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Silent Hill 3 graphics...I said WOW!

RedAssedApe

RedAssedApe

Banned
Special J said:
da2 is trash so its not fair to bring that up for comparison

something from THIS gen looks perfectly fine imo. (how the fuck does a game like da2 sell 2mil and this game sell less than 200k)
M93rQ.png
Click to expand...

Silent Hill models still look better. ;)
 
L

Lord Error

Insane For Sony
jett said:
For their time? That little gif has better facial animation than any game Bioware has ever made. :lol
Click to expand...
Combined. Her eye movement there is brilliant. What's even crazier, that's all almost assuredly hand animated. I really doubt an 8 year old game with 3M budget could have afforded facial performance capture, if that technique was even available back then.

As a personal pet peeve, I dislike when Bioware games get somehow lumped up with Uncharted games when it comes to facial expressions/animations (like people saying for something WOW, this looks as good or better than Uncharted/Mass Effect expressions!!). Bioware games are all about mass produced practicality, they use procedurally generated expressions that get the job done for the amount of stuff they have to display. But in no way shape or form can it compete on the pure looks basis.
 
F

Fimbulvetr

Member
jett said:
For their time? That little gif has better facial animation than any game Bioware has ever made. :lol
Click to expand...

Most games have better facial animation than Bioware. It's not exactly an accomplishment.

Agreed that SH3's facial animation was amazing though.
 
T

ThisWreckage

Banned
I love Silent Hill 2, but I couldn't get into Silent Hill 3 for the life of me. The labyrinthine level design did not make a fun experience.
 
M

Magicpaint

Member
Silent Hill 3 does have amazing facial animation.
ThisWreckage said:
I love Silent Hill 2, but I couldn't get into Silent Hill 3 for the life of me. The labyrinthine level design did not make a fun experience.
Click to expand...
Silent Hill 3 just kinda starts slow. It doesn't hook you in the way the first two do from the get go - not enough mystery (even SH4 starts much better, though I find SH3 far superior overall)). For me after the horrible train station section, the game started to REALLY shine for me.
 
S

SolidSnakex

Member
Lord Error said:
Combined. Her eye movement there is brilliant. What's even crazier, that's all almost assuredly hand animated. I really doubt an 8 year old game with 3M budget could have afforded facial performance capture, if that technique was even available back then.
Click to expand...

I'm guessing that it's the same for SH2, so it would be hand animated. Sato mentioned in the making of SH2 that they hand animated the faces because there wasn't any tech at the time that could capture subtle facial movement. They pretty much did it by doing certain movements in a mirror and then animating the character based on what they saw.
 
C

CadetMahoney

Member
RockXLight said:
So why is that Western devs nowadays suck?

Silent Hill: Homecoming: Looks like ass.

Silent Hill: Shattered Memories: Looks like ass

Silent Hill: Downpour: So far, it looks like ass

It's not just Konami, but it seems to me that nearly all American and European devs totally suck at making appeal 3D models of human characters.
Click to expand...
pretty much.
 
M

Metroid-Squadron

Banned
Lord Error said:
Combined. Her eye movement there is brilliant. What's even crazier, that's all almost assuredly hand animated. I really doubt an 8 year old game with 3M budget could have afforded facial performance capture, if that technique was even available back then.

As a personal pet peeve, I dislike when Bioware games get somehow lumped up with Uncharted games when it comes to facial expressions/animations (like people saying for something WOW, this looks as good or better than Uncharted/Mass Effect expressions!!). Bioware games are all about mass produced practicality, they use procedurally generated expressions that get the job done for the amount of stuff they have to display. But in no way shape or form can it compete on the pure looks basis.
Click to expand...
Uncharted facial animations aren't that good either. They are very cartoony.
 
L

Lime

Member
Fuck it, I'm bored at work, so I uploaded the press kit of SH3 plus some extra stuff I've stumbled upon the years for the poster earlier who couldn't find it.

jett said:
For their time? That little gif has better facial animation than any game Bioware has ever made. :lol
Click to expand...

