Graphics: Common Myths

[Celice]

Got any links/info? 'Cause I'm willing to bet that the camera and gun are still linked like in a video game, unless it was intended that iron sights would be the only way to actually get a shot off.

The guns have a "loose" trajectory relative to the orientation of the weapon, but it's not perfect. The mod above, while it does have a physical distinction between the POV of the player and POV of the barrel, there's also a lot of magickery involving camera inertia.

There were also a few source mods which, using motion tracking or a wiimote, allowed guns to pivot exclusive of the POV, and function relative to its direction, rather than the player's.

 

[Celice]

The guns have a "loose" trajectory relative to the orientation of the weapon, but it's not perfect. The mod above, while it does have a physical distinction between the POV of the player and POV of the barrel, there's also a lot of magickery involving camera inertia.

There were also a few source mods which, using motion tracking or a wiimote, allowed guns to pivot exclusive of the POV, and function relative to its direction, rather than the player's.

@Celice and the unbound guns..... I do recall a few older games having a free look mode unbound to the movement (granted this was around the time mice were not always a given) and I am sure we have all spun a tank turret around and suffered reversed controls. However is that all that functionally different to head bob/headwave which has been around for decades and increased reticule size when running?

I think in this case, the examples you bring up didn't actually change the direction bullets went--they were always fixated in a set cone that would be in the same position as the initial, non-freelook POV. The mods I'm mentioning unhook the gun from that fixed POV, allowing more visceral movement of not only the player, but of gun-specific effects, like recoil, scope magnification, and the like. I guess a nice comparison is the feeling of guns in Far Cry 3: they're pretty nice and physical, but it's an animation and sounds that make it so--the gun doesn't actually react according to physical effects, like sprinting, firing, iron sight. Instead the guns play a predetermined recording, and has that tinge of artificiality.

 

[Rydian]

In the video, the camera's still linked to the gun. The camera itself just jiggles away from the centerpoint.

 

[FAST6191]

I agree that if I was about to set about simulating it a base head bob/growing reticule as it is conventionally defined might not be ideal (true unbound is essentially a parent child dual coordinate systems affair -- I do not know if you actually know weapons in real life but think how many actually fail to use iron sights properly). However if I was going to approximate it again I would still return to the increased reticule but bias the reticule to one side or something like that.

Also just for giggles we have http://www.blackhall.net/HEAD_TORSO.htm . It says copyright 2002 with a site going on 1992 but hey.

I am going to have to have a little think about examples as most of the time I would have ignored unbound and just attributed it to firing from the hip/scope wobble type simulations. I have been playing games and accounting for wind, bullet drop and more for well over a decade and iron sights are a popular gig in most modern shooty games so it seems odd that it would otherwise not be there in a purer form somewhere.

 

[The Milkman]

Cool, thanks for another informative thread Rydian. I always wondered if it was more demanding to have smooth 3D-models like you would see in a Cell-shaded game then the more realistic.

 

[Rydian]

Cool, thanks for another informative thread Rydian. I always wondered if it was more demanding to have smooth 3D-models like you would see in a Cell-shaded game then the more realistic.

That depends. As far as the shading of the object itself is concerned, it's the same speed to do something in a toon fashion with hard shadow edges and lighter base color.

However cell-shaded games also tend to use an outline effect, which can be done one of two ways. One is with shaders and other such post-processing effects, and another is to take the same model and scale it up, and then give it a material than has the outside invisible, and the inside visible (usually black).

The outer shell is a second object (that I set to wireframe so you can see the base object inside). With the right material settings, any light rays that would pass close to the edge of the base object would hit the inner wall of the outline object, which would be set to fully black (no specular). As you can probably guess, the second method adds polycount, while the first needs modern shaders and adds some more GPU core strain junk, so different games use different methods.

In general nowadays though, modern "realistic" games tend to use tons of shaders (because A-grade texture work is too hard or something) and would be much heavier than cell-shaded games, which need less to looks acceptable since they tend to work with solid groups of color without modifying them much.

 

[duffmmann]

"You don't need good graphics for a good game."​

Last I checked playing a game blind was pretty damn hard! "Good" and "realistic" are two different words. Good graphics are graphics that let a player know what's going on. Graphics give the player information about the game so they can make proper decisions and understand what's going on.

