Screenshots for Fun!

[evilgrins]

As Carbon commented on the sharpness of my screenshots, went digging through Helen's forum for somewhere I displayed the specifics on that.

*ahem*

It's been pointed out my screenshots are remarkably clear. I usually chalk this up to the fact I don't convert to .jpg but .png instead but I figured visuals might help.

This is a normal .png:

This is a .png with sharpening:

This is what it looks like as a .jpg:

And, just for the heck of it, here it is as a .gif:

I made a .tif too but I think I've made my point.

Narlock & INDIGO were not permanently harmed in the making of these screenshots. They are trained professionals and do this kinda thing all the time. However, no one should attempt to replicate this event because those little freakazoids bite really hard.

 

[Leo(T.C.K.)]

INDIGO? *gets flashbacks with kill bill music playing over it*

And what are Helen's forums?

 

[evilgrins]

And what are Helen's forums?

That'd be this · http://birdieman.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl

 

[JohnDoe641]

You're missing the point here...

It's the horrible jaggies from no AA in any of your shots giving it the appearance that you're running the game at 640x480 that make them sharp.

 

[MÆST]

[SCREENSHOT]http://i.imgur.com/cZvkjaH.png[/SCREENSHOT]

High-flying UT EO

 

[evilgrins]

MÆST, what CTF is that?

It's the horrible jaggies from no AA in any of your shots giving it the appearance that you're running the game at 640x480 that make them sharp.

800x600, actually.

 

[MÆST]

MÆST, what CTF is that?

800x600, actually.

A flag carrier rocket jumping across CTF-Pyro in Excessive Overkill.

 

[JohnDoe641]

MÆST, what CTF is that?

800x600, actually.

lol, why 800x600?

 

[evilgrins]

lol, why 800x600?

It doesn't need to be bigger than that.

 

[NeoNite]

lol, why 800x600?

It doesn't need to be bigger than that.

This 21st century thing, it never happened for you did it -_-...

 

[evilgrins]

This 21st century thing, it never happened for you did it -_-...

That thing you mention was a thing before the 21st Century, and even then I didn't think it made much difference.

 

[AlCapowned]

There's nothing wrong with having that opinion as long as you accept the fact that you're quite possibly the only person here who has it.

Then again, resolution wouldn't matter that much. All the rendering settings and high resolution textures available wouldn't change all those ugly box maps into something halfway decent looking.

 

[Carbon]

Indeed. You can polish a turd to a shine, but its still a turd.

 

[JohnDoe641]

It's amazing what AA can do, it's almost like *MAGIC*

800x600@8xAA, no jaggies.


1920x1200@8xAA, no jaggies.

 

[Al]

JD. The 20th century was way cooler.

 

[evilgrins]

Well, if it's any consolation... I only play ut99 in 800x600:

 

[JohnDoe641]

Well that's not the point.

The resolution isn't the issue, it's the jaggies. At that low of a res you could crank up the AA and it would look just as good or better than 1920x1200 with no AA with better performance.

 

[Carbon]

Grins: 1920x1200 is the closest widescreen resolution ratio to 800x600, 1024x768; 16:10 and 4:3 respectively. Much better than a 16:9. UT looks very natural at this resolution and you aren't giving up any visible screen space so if you can play it that way, give it a try if your monitor supports it.

4:3 vs. 16:10, AA vs. no AA, AF vs. no AF...

 

[evilgrins]

The resolution isn't the issue, it's the jaggies.

I may need a clearer definition here. What's "jaggies" exactly??

If it's jagged edges to parts of the picture, that's not from my 800x600 resolution. That's from my using sharpening as part of the conversion from .bmp to .png that I do.

 

[Carbon]

Its a combination of things grins.

The "jaggies", as best seen in your screenie above on the queen's 'leg' (ant-like leg?) on the left. Looks like a small staircase going up the leg from the right. Jaggies = jagged edges, like a serrated knife. While initially present onscreen (though less visible, in a sense), the sharpening aggravates this greatly.

Anti-aliasing (AA) is a technique that tries to blend these edges and smooth the look. At higher resolutions these edges become naturally smoothed out just by throwing more pixels at the problem; the staircase becomes smaller or extended. While helping with the "jaggies", it still doesn't eliminate them; again, AA is important for the scene to have a more blended, softer-edge look.

Demo Cheddar Cheese Tool. lol. Odds of UT making a full sentence with 16 bots anyone?

This shot is odd: I - the female character - was fragged, but in such a position that I got this shot. UT3 'faces of death' thing.

Love that armor.

These shots show high resolution and AA make things look nice. Sometimes, despite all of this, the "jaggies" still show up:

Here you can see aliasing on many of the edging lights. If you look closely, you can see the AA trying to work - the blending, but this scenario is a tough one.

So.

Drawn lines that typically invite aliasing (any that are not straight up or down) are less perceptible; all angles look more smooth and natural. This is thanks to a high resolution and heavy use of a kind of AA. There are a few different methods of techniques to choose from, each with a slightly different performance penalty. Speaking of which...

I have no idea what kind of hardware you are using or what it is capable of. Any further discussion would need this information.

Aside from all of this, it's good to see how much you enjoy the game grins.