<!--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-->His choice was fine there are video cards which run this game at over 75fps at some stupid resolution with everything on max.. Give it a year or 2 and these will be entry level cards.. This engine has been designed for the future not for the present.
I think the bigger problem is the amount of bandwidth the multiplayer uses.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
That is single player, that's a piece of cake! 3-4 light sources tops. Now, something like 16 people most using flashlights cause it's so freaking dark would be much much worse, especially in a game like NS where players purposely stick togheter instead of shooting everything that moves. You could have 10 or so light sources all visible at once, and loads of players. I wouldn't be surprised if the same l33t card that runs doom 3 single player at 75 FPS would really struggle to maintain anything resembling playabillity.
<!--QuoteBegin-Mantrid+Aug 14 2004, 04:53 AM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Mantrid @ Aug 14 2004, 04:53 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> Just a little off-topic here, Thief 3 had dynamic lighting (in some sense), but light still bounced. How did they do that, and could the same be applied to this? <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> That was, let's call it precalculated dynamic lighting.
In simple precalculated lighting, you put light sources in the map as you create it, and then do a calculation that generates a lightmap for the whole map, that's then blended onto the map. The lightning never changes in that case (and might even be combined with the world textures in the resulting map.
For Thief, each light source (at least those that can be extinguished) appears to have its own lightmap. So instead of a lightmap for the whole map, it's a lightmap per light, blended over the map while playing. If you extinguish a torch, that lightmap would be removed (this obviously can't be done in the simpler system where, to save memory, all lights are combined into the same lightmap). So you can turn lights on and off, but it doesn't work for moving lights. More games than Thief had this, but Thief used it very well.
Then, you have simple moving lights. Quake rocket launcher style. These just light up walls in the vicinity based on distance, but don't give shadows.
And Doom 3 dynamic lights: Move around freely, with correct shadows, uses the stencil buffer. No soft shadows though (in real life, shadows usually don't have really sharp edges), and no radiosity. High hardware requirements, and the polygon count of the objects giving shadows has a huge effect on the performance (which is why Doom 3 enemies tend to be low-poly characters -- high poly just wouldn't work).
The advantage of using dynamic lights in Doom 3 even when they're not moving is that things around them that do move (like the player) can give correct shadows. Can't do that with prerendered shadows. Or actually, you can do it (some games do, haven't played Thief 3 much but I think it did it), but it's going to look fake when the dynamic and the prerendered shadow overlap.
Both raytracing and radiosity can, to some extent, model colour bleeding (or photon bouncing as some here call it). But they're not the same technique. Radiosity is generally considered superior for this colour bleeding effect, and optimal for soft lighting. Raytracing is excellent when dealing with refractive stuff. And there's a very good third technique, photon tracing. That one can provide excellent quality images, at the cost of being unbelievably slow.
1) There are tons of 16 player DooM 3 servers out there with tons of players on them; requirements do NOT increase linearly, since players (models) are a small part of the graphical load. Yes, you need a faster PC than 4 player multi. But it's still very possible on current PCs
2) Curly has been ranting and raving everywhere he can, including the DooM 3 Fortress forums. The community there pretty much told him to sod off and go bug somewhere else. Nobody cares about his so-called lack of bouncing light because we know that it can be overcome with proper lighting; by his complaints we just assume that curly doesn't know how to light properly.
DooM 3 supports ambient lighting. Combining that with proper placement of the proper types and proper intensity of lights, you can get great effects, despite what curly says.
Most of us wish Curly would just stop whining about his issues that nobody cares about. However, that won't happen, so the best we can do is ignore him.
To be honest I just think curly is mad because his comp won't/is not able to run D3 and he's **** at JC for making a too complex engine.
Back to topic: Remember when Quake3 came out? Everyone was like "OMG 3d-accelerator required? WTH?!" How did it turn out? By the time it got out most people had already upgraded their PCs anyway. As JC stated, by the time he started designing D3 he would aim for the absolute top-notch PC at that time and aim to give that PC a playable framerate, this is exactly what he did.
Ok maybe that was kind of off topic. But remember nontheless if NS is ported or not, it will at least take 1 year, I would guess 2 years for the product to be done and most people upgrade during that time.
