Why the ridiculously low-res textures?

S

Shigawire

Guest
My machine is an Athlon 64 3800+, 9800XT 256mb, 1024mb ram.
I have almost everything on maximum, with the exception of 2xAA and 8xAF. My ATI drivers are the official Catalyst..

Great game, completed it yesterday.. However, I was disappointed in the ridiculously low texture resolutions.
The graphics overall are excellent, but the absence of detail textures just screams at me. Unreal1 from 1998 had a much higher quality on the close-up textures than HL2!

Here is how the textures look afar:
http://www.omnicogni.com/dump/d2_prison_020002.jpg

Not bad..

Now, up close:
http://www.omnicogni.com/dump/d2_prison_020001.jpg

REALLY bad..

Comments? Suggestions?
 
There must be some sort of reason. Perhaps it looked too 'sharp' if the texture scale was decreased?
 
For Half-life 1 they made something called Half-life High defination, Maby they do that for Half-life 2 too? with extra detailed key-textures ? and some other textures that need to look sharper ^^?
 
Isn't that how all textures are, in all games? I mean if you come up close to it, it's gonna get pixelated. Right? Besides, stop staring at the walls and start playing the game! :D
 
Sed Bratton said:
Isn't that how all textures are, in all games? I mean if you come up close to it, it's gonna get pixelated. Right? Besides, stop staring at the walls and start playing the game!
Click to expand...

First of all, that's not how textures are in all games. Certainly not in Unreal, and that's a game that came in 1998! :) Some games take better advantage of existing texturing-technology than other games.

Second of all, I've already completed the game.. and I don't feel like playing it again - it's only a singleplayer FPS, so there's little replayability-value for me. I primarily bought it so that I could get DOD:S (love dod)

in$ane said:
For Half-life 1 they made something called Half-life High defination, Maby they do that for Half-life 2 too? with extra detailed key-textures ? and some other textures that need to look sharper ^^?
Click to expand...

I hope you are right in$ane, that they will release some high definition bitmaps. But I don't see why they couldn't just use some fractal detail-maps.. since they use Pixel Shader 2.0 already.

Here is some info on "Detail Textures"
A detail texture is a very small, fine pattern which is faded in as you approach a surface, for example wood grain, or imperfections in stone. When you import a detail texture, you need to set its Scale value to a small number (typically 0.25nm) to specify its scaling relative to whatever texture it applies to.

Detail textures and macrotextures modulate (multiply) the surface they're applied to. By modulating, they have the ability to scale the surface's brightness up or down. Colors with RGB brightness values from 0-127 darken the surface; 128 has no effect; and 129-255 brighten the surface. Therefore, when drawing microtextures and macrotextures, it is important that you design them with their brightnesses in the proper range so they affect surfaces naturally. If a detail texture's average brightness deviates too far from 128, then surfaces will appear to brighten or darken as you approach them.
Click to expand...
Source: http://wiki.beyondunreal.com/wiki/Detail_Texture
 
I think it's because the textures aren't all that hight quality to begin with but from far away they are bump-mapped, normal-mapped, specular-mapped, and shadow-mapped and hence look good. Whereas from up close none of that takes place because it'd just be too much strain on our cards to mipmap all those textures in and out as you get closer to and farther from objects (as well as extremely laborious to crate all of these maps at such fine lod). Hence when you're up close you just see the regular flat texture.

I would venture to say that pretty much all games are like that at this point. Doom 3 certainly is. Although I haven't looked at their textures in Ultra High but they do look like crap when you're up close on the High settings.
 
I do believe you are complaining about nothing. The texture detail in indoor scenes is far better than compared to Doom 3, Far Cry, Unreal 2K4 and any other game I can think of. Go back to Unreal and see what I mean. Back then those games had low resolution textures. Try reading that poster in equivalent Unreal tech, oh wait, it would be a blurry mess.

Want to blame something? Blaming your graphics card for not being able to handle anything better.

As for fractal maps, good luck running them on your 9800XT. Using PS 2.0 takes large performance hits. Using "detail textures" or procedural texturing would be too large of a performance hit.
 
FictiousWill said:
HAHAHAHAHA
Click to expand...

In the context of using PS 2.0. Because you same people would bitch when they used detailed textures but no bump/normal/specular mapping with it as well.
 
(Stupid fsking post edit time limit :mad: )

Remember also that that texture's probably only around 128x128. Now imagine for a second going in to Photoshop, taking an image that size, and blowing it up to your monitor's resolution; that's what you're doing in that second screenshot. Not so hot, eh?
 
blahblahblah said:
Want to blame something? Blaming your graphics card for not being able to handle anything better.
Click to expand...

