CryEngine shadowing investigation...

[Zelda_fan]

razor, if the game isn't under NDA could you tell us the game you are working on? Do you guys have a website with screenshots I could look at? Unfourtantly I won't be at GDC.

Also, yes, I know Doom3 wasn't built to specifically handle outdoors like the CryEngine was, but with a bit of coding, I'm sure it wouldn't be that hard to implement a system like the CryEngine has where it just puts up 2D sprites for vegitation that is far away. Couldn't you just insert an "if-then" statement that checks how far away the trees are from view and if they are a certain distance, don't draw them (or use a 2D sprite)?

Jedi Academy & SOFII used Quake III technology, and as far as I know, the Quake III engine wasn't built from the ground up with outdoor environments in mind. I would be very suprised if Carmack created an engine that could not handle outdoor enviroments decently. That would be a really stupid decision and really limit Doom3's market share.

When I first heard Carmack talking about it I though he was talking about all lights in the world effect every object in the same way. Well I would expect that much from his engine. It never happend, they do use light maps just rarely.

Could you provide some examples of this in the Doom3 maps?

[Razor1]

Originally Posted by jonk

razor, if the game isn't under NDA could you tell us the game you are working on? Do you guys have a website with screenshots I could look at? Unfourtantly I won't be at GDC.

Also, yes, I know Doom3 wasn't built to specifically handle outdoors like the CryEngine was, but with a bit of coding, I'm sure it wouldn't be that hard to implement a system like the CryEngine has where it just puts up 2D sprites for vegitation that is far away. Couldn't you just insert an "if-then" statement that checks how far away the trees are from view and if they are a certain distance, don't draw them (or use a 2D sprite)?

Jedi Academy & SOFII used Quake III technology, and as far as I know, the Quake III engine wasn't built from the ground up with outdoor environments in mind. I would be very suprised if Carmack created an engine that could not handle outdoor enviroments decently. That would be a really stupid decision and really limit Doom3's market share.



Could you provide some examples of this in the Doom3 maps?

Well I can't talk about our game till after the GDC, check us out on gamespot they should be doing a nice video of what we are showing of at GDC.

Its not just a simple if then statement, the memory managment and orgnanizational system of Binary Spatial Partition

The renderer breaks down after the 4096 limit due to floating point roundoff error. This is one of the limitations of a BSP tree engine. As long as you don't render more than 4096 in any direction it works fine. Momery usage gets huge for bigger levels.

Actually play the game just keep your eyes open its there. I was really suprised to see it. Maybe orginally Carmack didn't want to use them, and the level designers decided to use them they do really improve looks. This is the same case for us, we were only using dynamic lights for everything but to add in accents here and there lightmaps really help out.

Its not what the engine can do thats important really as long as it can do the graphics that is required for a game. For a game like Doom 3 or most indoor FPS, Unreal 3 tech and Doom 3 are great. They can do outdoors to a limited amount which is all thats needed of them.

[HIWTHI]

Razor1, I was telling Nv40 to shut up if he was going to continue to make stuff up as he goes. Don't tell me you are qualified to tell me to shut up as well when I am just trying to get facts to be presented in this thread.

Your story about how Doom 3 uses lightmaps doesn't seem true. Sorry if I come off as argumentative, but all of the interviews and modders have said the exact opposite. I hope you can understand I need proof before believing a statement like that.

Those trees aren't sprites either (they are billboards), no way can you make a sprite that rotates and has properly lighting

What do you think billboards are?

The renderer breaks down after the 4096 limit due to floating point roundoff error. This is one of the limitations of a BSP tree engine. As long as you don't render more than 4096 in any direction it works fine. Momery usage gets huge for bigger levels.

4096 what? I'm confused to what you are talking about.

[Gabrobot]

Originally Posted by Razor1

Its not just a simple if then statement, the memory managment and orgnanizational system of Binary Spatial Partition

The renderer breaks down after the 4096 limit due to floating point roundoff error. This is one of the limitations of a BSP tree engine. As long as you don't render more than 4096 in any direction it works fine. Momery usage gets huge for bigger levels.

Doom 3's render data isn't BSP based:

Originally Posted by Brian Harris

The reason I ask is because Doom 3 is a portal based renderer, so there are no more leaf nodes or block sizes -- at least not for the render data. The aas is still BSP based so I think that's where you are getting the error.

Originally Posted by Razor1

Actually play the game just keep your eyes open its there. I was really suprised to see it. Maybe orginally Carmack didn't want to use them, and the level designers decided to use them they do really improve looks. This is the same case for us, we were only using dynamic lights for everything but to add in accents here and there lightmaps really help out.

