HL2 sdk update tomorrow morning

    Brothers in Arms looked like it was coming along in a direction pretty far off from the 'usual' look of the UE3 games being developed. It seems like it's just a case of licensees building certain types of games on the tech than another. Also, checking out the

    wiki list, Army of Two and Medal of Honor looked to do alright with a different aesthetic as well...

    A lot of it depends on how much work the developer does to the engine as well, I imagine. But I suppose there are certain thing's inherent to the technology that may lend itself towards a certain look, like how lighting is setup/calculated for a level or what kinds of post processing affects it seems to exploit the most.

    But I do agree there is a tendency for most every engine to carry with it a certain look, regardless of the developer behind it.

    And more so than just a similar visual design, like bulky characters and exaggerated environments.

    Take HL2 and Dark Messiah. Two totally different games visually, yet you still get that Source engine look from DM. I guess the question would be could the average gamer pick out these similarities, rather than people who have screwed around with the technology a bit? They may not see these similarities because they don't know that brushes are the basic means of construction between both games, and that brushes tend to provide more angular shaped geometry. Or that UT and Gears use mostly imported geometry, which tends to be a bit more high poly/rounded/detailed/whatever because that process is best for that kind of stuff.

    I mean, how many gamers can pick out that 'displacement map look' from the Source engine games?

    [edit]sorry for the edits[/edit]

    Red Orchestra did a pretty good job of using a more realistic atmosphere in the Unreal engine, of course that's UT2

    and like others have said engines just set the boundaries you work in, and it's up to the developers to make something fresh out of it... I think the UT3 engine just hasn't been out long enough for more realistic projects to really show themselves.

    Personally I think that games tend to make their content off of the engines original work... sounds weird but what i mean is, the source engine was made for more of that realistic look (basing this off of HL2), and so many projects kept that same basic style in their design, and I think we're just seeing the same for UT3, where the environments weren't realistic but they were believable in a way.

    I want to say the Splinter Cell games used the unreal engine aswell, and they seemed pretty realistic. Anyways thats my rant.

    Quote from Sentura

    if you can point out a game that displays realism in unreal 3.0, then be my guest.

    Stranglehold

    [Blocked Image: http://www.ps3focus.nl/v3/media/stranglehold1.jpg]

    Rainbow six vegas

    [Blocked Image: http://www.ztgamedomain.com/images/screenshots/xbox360/rsv/50.jpg]

    Brother in Arms: Hells Kitchen

    [Blocked Image: http://www.doupe.cz/Files/Obrazky/art2/b/BrothersInArmsHellsHighway/prev/brothers_in_arms_hh_01.jpg]

    Medal of honor Airborne

    [Blocked Image: http://digitalbattle.com/wp-content/uploads/2006/10/moha.jpg]

    to name a few

    Quote from Psycho

    Good lord. If you're trying to defend the Source engine on how pretty it looks then please turn your graphics settings up to full.

    qft

    I'm really looking forwards to having a go a UE3 sometime soon. It will however never stop me mapping in source because the games in the source engine CSS, DoD, TF2, INS! are some of the most fun there are to play. Hell I still map for CS 1.6 in Hammer 3.4 its just too much fun

    Quote from static07

    Stranglehold

    Rainbow six vegas

    Brother in Arms: Hells Kitchen

    Medal of honor Airborne

    to name a few

    All the splinter cell games too.

    Sentura is just talking shit tbh - look at TF2 - oh my what an incredibly realistic game...

    Unreal is a great engine, very diverse with a good toolset. Source is using dated tech and is trying it's hardest to fight back with features that unreal had years ago.

    rick, of all people, i dont think you're in a position to criticize who's talking shit and who isn't. i got my point across, feel free to reread the past few posts (since last page) if you haven't already.

    also, i am not defending source; i am pointing out the difference in games.

    Quote from Sentura

    rick, of all people, i dont think you're in a position to criticize who's talking shit and who isn't. i got my point across, feel free to reread the past few posts (since last page) if you haven't already.also, i am not defending source; i am pointing out the difference in games.

    I don't think you really read what I wrote, friend. Unreal has been used for a lot of games, Source has been used by Valve, Ubisoft (they did Dark Messiah, right?) and that's about it (as far as well known games go). Nearly all of valve's catalogue is realistic-styled games; with CSS and HL2 sharing a lot of assets. DODS is another realistic game. TF2 is a game that is in no way realistic. dark Messiah is also very unrealistic, however it's not as extreme as TF2.

    Unreal has had a huge amount of games built on it. Unreal Tournament is just one game, and not a representation of all games. As Peris pointed out - an art style is not defined by an engine. it's defined by the developers - Unreal can handle realistic environenments nicely. games like Americas Army were built on the premise of realism, and achieved a good effect using Unreal Engine 2. Source is the 'next gen' offering from Valve - Unreal 3 is Epic's equivalent - give it some time (how long has source been out, compared to Unreal3?) and you'll see some great games that look realistic.

    As far a slighting goes, Source has massively improved lighting compared to GoldSource. Unreal3's lighting looks a lot better than Unreal2.

    So, compar the right engines next to each other - even if you don't, Unreal still has a lot of realistic games (in looks and theme) running on it. Splinter cell Double Agent is a good example of great lighting and a realistic feeling world.

    So I'm not entirely sure what your point was - maybe you see somethign else when you look at Source. I see nice lighting and consistent texture sizes but I wouldn't say all games on Source look more realistic or that all games on Unreal are over-the-top. I think you're wrong to judge an engine on such insufficient evidence.

    Dark Messiah was developed by Arkane, published by Ubisoft. The port to the X360 is developed by Ubisoft (used to be where I work).

    While I agree with what you're saying Rick_D, you're also forgetting inhouse development. The Unreal engine was largely insufficient to make the Splinter Cell games, and a lot of new features had to be coded and implemented by the SC team at Ubisoft, whether in Montréal, Shangaï or Annecy. No SC game uses the same engine as its predecessor, they're all based on Unreal, but have been reworked.

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