Poor textures close up?

[SD1]

The textures in HL2 are looking frigging amazing (from a distance), however there have been some games recently that also have great textures, but when you get close, they turn out to be horrible.

Do you think the same will be for HL2. I.e the texture that looks like paint peeling from from the wall, that gonna look all flat and crappy when you get up close?

SD

 

[Wesisapie]

They reckon they have bump mapped walls and stuff, so maybe not.

But no matter how good a texture is, if you get close enough it will eventually become bad.

 

[Phisionary]

I imagine that the textures will look quite good at close range. I'm sure there's a lot of technical and design issues involved, but their LOD system should allow them to increase the detail levels as you get closer. I think I read that the max texture size is 2k by 2k (I imagine that means 2000 pixels each side?) which would be amazingly detailed on a reasonably sized space. Half-life had a limit of 256 by 256. That would mean that HL2 has basically 16 times more data, 4 times the resolution. Combined with the source engines advanced shaders, bump mapping, and displacement maps, detail should be added, both geometrically, and visually. Bump maps (when done well) add a lot of detail to a surface even when texture resolution is fairly low, and shaders should improve it still more.

Although I'm sure there's a practical limit to how close up it'll still look good, the limitations will be on your hardware, and the level's (or model's) designer.

Of course I don't know jack, it's just an opin.

Edit: Although with the paint-peeling thing, I'm not sure. A displacement map might not really help that, and no matter how high-res your texture is, you ca't fake the geometry you'd need to make something like that realistic. Maybe if the modeller used extra triangles for raised paint, the LOD system could just get rid of it when you're far enough away. Wow. That's be cool.
I think that dynamic deformation will help some things. That way your bullet holes wont just look like someone painted them on, but they'll actually have depth. That'll be neat.

-Phision

 

[Cedric]

Yeh, the textures up close shouldn't be a worry (or you'd hope not ). They will probably have the LOD system which will apply to the textures; that is when you are close the textures will be detailed but as you move away the detail gets less. A classic example of this is the textures in BF1942 on the terrain... it works and is effective in game.

 

[Bad^Hat]

Ever played something like Serious Sam? The textures aren't too detailed but up close they're still really nice because of bump mapping. Just an example.

 

[$niper]

Some games use detail textures as well, for up-close views. It helps stop the "bad up-close" effect.

 

[FiShEh]

On the e3 at the start of the tec demo it shows you a rotating rock face or what ever, i could see the detailed bump maping even on the crappy vid. I wouldnt say there is anything to worry about in the Gfx IMO

 

[Phisionary]

Ah. Here's some fairly good evidence that they technology of 'DX9-using' HL2 could make things very pretty close up...

Here's the tech demo page for DirectX9. This is in flash format, and may take some time to show up, on slow connections. The pages of interest for this topic are 10, 16, 17, and 18. (buttons at the bottom)

http://www.ati.com/vortal/r300/dx9demo/main.html

If Hl2 uses some or all of these methods, things will look very cool at any range.

-Phision

 

[BaNDiT]

the textures are on insane resolutionos, so im sure they will look pretty even when close up

 

[82ross]

LOL classy, the textures on the cloth on page 5 arent very consistent. I cant wait to get some decent DX9 hardware though.

I know the e3 wid is currently only a cam but the textures look very good.

 

[Apos]

I kinda wonder why Valve hasn't used the cloth engine that that Vampire game developed. They only share technology in one direction? Gabe actually said that they had to scale back on the realism of the faces because the clothing couldn't keep up with the realism.

 

[SpuD]

As Phisionary 1st paragraph says, I think the source engine will allow a good LOD up close, that is, if you have all the graphics on high.

 

[Xtasy0]

Originally posted by Apos
I kinda wonder why Valve hasn't used the cloth engine that that Vampire game developed. They only share technology in one direction? Gabe actually said that they had to scale back on the realism of the faces because the clothing couldn't keep up with the realism.

didn't he say the faces had to be scaled back from realism because with realistic faces the realistic clothing to compliment them were taking too many poly's from their poly budget? so im sure they could make the clothing keep up, but is it worth the extra polys and the drop in performance?

 

[jhero]

I'm sure it will be worth the extra polys without a drop in performance when the R420 comes out or any other "good" card.

 

[Apos]

Apparently worth it to that other game. Course I guess it's coming out later, so it can afford to have higher specs.

 

[jhero]

other game?

 

[Xtasy0]

Originally posted by jhero
other game?

vampire the masquerade: bloodlines (using the Source engine)

 

[Xtasy0]

Apos, where did you see that info about vampire the masquerade using the cloth btw.

 

[TheWart]

wow

I just watched the e3 trailer for that Vampires game.

I don't think I would like the gameplay much, but the graphics are indeed stunning.

 

[Slick601]

talk about sweet looking graphics, i just saw this game on TechTV called painkiller(i think) that looked sweet. You go to hell, make a deal with the powers that be, and in exchange for killing demons you get a free ride to heaven. the graphics look swweeeeet, and it's not even in alpha yet. anyone know about that?