New Model Rendered in The Unreal Engine 3!!

[richcz3]

Dual 64bit CPU's available in March. Win64 about the same time. Save up now.

[hypercube]

I guess it's the gun that's new? They had the soldier in very high res comparison image, in the first batch of images to be released..showed the 3 stages from each unreal version.

[Lord3d2]

I cant wait for the games of the future, they are going to be amazing.

[itsallgoode9]

Man that's awesome as can be. I hope my skills will be good enough to make games for next gen systems. That's really scarry to think about!!

[Lord3d2]

Yeah its very intimidating going up at this level

[rendermania]

hmm. they put together this beautiful new 3D engine and what do they do with it? another first person shooter. the creativity kills me. :rolleyes:

btw, that model isn't as high poly as it looks. try clicking on the pic to see the large version.

[lovisx]

there's sub surface scatter en them thar paulegans!

[Andyman]

^^ I don't think the point is high-polys. Check out stuff about the Unreal Engine to see what cool stuff is getting pulled off without tons of polys.

[Schmo]

Yes, Epic is producing another First Person Shooter with this engine, but that doesnt mean that other companies dont utilize a lisence for other genres. Bioware has already paid for a license, and it has been confirmed that it will be a RPG (and well all know the quality of their RPG's)

[Maverick3d]

Interesting in an impressive sort of way. I'd love to see the wires.
I suspect the bloom was added in Photoshop.

Anyone else but me annoyed that at this point to be a game artist you have to build a high poly model for the normal maps and then just throw it away?

I mean it's the 21st century FFS. You should be able to just model high poly, texture however you like with procedurals and huge maps and just hit Export button. ;)

I don't care if it's nonsensical!
Hey coders, make it work! :)

[hypercube]

The bloom is part of the engine, it's mentioned as a specific feature, and in all the videos released so far.

For those of you just now catching up on the unreal3 engine stuff, here's their original engine tech info page with some very large renders and lots of technical info:

http://www.unrealtechnology.com/html/technology/ue30.shtml

and here's a couple links to the (much) earlier threads on cgtalk about it:

http://www.cgtalk.com/showthread.php?t=142593
http://www.cgtalk.com/showthread.php?t=173208


I don't think it's so bad having to 'throw away' the high poly model for the normal map, since it contributes so much to the image..maybe at some point they won't be needed, but I think that's still a ways off. At the least it means more work for modelers..heh.

[kiaran]

I mean it's the 21st century FFS. You should be able to just model high poly, texture however you like with procedurals and huge maps and just hit Export button.

LOL. Amen brother.

[Maverick3d]

hypercube

I've seen the vids before, but the bloom didn't look that good in them, perhaps they've improved the effect since then.

I just think it should be a more straight forward work flow, with all the improvements in LOD over the years. I'm sure texturing like I said is do-able now and some are probably doing it that way already. Considering that you're baking off the normal data anyways, why not derrive all the texturing that way too. The only time you'd have to open a texture sheet in Photoshop would be to make minor corrections.

It's just a matter of the hardware tech catching up for meshes/polycounts and someone writing the tool to do it. :)

kiaran
:thumbsup:

[hypercube]

I think with things like Z-Brush evolving that's definitely happening already, or it's getting awful close..poly reduction is already extremely smart, it should be possible to do the same for images..some other forms of "baking" still seems to have some weird mojo voodoo happen, but definitely not that far fetched.

[Maverick3d]

Everyone's been telling me to take a look at Z-Brush for ages but I never get arround to it.

[Cyberdigitus]

Why throw the high res away? just use all your hi-res assets to create a animated short / movie of the same franchise. Or when you have everything hi-res, you can just reexport everything at a higher game resolution as technology progresses.

Epic nevers said they were doing a shooter by the way, at least not unreal, it would be a new franchise. i suppose these high res models of the unreal characters are just for showcase (and it will come at some point of course, but probably not as the first ue3 game)

[Balusilustalu]

hmm. they put together this beautiful new 3D engine and what do they do with it? another first person shooter. the creativity kills me. :rolleyes:


Couldn't agree more with the above statement.

