@\NightandtheShape/@

I have written scripting languages for shader based systems from the parser up, I'm very aware of how they work. That depends upon the format. I wouldn't claim any expertise in regards to Valves source engine file formats and the way that they link everything togeather. Game engines should hand power to a designer, not straight jacket them into having to you predefined settings, that's the only thing that shocks me, the idea that predefined setting are a must. They could, but why would they! A designer isn't an ignorant muppet afterall. I'm just saying that such restricted render features in a modern engine seems a mite bit retarded to me. HL2 is ok, it's nothing major, it isn't that good, the general look isn't all that impressive to me. People love lots of things, that are bad for them, does that mean that whatever it is that they love is inherantly good underneath as a result? Source engine games do tend to be of a fairly high quality, but I don't personally attribute that to the engine par say. Source is here to stay, it's been used to create many popular games, but that doesn't mean there aren't any better engine options. Do you really believe I haven't already done that? The ack horrid shadows are the one thing which breaks any immersion in HL2 for me. And I can't help but say it, Carmack was right on the money choosing shadow volumes for Doom 3. Real time shadows are a particularly difficult thing to create well in an engine, HL2 to me has one of the worst implementations I've seen.

What a bizzare thing to do with a game engine! Though I always figured such materials were artistically decided, within 3DS Max, or XSI. With appropriate shaders as .fx files being applied in the 3D editing program and the engine, with material data being stored within the model file itself, this usually contains texture information as well. Though there are realistically loads of techniques for dealing with this problem in an engine, linking all the information togeather within a single file seems to be a common solution. Personally I dislike that approch, it requires alot of data to be associated during the mesh loading phase, which usually links itself with the material loading and texture loading all in one fell swoop. So loading a mesh becomes a drawn out process of loading it's attached resources, naturally you could code round such an issue, but I question the point of bothering with that, it seems more intuitive to dealing with each element purely as an independant entity, thusly you only load what you need when you need it and as a result can deal with any potential need to reload data quickly, and your initial loading can be quicker as materials may be re-used without the need to reload the same data over and over, that goes for textures, shaders, and material settings. Such issues are most likely dealt with, but meh, I'm shocked at the idea there is no control over general specularity of objects, this could be a perf thing. As for what's wrong with source engines shadows, they often demonstrate artifacts.

Honestly, is there a game or engine out there you currently like? Oh yeah pleanty, I think the UE 3 engine is amazing, I just didn't rate GoW as highly as most, that doesn't mean the engine ain't pukka. If Obsidian could get the Badger Engine running nicely there would be another engine which is lovely. Id tech stuff is also nice. That said I'm particularly fond of some source engine stuff like DM, Portal, and TF2 but that doesn't make the engine any good, the engine is fairly buggy from my experience, the shadows are also particularly awful. The Badger Engine has nice lighting and shadowing. Good Engine != Good Game. Good Games != Good Engine. But we always like to see Good Engines && Good Games. Edit: GoW looks amazing and has an awesome visual atmosphere, but it still plays like an average game.

The old NWN2 badger engine.

If its Gears of War you're talking about Ill have to bring teh pain. Its just too good for words in every aspect. (I know almost all the dialogue by heart) Interesting... GoW is one of the most average games I've ever played... It was simple, ok. I don't think I could bring myself to play it again. The once was enough.

GAH! TIS NOT! TIS CRAP!

Hmmm you didn't mention the source engine... But then again why would you? Carmack and Sweeney have always been behind the best engines on the market, that ain't going to change, CryTek and Valve may try and produce competative engines, but as you said yourself, CryTek take a brute force method, and Valve are several miles away from decent stablility.

