Jump to content
The Dark Mod Forums

Check This Out...


obscurus

Recommended Posts

I can't wait to make maps for this game engine (Unreal Engine 3 - UT2007) - check these screenies out...

 

unreal3_04.jpg

 

 

unreal3_09.jpg

 

unreal3_06.jpg

 

ingame9.jpg

 

ingame8.jpg

 

 

ingame1.jpg

 

Fuckin' Unreal

 

:ph34r:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hrm. I actually thought there were better ones out there? Maybe I'm wrong. The only one I really like there is number 4. The nature scenes look cartoony, and all the ones with chars appear to be at least partially faked. I'm not saying U3 can't do it - we all know it can. But these pics are just odd looking. The marine guy's lighting is all wrong, so he's probably just an overlay, and the other guy's lighting is terrible in the last shot, so he's also probably been digitally added afterword. Haven't companies learned not to fake up photos for distribution? If they're not retouched/added to... um, then the lighting needs tweaking for character models, badly.

 

Anyway, the few movies that are out there show off Unreal tech 3 MUCH better. Those are indeed incredible.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yeah the fourth one is the best, and there are better ones out there - I just selected a few at random, while I can't say I am a fan of the Unreal stylism with their big chunky characters and cartoony look, it certainly gives you an idea of what the engine is capable of, even if they have been playing around with photoshop. I am looking forward to discarding all those cartoony bits and replacing them with dark, gritty realism, Thief (Dark Mod?) style... in about 6 years when I can afford the PC hardware to do it :lol:

 

And hey, you gotta admit it is still better than the job they did on T:DS. I think a lot of it is the lighting, too. They could have done it a bit better, but hey, it's only a tech demo...

Edited by obscurus
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Doom 3 could look ALMOST as good, considering most of those textures are 2048x2048, and probably multiple of those on characters. It's just insane texture res, which makes normalmapping look better.

 

Of course, there are a few other additions; Precomputed radiance transer, spherical harmonics, etc, and of course you can still use traditional lightmaps.

 

And you gotta respect the modelers/texture artists behind it. It takes considerable effort to make any engine look decent, especially next-gen ones. But then, what do they pay them for ??? :D

Link to comment
Share on other sites

And I remember a tech demo video from a a while back in which they said the charcater models would have u to 10k polys.

They said there would be more texture on one character than an entire level of the original UT.

THe softer shadows make it look great though.

Edited by oDDity

Civillisation will not attain perfection until the last stone, from the last church, falls on the last priest.

- Emil Zola

 

character models site

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The top 3 screens are from the speedtree RT website - they have licensed an engine that does real-time trees & vegetation, and it has been incorporated into Unreal Engine 3. This thing can handle some very impressive tree geometry, including wind physics, in RT. There are some nice examples of what it can do in a range of engines, some standalone demos etc at SpeedTreeRT

 

I wonder if this will make its way into Doom 3 code?

 

The downside to all this is that it takes a lot more time and effort to make something that looks that detailed - Without proceduraly generated trees etc, it would take years to make maps with that much detail, and game developer tools are gonna have to start involving procedural geometry generation a lot more, or games will be decades between concept, development and release....

 

Are the days of a lone mapper making levels gone?

Edited by obscurus
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I must say I'm impressed by the U3 engine.... these screens don't really do it justice...

 

Once the hardware has become advanced enough to run games with this engine as well as current systems run D3, I think someone ought to make a Thief-like mod on it... damn, from what I've seen, this engine is entirely capable of rendering huge, detailed cities and I distinctly remember someone at Epic saying it will support streaming (huge, seamless worlds) and a very advanced occlusion system for visibility calculations. I think THAT is a crucial advantage to U3, and not insanely high res textures and displacement mapping... The screens (and videos) that impress me the most are those which show those unbelievably HUGE and realistic looking vistas. Now that's something to whet my appetite... I'm not too big on sci-fi sounding specifications about pixel-this and vertex-that.

 

Not even mentioning their visual scripting system. I hear modding for U3 will be extremely simplified, while at the same time allowing for more complexity. Some screens on the unreal technology site do seem to show AI programming with minimal code. And the same goes for shaders. I once read an article in which some Epic guy bragged that with U3 engine, one is able to implement drastically different playing mechanics within a single level in a matter of hours.

 

Now, whether all this cool stuff will actually make it into the final build, remains to be seen, but looks like they're pulling it off well...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

  • Recent Status Updates

    • Ansome

      Finally got my PC back from the shop after my SSD got corrupted a week ago and damaged my motherboard. Scary stuff, but thank goodness it happened right after two months of FM development instead of wiping all my work before I could release it. New SSD, repaired Motherboard and BIOS, and we're ready to start working on my second FM with some added version control in the cloud just to be safe!
      · 0 replies
    • Petike the Taffer  »  DeTeEff

      I've updated the articles for your FMs and your author category at the wiki. Your newer nickname (DeTeEff) now comes first, and the one in parentheses is your older nickname (Fieldmedic). Just to avoid confusing people who played your FMs years ago and remember your older nickname. I've added a wiki article for your latest FM, Who Watches the Watcher?, as part of my current updating efforts. Unless I overlooked something, you have five different FMs so far.
      · 0 replies
    • Petike the Taffer

      I've finally managed to log in to The Dark Mod Wiki. I'm back in the saddle and before the holidays start in full, I'll be adding a few new FM articles and doing other updates. Written in Stone is already done.
      · 4 replies
    • nbohr1more

      TDM 15th Anniversary Contest is now active! Please declare your participation: https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/22413-the-dark-mod-15th-anniversary-contest-entry-thread/
       
      · 0 replies
    • JackFarmer

      @TheUnbeholden
      You cannot receive PMs. Could you please be so kind and check your mailbox if it is full (or maybe you switched off the function)?
      · 1 reply
×
×
  • Create New...