[playmesumch00ns]

What is it with game artists and bloom!? GaaaaH! It's worse than lensflares! Just because you CAN do something doesn't mean you SHOULD do it. If you were going to photograph someone in real life, would you smear vaseline all over the lens of your camera? No!

That said, can't fail to be impressed by the stuff the unreal guys are churning out. Let's just see it in a game though!

[itsallgoode9]

when I was looking at the pictures a little more it really looks like the renderer is doing pretty much all the work to make the stuff look good. I mean, the textures aren't terribly detailed or anything. It just seems like it handles lighting and stuff so well that it looks like it is almost easy to create stuff like this. One thing I noticed was aliasing issues, but that's nitpicking about the engine I guess since it IS a video game lol pure madness

[Lord3d2]

Cant wait to see more of this in action at E3 this year

[Para]

What is it with game artists and bloom!? GaaaaH! It's worse than lensflares! Just because you CAN do something doesn't mean you SHOULD do it. If you were going to photograph someone in real life, would you smear vaseline all over the lens of your camera? No!

That said, can't fail to be impressed by the stuff the unreal guys are churning out. Let's just see it in a game though!

Both lens flares and bloom sell - just wait 'til the era of noise kicks in :)

Yeah it does look cool. Not photorealistic though but that's OK since I don't want to shoot anything real in games anyway.

[DaveW]

hmm. they put together this beautiful new 3D engine and what do they do with it? another first person shooter. the creativity kills me. :rolleyes:


Since when does the genre define a games creativity? Wether or not you like playing a certain type of game is irrelevant. I personally think MMORPG's could not be more boring if they tried, but that doesn't mean Everquest or World of Warcraft lack creativity.

[noisewar]

If anyone put half as much effort polishing their games as Epic does instead of being "creative" and feature creeping to death, I wouldn't be so disappointed time and time again with ambitious but handicapped titles all the time.

The best games out this year were rehashes. Halo 2, UT2k4, GTA3, Metroid Prime 2, etc. The best RPGof the year was WOW which did nothing more than take existing MMO concepts and polish them. These games are not accidents, and their success as rehash doesn't mean creativity doesn't sell, but quality control come FIRST. If you played Fable you'd know what I mean. Although if you're playing WOW right now, you're probably thinking "What about customer service?!" =/

[Frojack]

I don't care if it's nonsensical!
Hey coders, make it work! :)




Hah! I like your style, man. That's how it should be...:thumbsup:

[bentllama]

xenon gonna rokk joo! :twisted:

[MikeNash]

Its about time, Alot of the high poly artists will have jobs now.
Cant wait, U3 will be insane :)

[Apoclypse]

You don't necesarily have to model in high poly if you know how to use z-brush. If i'm not mistaken they used the same kind of technique in lord of the rings the movies. Basically what they used to do in the first movie is churn out really big sculptures then scan them in and then do something very similar to what is happening now with games ( basically extracting all the information of the very hires models to textures). However in the later movies they used tools like z-brush to paint all those details saving themselves lots of time, and money as well as computing power. So at some point all you game artist will figure out that you don't really have to model all the detail but stick that just enough mantra that you already have and use z-brush to add all that crazy detail.

I can't wait to see this game in action. I'm definately going to go crazy with that engine. I'm not a modder but looking to getinto it so I've just downloaded the half-life 2 sdk and the xsi mod tool and see if I can't make a very cool rpg or something out of that engine. Well here is to big dreams at least.

[stallion151]

xenon gonna rokk joo! :twisted:

can you elaborate.

[Lord3d2]

Xenon is the codename for Xbox-2

[WhiteRabbitObj]

can you elaborate.


Not if he doesn't want to lose his job at best, end up in jail more likely. :D Bentllama so enjoys his taunting of CGTalkers. He did it for Halo2 for like, 6 months before the game came out! Heh, can't say I blame him though, gotta be fun.


