Tron 2.0

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TheZorch

Mike "TheZorch" Haney
Jun 16, 2004
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Did anyone like the game. I like what they did with Unreal Engine in this game. They really captured the essense of and the look of Tron while also adding new stuff at the same time.

I think it was worthy of the hype. What do you think?
 

TheZorch

Mike "TheZorch" Haney
Jun 16, 2004
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The latest Lithtech is a major step above the previous version used to make Aliens Vs. Preditor 2 and Blood 2. The "glow" of the walls and textures in Tron 2.0 is a feature of the engine that works only on Nvidia cards (that's according to the developers in an interview on G4 I saw once).

The new Unreal 3.0 engine will blow most anything else away when a game is finally developed with it. I saw the E3 Nvidia Unreal 3.0 Tech Demo video and it was a real eye opener. I won't go into too many details but this engine can do things I haven't seen the other new engines capable of doing. Not even the new Doom engine being developed over at Id, or the Half-Life 2 engine.

The new Unreal 3.0 can...
...render low resolution meshes that look like they are high res meshes in realtime.
...use per-pixel lighting for high dynamic range lighting effects.
...simulate area lighting, blurring shadows as they stretch off into the distance. Also it can render realtime shadows on every object in a scene.
...uses Virtual Displacement Mapping to make objects look more detailed than they really are.
...allow total control over objects in a game environment so you can open doors, pick up any item laying on the floor. Those items can be flexible and can even have their own lighting effects such as internal lighting.
...allow level designers to use a Pixel Shader tool to create complex materials for textures that have a wide variety of effects such as reflective surfaces, lighting, and surface texture. Also, objects can be translucent and can distort objects seen through them in realtime like real glass would.
...render models that appear to have a high polygon count but actually have a much lower poly count.
...display objects using Light Transmission. This means objects can have light shining through them and a mask can be used to show something inside of it. The E3 video demonstrated this show the wings of a dragon with red veins running through the membrane.
 

Sir_Brizz

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Yah the E3 video is available for download all over the place. The GDC demo was better.
 

TheZorch

Mike "TheZorch" Haney
Jun 16, 2004
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Where can you find the Unreal 3.0 GDC video. It should be better because the E3 Nvidia booth demo video was made for the gaming media and not really geared towards developers. The Game Developer Conference video should have a lot more info in it.
 

TheZorch

Mike "TheZorch" Haney
Jun 16, 2004
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I watched it and it was more a PR video than a tech demonstration for game developers, but it did show the power the new engine has. I also noticed that maybe Epic is finally going to do more with the Karma System they introduced in UT2k3. Its "supposed" to do more then simulate physics for ragdoll corpses. Its also supposed to allow the walls and other structures in maps to be destroyable like in Red Faction 1 and 2. There is a MOD for UT2k3/2K4 that has maps with destroyable walls using the Karma System.
 

[SAS]Solid Snake

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I don't know where you've been for the last few months but... in response to what you said UE3 can do.

...render low resolution meshes that look like they are high res meshes in realtime. >> A lot of other games do this now. Doom 3 I think started this charade. It's called PolyBump Mapping.

...use per-pixel lighting for high dynamic range lighting effects.Nothing really new as this is just the use of Pixel Shaders. The previous Unreal Engine didn't really use Pixel Shaders much. Stalker uses specific Pixel Shaders to achieve these effects.

...simulate area lighting, blurring shadows as they stretch off into the distance. Also it can render realtime shadows on every object in a scene. You can do this in UT2K4 if you wanted to, it just wasn't very fast.

...uses Virtual Displacement Mapping to make objects look more detailed than they really are.Same technology as it is for PolyBump mapping although slightly different in terms that they are using a texture for the reference information rather than a mesh. This is better than Texture Bump Mapping since actualy polgons will be created instead of just the simulation of light. Again, this was done and shown many months ago with the Matrox Parahelia card doing this via Hardware means.

...allow total control over objects in a game environment so you can open doors, pick up any item laying on the floor. Those items can be flexible and can even have their own lighting effects such as internal lighting.This is Unrealscript. Unrealscript has been out for ages, and this kind of game interactivity all depended on how active the game developer was. Any engine can have full interactivity. This is just an issue with the developer.

...render models that appear to have a high polygon count but actually have a much lower poly count.Polybump mapping again.

Only ~2-3 of the Engine facts you made were kind of Unreal Engine only stuff.

The new Unreal 3.0 engine will blow most anything else away when a game is finally developed with it.
Well there is hoping. A good engine doesn't instantly mean a good game will come out of it. Heck, Postal 2 was developed on Unreal Engine 2, and I think it is the worst piece of rubbish I have ever played.
 

