmue does so many things in addition to the graphics that it's not even funny.

I love it that people still think the DC is more powerful than the PS2.

Umm..learn how to read other's posts. Nobody is claiming DC as more powerful. It's only 1/3 as powerful. Again learn how to read

Marconelly, SH2 and SH3 isn't even rendering the same level of environmental density. The neighborhoods in Shenmue are PACKED very densely and consists of a variety of textures. There are trees, fences, balconies, stairs, shrubs, telephone poles, street lights, bicycles, cars, vending machines, bubble gum machines, and the list goes on and on. The outdoor environments in SH are so sparse it's not even funny. The DRAW distances at the dock stage in Shenmue are HUGE with no popup and no fog! The areas in SH are TINY compared to Shenmue's. Texturing one building and texturing an entire neighborhood are two totally different cases. Anyway enough of my rambling 8)

 

[wazoo]

I'm currently playing through Shenmue2, something a lot of people here will/have not done. The game is extremely impressive in motion due to its sheer variety of textures and the wonderful art direction. Now, when you froze the game, things tend to be much worse. But a game is not meant to be frozen so that is ok.

Gameplay wise, I've much reservations, but that is not the topic.

 

[zurich]

SH2 already had better textures than Shenmue. If you have an Xbox version, you can see that for yourself, as it's virtually identical to PS2 SH2, except for the vertex lighting on the walls.

Xbox version has perpixel lighting, sharper textures, and more realistic fog. I have both

zurich

 

[marconelly!]

Xbox version has perpixel lighting, sharper textures, and more realistic fog. I have both

Can you tell me what is the difference in fog? From what I've seen of Xbox version (I don't have it) it looked just the same... And I definitely couldn't see any difference in texturing as they both looked great :\

The only thing I've really noticed in Xbox version was perpixel lighting on the walls and worse FMV quality.

 

[zurich]

Eh, hard to explain, you have to see it in motion. The fog just seemed to be smoother and have more depth. The shadowmaps are also slightly higher res on the Xbox too. I wouldn't believe the GIA thing on the FMV quality, because its virtually indistinguishable. One place where the Xbox version does suffer though, ironically, is load times. Go figure.

zurich

 

[marconelly!]

I've played xbox version, but very briefly, and didn't have the ps2 side by side to compare. so I guess I noticed only the most obvious things.

I don't know what's GIA, but FMVs definitely looked worse - compression artifacts were quite obvious in places and it run at what looked like 30FPS, while ps2 FMVs in that game look like 60FPS, which I thought was unusual.

 

[Laa-Yosh]

Being a 3D artist to make a living, I thought I'd drop in a few comments.

The Shenmue tech demos have a cartoonish look to them, however they have quite a lot of polygons and high res textures too. They look a bit like the FF8 cutscene characters; so this is a question of style. A more realistic look could be achived with these possibilities - the old man face linked on the previous page has a detail level that's at least comparable to the SH3 models.

SH3, on the other hand, has a more realistic style and very high quality art created for it. It would, however, lose a bit of its coolness in motion, as all the smaller details are static, painted in the texture - as far as I can see, there aren't any specular maps and obviously no bump mapping there either. The only thing that it can beat the Dreamcast in is the lighting - this is some very nice vertex lighting, better than the standard OpenGL stuff I could get in, say, a Maya or Max shaded viewport.

So, I'd say that it is the art that makes SH3 look dramatically better for me - and based on the general perception here, many of you have the same opinion. Keep in mind though, that the content creation tools have evolved a lot in the past 3 years as well. Most PCs can beat even the top-notch SGI Octane workstations in performance, and the capabilities of 3D applications have leveraged as well. In terms of modeling and texturing, a cheap PC with a copy of Lightwave ( $1500) or Maya (2000$) can go a lot further than the 10.000$ Alias Poweranimator back in the nineties. Artists are more experienced as well, so they are capable of delivering more and better looking content in the same time. I'm quite confident, that given the same Dreamcast hardware, a tech demo produced today would be able to look a lot better and very similar to the SH3 characters. Obviously the DC would not be able to recreate whole scenes, but a single textured face should not be a problem.

So, IMHO it is the style and quality of the art in SH3 that makes the real difference. Oh, and I have a hard time believing that it runs on a PS2 )

 

[Ozymandis]

Since we are talking about Unlimited Saga too. i Like to say that the 2 Saga games i played on PS1 are tad underwhelming.
Very very pretty artwork, but fragmentated gameplay and story.

