CryEngine shadowing investigation...

[Nv40]

Originally Posted by Vagrant Zero

If Doom3's shadow system is 15% [I wish I could randomly pull out percentages from my anus, it would help with accounting] then CryTek and Source are batting in the negatives.

well believe it or not.. Johncarmack told DOom3 engine will be capable of Final fAntasy graphics in real time.. and that will e able to match Offline professional renderers.. that level of quality is just movie quality.. so you are right , i was too generous with my percentages... the game while its great.. one of the best looking games..still ended being 1% of what they claimed..

next engine.. they already compare it with PIxar latest movies .. and those are Shrek or lord of the rings.. graphics.. i will be happy with just the Finalfantasy graphics quality they promised years ealier for Doom3 .

[Vagrant Zero]

I want a quote. I was following D3 for years and I don't remember this Final Fantasy quote. But even then, everyone says crap like that, if you believed it...ya...well you have my pity.

Everyone remember how powerful the emotion chip was supposed to be? Exactly.

It's called PR drivel for a reason people.

[HIWTHI]

I don't remember Carmack saying that about the Doom 3 Engine. I'm reading the Making of Doom 3 and he says that in a few years (Probably next-gen) engines will be able to get to about that quality.

[TierMann]

I'm sure they could have given you your 100%, but then you wouldn't be able to play the game for another 2 years above 2fps. You're also mixing 2 different things. They said the engine can give you "Final Fantasy" quality, not the game. (If it was said at all)

[Nv40]

Originally Posted by HIWTHI

I don't remember Carmack saying that about the Doom 3 Engine. I'm reading the Making of Doom 3 and he says that in a few years (Probably next-gen) engines will be able to get to about that quality.

he told (not using the same words) that he already have an engine (when he was working in doom3) that can do the quality of offline renderers but that will not cost the thousands people need to pay.. and that he believes the engine was so good that will be enough for the next 5 years??????.. and others developers will need 2years at least to catch their tech .. that with doom3 engine it will not be necessary to create more engines..for many years.. and that people will be doing them just for fun ... just imagine 5 years with Doom3 graphics as the best ... if that is the future.. then we are Doomed indeed.. hehe

Farcry/Riddick were released much earlier than Doom3 and they already offer more technology and graphics than doom3 in many ways.. and lets not talk about incomming games in this year....

lessons learned .. "dont believe it ,what they say ,until you see it"

[Nv40]

Originally Posted by HIWTHI

Nv40, you have no idea what you are talking about do you? It's sad that you think indoor and outdoor engines are the same. Just stop making up stuff and getting into conversations where you have no idea what everyone is talking about.

engines doesnt have eyes... they just see polygons,and polygons and textures.. and some pixel shaders for water and fire //when it comes to graphics. outdoors are just boxmaps.. with higher dimensions than indoors.. the engine doesnt know the diference between a mountain ,a trees or wall in doom3.. all those big outdoors in games are enclosed in 4 walls (its limits)..its all polygons and textures.. whether the ceiling of the map is 10km or 10m doesnt change anything.

[TierMann]

Originally Posted by Nv40

just imagine 5 years with Doom3 graphics as the best ... if that is the future.. then we are Doomed indeed.. hehe

You're talking games and graphics again, not engines and polygons and shaders.

[HIWTHI]

Nv40, I would just exit this conversation, because you are just digging yourself deeper and deeper into your imaginary world where everything you make up is the truth. Your statement that it's all just polygons is stupid and is like saying everything in the world is the same, because we are all made of matter. You've proven you have no idea how engines function or even what they are. Different techniques are used for outdoor and indoor rendering making both radically different. You might want to learn how to write correctly since your grammar makes your made-up information come off as even more illogical.

[Nv40]

Originally Posted by HIWTHI

Nv40, I would just exit this conversation, because you are just digging yourself deeper and deeper into your imaginary world where everything you make up is the truth. Your statement that it's all just polygons is stupid and is like saying everything in the world is the same, because we are all made of matter. You've proven you have no idea how engines function or even what they are. Different techniques are used for outdoor and indoor rendering making both radically different. You might want to learn how to write correctly since your grammar makes your made-up information come off as even more illogical.

in the gaming world .. generally speaking everything is polygons and textures.. in games.. Outdoors are outdoors because of the "looks",
if you change in Doom3 "outdoors" the 2d texture of the sky and the 2dbackgrounds for a tiled texture of any indoor wall .. and lower the size of the ceiling ,does it make any diference for the engine? NO!


there are sprites and other tricks to simulate vegetation whenever you need them.. inside a very large area .. "outdoors" or smaller one "indoors"

in doom3 and most today games is all Polys and textures.. with some shader effects.. the only thing that change is the shape of the polys and the textures used...the diferent between a chair or a mountain is polys . engines doesnt know the diference between OUtdoors and indoors .. its all the same thing with diferent artwork in the game engine world. is that simple.

[Intel17]

Originally Posted by Nv40

There is not such a thing like "outdoors" or "indoors" for a game engine

"outdoors" are merely a bigger indoor box map with a higher ceiling.. with a 2d background as "sky" in most games / So unless CRytek free tools in the SDK are only limited to only edit already made maps.. then there is no reason for outdoors to be limited to *just one* lighting technique .. like the limitation DOom3 already have.