I try to downplay my adoration of the games as much as possible, so I don't "oversell it" :)
 
Melchiah

Melchiah

Member
Lime said:
Fuck it, I'm bored at work, so I uploaded the press kit of SH3 plus some extra stuff I've stumbled upon the years for the poster earlier who couldn't find it.
Click to expand...

Thanks a lot. I think I've had the press kit at some point as well, but I've lost it during the years.
 
Melchiah

Melchiah

Member
Drewfonse said:
Has anyone played SH3 on their PS3? Any feedback concerning gfx, stretching of image, etc. would be greatly appreciated.
Click to expand...

I played it through on my partly backwards compatible EU PS3 a while back. Looks amazing upscaled to full screen. You have to pick the option in the XMB. Didn't notice any stretching, or if there was it didn't bother me. I dunno how it's with US PS3, but with mine the FMVs sometimes had glitches; Douglas' beard was all white and "glowed" in the dark, and sometimes Heather jumped a bit. No problems with gameplay though.
 
P

plagiarize

Banned
jett said:
For their time? That little gif has better facial animation than any game Bioware has ever made. :lol
Click to expand...
pretty sure they hand animated everything to match a video reference. makes for really nice results, but to be fair to bioware, there's no way they could have done that for Mass Effect. it would have been way to time consuming.

but yep, like most everything else in SH3, it holds up brilliantly. i think you're going to see this echoed in a lot of reviews of the HD collection. it's going to outshine a lot of current gen games i'm sure on it's brilliant modelling on a great texture work (more on the characters than the environments).
 
ULTROS!

ULTROS!

People seem to like me because I am polite and I am rarely late. I like to eat ice cream and I really enjoy a nice pair of slacks.
Silent Hill 2-4 look really awesome. They can pass of as PS3 games.
 
L

Lime

Member
Asuma01 said:
Any tutorials on how to set up the config for 1080p? for the PC I mean.
Click to expand...

1) Install the game
2) Edit disp.ini in the savedata folder to
Code: 
"size=1920x1080"
3) Download this FOV tool and put it in your SH3 folder.
4) Start the tool
5) Input the correct FOV values. I personally use these for my playthrough
Code: 
Width FOV=0,85
Height FOV=1,2

7) Start the game.
8) Press * on your numpad when you are in the game and the FOV will be corrected according to your FOV values
9) If your values aren't correct, you should probably mess around with it by comparing it to regular 4:3 screens like this The trick is to make the game not appear stretched or cropped.

My results were these, if you want to compare:

Example 1:
Regular 4:3
Edited 16:9 with the above values.

Example 2:
Regular 4:3
Edited 16:9 with the above values

Example 3 (gameplay):
Regular 4:3
Edited 16:9 with the above values
 
PooBone

PooBone

Member
Graphics notwithstanding, and voice acting aside, Silent Hill 2 is my favorite by a long shot. I thought it did a better job with the atmosphere, everything was internalized on James' own mental problems, the story was superb, and there was none of that cult business like in 1 and 3.
 
V

Valjean Lafitte

Banned
PooBone said:
and there was none of that cult business like in 1 and 3.
Click to expand...

The cult/Cheryl/Alessa/Dhalia business happens to be what Silent Hill is all about. At least it was at that time; even Double Helix couldn't resist making Homecoming's story occult-based.
 
Philthy

Philthy

Member
Best place to ask this, how does Silent Hill 3 compare to Silent Hill 1?

I loved the first Silent Hill and all the puzzles and horror. I played the second but really didn't like it. Either the story just didn't click, or the puzzles weren't puzzley enough. Something about it just made me want to get it over with halfway through. I slogged through it and it never got better for me. I had already bought SH3 but never got to it after SH2 put me off so much.
 
G

Grisby

Member
Philthy said:
Best place to ask this, how does Silent Hill 3 compare to Silent Hill 1?

