Prelaunch characters > Actual characters

[_freespace_]

Am I the only one that feels a bit cheated here?

I mean look at absolutely each and every screenshot of Unreal Tournament 3 that was shown before the demo. In all of them there are amazing details on the characters and flawless light&shadow. Basically, they were using the cinematic highpoly-highres characters, depicted in-game ( with facial expressions aswell ).

So for nearly over a year I was wondering how the hell do they look so good AND manage to get the game to run on anything less then quad-core. The answer is simple, they don't. What we get in-game are blockly poorly illuminated characters, whose heads actually look worse off than they did in UT2004. I'm really dissapointed in this. ( and yes, I play the game at max visual levels, with a Geforce 7900 ) And their range of facial expressions is as profound as that of a block of concrete.

[Therealjoe]

They probably will release a high res texture pack or something.

[M^vL]

Am I the only one that feels a bit cheated here?

I mean look at absolutely each and every screenshot of Unreal Tournament 3 that was shown before the demo. In all of them there are amazing details on the characters and flawless light&shadow. Basically, they were using the cinematic highpoly-highres characters, depicted in-game ( with facial expressions aswell ).

So for nearly over a year I was wondering how the hell do they look so good AND manage to get the game to run on anything less then quad-core. The answer is simple, they don't. What we get in-game are blockly poorly illuminated characters, whose heads actually look worse off than they did in UT2004. I'm really dissapointed in this. ( and yes, I play the game at max visual levels, with a Geforce 7900 ) And their range of facial expressions is as profound as that of a block of concrete.

Sadly I have to agree with you. Even on max settings, it looks nothing like those screenshots (I'm talking 1280x1024, 5 and 5, 100% s.p.). Pretty good but not the same. On the lower settings, they look like pasty grey, fairly featureless characters. I don't even think they look as good as 2k4 in many ways on the lower detail settings. A couple friends of mine don't have rigs that can run UT3 so I'm toggling back and forth between both games which is interesting.

I'm a total Epic fanboy but I actually have to say that the screenshots were false advertising, and in many ways the cinematic trailer was false advertising on the single player game which is more like a disguised ladder.

The early screenshots showed facial expressions and I've never seen anything in the game although you would probably have to be in a slow volume to actually detect it. Haven't tried that yet.

[_freespace_]

The early screenshots showed facial expressions and I've never seen anything in the game although you would probably have to be in a slow volume to actually detect it. Haven't tried that yet.

I have tried it, actually. That's when I first noticed the lowres characters. I used slomo 0.1 and playersonly to check out the models at close range. I was shocked, to say the least. False advertising indeed. It's like: Hey, buy our new supercar, it reaches 300 km/h in less than 5 seconds, and makes free coffee while you wait at stoplights. When you actually buy it, the crosshair sucks ( ) and it barely runs at 55 km/h. Where's my coffee?

[Henrik]

yeah I had pretty much the same reaction. there are so many ways in which this game was hyped up that it just doesn't live up to. does it look better than 2k4? yes, and.. no.

clearly it has some new technologies, and the player models themselves are done better, but with all the highest detail texture content (including normal levels) stripped out, they're biting themselves in the ****... at highest detail texture levels I don't expect to see this blurry blocky **** when I go close up to a character or wall..

[Henrik]

However I must add that if your models look as bad as you say, you probably have the line "HighDetailCharacters" or whatever set to false in your utengine.ini.... this can sometimes be the case even when you have other details full, if you have edited and locked your ini..

[_freespace_]

I've got "EnableHighPolyChars=True", so I guess that's it, then. Sucks. Oh well, there's always UT 4, coming out in about 3 years. This time they'll use real actors in the screenshots, and ingame it will look like UT3's cinematics.

[Henrik]

But with an equally stupid storyline, no doubt

[btcomm]

I agree with you, thats one of the first things I said when people started posting pics of the game maxed out.


Honestly, I'm wondering what would be the difference between unreal engine 3 vs unreal engine 2 if you were to just use higher res textures in the unreal engine 2, is there some reason the unreal 2 engine can't look as good? Does it have some kind of limitation that would not allow it to look as good as unreal engine 3?

[Kronos]

Oh well, there's always UT 4, coming out in about 3 years.

Ya right, UE4 is still in the works which is estimated to be finnished in 2009, and then another 3 more years ontop of that to create the actuall game. Which even then might be many more years depending on their developing plans with perhaps other games that they may be working on.

UT3 at the most will be excessively patched with bonus packs and perhaps an expansion.

Does it have some kind of limitation that would not allow it to look as good as unreal engine 3?

UE2 doesnt support shader model 2, let alone 3, which is what UE3 uses.

[xeonshock]

I agree with you, thats one of the first things I said when people started posting pics of the game maxed out.


Honestly, I'm wondering what would be the difference between unreal engine 3 vs unreal engine 2 if you were to just use higher res textures in the unreal engine 2, is there some reason the unreal 2 engine can't look as good? Does it have some kind of limitation that would not allow it to look as good as unreal engine 3?

Of course. UE3 allows for better geometry, post processing, normal mapping, better use of shaders, HDR, dynamic shadows, lighting in general, etc. Textures alone do not make a great looking game, otherwise developers would just be skinning models with bitmaps of real objects/people and you all know how stupid that would be.

[_freespace_]

Just normal mapping and the dynamic lighting adds a lot to the levels, making UT3 look better than UT2004 can only dream of. But it's the characters that are the problem. The levels are amazing, no doubt.

I've noticed that in the player customization screen, there are actually highpoly models, because: a) You can see much more details ( even though normal mapping should look as good on the ingame characters ), and the heads actually have features and receive light the way they should; b) I'm getting a huge decrease in framerate there ( like 10-12 FPS, while in-game I get 30-45 );

Well that's the way the characters should look in the actual gameplay, and it should run properly, otherwise all those screenshots were tooting our horns for nothing.

[Slokop]

I would like to add that EPIC did a fantastic job on the teamcoloring, the characters stay visible when distance increases, no need for glowstick addons.

[thejinx]

Ya right, UE4 is still in the works which is estimated to be finnished in 2009, and then another 3 more years ontop of that to create the actuall game. Which even then might be many more years depending on their developing plans with perhaps other games that they may be working on.

UT3 at the most will be excessively patched with bonus packs and perhaps an expansion.



UE2 doesnt support shader model 2, let alone 3, which is what UE3 uses.

More like a self-proclaimed "editor's choice" re-release, if we're lucky.

[_freespace_]

Here's how Reaper looks in-game with all settings at maximum. Compare it to his picture up here on the UT3 forum. Feels like a 5 years' worth of technology gap.



Any chance there will be any improvements on character heads? Maybe improved normal maps for the head material? Because back in UT2004 they looked better, to be honest.