Sir_Brizz

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At GDC I asked Tim Sweeney if they were planning on developing a game that pushes the limits of hardware again like Unreal 1 did, and he said that their next project coming out in 2006 (which they can't really talk about) will be innovative in many of the same ways that Unreal 1 was and that (since it will be developed on UE3) it will definitely be a situation similar to Unreal 1 in it's day.

Looking at how junkily slow it ran on a top of the line machine using alot of unreleased technology from nVidia, I can sure believe it. A whopping 20-25 fps...wow.
 

TheZorch

Mike "TheZorch" Haney
Jun 16, 2004
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You are forgetting a few things. Moore's Law is one of them. By 2006 most new PC on the market will be Athlon64 systems, of course this doesn't mean that everyone will have them, but I am saying that the systems that are top-of-the-line today will be low-end when 2006 rolls around. Also, it is likely that an OS that supports the 64-bit architeture of that processor will be available, and its likely that most people will upgrade eventually. All the new PC sold will have it, as usual. But, you never know what will happen.

UE3 engine is pretty interesting looking. I would like to see it in action in a real gaming environment instead of a tech demo.
 

Sir_Brizz

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I imagine that this engine's development will stay ahead of the technology powering it for a while.
 

BlackDragon323

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TheZorch said:
The "glow" of the walls and textures in Tron 2.0 is a feature of the engine that works only on Nvidia cards (that's according to the developers in an interview on G4 I saw once).


ACK! is this true? I was going to buy the game next week, and I have an ATI card!(X800XT PE). Does anyone with an ATI card have this game? It isn't TRON without the "glow"!!!!

Somebody, anybody???
 

TheZorch

Mike "TheZorch" Haney
Jun 16, 2004
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Don't worry. The game does the glow in hardware on the latest Nvidia cards. On other cards it does it in software, so it will require more CPU cycles. The game does look good though. Its a shame they didn't use the UT2k3/2k4 engine so there would be more of a chance of the Mod Community developing maps and mods for it.
 

BlackDragon323

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Great! I guess I should have no problem running it with that beast of a card...
:D

I hadn't bought it yet, cuz I'm getting my very first PC next month(I bought the UT2k4 S.E. back in March!!)

I believe the TRON 2.0 site says something about maps and such.

thanks for the info.!
 

warduke

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Oct 16, 2004
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@ TheZorch


You are kinda a dumbarse heh.

There are three big game engine companies in the FPS market. These same three are also the ones that keep pushing the limits of 3D. They are in order as follows.

1) id software
2) unreal
3) monolith


Each has been bringing stuff to the table for years.

Say what you will about unreal being better then id. It still wont be true. Unreal boys always follow behind id software. Maybe it's because id pretty much wrote the book on 3d gaming. id software brought us the first truely 3d gaming environment. Unreal brought us the first use of animated effects. Monolith gave us reflective surfaces and motion waves.

Why on God's green earth would a game engine company (Monolith) go and use another companys (unreal) engine to build thier game?

That makes ZERO sense to me...




SIDENOTE: Blood2 and AvP2 are not the same engine. Blood2 shares the same engine with Shogo MAD which is Lith 1.0 and AvP2 uses Lith 2.0. There is a good four years between these two engine builds...

Just thought you should know...
 

Sir_Brizz

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So tell me, oh great one. What has the id Software team done that Epic hasn't already??

Monolith's engine have always been a generation behind. They have been bringing one "cool" feature to the engine every build and leaving the rest the same as it was. id brought us raytracing and BSP, the first falsely "true" 3D world. By the time Quake 2 came out (the first entirely truly 3D game) Unreal was coming out, which had 10 times the feature set that Quake 2 had and looked as much better. If anything I would say Epic has always been 2 steps ahead in technology, but one step behind in the market. i.e. they have an engine that looks tons better than Doom 3's engine right now, but they don't have a game on the market using it yet.
 

warduke

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the unreal engine u are talking about is not even done yet. they have stated it themselves. hell, they said it in one of the videos on it.

i am not saying the unreal guys cannot make an engine. they are damn good at it.

All I WAS saying is that is was stupid to tell one company that builds engines to go use some other companies...


the id vs unreal is something that will most likely go on forever. like the current ps2 vs xbox. compairing one item to another one that comes out a year later. That is kinda lame.

#1 you kinda owe id software some props for making gaming what it is today. without them I doubt UT games would be as big as they are.

#2 I don't think unreal has ever released a brand new engine till after id releases thiers. there is a reason for that you know...

#3 monolith makes solid and clean engines that can handle most jobs required of it without to many problems.




the ranking of 1)id 2)unreal 3) monolith is in that order for a reason.

id software is like our elvis. no matter how good someone else gets they can never be the king.

unreal is like micheal jackson(80's not current lol). as big as he was he could only be the prince of pop. though his fan base is way larger then elvis' ever was.

monolith is our carrot top. you just can't help but stare at it...