I loved the first Silent Hill and all the puzzles and horror. I played the second but really didn't like it. Either the story just didn't click, or the puzzles weren't puzzley enough. Something about it just made me want to get it over with halfway through. I slogged through it and it never got better for me. I had already bought SH3 but never got to it after SH2 put me off so much.
Click to expand...

Well, formula wise it's pretty much the same as the other 2. If your looking for a lot of ties to one then you might be a bit more pleased.

It offered up more horror 'scares' I thought then the second game. A bit more violent in the overall setting as well.
 
T

Typographenia

Member
Philthy said:
Best place to ask this, how does Silent Hill 3 compare to Silent Hill 1?
Click to expand...
Honestly, SH3 is an updated SH1, just with some minor changes to the characters and story. If you look at them side by side, it's almost the exact same game.

If you liked the first, like you say, you'll love SH3. It took everything that was great in concept in SH1 and magnified it 100 times. I really recommend you look into it. Combat is better, puzzles are some of the best in the series, and the atmosphere is so thick you could slice it with a knife.

Don't worry about the SH2 thing. Most people seem to fall into either loving SH2 or loving SH3.

RockXLight said:
The cult/Cheryl/Alessa/Dhalia business happens to be what Silent Hill is all about. At least it was at that time...
Click to expand...
It is, and always has been, about the characters, in my humble opinion. The cult business is just side dressing to half of the games.
 
D

Dash Kappei

Not actually that important
Lime said:
1) Install the game
2) Edit disp.ini in the savedata folder to
Code: 
"size=1920x1080"
3) Download this FOV tool and put it in your SH3 folder.
4) Start the tool
5) Input the correct FOV values. I personally use these for my playthrough
Code: 
Width FOV=0,85
Height FOV=1,2

7) Start the game.
8) Press * on your numpad when you are in the game and the FOV will be corrected according to your FOV values
9) If your values aren't correct, you should probably mess around with it by comparing it to regular 4:3 screens like this The trick is to make the game not appear stretched or cropped.

My results were these, if you want to compare:

Example 1:
Regular 4:3
Edited 16:9 with the above values.

Example 2:
Regular 4:3
Edited 16:9 with the above values

Example 3 (gameplay):
Regular 4:3
Edited 16:9 with the above values
Click to expand...
Thanks A LOT! Thread subscribed.
What are the best options for good IQ on ati/amd? Is it possible to use AA (which one?) and AF? I don't have the game yet, I've never played it and this threaf (and countless others) are pushing me over the Must-Buy side :) HD5850 1GB owner here.
I guess the game has no proper surround? PS2 game had DD 5.1 for the cutscene iirc, the game had at least
Dolby Surround I think, what are the options here?

Also, does this stuff work for Silent Hill 2 as well?
 
S

ScionOfTheRisingSun

Banned
One reason why character faces from the PS2 era look so good compared to today is because of rampant shader abuse in current generation games, especially in ones from the west or who use western tech. The skin on older generation games were just flat textured polygons so they looked really smooth, sort of like mannequins. Sure they didn't look like people, but for video games that look was perfect, it was just close enough to be believable but far enough from reality to not enter into uncanny valley territory.

Enter current generation faces, in all their hideously bump mapped, shiny and shadertastic glory. Artists are overindulging in new techniques in an attempt to cheaply go for wow factor and approach realism at the same time, but they mostly just end up with characters that look like they have some sort of flesh eating skin disease.

Of course abuse of shiny shader effects and bumpmapping is not just limited to character models but applies equally to the entire scene being rendered, look at pretty much any Gonorrheal Engine 3 title for an example of especially egregious examples of such abuse. This also why Silent Hill 3 which is set in a dark gritty world to be looks a lot more pleasant than current gen games going to that look. Bump mapping, I fucking hate that effect, it is like bloom early this generation only people are using more and more of it.
 
H

Hank Scorpio

Member
Just got a copy of Silent Hill 2. Max res is 1280 x 1024 in the game menus. Will haveto try the above option for improved res.

Also, how do you force AA/AF and that kinda stuff? ATI card, btw.
 
