Lost Coast is out

It just seemed like the textures were kind of low res, particularly noticeable in the closer up shot in the second link. I guess if that's the way it's supposed to look that's cool, but I don't think it looks very good at all when you're close to it.
 
name said:
Maybe I missed something, but is there any way to go and explore the town and factory after or before you complete this level? I rode that basket back down to the beginning after downing the helicopter and the level ended automatically. Also, there are the leaches in the water....
Click to expand...

I was able to slide down to the water's edge and go around the coast to the warehouses and ship on the other side. I looked at the town from the back and it's on half there- no back walls. Definitely stepping "beyond the curtain"
 
runbird05 said:
It just seemed like the textures were kind of low res, particularly noticeable in the closer up shot in the second link. I guess if that's the way it's supposed to look that's cool, but I don't think it looks very good at all when you're close to it.
Click to expand...

most textures never do
 
Yeah, we are not at the realism stage folks, we are at the Unreal 3 stage of shiny, plastic, bumpy looking textures. Photorealism is still probably 3-5 years away.
 
Something I admired about HL2 over D3 and FC was that people weren't shiny plastic dolls. HL2 added a lot fo realism to me with well thought out textures found on buildings and people (characters' eyes were pretty damn good too).
 
tornadotsunamilife said:
Something I admired about HL2 over D3 and FC was that people weren't shiny plastic dolls. HL2 added a lot fo realism to me with well thought out textures found on buildings and people (characters' eyes were pretty damn good too).
Click to expand...

IMO the characters in DOOM 3/Quake 4, even FEAR look WAY better than the character models in HL2.

But, HL2 definitely has better facial animation. We need a merging of the two now.
 
Brent_Justice said:
IMO the characters in DOOM 3/Quake 4, even FEAR look WAY better than the character models in HL2.

But, HL2 definitely has better facial animation. We need a merging of the two now.
Click to expand...

Didn't someone try this with HL2 and D3 when they were released? (I can't be bothered to google something that may be of my own imagination)
 
runbird05 said:
Anybody know what the deal is with the wierd texture on the rocks? I didn't go beyond this as I had to go to lunch, but it definitely doesn't look normal to me. I've yet to encounter anything like this in another game (FEAR, Q4, BF2), but this is the first time I've run HDR. I had all settings maxed at 1280x1024 and 2xAA, 4xAF in those shots.


[img=http://img449.imageshack.us/img449/802/lostcoast15yo.th.jpg]

[img=http://img449.imageshack.us/img449/4636/lostcoast20nb.th.jpg]
Click to expand...


While I partially agree with the idea "that is how it's supposed to look," I also think it looks like that because the level isn't complete. Those rocks are not in the linear path of completing the level so I don't think much attention was paid to that part of the map, just like how the town is only "partially" there. I think it will look much better in the final version.
 
agentzero9 said:
While I partially agree with the idea "that is how it's supposed to look," I also think it looks like that because the level isn't complete. Those rocks are not in the linear path of completing the level so I don't think much attention was paid to that part of the map, just like how the town is only "partially" there. I think it will look much better in the final version.
Click to expand...

Last I checked, this was the final version of Lost Coast expansion....
 
Looks impressive,or at least to me.Can't wait for the Aftermath expansion that they're going to be releasing.The cathedral really looked good IMO.
 
Brent_Justice said:
IMO the characters in DOOM 3/Quake 4, even FEAR look WAY better than the character models in HL2.

But, HL2 definitely has better facial animation. We need a merging of the two now.
Click to expand...

Wow. Wtf. Video card editor at hard ocp just said doom 3's character models looked better than hl2s. I'm not sure what to say to that other than they looked horrible and plasticky. Fear had some of the worst character models I'd ever seen, particularly the fat guy. Horrible. Just horrible. Please defend your opinions here...the textures, everything about the models in both those games were not even proportionate and/or good by any standard. I haven't played quake 4 so I can't speak as to the quality there. Raven typically does a pretty good job on art though... please just explain to me the logic behind your thoughts...
 
I agree; Doom3 and and Quake4 Models all look like were born of the same plastic mold - I much prefer HL2s models, or at least, the way they are presented.

Having said that, how valve choose to render certain surfaces is annoying; take the beach at the start of the lost coast for example; the sand itself is far too reflective - I know its a demo showcase for HDR, but they overdo that shinyness sometimes, never more obvious than in this case.
 
fl00d said:
I agree; Doom3 and and Quake4 Models all look like were born of the same plastic mold - I much prefer HL2s models, or at least, the way they are presented.

