some smart-ass crosstalk I don't understand I've had with Jason Mitchell

[W4d5Y]

When telling him about some stuff the creator of fakefactory stated:

Hey there,
I just read an article about a guy called J?rgen who works on the FakeFactory cinematic mod, and this is some stuff he stated in a german interview:
The original quote in german:
Du verwendest auch neue Features der Source-Engine, wie Phong-Shading. Gibt es spezielle Techniken, die du dir f?r noch realistischere Texturen w?nschen w?rdest?
In erster Linie realistischen Schattenwurf. Gottseidank ist das ja f?r EP2 angek?ndigt. Au?erdem k?nnten die Entwickler von VALVE mal einen Blick auf ihre Transparenz-Schader werfen. Die sind wirklich Mist. Komplexe halb-transparente Objekte sind praktisch nicht m?glich, ohne massive Fehler beim Z-Sortieren der Polys zu erzeugen. Abschlie?end w?re es hilfreich, die k?nstlichen Budget-Beschr?nkungen der Engine aufzuheben, beispielsweise die Poly-per-Model Limits. Die Source-Engine hat ein hervorragendes LOD-System und skaliert so hervorragend, dass diese Hemmschuhe gar nicht notwendig w?ren. Eine hinsichtlich Texturmenge und Polyanzahl unlimitierte Source-Engine k?nnte auf Highend-Systemen m?helos Grafikqualit?t auf Crysis-Nivau liefern.
AAAAAND MY translation:
>>>
You are using the latest features of the source engine as well, such as Phong-Shading. Is there special techniques you'd appreciate for even more realistic textures?
First of all, realistic Shadow casting. Thank god that already has been anounced for EP2. Apart from that the developers from VALVe could have a look at the transparence-shader.
They plain suck. Complex half-transparent objects are practically not possible, without creating massive errors at the z-sorting of polys. Concluding, it would be helpful, the engine's artificial budget-conditions were repelled, for example the poly-per-model limits. The source engine has an outstanding LOD-system und scales so great that these barriers wouldn't be necessary. A concerning textureamount and polycount unlimited source-engine could when running on highend-systems effortlessly offer graphicsquality on Crysis-niveau.

I thought this would be info worth mentioning, as I heard fakefactory and you guys aren't in touch with each other, and assumingly the devs don't speak german,
so I found this extremely worth mentioning to you.


Have a nice day,
Daniel Wadsworth



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Jason Mitchell to me
show details Mar 31 (12 hours ago)


Daniel,

Thanks for pointing out this interview. Jurgen points out some important shortcomings of real-time rendering in general, some of which we're working on for future games. The sort-independent transparency issue is one of the great open questions in real-time graphics and we hope that some hardware strides can be made along that particular path in the next few years.

-Jason

When asking him about shadows:

Daniel,

In the Ep2 videos shown in Leipzig, we demonstrated our new shadowing flashlight, which uses shadow depth mapping to cast and receive shadows on all objects in the world. Since the flashlight is an additive blending pass over the scene, we simply multiply the shadow map result with the flashlight before adding the result to the frame buffer. This means that light from other light sources in the scene still reaches areas that are not lit by the flashlight.

With regard to F.E.A.R., while we have of course played that game, their flashlight doesn't cast any shadows (in the PC version that I played...maybe they updated it for 360?) since it is positioned exacty at the eye point. Our flashlight is offset from the eye location and hence it is possible for the player to see shadows cast from the flashlight.

-Jason

Jason Mitchell to me
show details 11/1/06


FEAR uses stencil shadows, so the edges are harsh by design. We use shadow mapping, so our shadow edges are softer. We're looking at ways to soften them even more than what you saw in the trailer...

-Jason




--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Daniel Wadsworth [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Wednesday, November 01, 2006 10:15 AM
To: Jason Mitchell
Subject: source engine shadowing


Sorry for waisting your time with continuing my last mail,
but I (also) read (and saw) your shadows were rather harsh. I also noted that prob in the fear engine, so though F.E.A.R. has a brilliant engine concerning the use of shadowing, I wondered wether you could do even better...by creating a natural look, where the shadows' edges are softened, depending on size and distance to the lightsource the shadow is derived from.
-Daniel

When asking him about those beautiful sun beams gmod 10 features:smoking: :

Jason Mitchell to me
show details 12/11/06


We'll see. It looks OK, but I'm not sure everyone would agree on that, aesthetically. It wouldn't be too hard to implement but it's definitely far from the top of the list of priorities for Ep2. Thanks for pointing it out to me though. Garry's mod has done some really great stuff in our engine.

-Jason

 

[Asknoone]

Fakefactory, quite like Smod, blows (imo).

 

[MorganFreeman911]

Fakefactory, quite like Smod, blows (imo).

Indeed.
Seconded.

 

[AJ Rimmer]

Thirded.

 

[Kula Meenur]

Concur.

 

[Asuka]

Cool stuff. The comment about Crysis like GFX on source gets me giddy and extremely hype.

 

[W4d5Y]

I personally haven't ever played hl2 with cinematics on, so I have a good (in this context, blowing) opinion nor a bad one (in this context, sucks)

Yeah, I got hyped about Crysis, too, that's why I decided to translate that part of the interview in the first place for him because I did bet nobody else would :'(