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Geek Culture / What Can Shaders Do For My Game?

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Shadow Robert
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Posted: 20th Aug 2003 05:39 Edited at: 20th Aug 2003 05:40
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I've got ahold of the latest patch for Angel of Darkness (4.3.beta) which solves alot of bugs but also fixxed some of the graphical glitchs.

You've no doubt seen alot of tech demonstrations around about what shaders can do and most have probably seen Half-Life2 (but quite frankly most of you can forget about playing that until you can afford a system to run it on current stats are p1.5ghz w/GeForce3ti or Radeon 9500 64MB or more w/256mb Ram w/DirectX9 - and if you are expecting similar graphics to the screenshots you'll need nothing less than a p4 2.0ghz w/GeForceFX 5800ti 256Mb w/512mb Ram w/DirectX9 ... you could get away with a Radeon 9800pro, but barely)

there's also the god knows whats happening Doom3 which alot of screenshots have been released and a very early E3 leak from a year ago (alot can happen in 12months, carmack oftenly rewrites entire engines in a matter of weeks if he don't like something so thats something to bare in mind).

however this all aside Tomb Raider Angel of Darkness isn't in the Future, it is the first true DirectX9 game out there - and really is the first game of its class to truely use Shaders how they were ment to ... Generals does a good job, but its just used mainly to reproduce the normal graphics in realtime rather as prerendered.

but for those of your wondering what the difference between a game with Shaders and w/o Shaders in actual graphical terms is well this is
Angel of Darkness in "The Serpent Rouge" first is standard fixxed function 1024x768x32 full graphics @ 85hz
Second is Full GeForceFX PS2.0 graphics ... i'll be taking some more to show off the shadow/light system more, bump mapping - and the water in this. Well in standard mode its just sphere mapping, in PS1.x its prerendered reflections, in 2.0 its RT Reflections including effects and character and it looks just stunning.

these were taken on my current system
AMD Duron 800Mhz CPU - 512Mb Ram - 3DBlaster GeForceFX 5200 64MB (45.23 DetonatorFX) - DirectX 9.00 SDK Retail - CMedia 8326 Audio w/EAX2.0 (and using with full options) - Anistropic 8x - Texture Filtering On - FSAA 0 Samples

runs this game at a respectable 20-35fps ... which actually isn't to bad considering they recommend a good ghz more power for full graphics options

w/o Shaders


w/ Shaders


it might not seem like there is any relivance for this post (aside from maybe increasing the sales of a fantastic sequal and Creative wonderful GeForceFX 5200 which scores a nice 3894 in 3DMark2003 hehee)
but trust me these screenshots are going to start hitting very close to home after a while

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MikeS
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Posted: 20th Aug 2003 06:37
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Use shaders too increase the looks of your game drastically, yet you'll require a more demanding system.

Phew, I guess I just make the specs for HL2. (Doom 3, I'm gonna need some upgrades.)



A book? I hate book. Book is stupid.
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UnderLord
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Posted: 20th Aug 2003 06:59
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the one with shaders makes the game look more alive and thats really awsome man the picture looks so good =) now only if i could afford dbpro =)

http://www.freewebs.com/ingamers
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MikeS
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Posted: 20th Aug 2003 07:25
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The lighting really looks fake without the shaders. Maybe that's just me though, but the one with the shaders is obviously much much better.

Yea, underlord, you're right. The one without the shader really just looks like a bunch of textures(although it still looks very nice.), where the one with the shaders, everything blends in a little more.



A book? I hate book. Book is stupid.
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David T
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Posted: 21st Aug 2003 14:38
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Now all you need to do is work out how we can do it in DB

There's no place like 127.0.0.1

There are 10 people in this world, those who understand binary and those who don't.
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adr2
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Posted: 21st Aug 2003 15:37
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Isn't there a tool to create fx shader files? I'd like to see what I can do in DBP with shaders, but I'm sure there was talk of some helper app for creating the shaders themselves....
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lcfcfan
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Posted: 21st Aug 2003 20:45
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depends on what game your working on really.

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lcfcfan
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Posted: 21st Aug 2003 20:46
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thought u said you were gonna release something this august? is that still on?

