Support NeoGAF

[Doc Holliday]

Normal mapping is the new lens flare.

Yeah right, lens flares were never useful. However Normal maps make high poly looking models possible in real time. If anything normal is the new AA, or texture filtering

 

[Dr_Cogent]

For me....

Animations, if the animation is great i can ignore pretty much anything..and i dont mean motion capture. This is a talent thing mostly but still. I think more devs should be focusing in this more than anything else right now.

Normal maps, once the artists get used to this feature ie GOW, MGS4 things are going to look amazing.

Lighting, raytracing is overated..it gives you sharp shadows and its cpy intensive. Shit pixard didnt use raytracing till very recently. Faking shadows is fine with me. What needs to improve is the materials with translucent properties work in light examples: Skin, glass, clothing, liquids etc etc. But again this is all icing.. improve gamplay and animations first!

Are you sure about the Pixar/ray tracing comment? I won't say you are wrong. I did just read that they used a similar technique called "scanline rendering".

Also, I agree - animations needs to improve dramatically. Some games are hot as far as animation goes, but most aren't. Splinter Cell has great animations IMO and IIRC they are done by hand and not by mocap.

 

[Ark-AMN]

Well, when I made this thread I was only reffering to the most important thing for next-gen graphics, if we add gameplay into the mix then it becomes more complicated in terms of whats important.

I've started reading up on Normal Maps and I totally see how they are useful, I definately want to get a handle on this.

 

[Doc Holliday]

Yea pixar used renderman, which didnt support ray traced shadow until very recently i think. They used shadow maps for the shadows for most(all?) of their movies.

 

[Ikaris]

My boy Zeenbor knows the ropes.

Listen to him.

Yes, when used properly, normal maps can be nice... they have to be subtle, and the lighting has to be VERY controlled...

Gears of War has a special light rig that follows each character around to make their normal maps pop, regardless of their orientation.

 

[Dr_Cogent]

Maybe they got into it more heavily around this time

That would probably be accurate too since they were probably working on The Incredibles around this time (if thats what you meant by more recently).

 

[Doc Holliday]

Maybe they got into it more heavily around this time

That would probably be accurate too since they were probably working on The Incredibles around this time (if thats what you meant by more recently).

i remember reading somewhere that they used a 3rd party renderman compliant rendered to a render out some shots in Bug's life. Im not sure how many or which ones but im assuming it had to do with water. That effect is hard to fake without raytracing.

 

[element]

The biggest thing with the new generation, in my opinion, is definitely the following:
-motion blur on all elments
-normal mapping
-High Definition
-ultra detailed models/textures

If i had to pick one, it would be motion blur.

motion blur is more of an engine effect then an artist controlled effect like normal mapping. making normals will require more art, while motion blur can just be 'turned on' by a programmer.

Displacement Maps
Soft Shadows
Geometry Shader

 

[Dr_Cogent]

I don't know what the effect is called, but I really like this one. They use it in Condemned where things go out of focus in the background when something is focused on in the foreground. That's a cool effect IMO. Anyone know what that is called?

BTW, I know my description sucks.

 

[Doc Holliday]

I don't know what the effect is called, but I really like this one. They use it in Condemned where things go out of focus in the background when something is focused on in the foreground. That's a cool effect IMO. Anyone know what that is called?

BTW, I know my description sucks.

Its called Depth of Field or DOF

 

[Dr_Cogent]

Its called Depth of Field or DOF

Sweet. Thats it. Thanks.

DOF is cool.

 

[Oblivion]

What about displacement mapping? How long has that been used?

Nintendo filed a patent on that, maybe they found some efficient way to use it on the Rev. Yes, I know, wishful thinking but it's all I've got.

 

[Xiaoki]

Get the relief mapping mods for Doom 3 or Quake 4.

 

[element]

What about displacement mapping? How long has that been used?

displacement maps rule and have been used a couple years now for high end rendering. i dont think anyone have found a way to do it in realtime yet.

The effect is really amazing.

not sure how nintendo is going to apply this patent.

relief maps are pretty sweet too...

 

[Ark-AMN]

Hmm, whats a quick summary of the difference between Normal and Displacement mapping?

 

[Xiaoki]

i dont think anyone have found a way to do it in realtime yet.

Does this count?

http://files.filefront.com/doom3+reliefmapping+video/;4329429;;/fileinfo.html

Note: yeah, the video is dark and blurry but the first example with the floor grate is quite stunning.

 

[Vark]

Hmm, whats a quick summary of the difference between Normal and Displacement mapping?

displacement mapping actually alters the geometry, normal mapping just makes it look like it did.

 

[Ark-AMN]

Ah, I see.

Hmm, now I was wondering, what was the technique used in FEAR for the gunshot holes in the walls and floors? I'm guessing element could answer that, but anyone else can too

 

[Zeenbor]

Ah, I see.

Hmm, now I was wondering, what was the technique used in FEAR for the gunshot holes in the walls and floors? I'm guessing element could answer that, but anyone else can too

That would be parallax occlusion mapping, as earlier mentioned in this thread. e.g. height-map stored in alpha channel of the normal map as occlusion information to be used in the pixel shader. (Of course, that would assume that your normal map is uncompressed.)

 

[Ark-AMN]

Ah, so that was Parallax mapping, I didn't have a good reference when it was discussed earlier in the thread because PDZ was mentioned and I haven't seen much of that one.

 

[element]

zeenbor beat me too it...

 

[Doc Holliday]

Displacement doesnt make sense in real time. Takes up too much cpu power. Normal maps fake Displacement.

 

[Doc Holliday]

Hey zeenbor, i could use your help. We're currently shopping around for a next-gen console engine to implement. Any ideas where i could some info. I tried devmaster.net but any other places would help. Thanks

 

[element]

We're currently shopping around for a next-gen console engine to implement.

to license?

 

[Zeenbor]

Displacement doesnt make sense in real time. Takes up too much cpu power. Normal maps fake Displacement.

With DX10's geometry shaders, you'll be able to sample from a displacement map texture, generate vertices, and then pass them down the vertex shader pipeline -- 100% on the GPU.

Right now, you can do per-pixel displacement mapping (http://download.nvidia.com/developer/GPU_Gems_2/GPU_Gems2_ch08.pdf) and achieve very nice looking results.

 

[Vustadumas]

Well, our current game doesn't use normal mapping. Not that we couldn't, but it just wouldn't fit with the art style.

Normal mapping will be widely used in next-gen, as it was used in current-gen. Parallax mapping will also be used to a great extent. Parallax really makes a surface pop out, and it can be viewed from any angle w/o losing it's depth.

 

[Ark-AMN]

Well, our current game doesn't use normal mapping. Not that we couldn't, but it just wouldn't fit with the art style.

Normal mapping will be widely used in next-gen, as it was used in current-gen. Parallax mapping will also be used to a great extent. Parallax really makes a surface pop out, and it can be viewed from any angle w/o losing it's depth.

Indeed, now it makes sense. When playing FEAR I would go around one of those parallaxed holes in the walls and tried to get its depth to change like I'd do with a regular bump map, and it didn't, and now I know why.