Farcry engine support realtime PErpixel lighting just like DOom3 ,but also Lightmaps and shadowmaps.. last time i tested Farcry it use REaltime lighting in "outdoors" for the Jeeps..and the vehicles., and dynamic objects. when you switch to *thirdpersonview*. all other things uses lightmaps.. what IDsoftware they swiched for their next engine.


Stencil volume shadows are always hardedge.. Whether is DOom3 ,Farcry ,Fear or any other game. The lego shadows in farcry in "outdoors" Geforces cards are just very simple HArdware shadowmaps.. exactly like the ones used in 3dmark2005.. PCF shadows.. the lack of realism is not the fault of the technique ,but that the developers are using too few samples maybe 1-2 for their game ,this is a performance optimization. Unreal3 should be using like 16 samples at 2000x2000 resolutions for their shadows.

Doom3 use hacks for shadows.. too.. and many many times.. there is not a single Doom3 level without static shadows in doom3..whenever you see very soft shadows in doom3.. they are 100% static .examples of those are ...Fences, shadows of fans in the ceiling.. light through winodws.. jail cage.. etc..a very simple technique used by many games ,they are projected black textures ,that looks like if they were shadows ,but there arent // what they do is do project a black texture (or the color you want) in the surfaces. wich is not the realtime stuff Idsoftware was bragging so much. idsoftware simply never told the whole truth and overhyped their engine.. and it ended being 15% of what they told it was..

Heh, about the "precomputed" shadows in Doom 3, Mr. Carmack was nice enough to tell me about them...

Originally Posted by John Carmack

Any soft shadows in Doom are from projected lights with fuzzy boundaries in the actual light texture, not from an occluder in the world.

Also, it's just like drawing a shadow texture. The engine still renders everything realtime that's based on occluders...

Also OVERHYPED THEIR ENGINE? ARE YOU KIDDING? Carmack rarely bragged about the engine, and most of it was neat to tinker with when it came out since there were so many hidden feaures. Now, you want overhyped? SOURCE.


Now, technically FarCry uses "per-pixel lighting" along with the pre-computed stuff. But my point is the engine can't cope with many real-time per-pixel lights and performance just goes down significantly!

Stencil volumes ALWAYS hard edged? No, you can pass them through a filter kernel or jitter light positions to allow for soft shadows, although it needs more samples. Here's what John Carmack has to say...

Originally Posted by John Carmack

Jittering the light position for entire volumes doesn't work nearly as well as jittering per-pixel with shadow buffers. Four samples looks decent with buffers, but like crap with volumes. You need to go to at least 16 samples with volumes, and even than it often isn't very good. We made a lot of cover image renderings with 128 samples with the stencil volumes.

John Carmack

Also, I talked with the CryTek renderer guy and he said that they support shadow-volumes only indoors and shadow maps outdoors. Unfortunately Ubi soft shut down that forum...man those CryTek guys would always answer questions...

Also on the shadowmaps...It's not just the blockyness, but in some cases there's "shadow acne" and shadow pullaway, along with bias problems (Hmm, what Carmack needed to fix with the buffers.).

It's not just a matter of upping the samples. Shadowing algorithms done right are VERY tricky.

Basically, in terms of light/surface interactions and shadowing algorithms, IF we consider "closest to offline renderers" or "closer to CG", then Doom 3 is the most advanced. If we look at other criteria it may not be, but in terms of a technological step towards the convergence of offline renderers and shifting into the "cinematic" paradigm (although this engine isn't quite there yet).

Feel free, all of you, to draw your own conclusions however. This is just one person's opinion.

If you believe CryEngine is the best engine, then I don't mind
If you believe Source is the best engine, then I don't mind
If you think D3 has the best engine, then I don't mind.

What I do mind, is when people attempt to prove what they believe by spreading fallicous information and lying.

This is why I took the time to do this experiment, so I could prove that the shadowing in CryEngine cannot achieve what Doom's does (whether it's more or less advanced to you, that's a different matter).

[Intel17]

Originally Posted by Nv40

he told (not using the same words) that he already have an engine (when he was working in doom3) that can do the quality of offline renderers but that will not cost the thousands people need to pay.. and that he believes the engine was so good that will be enough for the next 5 years??????.. and others developers will need 2years at least to catch their tech .. that with doom3 engine it will not be necessary to create more engines..for many years.. and that people will be doing them just for fun ... just imagine 5 years with Doom3 graphics as the best ... if that is the future.. then we are Doomed indeed.. hehe

Farcry/Riddick were released much earlier than Doom3 and they already offer more technology and graphics than doom3 in many ways.. and lets not talk about incomming games in this year....

lessons learned .. "dont believe it ,what they say ,until you see it"

1.) Listen, I've read every statement Carmack ever made public about the Doom engine, he said no such thing.

2.) He has said that if you have huge textures with lots of polygons, you can get FF quality in LIMITED CASES.

3.) Again, with the comparison, you are talking without factual information. I could write a research paper which could prove wrong that statement.

[Ninjaman09]

In the immortal words of Walter Sobchak, "Shut the **** up, NV40, you're out of your element!"

Not a flame, I just love quoting Big Lebowski any chance I can get.