Posts by Hipshot

  • HDR maps

    Well, you need to build HDR Cubemaps, its a part in the process. To make those, you need to have a Pure DX9 card, such as nV 6xxx and or ATi X8/6xx.

    You can convert a normal map to use HDR rendering, by enableling HDR with,

    mat_enable_hdr 1, and then by building the cubemaps, but, it won't give you the nice overbright light and other effects that comes with HDR, you must also recompile the map using the new build tools that's supposed to be released today (monday), the same time as DODS released.

  • The Ascendancy - Excellent Maps for HL2DM

    Quote from Physicles

    I'd think that an equivalent task for CS:S would be 10 times harder because there'd be more maps. Having lots of maps isn't as important for CS:S because the game play is a little more complex. And oh, the Gabe Newell pictures...

    Yea, I know, it was based on the matter that we were a couple of pepe sorting and playing them. I however think that there are some very nice looking CSS maps that never sees the major light cause people just plays those stupid AIM and FY maps that always looks like shit... almost always.

  • totally random texture thread

    Quote from ginsengavenger

    That is a factual statement, I can't and won't dispute it The question is whether that "slight difference" is worth the time spent building the normal map or the rendering overhead involved. If you're making a horror game that is close quartered and very dark and moody and heavy on lighting effects, fine it may be worth the investment. But I don't think most applications warrant it and I certainly don't think that every brick texture needs to be bumpmapped.

    Of course not, since there are 'flat' brickwalls. But saying that a normal map isn't needed at all, and would not make any use is also wrong.

  • totally random texture thread

    Quote from ginsengavenger

    You've already stated that, and I think you've found a point of contention

    Perhaps you should post a more reasonable use because this is rather unrestrained and looks pretty bad IMHO. I've only looked at a few but none of the HL2 brick textures I've seen have used normal maps.

    You don't agree with this part?

    "If you have a strong and sharp shadow engine/lightmap, a bumpmap will make a slight difference, epsec if you have dynamic lights cast from eg. a flashlight. Parallax won't do the shadows, only the height difference. "

  • totally random texture thread

    Quote from von*ferret

    very nice mate. Maybe too much bump and shinyness though?

    Quote from Evert

    not sure, the bump looks fine, I only thinks that it has got a little too much specular.

    Quote from kleinluka

    Why is that? As long as you don't go overboard with the bumpyness and use it with a not so hysterically bright specular map you can get awesome results.

    Quote from Zacker

    Bricks should for sure be bump mapped, as Klein says you just need to be very careful if you also want to apply a spec map.

    Quote from ginsengavenger

    to be perfectly honest I don't feel the bump&spec improves the bricks or the archway, it just makes the whole scene feel plastic. in most situations the lighting on bricks will be pretty predictable and might as well be done directly in the texture. the concrete on the other hand looks good, though it could be subtler with less depth.h2 i like your textures a lot. maybe some shading under the broken plaster in the first one and some less aggressive darkening at the bottom of the next two?

    Quote from kleinluka

    OK look guys, you are getting some things mixed up here.Normal maps have nothing to do with shinyness. All they do is draw X Y and Z vector information from a texture (the normal map) to a flat surface which then reacts to specularity on the texture. As long as you don't overkill your specular and you make your normal map subtle enough to avoid having too much bumpyness but strong enough to show that it has depth, then there's absolutely no reason why you shouldn't use normal maps. I do this every day and I know that my work wouldn't look half as nice if I wasn't using normal maps. So before you say normal mapping sucks and makes everything look like shiny crap.... learn to use it right.

    Quote from st0lve

    normal maps are ok, but all that glossy shit makes me wanna puke (like HL2).

    There has been no such thing as a specualar or gloss map added to those textures. This is pure bumpmapping.

    The reason why the brick shines so much is cause I happend to set the sun in a very sharp angle and also set the value to like 1500 in strenght, brightness.

