To be clearer on what I saw: when I said it looked exactly like the sample of the cubemap, it was not that I saw something exactly like that on the wall that looked like a low res reflection to me, it is that I saw something that seemed to be exactly that detailed, but shifting and moving around with camera orientation and movement in a way that didn't even convey a low resolution reflection to me. This is not the way other usages of cubemaps look to me (well, except the Penthouse mirror in my brief PTS testing).
This sounds like the Spheremap I mentioned. It moves differently than proper reflections (or a cubemap) would, and can be offputting. I would check your reflection settings, and make sure they are not set to "low"
ETA: And to address earlier questions about the age/hippness of the engine, the engine is based off the original COH engine, which at this point is something like 10 years old. However, it was massively overhauled when we started Marvel, and has continued to grow and evolve over the last few years. We have many of the same features as any other engine on the market, with some exceptions (Reflections, etc.), but those exceptions are due to the types of games we make, not because they would be impossible to put into the engine.
So. . . the engine is simultaneously 10 years old, 5 years old, and 0 years old? How about that?
This sounds like the Spheremap I mentioned. It moves differently than proper reflections (or a cubemap) would, and can be offputting. I would check your reflection settings, and make sure they are not set to "low"
...
It did not look like the spheremap picture to me (in terms of the look of the texture...I'll compare it to actually setting the quality to Low when i check with that new driver later), and I did check the settings in game when I replied to your post with the example pictures. Also, I just double-checked them again at the Login screen on PTS, and "Reflection Quality" is indeed set to "High".
So. . . the engine is simultaneously 10 years old, 5 years old, and 0 years old? How about that?
Clear as mud.
That said, now I'm curious - how much of the CoX engine is still in CO? Or was it just a basis or starting point when you designed the CO/STO/NW engine?
Some things seem relatively the same (the .pigg/.hogg format and how both engines support an override folder for textures and such), and lots different (the just 'slight' improvement in visuals over the character models and such compared to CoX).
Did confirm, again, the setting was on "High", including comparison to the "Low" quality setting and verification that it does look specifically identical to the example cubemap image for what I've been mentioning. Also, verified that the latest driver had no effect on this issue.
Points of note:
From some angles it is clear it is a reflection, even with whatever is particular to my perception of the effect, mostly when the color of the stage element is the same as what was used for the cubemap, though most angles, and especially at the top near the one-way mirror, almost always retain the pixelation and strangeness issue to my perception.
The spheremap is actually less eye-catching and problematic (to me) in passing when I compared the "Low" setting, but upon any direct examination almost always looks worse. I think this is because it conveys more of a fun-house mirror type effect, rather than the "classy/fancy/vanity" straight mirror effect, which psychologically masks the oddity to me.
Some angles might be improved by including indistinct partial occlusions to the bright stage "bars" for where the DJ and dancers are, even as things stand, and that the height of things in the reflection looking off is part of what strikes me as odd...does the cube map just use the environment and not NPCs, and is the accuracy of position inherent in its implementation? I don't know that this will help the problems I have with it much, but as these seem addressable by existing editing tools if you decided to address them, I thought this might be more helpful for immediate feedback.
This sounds like the Spheremap I mentioned. It moves differently than proper reflections (or a cubemap) would, and can be offputting. I would check your reflection settings, and make sure they are not set to "low"
ETA: And to address earlier questions about the age/hippness of the engine, the engine is based off the original COH engine, which at this point is something like 10 years old. However, it was massively overhauled when we started Marvel, and has continued to grow and evolve over the last few years. We have many of the same features as any other engine on the market, with some exceptions (Reflections, etc.), but those exceptions are due to the types of games we make, not because they would be impossible to put into the engine.
So. . . the engine is simultaneously 10 years old, 5 years old, and 0 years old? How about that?
On the topic of reflections. You've mentioned trying to reflect the world accurately is too resource intensive thus the use of cubemaps. However would it be possible for reflective surfaces to use cubemaps in addition to true reflections of character models perhaps under a "Super High" reflection quality setting? So you're not drawing everything twice, just character models and maybe only within a certain distance so if you're too far away from the reflective surface it wouldn't reflect you.
. . . almost always retain the pixelation and strangeness issue to my perception.
I don't know how to parse this into something I can use. saying something looks weird, doesn't help me understand the actual problem at hand. What is "weird." Can you post a picture? Can you describe what makes it weird? Etc. etc. etc.
Some angles might be improved by including indistinct partial occlusions to the bright stage "bars" for where the DJ and dancers are, even as things stand, and that the height of things in the reflection looking off is part of what strikes me as odd...does the cube map just use the environment and not NPCs, and is the accuracy of position inherent in its implementation? I don't know that this will help the problems I have with it much, but as these seem addressable by existing editing tools if you decided to address them, I thought this might be more helpful for immediate feedback.[/list]
The cubemap would use the NPCs if they had been in (and were currently spawned) when I took the picture. But they were not. I tend to avoid having any NPCs show up in reflections since they won't move, and is always disconcerting if not downright creepy. The cubemap is shot from 1 position, it's just a seriese of images projected from that one position. As such, it is inherently inaccurate anywhere OTHER than that one position. In most cases (including this one), I tend to shoot my cubemaps from roughly the center of the room, to get the best coverage. You can argue that I should have shot it from the mirrored wall somewhere, but then it's even less accurate to anyone wearing a shiny costume at the stage end of the room. Plus it's horribly wrong in any other room that isn't the dancefloor. But there's nothing to be done about these things. This is the way cubemaps work, and I cannot change that.