Anyhoo... as for high-polycounts... we need higher poly counts in games and especially better blend-shaping. Games look real enough for the moment, with Source and Doom3 engines, but the low poly counts are just pure ugly, even with normal mapping, and the static-ness of models due to very little real-time deformation algorithms being forthcoming is very limiting. Half-Life 2 made some great strides with their facial animation, but it's still jerky and unreallistic. I think the next big step isn't going to be the addition of this pointless and ugly bloom that keeps getting added. Or better (and overused) bumpmapping. Or faking water. It's going to be nice deformations on characters so they're more believable. I wish more videogame art directors or anyone in a position to make art decisions anyways, should be forced to take some film classes and learn how things are made to look convincing.

[kiaran]

I think the next big step isn't going to be the addition of this pointless and ugly bloom that keeps getting added. Or better (and overused) bumpmapping. Or faking water. It's going to be nice deformations on characters so they're more believable.

Absolutely. More and more engines are being written to support blendshapes. As this becomes mainstream, expect to see the quality of the character deformations sky rocket. Not only does blendshape support enable quality facial animation, but automatically driven muscle and fat deformations can also be simulated.

Of course, this will require a ton of work as massive shape sets must be constructed for every limb and joint in the body.

[SOPLAND]

Absolutely. More and more engines are being written to support blendshapes. As this becomes mainstream, expect to see the quality of the character deformations sky rocket. Not only does blendshape support enable quality facial animation, but automatically driven muscle and fat deformations can also be simulated.

Of course, this will require a ton of work as massive shape sets must be constructed for every limb and joint in the body.

Doing blend shapes in games is nothing new, Quakes 1 2 and 3 were all blendshapes albeit very simple ones. It's actually cheaper computationally and easier as far as programming is concerned to blend point coordinates than it is to deform an object using a rig. The problem is the footprint storing all that geometry takes up. It's a catch 22. Shitty perfomance and limited deformation with bones, or great fully directable fast animation at the cost of resources. Mixing the two is a zero sum proposition as you get the strengths and weaknesses of both.

[DaJuice]

So the animation in Quake1 was just a bunch of static geometry files running in sequence? If that's the case I don't think they blended it either (unless you used GLQuake), because the animation always seemed to run at about 10fps, regardless of the actual framerate.

[ElectroLux]

can you elaborate.

I think most major game houses have X-box2/Xenon development kits. Xenon is like best kept secret that many, many already know. Then again, Sony's Cell developments kits are still allegedly nonexistent. I have no idea about Nindendo's Revolution system.

Yeah, artists should not use that much bloom effect or at least use it subtle way. Good... no, make that great Art Direction is more vital than ever. Just because something is new and exciting, that doesn't mean you have to use it all the time. Lead artist/Art director must say more directly what looks good and ignore the fancy effects. I hope they discuss this on GDC (http://www.cmpevents.com/GD05/a.asp?option=C&V=11&SessID=3853)

[Lord3d2]

New Pics

http://inlandempirestrikesback.net/v-web/gallery/IESBGAMES/Unreal3_02

http://inlandempirestrikesback.net/v-web/gallery/IESBGAMES/Unreal3_03

http://inlandempirestrikesback.net/v-web/gallery/IESBGAMES/Unreal3_04

[percydaman]

looks nice though their facial shaders look like someone just found the SSS shader and as everyone typically does, overdoes it the first time....lol

[kiaran]

Doing blend shapes in games is nothing new

Yes, but using them extensively, throughout the body, and in conjunction with skeletal setups is relatively new. I know Half-Life 2 did this. They actually have a blendshape to pull the female characters breasts upwards when she raises her arms. Good use of technology I say!

What we really need is an engine that supports a realtime pose space deformer. That would rock! This will be next.

[Shaderhacker]

hmm. they put together this beautiful new 3D engine and what do they do with it? another first person shooter. the creativity kills me. :rolleyes:

btw, that model isn't as high poly as it looks. try clicking on the pic to see the large version.

Yeap, I agree. Nothing mind-blowing at all in those pics. I've seen it in almost every FPS that's been out that claims excellent CG shaders. The bloom has been done, the texture mapping with detailed texturing.. covered.. the normal mapping - done.

