Lighting in dome is NOT HDR

[SubKamran]

So says Valve. Checkout the latest Info From Valve posts. It didn't look like HDR to me, so I was right. :thumbs:

 

[azz0r]

Whats HDR anyway?

 

[Dalamari]

High Definition Rendering?

 

[SubKamran]

High Dynamic Range Imaging (HDRi).

 

[The Dark Elf]

Kinda obvious it wasn't HDR, its just glow sprites or something to that effect.

 

[Synthaxx R-or]

High Dynamic Range

Wich means that were you to look into a dark corridor in the game,
the game automatically regulates your "vision" to accomodate the lower light input.

Just like your eyes would in the real world.

 

[yadalogo]

like starting at a light bulb then walking into a darkish room u wont see much until ur eyes adjust from extreme light to the darkness!

 

[SubKamran]

http://www.gamedev.net/reference/articles/article2108.asp

Good article on it.

So What is "High Dynamic Range"?

High Dynamic Range is just a neat term for "storing color values much greater than the usual 0.0f to 1.0f used in graphics". Unlike conventional colors used in graphics, where color values cannot exceed 1.0f, the color values here can be anything you like, as high as you like. The advantage of HDR is that your scenes will look more realistic.

Basically, it emulates really really bright things, like looking into the sun, extreme light, and also (which I didn't know) extreme DARK.

 

[SMT]

Of course it's not HDR. HDR is applied via a special rendering DLL and affects the entire game. It's not like you can just tag an entity or a brush in your level as "Has HDR."

Incidentally, I'm quite sure the rock walls in the VST are using Virtual Displacement Mapping.

 

[The Dark Elf]

Of course it's not HDR. HDR is applied via a special rendering DLL and affects the entire game. It's not like you can just tag an entity or a brush in your level as "Has HDR."

Incidentally, I'm quite sure the rock walls in the VST are using Virtual Displacement Mapping.

They are yes. HL2 does have that (also known as parallax or offset mapping)

probably one of the reasons they delayed one of those times months back when they realised it was a good idea to put in it. It had been in for some time when qckbeam visited them.

 

[SMT]

They are yes. HL2 does have that (also known as parallax or offset mapping)

probably one of the reasons they delayed one of those times months back when they realised it was a good idea to put in it. It had been in for some time when qckbeam visited them.

If this gets twisted around and turned into a HL2 vs DOOM 3 tirade, I'll be very sad, but anyway: I'll make the observation that this is one powerful next-generation feature that Half-Life 2 has a leg up on over DOOM 3, at least at shipping. I'd be very surprised if iD didn't patch it in at some point in the near future.

 

[azz0r]

So does the Dust use HDR at all?

I did wonder how they made the map generally look ligher, in HL you were pretty limited and light maps came off as extreme yellows (like the old dust).

 

[SMT]

So does the Dust use HDR at all?

I did wonder how they made the map generally look ligher, in HL you were pretty limited and light maps came off as extreme yellows (like the old dust).

This appears to be mostly due to the redone brighter textures and the improved way the engine calculates radiosity. I like it much better this way; you can almost feel how dry the air is, and how sweltering the heat.

 

[The Dark Elf]

If this gets twisted around and turned into a HL2 vs DOOM 3 tirade, I'll be very sad, but anyway: I'll make the observation that this is one powerful next-generation feature that Half-Life 2 has a leg up on over DOOM 3, at least at shipping. I'd be very surprised if iD didn't patch it in at some point in the near future.

virtual displacement mapping/offset etc. Is good, looks great and is simple to do.


but there is better...

View-dependant displacement mapping looks even better and is basically as close as you can get to high poly models without using them.

Significant visual effects arise from surface mesostructure, such as fine-scale shadowing, occlusion and silhouettes. To efficiently render its detailed appearance, we introduce a technique called view-dependent displacement mapping (VDM) that models surface displacements along the viewing direction. Unlike traditional displacement mapping, VDM allows for efficient rendering of self-shadows, occlusions and silhouettes without increasing the complexity of the underlying surface mesh. VDM is based on per-pixel processing, and with hardware acceleration it can render mesostructure with rich visual appearance in real time

Course don't tell Valve or they'll delay another year to add that

Chances are Unreal3 will be using it by the time its finished

And yup, SourceWorld is going to try use it too

 

[SMT]

virtual displacement mapping/offset etc. Is good, looks great and is simple to do.


but there is better...

View-dependant displacement mapping looks even better and is basically as close as you can get to high poly models without using them.



Course don't tell Valve or they'll delay another year to add that

Chances are Unreal3 will be using it by the time its finished

And yup, SourceWorld is going to try use it too

Ah, so sort of like what Humus implemented in his displacement mapping and dynamic branching demos?

 

[The Dark Elf]

Ah, so sort of like what Humus implemented in his displacement mapping and dynamic branching demos?

Not sure but I've seen examples of it and it does look very nice. Seems it also manages to "almost" solve the problem of low poly edges by somehow giving the impression they are bumped too, even when in reality its perhaps just a single polygon. If Unreal3 was to use it, at the texture resolutions they are using, well.. nuff said really. WOW etc. lol

Shame qckbeam isn't around, he knows quite a bit about it and it was him who put me onto it, very impressive stuff.

 

[The Dark Elf]

SMT

http://66.102.9.104/search?q=cache:..._v10;29475+Virtual+Displacement+Mapping&hl=en

D3 parallax mapping mod. I couldn't link to the proper URL for some reason I couldn't reach it, i think my ISP is playing up.. Anyhoo you asked for it so there ya go