Development Blog Update - Anatomy of a Scene

Max

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c0ke

so cool.. i wanna see 'em movin'!

TempesT487

Looked cool I suppose.

I looked really hard but couldn't see a Lerk in the video... Hmm I'll keep searching.

Atone

Not nearly as meaty as I had hoped, but still very shiny :p

psykotik

It was cool I suppose, but I was expecting something completely different.

JAmazon

You guys are a tough crowd :P I thoroughly enjoyed it and tried my best to keep track of the subtle changes that occurred as each facet of the image was put in place. My favorite was the specular map because it made the marines look like angry smurfs! :D

Pyromaniac

Cool to see. I kind of like the look of it without the atmospheric dust better.

Triggerman

And that is what is used <i>in-game</i>?

*dies*

And how exactly am I going to afford getting the right computer for all that?
I'm still amazed, thanks for the insight, the amount of rendering needed to get the final result is staggering to say the least.

Or well at least I think so >_>

moultano

It always amazes me how much is done in screen-space these days. Do you expect those of us with older graphics cards to need to turn off some of these buffers for performance reasons?

Tekoppen

Very nice! It's nice to see all the work put together for one single picture :P

Chris0132

Never heard of gloss maps before, interesting idea, most games just use one predefined glossiness as far as I know, being able to blend between blinn and lambert and whatnot using a texture might be cool.

Glad you're using AO too, it adds so much to a scene without requiring any more effort from the designer.

Epiclanding

I liked it, but i was hoping too see some animations

locallyunscene

Sooo purty.

noncomposmentis

Really interesting. I always enjoy Max posts. I'm curious about the comparative expense of each pass. Ambient Occlusion <i>really</i> sells the lighting but does it cost a lot of time? What about the atmospheric pass? Very impressive anyway.

dux

There isn't really enough time available any more to do any vidcasts or podcasts I don't think. With the amount max is having to code at the moment I'm surprised he isn't dead.

NeoSniper

I enjoyed this update. Thanks for the "under-the-kimono" showing Max.

I don't think the computer requirements are as beefy as some of you think. If you can run Source (TF2 & L4D) well enough then you can run this well enough. Source Orange Box has a bunch of subtle layers too, but it scales well. I'm guessing this engine is going to be very scalable, but with all of this nice layers it will have long legs :)

Actually this engine does seem to have MORE better effects, but it could also be more optimized as it is newer.

QUESTION: Can the Atmospheric effects be used to create really foggy/dusty rooms where your flashlight would emit a subtle beam and cone effect? And can this dense fog affect draw distance? If not is there another effect that does?

EDIT
<!--quoteo(post=1730353:date=Oct 2 2009, 07:16 PM:name=dux)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (dux @ Oct 2 2009, 07:16 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1730353"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->There isn't really enough time available any more to do any vidcasts or podcasts I don't think. With the amount max is having to code at the moment I'm surprised he isn't dead.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->Yeah, pls take care of him. He's too important! If someone comes in to take a hostage... don't give them Max! Give them some artist or something ;P

Cereal_KillR

Oooh shiny

Atone

<!--quoteo(post=1730353:date=Oct 3 2009, 12:16 AM:name=dux)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (dux @ Oct 3 2009, 12:16 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1730353"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->There isn't really enough time available any more to do any vidcasts or podcasts I don't think. With the amount max is having to code at the moment I'm surprised he isn't dead.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

Working hard for a Halloween alpha.

/falsehope :p

pSyk0mAn

<!--quoteo(post=1730353:date=Oct 3 2009, 02:16 AM:name=dux)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (dux @ Oct 3 2009, 02:16 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1730353"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->There isn't really enough time available any more to do any vidcasts or podcasts I don't think. With the amount max is having to code at the moment I'm surprised he isn't dead.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
The Chosen One can't die.

Anyway, this was very interesting, thanks a lot.

I'm also curious, which of these details can be tuned or disabled depending on the PC and the "pro-ness" of the player to get an advantage.

XeZo

Omg thats awesome..
But what am I going to do?

Should I get another Geforce 260 GTX just because I can, even though I know the one I already have is gonna be more than enough? :O

Nima_

Looking awesome Max, always an inspiration!

Sirot

I wonder what the second programming is doing. Hopefully that will remove some pressure from Max.

yEnS

Aww ######, that's amazing.

I am one of the "eh that's a render" people. Really good work!

JAmazon

All the crazy post processing that's done on the renders is probably what makes the engine so damn scalable. I would imagine its very easy to just tell it to do less lighting passes with huge performance gains for lower end PCs. Oh and have you considered chemical *ahem* help for Max? I've heard that methamphetamine can keep you up for days!

schkorpio

nice work Max! :D

remi

<!--quoteo(post=1730381:date=Oct 2 2009, 05:37 PM:name=JAmazon)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (JAmazon @ Oct 2 2009, 05:37 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1730381"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->All the crazy post processing that's done on the renders is probably what makes the engine so damn scalable. I would imagine its very easy to just tell it to do less lighting passes with huge performance gains for lower end PCs. Oh and have you considered chemical *ahem* help for Max? I've heard that methamphetamine can keep you up for days!<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I imagine you would crash pretty hard / burn out though, so long term productivity would actually be lower.

I also find it amazing how much can be done in real-time. It's amazing to me that you can get it working so fast considering how slow the render I'm writing for my gfx class goes, and considering the sheer number of calculations being done for these lighting effects.

steppin'razor

Keep up the hard work boys, these updates are sustaining me... just

SentrySteve

so that is or isn't what a player will experience when playing the game? You mentioned a "rendering system" in your engine so I assume this is different from what players will see in the actual game.

Sirot

<!--quoteo(post=1730390:date=Oct 3 2009, 12:28 AM:name=SentrySteve)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (SentrySteve @ Oct 3 2009, 12:28 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1730390"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->so that is or isn't what a player will experience when playing the game? You mentioned a "rendering system" in your engine so I assume this is different from what players will see in the actual game.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

This is actual in game. Rendering is getting things appear in the game. Pre-rendering is the thing you are thinking that we see in promo shots of games.

Rokiyo

Very good... Thumbs up.

Zeno

And all this is repeated +-40 times a second? Wow
Great work, Max.