Right, this, exactly! There's this prevailing thought that violence and hell were what made the original games what they were. That was just window dressing.
what I remember from the first games was running around trying to figure out what to do next. The actual killing was secondary. Would have been really cool if the new Doom had some kind of Metroid Prime exploration/backtracking thing going on
Doom is simple: You're alone, you have cool weapons, you kill a shit load of demons in a violent manner. That's it. And that looks like what we are getting. I don't know what people were wanting from this game, but more than likely you can find it elsewhere. I don't want cover fire, I don't want allies fighting with me, I don't want a protagonist that is chatty. I do think they could've made a bit more colorful, but what worked when they only had 256 colors might not work with today's modern games, from a visual perspective. I hope the levels actually allow you to get lost, and not be just a linear "follow the marker to point B" experience, and it doesn't look like that. I was worried about the finishing moves, but after seeing them in action, I think they work great.
a little hijack, where did Quake go? Quake means a lot more than Doom to me. the last good Quake is Quake 3 and that was freaking last century!
I wouldn't be surprised if Quake is being put off until bethesda knows doom will succeed.
On a different note - i'm totally with it that its not 'the doom of yore' we're getting, was just hoping for something that acknowledged the old games. Someone suggested even using the face in the hud again, which would've been ridiculously funny and awesome :thumbup:
I have too very major issues.
The item system and the constant berserker mode.
This "pinyata" item system is really silly and dumb. It removes the need to utilise level resources effectively and it removes incentive to explore for secrets if health and ammo spews from enemies constantly.
It might remove the fantastic feeling of dread you feel when you know that you cannot get help in a sticky situation; the real terror from feeling helpless, unlike the jumpscare corridor-fest of Doom 3. It helps contrast to the high octane action.
I really hope this is only at feature at low difficulty levels, it could end up having the same effect as regenerating health; the lack of danger.
The brutal doom styled takedown stuff looks like a constant ability, this means that berserk packs are out. This is a bad idea because the takedowns will get very boring very fast because it is not a reward for good exploration and secret hunting. It also makes the player too powerful, the player can tear apart monsters like wet weetabix and there's very little feeling of weight to the violence.
The overall tone of the violence if rather tasteless too. Doomguy seems really cruel and unfeeling, even tearing off a blued corpse's arm without any reaction.
The chainsaw is a instakill, which removes the feeling of it being a satisfying last resort.
Overall I fear that with the overpowered melee and pinyata demons, I fear that the game will lack the same tension as the originals that you get from being cornered by a group of pinkies.
Everything else looks all right, but not much is ground-breaking.
The monster design is very inconsistent, but the Revenant seems absolutely stellar and has a fantastically insane personality to boot.
I really hoped that the monsters would be given as much charisma as the revenant, but the other demons just seem like mindless beasts from what I've seen. However that's probably because we haven't seen their 'opening sequence'.
The environments are also a bit generic, but I'm willing to bet that it's because that's what was chosen to be shown at E3 to appeal to a wide audience. I'm hoping for some Doom 64 styled demonic cathedrals and castles.
I'm rather let down, to be honest. However I hope that they'll fix this by the final release or give PC players a full SDK.
Someone suggested even using the face in the hud again, which would've been ridiculously funny and awesome :thumbup:
Doomguy's face adds a lot of charm to the game, which this is sort of lacking.
But then again, I doubt it would feel right to have proper doomguy in this. The violence of this is far less appealing than the originals, it's almost sadistic this time round.
I mean come on, punching hell knights and then snapping their necks? Tearing an imp's face in half when you could just shoot him? Choking a mancubus on his own sac of bile?
That's just silly and gross; it doesn't feel like a desperate last measure, it feels like a snuff game.
However the demons being really cruel is perfectly fine, because I don't want to relate to them, I want to fear them.
Unfortunately they're not scary if I can tear them open for health like a greedy kid with a pinyata.
