You have too many incorrect points to even address. But I'll try.

1) I do know. I've written a primitive DX11 renderer myself. Have you?
2) There are many games coming out on DirectX 11 for PC and still are cross-platform.
3) Oblivion was very free from the limitation of consoles. They had graphical sliders for most everything, and INI file settings for the rest. How did this happen, magic?

Ugh, I can't even bear to reply any longer.



I would hope you're right.

Plus, they are in a "content crunch" now, what are the graphics guys doing? What a lot of people must not realize (poster above you included) is that the rendering engine is very separate from the game engine. I bet a lot more code and time is devoted to the game part. They clearly already have a renderer, as we've seen real live screenshots, so are they just sitting around now? I would hope not. I would hope for them devoting time to progressive enhancements for PC users.

They already have one big example of progressive enhancement for PC users: Every game since Morrowind has released their own creation kit.

Not to mention like I said above, Oblivion wasn't just a strict port. They gave us options to enhance the visuals at least some. That had to take time to do for us.

Everything you said was short-sighted and pessimistic. I mean even your sig screams pessimism. You need to stop holding a grudge because a game didn't have everything you wanted in it, because there will never be a game that has everything someone wants. Also the last paragraph your wrote is exactly what's in Skyrim <_< You need to learn to not think you are entitled to a game with every feature that could possibly exist, because frankly at the time of Oblivion, technology had limits to a lot of things people complain about.... Frankly, DX11 would take some time but not everything translates into a flat price. I see some people that think "If we add in a new system it equals $" even though the only money that goes into it is the time that went into programming it. So it is more of a matter of time than money.

One more thing: I hope that we'll get high resolution textures this time.

In respect to tessellation, You said assets in games already had bump maps. Which is not true, they have normal maps.

Bump mapping is not the same as displacement mapping. You'll never find actual bump maps used in bump mapping for games, and as I said the only displacement maps you will find in game assets is parallax map.

[quote]
Maybe you think the separate names mean something, but it's simply to connote what it's being applied to. Since Oblivion already used bump mapping, in the form of normal mapping (yes, normal mapping IS considered bump mapping), and we assume they will continue to use some form of bump mapping, they already have the displacement information available to them.
[quote]
The name does mean something. Willy nilly interchanging the names of the techniques and the types of maps themselves doesn't do any good imo.

Oblivion is like the worst example you could have used. Bar some creatures, and SI assets, hardly any of the normal maps in oblivion were rendered from 3d geometry. No really it's true!

likewise normal mapping isn't that often a straight up bake and it's done. More often than not a lot of 2d manipulation and detailing post render happens, and the same will be said for displacement maps. which will be an additional task. And just thinking on that whole workflow, what happens when you displace geometry, this affecting the angle of the meshes surface normals, and then have a tangent space normal map on it, baked at the meshes lowest subD level? doesn't this fubar the whole point of the normal map?

your post reminds me of this

http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/558516



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it cant realy be that hard to do- all we need is bethesda to throw in some code that says dx11 works. its main feature is to make more polygons on models (basicly to smooth out curves) and that can happen on its own without bethesda adding anything extra. http://t3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRx19q7rPrcl0ga6eoY9f8ueEs7Kei4Hx3BJeNkxJsqYJzZ4nrZkw


the second (totaly awsome) thing is height mapping- this makes it so that a flat surface becomes 3d

http://wpcontent.answcdn.com/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/4e/Bump_map_vs_isosurface2.png/400px-Bump_map_vs_isosurface2.png

http://www.legitreviews.com/article/1391/2/

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2789/4037611850_04123cdd6d_o.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3495/4036861823_7a34a9f3b4_o.jpg you can tell whats dx 11 :wink_smile:

You must simply not be reading the words I am typing. I should just be able to re-paste my entire last post, but no...

Normal maps ARE BUMP MAPS. Their other name is Dot3 Bump Map. They are a type of bump map. I state this plainly and factually yet you continue to argue.

Bump maps (THE bump maps, not the encompassing term) and height maps contain the exact same information. Another word for height maps is displacement maps. They are all identical. They are a 2D greyscale image that expresses height. If you include a bump map on a mesh, a programmer WILL be able to take that texture and use it for tessellation. I've never once stated anything about whether or not bump maps were created using higher res 3D geometry, I don't know why you bring it up. It does not matter. You might not know this, but as long as you have a good UV map, the map will look just fine.

