Koif
11-21-2003, 03:32 PM
Ive played the demo and I'm a bit puzzled by a few things.i wont go into gameplay issues as loads of other people have covered that. However I'm shocked by the poorness of the graphics, both artistically and technically. Some of these points are quite important, others minor things that would be a bonus if they could be tweaked.
Main issues technically speaking:
Where are the bump maps? this was a major reported feature but I couldnt find any in use in the demo even while I was playing about with the torch. edit : hopefully we'll get near universal bump mappingin the final version.
Why is the texture detail so low? This mainly seems to be because 'detail textures' are absent or not used very well. Detail textures were present in DX1 so it seems very odd to leave them out in DX2. edit : again hopefully these will be working in the final version. Are textures on highest sizes in the demo?
Low polycounts all round. would be acceptable if bump maps were working (doom3).
Terrible performance considering Poly count and texture detail : How can an Unreal based game run so slowly? There barely seems to be any multitexturing present either. Surely the physics and Real time lightin systems cant cause *that* much of a strain on the graphics.
What exactly does 'bloom' do? All I can work out is that it applies some kind of full screen blurring which makes everything look very fuzzy. Even when turned of the whole game seems to have some kind of blur to it... very odd.
Also what does multisampling do? Is this an in game anti-aliasing setting or is it something else? I couldnt work out any noticable effect on speed or graphical quality. Might be a problem my end because my card is set to force 2xaa rather than application selected.
Why doesnt the torch cast a real lightsource? All it seems to do is the same as 1998's half-life by gamma boosting anything within its radius, I may have been wrong but I didnt notice any kind of shadow casting...
edit: actually im wrong on this, however there is still something very unconvincing about the torch.
Artistic Issues :
Bad facial modelling/animating/texturing. Eyes seem too big and dont blink, minimal animation. Obviously too late to fix any of this apart from possibly eye size? (particularly on alex D!)
Font Size : I can see how you'd need a big font size to read on a TV but it looks like a fisherprice game. OPTIONS.
Font Design : Ugly. Would prefer something traditional and crisp. OPTIONS.
Font AA : Doesnt seem to be working properly - edges are not properly smoothed.
HUD Opacity : Some parts unaffected by opacity changes
HUD Colour : Errm, any chance we can adjust the saturation of the colour used or even use more than one colour? I surely cant be the only one to want to use either a grey, a 2 tone or a gradient HUD? Can we have control over full RGB values?
HUD AA : Again the HUD isnt AA'd properly - jagged and ugly edges. Particularly noticable around health and bio.
Bad gradients : Again health and bio gradients arent faded properly - minor but does detract overall.
No Viewbob : mentioned elsewhere but very true, it makes you feel like you're gliding everywhere and although it doesnt seem like much it doesnt help immersion.
Poor loading screens. It looks like someones resized an image in paint so it hasnt smoothed itself properly.
Options for more (nicer) crosshairs.
I might be wrong on this but if I remember correctly : 'Pop-up' hud elements such as npc's health bars and frames around usable objects dont seem to have an opacity attached to them, any chance we can change that?
Overall point : Generally bad graphic design in a lot of areas, mostly 2D images, loading screens and artwork. Looks immature and 'fisherpricey'
PLEASE can someone give me some answers to these issues? If no one can answer me then can you please tell me who I can email these issues to?
Also can we expect any of these problems to be resolved before game release?
Main issues technically speaking:
Where are the bump maps? this was a major reported feature but I couldnt find any in use in the demo even while I was playing about with the torch. edit : hopefully we'll get near universal bump mappingin the final version.
Why is the texture detail so low? This mainly seems to be because 'detail textures' are absent or not used very well. Detail textures were present in DX1 so it seems very odd to leave them out in DX2. edit : again hopefully these will be working in the final version. Are textures on highest sizes in the demo?
Low polycounts all round. would be acceptable if bump maps were working (doom3).
Terrible performance considering Poly count and texture detail : How can an Unreal based game run so slowly? There barely seems to be any multitexturing present either. Surely the physics and Real time lightin systems cant cause *that* much of a strain on the graphics.
What exactly does 'bloom' do? All I can work out is that it applies some kind of full screen blurring which makes everything look very fuzzy. Even when turned of the whole game seems to have some kind of blur to it... very odd.
Also what does multisampling do? Is this an in game anti-aliasing setting or is it something else? I couldnt work out any noticable effect on speed or graphical quality. Might be a problem my end because my card is set to force 2xaa rather than application selected.
Why doesnt the torch cast a real lightsource? All it seems to do is the same as 1998's half-life by gamma boosting anything within its radius, I may have been wrong but I didnt notice any kind of shadow casting...
edit: actually im wrong on this, however there is still something very unconvincing about the torch.
Artistic Issues :
Bad facial modelling/animating/texturing. Eyes seem too big and dont blink, minimal animation. Obviously too late to fix any of this apart from possibly eye size? (particularly on alex D!)
Font Size : I can see how you'd need a big font size to read on a TV but it looks like a fisherprice game. OPTIONS.
Font Design : Ugly. Would prefer something traditional and crisp. OPTIONS.
Font AA : Doesnt seem to be working properly - edges are not properly smoothed.
HUD Opacity : Some parts unaffected by opacity changes
HUD Colour : Errm, any chance we can adjust the saturation of the colour used or even use more than one colour? I surely cant be the only one to want to use either a grey, a 2 tone or a gradient HUD? Can we have control over full RGB values?
HUD AA : Again the HUD isnt AA'd properly - jagged and ugly edges. Particularly noticable around health and bio.
Bad gradients : Again health and bio gradients arent faded properly - minor but does detract overall.
No Viewbob : mentioned elsewhere but very true, it makes you feel like you're gliding everywhere and although it doesnt seem like much it doesnt help immersion.
Poor loading screens. It looks like someones resized an image in paint so it hasnt smoothed itself properly.
Options for more (nicer) crosshairs.
I might be wrong on this but if I remember correctly : 'Pop-up' hud elements such as npc's health bars and frames around usable objects dont seem to have an opacity attached to them, any chance we can change that?
Overall point : Generally bad graphic design in a lot of areas, mostly 2D images, loading screens and artwork. Looks immature and 'fisherpricey'
PLEASE can someone give me some answers to these issues? If no one can answer me then can you please tell me who I can email these issues to?
Also can we expect any of these problems to be resolved before game release?