I mean come on, punching hell knights and then snapping their necks? Tearing an imp's face in half when you could just shoot him? Choking a mancubus on his own sac of bile?
See, that's the thing. For me, the originals were about a space marine dropped into a hellish situation and he's doing whatever he can to survive. He's not enjoying it, it's not a thrill ride .. it's brutal survival.
id seems to think that the guy is taking sadistic delight in dispatching these demons and monsters when, in reality, he's just trying to stay alive.
Excecutions and gratuitous gore don't really match that backdrop. It's like the marine woke up and was like, "Oh shit, demons are invading? FUCK YES, finally! Time to rip some heads off, wooo!!"
See, that's the thing. For me, the originals were about a space marine dropped into a hellish situation and he's doing whatever he can to survive. He's not enjoying it, it's not a thrill ride .. it's brutal survival.
id seems to think that the guy is taking sadistic delight in dispatching these demons and monsters when, in reality, he's just trying to stay alive.
Excecutions and gratuitous gore don't really match that backdrop. It's like the marine woke up and was like, "Oh shit, demons are invading? FUCK YES, finally! Time to rip some heads off, wooo!!"
That's my view as well, the mood of the gratuitous gore is totally wrong
I want gory action, but it should be directed towards the player and make them feel under threat. Blowing massive demons to pieces with a shotgun should pale in comparison to the things that they will do to you.
yeah the meele thing seems a little backwards. I remember from playing Doom 2, being close to a dark room filled with imps and pinkies scared the shit out of me. Not so much with what looks like the click here to win meele. I really hope the chainsaw isn't too OP, my favorite part about the chainsaw was it was absolutely a blast to use but usually ended up with losing over half my health by the end of it.
Oh and totally am voting for bringing back actual level design which I hope they did, I feel like Half-life 2 is probably the most recent game that had level design somewhat similarly styled. You had to use your brain back in Doom 1/2, go here, press a button, run across the room where the bridge just appeared, dodge the imp's fireballs, etc. versus being a linear shooter with waypoints marking everything.
True, but let's not go ALL the way back there with the level design. I hated the "push button, hear a door open somewhere, no idea where it is, now it closes, try again, *sigh*" routine.
I feel like Half-life 2 is probably the most recent game that had level design somewhat similarly styled.
Wut, have we played the same game? I remember HL2 as 99% linear shooter, with some ridiculously easy (and mostly pointless) physics puzzles thrown here and there.
All the melee stuff looked optional (Hence the glowing) after you get the enemies health down to a certain level. It also looks like it the finisher might be based on where you are looking/positioning when you execute it.
Even the health/amoo pickups looked optional, I could be wrong but I thought they only dropped after doing a finisher.
IMO it reads more like a reward system and a way to allow the player to keep pushing forward instead of retreating.
Personally Im hoping they stay away from going too old school with the level designs... Mazes for the sake of mazes *shudder. If it makes structural and contextual sense... Then Im all aboard.
True, but let's not go ALL the way back there with the level design. I hated the "push button, hear a door open somewhere, no idea where it is, now it closes, try again, *sigh*" routine.
I frequently have dreams where I cannot finish a level in Doom because I can't figure out the door/switch/hidden room puzzle.
Speaking of melee, I would have liked to see the implement something with the chainsaw where you can control your cuts rather than watching a canned animation, kind of like the sword mechanic in Metal Gear rising.
Canned animation are already kinda novelty, may as well add some interaction to it.
Judging by the high res shots, there's no pbr materials in there, or am I wrong?
That Snapmap thing looks cool for consoles, but if they don't release their content creation tools, I'm thinking Unreal Tournament will have the better modding community. (Potentially. UT might not have much of a modding community at all regardless)
didn't literally no-one at all use rage's modding tools
Am i also the only one that would've liked to see a departure from the regular "realistic" greeble approach to sci-fi (im looking at you halo/doom3) and an embrace of the weird and stylistic art of the original games.
