People are claiming it can handle outdoor areas just fine, but I'm going to have to see it to believe it. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> In addition, the 'outdoor' scenes that occured were hardly expansive.
Anyone want to make an outdoor level for Doom3 and see how it behaves? <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> I'll be back - I know where there's a pretty impressive piece of scenery in Doom 3 (I think... I only saw it once <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/biggrin-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin-fix.gif' /><!--endemo-->)
<!--QuoteBegin-MedHead+Aug 24 2004, 02:15 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (MedHead @ Aug 24 2004, 02:15 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> <!--QuoteBegin-Crono5788+Aug 24 2004, 01:58 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Crono5788 @ Aug 24 2004, 01:58 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> To me, the most outstanding thing out of either of the engines: The computer consoles in D3. HL2 might be capable of doing it, but D3 already did it, and damned if it's not the coolest thing I've ever seen. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> You mean the computer buttons you can use to open doors, or the PDA?
Oh, and just to clarify: I think Half-Life 2 will be good too. I tire of hearing the complaints against Doom 3, which is a good game as well, just because it doesn't bear the Lambda symbol. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> The door-opening consoles.
<!--QuoteBegin-Soylent green+Aug 24 2004, 02:35 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Soylent green @ Aug 24 2004, 02:35 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> [1] The biggest and only fear element in doom 1 is panick, being surrounded by hordes of evil demons and zombies and too little ammo to carelessly shoot them all. Playing doom on nightmare with loud music feels allmost like meditating.
[2] In doom 3 you hardly have any puzzles at all, it's just find PDA, use PDA, find next PDA, use PDA. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> [1] Point well taken. However, I think it's established by the level design that it is only Doom 1 revisted, not Doom 1 reenacted.
[2]Puzzles in Doom 1 were for secret rooms. Otherwise, it was simpy "Find red key, use red key, find blue key, use blue key."
These areas are fairly... shall we say... huge. Noclipping across it took a good 30-45 seconds, and that was flying in the air. Also note that I find the terrain a lot more pleasing then the terrain in HL2 - it's smoother, more varied, and has more interesting geometry.
<!--QuoteBegin-EEK+Aug 24 2004, 07:37 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (EEK @ Aug 24 2004, 07:37 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> I hate the HL level design. I said it before, I'll say it again, it looks like HL1 maps ported into HL2 and covered with higher res textures. The geometry is pathetic, there's no detail, nothing.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->People are claiming it can handle outdoor areas just fine, but I'm going to have to see it to believe it.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
And yet you're in a **** contest over a game that's not even RELEASED yet? Besides, have you seen HL2 outdoor environments? They're nothing impressive. One of the 'new' shots shows Gordon on a grassy field being attacked by critters. The ground is lumpy and spikey. It has a very ugly grass texture on it, and it has 'environment' in the form of about three ugly little 'plant' sprites. If you want outdoor environments, go play FarCry. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> Holy zombie jesus. It's not hard to tell that HL2 can handle outdoor environments. I can watch the gameplay videos and tell that. Oh and in case you missed it the first 7 times, we're talking about the <i>technology</i> behind the games, not the games overall.
You say HL2's outdoor environments look crappy. Great, whatever. The point is that HL2 has them and Doom 3 does not. I myself won't notice it as much when I'm zooming around in the buggy/hovercraft and being attacked by a helicopter. Oh and the fact that you think Farcry does outdoor environments better doesn't change the fact that HL2 has them and Doom 3 does not.
(edit) Those shots demonstrate exactly what I'm talking about. There's always a convenient wall of rock to make the area relatively small. There are no expansive outdoor areas.
Notice how I never drop below 60 FPS rendering these. Done on a Radeon 9800 Pro. If I noclipped in the right place, I could render the better part of the entire level at around 20 FPS. That's a <span style='color:white'>creative compound word breaking the swear filter</span> of polys.
And a massive FLAT lakebed is better, that consisted of no geometry at all? The point is that in these shots I see more detail then I did in the Lakebed shots, both in terrain and the detail of structures and geometry rendered. All an outdoor area needs is a skybox, and a massive rendering view distance, and it's outdoor. Considering the sheer size of the Cyberdemon cavern, I think the view distance and LOD issue is a moot one.
