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Nice! And finally an upclose of Garrett's face. You can really make out his scar and all so + points for zat.
And now I sense graphic whores coming here to complain about the blurry textures...
BEGONE YOU EVIL DEMONS.
http://www.thief-thecircle.com/shownews.asp?id=1596
I could put on my anal hat and point out all the flaws I've spotted in these, but that anal hat is sooo old.
I'll just say that I am pleased, and happy, and content, and all those good things.
Nice! And finally an upclose of Garrett's face. You can really make out his scar and all so + points for zat.
And now I sense graphic whores coming here to complain about the blurry textures...
BEGONE YOU EVIL DEMONS.
As much of a Thief Geek I am, I can never be bothered to remember which eye Garrett lost.
Did they get it right?
For the first time I have found myself really impressed by the graphics in Theif III. I was impressed before but these are just....wow
Thanks very much Digital Nightfall!
I just checked the cutscene... Yes. Correct eye. Thank God. Thought it was going to end up like the print ad.
I love that second one. Check out the bump mapping on that arch. Also, if you look closely in front of the guard, it looks like a spider. Since we've been told spiders didn't make it, what do you think it is?
On the one hand these are the best TDS screens they've released, but on the other hand that's not saying much since what they've released so far has been nothing but XBox res stuff. The textures still look rather bad though, the stone textures on the wall behind Garrett in the third screenshot look like they have severe JPEG blocking and color separation of the sort that you get in pictures taken with a cheap digital camera. The model textures also suck, sorry to say.
Garrett is looking pretty wicked-cool in this iriteration, what with the badass scar and stuff, but does his eye seem a little too green to you guys? I see to recall what we saw of it in TMA was a bit more of a subdued colour, like you could actually concieve of it being a natural colour. Oh well, I guess Microsoft requires Xbox-Green to be iconic somewhere on the character, just look at Sam Fischer's goggle things. Overall pretty good screenshots, some of the textures do look a little low-res, but I guess they had to make some sacrifices with all that normal mapping.
And yes, that does look like a spider, and yes they did say they were out. However I could see those tricky bastards SAYING they were out so they would REALLY be a suprise to all of us playing the game. Now THAT would scare the shit out of me, if I was attacked by a spider and was specifically told they weren't in the game....
And also I had to take a couple looks at that zombie pic before I knew what you were talking about, since you left it with a vague "something most of us have been very anxious to see." I was all "what am I looking at... that fog? is that a loading zone... huh, that doesn't seem that exc-- HEY WHAT'S WRONG WITH THAT DUDE'S FACE!!"
The textures are more than a little rough in the Garrett closeup...but that city street shot is almost immaculate.
Overall...WOOT!
Also, that zombie shot looks like it takes place inside a ship hull...at least that's the impression I got from looking at it. So what do you think? Undead ship level or weird ass catacombs?
TDS + Dashjianta's Ranstall Keep = Spider guards?
Yep, that's DXT compression, every (at least I imagine so) artist's bane. Per-pixel lighting seems to bring out the worst qualities of it. DDS files make texture memory footprints smaller though, and handle mip-mapping pretty well.Originally posted by Creep Vassalage
On the one hand these are the best TDS screens they've released, but on the other hand that's not saying much since what they've released so far has been nothing but XBox res stuff. The textures still look rather bad though, the stone textures on the wall behind Garrett in the third screenshot look like they have severe JPEG blocking and color separation of the sort that you get in pictures taken with a cheap digital camera. The model textures also suck, sorry to say.
http://developer.nvidia.com/object/n...ure_tools.html
Last edited by noah; 2nd Apr 2004 at 02:28.
It's not just that though. I think the second shot shows off the best textures, but still note the overall inconsistency of quality:Originally posted by noah
Yep, that's DXT compression, every (at least I imagine so) artist's bane. Per-pixel lighting seems to bring out the worst qualities of it. DDS files make texture memory footprints smaller though, and handle mip-mapping pretty well.
http://developer.nvidia.com/object/n...ure_tools.html
http://mark700.home.comcast.net/publ...l/snap0152.jpg
Some textures have incredible detail and are bump-mapped, while others are decent but quite flat, while still others look like they were taken from the original Quake.
The bad I sorta agree with..but the grate, flooring, and old wood look fine to me. There's only so much you can do to worn and dryrotted wood before it starts looking a little too fake.
Besides the Garrett closeup, I can't find anything particularly wrong with this new batch. Even if I do run across a lower res texture ingame, with atmosphere like that I doubt I'd even notice.
I'm speechless.
and not just over the screenshots
It was said before, the textures are a mixed bag. It's true. It just looks like in some places they needed to pull more resources into other things for graphics to make sure it still runs smoothly.
These screenshots make me a lot happier with the graphics. The third is revealing bad (or tuned back) texturing, but the other shots are good enough for me.
Also no ones really commented on this before, but outside city enviroments look tight, and enclosed. It reminds me of a midieval style suburban chicago type of enviroment. I couldn't ask for it any other way, perfect for thieving.