About the Source engine I could care less. Valve has lost so much credibility with their so called delays and ignored promises everywhere. I won't believe much of what valve say it's capable of until I see it. BTW the physics in Source comes with the Havok engine which is terrible during multiplayer and at least as CPU intensive as the dyn-lights.
Actually X, I'm running it at a comfy 60 fps at 1280x1024. (vsync, 4xAF) (drops lower in multi though)
Oh and Gus, you were really the only one who adressed my concerns at the D3F forums, and the only one who told me to "sod off". I know how to map and light maps, and there's no way to truly fake the effect. You can come almost close, but it still won't look as good as with true radiosity. You could just say "curly can't map" though, that works too i guess. If you notice, others on the d3f forum have raised concerns about the very dark nature of current maps, and wonder why they can't be brighter. I stand by my point; the doom3 engine is not versatile enough to create different types of environments. Prove me wrong. So far the current maps people are making and posting screens of havn't.
And source will not have this problem; as far as I can tell from all the screens I've seen the engine is not limited and will allow the mapper to map any type of environment he/she chooses, and therefor has much more potential in the longrun. I am gonna say though that the Doom3 engine pwns in dark environments and source can't come close, from what I've seen. Also, it fixes the problem of dark environments just giving others advantage when they tweak gamma, as all the gamma boosts in the world can't let you see through Doom3's shadows. (I always thought this problem was impossible to fix-wrong!)
I still stand to my point that it's not the engine's fault it's the hardwares of today's. Why? Because if we really wanted beautiful scenes we would still be back where Myst was with its prerendered ones. But I guess time will prove if D3 is worthy or not, it's just too soon at this time. <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif' /><!--endemo-->
Anyhow this wasn't what my post was going to say. I just wanted to tell the one who said that the reason of not being able to use flashlight + tool blablabla is very wrong. Just look around, at least 1 MoD to "duct-tape" the flashlight onto the weapons and it doesn't kill frame-rate at all.
You people are ignorant and seriously underestimate the wisdom of John Carmack's decisions in making the Doom 3 engine.
Just wait till companies start using the engine for their own games, and you'll see what complete idiots you are for naysaying the Doom 3 engine and claiming that "omg there is no solution it's too dark" crap.
Saying it wouldn't do good in bright environments is just like saying its too dark. Doom 3 was SUPPOSED to be dark, so don't say it wouldn't do good in bright environments. You can add ambient light you know.
The D3 engine would be perfect for a game like NS. They both have the same kind of feel, the feel when you never know if something's gonna pop of of the shadows and attack. I hope that NS2 is made with it.
This is going to get locked like all the other NS2 engine threads. <!--emo&:0--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/wow.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='wow.gif' /><!--endemo-->
designing a game for the future after it's release, now that makes sense. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> Recommended specs for HL:
Operating System: Windows 95/98/NT 4.0 Processor: Pentium 133MHz Video Card: SVGA Graphics Card Hard Drive: 400MB HD CD-ROM: 2X CD RAM: 24MB RAM
designing a game for the future after it's release, now that makes sense. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> Recommended specs for HL:
Operating System: Windows 95/98/NT 4.0 Processor: Pentium 133MHz Video Card: SVGA Graphics Card Hard Drive: 400MB HD CD-ROM: 2X CD RAM: 24MB RAM
GL getting NS to run on that, chief. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> Truth. And don't say you could in WON- believe me, I tried <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif' /><!--endemo-->
The thing is, I doubt NS would be possible on DOOM 3 for Soylent's reasons for at least another 2-3 years, so that the player standard computer can get up to snuff. Then again, once it does- its going to be free reign for stuff like NS.
designing a game for the future after it's release, now that makes sense. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> Recommended specs for HL:
Operating System: Windows 95/98/NT 4.0 Processor: Pentium 133MHz Video Card: SVGA Graphics Card Hard Drive: 400MB HD CD-ROM: 2X CD RAM: 24MB RAM
GL getting NS to run on that, chief. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> <!--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-->You need a Pentium II 400 mhz machine CPU (or equivalent non-Intel), 32 megabytes of RAM and any graphics accelerator supported by Half-life. Software rendering support is not currently planned. You also need an internet connection, a keyboard and a mouse. Windows 95 and above are supported. Lastly, you'll need a copy of Half-life or Counter-strike retail. If your machine runs one of these well, it should run Natural Selection comparably.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
From the main website, so your point is irrlevant, NS was released 3 (or 4?) years after HL was released, so NS was able to take advantage of the fact that the CPU minimum was much higher.