And they're not that small... go out there yourself. It'll take you a good while to cross it via noclip (you can't walk on the terrain since it's supposed to be inaccessible). They're a lot bigger then they look.
Well moving away from screenshots and more towards gameplay issues I remember there being talk about Doom 3 having destroyable enviorments that would be better than HL2s because of pixle hit detections.
I don't remember being able to destroy anything other than barrels, anyone want to clarify?
I couldn't remember where that "big" outdoor picture you took was, so I just found the first outdoor area I could and took a screenshot of the rock wall. As you can see, it's really not that many polys.
I couldn't remember where that "big" outdoor picture you took was, so I just found the first outdoor area I could and took a screenshot of the rock wall. As you can see, it's really not that many polys. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> okay? what's your point? # of triangles doesn't = beauty. but, really we won't know what these engines are truly capable of until the SDKs and more games built on the engine are released.
<!--QuoteBegin-EEK+Aug 24 2004, 08:48 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (EEK @ Aug 24 2004, 08:48 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> Actually you need to do r_showtris 3 because your shot shows only a fraction of what the engine actually is seeing. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> You mean like this?
BTW: If the engine can't see it, it wouldn't be rendering the triangles now, would it? The triangles are drawn on everything the engine is showing you. I didn't see the cyberdemon with r_showtris at 3 until I got closer, then the engine drew him.
And he's right, more triangles != more beauty. That's why bumpmapping was invented - you can give the impression of more triangles without actually drawing more triangles.
And r_showtris 1 seems to have a bug or anamoly, because it won't draw past a certain point, hence why there's parts in the first one not showing lines. Maybe it's supposed to do that.
coilAmateur pirate. Professional monkey. All pance.Join Date: 2002-04-12Member: 424Members, NS1 Playtester, Contributor
edited August 2004
<!--QuoteBegin-RandomEngy+Aug 24 2004, 04:55 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (RandomEngy @ Aug 24 2004, 04:55 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> <!--QuoteBegin-EEK+Aug 24 2004, 08:48 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (EEK @ Aug 24 2004, 08:48 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> Actually you need to do r_showtris 3 because your shot shows only a fraction of what the engine actually is seeing. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> ...
Anyway, the only extra thing r_showTris 3 shows is stuff you can't see. And last time I checked, the game doesn't render things you can't see. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> Not quite accurate, if DOOM3 renders anything like HL. The engine will basically two areas. Area [A] is everything you can see, while Area [B] is everything that can be seen from any point Area [A]. That's not entirely accurate, but it's a good approximation. Basically, there's always a buffer of one "area" drawn before you reach it.
[edit] And if nothing else, EEK's shots at least show that r_showTris 1 doesn't draw everything you can see... but I'm not well-versed enough in DOOM3 (and those are damn tiny shots) to know what exactly I'm looking at.
I don't think rendering methods have evolved much over the years. If it's still using a visgraph, then it works like HL did. The engine chops the map into 'zones', and these 'zones' act as 'eyes'. Everything this 'zone' can see is drawn. If you have a long hallway with rooms branching off, and the hallway consists of only 2 zones (it's a triangle zone, so 2 makes a rectangle) it'll draw every single one of those rooms branching off since the zone you're in can see into the branched rooms, even though YOU can't see in there.
Yeah sorry about how ittybitty they are <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/biggrin-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin-fix.gif' /><!--endemo--> I had it at a higher resolution but it wasn't fond of me uploading a 300kb pic.
The gun is a plasma rifle. You can see stepping up r_showtris on your own how detailed these guns actually are. At r_showtris 3 it's got little detail crap all over it, so unfortunately it's very complex and cluttery. It would've been worse if Had the handgrenade out, since the handgrenade hands are INCREDIBLY highpoly.
I'm floating in the air with noclip, and that's the Cyberdemon firing rockets at me. At r_showtris 3 you can see him somewhat clearly since the triangles are mushed into one massive white blob, and he consists of more triangles then some HL maps have alone.
That's the hellhole in the right part of the screenshot, and I'm somewhat above the area you enter from.