On the topic of level design - sure, hunting for that hidden door was a drag sometimes - but doom did something that many modern games don't anymore, it did'nt hold my hand.
Now im not saying this made the level design better or worse, but it meant that if you found that secret entrance - the reward and feeling of accomplishment was way higher than if the game held my hand and showed me where to go.
I don't get why people think that Doom has confusing level design, but maybe that's my years of experience.
I hope Doom 4 has open, sprawling levels with clear indication of where to go next, similar to doom 1. However some totally open maps such as E2M2 would be nice if filled with lots of secrets.
This sort of design is a clever way of jogging people's memory of the level layout.
You can clearly see the red door from the area containing the red key.
This might help people realize where to go next even if they didn't see the door earlier.
This is very useful because of doom's map screen only showing areas that you've seen before. Now that you've seen the door it will appear on the map.
PBR isn't really something you can tell they have or not just by looking at a few screenshots.
I'd be incredibly surprised if they didn't use it.
There is absolutely no visual difference PBR or not PBR if the artists know what they'r doing. In fact I believe PBR imposes unnecessary restrictions and have its own disadvantages for not so hi res textures (edge artifacts, etc)
So while I agree materials could look a bit more real and less stylized it's totally understandable if they decided to use old spec/glossiness approach.
That's funny, I find PBR to be a HUGE improvement in texturing speed and efficiency. There's far less guess work to get something to look the way I want it to.
Well. I find PBR a huge pain in the ass . Something programmers think should be easy while it's actually pretty opposite.
That probably depends on its implementation. UE4 one is still allowing a lot of freedom for the artists for the price of redundant realtime calculations, double extra fresnel, few extra macro layers etc. So not that bad.
Never understood that guess work problem everyone is talking about since in my experience what you do speclevel/glossiness way rarely differs at all if you understand how things work. And possible slight deviation is so subtle I never, really NEVER seen any problem with other lighting.
And with PBR you have to non stop fight with all those edge artifacts and inability to fake some small effects, like shadows in surface imperfections , cracks etc. since even 100% rough materials reflect highlight . Especially when you can't allow too hires textures to have decent normalmap resolution.
PBR doesn't have artifacts if you use the specular workflow. The advantage of the PBR system is that it's easier to get a 'correct' look once you understand the idea behind it. You don't need to fiddle with specular and gloss maps to get them right because now that's controlled by the roughness texture to normalise it.
If I remember correctly John Carmack mentioned something about the implementation of a PBR workflow for Doom 4 during a quakecon a few years back, so it's probably being used.
In this screenshot the water and the ground have a very nice transition, so the engine probably uses the PBR shading in conjunction with an updated megatexturing technology to make everything blend together well. The damp areas of the ground look very well done too.
With the proper research PBR is a great way to standardize material inputs. It gives the art team and easy opportunity to ensure that all yellow paint, or steel, or whatever have consistent values throughout the game.
Also, standardization also ensures that the materials will behave consistently across many different lighting environments. It also opens the door for procedural approaches to shading.
Its reasons like this that make me love that most modern engines use PBR. There's just so much more opportunity.
And yes, its way easier for a less experiences artist to make something that looks passable with PBR.
I don't exactly understand how specular workflow could be called PBR since it breaks base principle of energy conservation and you have to compensate highlight intensity somehow.
But I do agree that it helps immensely.
Still what I see on the ground could be done in old good specular/glossiness without any problem.
As of "easy" it 's absolutely no harder to have inverted roughness which we called "glossiness" before and toned down specular channel in some places
As for unexperienced artists I agree but I consider myself experienced , he-he, and don't like to be restricted by some simplified physics rules which don't allow you to do necessary and useful fakes on complicated materials where that physics rather irritates
For standardization purpose I also don't understand what the problem with having a library of spec/glossiness materials or value pairs and how it would differ from roughness/metallic ones
I don't exactly understand how specular workflow could be called PBR since it breaks base principle of energy conservation and you have to compensate highlight intensity somehow.