And you are right, another boring FPS. When will these techo-based video game companies concentrate on making a really good story-driven game that takes FPS beyond the simple point and shoot aspects. We need another Chronicles of Riddick game!

-M

[Shaderhacker]

looks nice though their facial shaders look like someone just found the SSS shader and as everyone typically does, overdoes it the first time....lol

If there is SSS on those models, then I must be blind or it's not done very well..

-M

[percydaman]

i dont know if there's SSS in the new shots per se, but it kinda looks like they tried to approximate it...

[lovisx]

the ear on the first soldier is either of fake of sss or sss. The new graphics cards support it, like Nvidia 6800. In the tech demo there was a model of a marble angel I think and you could see the sss very clearly when the light moved. Would it be possible to have it on the faces of characters in next gen games, or does the sss need to be limited to one object?

[ThomasMahler]

They actually have a blendshape to pull the female characters breasts upwards when she raises her arms. Good use of technology I say!

Game of the Year 2004. Nuff said.

;)

[shehbahn]

i looked at the images and the face shader seems to be doing something funky with the colors... but i don't see any clear evidence of SS.

both NVidia & ATI have done some research on RT SS with pretty demos to show for. i don't remember all the details, but iirc both methods have a number of caveats :
- light transfer coefficients need to be baked, so this rules out deforming geometry
- the method requires multiple passes and are quite a bit slower than you would want your average shader to be for a heavy game scene

i think ATI was using some kind of per vertex baked transfer spherical harmonics functions while NVidia is running a 3 pass (irradiance / scatter / final) system. i am not saying it's something impossible, but i think SS on games characters is still quite a way off outside of the curiosity effect. you can get more bang for your frame-rate with other shader effects IMHO.

[lovisx]

cool I wasn't aware of that. I assumed that it must use something like light maps in mental ray, is that what you mean by baking?

[shehbahn]

kind of... the usual "light maps" i've seen made for games or baking GI contain the light reflected off the model's surface. in this case, since the models move in the environment and/or have deformations, this wouldn't work as you would notice that the object isn't really interacting with the scene illumination and that this stuff is just textured on.

without getting into trade secrets : it seems (again, don't remember the papers too well) that both systems start by pre-baking an irradiance map. it's similar to a light map, except instead of recording the reflected light, you record incident light (irradiance). the next step is the hard one : scattering. it's hard because it's an integration of light over a volume, which normally takes a lot of number crunching. so to "beat the clock", you make a number of assumptions (ex : the geometry doesn't deform) and you can start extracting parts of the integral that you can pre-compute ("baking"). this would normally yield a very large data-set, which needs to be somehow compressed (that's the spherical harmonics functions fitting in in the ATI example). once this is done, you have reduced the problem to a function of irradiance that can be run in "real time".

there are a number of very similar methods to evaluate indirect diffuse illumination for instance, which i think are much more likely candidates for a game engine than SS since in the end scattering materials constitute a rather small portion of the final image and the difference is "subtle"... but who knows.

[TumikSmacker]

I really can't believe how you guys are dissing these pics. Look at them! All in realtime. Looks waaaaaaaay better then Half Life 2 and Doom 3. Yes those games are already out but no one has seen stuff like this in a game before.

[Geta-Ve]

If there is SSS on those models, then I must be blind or it's not done very well..

-M

look at the ears (at least for the first commando pic)

and other than that one pic, the rest look like garbage (with better lighting) the low polyness is killing my eyes.

I cant keep looking at that without being reminded of the 5 sided death skulls from doom3 :D

Dont get me wrong its nice and all, but up freakin poly count! arg! or maybe use like.. on the fly displacement :p (as if)

as for it being fps, i couldnt care less, the gorrier(sp?) the game the better imo ;)

[shehbahn]

>look at the ears (at least for the first commando pic)

which one ? the one with a background or one of the two characters standing on a black background ?

[Geta-Ve]

black background :p holding the flack canon (presumably)

[Shaderhacker]

both NVidia & ATI have done some research on RT SS with pretty demos to show for. i don't remember all the details, but iirc both methods have a number of caveats :
- light transfer coefficients need to be baked, so this rules out deforming geometry
- the method requires multiple passes and are quite a bit slower than you would want your average shader to be for a heavy game scene

If it's baked, then they have a ways to go to consider it "realtime ss".