EDIT: Funny thing - lots of little white lines cause image file sizes to be horribly HUGE...
<!--QuoteBegin-EEK+Aug 24 2004, 08:56 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (EEK @ Aug 24 2004, 08:56 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> Behold. 3 shots, with r_showtris at 1, 2, and 3.
BTW: If the engine can't see it, it wouldn't be rendering the triangles now, would it? I didn't see the cyberdemon with r_showtris at 3 until I got closer, then the engine drew him. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> Yes, the engine knows where those vertices are and can show a wireframe of it. However my point was that all the expensive texture rendering doesn't happen when you can't see the poly; the engine won't render it. Thus, r_showTris 3 is not the best representation of how much work the engine is actually doing.
Also: <!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->okay? what's your point? # of triangles doesn't = beauty. but, really we won't know what these engines are truly capable of until the SDKs and more games built on the engine are released.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> I was responding to his claim that it was rendering "a [whole lot of] polys." I also admit that the small outdoor areas that appear in Doom 3 look nice. As for that last one: The Cyberdemon is <i>huge</i> so he has a <i>huge</i> cave, but it's still a cave and it doesn't strike me as evidence it could do anything on the scale Farcry or HL2 show.
I couldn't remember where that "big" outdoor picture you took was, so I just found the first outdoor area I could and took a screenshot of the rock wall. As you can see, it's really not that many polys. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> That's actually pretty high-poly for terrain. Terrain in other engines (possibly HL2 included) may be a bit smoother in appearance, but the actual tri counts are pretty low, especially in big expanses, you may get quads that are upwards of 256 units in size, which, while sizes vary, is big for <i>any</i> engine.
Remember, terrain is polygons added to the level, not a character. It has to be kept very cheap for rendering to not drive the level over its pre-set poly/frame rate 'caps' (i.e. recommended limits) and also to allow enough polygons to be in the scene to keep it looking as natural as possible. Many of the UT2K4 terrain pieces, which I just opened up for reference, are under 200 polys, with the largest one in the set I saw adding up to only 430.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> I was responding to his claim that it was rendering "a [whole lot of] polys." I also admit that the small outdoor areas that appear in Doom 3 look nice. As for that last one: The Cyberdemon is huge so he has a huge cave, but it's still a cave and it doesn't strike me as evidence it could do anything on the scale Farcry or HL2 show. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
A huge cave takes twice the poly filler of a huge open terrain expanse. Poly-wise, you're probably going to have a much higher polycount or much less detail in a cave than you would using the same polys in a big open vista or something, because you have to fill all angles of the view instead of just a few.
What the hell are you expecting? An outdoor area is nothing but a cave with a sky-texture dome instead of a roof. The engine replaces that sky-texture dome with a parallax effect. Besides sheer triangle rendering capability (in the case of something like FarCry), or a very scalable LOD for terrain and objects, <b>there is nothing special about an outside area. IT WORKS JUST LIKE A VERY LARGE INDOOR ROOM.</b> In fact, a cave will be even harder to render then an outdoor area since a skybox contributes ZERO TRIANGLES to the count, a cave contributes a TON.
EDIT: Thank you KFS <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/biggrin-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin-fix.gif' /><!--endemo-->
<!--QuoteBegin-EEK+Aug 24 2004, 04:13 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (EEK @ Aug 24 2004, 04:13 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> What the hell are you expecting? An outdoor area is nothing but a cave with a sky-texture dome instead of a roof. The engine replaces that sky-texture dome with a parallax effect. Besides sheer triangle rendering capability (in the case of something like FarCry), or a very scalable LOD for terrain and objects, <b>there is nothing special about an outside area. IT WORKS JUST LIKE A VERY LARGE INDOOR ROOM.</b> In fact, a cave will be even harder to render then an outdoor area since a skybox contributes ZERO TRIANGLES to the count, a cave contributes a TON.