But they still sold incredibly well. Which is kind of funny.

I don't think that SaGa Frontier was a terrible RPG, but it wasn't good either. I have yet to pick up SF II, I'm going to look for it this weekend I think.

 

[marconelly!]

It would, however, lose a bit of its coolness in motion

It's exactly the opposite IMO, as the animation is really well done. That particular scene with the old man looks really good in the trailer. Also, I think specular highlights are used in places. It looks like girl's jacket has them, and some other places too?

Shenmue face demos are obviously very detailed and well done, but that's all the machine is rendering in them - one head and part of a torso. There's much more going on in SH3 than that.

 

[Laa-Yosh]

It's exactly the opposite IMO, as the animation is really well done. That particular scene with the old man looks really good in the trailer. Also, I think specular highlights are used in places. It looks like girl's jacket has them, and some other places too?

Speculars there might be, but I can see no sign of specular/gloss maps. What I meant was that when the character moves, you can see that the little wrinkles, bumps and such are painted and thus their shading is static.

Shenmue face demos are obviously very detailed and well done, but that's all the machine is rendering in them - one head and part of a torso.

Yes, obviously the PS2 has a lot more power... It's just that there's no big technological leap, but a nice increase in performance between the DC techdemo and the PS2 game (although the vertex lighting is very nice).

 

[marconelly!]

I agree, the lighting is one of the biggest differences, although I think the actual biggest difference is how the shadows work in the game. They are done very realistically, shadows closer to object casting them look harder than those farther away, and apparently, everything casts shadows on everything. Very nice, IMO

I would also like to see the way light affects gasseous objects for myself, as the trailer does not show that

 

[mech]

Umm..learn how to read other's posts. Nobody is claiming DC as more powerful. It's only 1/3 as powerful. Again learn how to read

Marconelly, SH2 and SH3 isn't even rendering the same level of environmental density. The neighborhoods in Shenmue are PACKED very densely and consists of a variety of textures. There are trees, fences, balconies, stairs, shrubs, telephone poles, street lights, bicycles, cars, vending machines, bubble gum machines, and the list goes on and on. The outdoor environments in SH are so sparse it's not even funny. The DRAW distances at the dock stage in Shenmue are HUGE with no popup and no fog! The areas in SH are TINY compared to Shenmue's. Texturing one building and texturing an entire neighborhood are two totally different cases. Anyway enough of my rambling 8)

You criticize me on my ability to be able to read posts, and then post exactly what I was talking about.

As well as stuff from Johnny Awesome like:

The in-game graphics in Shenmue are a mixed bag, but there is more detail in the texturing than in Silent Hill 3.

You guys are claiming there's better texturing on Shenmue...

Shenmue had very average textures. They were fairly varied, but in many cases very blurry (what was with his jacket?) and they shimmered like a bitch. I hear many DC fanboys criticizing PS2 for its image quality, but Shenmue was one of the lower quality DC titles. It shimmered, it sparkled, it had terrible pop-in, and slowdown.

There wasn't that much background detail in Shenmue either btw...

Go watch the Zoe 2 trailer. Hell, go play TTT, a first gen PS2 title, to see graphics more pleasing to the eye than Shenmue.

 

[Logan Leonhart]

I still can´t believe that fans of that overrated hardware are still claiming Shenmue looks better. The flaw in logic is that DC is only rendering a head, what about the rest?. They claim "pop in the passport disc", I claim, pop in the real game, and it doesn´t even look close to those head demos, in either the cutscenes or gameplay. Maybe STRICTLY the heads look comparable to SH3´s in the head demo, but you would never, EVER see that quality of poligon detail in a real game on the DC. And you´re seeing it on PS2, end of the story. Your argument is as stupid as me saying that I can no longer be impressed by CG graphics after seeing FF:TSW. It´s not opinion it´s blindness.

 

[randycat99]

My beloved 3D0 could pull off a better looking eyeball than the one in that old man picture! I am unimpressed with any CG that has come since the 3D0 ruled the Earth.

 

[Johnny Awesome]

Apples = Apples. Not oranges. Just so you know Logan.

 

[PC-Engine]

Has Konami's PR department released any shots of the old man INGAME instead of cutscene? I wonder why

Fact: character models INGAME for SH3 is less detailed than the cutscenes just like they are in Shenmue. Like Laa Yosh (professional artist) said, nice art = more impressive. Lighting is better in SH3 though, but everyone expected that