Bump mapping, or lack therof?

[Guest]

Outcast WAS beautiful.... I honestly think the game had a virtually infinate amount of polygons on a lot of the objects.

 

[Dr.Sbaitso]

I think Doom actually looks amazing, and is the best overall graphics engine coming out, because of the use of all the Normal mapping, as the characters faces look gorgeous. But HL2 i think also looks gorgeous and has many other features that Doom III doesnt have, i most notably like sources ability to control inputs and outputs as gabe said in the e3 vid with things like security cameras, that is just really cool. And also things like the water effects whcih are just awsome and also it does look to have some pretty amazing bump mapping in it as someone already mentioned, in the scene with Barney when looking at the stone brick road, its just amazing. So yeah it dos support it.

 

[Lifthz]

I think Doom 3 has the most detailed character models in terms of texturing and the actual model itself. Half-Life 2 just has the facial animations down-pack though, untouchable.

I don't think Doom 3 or Source engine will be the best engine in the end though, that goes to the X-ray engine. Why? Because it will have a seperate DX9 render that is the first ever FULL DX9 render according to the developers. And the results are starting to show if you've seen the last minute of the S.T.A.L.K.E.R trailer that was revealed at the Nvidia booth at E3.

 

[A2597]

hmm...this is interesting...

in the E3 vids from Docks though to the end, no bump mapping = early build,

BUT, in the tech demo, bump mapping is in. (Note the dev saying the walls are bump mapped sub devision surfaces).

and THAT impressed me...bump mapped sub devided surfaces...sub-devided surfaces! In a Game! Whow...

(In other words, the walls were made with Nurbs, for those not 100% familier with 3D modeling, it smooths out the edges, so you could take a cube, and with enough power of subdevision surfaces, turn it into a sphere, even though technically the model is still a cube)

THAT is the single thing that impressed me the most in the tech demo...Rock on.

 

[Torsion]

I think people need to realize that bumpmapping is not the be all end all type of texture. Just because bumpmapping is used does not mean the texture will look great. Sometimes, certain texures look better as regular or "detail" textures rather then bumpmaps. Bumpmapping has its place but is best used in certain places rather than as every texture. For example, if you looked at a wall strait on then it would be a lot better to use a 1024*786 detail texture because based on the angle the bump mapp would look distorted while the detail texture would look a lot cleaner and much more detailed

I have faith that the HL2 design team will use the best texture for the situation.