Having said that, how valve choose to present certain surfaces is annoying; take the beach at the start of the lost coast for example; the sand itself is far too reflective - I know its a showcase for HDR, but they overdo that shinyness sometimes.
Click to expand...

They overdo the HDR too. The best part of Lost coast was the super subtle HDR in the cathedral when you barely noticed it. Totally added to the realism, whereas looking at a shadow for a second then looking up to be blinded is a little bit overdone. Hopefully it's just a "tech demo" so they were trying to get their point across and it will be more pointedly donet in aftermath.
 
Its...well...meh?

Nothing challenging as far as gameplay goes, it's not very long at all, in fact for some reason i appeard to have god mode on.

It doesn't really show us anything we're not seen before (that im aware of) been playing DODS (Day of Defeat Source) with HDR and a good amount of these effects since its release.

Commentry was good but there wasn't an awful lot, I think if the point of these demo type things is to give you an insight into the making of the game/egnine and the tech side, it should be more in depth.

So overall it was kinda nifty but I just don't see the point in it at all, its nothing really new and considering the time it took to make/release it, compared to its value to the customers I just don't think it was worth it.
 
.Euphoria said:
Looks impressive,or at least to me.Can't wait for the Aftermath expansion that they're going to be releasing.The cathedral really looked good IMO.
Click to expand...

ya know, i really didn't find the textures in the cathedral all that great

but the lighting is good
 
Attean said:
Wow. Wtf. Video card editor at hard ocp just said doom 3's character models looked better than hl2s. I'm not sure what to say to that other than they looked horrible and plasticky. Fear had some of the worst character models I'd ever seen, particularly the fat guy. Horrible. Just horrible. Please defend your opinions here...the textures, everything about the models in both those games were not even proportionate and/or good by any standard. I haven't played quake 4 so I can't speak as to the quality there. Raven typically does a pretty good job on art though... please just explain to me the logic behind your thoughts...
Click to expand...

yes, tha's my opinion and i'm sticking to it

DOOM 3/Quake4 and FEAR models look better to me than HL2's, they look like pre-rendered models you'd find in the likes of Mya or 3DSMax, it is amazing to me that they can be rendered in real time and look so good.

But HL2 is superior in facial animation.
 
i wanna know waht the difference between this HDR and farcry's implementation is... with this one youcan use AA and it looks the same... which is definatly a plus
 
Brent_Justice said:
yes, tha's my opinion and i'm sticking to it

DOOM 3/Quake4 and FEAR models look better to me than HL2's, they look like pre-rendered models you'd find in the likes of Mya or 3DSMax, it is amazing to me that they can be rendered in real time and look so good.

But HL2 is superior in facial animation.
Click to expand...

...but they didn't look human.
 
Just ran the timedemo, results:

58.3fps
1280x1024
4xAA 8xAA
All other settings max

Specs in sig.
 
Brent_Justice said:
they definitely don't look like Klingons...
Click to expand...

Your failure to respond to my previous point tells me that you've absolved yourself to the fact that the models from quake 4 and FEAR do indeed look like Klingons.

Think about it...

In fact, FEAR may just be the best Star Trek game yet! The little girl represents the borg, mindless and cruel, only a twisted shell of human nature. The horribly animated fat guy represents Picaard, lazy and eating all the time when he should be on away missions. I don't even have to tell you who 7 of 9 is! It all makes sense now: FEAR is just one giant Monolith metaphorical joke! That's the reason all the characters look like Klingons! I knew Monolith understood how to make a realistic skin texture, unwrap UVs and not make their animations clip! It was all part of the illusion: Star Trek is low budget, it had to look authentic!
 
Attean said:
...but they didn't look human.
Click to expand...

shot000448gx.jpg

Looks human to me. I think you guys that call the Doom engine plasticky are only looking at the metallic textures which the engine makes a little glossy. If you go up close to people who are wearing cloth and not armor in Quake 4, you can see amazing cloth bump mapping on their shirts, etc. that is matte and realistic, and unshiny.
 
If you showed DOOM 3 or Quake 4 to someone and asked them what the models look like I'm willing to bet they'd say they look like people, or humans.

I don't know how you can think they don't look human.

Go right up to the models and faces dude, they look good.
 
