Sulphur on 31/1/2011 at 07:15
Quote Posted by Wormrat
I don't think it's fair to call the lighting "gimped" just because it's less dynamic. FEAR 2 has a lot more light sources and subtler/softer lighting effects. I miss the shadow volumes too, but considering how much more complex FEAR 2's environments are, I don't think you can blame that one on the consoles.
(
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lbzFfYwhz68) It was gimped.
The flashlight doesn't create any shadows, gunfire doesn't create any shadows, and those static lights littered all over the place were incredibly inconsistent in terms of what underneath them cast shadows and what didn't. Hell, in some places, your PC didn't cast a shadow either.
SSAO helped with the overall aesthetic a little, but a whole bunch of soft lights that cast no shadows isn't what I'd call a reasonable replacement. On the PC, there was no reason to simply create a 'High Detail' setting that made most of the lights dynamic, or if not, at least upped the amount of dynamic lights considerably - and soft lighting is technically possible while still casting shadows. It's definitely a console port, and any extra love they could've given it was spent elsewhere.
It's a minor point in the end, but it's part of the list of things that didn't measure up.
van HellSing on 31/1/2011 at 08:43
Quote Posted by Jason Moyer
I can understand hating the FEAR games. I don't really understand why people hate the second one and like the first one, though.
Because FEAR 2 is a Call of Duty game thinly disguised as a sequel to FEAR.
Bjossi on 31/1/2011 at 08:46
Quote Posted by Jason Moyer
I can understand hating the FEAR games. I don't really understand why people hate the second one and like the first one, though.
Because they do some stuff differently maybe? FEAR 2's lack of manual saving and bad guys getting lit up like light bulbs in slomo are enough reasons to make me want to rather spend time replaying the originals. Sure saving features (or lack thereof, in this case) don't affect the quality of the game itself but it affects the playing to the point of annoyance for me.
Oh, and add me to the FEAR fans club.
On a side note I hope so much that FEAR 3 won't suck, I will probably not be holding my breath in anticipation and rushing to the store on day 1. :erg:
Sulphur on 31/1/2011 at 09:23
Quote Posted by Wormrat
I have seen that dude's videos. He's clueless. The first 10 seconds just drive my point home--all he cares about is whether there's a crisp shadow volume; nevermind the fact that the room in FEAR 2 looks way more realistic.
Two of the reasons no one is using shadow volumes anymore are because they are expensive with multiple light sources and expensive with complicated geometry. FEAR 1 is mostly drab, boxy interiors with one light source per room. Show me a game that uses shadow volumes with even half the complexity of FEAR 2's maps--particularly the city areas. Even assuming it would be a simple thing to toggle, you can hardly berate Monolith for not putting in an "all dynamic shadow volumes, no matter how much it makes my computer cry or looks ugly with the other lighting" option.
Aesthetic decisions that cause everything to go one step backwards? Give me a break. The room looks 'realistic' only because the walls and floor show light diffusing across them and a hazy lens flare attached to the source. That particular room has object shadows, so it looks all right. But what about the other rooms that don't? Lighting isn't just about the
light for crying out loud, it's about how the light reacts with whatever it hits. Fear 2's fuzzy subtle pre-baked lighting which causes zero shadow maps on objects isn't a plus, it's a minus. You can't have light without shadows.
And I don't see where the shadow
volumes in Fear 2 are complex, exactly. Half of 'em aren't even there. The environmental shadows are baked in; while that means they can be as complex as all get out because they're made upon compiling the level, once they're baked they can hardly be called 'volumes'. And the problem with baked maps is that they have no effect on actual objects inside the level. This could have easily been taken care of by ensuring they just had enough additional, strategically placed dynamic lights in each level but that's evidently too much work for a PC SKU.
Anything with a deferred renderer can throw bunches of dynamic lights around - Metro 2033, Crysis, even Killzone 2. Admittedly, not hundreds in a single scene, but more than enough to be realistic. They didn't have hard-edged shadows and sterile, evenly lit environments either. Even without a deferred solution Fear 2 could easily have run with more dynamic lights - (
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/budget-radeon-geforce,2364-11.html) 105 FPS on a 4890 at 1920x1080 with all the bells and whistles turned on.
Quote:
Maybe instead of specifically gimping the lighting for the consoles, Monolith just doesn't share your taste. The fact that (
http://www.realtimerendering.com/blog/gamefest-2010-presentations/) Monolith decided to use baked lighting for outdoor areas and limited full dynamic shadows to certain interiors makes it clear to me that it was not only an issue of performance even on PC, but moreover an aesthetic decision. This isn't the consolitis you're looking for.
That link you posted, by the way? It specifically states that they didn't use light maps or spherical harmonics because of performance reasons and not aesthetics. Hell, the entire paragraph is about how they forewent other methods in favour of things that got them more speed, including dropping volume ray casting for atmospheric lighting because it worked on high-spec PCs but not consoles. Aesthetics? I don't see that mentioned anywhere.
Sulphur on 31/1/2011 at 10:27
i'm a graphics whore, let me have this one thing okay?
Also psst:
Quote Posted by Sulphur
deth, gunny, we're gonna haf ta AGREE TO DISAGREE! If there's more you disagree on, we can have a nice, quiet discussion on the finer points in a session of Magicka.
Sulphur on 31/1/2011 at 11:22
I know raymarching against volumes isn't about shadows, that's why I said 'atmospheric lighting'. Clearly that wasn't a focus for them because it wouldn't work on consoles, which is whey they dropped it.
Those other games I mentioned don't all use shadow volumes, but they do have plenty of dynamic lights and the aesthetic wasn't compromised. Out of them, Metro uses volumes along with deferred rendering and shadows don't look as hard-edged horrible and pitch black as those in Fear 1.
You're right about the fact that I don't like the mix they settled upon - it's wildly inconsistent and doesn't sit well with me. And that link in my post wasn't for the technique used in the screenshot, it was for the charts below to show that there was plenty of headroom available for more dynamic lighting on the PC.
While we're in agreement over that, the point is whether it was gimped for consoles or not. And I find it hard to agree with you that they dropped object/character shadows in places because they might have 'looked bad'. Come on. Aesthetics can only take you so far. If you were lighting a set in the real world and the shadows looked 'off', you'd move the lights.
If I were to take a guess, it's because the light budget didn't allow for another dynamic light to be placed in that area of the level, hence you have a static light with no shadows. I'd find it more believable that having firefights in those areas along with lots of AI characters and their attendant shadows would have caused a drop in performance, because the entire game's locked down to a pretty solid 30 FPS on the consoles (that the PS3 has problems keeping up with nevertheless). That's probably also why the flashlight and gunfire don't cast shadows in general either.
I agree there were far bigger problems with the game; like I said way up on this page, it's a minor item amongst the rest in that list.
Sulphur on 31/1/2011 at 13:48
Quote Posted by Wormrat
Well, you may have a point about the rooms without dynamic shadows being the ones most likely to have firefights in them. I suppose someone could do some tedious research and see if there's a strong correlation in the game
That won't be me, bro. I've got better things to do, and I suspect you do too.
Quote:
(I have to say, though, that there's no way Metro 2033 uses shadow volumes. I'm positive it uses shadow maps.)
You may be right; I dunno if I'm remembering it wrong, but I recall a shadow map vs. volumes argument and I'm not too sure which one Metro went with now.