Last edited by killed; 2nd Apr 2004 at 03:29.
Well yeah, if the texture isn't tiled as much, or is of lower resolution (but is applied over the same amount of world space, as in the wall behind Garrett), then the compression artifacts will be much more noticable, particularly on textures that cover large areas, like wall textures, where the player (camera) can get right up next to them.Originally posted by Creep Vassalage
It's not just that though. I think the second shot shows off the best textures, but still note the overall inconsistency of quality:
http://mark700.home.comcast.net/publ...l/snap0152.jpg
Some textures have incredible detail and are bump-mapped, while others are decent but quite flat, while still others look like they were taken from the original Quake.
For example, on the archway in the above shot, the area within the green marquee is using the same texture as the area within the red marquee (minus the door), it's just tiled less for some reason within the red selection (possibly a trick of perspective).
I imagine this is the kind of thing that the artists fix before beta asset lock-down.
If there are problems with low res (or Xboxed) textures, chances are the community will come out with replacements, just like they did for Deus Ex Invisible War. DX:IW has the same engine and is done by the same company, and its stock textures sucked. Player done replacement textures fixed the problem quickly though.
The textures look good on the whole, and if there are some bad ones we probably won't have to wait very long until we get replacements ^_^
*drools in anticipation of the game*
I'm guessing that the apparent disparity in texture-quality is largely due to some of the things being static mesh and some being textured BSP architecture.
The areas labelled "Bad" are almost certainly static mesh, and the "Good" areas might look a bit less-than perfect on account of mip-mapping.
But then I'd bet the wooden support beams are mesh objects as well... but maybe the UV mapping was scaled down more appropriately in Max before export. Or maybe the texture can be higher-res on account of it not having so much to wrap, compared to the wall chunks. I don't know. I AM GUESSING.
Those are still some damned hard shadows, though. I thought there was some bizarre and inappropriate tiling on the floor under that balcony bit until I just now realised it was shadow. I hope the soft shadowing I have been anxiously waiting for is just something they haven't got to yet or aren't showing in these screens.
Plus zombieman is teh rawk.
Kinda hard to tell he's a zombie, though... Doesn't have the whole Exposed Spine / No Tummy that gave the TDP zombies away. At first I assumed he was a leper or some kind of plague-ridden fellow.
But he looks vary handsome, and I'm sure the lurching, groaning, and stumbling after me with outstretched arms will leave me in no doubt as to his Vitality-Challenged lifestyle.
I think we still have yet to see a game that can do all real time soft shadowing for everything. Doom 3 has hard shadows and even HL2 doesn't have real time shadows for everything. The shadows casted by static architechture is pre-calculated in HL2.
I think he might be talking about preburned lightmaps being mixed in with the hard, stencilshaded shadows....maybe?
And while in nitpick mode I did notice that they need to rotate the textures on those support beams...
Yeah. And HL2 graphics look superior to all others right now, mostly thanks to soft-shadowing allowing for realistic (and beautiful) lighting and outdoors - not to mention Stalker's beautiful shading and soft shadowing.Originally posted by killed The shadows casted by static architechture is pre-calculated in HL2.
Those screenshots of T3 are awesome, minus the last one which makes me look away for two reasons. One, it hurts to look at the walls. Infact, there isn't anything good about that third shot. And two, it hurts to look at Garrett. And what with that eye? It's supposed to be mechanical, but it looks like someone shoved some green putty into his eye.
1st shot: are... are those... no, it can't be. ...but are they? I mean, could it be? No, they aren't dead-looking. ...but it has to be! Why else do they have... uh, darn... well, looks like there won't be any scary-looking zombies in T3. Just close your eyes and pretend they're scary because of the sounds they make.
2nd shot: hey, look at that bump mapping in the arch. That's what bump mapping is all about! Nice-looking area. Nice to see some decent textures populating a scene.
3rd shot: Hey! Hey! What's that they're doing?! Are they looking around a corner without atually exposing Garrett to danger? .... What did I just say? Without exposing GARRETT?? Since when is Garrett in Thief? I mean without exposing YOURSELF. ARGH, no more immersion...!! From now on it's "Garrett" all the time and not "Me."
I second that. Hopefully all those scenes in previous screenshots will catch up. It'd be nice to see some more screenshots of old scenes looking like that second one.It was said before, the textures are a mixed bag. It's true.
Brighten up the pic, they look like zombies, no doubt about it. They just look like freshly dead zombies, not the stirring in their graves for 5 years type we're used to.
speaking of T3 lighting...
I wonder if you could find a walking guard with a shadow off to his side, in a place with little fill light, and slink along side him in his own shadow without him knowing...
So, is this a spider or not?
I'll risk saying that if it isn't a spider on the left, then this isn't a guard on the right. Whatever, nice pics overall. Screw the quality of the textures (can be fixed). It's loading zones that counts for me.
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