Your dancing around the point I believe Brent, lost coast.. j/k the specular map on doom3 models make them look like "plastic" as many have said before. Whereas in half life 2 they have no specular hilight at all and just semi hi resolution textures on them, giving them that I put way too detailed textures on this thing look.

Personally I think the doom3 models are much better looking, the specular hilites dont bother me at all, but the half life 2 too high res textures do. If you ever look at the polygons in a doom3 model you will be surprised on how low poly they are for how good they look. Other than player models I dont think anyone can argue that the enemies of half life 2 look better than the monsters/zombies in doom 3, but then again you will get people that say that the source engine is more technologically advanced that doom3's.
 
I think the specular map, the over-exaggerated reflection of light sources, etc. in Doom 3/Quake 4 as well as the soft-focus filter on Far Cry both are much better representations of people.

Neither are realistic in that sense, but they trick the human eye into accepting them as more realistic because it more closely replicates how the human eye focuses and blurs colors. It's also what people are used to seeing in pre-rendered CG for years. Plus, the overall effect is a smooth blending of textures (which might be very low resolution in the first place) and a mild sheen that really blends models in with the environment.

My problem with the HL2 engine as well as COD2 and F.E.A.R. is that everything has such a sharp texture. There's so much concern with high resolution textures that it just looks fake. I so wish there was a "gaussian blur" smartshader feature I could apply to these games because textures are so sharp that they are grainy and cause distortions when you move around, even with AA, especially with adaptive AA and temporal AA. The grainyness and sharpness of these textures just makes things look somewhat off. Just go back a few pages to that screenshot with the wet/mossy rock. It looks horrible close-up and when you back up, it's still an incredibly busy grainy texture. (might've been in the Lost Coast thread in the gaming forum, I can't remember)

The fisherman looks more like a painting of a fisherman, rather than a rendered fisherman. The problem is that the entire world is in focus to you at the same time, therefore the entire world is a depth of field that is sharp and to the human eye - which actually only focues on the foreground or the far background, looks incredibly fake. I mean, most of the time when you are walking around looking at walls and people, they are just a solid color unless you really walk up to them and focus your vision and then you can pick out the texture right? Far Cry accomplishes the focus trick very well, and Doom 3's engine blends textures correctly so they are better at replicating what you would see in real life.
 
I have to report that I'm plessantly pleased with the Lost Coast HDR. I'll have to try other HDR games that also use other techniques, but...

My 6600GT at 1024x768 with 4xAA and 2xAF was solid, extremely smooth with no stuttering, lagging anywhere, including when running arround with multiple combine troops in the cathedral.

I'll try running a timedemo latter, but it looks like I'll be holding onto my 6600GT for a little while longer. I need to upgrade my monitor in order to really enjoy resolutions beyond this resolution as their refresh drops to 60Hz (free monitor, can't really complain).

So if other HDR implementations yield similar performance returns, I'm gonna be still happy next year.
 
Spare-Flair said:
I think the specular map, the over-exaggerated reflection of light sources, etc. in Doom 3/Quake 4 as well as the soft-focus filter on Far Cry both are much better representations of people.

Neither are realistic in that sense, but they trick the human eye into accepting them as more realistic because it more closely replicates how the human eye focuses and blurs colors. It's also what people are used to seeing in pre-rendered CG for years. Plus, the overall effect is a smooth blending of textures (which might be very low resolution in the first place) and a mild sheen that really blends models in with the environment.

My problem with the HL2 engine as well as COD2 and F.E.A.R. is that everything has such a sharp texture. There's so much concern with high resolution textures that it just looks fake. I so wish there was a "gaussian blur" smartshader feature I could apply to these games because textures are so sharp that they are grainy and cause distortions when you move around, even with AA, especially with adaptive AA and temporal AA. The grainyness and sharpness of these textures just makes things look somewhat off. Just go back a few pages to that screenshot with the wet/mossy rock. It looks horrible close-up and when you back up, it's still an incredibly busy grainy texture. (might've been in the Lost Coast thread in the gaming forum, I can't remember)

The fisherman looks more like a painting of a fisherman, rather than a rendered fisherman. The problem is that the entire world is in focus to you at the same time, therefore the entire world is a depth of field that is sharp and to the human eye - which actually only focues on the foreground or the far background, looks incredibly fake. I mean, most of the time when you are walking around looking at walls and people, they are just a solid color unless you really walk up to them and focus your vision and then you can pick out the texture right? Far Cry accomplishes the focus trick very well, and Doom 3's engine blends textures correctly so they are better at replicating what you would see in real life.
Click to expand...