On the topic of reflections. You've mentioned trying to reflect the world accurately is too resource intensive thus the use of cubemaps. However would it be possible for reflective surfaces to use cubemaps in addition to true reflections of character models perhaps under a "Super High" reflection quality setting? So you're not drawing everything twice, just character models and maybe only within a certain distance so if you're too far away from the reflective surface it wouldn't reflect you.
I have no idea, you'd have to talk to programming about such things. To me, that sounds incredibly creepy and weird, and will never look right, imo.
II have no idea, you'd have to talk to programming about such things. To me, that sounds incredibly creepy and weird, and will never look right, imo.
Actually it might look "more right" if you pardon the expression. Its possible that by reflecting character models the focus will be taken from the flawed cubemaps and the player will just acknowledge them as a backdrop to the true reflections of themselves and NPCs, a sort of trick if you will, misdirection, smoke and mirrors, and all that. Assuming its possible within the engine of course.
I feel that it would draw your eye to the differences even more. It would pull reflections from the ignoreable/impressionist backdrop, into an odd uncanny valley, with disembodied people floating about oddly on a backdrop that doesn't fit them. They would be crisp and clear, and the cubemap would still be pixelated and blurry, and due to the inherent positioning error, the people could look like they are floating off the ground, or sunk into it, they could look insanely huge, or very tiny.
I feel that it would draw your eye to the differences even more. It would pull reflections from the ignoreable/impressionist backdrop, into an odd uncanny valley, with disembodied people floating about oddly on a backdrop that doesn't fit them. They would be crisp and clear, and the cubemap would still be pixelated and blurry, and due to the inherent positioning error, the people could look like they are floating off the ground, or sunk into it, they could look insanely huge, or very tiny.
I imagine that when one walked up to a mirror and looked directly at it the image they see would be more like looking at a photo of themselves dropped onto a backdrop of the area they are standing in.
Maybe you guys should go play crysis or something? Does WOW even have these kind of reflections?
I know every one has a pet issue, but this is something that never crossed my mind until i started reading this thread.:o
No worries Tumerboy, i don't expect to be able to use the reflection on my armor to pick the broccoli out of my teeth.
Well, let's try anonymous image shack hosting, since attachments are so thoroughly broken for me:
I'm not sure how clear these will be with its automatic rescaling, but the source images are 1900x1200 at least (even multiple of the scaling)...
One of the better typical angles (aside from the color mismatch between reflection and what the stage element is doing), which I guess is what people don't seem to mind:
The most successful angle I've found is where I look at it from way on the left, and it reflects the tall grey speaker or stage assembly that is there, but that wasn't one of the screenshots I took.
I will highlight one clear case of pixelation, though I have others from more typical angles and even the above picture above is problematic to me while in motion:
Hmm...forum doesn't handle a full-size image well...let's see how direct linking works
I have more images that I feel convey a more complete picture from various angles of what I find problematic, and they are actually on a personal Picassa web album, but I don't know how to share it in a way that I would be comfortable with on a forum. However, I don't think it is conveyed as clearly in static images what the behavior as camera position and angles change conveys to me in-game, and with a slightly different color balance. I think the low-res is conveyed, but not some of the other issues that make it stand out to me, and the "pixelization" element looks a bit more "blurry" and more like jpeg compression due to...well...jpeg compression. And, apparently, even what I'm seeing is not an issue to some (most?), but at least this might confirm the question of settings or what angles I'm viewing in general.
Maybe you guys should go play crysis or something? Does WOW even have these kind of reflections?
I know every one has a pet issue, but this is something that never crossed my mind until i started reading this thread.:o
No worries Tumerboy, i don't expect to be able to use the reflection on my armor to pick the broccoli out of my teeth.
Now, that wasn't helpful from my perspective at all. Am I not supposed to feel I'm being accused of nitpicking and making a mountain out of a molehill, when at the worst it is that what is honestly a "large hill" to me is not noticed to the same degree by others?
I understand cheerleading, but no need for snide back-biting using ludicrous imagery at the same time, especially when it is oblivious to a point I thought should have been made clear upon reading my comments*, that this is not concerning an issue with armor, or being able to be able to do ridiculous things using a reflection in it!
*If you do not read someone's comments and understand them, perhaps your cheerleading should not make dismissive commentary that seems reasonably construed to refer to them. It is not the cheerleading or even not reading my comments, if you so choose, that I take issue with.
Don'tcha just love backseat environmental designers?