EDIT: Thank you KFS <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/biggrin-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin-fix.gif' /><!--endemo--> <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> But there's no lense falir <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif' /><!--endemo-->
<!--QuoteBegin-EEK+Aug 24 2004, 09:13 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (EEK @ Aug 24 2004, 09:13 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> What the hell are you expecting? An outdoor area is nothing but a cave with a sky-texture dome instead of a roof. The engine replaces that sky-texture dome with a parallax effect. Besides sheer triangle rendering capability (in the case of something like FarCry), or a very scalable LOD for terrain and objects, <b>there is nothing special about an outside area. IT WORKS JUST LIKE A VERY LARGE INDOOR ROOM.</b> In fact, a cave will be even harder to render then an outdoor area since a skybox contributes ZERO TRIANGLES to the count, a cave contributes a TON.
EDIT: Thank you KFS <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/biggrin-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin-fix.gif' /><!--endemo--> <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> Correct, everything in the end just ends up as a group of polys. However, rendering large outdoor areas has been quite a challenge for many engines that could handle indoor areas easily. Hence the "lots of really dense fog" era of gaming. There's a reason behind this. In outdoor areas you can see A LOT of crap. In these environments it's quite easy for a lot of enemies to appear on the screen at once, given the large amount of playing space the player can see. Another problem with rendering outdoor environments is making something look good up close but not kill your machine when you have to render hundreds of those areas at once. Something you see a long ways away has to look good when you're right on top of it. In the cave environment you're touting, the vast majority of what you see, you simply cannot get near. Thus they can get away with using huge polys.
Engines that can't do large outdoor environments have to resort to tricks such as limiting player visibility or player movement if they want to tackle a large area.
Doom 3 uses both tricks, leading me to believe it wasn't very good in that department.
KungFuSquirrelBasher of MuttonsJoin Date: 2002-01-26Member: 103Members, NS1 Playtester, Contributor
Let me let you in on one little secret - <i>everything</i> in game technology is tricks. <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/smile-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile-fix.gif' /><!--endemo-->
Also, I do think it's important to note that just because Doom3 uses these techniques of limiting player movement, that doesn't necessarily mean the tech can't handle it. We're talking the Martian surface here, after all, you're not really supposed to go outside into a low-pressure/low-oxygen environment, you know. <!--emo&;)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/wink-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='wink-fix.gif' /><!--endemo-->
One thing that I just noted has been left out of this entire debate, too... The true power in any game or engine is rarely shown in the first title of that engine. When a company is developing both the technology and the content, it's very difficult to really take the content to the full extent of what it can do and in some cases, the original developers may not even realize other things that can be done with their technology. We know a number of Doom3 and Source licenses are in the works, and it'll be these that really test each engine to its limits in multiple directions. We've currently seen 3 iterations of Source technology (HL2, VTM, and CS:Source) and 1 iteration of Doom3. CS:Source obviously doesn't use the Source engine to full capacity, as they are kinda limited in the scope of an MP game ported from an existing (and very popular) version. VTM looks great, but it looks fairly unimpressive compared to HL2 (as in, as good as VTM looks, HL2 just looks that much better), but there's no way to tell if that's the technology or art content. Doom3 licenses are aplenty, but nothing has been revealed of any yet.
The most dangerous thing to do is undercut either technology for 'deficienies' that are actually a result of art content/design - for example, people complaining about the heads being too blocky in Doom3 or the lack of outdoor stuff: the models could be built differently to smooth the heads, and the game design didn't call for much outdoors in the first place (and the Martian environment means you're not going to get much in the way of accessible terrain). Any discussion on either 'technology' at this point is really a debate on art content. For Source, it'll be Troika and the company that made Arx Fatalis, as well as others, who really show us what the technology can do. On the Doom side, it'll be Raven, Splash Damage, Human Head, and then any else who takes a license. Not to mention id, as their reported plan to make a short dev time game using only small tweaks to the engine (which could still be huge graphically) will give them an opportunity to focus even more on artwork and such. Either way, though, both technologies are going to bring us some very exciting things in the future. <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/smile-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile-fix.gif' /><!--endemo-->
I'm fairly certain John Carmack said several features of the Doom3 engine aren't actually used at all in the game, vehicles for example (wich will be demonstrated in the upcoming SDK). So I doubt we've seen the last of the Doom3 Engine (feature wise, apart from the huge amount of licensing games <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif' /><!--endemo-->).
