[Sergenth]

I checked out the Daily Radar exclusive on the Unreal Tech additions of skeletal animation and new landscapery here:
http://www.dailyradar.com/features/game_feature_page_1444_1.html

and I thought I recognized some of Shane's work on Mr. Emotion there. Just wanna say good job on that dude. He's got "unreal" skin texture and shading, but that just helps the gothic/tech style more. And with all that detail, I wish my GeForce 2 had S3 tex compression as well as T&L.

I had fun opening three of the big face pics and clicking between them to uh... animate the face :P

[Trance-R]

The ftp site with the movie is down. =(

[Scorchmon]

Your GeForce 2 does have S3 texture compression (now just known as DXTC). The reason that you can't use the high resolution textures in UT with a GeForce 2 is because Epic wrote it in so that they would only work if you had an S3 card. Hopefully, it won't happen again in any upcoming Unreal engine based games.

[CyberArtist]

Actually, Epic did not write the MeTaL (S3) render device that allows for S3TC, S3 did that themselves. The reason for the non-inclusion of DXTC support (or, oddly the support for >256x256 textures at all) in the Unreal engine's D3D drivers is due to Tim's disdain for D3D's texture management. According to him, the addition of such features would only cause increased slow down in an already bottle necked area. With NVidia publically announcing it's partnership with Epic, I'm guessing NVidia would like such features included themselves, as well as get the GeForce and GeForce2 cards to run faster than "those bloomin' Voodoo cards." (Right now, the Voodoo5 still beats out the GeForce2 GTS in framerate battles in UT, or at least in the last benchmarks I saw). I'm personally tired of being stuck with 256x256 textures still, but as a GeForce DDR owner myself, I am often amazed at how badly UT's textures effect performance. Oddly, due to the wonderful 3dMark, I know the GeForce can do 32 megs worth of textures with out breaking a sweet, where as at the 8 meg mark in UT I notice serious performance problems.

The skeletal animation guy (in the screenshots) was done by James Green (the mesh), and Steve Garofalo (the textures, also of Rusted Faith fame). Shane, I think, did just the face. (Shane, care to correct me?)

I also wanted to mention a small thing... I saw much of this stuff at E3, 4 months ago now, and some of it I even saw at GDC two months prior. Needless to say, this stuff is not "new," just something to show off to feed the hungry dogs. Though I haven't seen it, I'm guessing they have a couple aces up there sleaves still.



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-CyberA(rtist) aka Ben Golus

Cyber...

[Frost]

Shane: Are you the one who assigned the bone weights on those character meshes? Used Physique/CS?

[black_fish]

256x256 textures? what a dream! I'm working with 64x64 right now

[Frost]

blackfish: n64?
Hmm, I getting used to 2048x2048 textures now.. =)

[CyberArtist]

Frost: Pretty sure the bone weights are set in the modelling program by the modeller. So, James Green would of done that. Shane did ONLY the face texture on that model, none of the modelling itself.



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-CyberA(rtist) aka Ben Golus

Cyber...

[Frost]

Thanks Cyber.
I thought Shane also did the modeling. And these are UT specific tools, right?

[madness]

Use this URL if you wanna see the UNREAL Tech Movie.

Unreal Tech Demo

(use rightclick & save target as)


cheers,
Madness

PLANET-MADNESS

[This message has been edited by madness (edited September 12, 2000).]

[Sergenth]

Yeah, thanks for all the info CyberArtist.
Wow... 3 people to make one model.. so different from the way I know these things :P