I'm taking a break for the night. I have nothing positive to say to commentary like this, and I don't think i can maintain the tone I am going for in this conversation while it continues.
Now that you mention CoH Engine, I'm reminded that it had reflections in it once you prettied the water effects up some did have reflection effects in it. It was a touch twitchy though. Didn't work properly on an ATI card, or at least any ATI card I used. Kept bending the reflections in the wrong way in relation to the camera. I kept seeing the trippiest stuff when water was involved. Of course the newest version of the CoH engine really bumps that up. It costs them on framerates though. I can run mil city with everything set to the max in CO and get 60 FPS. I boot up CoH and run around atlas park and I don't have everything maxxed and I'm running with reflections and I get about 30FPS.
I doubt any mirror tech from the old engine carried over, and if it did It would still be the twitchy hates ATI tech since the upgraded water reflections came after the NCSoft takeover. I don't think cryptic would spend the manhours to hook up reflections for something that's situational like an occasional mirror.
Demalion, I'm loading now to take a look for myself, but I've never noticed anything with "pixelation" that you're talking about, except as far as the cubemap goes, which is conveyed fine in your screenshot, and I can't really do much to improve.
ETA: Sorry, I don't see anything out of the ordinary. I know that cubemaps aren't great, but the only alternative is to not have any kind of mirror effect, and I still feel it's better to fake it as best we can, than to have just a big empty wall.
Any reflection tech we had before NCSoft bought the project would have been cubemap based just like what we're using now.
Admittedly I haven't checked it out myself, but I would be very surprised if they were using full raytraced reflections today.
By CoV water definitely had true reflections I was sure of it because it was broken in such a fashion with ATI cards that the reflections were rendering.... weirdly, which is how I knew because I could see the world clipping into the world. It was trippy.. It's hard to describe but basically I had the world lurching into weird angles into me as I swam through places like Nerva and my character was clipping through my character. It was really twitchy and broken on ATI cards, worked perfectly on an Nvidia. In all cases it was a framerate hit for obvious reasons. Also did some odd things when you had transparent stuff involved in the character reflections.....
Lemme go see if I can find old screenshots from my COH folder....
Also: Disclaimer: Considering the amount of mirrors we have and will likely have, I don't think this is worth the effort to make work. I'm just saying the stuff was there, but it gave a performance hit and worked twitchy on a fair amount of machines.
Edit: Edit: Checking my screenshots, I can't be sure. I didn't photograph water reflections since it was hella funky on my ATI card.... It was entirely possible NCSoft started raytraced reflections soon after they took over and then added ultra-mode reflections which they use now (which are ATI friendly now) at a later date
Edit: Edit: Edit: Having looked through screenshots of CoH dating back to 2004 (I am a file packrat, I kept importing my COH folder from rig to rig with screenshots) I can say one thing for certain. I got a lot of pictures of that damn octopus.
Edit: Edit: Edit: Edit: Did some digging in CoX version history. The advanced graphics water mode showed up in issue 6 along came a spider along with depth of field. It didn't play nice with ATI especially those running FSAA. However, unless someone has a copy of the I6 issue and a demofile to run through it (so you can see it in action without connecting to a server, though you'd need some way of tweaking the settings to turn on highest quality water). I17 where ULtra-Mode was introduced which made water behave better, still using reflections. Since i doubt anyone has a copy of the I6 engine floating around I don't think we can quantatatively prove this one way or the other.... *Shrugs* I suppose there's no point really, It's just a matter of me wondering if my memory was right or not....
Demalion, I'm loading now to take a look for myself, but I've never noticed anything with "pixelation" that you're talking about, except as far as the cubemap goes, which is conveyed fine in your screenshot, and I can't really do much to improve.
ETA: Sorry, I don't see anything out of the ordinary. I know that cubemaps aren't great, but the only alternative is to not have any kind of mirror effect, and I still feel it's better to fake it as best we can, than to have just a big empty wall.
Any reflection tech we had before NCSoft bought the project would have been cubemap based just like what we're using now.
Admittedly I haven't checked it out myself, but I would be very surprised if they were using full raytraced reflections today.
I can't pretend to know what they are using over there, but I do know they do have real time reflection updates. I know if you look at a reflective surface you can see yourself and other characters in the reflection updated in real time. From what I know they basically crammed DirectX tech into the OpenGL engine and some how got it to work with everything from Occlusion, real time shadows and reflective surfaces.
Entering into Praeroia is a lagtastic nightmare since almost everything is reflective hehe, so get a lot of texture popping. I don't know if it's raytracing or not but I do know the reflections will reflect player characters and such and in real time. Though in a lot of instances it's more like the uncanny valley situation where surfaces are reflecting in certain scenarios for no reason.
