Imago-Quem wrote:
Shaders "are" in the GPU, but I couldn't tell you about any graphics projects underway, nay or yay, because of this contract I signed with SOE about not saying anything.
Could you ask the powers above you to give us some sort of a teaser then? Cause if GPU shadows are just the start of what is to come, I'm sure others, including me, are going to be very excited.
Wow im impressed... and im not easily impressed. The changes you and your team are make seem to be a definate right direction. Also I might add that the other devs could learn by your example... You have 2 or 3 responses on every page. That has to be some kind of record! Keep up the good work.
I have been noticing some of the same problems but you have already addressed the changes to them so Ill wait and see.
Thanks Again!
Thanks!
I'll ask the "powers above" about a teaser, but in general teasers only come out when the feature is near done like the shadows. Teasers usually show what is complete and don't reveal what is in progress and in graphics most things are "in progress" until they're at least 90% complete.
Teasers usually show what is complete and don't reveal what is in progress and in graphics most things are "in progress" until they're at least 90% complete.
Good idea. You don't want other mmorpg developers to panic just at the moment. You know like, mmorpg executive1 slouching in billions of dollars: "Oh hell. Guys. You know that ageing donkey Everquest 2? Well they've just decided to make it look better and update it after 5 years. Let's add shadows to our game engine. We already have? Oh crap. Well I'm out of ideas!"
Aww, don't be mean to the nice graphics dev!
If you scare him off, that's another five years without upgrades to the graphics engine!
Personally I think the GPU shadows look fantastic, and don't worry too much about them being 'lighter' than the CPU ones, as IMHO the CPU ones are overkill
Gwynian@Splitpaw wrote:
That's great you think that because I'm buying TSO Full pack today just to try it out or try and get into test. I haven't got EQ2 at all at the moment, but because of the graphic updates and shadow improvements, I'm in.
If they sort out the game engine, have it running reliably at consistent frame rates whether solo, group (not bothered with raid encounter performance), with very high detail, I'll pay a year sub. You can quote me on it.
I noticed there are very few ingame shots of the shadow changes. Is their an NDA or something going on?
Albright wrote:
No NDA, you can go into your EQ2 folder, and run TestEQ2.exe and try them yourself without signing any NDA. Since anybody can log into test people only really need to post screenshots to demonstrate when something looks wrong and might need to be fixed.
Detor wrote:
Albright wrote:I noticed there are very few ingame shots of the shadow changes. Is their an NDA or something going on?No NDA, you can go into your EQ2 folder, and run TestEQ2.exe and try them yourself without signing any NDA. Since anybody can log into test people only really need to post screenshots to demonstrate when something looks wrong and might need to be fixed.
Suspected as much (the no NDA bit).
Saying that, still shots won't show you much anyway.
The reality of shadows becoming darker or lighter is really nothing. I've programmed it to toggle easily by adjusting a simple variable. Just got to find that sweet spot. On "my" monitor they look much darker. I'm considering adding a slider with a limited range for this feature since I've now seen, and heard of, this pale shadow effect differing greatly between peoples' systems.
The shadows look awesome, but the game jitters way too much. I hover at about 23 fps with shadows turned down low. So they still look decent but not like I would want them. But running around, is comical because I am slowing down and speeding up and stopping for a split second, etc.
Turn the shadows off, and its fine. FPS shoots up to about 40 to 50 which is expected.
Definitely need a new video card.
Core2 Duo 2.53 ghz2 GB DDR2256mb 7800 GT
The way this sounds is that an environment shadow is not overlaying a character shadow (thereby darkening the character shadow over the environment shadow).
Is that correct? That the shadows meld together as one, than two separate entities?
In 'other' graphic engines, two shadows - with the secondary shadow sitting on top, will darken so that it is visible on the primary one. Would solve the problem because the way light variance works, the brain would occlude the two shades and the faint outline of the environment shadow would come out better (even remaining light as it appears).
Yes, the shadows meld as one. In order to layer shadows the way you're describing in most cases it would require much faster hardware and more graphics memory. If these "other" graphics engines are layering the shadows they could be using volume shadows or rendering more local shadows not including so much environment. The less shadows the more effects you can perform on the ones you've got with the same CPU/GPU cost. In general, shadow maps only store one shadow data per pixel, meaning you never know which object is casting that shadow. In this case you can't darken the shadow based on its priority. A technique could be used in the cascading system which would only render shadows for characters in one map and environment in another. But this would require the game engine to pre-sort or manage the objects in these categories. Also, some companies design their engines to render in grids, thus providing the ability to gather up local objects and local terrain into the effects calculations. In "certain" engines this isn't the case and the terrain and objects are built as whole objects, therefore pieces of them cannot be split off and included partially into the effects system. There are pros and cons for each of the design strategies.
Yes, the shadows meld as one ...
I'll take colour-affected single layer shadow maps over layered shadow maps (unaffacted by an effect), any day of the week, based on the CPU/GPU useage.
Is there a reason the download is stated at 23 hours when running EQTest.exe because I'm not in the least bit keen downloading that much for that long.
Does it download much? Test server side?
Detor wrote:Albright wrote:I noticed there are very few ingame shots of the shadow changes. Is their an NDA or something going on?No NDA, you can go into your EQ2 folder, and run TestEQ2.exe and try them yourself without signing any NDA. Since anybody can log into test people only really need to post screenshots to demonstrate when something looks wrong and might need to be fixed.Is there a reason the download is stated at 23 hours when running EQTest.exe because I'm not in the least bit keen downloading that much for that long.Does it download much? Test server side?
It took me an hour with dsl.