D

Dash Kappei

Not actually that important
Hank Scorpio said:
Just got a copy of Silent Hill 2. Max res is 1280 x 1024 in the game menus. Will haveto try the above option for improved res.

Also, how do you force AA/AF and that kinda stuff? ATI card, btw.
Click to expand...
Would love to know this as well as I posted above ;)
 
L

Lime

Member
Dash kappei and hank scorpio: Just follow this guide in order to get SH2 working in 1920x1080:

Lime said:
  1. Install Silent Hill 2 and patch it with the soundfix.
  2. Download Squizzy's Respatcher and a fixed .exe of sh2pc.exe (unfortunately the patcher does not work with the original .exe)
  3. Run the patcher and select the desired resolution
  4. Before running Silent Hill 2, make sure that your Catalyst Control Center or Nvidia Control panel has all anti-aliasing and antisioptric filtering set to OFF
  5. Run Silent Hill 2
  6. Under options select the desired options you want on: e.g. hi-res textures, advanced post processing filters, lens flare, etc. (if the two latter options are unselectable, it is because your graphics control center has AA or AF enabled.)
  7. Accept your changes (make sure not to toy with the game's resolution setting. Doing so will override Squizzy's respatcher)
  8. Alt+tab and go into Windows' Task Manager (ctrl+shift+esc)
  9. Under 'Processes' right-click sh2pc.exe and set the amount of CPU cores to only 1 core. Otherwise you will get sound and stability issues.
  10. Go into Catalyst Control Center or Nvidia Control Panel and force your desired AA and AF solution. And make sure to have Triple Buffering set to OFF. Otherwise you will get weird lines in the geometry of the game
  11. Return to Silent Hill 2 and select New Game
  12. ????
  13. Profit
Click to expand...
 
R

RomanticHeroX

Member
Kung Fu Grip said:
The facial animation looks better than uncharteds.

What happened to japanese developers this generation?
Click to expand...
In Konami's case, they started sending everything that wasn't Kojima related to the West so everyone left.
 
F

Futurevoid

Member
Install Silent Hill 2 and patch it with the soundfix.
Download Squizzy's Respatcher and a fixed .exe of sh2pc.exe (unfortunately the patcher does not work with the original .exe)
Run the patcher and select the desired resolution
Before running Silent Hill 2, make sure that your Catalyst Control Center or Nvidia Control panel has all anti-aliasing and antisioptric filtering set to OFF
Run Silent Hill 2
Under options select the desired options you want on: e.g. hi-res textures, advanced post processing filters, lens flare, etc. (if the two latter options are unselectable, it is because your graphics control center has AA or AF enabled.)
Accept your changes (make sure not to toy with the game's resolution setting. Doing so will override Squizzy's respatcher)
Alt+tab and go into Windows' Task Manager (ctrl+shift+esc)
Under 'Processes' right-click sh2pc.exe and set the amount of CPU cores to only 1 core. Otherwise you will get sound and stability issues.
Go into Catalyst Control Center or Nvidia Control Panel and force your desired AA and AF solution. And make sure to have Triple Buffering set to OFF. Otherwise you will get weird lines in the geometry of the game
Return to Silent Hill 2 and select New Game
????
Profit
Click to expand...
I'm not getting this to work for some oddball reason. I installed the game, applied the sound fix patch. I then replaced the existing exe with the fixed sh2pc.exe file in the SH2 folder. I ran the respatcher from the SH2 folder and changed the resolution. Turned off aa/af ran the game and made the changes but when I rerun it, it runs in 800x600. The resolution doesn't take. :( What am I doing wrong?

EDIT: A little more research got it. Had to set the res to 640x480 along with all of the setting I wanted, then replace the exe and run the patcher before it worked. Now to get my 360 controller working..
 
L

Lime

Member
Dash Kappei said:
Thanks A LOT! Thread subscribed.
What are the best options for good IQ on ati/amd? Is it possible to use AA (which one?) and AF? I don't have the game yet, I've never played it and this threaf (and countless others) are pushing me over the Must-Buy side :) HD5850 1GB owner here.
I guess the game has no proper surround? PS2 game had DD 5.1 for the cutscene iirc, the game had at least
Dolby Surround I think, what are the options here?