That just might explain why I get a queesy feeling that subsides to some extent when i view hf2 until i get acclimated
 
Attean said:
Your failure to respond to my previous point tells me that you've absolved yourself to the fact that the models from quake 4 and FEAR do indeed look like Klingons.

Think about it...

In fact, FEAR may just be the best Star Trek game yet! The little girl represents the borg, mindless and cruel, only a twisted shell of human nature. The horribly animated fat guy represents Picaard, lazy and eating all the time when he should be on away missions. I don't even have to tell you who 7 of 9 is! It all makes sense now: FEAR is just one giant Monolith metaphorical joke! That's the reason all the characters look like Klingons! I knew Monolith understood how to make a realistic skin texture, unwrap UVs and not make their animations clip! It was all part of the illusion: Star Trek is low budget, it had to look authentic!
Click to expand...
Holy Christ. This post made my virginity grow back just by reading it.
 
fear_fatguy.jpg

halflife_barney.jpg

fear_girl.jpg

halflife_dr.jpg

fear_woman.jpg

halflife_eli.jpg

fear_fatguy2.jpg

halflife_oldman.jpg



Now can anyone honestly pick the four out of here that are FEAR and say that they're the best four? I will pay you money if you're honestly that unfortunate.
 
Attean said:
http://stu.aii.edu/~kdh372/fear_fatguy.jpg[IMG]
[IMG]http://stu.aii.edu/~kdh372/halflife_barney.jpg[IMG]
[IMG]http://stu.aii.edu/~kdh372/fear_girl.jpg[IMG]
[IMG]http://stu.aii.edu/~kdh372/halflife_dr.jpg[IMG]
[IMG]http://stu.aii.edu/~kdh372/fear_woman.jpg[IMG]
[IMG]http://stu.aii.edu/~kdh372/halflife_eli.jpg[IMG]
[IMG]http://stu.aii.edu/~kdh372/fear_fatguy2.jpg[IMG]
[IMG]http://stu.aii.edu/~kdh372/halflife_oldman.jpg[IMG]


Now can anyone honestly pick the four out of here that are FEAR and say that they're the best four? I will pay you money if you're honestly that artistically inept. :)[/QUOTE]

Seriously man. I much prefer the HL2 models. They're leaps and bounds above the others.
Click to expand...
 
Spare-Flair said:
I think the specular map, the over-exaggerated reflection of light sources, etc. in Doom 3/Quake 4 as well as the soft-focus filter on Far Cry both are much better representations of people.

Neither are realistic in that sense, but they trick the human eye into accepting them as more realistic because it more closely replicates how the human eye focuses and blurs colors. It's also what people are used to seeing in pre-rendered CG for years. Plus, the overall effect is a smooth blending of textures (which might be very low resolution in the first place) and a mild sheen that really blends models in with the environment.

My problem with the HL2 engine as well as COD2 and F.E.A.R. is that everything has such a sharp texture. There's so much concern with high resolution textures that it just looks fake. I so wish there was a "gaussian blur" smartshader feature I could apply to these games because textures are so sharp that they are grainy and cause distortions when you move around, even with AA, especially with adaptive AA and temporal AA. The grainyness and sharpness of these textures just makes things look somewhat off. Just go back a few pages to that screenshot with the wet/mossy rock. It looks horrible close-up and when you back up, it's still an incredibly busy grainy texture. (might've been in the Lost Coast thread in the gaming forum, I can't remember)

The fisherman looks more like a painting of a fisherman, rather than a rendered fisherman. The problem is that the entire world is in focus to you at the same time, therefore the entire world is a depth of field that is sharp and to the human eye - which actually only focues on the foreground or the far background, looks incredibly fake. I mean, most of the time when you are walking around looking at walls and people, they are just a solid color unless you really walk up to them and focus your vision and then you can pick out the texture right? Far Cry accomplishes the focus trick very well, and Doom 3's engine blends textures correctly so they are better at replicating what you would see in real life.
Click to expand...

You may be correct for the rest of the scene, but for the models? And why would you want it to look like a rendered fisherman? Isn't the point to make it NOT look like a rendered fisherman? Your comment about the painting is very vague.
 
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