Also, what do you know, the job listings for BGS state knowledge with zBrush is a "plus". In case you're not aware, I sculpt 3D objects in zBrush myself, and have made UV maps and displacement maps (Look, I used the word depending on the context! But that doesn't change the fact that it's the same as a bump map!) and normal maps. I would also gather they used zBrush in Oblivion as well, and hand-sculpted the normal maps. It doesn't matter if they didn't sculpt the original 3D object. You make a good UV map for the mesh and the 2D textures wrap around them perfectly.

I just don't know how to explain this any more simply...

Naming a map a certain name doesn't exclude it from use for something else. OK? It's simply a texture. Completely nameless. It contains information. A programmer can look at it and say "I want to do simple bump mapping" ... OR, they can take the SAME TEXTURE and use it to tessellate the same geometry, provided a UV map, which one definitely needs just for the color texture.

You can even use a normal map for tessellation. It contains all the same information as the more simple bump/height maps! You just copy the information, convert it, and feed it to the tessellation shader.

The one thing you can't do is go between those three maps and what is commonly referred to as vector displacement maps. They're usually stored in HDR formats, and contain more than just height information. They allow meshes to fold in on themselves or have overhangs and such that are impossible with height maps. I've even used those too, in sculpting, when trying Mudbox (like zBrush). So I wouldn't argue with you there about calling vector displacement "bump mapping", because it does more than just bumps. The rest however, all fall under "bump mapping".

Also, Bump == Height == Displacement. They all convey the exact same idea. Did you know that usually nowadays what is called bump mapping is really normal mapping? I wonder why that is! Bump mapping is simply so old that it's not necessary, and normal mapping (the TECHNIQUE, not the texture) is superior. You can also argue that tessellation is bump mapping too and that someday soon it will replace normal mapping. It reads a MAP and then generates a BUMP. As you move away the effect fades. You can also group parallax occlusion mapping in there. It reads a height/bump/normal map (it can read anything you want it to as long as you get it the same end results) and then causes the illusion of bumps. Its drawback of course is grazing angles and mesh edges.

And just thinking on that whole workflow, what happens when you displace geometry, this affecting the angle of the meshes surface normals, and then have a tangent space normal map on it, baked at the meshes lowest subD level? doesn't this fubar the whole point of the normal map?

You could say the same for the actual color texture map! It clearly adapts the textures properly. Also, why would you try applying a normal map that fakes the same information as the high-detailed model has in actual geometry? And when are you going to see the character/object at its lowest LOD??? When it's 5000 feet away on the screen and the normal map isn't going to matter?

I don't want to sound mean (I think you were already kind of rude in the last reply anyway) but don't actually answer those questions, because I don't care about this topic anymore. I'm kind of tired of being extremely knowledgeable, yet treated like I'm a moron. I've studied graphics for many years, have programmed for many years, and I am also an artist. I knew 3D programs better than my teachers in college, and I was good in my art classes. So I think I know the basics when it comes to common bump mapping after being used to it for so long.

:( But you are doing so well.

Just know I really appreciated it, and I'm sure others did to.

Well, I meant the topic that we went off on a tangent on.

But in general, I reiterate a lot of the same things, and somebody new comes along and says I'm wrong. It gets tiring.

Actually, I have a new point to bring up. They had the ability to take screens of the game over a year ago. "Late 2009" according to the latest GI update. If they had the game rendering on something that long ago I wonder what they've been doing on the graphics front. :celebration:

And isnt that the whole advantage of DX11? That tessellation is so easy to implement on things we have been using for years now? Its just so practical I cant understand how they wouldn't use it. Im of the thought that they will.

If it's not AT LEAST DX10 I am going to take a metal baseball bat down to the BGS building, and it will have a nice little chat with some kneecaps. Then those kneecaps are going to be forced to work it into the game, no matter how long it takes them.

DX11 support would be nice too.

I know what a normal map is. :rolleyes:

THIS IS SO WRONG! Why do people think this!? You can do MUCH MUCH MORE with the Api in consoles than what you can with the standard DX9 on PC. Its closer to DX10. The company used DX9 because of 1 market share and 2 when they made the friggin engine it was before 2006. They didnt have a choice.