Even logged in to look, staring at a puddle in Praetoria and my character's reflection is there. Not sure if they are raytracing or using an advanced cube map or what, just know they've crammed real time reflections in some how into the engine, though considering on the graphical level CoH is inferior to CO... that might be helping >_>
Even logged in to look, staring at a puddle in Praetoria and my character's reflection is there. Not sure if they are raytracing or using an advanced cube map or what, just know they've crammed real time reflections in some how into the engine, though considering on the graphical level CoH is inferior to CO... that might be helping >_>
Reflections? That cropped up with their Ultra Mode update for Going Rogue that went out before Going Rogue launched, which was way after the sale to NCSoft.
Now for Tumerboy, not sure how well you can see it, and I can't find any good reflective surfaces since the infamous CoH halloween event is going on (IE it's night time and no light to cause reflections) so hopefully you can see in the SS here
Again, not sure what they are using. But again I also think it helps that, well let's be blunt City of is graphically archaic and it probably helps rendering like that a heck of a lot.
Just to be hyperbolic about it, there are probably more polies in the hand of a CO avatar than the entire body of a CoH avatar >_>
Sorry silv I shouldn't have left your quote in the previous reply it's a bit late and I'm getting a bit tired. I was wondering about the reflections in the water itself. Made it sound like I was wondering about enviromental reflections
There were definitely water reflections before ultra-mode. What Ultra-Mode does is apply reflections to every dim darn other surface in the game, such as puddles. Water had reflections prior to that from some issue but it was twitchy. Ultra mode was added April 18 2010. Here's a forum post complaining about the reflection issues I had written in 2009. Of course you know that only proves one year. I know it's been about earlier then that but I can't figure out the whens there.
Now why bring up this twitchy reflection? Well, it's a good argument to NOT add reflections.
Here's why:
When it was added it caused a lot of issues, when I was trying to dig up when precisely it was added, I noticed a copy of a forum post somewhere that noted general hits to everyone's performance and the above mentioned ATI issues with water. The copied post was requesting users switch to something other then high quality water and disable FSAA on ATI cards.
So let's restate: Reflections get stuck into the water for CoH and the game performance tanks and a buncha users with a brand of video card are now having weird graphics. This didn't even get fixed until they added Ultra-Graphics and rewrote the way the engine did reflections. This added a pile of problems that weren't fixed for a long time.
I was toying with a mod for minecraft that adds reflections to water. It caused again a big hit in performance. It also caused a lot of strange flickering with terrain and downright weird stuff to hapen depending on the configuration I had. Turned out it didn't like certain renderers and certain graphics cards. Again, adding reflections is something that while can be thrown in simply, it causes a pile of problems when you do so that need to get addressed. It's more trouble then its worth.
Well Tumerboy already noted it was just plain cube maps.
Also, I believe what you might be referring to is ATI, I believe, actually had a set up where it could force games to have reflections in water and surfaces, and that was the conflicting issue. It was sort of like how nVidia cards could add occlusion to games without it. I know there was a post about that.
What's all this worry about reflections? Is it really going to improve the quality of the game content or gameplay? Let the devs focus on real issues and less about nitpicky stuff.
What's all this worry about reflections? Is it really going to improve the quality of the game content or gameplay? Let the devs focus on real issues and less about nitpicky stuff.
But I wanna see my reflection while I am permaheld by Ego storm!!!
Demalion, I'm loading now to take a look for myself, but I've never noticed anything with "pixelation" that you're talking about, except as far as the cubemap goes, which is conveyed fine in your screenshot, and I can't really do much to improve.
ETA: Sorry, I don't see anything out of the ordinary. I know that cubemaps aren't great, but the only alternative is to not have any kind of mirror effect, and I still feel it's better to fake it as best we can, than to have just a big empty wall.
Any reflection tech we had before NCSoft bought the project would have been cubemap based just like what we're using now.
Admittedly I haven't checked it out myself, but I would be very surprised if they were using full raytraced reflections today.
I didn't really think the pictures would show anything different than what you were seeing after you posted the sample pictures, I just perceive the images in the way I've tried to make clear. <snip> EDIT: Oh, just re-read your post...the pixelization in the cubemap, or the "reflection", is all I was ever referring to with that.
...
Technical clarity query:
I'm not sure if perhaps "raytracing" has been shoe-horned into an embellished label for real-time reflections, but just to be clear about what I described theoretically and with its impact on graphical workload, and what I'd expect the updated CoX would be doing, would be rendering as if the plane of the reflecting surface was the "screen" for a normal game render ("render to texture" is my understanding of the proper terminology for this type of thing), and using that as texture to achieve a reflection effect in subsequent rendering for the screen. At least, if real-time reflections would be limited to a single plane, like water on the ground, that seems like the minimum that would be necessary to do, and was basically the type of limited staging I was talking about (though used by specific staging elements rather than all water on the ground).