But I do agree that it helps immensely.
Still what I see on the ground could be done in old good specular/glossiness without any problem.
As of "easy" it 's absolutely no harder to have inverted roughness which we called "glossiness" before and toned down specular channel in some places
As for unexperienced artists I agree but I consider myself experienced , he-he, and don't like to be restricted by some simplified physics rules which don't allow you to do necessary and useful fakes on complicated materials where that physics rather irritates
For standardization purpose I also don't understand what the problem with having a library of spec/glossiness materials or value pairs and how it would differ from roughness/metallic ones
calibrated/referenced specular values in a PBR renderer is an absolutely viable way to achieve energy conserved lighting, like in unity 5 or toolbag 2. the principles of pbr is just a way to ensure that calibrated albedo/spec/roughness (or albedo/metalness/roughness) + proper physical light size & intensity = consistently realistic shading can be expected every time every where
ok. That way we could call old specular/glossiness approach PBR too. Only based on a fact an artist didn't do anything stupid and just did things right as they should be. I would vote with my both hands for such PBR
But what I have to deal with is rather different. It's a super "effective" idea that you need only roughness/glossiness and the video cards have enough processing power to derive specular values by their own on the fly.
Messing pixel to pixel precision and depriving artists from a number of useful tricks.
Moreover that consistency being a good thing in theory sometimes prevents you from compensating/hiding/faking an absence or presence some material properties like anisotropy , grainy nature, dusty , porous or whatever nature of a surface.
From my experience typical PBR materials works ok for characters/props having a lot of metal parts and hi res textures but turns into alot of headache on not so hi res outdoor environment things where you rarely see any metal.
Gnoop - this is what people mean when talking about specular vs metalness PBR workflows : http://www.marmoset.co/toolbag/learn/pbr-conversion
I hope this clarifies things. But then again, every engine is different ...
Back on topic : absolutely loving the clarity of the Doom4 look. It may look a bit barebones in some areas, but the value range seems to be very nicely controlled which in turn looks like a great base for some nice color correction after the fact. Can't wait to see more. I think my only nitpick would be about the DOF effects and the relative lack of atmospherics, which seem to make some parts of the game look like miniature models. But that's probably easy to adjust.
Also based on Rage and now this, it's pretty obvious that ID has some amazing animators on the team. Impressive stuff ...
gnoop, I think you misunderstand some things about pbr. The main thing that defines pbr is the conservation of energy. Anything else is pretty much up for anyone to decide. Usually it involves more realistic image-based reflections/lighting, fresnel, better roughness calculations, more realistic lighting systems, etc. Two workflows have emerged. Specular/gloss, and metalness/roughness. Both offer different benefits to the artist and to the engine. Neither limits the artist particularly; just takes some getting used to at first.
For the metalness workflow, processors don't derive specular values; at least not in any engine I've seen. Non-metals default to 4% reflectivity, and metals derive their specular strength from their albedo value.
ok. That way we could call old specular/glossiness approach PBR too. Only based on a fact an artist didn't do anything stupid and just did things right as they should be. I would vote with my both hands for such PBR
not true unless energy is conserved throughout a surface's direct/indirect reflection i.e. specular and roughness and diffuse affect each other + they are calibrated to allow for measured material roughness/specular values to be recreated in the renderer (important distinction being measured instead of observed)
But what I have to deal with is rather different. It's a super "effective" idea that you need only roughness/glossiness and the video cards have enough processing power to derive specular values by their own on the fly.
it's a fairly safe assumption that most insulated materials have similiar specular values. Traditonally specular values in insulators had to be varied to compensate for roughness and diffuse colors, but both are now done automatically in PBR renderers. In either case, the metalness workflow is not exclusive or linked to the concept of physically based rendering - a PBR renderer can take specular maps and a traditional renderer can take metalness maps if configured to do so
i didn't work with marmoset and I like what they say about different approaches.
