What are the engine features to come?

Deagle2 · April 2011

Hey guys, I was just wondering if there were any new features planned for the engine beside the atmospheric lighting and Dynamic infestation, things that would make the game look even better... I know UWE aims at a low system requirement, but there are some stuff that could be easily toggled off I think...
Also I was wondering if UWE keeps a higher resolution version of their textures for later, because I have the feeling they are a bit low right now, is the feature called "streaming textures" going to be implemented or is already implemented? I think that's what some games use to have higher res textures...

Squeal_Like_A_Pig · April 2011

Yes, there are still plenty of new features planned for the engine to make the game look even better. Besides the atmospheric lighting (which is already being used, it just needs an optimization pass before we can enable it publically) and DI overhaul, there is bloom, ambient occlusion, color grading, transparency, full implementation of decals so that mappers can place them in environments and they can be used in effects, such as bulletholes. Max has also been looking into some potential lighting tweaks and some rendering techniques, most of which are more on the technical side and therefore hard to describe here, but he assures me they'd make things look better. Those are some of the biggest ones off the top of my head, but there are a lot of other various features that have been requested or are planned to be done at some point which can directly or indirectly have an impact on the visual quality of the game.

At the moment, though, Max is still very much focused on optimizing the game, so that he can then spend the time to add some more of these visual bells and whistles, and so the game can ideally run well even with all of them enabled. From the art side I am very eager to see the game take a significant performance jump so that Max can get back to working on some of this fun graphics stuff again, and I'm sure he feels the same way.

Regarding the texture resolution, the game is using the highest resolution versions of the textures currently. I'm not sure why you feel they are low res, as they are on par with the majority of games out there. Are you running on the highest detail settings? Most of the gameplay assets, such as marine and alien structures, view models and character models are all using 2048x2048 textures. Many environment wall and prop textures are 1024x1024s. I'm not totally sure where things are in regards to texture streaming but I remember Max mentioning it before that it was something he wanted to add.

--Cory

jkflipflop · April 2011

All I know is that this game isn't ready for release until you get dynamic infestation going.

xposed- · April 2011

I'm a little concerned regarding all these visual "bells and whistles". Of course a game needs to look good to even get a glance in this day and age, however given NS2 is hopefully going to have a strong competitive scene all the lighting and other distracting "bells and whistles" might simply be modded out. Then there's the obvious fact that competitive games will most likely run on servers which force pure clients, which the competitive freaks won't like and won't bother playing.

Personally I don't care, I'll play NS2 competitively with everything left intact and turned up as far as they can go. I do believe there is a crowd out there that would demand a non-distracting game as possible when playing competitively. Sorry to compare the game to SC2 again (but it is the e-sport, so a good basis for comparison), however all of the pro players play on minimum settings. This might be to make the game a little more like SC1 which they feel more comfortable with, but its mostly so there's not as much going on.

Will be interesting to see how this pans out. I really hope it's not an issue. Also, to anyone who would rather the game be as stripped down as possible, I say suck it up and play the game as intended :)

Insane · April 2011

I doubt that servers doing a consistency check for a "pure" version of NS2 would kick a player out for having their game on minimum settings. That would be awful for the players with lower-end computers, as well as competitive players who want to reduce the amount of visual distraction. Despite having a stake in the art side of things, I really don't mind if players want to reduce settings and turn off things like dynamic shadows and volumetric lighting. We include the capacity to change game settings for a reason; so that people can have the best game experience they can manage. As long as there are people who do appreciate the bells and whistles, that's fine by me.

Deagle2 · April 2011

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Squeal_Like_A_Pig @ Apr 2 2011, 08:46 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1839637"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'>Yes, there are still plenty of new features planned for the engine to make the game look even better. Besides the atmospheric lighting (which is already being used, it just needs an optimization pass before we can enable it publically) and DI overhaul, there is bloom, ambient occlusion, color grading, transparency, full implementation of decals so that mappers can place them in environments and they can be used in effects, such as bulletholes. Max has also been looking into some potential lighting tweaks and some rendering techniques, most of which are more on the technical side and therefore hard to describe here, but he assures me they'd make things look better. Those are some of the biggest ones off the top of my head, but there are a lot of other various features that have been requested or are planned to be done at some point which can directly or indirectly have an impact on the visual quality of the game.

At the moment, though, Max is still very much focused on optimizing the game, so that he can then spend the time to add some more of these visual bells and whistles, and so the game can ideally run well even with all of them enabled. From the art side I am very eager to see the game take a significant performance jump so that Max can get back to working on some of this fun graphics stuff again, and I'm sure he feels the same way.

Regarding the texture resolution, the game is using the highest resolution versions of the textures currently. I'm not sure why you feel they are low res, as they are on par with the majority of games out there. Are you running on the highest detail settings? Most of the gameplay assets, such as marine and alien structures, view models and character models are all using 2048x2048 textures. Many environment wall and prop textures are 1024x1024s. I'm not totally sure where things are in regards to texture streaming but I remember Max mentioning it before that it was something he wanted to add.

--Cory</div>

Well I might have spoken a bit too fast, most textures are fine, but some seem lower res, and after thinking about it, I'm thinking that it's because they are stretched to fit the environment, also the armory and the command station seem lower res, but I think it's because the player's camera often gets very close to it compared to other buildings like infantry portal etc...
Here's an example of the low res textures I'm talking about :

<img src="http://img651.imageshack.us/img651/9179/2011040400006.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" />

<a href="http://team-blur-games.com/overdose/2010/06/new-detail-texturing-added/" target="_blank">On the website of another game</a>, I've seen a feature that they call detail texturing that is apparently old but is now using normal maps. It's used to fake higher resolution textures ... Any chances this gets in the game? =D
Another thing, can you tell me if those features that I have in mind right now are planned?
- Antialiasing (I'm pretty sure it's a yes but...)
- Rim lighting
- Any sort of DX11 feature someday like tesselation that could smooth the models shape ?

That's all I'm thinking at the moment, please don't take this post as a list of request, but realy as a question, I love your game anyway beside the current stuttering, it's already fun to play !

What are the engine features to come?

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