Real-time ray-tracing, or something approximating it more closely, has been demonstrated a few times, but while I'm not familiar with what exactly the latest Unreal Tech offers, or will offer, in advanced lighting effects, I don't know of any games that are actually using it for detailed reflections (current graphics cards aren't designed to do it efficiently...yet...though there has been talk of implementing their continued parallel computing power evolution in ways that facilitate usage for it, and I think there was a recent announcement regarding some hardware for this), though I think some low-res approximations might have been possible in the past when the standards of rendering detail might have allowed it. I'd expect a "shortcut" more like real time cubemapping is as far as any game goes, and while it is easy to see why that would be impractical for armor reflections on individual NPCs in an MMO (though, again, that is not what I was asking for), I don't know if there is something more sophisticated and efficient out there that I just haven't heard of.
But...enough wall-of-text...here is another video:
How you set a cubemap in the Source environmental editor. I presume this is something like how things currently work for editing for you, Tumerboy? I think this would be an excellent reference video to explain cubemaps, including the little collision with their shortcomings that occurs later in it, if so.
...
Hopefully, it is clear: that I didn't have to go hunting to find it noticeably problematic, some of the reasons for that and some thoughts on the general situation, that I don't have the wrong settings, and that I do not have the same issue with most cubemap usage and do appreciate many graphical effects and staging in the game.
But I wanna see my reflection while I am permaheld by Ego storm!!!
Oooh maybe it could show in-game advertisements while you're held! Since the Z key does squat against Ego Storm, maybe it could be used to cycle through another ad each time you hit it.
Oooh maybe it could show in-game advertisements while you're held! Since the Z key does squat against Ego Storm, maybe it could be used to cycle through another ad each time you hit it.
Hey...I like that. nothing wrong with another income stream for Cryptic!
Now, that wasn't helpful from my perspective at all. Am I not supposed to feel I'm being accused of nitpicking and making a mountain out of a molehill, when at the worst it is that what is honestly a "large hill" to me is not noticed to the same degree by others?
I understand cheerleading, but no need for snide back-biting using ludicrous imagery at the same time, especially when it is oblivious to a point I thought should have been made clear upon reading my comments*, that this is not concerning an issue with armor, or being able to be able to do ridiculous things using a reflection in it!
*If you do not read someone's comments and understand them, perhaps your cheerleading should not make dismissive commentary that seems reasonably construed to refer to them. It is not the cheerleading or even not reading my comments, if you so choose, that I take issue with.
Wow, sensitive much?
Just because i don't hold the same opinion as you does not make me a "cheerleader" and i never accused you of "making a mountain out of a mole hill" or "nitpicking".
Also my original post was not even directed at you at all, and i didn't even take notice of you until you quoted me. I'm not sure how you can be so offended by someone who wasn't even talking to you.
*/ facepalms and backs out of conversation after getting head bit off just for casually making a general observation*:rolleyes:
Just because i don't hold the same opinion as you does not make me a "cheerleader" and i never accused you of "making a mountain out of a mole hill" or "nitpicking".
Also my original post was not even directed at you at all, and i didn't even take notice of you until you quoted me. I'm not sure how you can be so offended by someone who wasn't even talking to you.
*/ facepalms and backs out of conversation after getting head bit off just for casually making a general observation*:rolleyes:
"*If you do not read someone's comments and understand them, perhaps your cheerleading should not make dismissive commentary that seems reasonably construed to refer to them. It is not the cheerleading or even not reading my comments, if you so choose, that I take issue with."
Observation: I don't generally make snide commentary out of the blue, like how I don't want to "pick broccoli out of my teeth using a reflection in my armor", and I think there is good reason for it. If you happened to innocently make that comment, and managed to not notice me generally talking about something to do with reflections, I still don't think my response is unreasonable, nor, at the very least, the highlighted portion I quote above, inapplicable...
Also, I don't consider "cheerleading" itself something negative, though it might have a negative connotation due to the frequency of using it as an opportunity to talk down to someone. Hopefully that makes the intended context clear, if it wasn't.
I'm no EM apologist, but a nerf to Amazing Grace is a nerf to Evasive Maneuvers. Or more specifically, to Invuln+IDF+EM+BCR+FotM(+adv)+Resurgence. People could technically get around the Amazing Grace cooldown by having about ten of them. I wouldn't doubt that happened, I think may have seen it myself.
Actually you cant. Activating Amazing Grace puts all Amazing Graces in your inventory on cooldown as well.
What's all this worry about reflections? Is it really going to improve the quality of the game content or gameplay? Let the devs focus on real issues and less about nitpicky stuff.
It's not a big deal to me. But it's something that would just be nice to have. In general, you would probably not even see reflections all that much but it is a nice surprise, sometimes, when seeing an effect like that in a game. It sort of adds depth.
Realistically, I don't know how viable it would be in Champions. I made the joke but wouldn't be surprised if it's accurate the fact that the CO avatar hands probably have more polygons in them than the CoH entire character model. That would mean real time reflections would have a significant impact in performance here.
Again real time reflections would be nice, but I don't know how viable it would be. they sort of do add to the immersion in a world, but in large scale games like this you have to pick between two things. Even in COH the real time reflections and such have an impact on the games over all performance. And to be harshly cold about it, CoH performance isn't the best in the world with attrocious UI lag and slow response characters.