I just think that while the art should be constructed around the conservation of energy as a base idea , the shaders shouldn't restrict an artist to deviate from it where it might be necessary since some things are still to complicated and can't be achieved without faking some aspects.
And I just don't want to fight with the shader for that and try to deceive it somehow because it locked top down
Specular (highlight) intensity, roughness and base(diffuse) color do affect each other as diffuse(indirect) and direct reflections. I did so long before PBR letters appeared. So I don't understand why "not true" I just think you could do so using common sense and eyes without any precise measuring and any subtle deviation from 100% energy conserving doesn't make things visually unreal , sometimes pretty opposite.
They chose some really generic looking levels for the E3 demo, I hope that the final game has more unique and extravagant levels. If I recall correctly, they have an artist from Dante's inferno working on it, so I'm optimistic.
I really wish for a return to the Doom 64 style of Hell, featuring large, intimidating architecture covered with giger-esque detailing and patterns. All while being lit with a flamboyant range of hues and colours.
It gave a very unearthly feeling to Hell and implied that the demons may have developed culture and understanding of physics. I like it a lot more than the typical fire and brimstone Hell.
However I really hope that Doom 4's levels are as varied as possible. Perhaps the hell in the demo was a early segment set far outside of the main part of hell where everything is more primitive.
The overall look and feel is great, reminds me of the starcraft 1 marine trailer! the video was very cool but textures looked quite low res or maybe it was just video compression, in contrast those screenshots in this thread are really detailed! really impressed by those.
I really wish for a return to the Doom 64 style of Hell, featuring large, intimidating architecture covered with giger-esque detailing and patterns. All while being lit with a flamboyant range of hues and colours.
I've never been a fan of monsters or hell games either, but I really love the art style for those sci-fi environments, weapons and armors. It's definitely a must buy for me. However, I just don't get why in action games like this... the enemies, first person arms and weapons are blending with the rest of the environment instead of standing out. PBR or not, I don't give a damn, it looks great.
Gameplaywise, guns look cool. But for the melee I'm expecting actual fighting mechanics these days that can be combined with the guns. Not just melee animations. But I must give it to them, those animations kick ass. Level design wise, did they say anything about the game? Objectives, etc?
I think that's a pretty poor photoshop, it's too cheesy looking.
Top left is the original released screenshot.
Of all of the recolours I've seen, the bottom right one is my favourite.
It captures a nice vibrant tone but looks modern, maybe because everything that's colourful is glowing and bright with a deep red fog to add depth. Meanwhile the bottom left is dull and looks plastic-y because it doesn't change the value and makes the sky look like a 2d backdrop.
However the top right is the original image with the spepia filter removed and the saturation boosted and it already looks far better, so I'm willing to bet that the post processing might be responsible for the washed out colour
i didn't work with marmoset and I like what they say about different approaches.
I just think that while the art should be constructed around the conservation of energy as a base idea , the shaders shouldn't restrict an artist to deviate from it where it might be necessary since some things are still to complicated and can't be achieved without faking some aspects.
And I just don't want to fight with the shader for that and try to deceive it somehow because it locked top down
Specular (highlight) intensity, roughness and base(diffuse) color do affect each other as diffuse(indirect) and direct reflections. I did so long before PBR letters appeared. So I don't understand why "not true" I just think you could do so using common sense and eyes without any precise measuring and any subtle deviation from 100% energy conserving doesn't make things visually unreal , sometimes pretty opposite.
Energy conservation is important not only in terms of diffuse vs specular reflections, but also roughness/glossiness. Rougher reflections will appear dimmer, even with a material that has the same reflectivity (say, rough vs polished silver), this is because the light is diffused and shoots off in random directions so it spreads to a larger area. The reflectivity doesn't change, but the perceived brightness of the highlight does. This is very important with PBR systems.
