Screenshot of the Month December 2010 [Winner announced!]

[devsh]

yeh.... they are

Just make them smaller if you can

[wing64]

Thanks for a good response.

[Mel]

There goes nothing...

I had to modify a bit the engine for this screen, Basically, the "Material Override" doesn't override the shader, Now, in this screen, it does, (instead of saving/restoring the shaders for the shadow map pass, the shader override is much faster and safer) i don't know if this could disqualify this screen for the competition

Title: Olimpus Demo 2.

Features: Besides 5 PCF shadowmapping with alpha testing for the transparent parts, it also features spherical harmonic lighting, 2 direct lights, normal mapping, specular mapping, fog and a bloom postproduction effect, at the cost of 18 FPS. But that is because of the transparencies in the trees. When the trees aren't on screen the FPS may increase to 25 or even 30, and the polycount is around 10000 triangles (the trees have around 1000 triangles)

[stefbuet]

I'm really interested in how you've done your "Material Override" because for now I'm saving/restoring shaders so if you have something which is faster
You img is very nice , maybe you could put some poly grass on this flat ground ?

[Mel]

I will post what i have done in the snippets section.

[Radikalizm]

This looks amazing
I agree with stefbuet about the grass, it would really add a finishing touch to the scene and you could use it to kind of mask the transition between the stem of the trees and the ground

with maybe som DOF post processing this could be a screen from an AAA title

[Mel]

I don't like DOF blur effects They quit detail from where there should be.

[Radikalizm]

I don't like DOF blur effects They quit detail from where there should be.

depends on how it's implemented, i agree that there are some really awful DOF effects which can completely ruin a scene, but when implemented and tweaked just right it can create a very realistic effect

[wing64]

Very nice shot. Could you tell me about your machine ran those demo ?

[fmx]

I don't like DOF blur effects They quit detail from where there should be.

depends on how it's implemented, i agree that there are some really awful DOF effects which can completely ruin a scene, but when implemented and tweaked just right it can create a very realistic effect

Agreed

The point of DoF is to mimic a camera lens phenomenon, so even a subtle implementation of it can lead to amazing results.
Think of it like "bloom" and HDR: too much and you kill the scene, but using it sparingly can make all the difference

The tree trunks could use better normal maps

[Mel]

Yes. The machine is an Athlon 3200+ @ 2.01 GHz. with 1GB of RAM, and WIN XP SP1. The video Card is a GeForce 8500 GT with 512 GB of video RAM. That demo runs on average at 20 fps.

@Radikalizm: You are completely right. But i think that it is mostly used for cinematic scenes. Every effect, in its right amount, is perfect.

About the trunks... Well, i did the normal maps by hand ^^U It is too subtle.

[Radikalizm]

About the trunks... Well, i did the normal maps by hand ^^U It is too subtle.

Ever tried the nvidia normal map filter plugin for adobe photoshop? I use it in all of my projects where I need normal maps (both irrlicht and my own engine) and it creates beautiful results

[DarkDepths]

I don't like DOF blur effects They quit detail from where there should be.

depends on how it's implemented, i agree that there are some really awful DOF effects which can completely ruin a scene, but when implemented and tweaked just right it can create a very realistic effect

Agreed

The point of DoF is to mimic a camera lens phenomenon, so even a subtle implementation of it can lead to amazing results.
Think of it like "bloom" and HDR: too much and you kill the scene, but using it sparingly can make all the difference

The tree trunks could use better normal maps

The problem that I personally have with DOF in games is that usually, you don't want to feel like you are looking through the lens of a camera. In the real world, you don't really notice any DOF unless you actively try to, simply because whenever you look at something else, your focus changes, so it is no longer blurry. When the effect is implemented in 3D games, assumptions are made about where the player will be looking, which makes for a very unrealistic effect if the player breaks that assumption.

I noticed the same thing when watching Avatar in 3D. They assume that you will be looking at the intended focal point, and so they used DOF to try and create a realistic effect around them. However, when two people were just standing and talking, I wanted to take in beautiful artwork that was the background. Unfortunately, I couldn't because it was all blurry.

This, I think, is the biggest problem with DOF in games. It looks nice until you break an assumption by even just a little. I think it would be very cool if you could track line of sight via a webcam, or something, and adjust the focus that way... that would literally blow my mind!


By the way Mel, I think it looks very nice!

[devsh]

DoF is there to create a movie illusion not real life through the eyes (things go out of focus and that gets you looking in the right direction where the director intends).

@MEL: 18fps... serious optimization needed

[Mel]

My machine is fairly slow, i know that, and i am putting too much things on it If it was just normal mapping and 3 or 4 lights, it could double the FPS. It is the shaders that are just too heavy for their own good.

The good thing is that if i throw in a car with 150000 triangles, the speed keeps in the same values.