The tooltip is broken. It scales with Dexterity, says so in the description. The base is 5 energy per second. The tooltip must just have a manually entered value instead of a dynamic one that is linked to the actual mechanic.
Damn you Unarmed pass...go live soon, I have far too many toons in the powerhouse waiting their power choices after a somewhat premature respec that need a few selections from your wonderful new choices
Comments
This sounds like the Spheremap I mentioned. It moves differently than proper reflections (or a cubemap) would, and can be offputting. I would check your reflection settings, and make sure they are not set to "low"
ETA: And to address earlier questions about the age/hippness of the engine, the engine is based off the original COH engine, which at this point is something like 10 years old. However, it was massively overhauled when we started Marvel, and has continued to grow and evolve over the last few years. We have many of the same features as any other engine on the market, with some exceptions (Reflections, etc.), but those exceptions are due to the types of games we make, not because they would be impossible to put into the engine.
So. . . the engine is simultaneously 10 years old, 5 years old, and 0 years old? How about that?
It did not look like the spheremap picture to me (in terms of the look of the texture...I'll compare it to actually setting the quality to Low when i check with that new driver later), and I did check the settings in game when I replied to your post with the example pictures. Also, I just double-checked them again at the Login screen on PTS, and "Reflection Quality" is indeed set to "High".
Clear as mud.
That said, now I'm curious - how much of the CoX engine is still in CO? Or was it just a basis or starting point when you designed the CO/STO/NW engine?
Some things seem relatively the same (the .pigg/.hogg format and how both engines support an override folder for textures and such), and lots different (the just 'slight' improvement in visuals over the character models and such compared to CoX).
Points of note:
On the topic of reflections. You've mentioned trying to reflect the world accurately is too resource intensive thus the use of cubemaps. However would it be possible for reflective surfaces to use cubemaps in addition to true reflections of character models perhaps under a "Super High" reflection quality setting? So you're not drawing everything twice, just character models and maybe only within a certain distance so if you're too far away from the reflective surface it wouldn't reflect you.
I don't know how to parse this into something I can use. saying something looks weird, doesn't help me understand the actual problem at hand. What is "weird." Can you post a picture? Can you describe what makes it weird? Etc. etc. etc.
The cubemap would use the NPCs if they had been in (and were currently spawned) when I took the picture. But they were not. I tend to avoid having any NPCs show up in reflections since they won't move, and is always disconcerting if not downright creepy. The cubemap is shot from 1 position, it's just a seriese of images projected from that one position. As such, it is inherently inaccurate anywhere OTHER than that one position. In most cases (including this one), I tend to shoot my cubemaps from roughly the center of the room, to get the best coverage. You can argue that I should have shot it from the mirrored wall somewhere, but then it's even less accurate to anyone wearing a shiny costume at the stage end of the room. Plus it's horribly wrong in any other room that isn't the dancefloor. But there's nothing to be done about these things. This is the way cubemaps work, and I cannot change that.
I have no idea, you'd have to talk to programming about such things. To me, that sounds incredibly creepy and weird, and will never look right, imo.
Actually it might look "more right" if you pardon the expression. Its possible that by reflecting character models the focus will be taken from the flawed cubemaps and the player will just acknowledge them as a backdrop to the true reflections of themselves and NPCs, a sort of trick if you will, misdirection, smoke and mirrors, and all that. Assuming its possible within the engine of course.
I know every one has a pet issue, but this is something that never crossed my mind until i started reading this thread.:o
No worries Tumerboy, i don't expect to be able to use the reflection on my armor to pick the broccoli out of my teeth.
The most successful angle I've found is where I look at it from way on the left, and it reflects the tall grey speaker or stage assembly that is there, but that wasn't one of the screenshots I took.
Hmm...forum doesn't handle a full-size image well...let's see how direct linking works
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/38/screenshot2011102419121.jpg/
I have more images that I feel convey a more complete picture from various angles of what I find problematic, and they are actually on a personal Picassa web album, but I don't know how to share it in a way that I would be comfortable with on a forum. However, I don't think it is conveyed as clearly in static images what the behavior as camera position and angles change conveys to me in-game, and with a slightly different color balance. I think the low-res is conveyed, but not some of the other issues that make it stand out to me, and the "pixelization" element looks a bit more "blurry" and more like jpeg compression due to...well...jpeg compression. And, apparently, even what I'm seeing is not an issue to some (most?), but at least this might confirm the question of settings or what angles I'm viewing in general.
Now, that wasn't helpful from my perspective at all. Am I not supposed to feel I'm being accused of nitpicking and making a mountain out of a molehill, when at the worst it is that what is honestly a "large hill" to me is not noticed to the same degree by others?
I understand cheerleading, but no need for snide back-biting using ludicrous imagery at the same time, especially when it is oblivious to a point I thought should have been made clear upon reading my comments*, that this is not concerning an issue with armor, or being able to be able to do ridiculous things using a reflection in it!
*If you do not read someone's comments and understand them, perhaps your cheerleading should not make dismissive commentary that seems reasonably construed to refer to them. It is not the cheerleading or even not reading my comments, if you so choose, that I take issue with.
