Doom III vs UNREAL 2

[Lüt]

dsm said:

Wtf are you talking about???
I don't see any cheesy models anywhere in the Doom 3 footage.

All of them, they look like the little 8-inch-tall rubber action figures I had back when I was 6 or 7.

[dsm]

Well, if there's anything I don't think they are it's cheesy.
The old Spider Mastermind was cheesy, but the new one (or it might be the arachnotron) looks kickass.
Nah, the critters from Unreal (the first one) look more cheesy imo,
Some of the new Unreal 2 critters look good and all, but I don't think they're superior to Doom 3's.

[Fredrik]

dimmer said:

What is the main for deathmatch - Doom 3 beauty shadows or Unreal 2 absolutely real physics ?

From what I've seen and heard so far - from the latest movie and interviews - it appears that DOOM 3 will have absolutely real physics as well.

[Lüt]

Fredrik said:

it appears that DOOM 3 will have absolutely real physics as well.

Heh yeah, seen the stuff with the boxes falling over? Nice indeed.

[Fredrik]

The animation looks sweet too...

[GS-1719]

In summary the only thing Unreal 2 has going for it is a physics engine which they didn't even write themselves. Doom III will waste 'Unreal' 2.

[Fredrik]

GS-1719 said:

In summary the only thing Unreal 2 has going for it is a physics engine which they didn't even write themselves. Doom III will waste 'Unreal' 2.

Definitely

[999cop]

dimmer said:
What is the main for deathmatch - Doom 3 beauty shadows or Unreal 2 absolutely real physics ?

There is MEGA-LUTE-LY NO deathmatch support in Unreal 2. If you would want to go for new Unreal multiplaying, go for Unreal Tournament 2003.

[Manik999]

Both Unreal's physics and Doom3's lighting have to go a long way before they'll become what I consider impressive. You're asking if one's strong point will be enough to negate the other's.
Consider this: a skeletal animation system along the lines of Half-Life where each joint has radial properties-- as in a meter of how far and what directions they can bend. In this way you can see someone's actual(modeled) body smack flat onto a wall(obviously knocked over there by an explosion) and crumple to the ground. Similarly, you'd watch a person's limp body tumble down a hillside after you filled his chest with powder. There aren't any modern engines that can support this level of modeling, letting the body be affected by world physics rather than preset keyframed animations.
I'm actually surprised no one has attempted this.
And as for the lighting, well... it's about as close you can get to looking realistic without actually doing the math. But judging by the video, we still don't have distance blurring(very soft shadows by a faraway object), nor do we have shadows overlapping(darker areas indicating two overlapping shadows from two separate lightsources). This could be applied by testing the light point and tracing line from it to any outlining vertex on a model-- yet, you'd need some sort of shadow anti-aliasing system to pull this effect off well.
Either of these games look pretty sexy overall in terms of artistry. Unreal was hands-down the prettiest game of its time-- highly stylized. And it seems Doom3 is taking on this H.R. Giger look. Epic definitely has the artists, but id has the manpower.
Also consider that with enough scripting you can circumvent any physics shortcomings, and with enough creativity you can circumvent less-than-spectacular lighting.

[Fredrik]

I do not agree with large potions of the above post.

[dsm]

Both Unreal's physics and Doom3's lighting have to go a long way before they'll become what I consider impressive. You're asking if one's strong point will be enough to negate the other's.

Damn, if you aren't impressed by the Doom 3 engine, then you're impossible to impress what game engines concern.

If you take into account what games looked like ten years ago and look at how incredibly much they have developed game tech since that, it's pretty hard not to be impressed.
Ten years ago, I imagined close to movie quality graphics in an fps when I first saw Doom, but I thought it would be much further out in the future.

Oh I get it. You believe that you can do a BETTER job than Carmack right? ;-)

[GS-1719]

Manik999, you have messed up.

[Manik999]

dsm said:

Damn, if you aren't impressed by the Doom 3 engine, then you're impossible to impress what game engines concern.