Next, HL was desinged so a craptactular computer could run it, guess that wasn't a smart move huh?
I never played doom 1-3. Half Lives radiosity was revolutionary and is still good. In less than 5 years we have real time raytracing. HL2 should be out a little earlier with great physics.
You never need to rewrite the code. But yes it's probably easier to port to the Source because the SDKs will be very much alike so people will feel that they're familiar with the tools. Other than that there isn't much alike with the Source and the HL (Modified Q2) engine.
Aaronvroom vroom der party startahJoin Date: 2002-11-05Member: 7020Members
I, for one, think that experienced 3D engine pioneers should listen to my god-given wisdom after the fact and rewrite something they spent years developing because I am an <i>internet forum-goer</i> which obviously ascribes me the status of knowing everything about everything and always being right.
<!--QuoteBegin-Aaron+Aug 16 2004, 11:56 AM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Aaron @ Aug 16 2004, 11:56 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> I, for one, think that experienced 3D engine pioneers should listen to my god-given wisdom after the fact and rewrite something they spent years developing because I am an <i>internet forum-goer</i> which obviously ascribes me the status of knowing everything about everything and always being right. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> That's it, exactly!
<!--QuoteBegin-Aaron+Aug 16 2004, 04:56 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Aaron @ Aug 16 2004, 04:56 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> I, for one, think that experienced 3D engine pioneers should listen to my god-given wisdom after the fact and rewrite something they spent years developing because I am an <i>internet forum-goer</i> which obviously ascribes me the status of knowing everything about everything and always being right. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> Yah, let's shut down all forums on the net. The average joe is just there to cause trouble anyway. Why listen to them? And while we're at it, let's go for dictatorship, that way we won't need forums!! omgomg1337!! <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif' /><!--endemo-->
In response to the original post. Doom 3 looks best in the dark, the whole game is in the dark, they designed it with LOTS of darkness in mind. And when the level designers use lighting, its very subtle. Just enough to make the bump maps look pretty, keep detail high, and keep it dark, tense and atmospheric.
Of course, not good for NS, if you intend to be able to see.
And putting lights everywhere, on a doom 3 map? Who would even think of that?
I say, don't try to mod the graphics/lighting engine. It's brand new anyway, just let it do what it does best.
Perhaps some technically minded person could answer this one:
Would it be possible to modify D3 lighting (or individual lights even) so that the shadow being cast would not be pitch black, ie. n% of the light's amplitude?
I hope that made some sense <!--emo&???--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/confused.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='confused.gif' /><!--endemo-->
there is another fault of Doom3 lighting which i think cripples its horror potential and has led me to not want to play the game. Doom3 has no gloss maps. they want the shading to be calculated by the game so they don't use photographs as textures but that means you need to give the engine loads of info about a surface including it's glossiness in order for it to make the surface photoreal. without gloss maps you cannot make certain parts of models look dry and some parts have a wet slimy look for that creepiness effect. you can maybe make a whole model high or low gloss but not parts of it. you might have noticed that the mouths and wounds and brains of some of the monsters look very dry. these things should be white on a gloss map. if you make them white on a specular map they become metallic looking and you might have noticed that the teeth, claws, and intestines of some monsters look metallic probably because they are white on the specular map when they should be white on the gloss map instead.
btw gloss is the general roughness or smoothness of a surface when the roughness would be too fine to see the individual bumps. it causes specular highlights and other reflections to be more blurry or more clear. low gloss makes specular highlights appear big, darker, and soft edged. while high gloss makes specular highlights appear small, bright, and sharp edged. that's the principle anyway. 3dsmax and other renderers don't do it properly in my opinion.
Comments
I think the bigger problem is the amount of bandwidth the multiplayer uses.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
That is single player, that's a piece of cake! 3-4 light sources tops. Now, something like 16 people most using flashlights cause it's so freaking dark would be much much worse, especially in a game like NS where players purposely stick togheter instead of shooting everything that moves. You could have 10 or so light sources all visible at once, and loads of players. I wouldn't be surprised if the same l33t card that runs doom 3 single player at 75 FPS would really struggle to maintain anything resembling playabillity.
