This is also a feature of 3DMAX so Dave tried a little experiment.
Before, no baked AO
After, with baked AO
You might want to click on those images to see the full sized renders. Certainly the cockpit area could benefit, and the buildings we have with ground proximity shading for compounds and city blocks. Best of all, no fps impact. There's still work to do to improve normal maps.
We started an audit of game textures and will extend this to include QA for each texture layer, ensuring it's as good as we can make it and optimise memory usage into the bargain.
There are subtle things, such as the DXT5 compression that results in acne. Using a different DDS format and reducing the resolution can result in a better image and smaller memory footprint. See pic below.
We made some material changes to the cockpit, specular, glow maps. I'm not sure the grips should be backlit but it makes them easier to read in the dark.
This is Cool!! from Russia with love! )))
ReplyDeleteI also like that baked model and backlit grips are much much better. BTW...I dont think MGS games have stupid storyline. :-) For me...one of the best of all games.
ReplyDeleteBetter looking and no impact on performance? Sold.
ReplyDeleteThe first pair of screenshots are a bit of an unfair test. What we're looking at are smooth-shaded viewport screenshots from 3d studio max. They lack the modern lighting features such as self-shadowing, SSAO and HDR found in the Leadwerks engine.
ReplyDeleteWhen the base-skin is combined with these lighting features you get much the same effect as in screenshot 2, except it's dynamic. With baked AO, the aircraft appears much the same under very different lighting circumstances. By comparison it creates a very flat looking model, ironic as AO is meant to provide depth.
For years skinners painted static highlights onto aircraft skins even though developers told them it was unnecessary to do so because of specular highlights.
I'm not sure I want to step backwards with the art work in CH.
Cheers