Doom 3 has light "shaders" which are used for things like various flashing lights, as well as casting an image as a shadow. These are very different from a lightmap (which are images pasted over the level surfaces lighten them). Rather, it simply modifies the light that is emitted from a certain light. The light is just as dynamic as any other light and can moved and turned off/on in real-time. Doom 3 does do optimizations for static lights, but this has no effect on how unified the engine is since everything still goes through the same system. The optimizations are turned off if the light starts moving (any light could at some point start to move), and it is also possible to disable the optimization via a cvar. This is by no means lightmapping, and it doesn't "break" the engines unification since all lights remain the same...that is, they continue to go through the same process.

Further, for at least the render data, all surfaces are treated the same regardless of whether they are brush geometry, static models, or dynamic models. I'm not sure how much more unified you can get...

[Intel17]

Originally Posted by Razor1

should I step in here, its quite hot....

If your telling NV40 to shut up, I would tell you to shut up too. Be nice. In truth Carmack's Doom 3 engine can technically work well without much modification for the next 5 years, just has to add a few new shaders. Ogl unlike Dx doesn't need a complete rewrite when the next version comes out. There are many engines out there that can do what Doom 3 can and more. Developing engines has become much easier in the past few years as hardware has really improved and its no longer fine tuning every espect of the engine.

And Intel17 I've already shown that the Cry engine's shadow system is as good as Doom 3 and the Cry engine can do things the Doom 3 engine can't well if it can do things the Cry engine can do it hasn't been shown yet.

From what? A few screens with stencil volumes in it? I'm not doubting the engine can do them, but objects can't cast multiple shadows, the engine only calculates stencils based on the most important light.

I'm sorry, but I spent a lot of time trying to get shadowing in FarCry to look like Doom's, but it just doesn't do it. Now if you can prove to me that it indeed calculates shadows based on all lights, then you'll have a basis for argument. The screens posted by you prove that every object can possibly cast one shadow, but quite frankly the geometry in that room isn't quite indicitve of the shadow casting abiliy of the engine.



Coupled with the fact that you said Doom's renderer was BSP based, and seemed so sure...

(Oh, and this isn't a flame, I'm just attempting to counter your argument )

[Razor1]

Originally Posted by Intel17

From what? A few screens with stencil volumes in it? I'm not doubting the engine can do them, but objects can't cast multiple shadows, the engine only calculates stencils based on the most important light.

I'm sorry, but I spent a lot of time trying to get shadowing in FarCry to look like Doom's, but it just doesn't do it. Now if you can prove to me that it indeed calculates shadows based on all lights, then you'll have a basis for argument. The screens posted by you prove that every object can possibly cast one shadow, but quite frankly the geometry in that room isn't quite indicitve of the shadow casting abiliy of the engine.



Coupled with the fact that you said Doom's renderer was BSP based, and seemed so sure...



(Oh, and this isn't a flame, I'm just attempting to counter your argument )

Well there is one function that limits the shadow capability in the cry engine thats because its not a bug it was programmed for performance enhancements its clipping planes are a bit agressive and this isn't hard to change. Actually show me in doom when an object casts more then one volumetric shadow? Please do cause I haven't seen it yet. just remember its bad enough for 2 dyanamic lights in the Doom 3 engine (turning on flashlight slows things down), thats two passes. You want to calculate another shadow for each object? also open a level in th editor and start turning off dynamic lights, you will see there is only 1 per area that is casting shdaows in Doom.

We can do it in the Cry engien thats not a problem, but shadows fade out when you use 2 light sources because theres more light. There are two shadows though.

Coupled with the fact that you said Doom's renderer was BSP based, and seemed so sure...

Its not a BSP renderer? Are you sure? look again hehe

"The main stereotype that the Doom 3 Engine suffers from, is that it can only render small, cramped inside corridors. This in fact is completely untrue, because the engine is quite capable of rendering big, detailed outside worlds. You will see the outside capabilities of the engine in Quake 4 and it will dramatically change people's perception on what the Doom 3 Engine can do. The Doom 3 engine is more suitable for inside environments though, because of its BSP (Binary Space Partitioning) system for optimizing the graphics engine. The Doom 3 Engine also supports larger textures, which in the future will allow the textures to look even better. The Source Engine is pretty much the opposite. It is more suited for outdoor environments and its inside environments don't look nearly as lifelike or detailed as Doom 3's. Both of these things are debatable and it is pretty much a toss-up for this category"

This is a quote from dev masters, we all know he is an idiot and doesn't know what a BSP tree is probably just talks about it as if he does.

Robert Duffy: Yeah. The editor and the BSPer and all the tools are actually built into the game itself. You can run it from the console. On a Windows system, if you can run the game you can essentially run the tools. The editor still uses a lot of Windows code so it's not going to run on a Macintosh, but I think all the other tools should run fine.