That was, let's call it precalculated dynamic lighting.
In simple precalculated lighting, you put light sources in the map as you create it, and then do a calculation that generates a lightmap for the whole map, that's then blended onto the map. The lightning never changes in that case (and might even be combined with the world textures in the resulting map.
For Thief, each light source (at least those that can be extinguished) appears to have its own lightmap. So instead of a lightmap for the whole map, it's a lightmap per light, blended over the map while playing. If you extinguish a torch, that lightmap would be removed (this obviously can't be done in the simpler system where, to save memory, all lights are combined into the same lightmap).
So you can turn lights on and off, but it doesn't work for moving lights. More games than Thief had this, but Thief used it very well.
Then, you have simple moving lights. Quake rocket launcher style. These just light up walls in the vicinity based on distance, but don't give shadows.
And Doom 3 dynamic lights: Move around freely, with correct shadows, uses the stencil buffer. No soft shadows though (in real life, shadows usually don't have really sharp edges), and no radiosity. High hardware requirements, and the polygon count of the objects giving shadows has a huge effect on the performance (which is why Doom 3 enemies tend to be low-poly characters -- high poly just wouldn't work).
The advantage of using dynamic lights in Doom 3 even when they're not moving is that things around them that do move (like the player) can give correct shadows. Can't do that with prerendered shadows. Or actually, you can do it (some games do, haven't played Thief 3 much but I think it did it), but it's going to look fake when the dynamic and the prerendered shadow overlap.
Both raytracing and radiosity can, to some extent, model colour bleeding (or photon bouncing as some here call it). But they're not the same technique. Radiosity is generally considered superior for this colour bleeding effect, and optimal for soft lighting. Raytracing is excellent when dealing with refractive stuff. And there's a very good third technique, photon tracing. That one can provide excellent quality images, at the cost of being unbelievably slow.
2) Curly has been ranting and raving everywhere he can, including the DooM 3 Fortress forums. The community there pretty much told him to sod off and go bug somewhere else. Nobody cares about his so-called lack of bouncing light because we know that it can be overcome with proper lighting; by his complaints we just assume that curly doesn't know how to light properly.
DooM 3 supports ambient lighting. Combining that with proper placement of the proper types and proper intensity of lights, you can get great effects, despite what curly says.
Most of us wish Curly would just stop whining about his issues that nobody cares about. However, that won't happen, so the best we can do is ignore him.
Back to topic: Remember when Quake3 came out? Everyone was like "OMG 3d-accelerator required? WTH?!" How did it turn out? By the time it got out most people had already upgraded their PCs anyway. As JC stated, by the time he started designing D3 he would aim for the absolute top-notch PC at that time and aim to give that PC a playable framerate, this is exactly what he did.
Ok maybe that was kind of off topic. But remember nontheless if NS is ported or not, it will at least take 1 year, I would guess 2 years for the product to be done and most people upgrade during that time.
About the Source engine I could care less. Valve has lost so much credibility with their so called delays and ignored promises everywhere. I won't believe much of what valve say it's capable of until I see it. BTW the physics in Source comes with the Havok engine which is terrible during multiplayer and at least as CPU intensive as the dyn-lights.
Oh and Gus, you were really the only one who adressed my concerns at the D3F forums, and the only one who told me to "sod off". I know how to map and light maps, and there's no way to truly fake the effect. You can come almost close, but it still won't look as good as with true radiosity. You could just say "curly can't map" though, that works too i guess. If you notice, others on the d3f forum have raised concerns about the very dark nature of current maps, and wonder why they can't be brighter. I stand by my point; the doom3 engine is not versatile enough to create different types of environments. Prove me wrong. So far the current maps people are making and posting screens of havn't.
And source will not have this problem; as far as I can tell from all the screens I've seen the engine is not limited and will allow the mapper to map any type of environment he/she chooses, and therefor has much more potential in the longrun. I am gonna say though that the Doom3 engine pwns in dark environments and source can't come close, from what I've seen. Also, it fixes the problem of dark environments just giving others advantage when they tweak gamma, as all the gamma boosts in the world can't let you see through Doom3's shadows. (I always thought this problem was impossible to fix-wrong!)