Seriously? When someone says the phrase do you really not know what they're talking about? I would suggest not opening with this line of reasoning, as it immediately makes you look pompous, the rest of your discussion may be valid, but don't differentiate between two words that everybody know what they mean when they say the other word than what you'd prefer to hear.

 

[Gahars]

Oh no, it's the Fun-stoppo!

Seriously? When someone says the phrase do you really not know what they're talking about? I would suggest not opening with this line of reasoning, as it immediately makes you look pompous, the rest of your discussion may be valid, but don't differentiate between two words that everybody know what they mean when they say the other word than what you'd prefer to hear.

Because God help us if he starts off with a joke, right?

 

[Rydian]

Seriously? When someone says the phrase do you really not know what they're talking about?

Actually, some people do think that it's what is meant. Take note that a lot of the people you see arguing about systems and graphics are literally 13 and under. That's why I started off with a clarification of a common misconception among the younger people.

 

[duffmmann]

Oh no, it's the Fun-stoppo!



Because God help us if he starts off with a joke, right?

Based on his reply right below yours here, he's not joking.

 

[Gahars]

Based on his reply right below yours here, he's not joking.

Last I checked playing a game blind was pretty damn hard!

Obvious joke (albeit a joke that demonstrates the point) is obvious.

 

[duffmmann]

Obvious joke (albeit a joke that demonstrates the point) is obvious.

No no, as he said, he's trying to make a point against 13 year olds making the argument. Which I can almost understand, but really I would imagine even most of them aren't that stupid.

 

[Gahars]

No no, as he said, he's trying to make a point against 13 year olds making the argument. Which I can almost understand, but really I would imagine even most of them aren't that stupid.

...And he does that by starting off with a joke. He goes to a ludicrous, comical extreme to make a point - graphics do make a game to some degree.

Also, really? You've been on this site alone 4 years - surely that should give some idea of what we're dealing with here.

 

[duffmmann]

...And he does that by starting off with a joke. He goes to a ludicrous, comical extreme to make a point - graphics do make a game to some degree.

Also, really? You've been on this site alone 4 years - surely that should give some idea of what we're dealing with here.

Well I didn't laugh, so I guess... try harder next time? Joke is weak at best.

 

[KingBlank]

Indie game devs use simple graphics most the time because its all they have available to them, this is what leads indie games to being so good, because the devs put loads of effort into the gameplay and aesthetics so the game will get peoples attention, In the indie scene something that has been done before is unlikely to gain much attention, unless its a big improvement.

 

[Foxi4]

Indie game devs use simple graphics most the time because its all they have available to them, this is what leads indie games to being so good, because the devs put loads of effort into the gameplay and aesthetics so the game will get peoples attention, In the indie scene something that has been done before is unlikely to gain much attention, unless its a big improvement.

It's called stylization. As shown by Rydian, for example Minecraft has quite complex graphics, actually - they're just stylized to look in a particular way. Similarily games like, say, Faster Than Light seem to be very simple on the outside, but go on ahead and try turning FTL on on a poor PC - not gonna work because it too takes advantage of complex graphics libraries. Those games look the way they look because that's the artistic vision, not because the developers are in any way limited.

 

[Rydian]

It is hard to beat video games blind.

FTL is just inefficient because it loads lots of things uncompressed into RAM, skyrocketing the requirements. It's 473MB of RAM sitting at the title screen, what with having preloaded pretty much every game asset, opposed to only loading sets of things as they will be needed.

 

[Gahars]

Well I didn't laugh, so I guess... try harder next time? Joke is weak at best.

Because all forms and types of humor is designed to make you laugh out loud, right?

 

[KingBlank]

It's called stylization. As shown by Rydian, for example Minecraft has quite complex graphics, actually - they're just stylized to look in a particular way. Similarily games like, say, Faster Than Light seem to be very simple on the outside, but go on ahead and try turning FTL on on a poor PC - not gonna work because it too takes advantage of complex graphics libraries. Those games look the way they look because that's the artistic vision, not because the developers are in any way limited.

What I was trying to say is not that the graphics are simple for the computer to render but that they are simple graphics to look at and to make.
minecraft - despite how hard it is to run undeniably still has 'simple' graphics, but It has complex environments (not taking into account mods and texture packs)

The developers are limited in terms of budget and time, indie devs often live off their incomes so their time is limited.

 

[Rydian]

Minecraft sold 10,000,000 PC copies as of a few days ago, money isn't an issue for them anymore for this... but they prefer to keep the dev team small so they can keep developing the way they have.