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David T
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Posted: 21st Aug 2003 22:51
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@lcfcfan : do you think you can make your signature image a bit smaller? It takes up quite a lot of room.

There's no place like 127.0.0.1

There are 10 people in this world, those who understand binary and those who don't.
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Shadow Robert
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Posted: 21st Aug 2003 23:09
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kinda...
to be honest i don't want to finish any of my projects, i just want to start everything new.
after what happened last week i'm actually totally glad that i have a new job i start on monday - not gonna be here much, and come Friday i'll be posting about as much as a ghost.

really want to thank Stacie for what she did for me last week i'll thank you later hon, but its good to know i have aleast one mate who'll stand by me no matter what stupid things i do.

i'm planning to release Kismet though, which is going to be my physics TPC - not sure when though, i've got 3 demos in my head for it ... and i'm working on one right now, start this morning.

apart form that really there is nothing i'm working on and i don't plan to either, sorry to everyone who was waiting for things. At the end of the day I don't make money from doing this as a hobby and it shouldn't be as time consuming or stressful.
I'm finally getting back to doing artwork rather than programming, and will be doing CG again with a personal idol of mine and learning from him... if i post or release anything here form now on about things really the first new you'll hear about it is when i upload it for you.

i'm not giving dates for anything - i really want RavenStudio's work to be well unexpected. Gotta take on a business mentality now because everything now is all myself, and i don't plan to work with anyone else anymore ... i'm totally through with it.

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Mattman
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Posted: 21st Aug 2003 23:11
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Where did you get Cg? From the nVidia site?

Got a knack for finding secrets ??? Jingot Racing --- A new brand of Racing --- Only from Nightwatch Studios
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lcfcfan
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Posted: 22nd Aug 2003 00:40
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yeah i will get rid of it or make smaller tomorrow david 89.

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Shadow Robert
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Posted: 22nd Aug 2003 01:28
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lol not Cg... i'll be doing CG
but yeah where else would i get nVidia's C for Graphics Toolkit from?

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Mattman
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Posted: 22nd Aug 2003 01:57
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just wondering as i was trying to find the toolkit at the time. And what is CG?

Got a knack for finding secrets ??? Jingot Racing --- A new brand of Racing --- Only from Nightwatch Studios
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8truths
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Posted: 22nd Aug 2003 07:35
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Quote: "i don't want to finish any of my projects, i just want to start everything new"


I don't plan to really heavily flame you on this. However, don't you think you should at least rescue one or two of the really best ideas?

To square, if 1/10 of what you claim you can do is true, I would absolutely die to see it in even a really good, publicly available demo. Even if it were just some really chopped down tech demo.

For as much as I think you are a [censored], it would be worth seeing.

I admire your honesty. Hell, I like you; you can come over to my house and ---- my sister!
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Andy Igoe
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Posted: 22nd Aug 2003 10:17
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Until one of us produces a game like the screenie without shaders then i'll not be paying too much attention to them.

Shaders are a complicated suite of commands resulting in extended development time which for games at our level of professionalism will increase minimum specification to play our games in exchange for still not looking good enough to justify it.

There's a lot of stuff DBPro does very well, but when it comes to the more advanced and recent features it isn't exactly what I would call BASIC. The shader feature in DBPro and some other functionality appear more of a bolt-on than truley integrated into the language.

Pneumatic Dryll
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Van B
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Posted: 22nd Aug 2003 11:54
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That's the way it has to be though, shaders are like little programs in themselves, so each shader is different and different shaders will be developed all the time. I actually thought the shader implimentation was quite clever.

Raven,
Will you ever release anything?
For fsake man, your really starting to bore the tit's off us with these excuses everytime you can't deliver. You promised us you'd be posting a demo or at least a bloody screenshot in September, now 1 week until September every one of your projects has been canned! - basically, shut up about all your cutting edge DBPro developments because we'll never see them.

This is not a flame, because I have nothing against you personally, but if I have to read another post with you mangling on about something that does'nt exist, I'll put my own eye out with a cold spoon.


