ZOE2 tgs trailer

[Bowie]

The Shenhua cinema and face demo use two different models. The proof is in the ears. In the cinema, the curves in the inner part of the ear is just a texture. In the face demo, the ear is fully polygonal. I just checked this a few minutes ago.


As for this Shenmue versus SH3 debate, all I'm going to say is SH3 is using stencil buffered volumetric shadows which require the scene to be rendered in two passes. So even if the Shenmue face demo has as many polygons as a character in SH3, SH3 is still doing more than double the polygons due to multi-pass rendering. In the SH3 trailer, there's even a section where the entire scene is multi-texture procedural textured. Shenmue is pretty much single-textured.

SEGA's PR department has never used high res 1506x1147 devkit fb grabs running at 5 fps for any of their games and try to pass them off as something you see on your tv screen at home

Here's some 1920x1080 and 1280x960 shots from Sega's PR department:

ftp://ftp.accesspr.com/PUBLIC/Sega/Sega_Games/Microsoft_Xbox/Panzer_Dragoon_Orta/
ftp://ftp.accesspr.com/PUBLIC/Sega/...Xbox/ToeJam_and_EarlIII/Screenshots_04_29_02/

 

[PC-Engine]

I wouldn't consider something on a ftp server mass marketing material

 

[Guest]

PC, obviously you have not seen the PDO PR screenshots SEGA released...have you?

 

[Bowie]

You do realize that most files on the internet are accessible through ftp?

 

[Guest]

For those who are interested, here is the direct feed SH3 trailer. Reccomended to right click and save as.
http://stream.zdnet.co.jp/gamespot/movies/silent-h3/silent-hill3.wmv

 

[marconelly!]

I wouldn't call walking blobs high poly

They definitely look higher poly than characters in shenmue.

SEGA's PR department has never used high res 1506x1147 devkit fb grabs running at 5 fps for any of their games and try to pass them off as something you see on your tv screen at home

...when was the last time you checked some of the screenshots from their dev teams?

I'd suggest starting here:

http://gamespot.com/gamespot/filters/products/screenindex/0,11104,537421,00.html

And no, it's not an FTP server, it's a Gamespot page that everyone visits when looking for that game.

Laa-Yosh KNOWS what he's talking about and he also knows what I'm talking about too. Also I trust his judgement because I myself am also an artist. It takes a special eye to see beyond the surface. The sad fact is, some people have it, some people don't..there's really no need to explaing further

Oh, please, now you're pulling the good old 'holier than thou' act, after just about every your argument is shot down in flames. Well, for your information, I'm a professional graphics designer and know a 'thing or two' about 3D animation and art in general. Texture art is, of course, one of the things that must be accounted for here, but is by no means the only or even the most prevalent one.

 

[PC-Engine]

Marketing material is given out. It doesn't require someone to look for it We're comparing Shenmue anyway so the point is moot unless you consider those AM2 shots high rez

BTW, Bowie is correct about the textured ear, however the rest of the model has the same detail as seen in the 4 shots I posted. The intro cutscene is rendering a HUGH landscape btw so it's still a very high poly scene.

Bowie, regarding SH3, do you have some kind of proof to backup the info you posted?

Oh, please, now you're pulling the good old 'holier than thou' act, after just about every your argument is shot down in flames. Well, for your information, I'm a professional graphics designer and know a 'thing or two' about 3D animation and art in general. Texture art is, of course, one of the things that must be accounted for here, but is by no means the only or even the most prevalent one.

If you go back and read my original argument, I said the head demos are comparable to the cutscenes in SH3. The poly counts are about the same and the texture resolution is about the same. The MAJOR difference is the lighting and ART. SH3 is going for realism while Shenmue is going for a cartoon look. It's plainly obvious to any person with formal art training. Even the shape of the head demos are cartoonish let alone the bright colors. I've also said the old man in SH3 looks better than the head demos, but not THAT much better. Stripping away the art style doesn't change the number of polys or the resolution of the textures. It does take away the WOW factor. If you can't see beyond the surface then that's your problem

BTW were you able to tell the difference between the 4 shots I posted BEFORE reading Bowie's post? Probably not

 

[marconelly!]

Marketing material is given out. It doesn't require someone to look for it

Pardon me, but if every single web site has marketing material that was given out to them, and if that marketing material consists of very high res antialiased pictures, what is your point again

Perhaps you would like a special Sega courier delivering their marketing material to your door?

The MAJOR difference is the lighting, that's it.

Lighting, shadowing, multitexturing... It's more like you're not looking below the surface.

 

[PC-Engine]

We were comparing Shenmue not PDO so I should've restricted the PR comments to Shenmue though which doesn't apply anyway

Regarding shadows and multitexturing, taking away the shadows from the old man scene isn't going to change it's WOW factor so adding it doesn't contribute to it either. So what do you have left? Art style and lighting. I don't see any multitexturing btw. Please point me to the screen shot that proves it to be the case 8)

 

[Guest]

marc, thats his opinions so no point trying to force a change or anything.
Anyway, just download the direct feed trailer of SH3 people. It looks good.

I wonder PC, how does this look to you then? Are you gonna be impress with the Aki rendered head?

 

[VNZ]

Out of curiosity; What is the main point the pro-Shenmue camp is trying to prove here?