Anyhow this wasn't what my post was going to say. I just wanted to tell the one who said that the reason of not being able to use flashlight + tool blablabla is very wrong. Just look around, at least 1 MoD to "duct-tape" the flashlight onto the weapons and it doesn't kill frame-rate at all.
Just wait till companies start using the engine for their own games, and you'll see what complete idiots you are for naysaying the Doom 3 engine and claiming that "omg there is no solution it's too dark" crap.
Saying it wouldn't do good in bright environments is just like saying its too dark. Doom 3 was SUPPOSED to be dark, so don't say it wouldn't do good in bright environments. You can add ambient light you know.
The D3 engine would be perfect for a game like NS. They both have the same kind of feel, the feel when you never know if something's gonna pop of of the shadows and attack. I hope that NS2 is made with it.
designing a game for the future after it's release, now that makes sense. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
Recommended specs for HL:
Operating System: Windows 95/98/NT 4.0
Processor: Pentium 133MHz
Video Card: SVGA Graphics Card
Hard Drive: 400MB HD
CD-ROM: 2X CD
RAM: 24MB RAM
GL getting NS to run on that, chief.
designing a game for the future after it's release, now that makes sense. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Recommended specs for HL:
Operating System: Windows 95/98/NT 4.0
Processor: Pentium 133MHz
Video Card: SVGA Graphics Card
Hard Drive: 400MB HD
CD-ROM: 2X CD
RAM: 24MB RAM
GL getting NS to run on that, chief. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
Truth. And don't say you could in WON- believe me, I tried <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif' /><!--endemo-->
The thing is, I doubt NS would be possible on DOOM 3 for Soylent's reasons for at least another 2-3 years, so that the player standard computer can get up to snuff. Then again, once it does- its going to be free reign for stuff like NS.
designing a game for the future after it's release, now that makes sense. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Recommended specs for HL:
Operating System: Windows 95/98/NT 4.0
Processor: Pentium 133MHz
Video Card: SVGA Graphics Card
Hard Drive: 400MB HD
CD-ROM: 2X CD
RAM: 24MB RAM
GL getting NS to run on that, chief. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--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-->You need a Pentium II 400 mhz machine CPU (or equivalent non-Intel), 32 megabytes of RAM and any graphics accelerator supported by Half-life. Software rendering support is not currently planned. You also need an internet connection, a keyboard and a mouse. Windows 95 and above are supported. Lastly, you'll need a copy of Half-life or Counter-strike retail. If your machine runs one of these well, it should run Natural Selection comparably.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
From the main website, so your point is irrlevant, NS was released 3 (or 4?) years after HL was released, so NS was able to take advantage of the fact that the CPU minimum was much higher.
Next, HL was desinged so a craptactular computer could run it, guess that wasn't a smart move huh?
Half Lives radiosity was revolutionary and is still good.
In less than 5 years we have real time raytracing.
HL2 should be out a little earlier with great physics.
You'd have to re-write the entire code I think, to get it to work on doom 3.
That's it, exactly!
Yah, let's shut down all forums on the net. The average joe is just there to cause trouble anyway. Why listen to them? And while we're at it, let's go for dictatorship, that way we won't need forums!! omgomg1337!! <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif' /><!--endemo-->
Of course, not good for NS, if you intend to be able to see.
And putting lights everywhere, on a doom 3 map? Who would even think of that?
I say, don't try to mod the graphics/lighting engine. It's brand new anyway, just let it do what it does best.
Would it be possible to modify D3 lighting (or individual lights even) so that the shadow being cast would not be pitch black, ie. n% of the light's amplitude?
I hope that made some sense <!--emo&???--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/confused.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='confused.gif' /><!--endemo-->
btw gloss is the general roughness or smoothness of a surface when the roughness would be too fine to see the individual bumps. it causes specular highlights and other reflections to be more blurry or more clear. low gloss makes specular highlights appear big, darker, and soft edged. while high gloss makes specular highlights appear small, bright, and sharp edged. that's the principle anyway. 3dsmax and other renderers don't do it properly in my opinion.