Also, does this stuff work for Silent Hill 2 as well?
Click to expand...

Unfortunately SH3 does not support surround sound, as far as I can gather from my copy. I do not know which soundcard you use, but maybe you can force it through its software solution (e.g. I'm on a Asus Xonar DX and it has the option to emulate surround sound from a stereo source)

Forcing AA and AF are just like every other game. Simply force it through Catalyst/Vision Engine/whatever AMD's software suite is called now. I use 8x multi-sampling aliasing and 16xAF when playing older games. Your 5850 will obviously do incredibly fine in this regard.

Be aware that the game's shadow effect does some weird things in the beginning of the game. Just look at Douglas' jacket. I think the problem has probably to due with a conflict between the game's shadow effects and AMD's graphical options. Maybe it's Catalyst A.I. or the anti-aliasing.
 
S

SiriusTexra

Banned
I've been playing the PC version at 1080 for the last couple months on and off.

I was very very surprised that it had self shadowing and such high res character textures.

All it needs is a touch of bloom, some nice lens flares, ao and colour grading, dof, you know, that after market post processing stuff and the game WOULD look like a ps3 game.
 
ULTROS!

ULTROS!

People seem to like me because I am polite and I am rarely late. I like to eat ice cream and I really enjoy a nice pair of slacks.
Replicant said:
Sheploo would fit in Silent Hill nicely for sure. Wouldn't want to bump into him in the middle of a dark alley.
Click to expand...

He also fits in the Silent Hills past SH4.
 
R

R1CHO

Member
SiriusTexra said:
All it needs is a touch of bloom, some nice lens flares, ao and colour grading, dof, you know, that after market post processing stuff and the game WOULD look like a ps3 game.
Click to expand...

Some ENB Series love maybe.
 
D

dark10x

Digital Foundry pixel pusher
I definitely think it holds up visually. Not to take anything away from it, but one cannot forget the limited scope of the game world. Every area is quite small and broken up by loading screens, so it's not particularly surprising that they are able to concentrate so heavily on character models. Still, the level of detail for a PS2 game is just astounding and it really DOES stand up to modern character models. It only shows its weakness at the micro level. If you closely examine his skin or hair you can see the limitations, but from a standard distance, it just looks fantastic.

Interesting comparison...

DouglasMall.png

heavy-rain2.jpg


Douglas, you old bastard, you still hold up really well.

There really aren't as many great facial models out there today as I thought. Looking through the lists of games really helps you appreciate something like SH3 even more. Some of these games really do a good job. Perhaps the best example of facial expressions is LA Noire, but in still shots, it just doesn't look that great.

pre_enslaved_18.jpg

metal-gear-solid-4-guns-of-the-patriots--20060616024419025.jpg

god-of-war-3-kratos-closeup.png

20100124_ps3_Final%20Fantasy%20XIII_lightning_snow_vanille.jpg
 
PooBone

PooBone

Member
RockXLight said:
The cult/Cheryl/Alessa/Dhalia business happens to be what Silent Hill is all about. At least it was at that time; even Double Helix couldn't resist making Homecoming's story occult-based.
Click to expand...
Well, that's more to do with the origin of silent hill. My favorite Silent Hill games are just about characters. The town is what it is and when different characters wander into it, it has different effects on them. Seeing these different effects it has on them and how the enemy creatures vary based on their personal fears and past is my favorite part of Silent Hill. Whey they start trying to explain it, I kinda lose interest.
 
R

randomwab

Member
RockXLight said:
The cult/Cheryl/Alessa/Dhalia business happens to be what Silent Hill is all about. At least it was at that time; even Double Helix couldn't resist making Homecoming's story occult-based.
Click to expand...

Disagree. Silent Hill is a character study, and the affect those characters have on the town. The cult is simply an enabler. The cult stuff has always been the weakest aspect of the overall story, imo.
 
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