If you take into account what games looked like ten years ago and look at how incredibly much they have developed game tech since that, it's pretty hard not to be impressed.
Ten years ago, I imagined close to movie quality graphics in an fps when I first saw Doom, but I thought it would be much further out in the future.

Oh I get it. You believe that you can do a BETTER job than Carmack right? ;-)

Heh... damn straight I can do better! He needs to pick up some slack!

But seriously... I'm talking about the selling point of the game here. There are a few...

"This game will be fun." Doubtless!
"The story and atmosphere will absorb you." Can't wait.
"This is as realistic as FPS's will get." You're way ahead of yourself.

The advancements in computer graphics has no doubt improved a hundredfold in the past 10 years, but I feel we'll soon reach a plateau. The systems on which we are basing our virtual worlds can only get so complex. Right now, it's a race to see who can push the most polys, who can compress textures the best, and who can call the most API functions. But imagine a graphics engine that takes the term "particle physics" to a literal sense.

It's not the limitation of the programmers themselves, it's the complete ineptitude of a machine to understand the world around us and how we experience it.

To cite example, you will never, ever, ever see a 90-degree angle in nature.

I'll still be here playing Doom3 when it comes out(and probably Unreal2 as well), but contemplating on which engine is more advanced is moot. My point is simply that games as we experience them will have to change drastically in the near future in order to evolve.

[Fredrik]

But imagine a graphics engine that takes the term "particle physics" to a literal sense.

Particle physics? WTF are you talking about?

Let's get this straight.

In real life, can you see these particles? No.

In real life, do these particles directly affect you in a non-substructural form? No. If so, then they would've known about atoms in the ancient Egypt.

Simulating the submolecular behaviour of nature in a game would have no impact on the game itself, except making it a billion times slower.

You see, you can achieve the exact same amount of realism with enough polygon structures and a simple physics model involving some kind of mass definition to objects in-game.

The realism of games is limited to the level at which we can perceive it. And a human can certainly not see the difference between the behaviour of an object falling in real life and a CG object in a movie or game with a simple (if correct) gravity application.

[Wobbo]

deadnail said:

Play Halo. Run a few people down in a Warthog. Physics actually affect gameplay, shadows don't.

The ability to see player shadows from a long way away would have a BIG impact on deathmatch strategy, i.e. the 11-minute video, where the main character can see a demon creeping up from behind him from his shadow on a door. Also the ability to dynamicly mess with lights might be important when you run out of ammo. Theers a whole ton of way to exploit the technologies for deathmatch purposes

but on second thought... maybe i shouldnt be telling any strategies :)

[Manik999]

Fredrik said:

Particle physics? WTF are you talking about?

Let's get this straight.

In real life, can you see these particles? No.

In real life, do these particles directly affect you in a non-substructural form? No. If so, then they would've known about atoms in the ancient Egypt.

Simulating the submolecular behaviour of nature in a game would have no impact on the game itself, except making it a billion times slower.

You see, you can achieve the exact same amount of realism with enough polygon structures and a simple physics model involving some kind of mass definition to objects in-game.

The realism of games is limited to the level at which we can perceive it. And a human can certainly not see the difference between the behaviour of an object falling in real life and a CG object in a movie or game with a simple (if correct) gravity application.

Actually, you can see them. Well, sort of. Take a look at your fingernail REALLY closely. do you see multicolored specks? That's the bumpy surface of the tissue reflecting light at different angles. They're each like tiny prisms, only magnified. And I can't assume what the Egyptians did or didn't know-- since it was the Greeks who discovered the world was round using simple math. 1500 years later, however, we KNEW it was flat.

It's true that using actual particles in a game wouldn't be practical. It was just an exaggeration to prove a point. We'll always be entertained by games, but our imagination fills in all the holes that take away from our experience. For example, a lag spike or jagged edge or limited number of death sequences. We will always take the same amount of enjoyment from a character either represented by 3000 triangles or a 64X64 tile. It all depends on what we can believe.

[Fredrik]

Yeah, what about a fingernail? You could use a bumpmapped texture for that. The human eye would never be able to tell the difference. The solution you're pointing at is not clever in any way.