Not the problem! I have a GeForce 6800 GT and all my settings maxed (8x AA, 16x ASF) I have the SAME problem.
 
vocalvoodo said:
Not the problem! I have a GeForce 6800 GT and all my settings maxed (8x AA, 16x ASF) I have the SAME problem.
Click to expand...

Did I say you were the problem? I said the people with low end graphics cards are the problem. Not everybody who games has a 6800 or X800. The had to compromise to satisfy the most number of users at once.

Example: Everquest 2 is largely being flamed for being to far advanced for most computers to use it properly. They developed the engine and art assets to take advantage of computers for the next several years, but they failed to address the problems that most low medium-high range computers cannot adequately run Everquest 2. Even 6800 GT users are complaining.

BTW - I have an X800 Pro. I'm quite happy with the graphics in HL2. Much better than what I thought. Still would have prefered more geometry detail in distant object though. But I'm not complaining.
 
blahblahblah said:
Did I say you were the problem? I said the people with low end graphics cards are the problem. Not everybody who games has a 6800 or X800. The had to compromise to satisfy the most number of users at once.
Click to expand...

My bad. I misread. Although I agree that much older games like UT looked better up close. Butmaybe I do have a bad setting in my driver that could be making MY problem worse.
 
Scaling graphics for different hardware.

This is why it's so ridiculous. Because detail textures aren't new tech. Unreal 1 had them, for goodness sake. Four or five 256x256 detail textures for concrete, skin, wood, whathaveyou, would solve the problem. Source already does detail textures, Valve confirmed it a long time ago. They just didn't click on the material and add a detail texture in Hammer. It's sad.
 
I agree. For a game that looks so good and so much time spent making and hyping it, you would think the textures would be a LOT better up close. I really is as bad as DOOM 1 up close.

But other than that, I think the game looks awesome and is fun a h*ll.
 
blahblahblah said:
Did I say you were the problem? I said the people with low end graphics cards are the problem. Not everybody who games has a 6800 or X800. The had to compromise to satisfy the most number of users at once.
Click to expand...

I take back my apology to you. You didn't say "I" was the problem but you did say that dudes card was the problem. Not people with low end cards but his card inparticular. My card is obviously NOT the problem. The prolem IS with the textures in game.
 
This statement is erroneous:
blahblahblah said:
Try reading that poster in equivalent Unreal tech, oh wait, it would be a blurry mess.
Click to expand...

The actual blurriness of the color texture is not the only issue here. Rather, the absence of Detail Textures. In fact, it looks very sharp in Unreal, thanks to the Detail Textures. Much sharper than in HL2. I hope they can release a patch for this later, enabling DetailTextures.

blahblahblah said:
The texture detail in indoor scenes is far better than compared to Doom 3, Far Cry, Unreal 2K4 and any other game I can think of.
Click to expand...
I agree that textures in HL2 are far better than in Doom 3, but Far Cry and Unreal2k4 at least utilize detail textures, thus look a lot better. This is not simply a matter of personal opinion, it's a matter of pixelated fact. Note that I am -not- talking about the shaders, I am specifically talking about the bitmaps, the textures.
HL2 doesn't utilize detail textures what so ever. I assumed that it had become industry standard by now - I was wrong.
So if you think HL2 looks prettier than other games, don't get me wrong, I agree. It looks a lot better than most games out there, but we aren't talking about the graphics, we are talking about the textures. -Not- shaders, but bitmaps. Textures. Use of detail textures are completely absent in HL2 and would -not- require much processing power.

blahblahblah said:
Want to blame something? Blaming your graphics card for not being able to handle anything better.
Click to expand...
I'm not a child. It's not about blaming, it's about bringing up the glaring absence of an effect which would have a tremendous improvement on textures. Why would I want to shift this 'blame' to my more than adequate graphics card anyway? It is most irrational and illogical to blame the mediator of the graphics (the video adapter) when it is indeed the actual graphical source material which has an absence of detail textures. Procedurals are not necessary, they are still a way off.

Beyond my objective reasoning and subjective opinion, I do not need to justify making what I consider a valid complaint. And it is valid. I am a professional freelance 3d artist, so I can't be said to speak about a subject I know nothing about.

If there were no complaints, we would live in an illusory slave-mind command & control society. Oh, hang on a second.. we already are.. my bad.

Fictitious Will said:
This is why it's so ridiculous. Because detail textures aren't new tech. Unreal 1 had them, for goodness sake. Four or five 256x256 detail textures for concrete, skin, wood, whathaveyou, would solve the problem. Source already does detail textures, Valve confirmed it a long time ago. They just didn't click on the material and add a detail texture in Hammer. It's sad.
Click to expand...