Sure, you can take old school shaders, and you can set up your materials so that your metals are black in diffuse and so that your insulators are generally around ~4% reflectivity, and you can even compute the energy conservation due to roughness yourself and vary the reflectivity, but this is a lot less accurate, and importantly, slower way to work. However, many good material artists worked like this before PBR was a buzzword.
Honestly, energy conservation is not the most important part of physically accurate shaders, it is an important part, but there are many improvements. For instance, fresnel in older shaders generally was not physically accurate in any way, and many shaders had unrealistic "ambient" to fake ambient diffuse lighting (blurry cubemaps do this now), didn't use IBL (very hard to do accurate metals without cube map reflections) or didn't do cubemap blurring (can't do gloss properly without it), many shaders did very unrealistic things like diffuse fresnel shaders which essentially gave a permanent rim light to your model. A lot of progress has been made to get to the point of what we call PBR, and most of it is essential to having quality, consistent, believable lighting.
Energy conservation in terms of diffuse vs reactivity is really just a fail safe for artists entering completely unreasonable values, which is something that has historically been very common with game art. Just ask yourself how many times you saw a texture with chrome or some other metal that had a bright diffuse and spec map - this is what reflectivity energy conservation tries to prevent, and for good reason. Sure, if you understand the physics of light and matter, it won't really affect your work. Additionally, if you understand the physics, you understand that there is no situation where your total diffuse + specular light would be greater than 100%. It's simply physically impossible. For specific materials that would have such complex needs that you would not want reflectivity energy conservation, you're much better off using a custom shader anyway.
Replies
what I remember from the first games was running around trying to figure out what to do next. The actual killing was secondary. Would have been really cool if the new Doom had some kind of Metroid Prime exploration/backtracking thing going on
Doom is simple: You're alone, you have cool weapons, you kill a shit load of demons in a violent manner. That's it. And that looks like what we are getting. I don't know what people were wanting from this game, but more than likely you can find it elsewhere. I don't want cover fire, I don't want allies fighting with me, I don't want a protagonist that is chatty. I do think they could've made a bit more colorful, but what worked when they only had 256 colors might not work with today's modern games, from a visual perspective. I hope the levels actually allow you to get lost, and not be just a linear "follow the marker to point B" experience, and it doesn't look like that. I was worried about the finishing moves, but after seeing them in action, I think they work great.
I wouldn't be surprised if Quake is being put off until bethesda knows doom will succeed.
On a different note - i'm totally with it that its not 'the doom of yore' we're getting, was just hoping for something that acknowledged the old games. Someone suggested even using the face in the hud again, which would've been ridiculously funny and awesome :thumbup:
The item system and the constant berserker mode.
This "pinyata" item system is really silly and dumb. It removes the need to utilise level resources effectively and it removes incentive to explore for secrets if health and ammo spews from enemies constantly.
It might remove the fantastic feeling of dread you feel when you know that you cannot get help in a sticky situation; the real terror from feeling helpless, unlike the jumpscare corridor-fest of Doom 3. It helps contrast to the high octane action.
I really hope this is only at feature at low difficulty levels, it could end up having the same effect as regenerating health; the lack of danger.
The brutal doom styled takedown stuff looks like a constant ability, this means that berserk packs are out. This is a bad idea because the takedowns will get very boring very fast because it is not a reward for good exploration and secret hunting. It also makes the player too powerful, the player can tear apart monsters like wet weetabix and there's very little feeling of weight to the violence.
The overall tone of the violence if rather tasteless too. Doomguy seems really cruel and unfeeling, even tearing off a blued corpse's arm without any reaction.
The chainsaw is a instakill, which removes the feeling of it being a satisfying last resort.
Overall I fear that with the overpowered melee and pinyata demons, I fear that the game will lack the same tension as the originals that you get from being cornered by a group of pinkies.
Everything else looks all right, but not much is ground-breaking.