The guy who wrote the article has played HL2. Apparently he went to Valve's HQ and played it there. So, i think it's a valid comparison.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Furthermore, I have actually been to Valve and playtested hl2 on numerous occasions. They explained to me that what I played was almost exactly what is planned to be released. The points made by Spaniard are pretty fair, and in my opinion, accurate.
Flame on. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Comments
People are claiming it can handle outdoor areas just fine, but I'm going to have to see it to believe it. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
In addition, the 'outdoor' scenes that occured were hardly expansive.
Anyone want to make an outdoor level for Doom3 and see how it behaves? <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
I'll be back - I know where there's a pretty impressive piece of scenery in Doom 3 (I think... I only saw it once <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/biggrin-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin-fix.gif' /><!--endemo-->)
Anyone claiming Hl2 is better than Doom 3 is a time traveler.
Anyone claiming anything good about Farcry......
Doom 3 != Hl2.
edit: Self contained fire.
You mean the computer buttons you can use to open doors, or the PDA?
Oh, and just to clarify: I think Half-Life 2 will be good too. I tire of hearing the complaints against Doom 3, which is a good game as well, just because it doesn't bear the Lambda symbol. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
The door-opening consoles.
The PDA was pretty cool, too, but the consoles...
The consoles just win.
[2] In doom 3 you hardly have any puzzles at all, it's just find PDA, use PDA, find next PDA, use PDA. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
[1] Point well taken. However, I think it's established by the level design that it is only Doom 1 revisted, not Doom 1 reenacted.
[2]Puzzles in Doom 1 were for secret rooms. Otherwise, it was simpy "Find red key, use red key, find blue key, use blue key."
Doom Outdoor 1:
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->People are claiming it can handle outdoor areas just fine, but I'm going to have to see it to believe it.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
And yet you're in a **** contest over a game that's not even RELEASED yet? Besides, have you seen HL2 outdoor environments? They're nothing impressive. One of the 'new' shots shows Gordon on a grassy field being attacked by critters. The ground is lumpy and spikey. It has a very ugly grass texture on it, and it has 'environment' in the form of about three ugly little 'plant' sprites. If you want outdoor environments, go play FarCry. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Holy zombie jesus. It's not hard to tell that HL2 can handle outdoor environments. I can watch the gameplay videos and tell that. Oh and in case you missed it the first 7 times, we're talking about the <i>technology</i> behind the games, not the games overall.
You say HL2's outdoor environments look crappy. Great, whatever. The point is that HL2 has them and Doom 3 does not. I myself won't notice it as much when I'm zooming around in the buggy/hovercraft and being attacked by a helicopter. Oh and the fact that you think Farcry does outdoor environments better doesn't change the fact that HL2 has them and Doom 3 does not.
(edit) Those shots demonstrate exactly what I'm talking about. There's always a convenient wall of rock to make the area relatively small. There are no expansive outdoor areas.
Notice how I never drop below 60 FPS rendering these. Done on a Radeon 9800 Pro. If I noclipped in the right place, I could render the better part of the entire level at around 20 FPS. That's a <span style='color:white'>creative compound word breaking the swear filter</span> of polys.
And they're not that small... go out there yourself. It'll take you a good while to cross it via noclip (you can't walk on the terrain since it's supposed to be inaccessible). They're a lot bigger then they look.
I don't remember being able to destroy anything other than barrels, anyone want to clarify?
@EEK k, I'll be sure to check it out.
<img src='http://www.rose-hulman.edu/~rickardp/doom3.jpg' border='0' alt='user posted image' />
I couldn't remember where that "big" outdoor picture you took was, so I just found the first outdoor area I could and took a screenshot of the rock wall. As you can see, it's really not that many polys.
<img src='http://www.rose-hulman.edu/~rickardp/doom3.jpg' border='0' alt='user posted image' />
I couldn't remember where that "big" outdoor picture you took was, so I just found the first outdoor area I could and took a screenshot of the rock wall. As you can see, it's really not that many polys. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
okay? what's your point? # of triangles doesn't = beauty. but, really we won't know what these engines are truly capable of until the SDKs and more games built on the engine are released.