-M

[Shaderhacker]

I really can't believe how you guys are dissing these pics. Look at them! All in realtime. Looks waaaaaaaay better then Half Life 2 and Doom 3.

Not true. Look at Chronicles of Riddick or FarCry.

And for the record, DOOM 3 does has some really neat realtime lighting. Just looking at the detail of characters without seeing them interact in an environment isn't saying too much.


-M

[shehbahn]

>If it's baked, then they have a ways to go to consider it "realtime ss".

what i meant by "baked" doesn't imply that the SS isn't reacting to light, but that part of the calculation is pre-calculated based on assumptions (cf. my post above) in order to cut some of the rendering time.

it's not exactly anything new : anyone involved in the demo-scene can list dozens of tricks and optimizations based on pre-calculated data tables. specular highlights is a good example : replacing the power / anisotropic function by a lookup into a small square 32x32 swatch.

besides, it's not like the technology is all that much more advanced in the non-real-time world either... i know there have been a number of pretty Siggraph papers, but there isn't a whole lot of "true" SS in the movies just yet.

[lovisx]

are you saying that in mental ray if I have a light map and my object doesn't deform that I can move the light and the sub scatter will work, even though I don't make a new lightmap.

The tech demo showed a light moving and the object getting bigger or smaller, and the scatter effect became less and more.

Any way of getting this kind of baked light in sss in mental ray?

[shehbahn]

>The tech demo showed a light moving and the object getting bigger or smaller, and the scatter effect became less and more.

scaling is not a deformation, it's a transformation. so : yes the lighting is dynamic, but the geometry shape is locked. makes more sense ?


>Any way of getting this kind of baked light in sss in mental ray?

i am not entirely sure why you would want to do this in MR but you could write a shader that takes advantage of pre-generated transfer factors or any other schemes you can think of. having said that, since the render is off-line why not use a full solution then ?

[lovisx]

it wouldn't help have less rendertime?

[Shaderhacker]

>If it's baked, then they have a ways to go to consider it "realtime ss".

what i meant by "baked" doesn't imply that the SS isn't reacting to light, but that part of the calculation is pre-calculated based on assumptions (cf. my post above) in order to cut some of the rendering time.

it's not exactly anything new : anyone involved in the demo-scene can list dozens of tricks and optimizations based on pre-calculated data tables. specular highlights is a good example : replacing the power / anisotropic function by a lookup into a small square 32x32 swatch.

besides, it's not like the technology is all that much more advanced in the non-real-time world either... i know there have been a number of pretty Siggraph papers, but there isn't a whole lot of "true" SS in the movies just yet.

I know what you meant. And I still stand by my comment. If you have to bake out values to use in computations, then you aren't really doing true "realtime" calculations. To me, realtime means that the graphics processor is calculating everything on-the-fly so fast that it's rendering out frames at 24fps.

Like I said, they have a ways to go yet..

And you are correct, the non-real-time world doesn't use much more advanced things either. They take short-cuts too.. but they have to considering there is nowhere near the geometry limitations that games have. Scene complexity is also up to the vision of the producer, not the graphics hardware and cpu/memory system of a typical home PC.

-M

[TumikSmacker]

Well it comes back to opinion, these pics look better then The Chronicles of Riddick or FarCry to me.

[lovisx]

of course they look better this is amazing stuff.

[JeroenDStout]

Well it comes back to opinion, these pics look better then The Chronicles of Riddick or FarCry to me.
They look technically better. HL² looks better.

[PhilOsirus]

Not true. Look at Chronicles of Riddick or FarCry.

And for the record, DOOM 3 does has some really neat realtime lighting. Just looking at the detail of characters without seeing them interact in an environment isn't saying too much.

-M

Don't forget the new Splinter Cell!

[Lord3d2]

New image has been uploaded

http://inlandempirestrikesback.net/v-web/gallery/IESBGAMES/Unreal3_05

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