    Normal maps sure can make things look wet and shiny, just look at my example, it has to do with the light level, as you all know, everything comes down to shadows and light.

    A bricktexture, should always have a bumpmap, of course not as sharp as this, it was more to illustrate the difference of the pictures. If you have a strong and sharp shadow engine/lightmap, a bumpmap will make a slight difference, epsec if you have dynamic lights cast from eg. a flashlight. Parallax won't do the shadows, only the height difference.

    Sorry for me not answering before. Forgott...

  • CryEngine2 techdemo

    Quote from Section_Ei8ht

    It gets worse. Rumor has it that DX10 is not backwards compatable because it will use an entirely different set of libraries. If you launch any game that is not DX10 in windows vista, vista will emmulate a DX9 enviornment (think of what mac OS10 does for

    Dont know about you guys, but I'm not all that anxious to jump onto the vista bandwagon if this is true. Worst comes to worst, I'll do a dual bootup with xp and vista until the hardware is fast enough so I dont even notice the difference in performance.

    There's more to it. MS might boot OpenGL support from Vista completely.

  • The Game Trax Thread.

    Quote from RD

    hipshot tell us which ones are correct so far

    Oki then, I though would be easier because these are mostly famous games which many has played.

    02 - CnC Tiberian Dawn, Mechanical Man, (FrieChamp)

    04 - Un Squadron, Forest, (RD)

    06 - Mega Man 2, Heat Man (Rapid Fire Remix), (Kosmo)

    12 - CnC Generals, USA, (Kosmo)

    14 - Ducktales, Moon (WalkingOnMoon Remix), (Kosmo)

    16 - Street Figher II, Guiles Stage, (FrieChamp)

    17 - StarCraft, Terran, (RD)

    18 - Diablo, Town (Tristram), (Zacker)

    19 - WoW, Shapening of the World (CE Track), (Kosmo) (BTW, thw WOW music's no remake of WC2, there is only one tune in WOW that is a real remake/cover/remix, and its not imgame)

    Someone should know 1 and 3, someone should have played either game ALOT in thier days.

  • The Game Trax Thread.

    Maybe this is too hard. There is a chance noone will ever strike 15 correct in a single post. But I'll wait a bit longer.

    You guys have already labeled a few correct, but I'll wait a bit longer still.

    @ Zacker, almost all of these games are rock solid classics and well known, you have probably played some of them. The focus however is pre-2000.

  • CryEngine2 techdemo

    Quote from Kosmo

    ...//...

    Yea yea, I know that about making older things smother and better with new tech and every new generation tries making things better than before, and still adding new tech features. Serious Engine and Pain Engine are probably two of the best examples where we have two extremly good optimized engines for a massive amouth of creatures and action in close combat. It all, for every engine, comes down to LOD, this is why CryEngine is so much better than source when talking about forests and things like that.

    And I've played Q1-tenabrea which has real time lighting and bumpmaps via normal mapping, but at that time it was more its own engine that supported quake content, than the other way.

    I woulden't say that the CryEngine has little publicity, it had as much as the D3E. It was Source who had enourmous publicity, cause of the HL2 hype, new CS, the facial aninations and physics that seemd to enchant many more than Dooms shadows or Crys forests did...

  • The Game Trax Thread.

    Hmm, lets see how this plays out on this forum...

    I did this thing on a swedish forum a while ago, it didn't work too good, cause most people there were fags and didn't know what a rule is. Also I hepped to be perm-banned a few days later... cough cough

    Ok, the deal goes down like this: I will post a rar, in that rar there are 20 tunes, they are 10seconds each and are from a game, either a remix, or the original tune, dosen't matter. You need to identify 15 (all might be to hard) of them, by game, if you know more, like, if its a remix, where its played, maybe something else, then thats cool, but not needed. When someone has IDed 15 of these they can scramble a file like me, or just one song if they want and the thread may continue on someone elses tunes/tune.

    The file:

    http://www.zfight.com/misc/files/misc/htrax1.rar