PlaneShift
Gameplay => Wish list => Topic started by: Sarras Volcae on December 08, 2009, 08:49:25 am
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anyone who plays world of warcraft should know what i mean. it's some kind of lighting on terrain that brings out texture. like the moon's rays on grass or smooth stone. i can't remember what it's called, and this may be a dumb wish, but i figured it might be easy to implement. and it's pretty! :-[ (besides the terrain now is sooo dull)
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No idea.
I guess it could be bloom or bump mapping. It must be some kind of shader for sure.
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Shaders.
We're getting them.
You're welcome.
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Well, shaders, but what about all the bump maps?
So I suppose the shaders will be available right away from 0.5 - but according maps for having things visualized would take some more years (or in a more official way: soon(tm))?
Dont celebrate too early.
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Do you mean multitexturing?
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Specular lighting? Changes the way objects reflect light, looks a little more realistic as it reacts as you move around the object.
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Not really "easy" to implement since you must make an extra b/w image to tell the engine where to apply more or less highlighting, meaning every single IG texture needs that extra file unless you're setting plain glass/metal textures. But I'd assume that this should be possible from 0.5 on, just means some extra work. ;)
Here's an example with the 3 textures. The diffuse map is the original texture, normal map is the bump-mapping (used to simulate extra volumes and which WoW isn't using), and finally the specular map:
(http://www.fish-byte-studios.co.uk/tutorials/TUT01%20-%20Building%20Essential%20Texture%20maps%20for%20Material%20Shaders/image35.jpg)
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Normal mapped textures are being prepared, to get an effect like the bumpy stones in the "Podium" (the character loading place). But it is not as simple as it sounds: Where textures had been created with darker areas to simulate a simple static shadow, this darkening would have to be removed to not interfer with new shadows caused by normal mapping and shadow calculation. That sometimes means to re-make whole textures. What an effort... poor leisure time.
I believe Sarras referred to specularity, reflexes of the environment. Some armor already has that, I believe. The same for landscape is a bit more effort.
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Lhaa's got it right.
My Dsar work is fully bump (normal) mapped.
Note that at the moment PS armour has greyscale bump maps (not 'normal maps') with a rather odd shader that treats it like a normal map, causing issues with inverting of the light distortion (meaning grooves become bumps and vice-versa).
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yeah specular lighting, that's it! i wouldn't want the devs to waste time on prettiness now, but i think that, in the future, it would look cool...
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The prettier the game, the more intense the immersion gets :D
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The prettier the game, the more intense the immersion gets :D
depends when the client freezes for a minute because it's compiling shaders it's not exactly immersive :P
btw the forum is missing a "poke smile"
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specular lighting is usually optional
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btw the forum is missing a "poke smilie"
Like that? (http://cosgan.de/images/smilie/frech/m050.gif)
Or maybe even that: (http://cosgan.de/images/smilie/boese/e040.gif)
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btw the forum is missing a "poke smilie"
Like that? (http://cosgan.de/images/smilie/frech/m050.gif)
Or maybe even that: (http://cosgan.de/images/smilie/boese/e040.gif)
exactly ;D
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The prettier the game, the more intense the immersion gets :D
Wrong.
The better the gameplay the more intense the immersion. graphics are nice, and hell knows that I love physics, but gameplay over graphics all day, everyday.
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that's kind of an opinion, boaal. plus it's irrelevant.
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A wonderful glitch and version 0.5 has givin me shiny white ground and body :D
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http://blog.wolfire.com/2009/12/Detail-textures (http://blog.wolfire.com/2009/12/Detail-textures)
If anyone's interested I think that is a nice insight into the kind of thing this thread might be alluding to.
that's kind of an opinion, boaal. plus it's irrelevant.
Fair point, but I'll back it up with personal experience and the experience of many other people too. I browse the Unity showcase forums a lot, I think the engine is pretty sweet, making multiple terrain tiles is aggravating since they don't start off at the same place/levels or mirror, I suppose, would be a better word so it's really hard to align them, but I digress. Some of the time you'll find a demo level, which looks quite amazing considering that it's usually made by one guy. but these levels, pretty as they are, usually hold me for at most two minutes. If there's nothing but pretty scenery it gets pretty boring pretty fast.
This is the same reason that many people are starting to get aggravated with the amount of 'spectacle' games on the market. Games that feature very detailed, in depth, exciting graphics, but only offer 2-5 hours worth of gameplay in the entire game. It's too little of the core aspect: the game. I love exciting, brilliant graphics as much as the next guy, at the same time I enjoy AI:UFO, and that game has, to be fair, crap graphics! Same reason why Dwarf Fortress and Nethack are still very much noted and commented on as 'deep', 'replayable', by loads of people even though they are ascii based games. Diablo II is another example, people love that game and it was made how long ago? Graphics like that nowerdays make people laugh. That's why people are making games like "Dins Curse" and "Torchlight" in an attempt to bring it into the 21st century. Starcraft too, loved to death for it's balance. Same reason why Achaea, a MUD still has several hundred players online at any time, even thought it's text based.
I know this is getting way off the point, but I do feel a need to stress the 'gameplay over graphics' aspect of gaming.
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PS already has the gameplay immersion handled through it's RP rules, now to get the pretty graphics.
I personally find realistic graphics increases the immersion, but you are right, gameplay is a significant factor. It's just for me as an artist, seeing ugly art makes me not want to play a game. I liked Oblivion more than Morrowind, simply because it was prettier and the gameplay was up to scratch.
It's one of the things that puts me off WoW... the characters are incredibly cartoony and I wouldn't find myself immersed. I'm sure the gameplay is great, to hold millions of players to it's name, but it's not something that will hold me.
Yes gameplay is important, but if I'm repulsed by crap art and graphics I won't be there long.