Indeed, it wouldn't require that much work really. Most detail-maps are based off the original map, except in a scaled-down version, with altered alpha-contrasts. All they would need is to make a little utility for batch-rendering each texture into their: Macro and Detail counterparts. Then we end up with 3 bitmaps for each shader-channel.

Regarding the following statements:
blahblahblah said:
Using "detail textures" or procedural texturing would be too large of a performance hit.
Click to expand...
The first statement is erroneous, the second is correct.

For the Detail Textures, the performance-hit wouldn't even be noteworthy. How else could my Matrox G100 8mb video-card be able to render it super-smoothly without problem on Unreal back in 1998?
Procedural textures are still not ready to be utilized properly. My proposal was simply food for thought.
Detail Textures are not reliant on Procs. They can be, and most usually are pure bitmaps.

I know certain people become emotionally involved in HL2, their entire personalities become attached to a specific entertainment title, similar to other memetics, such as religion. You need to relax, and desist from having irrational loyalties to such memetics.
It's not good for you. There is no need to feel frustrated or angry at a person for bringing up a valid complaint about a game.

It's only a game, and some people want to improve it, while others want to protect it from change.
 
Can't you forgive them for not using a 1024x1024 texture on a tiny little sign that nobodie's going to look at for longer than 1 second?
 
Sure I can. I'm not asking for 1024x1024 bitmaps.

But what's so hard about using 3 pieces of 256x256 detail textures?
One Base texture, one Macro texture, and one Detail texture.

Note: Detail Textures are not textures with very high resolution.
They are a method of texturing surfaces when the player walks close up to the walls.
 
Shigawire you are a very well-spoken and intelligent individual. Welcome to the forum.

Perhaps someone can whip up a demo source map that uses detail textures just to show it off, I think the majority of the people here don't even know what it is, even after exhaustive explanation.

Let's not let this thread go the way of the one I linked to.
 
The worst texture I can remember is when you are being transported by the thing at the end and you look up and it's all blurry and ugly.
 
Thanks for the welcome.

To be honest, I bought HL2 for one reason: DOD:Source
But I really loved the game's excellent use of the Havok engine. Much better than the way they used Havok in Max Payne 2. In Max Payne 2, objects would fly across the room if I just touched them! I felt very clumsy in Max Payne 2! :)

I do think that we could cook up a Detail Texture test in HL2..
We do have the Source SDK, so it is feasible. But I'm no programmer, just a mere artist. So I guess it's up to the modding community to take hold of this. I'm already involved with a modification for Rome:Total War as it is.

It would be most fortuitous if someone could make a utility that would add a material to each sample.
Base = original
Macro = intermediary
Detail = close-up material

Detail would be a texture pertaining to the material type. So if the Base texture was a concrete wall, there would be a concrete detail bitmap used for that. The Detail map would mix with the Macro map to make sure the color would be right..

The size of the textures would naturally double, but for me it would be worth it.

I just wonder if such a utility can be made. Only a qualified programmer can make that judgement, after having looked over the SDK. It would also take a lot of effort.
 
maybe the textures are so bad because its a game. if you want hires photorealistic textures on the walls play real-life.
 
just like doom3, the characters looks nice, but the background was crappy
 
Oh grow up. Since when did textures matter? The Combine are SHOOTING at YOU. Do you want to spend all day deliberating one of HL2's shortcomings or do you want to keep your orange-clad ass alive?
 
I'm pretty sure that's a decal, not a texture. Look at the floor, that texturing is awesome; also in other areas where they have textures like raised pebbles and rocks everywhere, that looks great from all angles, close up, far away, etc. If you have any other examples then lets see them, but I think for the most part the textures are pretty good.

Also, people flaming because he actually cares how the game looks - shut up? Of course you want the textures to look good. If you don't care then why don't we all just run it in wireframe, the combine will still be "OMG SHOOTING AT YOU" despite the walls being bright orange. :LOL:
 
for real if we didnt care bout how the games looked, doom 3 would still look like doom 1....i agree the textures arent the best they could be....like the generic garbage texture everywhere....i mean it doesnt take away from the game but it sure doesnt add anything either..i think valve had enough work on their hands and they did the best they could....dont worry about it though because in 5 years you will look back at this game and be like...wow this game had some really bad graphics...
 
does texture quality differ, from when you play it on steam, compared to retail,, cause I remember HL1 on steam compared to retail.. generally didnt look as nice in the texture department, to speed up intial downloading times I think.
 