You mean like this?
<img src='http://www.rose-hulman.edu/~rickardp/doom3_2.jpg' border='0' alt='user posted image' />
Anyway, the only extra thing r_showTris 3 shows is stuff you can't see. And last time I checked, the game doesn't render things you can't see.
BTW: If the engine can't see it, it wouldn't be rendering the triangles now, would it? The triangles are drawn on everything the engine is showing you. I didn't see the cyberdemon with r_showtris at 3 until I got closer, then the engine drew him.
And he's right, more triangles != more beauty. That's why bumpmapping was invented - you can give the impression of more triangles without actually drawing more triangles.
And r_showtris 1 seems to have a bug or anamoly, because it won't draw past a certain point, hence why there's parts in the first one not showing lines. Maybe it's supposed to do that.
...
Anyway, the only extra thing r_showTris 3 shows is stuff you can't see. And last time I checked, the game doesn't render things you can't see. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Not quite accurate, if DOOM3 renders anything like HL. The engine will basically two areas. Area [A] is everything you can see, while Area [B] is everything that can be seen from any point Area [A]. That's not entirely accurate, but it's a good approximation. Basically, there's always a buffer of one "area" drawn before you reach it.
[edit] And if nothing else, EEK's shots at least show that r_showTris 1 doesn't draw everything you can see... but I'm not well-versed enough in DOOM3 (and those are damn tiny shots) to know what exactly I'm looking at.
Yeah sorry about how ittybitty they are <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/biggrin-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin-fix.gif' /><!--endemo--> I had it at a higher resolution but it wasn't fond of me uploading a 300kb pic.
The gun is a plasma rifle. You can see stepping up r_showtris on your own how detailed these guns actually are. At r_showtris 3 it's got little detail crap all over it, so unfortunately it's very complex and cluttery. It would've been worse if Had the handgrenade out, since the handgrenade hands are INCREDIBLY highpoly.
I'm floating in the air with noclip, and that's the Cyberdemon firing rockets at me. At r_showtris 3 you can see him somewhat clearly since the triangles are mushed into one massive white blob, and he consists of more triangles then some HL maps have alone.
That's the hellhole in the right part of the screenshot, and I'm somewhat above the area you enter from.
EDIT: Funny thing - lots of little white lines cause image file sizes to be horribly HUGE...
BTW: If the engine can't see it, it wouldn't be rendering the triangles now, would it? I didn't see the cyberdemon with r_showtris at 3 until I got closer, then the engine drew him. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Yes, the engine knows where those vertices are and can show a wireframe of it. However my point was that all the expensive texture rendering doesn't happen when you can't see the poly; the engine won't render it. Thus, r_showTris 3 is not the best representation of how much work the engine is actually doing.
Also:
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->okay? what's your point? # of triangles doesn't = beauty. but, really we won't know what these engines are truly capable of until the SDKs and more games built on the engine are released.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I was responding to his claim that it was rendering "a [whole lot of] polys." I also admit that the small outdoor areas that appear in Doom 3 look nice. As for that last one: The Cyberdemon is <i>huge</i> so he has a <i>huge</i> cave, but it's still a cave and it doesn't strike me as evidence it could do anything on the scale Farcry or HL2 show.
<img src='http://www.rose-hulman.edu/~rickardp/doom3.jpg' border='0' alt='user posted image' />
I couldn't remember where that "big" outdoor picture you took was, so I just found the first outdoor area I could and took a screenshot of the rock wall. As you can see, it's really not that many polys. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
That's actually pretty high-poly for terrain. Terrain in other engines (possibly HL2 included) may be a bit smoother in appearance, but the actual tri counts are pretty low, especially in big expanses, you may get quads that are upwards of 256 units in size, which, while sizes vary, is big for <i>any</i> engine.
Remember, terrain is polygons added to the level, not a character. It has to be kept very cheap for rendering to not drive the level over its pre-set poly/frame rate 'caps' (i.e. recommended limits) and also to allow enough polygons to be in the scene to keep it looking as natural as possible. Many of the UT2K4 terrain pieces, which I just opened up for reference, are under 200 polys, with the largest one in the set I saw adding up to only 430.