That's not true. The PS3 RSX is literally a handicapped Geforce GTX 7900 gs which has no directx 10 functionality. The 360's Xenos is basically a handicapped ATI X1900 with the unified shader architecture found in the X2000 series. D3D10 has fully programmable pipeline/unified shader in its specs which is why people like to say it's a hybrid but other than that there is absolutely no support for shader model 4 or texture arrays.

The reason they used DX9 for Oblivion was because there was no DX10 in 2006! They've used the 2006 DX9 build of Gamebryo as a foundation for their engine and chose not to implement any of the DX10/DX11 updates over the years nor did they write their own for FO3. That way they can say's it their own engine now and call it "creation" and say that it's all new.

The features that are supported out of the box for OpenGL ES and 360's DX9 allow things to be easily done that are part of DX10. Not the whole feature set. Its easier to implement things like AA with HDR, SSAO on consoles than it is DX9 on PC. Its nothing to do with the hardware You cant just use RSX as an example cause that GPU and APi where modified to work with Cell which does much of the Graphics rendering with most high end PS3 games.

Well, that is true, yes, but I think it would not hurt if it did.
More ppl wil be able to play it...and that's always a good thing

anyone see my last post? it had info....



anyway- dx11/ latest open gl needs to be in. bethesda dont need to try hard with it as the mod community can make most of the height maps.


i dont have a dx11 card, but i want this game to have good graphics a few years on

That's not true. Xenos is over x1900 considering features. For example, here's shader specs: http://www.beyond3d.com/content/articles/4/9 And it even supports tesselation. :celebrate:

They wouldn't need DX10 to use the advantages Xenos had over DX9 - XB360 doesn't operate in normal DX-spec.

If it doesn't there is always the witcher 2, shogun 2, arma 2, STALKER 2, Crysis 2...wow lots of 2's.

The veins on arms on every screenshot stick out like on the right sphere without disappearing on the edges like the left one.


The new time-lapse video shows a difference which is very akin to those two tessellation screenshots.


Just saying...

DX11, please and thank you

I'm in full agreement with you. However, theres no way to tessellate somethings and not others at this point...its all software based. If you look at the screenshots of your magazine, with the character walking in town, you'll see that the ground is totally flat with zero looks of any normals or any depth for that matter. Tessellation would bring these grounds to life. Don't even get me started on scaly dragons and cliffsides.

At this time, I don't have a Direct X 11 card, but i'm willing to drop 300$ + for a 6950 if Direct X 11 is in.

Tesselation doesn't work like that. You have full control over it - you can tesselate what ever you wan't or can choose not to tesselate. For example, Dirt 2 tesselates only water and cloth. Lost Planet 2 tesselates water as well and characters.

Well, that's great that you think you know what a normal map is. I'm still unsure you do based on the incoherence of your arguments. You may know what one looks like, but you can't seem to agree/understand the term bump mapping encompasses both traditional bump mapping and normal mapping, and that "bump" maps and "height" maps and "displacement" are identical, and that the name only implies what they are intended to be used for, and can in fact be interchanged between many forms of bump mapping. And since you didn't argue any of my last points, I'll assume you have realized you are wrong about your arguments and have conceded. Not like I was going to continue debating on the topic because there is no use. You will continue to think you're right about everything you say without thinking critically and learning from the experience.


Not true. "All hardware based" tessellation was something like TruForm from many generations ago. The same way you can write a shader to apply different materials to an object, you too can write a shader to tessellate that object. In fact, as of DirectX 10 everything is a shader, and shaders have to be written by people, they just don't come out of nowhere.

For example, Civ 5 tessellates only the terrain.

I woudn't reccomend you that. 6xxx series seems somewhat a bit badly done, and even the 6970 gets severely beaten up by the GTX 580 in all the tests I've seen (in some cases even by 20-30 fps of difference). And by October, the GTX 580 should be around that price.

It looks like that in this generation, Nvidia wins

My mistake for getting you guys all razzed up. There was a typo in my original post. I meant to say "software," as in its predetermined by the game/software...

I tend to type what i'm speaking sometimes.




Really eh? Thanks for the heads up, i'll definitely go with a Nvidia card this time around.