Van-B

My cats breath smells of cat food.
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Shadow Robert
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Posted: 22nd Aug 2003 11:54
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8truths everything i was working on i was working on with other people ... not sure if you've ever worked as a team before using SafeSource but neither of us ever had the fullcode, and the fact that the server i was using for it all seems to have dropped of the face of the earth - i'll have to rewrite the portions that other people have done.

There are 2 of my old projects i'm not continuing with, but actually restarting from scratch and had planned to do when this whole mess started.
Tech demos of these in action are due, but again not gonna say when.
I just want to get down to making a few REALLY good demos than be spread across 20 differenct platforms & formats & languages, etc... I was pretty much sick of programming to be honest, i'm not a programmer i'm an artist - and it is stupid that people see me as a programmer first and an artist second.

It's even more annoying that people seem to think i'm here just to help them out, so really i'm through with all of that.
Ya'll see what you see from me, no promises for things, no big lookit things, if things get made ya'll see them, if not then you won't even know i was working on them.

i've got some more screenshots i'm thinking of uploading here, but i'm not when i'll have the chance because i'm not online for much of the day - just came on to check email before i went to bed.

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empty
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Posted: 22nd Aug 2003 13:22
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Did anybody really believe Raven would release at least one thing he announced?

I awoke in a fever. The bedclothes were all soaked in sweat.
She said "You've been having a nightmare and it's not over yet"
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Kevin Picone
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Posted: 22nd Aug 2003 18:41
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Empty:

You mean you had doubts, well i never

Kevin Picone
Play Basic - Visible Worlds - Kyruss II
[url]www.underwaredesign.com[/url]
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empty
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Posted: 22nd Aug 2003 18:50
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I awoke in a fever. The bedclothes were all soaked in sweat.
She said "You've been having a nightmare and it's not over yet"
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8truths
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Posted: 23rd Aug 2003 07:47
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Quote: "the server i was using for it all seems to have dropped of the face of the earth "


If there is no better lesson from all this . . . paranoia. Back-up everything, and make sure everyone hands in their homework to teacher.

Others may see fit to rag him on this, but why? If you want to maintain the "he's a fraud" stance, then there really is no more to it than this.

My suspicion is that Raven is not a fraud, but IS overly ambitious. He inflates facts . . . but all that means is that he fits nicely in games development and its hype-hype-hype approach.

For the moment, he's screwed.

My advice to him would be: get one idea you absolutely believe in, and raise heaven and earth to make it. Shelf all the other ambitious stuff. An independent programmer is not entitled to plural words like projects.

Take it all out the Perpetual Raven Flame War context, and receive it as a very instructive object lesson.

I admire your honesty. Hell, I like you; you can come over to my house and ---- my sister!
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Kevin Picone
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Posted: 23rd Aug 2003 13:32
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Well, considering he was removed from the RTG forums for both his abrasive attitude and some apparent misrepresentations of 'his' own work.. It's no wonder various oldies have little to no faith in seeing anything from him or his various groups.

Frankly, nobody would care if he/they didn't produce anything, if people weren't relying upon him/them to see something come through.

Case in point. Big Announcements like the 'nfinity' console concept have a awful ripple effect through the community. Perhaps inspiring some younger coders to produce works solely upon the apparent creditability of the project. If their was no intent to see it through, that is fraud.

Sure, we've ALL had to dump projects for one reason or another, but this announce/dump (erm, the dog ate my homework) cycle is just a little too convenient.

Kevin Picone
Play Basic - Visible Worlds - Kyruss II
[url]www.underwaredesign.com[/url]
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Shadow Robert
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Posted: 23rd Aug 2003 16:16
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i was removed from RGT because of what called GuyS, and thats all there is to it.
Had nothing to do with my attitude towards others or what i was posting - it started with Simple's and others bitching about how i was reviewing thier work too harshly but what actually got me kicked was the fact that i didn't know when to shutup in the argument me and Guy were actually having behind the scenes.

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8truths
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Posted: 24th Aug 2003 07:56
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UW -- take that and point it to newbies as an object lesson. It is one hell of a point.

Yeah, the announce-dump format is a bit suspect. Still . . . it's better to just mention it the next time he announces.

I admire your honesty. Hell, I like you; you can come over to my house and ---- my sister!
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