I agree, although I have played every game in the series and the expansions. Episode one almost bored me so much that I quit. Hl2 is a very average shooter with fun story elements while Crysis is a top-notch shooter with average story p.s and no, I dont like the ***ing gravity gun. It's a shooter and in ushc a game I want to shoot stuff, not faff around like ponce and toss my enemies to death with random objects. You can toss stuff in Crysis too, but they're smart enough not to base the whole ****ing game on it. I find it hard to believe anyone could accept HL2 has anything in the region of a story, and if it does I've yet to find it.

we'll see if 2008 sucks when its over, there's 12 months yet till that year is over, and considering that there will most likely be projects in production that haven't been announced yet, I wouldn't say its going to suck quite yet

I still believe Mac are glorified fisher price play centres for adults. Perhaps the comment on retardedness was a bit much, but I can't help but feel distain for Mac's, and pity their users as people whom much have a bizzare thought process to find that kind of interaction with a computer natural. It's not because I'm used to windows either, windows based os's aren't the only os's I've used.

Well... Vista does have to have a tendancy of being unstable when I'm running programs nobody else ever could aswell... Seriously, Laptopvideo2go has the latest laptop drivers if NVIDIA is no help to ya.

I use both Vista and XP. Vista is more stable, but then again there is no NEED to upgrade to vista if you don't want to, atleast not yet. Does it offer me anything new, DirectX 10 support. End of. The whole Vista sucks thing clearly comes from users who don't wanna upgrade, so don't nobody is forcing you. As for Mac's, aren't they just glorified fisher price toys for retarded adults?

Modability depends upon the engine architecture, if it data driven then it can be modded with ease. Most good engines are data driven, and make use of scripts to do this. More advanced engines will have an entire language developed for scripting, this is what bioware did with NWN's, but the numpties decided to write their own parser which gave them a crap load of headaches. As long as a model exists within the correct format, changing a model in a program is a matter of subbing one file for another. It's intuitive like that, usually you have another file controlling referances to such objects and thus they all slot togeather nicely. NWN's 1 + 2 actually go alot further than this, making themselves extremely transparent and thus very easy to mod, the sad fact is that the program in general performs like a deformed badger, not so deformed that you can't tell its a badger but still, a damn badger. While it's performance has always concerned me the truth of the matter is that most Bioware and all Obsidian games have been based on this similar engine arcitecture, NWN's and KOTOR really aren't that far apart, no more so than say BG and IWD, not the same version of the engine, but similar. Although basic modding is easier on other engine platforms than NWN's, such as Source SDK, and Unreal Editor, allowing you to basically build upto more complicated stuff while still producing something useful such as a level, if you're a 3D artist then XSI's mod tool integrates nicely with the source SDK, which if you ask me is all more straight forwards than NWN's stuff, not that that's hard but there is a more numpty friendly attitude. Personally I have no interest in modding myself, I frankly find it to be too dull, and too abstracted from the core code implementation, it also makes me feel somewhat like a girly designer .

HiP's is always bad regardless of class, its a game breaker as far as I am concerned, its almost like saying here have the ability to go invisible at will, and then do uber amounts of damage.

Proof that talent + rabid fanboism = Job. Well done. Oh, and the engine still sucks. I JEST I JEST, it's just a little bad.

See an optician?

If someone from Crytek heard you saying that, they would kill you. Not only that, but its a moronic statement.

Ewww... I think not :|.

What do you have against Nestle? They cause the most cared for children in third world countries to be malnourished and poop themselevs to death. And they don't do it for love or God or country or revenge. They do it for money. I only have one boycott. You know I'm hardly a bleeding heart. But there are bloody limits. So basically if you want to fund suffering in third world countries buy Nestle! Awesome, it's like proxy racisim, where you almost feel guilt free.

Considering my generally low opinion of Blizzard games this really doesn't bother me, frankly the EA buyout of Bioware was certainly more disturbing. Blizzard makes software for the masses, it's aimed and engineered to perform that particular goal all it real means is that Blizzard will also be able to focus themselves on "Console Tard's" aswell with greater ease. I am happily uneffected.

That's actually a really nice texture aswell.. Quite the job .

D'ya write that yourself? (The shader that is)

LOL, that line cracked me up... Wonder if the guy will actually get in touch...