The aesthetic issue is obviously quite subjective and can be argued on ad infinitum. Technically, though, there is obviously no way the Dreamcast can cope with what's going on in the SH3 trailer, given that the scenes are rendered on a 640*480 framebuffer at 30fps (ofcourse these shots are rendered at higher rez, something that unfortunelately is becoming the norm, but as long as the SH3 engine renders with 2x horizontal interpolation it's Dreamcast image quality anyway).

 

[PC-Engine]

Yes FFTSW is very impressive indeed on all fronts. I have the DVD and have watched it countless times

However, I'm also very impressed with other CG animated movies like Shrek, Ants, TS1&2. I don't consider FFTSW technically superior to these movies though. FFTSW does what it was designed to very well and that was to approximate realism in the characters and environments. The other CG movies have their own unique artistic style to them too which I like. The quality of art shouldn't be restricted to realism though. If it was, the art world would be very boring. I like variety..doesn't everyone? 8)

Out of curiosity; What is the main point the pro-Shenmue camp is trying to prove here?

The aesthetic issue is obviously quite subjective and can be argued on ad infinitum. Technically, though, there is obviously no way the Dreamcast can cope with what's going on in the SH3 trailer, given that the scenes are rendered on a 640*480 framebuffer at 30fps (ofcourse these shots are rendered at higher rez, something that unfortunelately is becoming the norm, but as long as the SH3 engine renders with 2x horizontal interpolation it's Dreamcast image quality anyway).

Let me recap for you if I may. Basically my original response to the SH3 shots was that it was unimpressive to ME because after having seen Shenmue over 2 years ago. I further explained that the head demos were of comparable quality (not better) to the SH3 cutscene characters running on a console that was 1/3 the power of PS2. Not only that but the fact that the latest and greatest (SH3) isn't looking that much better in terms of technical achievement. I conceided that the ART style was the main contributing factor that gave SH3 it's edge over Shenmue. My opinion was that SH3 looks realistic mostly because of style which is the same reason Shenmue looks cartoony.

 

[marconelly!]

Basically my original response to the SH3 shots was that it was impressive to ME because after having seen Shenmue over 2 years ago

Whoops, Freudian slip

 

[PC-Engine]

Basically my original response to the SH3 shots was that it was impressive to ME because after having seen Shenmue over 2 years ago

Whoops, Freudian slip

Now..now let's not start nitpicking

 

[Bowie]

Here's the algorithm that SH3 uses for stencil buffered shadows:

http://www.sgi.com/software/opengl/advanced96/node48.html

As you can see, it takes quite a lot of work to do because the CPU has to create the shadow volumes and the scene has to be rendered twice.

As for the procedural texturing I was talking about. Download the trailer that chap posted and watch at 4:00. You can see the walls, the character, and the monster are covered by animated blood.

http://stream.zdnet.co.jp/gamespot/movies/silent-h3/silent-hill3.wmv

 

[marconelly!]

Bowie, are you sure SH3 doesn't use something else for it's shadows? I'm asking that only because I think that with stencil buffered shadows you cannot get soft shadow edges? Or perhaps I've mixed that with projected shadows?

Blargh, so many shadow algorithms, I wish someone would list them all and explain how they work and their good/bad sides.

 

[Bowie]

marc, both Fafalada and Crazyace say that SH3 is using stencil buffered shadow volumes and that's what it looks like to me too. It's possible to get soft shadowing by rendering the shadow volumes multiple times slightly offset from each other and blending them. I don't know if this is the way that SH3 is doing it though. There's probably other ways. Shadow mapping can also do soft shadows but it requires using the Z-buffer as a texture and I don't know if the PS2 supports that. I know that GC and Xbox do.

 

[VNZ]

The graphical leap that Dreamcast represented have yet to be beaten, that's for certain. It really was the 'MegaDrive' (or PC Engine rather! ) of the 3D generation, taking the current graphic style to a new level in terms of speed, color richness, definition etc. That said, looking at the DC games that floored you ~2 years ago today is quite disappointing - very much including Shenmue which has aged shockingly bad.. Soul Calibur impresses still, rather artistically than technically I guess.

The real kicks of the new consoles are mainly coming from graphic tricks / cinematic effects that the Dreamcast weren't up to. Silent Hill 3 (and the main topic here, the totally insane ZOE2) being a perfect example with its grain, depth of field, fog, self shadowing etc. I think they are as much a contributor to the overall great look of SH3 as the artwork. And ultimately, SH3 could be done on the Dreamcast without those effects, I'm sure.

 

[Vince]

marc, both Fafalada and Crazyace say that SH3 is using stencil buffered shadow volumes and that's what it looks like to me too.

Quick question, Does Stencil Buffering involve texture usage? Wouldn't that be an 'application/feature' thats accelerated at 2400Mpixel/sec - ie. It doesn't need a TCU. So, whats the preformance hit if it's using the 8 pipelines that do not have posess texturing ability?

 

[PC-Engine]

I totally agree about the special effect's ability to add to the overall presentation of a game. I'd also like to reiterate what Laa-Yosh said about the evolution of content creation tools which has gained some significant advances in the last 3 years. I'm pretty confident that if AM2 had the latest tools to work with today that they can definately up the graphic level on Shenmue even further...how far I don't know

Hopefully the next generation of consoles will impress me as much as the jump from PSX to DC, but I doubt it since we're already at the point of diminishing returns.