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I was responding to his claim that it was rendering "a [whole lot of] polys." I also admit that the small outdoor areas that appear in Doom 3 look nice. As for that last one: The Cyberdemon is huge so he has a huge cave, but it's still a cave and it doesn't strike me as evidence it could do anything on the scale Farcry or HL2 show. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
A huge cave takes twice the poly filler of a huge open terrain expanse. Poly-wise, you're probably going to have a much higher polycount or much less detail in a cave than you would using the same polys in a big open vista or something, because you have to fill all angles of the view instead of just a few.
EDIT: Thank you KFS <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/biggrin-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin-fix.gif' /><!--endemo-->
EDIT: Thank you KFS <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/biggrin-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin-fix.gif' /><!--endemo--> <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
But there's no lense falir <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif' /><!--endemo-->
EDIT: Thank you KFS <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/biggrin-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin-fix.gif' /><!--endemo--> <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
Correct, everything in the end just ends up as a group of polys. However, rendering large outdoor areas has been quite a challenge for many engines that could handle indoor areas easily. Hence the "lots of really dense fog" era of gaming. There's a reason behind this. In outdoor areas you can see A LOT of crap. In these environments it's quite easy for a lot of enemies to appear on the screen at once, given the large amount of playing space the player can see. Another problem with rendering outdoor environments is making something look good up close but not kill your machine when you have to render hundreds of those areas at once. Something you see a long ways away has to look good when you're right on top of it. In the cave environment you're touting, the vast majority of what you see, you simply cannot get near. Thus they can get away with using huge polys.
Engines that can't do large outdoor environments have to resort to tricks such as limiting player visibility or player movement if they want to tackle a large area.
Doom 3 uses both tricks, leading me to believe it wasn't very good in that department.
Also, I do think it's important to note that just because Doom3 uses these techniques of limiting player movement, that doesn't necessarily mean the tech can't handle it. We're talking the Martian surface here, after all, you're not really supposed to go outside into a low-pressure/low-oxygen environment, you know. <!--emo&;)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/wink-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='wink-fix.gif' /><!--endemo-->
One thing that I just noted has been left out of this entire debate, too... The true power in any game or engine is rarely shown in the first title of that engine. When a company is developing both the technology and the content, it's very difficult to really take the content to the full extent of what it can do and in some cases, the original developers may not even realize other things that can be done with their technology. We know a number of Doom3 and Source licenses are in the works, and it'll be these that really test each engine to its limits in multiple directions. We've currently seen 3 iterations of Source technology (HL2, VTM, and CS:Source) and 1 iteration of Doom3. CS:Source obviously doesn't use the Source engine to full capacity, as they are kinda limited in the scope of an MP game ported from an existing (and very popular) version. VTM looks great, but it looks fairly unimpressive compared to HL2 (as in, as good as VTM looks, HL2 just looks that much better), but there's no way to tell if that's the technology or art content. Doom3 licenses are aplenty, but nothing has been revealed of any yet.
The most dangerous thing to do is undercut either technology for 'deficienies' that are actually a result of art content/design - for example, people complaining about the heads being too blocky in Doom3 or the lack of outdoor stuff: the models could be built differently to smooth the heads, and the game design didn't call for much outdoors in the first place (and the Martian environment means you're not going to get much in the way of accessible terrain). Any discussion on either 'technology' at this point is really a debate on art content. For Source, it'll be Troika and the company that made Arx Fatalis, as well as others, who really show us what the technology can do. On the Doom side, it'll be Raven, Splash Damage, Human Head, and then any else who takes a license. Not to mention id, as their reported plan to make a short dev time game using only small tweaks to the engine (which could still be huge graphically) will give them an opportunity to focus even more on artwork and such. Either way, though, both technologies are going to bring us some very exciting things in the future. <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/smile-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile-fix.gif' /><!--endemo-->
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Furthermore, I have actually been to Valve and playtested hl2 on numerous occasions. They explained to me that what I played was almost exactly what is planned to be released. The points made by Spaniard are pretty fair, and in my opinion, accurate.
Flame on.
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