Well, yeah. Many physicists believe that the universe could hypothetically be expressed with 10 or so lines of program code. I'm sure running that through a supercomputer would be the best way according to you?

[RRROOOAAARRR]

Well...IMO DOOM III, Unreal 2, and Unreal Tournament 2 will all rock. So I'm just happy to sit back and let the great new games roll in, I hate it when Quake fans automatically go "Oh it's shit because it's Unreal", that's braindead behaviour.

[dsm]

RRROOOAAARRR said:

Well...IMO DOOM III, Unreal 2, and Unreal Tournament 2 will all rock. So I'm just happy to sit back and let the great new games roll in, I hate it when Quake fans automatically go "Oh it's shit because it's Unreal", that's braindead behaviour.

You know something? I like you.
You seem like a nice, intelligent person, who knows how to best enjoy a game: judge the game by its entertainment value and not by the franchise and company.
Bottom line: I don't see you as a newbie any longer :-)
...
You have a funny name though ;-)

[Fredrik]

RRROOOAAARRR heh

[RRROOOAAARRR]

Heh...the name comes from the album "RRROOOAAARRR" by Voivod, an excellent French-Canadian weird metal band, which was in my CD player when I first fired up Q3...I was playing as the Klesk model, because he looked all spiky and weird/cool ( shallow? Moi...? ) and when Klesk wins, he goes "AAAARRGHHHHHH!" on the podium...it was but a short step from "AAAARRGHHHHHH!" to RRROOOAAARRR...hence my gaming/posting nick.

Tedious but true!

:-)

[boris]

Fuck realistic physics. What I want are good looking physics. Are they doing realistic physcis? I rather think they make the physics look good. I mean, can anyone really tell how ejecting bullet shells bump on the floor? Anyone here seen that? (those ejecting shells are just an example).
I think I'll play all of them UT2k3, UT2, Doom3, Quake4, just name them, they will probably all be pretty cool.
Personally I liked Q3 more than UT, I don't really know why. I'm just a Quake fan I guess. I even like Q1 >:) UT had lots of cool levels and game modes though.

[RRROOOAAARRR]

You know, one of my favourite things about UT was the voices for the bots..it made it all feel much more involving IMO, when I first fired it up and there was like the sound of gunfire from all over the place and these people I couldn't even see talking to each other, I thought it was so cool...like I was part of something bigger and therefore more cool and interesting, if that makes sense.

[999cop]

Yeah, rrroooaaarrr, the taunts are hilarious as hell, hehe

but sometimes it gets really annoying when you keep saying "you suck" online to real people o_o

imo, i enjoy playing ut more than q3, i just do, i hate that you always have to rabbit-jump, especially in space maps, besides, i have a very bad mouse that can't aim steadily, way to hard to aim with railgun, whether against bots offline or against human online :(

[Fredrik]

boris said:

Fuck realistic physics. What I want are good looking physics. Are they doing realistic physcis? I rather think they make the physics look good. I mean, can anyone really tell how ejecting bullet shells bump on the floor? Anyone here seen that? (those ejecting shells are just an example).

DOOM3 has good looking physics, as far as I can tell.... :)

[Zaldron]

I really like how fatty-went-down-the-stairs hits his head with the railing. I was almost expecting a clong! sound.

[Fredrik]

Zaldron said:

I really like how fatty-went-down-the-stairs hits his head with the railing. I was almost expecting a clong! sound.

Yeah that's pretty neat. I hope they add such effects...

[Zaldron]

Based on how powerful the collision detection is, it should be fairly easy to implement. Problem is, the whole model stays in the world just because it's continually colliding with it. That means someone should find a selective way to discern which hits are worth having a special sound. You don't want 2000 or so clong! sounds as the whole body falls to the ground.

[Fredrik]

They could base the clong detection on agressivity. The more agressive the monster is atm of impact, the higher clong ^_^

[Zaldron]

It wouldn't work. Bah, it's too damn complicated for being a small portion of the game. Too bad there's something called "time"...