I'm taking a break for the night. I have nothing positive to say to commentary like this, and I don't think i can maintain the tone I am going for in this conversation while it continues.
I doubt any mirror tech from the old engine carried over, and if it did It would still be the twitchy hates ATI tech since the upgraded water reflections came after the NCSoft takeover. I don't think cryptic would spend the manhours to hook up reflections for something that's situational like an occasional mirror.
Demalion, I'm loading now to take a look for myself, but I've never noticed anything with "pixelation" that you're talking about, except as far as the cubemap goes, which is conveyed fine in your screenshot, and I can't really do much to improve.
ETA: Sorry, I don't see anything out of the ordinary. I know that cubemaps aren't great, but the only alternative is to not have any kind of mirror effect, and I still feel it's better to fake it as best we can, than to have just a big empty wall.
Any reflection tech we had before NCSoft bought the project would have been cubemap based just like what we're using now.
Admittedly I haven't checked it out myself, but I would be very surprised if they were using full raytraced reflections today.
Lemme go see if I can find old screenshots from my COH folder....
Also: Disclaimer: Considering the amount of mirrors we have and will likely have, I don't think this is worth the effort to make work. I'm just saying the stuff was there, but it gave a performance hit and worked twitchy on a fair amount of machines.
Edit: Edit: Checking my screenshots, I can't be sure. I didn't photograph water reflections since it was hella funky on my ATI card.... It was entirely possible NCSoft started raytraced reflections soon after they took over and then added ultra-mode reflections which they use now (which are ATI friendly now) at a later date
Edit: Edit: Edit: Having looked through screenshots of CoH dating back to 2004 (I am a file packrat, I kept importing my COH folder from rig to rig with screenshots) I can say one thing for certain. I got a lot of pictures of that damn octopus.
Edit: Edit: Edit: Edit: Did some digging in CoX version history. The advanced graphics water mode showed up in issue 6 along came a spider along with depth of field. It didn't play nice with ATI especially those running FSAA. However, unless someone has a copy of the I6 issue and a demofile to run through it (so you can see it in action without connecting to a server, though you'd need some way of tweaking the settings to turn on highest quality water). I17 where ULtra-Mode was introduced which made water behave better, still using reflections. Since i doubt anyone has a copy of the I6 engine floating around I don't think we can quantatatively prove this one way or the other.... *Shrugs* I suppose there's no point really, It's just a matter of me wondering if my memory was right or not....
I can't pretend to know what they are using over there, but I do know they do have real time reflection updates. I know if you look at a reflective surface you can see yourself and other characters in the reflection updated in real time. From what I know they basically crammed DirectX tech into the OpenGL engine and some how got it to work with everything from Occlusion, real time shadows and reflective surfaces.
Entering into Praeroia is a lagtastic nightmare since almost everything is reflective hehe, so get a lot of texture popping. I don't know if it's raytracing or not but I do know the reflections will reflect player characters and such and in real time. Though in a lot of instances it's more like the uncanny valley situation where surfaces are reflecting in certain scenarios for no reason.
Even logged in to look, staring at a puddle in Praetoria and my character's reflection is there. Not sure if they are raytracing or using an advanced cube map or what, just know they've crammed real time reflections in some how into the engine, though considering on the graphical level CoH is inferior to CO... that might be helping >_>
Reflections? That cropped up with their Ultra Mode update for Going Rogue that went out before Going Rogue launched, which was way after the sale to NCSoft.
Now for Tumerboy, not sure how well you can see it, and I can't find any good reflective surfaces since the infamous CoH halloween event is going on (IE it's night time and no light to cause reflections) so hopefully you can see in the SS here
Reflective Puddle
Again, not sure what they are using. But again I also think it helps that, well let's be blunt City of is graphically archaic and it probably helps rendering like that a heck of a lot.
Just to be hyperbolic about it, there are probably more polies in the hand of a CO avatar than the entire body of a CoH avatar >_>
There were definitely water reflections before ultra-mode. What Ultra-Mode does is apply reflections to every dim darn other surface in the game, such as puddles. Water had reflections prior to that from some issue but it was twitchy. Ultra mode was added April 18 2010. Here's a forum post complaining about the reflection issues I had written in 2009. Of course you know that only proves one year. I know it's been about earlier then that but I can't figure out the whens there.
Now why bring up this twitchy reflection? Well, it's a good argument to NOT add reflections.
Here's why:
When it was added it caused a lot of issues, when I was trying to dig up when precisely it was added, I noticed a copy of a forum post somewhere that noted general hits to everyone's performance and the above mentioned ATI issues with water. The copied post was requesting users switch to something other then high quality water and disable FSAA on ATI cards.
So let's restate: Reflections get stuck into the water for CoH and the game performance tanks and a buncha users with a brand of video card are now having weird graphics. This didn't even get fixed until they added Ultra-Graphics and rewrote the way the engine did reflections. This added a pile of problems that weren't fixed for a long time.