Ha

It's funny you should compare Half-Life 2 textures to Unreal... because if you ask me, the more unnecessary detail you put into the textures, the more 'unreal' the game looks. That's why this screenshot from Unreal Tournament 2004 looks like a total fabrication:
http://www.firingsquad.com/guides/unreal_tournament_2004/images/15.JPG

And why the attached screenshot from my game of Half-Life 2 looks like it could very well be a photograph.
 
I think of the texture watched some are good some are really butt ugly ...

Eg. the one above you when ure involved with the first teleportation mishap (the underside of the top of the transporter youre in).

AFAIK every texture ive ever gone up close to in any game has become ugly (For a lack of better words).

But someone enlighten me. A few pictures is worth a few thousand words.

Show me some games that do better under the same circumstances :). Mebbe I'll buy em...

Lastly Im allways looking for better graphics and I hope features will be added by valve in the future. I'll have to replace my 9800 as it will not be up for the challenge but it would be worth it.

PS: upgrade -> getting either a ps2.0b / ps3.0 capable card that will also have the power to do real HDR. Nvidias current top gen arent up to snuff there in farcry according to most people.
 
People don't realize why textures aren't lifelike crisp.
You think models, scripts, animations, and even physics will lag your PC? Try high resolution textures. 512x512 is pretty much the limit right now until we have around a gig of video memory per card clocked at like 2.5 gHz. K so don't whine. You don't understand the reasoning behind the limitations.
 
Who needs 512x512?

Detail textures, detail textures, detail textures. Hey, maybe people will get the point if I repeat it often enough. ;)

I haven't got Unreal right here, so I can't make an immediate screenshot of the effect in action. But if you really want to see what I'm talking about, I guess I can download a demo of a Unreal Tournament game, and take a screenshot that way.

btw. that texture was not a decal.
Nor is this a decal:

http://www.omnicogni.com/dump/d2_prison_020000.jpg
 
I'm with you Shiga. I don't think that people realise that HL2's textures up close are A LOT worse than current and some past games. Take BF1942 and BF:V for instance. Up close on those games may not be "photo realistic" but it's not blurred and fuzzy either. Same with SW: Battlefront.

And for the folks who say "why are you worried about detail when enemies are shooting at you, play the game." Give me a break. Well because I'm not dropping hundreds of dollars on video cards for a game to look crappy. Part of the enjoyment of a game for me is it looking great, which HL2 DOES for the most part. If that argument made any sense whatsoever, games would still look like the Atari 2600. 3 things make a great game. Story, playability and GRAPHICS! At ANY distance.
 
btw, @ first post : with that machine, why don't set fsaa to 6x & anisotropic to 16x?? It'll run more than fine. Even i do that with a xp 2800+ (not 64 bit).
 
Shigawire said:
My machine is an Athlon 64 3800+, 9800XT 256mb, 1024mb ram.
I have almost everything on maximum, with the exception of 2xAA and 8xAF. My ATI drivers are the official Catalyst..

Great game, completed it yesterday.. However, I was disappointed in the ridiculously low texture resolutions.
The graphics overall are excellent, but the absence of detail textures just screams at me. Unreal1 from 1998 had a much higher quality on the close-up textures than HL2!

Here is how the textures look afar:
http://www.omnicogni.com/dump/d2_prison_020002.jpg

Not bad..

Now, up close:
http://www.omnicogni.com/dump/d2_prison_020001.jpg

REALLY bad..

Comments? Suggestions?
Click to expand...
That looks really low, and im pretty sure its not that low on mine.. You've got HL2 settings way up.. but have you got the same max settings in the ATI control thingy?

Worth checking
 
Thanks for the suggestion, but I have already checked the controls.
Mipmapping is on maximum, texture is also on maximum.
 
Here you can clearly see the detail texture in action. This is Unreal Tournament 2004. The same technology was used in Unreal 1 back in 1998. I don't understand why it hasn't become standard issue yet. Because it requires very little effort and very little processing power.

Note how the texture looks ordinary when you're far away:
UT2004-Shot01.png


And then note how it looks when you move closer, as a SECOND layer of texture is applied.

UT2004-Shot02.png


Note that this does not require 1024x1024 mega bitmaps, it just requires smarter use of small bitmaps.
 
Far-cry had more detailed textures...

I figured the engine would be able to handle more detailed textures at this point, but I'm sure it was a trade-off with the other aspects of the graphics.
 
CS 1.6 also supports detail textures. I guess they didn't include it in HL2 because they didn't feel it was necessary. If you make a MOD for HL2 you could make all your texture 1024x1024 and it will probably look better than detail textures but you obviously need alot of RAM. I think it's just a design decision. They chose that this overlay (i'm pretty sure it is an overlay) didn't has to be more detailed. I agree I could have been a little more sharp (high res) but they have to cut somewhere or the game wouldn't be as playable as it is now.
 
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