Robert Duffy: It's not gone. The BSP process used to be three things - it used to be a BSP, then it would be visibility and lighting calculations. Now we just do a BSP, and the lighting and visibility are all calculated in real-time.

No BSP would think Robert would know what he was talking about

[Intel17]

Razor1,

You've got PM.

To everyone who's following, Razor1 made his point in an intelligent way, and I'm going to find out more from him and update my first post accordingly :-)

[Razor1]

Thx Intel,

Oh just to let ya know I'm going to be out of town for the GDC and till around April 5th taking a much needed break

[HIWTHI]

As an avid Devmaster.net forum member I just want to let you know that the author of the article fixed his statement the day after the article came out. Since then it has read:

The Doom 3 engine is more suitable for inside environments though, because of its realistic lighting system, which greatly slows down a game when calculated over large areas.

You can read the updated article here:
http://www.newworldvideogames.com/pl...%20Engine.plan

I wouldn't be throwing around the word idiot if I were you Razor. From the Devmaster forum the author seems like a nice and knowledgeable guy who has helped me out quite a bit. From your statements I can't say the same about you.

[Intel17]

Originally Posted by HIWTHI

As an avid Devmaster.net forum member I just want to let you know that the author of the article fixed his statement the day after the article came out. Since then it has read:



You can read the updated article here:
http://www.newworldvideogames.com/pl...%20Engine.plan

I wouldn't be throwing around the word idiot if I were you Razor. From the Devmaster forum the author seems like a nice and knowledgeable guy who has helped me out quite a bit. From your statements I can't say the same about you.

The guy at Devmaster, isn't an idiot per-se, but he's not knowlegeable enough to start writing articles about this topic. Similar to myself writing an article like this about a year ago.

Razor1 knows what he's talking about as well, and we've had some discussion about this very thing before, and about some shader related material :-)

Let's try to keep this thread civilized, because it's interesting, as i'm sure many of you think as well.

[Razor1]

Originally Posted by HIWTHI

As an avid Devmaster.net forum member I just want to let you know that the author of the article fixed his statement the day after the article came out. Since then it has read:



You can read the updated article here:
http://www.newworldvideogames.com/pl...%20Engine.plan

I wouldn't be throwing around the word idiot if I were you Razor. From the Devmaster forum the author seems like a nice and knowledgeable guy who has helped me out quite a bit. From your statements I can't say the same about you.

Well for someone that is knowledgable shouldn't be talking about which engine is better if he doesn't understand the premise behind it. He should be only mentioning features and benefits of an engine not going to the conclusion of which engine is better. Otherwise he just puts his foot in his mouth and it makes him look like an idiot.

He might be a nice guy but he shouldn't do a direct comparision with HL 2 and Doom3 , thats gotta be the worst comparision of graphics technologies in the world. HL 2 if the shaders were rewitten can do what Doom 3 does. And if you add in the lip sync to Doom 3 well it can do what HL 2 does.

See the difference?

but many other programmers do not. From email I’ve gotten from professional programmers I would say Valve has stretched the truth with its claim of real-time radiosity. The Source Engine also still uses light maps along with dynamic lights, which the Quake 3 engine used, so id is still a few years ahead in light technology.

What the hell is that? come on that has to be the most shallow view point from a lighting system I have heard.

Just because it uses lightmaps means its lesser of a technology?


And the BSP thing I don't think he knows what he is talking about, I can write down at least 10 features of a BSP why it would hurt an outdoor environment.

In the Source Engine the models are much higher model counts and more detailed textures for their models.

The Source Engine has better models, especially human, but combined with the lighting and shadowing

OH my god another shallow look at engine technology if you can write one surface shader you can write any number of surface shaders.

The core gameplay of Half-Life 2 is built around the physics engine. The Havok Physics Engine, easily the top physics engine out there, powers the Source Engine. The physics engine is integrated with the world and characters. The sounds and graphics react with the physics engine, AI characters are able to interact with objects, and it actually matters instead of being a nice sideshow. Ropes/cables, machines, constraint systems, ragdoll physics, vehicles, inverse kinematics bone animation, and a materials system make the Source Engine the undisputed champion of physics gameplay. Doom 3's physics engine was built in house and although it has ragdoll physics, inverse kinematics, and a materials system it is on a much smaller scale. The ragdoll physics seems to do a better job handling clipping in Doom 3 than the Source Engine does. In Doom 3 it is only used with objects other than enemies like barrels, which have a little effect on gameplay. And yet again, the Source Engine wins.

He just bought into the Havok hype. Do you really think physics engines are that hard to make? Rag dolls are probably the most complex phyical simulations out there right now. Both engine are fully capable of equal level of physics.

[HIWTHI]

HL 2 if the shaders were rewitten can do what Doom 3 does. And if you add in the lip sync to Doom 3 well it can do what HL 2 does.

After that insane comment I'm done with this argument.