I was toying with a mod for minecraft that adds reflections to water. It caused again a big hit in performance. It also caused a lot of strange flickering with terrain and downright weird stuff to hapen depending on the configuration I had. Turned out it didn't like certain renderers and certain graphics cards. Again, adding reflections is something that while can be thrown in simply, it causes a pile of problems when you do so that need to get addressed. It's more trouble then its worth.
Also, I believe what you might be referring to is ATI, I believe, actually had a set up where it could force games to have reflections in water and surfaces, and that was the conflicting issue. It was sort of like how nVidia cards could add occlusion to games without it. I know there was a post about that.
But I wanna see my reflection while I am permaheld by Ego storm!!!
I didn't really think the pictures would show anything different than what you were seeing after you posted the sample pictures, I just perceive the images in the way I've tried to make clear. <snip> EDIT: Oh, just re-read your post...the pixelization in the cubemap, or the "reflection", is all I was ever referring to with that.
...
Technical clarity query:
Real-time ray-tracing, or something approximating it more closely, has been demonstrated a few times, but while I'm not familiar with what exactly the latest Unreal Tech offers, or will offer, in advanced lighting effects, I don't know of any games that are actually using it for detailed reflections (current graphics cards aren't designed to do it efficiently...yet...though there has been talk of implementing their continued parallel computing power evolution in ways that facilitate usage for it, and I think there was a recent announcement regarding some hardware for this), though I think some low-res approximations might have been possible in the past when the standards of rendering detail might have allowed it. I'd expect a "shortcut" more like real time cubemapping is as far as any game goes, and while it is easy to see why that would be impractical for armor reflections on individual NPCs in an MMO (though, again, that is not what I was asking for), I don't know if there is something more sophisticated and efficient out there that I just haven't heard of.
But...enough wall-of-text...here is another video:
How you set a cubemap in the Source environmental editor. I presume this is something like how things currently work for editing for you, Tumerboy? I think this would be an excellent reference video to explain cubemaps, including the little collision with their shortcomings that occurs later in it, if so.
...
Hopefully, it is clear: that I didn't have to go hunting to find it noticeably problematic, some of the reasons for that and some thoughts on the general situation, that I don't have the wrong settings, and that I do not have the same issue with most cubemap usage and do appreciate many graphical effects and staging in the game.
Oooh maybe it could show in-game advertisements while you're held! Since the Z key does squat against Ego Storm, maybe it could be used to cycle through another ad each time you hit it.
Hey...I like that. nothing wrong with another income stream for Cryptic!
Bug:
Rush only gives 11 energy instead of 15, see picture below
Attachment not found.
Wow, sensitive much?
Just because i don't hold the same opinion as you does not make me a "cheerleader" and i never accused you of "making a mountain out of a mole hill" or "nitpicking".
Also my original post was not even directed at you at all, and i didn't even take notice of you until you quoted me. I'm not sure how you can be so offended by someone who wasn't even talking to you.
*/ facepalms and backs out of conversation after getting head bit off just for casually making a general observation*:rolleyes:
"*If you do not read someone's comments and understand them, perhaps your cheerleading should not make dismissive commentary that seems reasonably construed to refer to them. It is not the cheerleading or even not reading my comments, if you so choose, that I take issue with."
Observation: I don't generally make snide commentary out of the blue, like how I don't want to "pick broccoli out of my teeth using a reflection in my armor", and I think there is good reason for it. If you happened to innocently make that comment, and managed to not notice me generally talking about something to do with reflections, I still don't think my response is unreasonable, nor, at the very least, the highlighted portion I quote above, inapplicable...
Also, I don't consider "cheerleading" itself something negative, though it might have a negative connotation due to the frequency of using it as an opportunity to talk down to someone. Hopefully that makes the intended context clear, if it wasn't.
Actually you cant. Activating Amazing Grace puts all Amazing Graces in your inventory on cooldown as well.
sorry about that, removed my original comment
Hrmm, do you have IDF active. That reduces your total energy returns on everything. Also travel powers reduce your energy building 15%.
It's not a big deal to me. But it's something that would just be nice to have. In general, you would probably not even see reflections all that much but it is a nice surprise, sometimes, when seeing an effect like that in a game. It sort of adds depth.
Realistically, I don't know how viable it would be in Champions. I made the joke but wouldn't be surprised if it's accurate the fact that the CO avatar hands probably have more polygons in them than the CoH entire character model. That would mean real time reflections would have a significant impact in performance here.
Again real time reflections would be nice, but I don't know how viable it would be. they sort of do add to the immersion in a world, but in large scale games like this you have to pick between two things. Even in COH the real time reflections and such have an impact on the games over all performance. And to be harshly cold about it, CoH performance isn't the best in the world with attrocious UI lag and slow response characters.
No .. that character has no IDF, also i tried it with and without flight and also in guardian and protector and it
was 11 all the times.
Dragon Uppercut: Does not apply stacks of Focus when using Form of the Tiger