The monster design is very inconsistent, but the Revenant seems absolutely stellar and has a fantastically insane personality to boot.
I really hoped that the monsters would be given as much charisma as the revenant, but the other demons just seem like mindless beasts from what I've seen. However that's probably because we haven't seen their 'opening sequence'.
The environments are also a bit generic, but I'm willing to bet that it's because that's what was chosen to be shown at E3 to appeal to a wide audience. I'm hoping for some Doom 64 styled demonic cathedrals and castles.
I'm rather let down, to be honest. However I hope that they'll fix this by the final release or give PC players a full SDK.
ha. In the age of flat uninspired 1 color huds there's no place for stuff like face display. The very idea of it must give shivers to designers.
As for game... it looks nice. A bit too Doom 3 though.
Doomguy's face adds a lot of charm to the game, which this is sort of lacking.
But then again, I doubt it would feel right to have proper doomguy in this. The violence of this is far less appealing than the originals, it's almost sadistic this time round.
I mean come on, punching hell knights and then snapping their necks? Tearing an imp's face in half when you could just shoot him? Choking a mancubus on his own sac of bile?
That's just silly and gross; it doesn't feel like a desperate last measure, it feels like a snuff game.
However the demons being really cruel is perfectly fine, because I don't want to relate to them, I want to fear them.
Unfortunately they're not scary if I can tear them open for health like a greedy kid with a pinyata.
id seems to think that the guy is taking sadistic delight in dispatching these demons and monsters when, in reality, he's just trying to stay alive.
Excecutions and gratuitous gore don't really match that backdrop. It's like the marine woke up and was like, "Oh shit, demons are invading? FUCK YES, finally! Time to rip some heads off, wooo!!"
That's my view as well, the mood of the gratuitous gore is totally wrong
I want gory action, but it should be directed towards the player and make them feel under threat. Blowing massive demons to pieces with a shotgun should pale in comparison to the things that they will do to you.
Oh and totally am voting for bringing back actual level design which I hope they did, I feel like Half-life 2 is probably the most recent game that had level design somewhat similarly styled. You had to use your brain back in Doom 1/2, go here, press a button, run across the room where the bridge just appeared, dodge the imp's fireballs, etc. versus being a linear shooter with waypoints marking everything.
Wut, have we played the same game? I remember HL2 as 99% linear shooter, with some ridiculously easy (and mostly pointless) physics puzzles thrown here and there.
Even the health/amoo pickups looked optional, I could be wrong but I thought they only dropped after doing a finisher.
IMO it reads more like a reward system and a way to allow the player to keep pushing forward instead of retreating.
Personally Im hoping they stay away from going too old school with the level designs... Mazes for the sake of mazes *shudder. If it makes structural and contextual sense... Then Im all aboard.
I frequently have dreams where I cannot finish a level in Doom because I can't figure out the door/switch/hidden room puzzle.
Canned animation are already kinda novelty, may as well add some interaction to it.
haha yes!
didn't literally no-one at all use rage's modding tools
PBR isn't really something you can tell they have or not just by looking at a few screenshots.
I'd be incredibly surprised if they didn't use it.
I was totally hoping for monster design that took more inspiration from Darksiders - still has some of the best monster designs imho.
http://www.zbrushcentral.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=131310
On the topic of level design - sure, hunting for that hidden door was a drag sometimes - but doom did something that many modern games don't anymore, it did'nt hold my hand.
Now im not saying this made the level design better or worse, but it meant that if you found that secret entrance - the reward and feeling of accomplishment was way higher than if the game held my hand and showed me where to go.
I hope Doom 4 has open, sprawling levels with clear indication of where to go next, similar to doom 1. However some totally open maps such as E2M2 would be nice if filled with lots of secrets.
This sort of design is a clever way of jogging people's memory of the level layout.
This might help people realize where to go next even if they didn't see the door earlier.
This is very useful because of doom's map screen only showing areas that you've seen before. Now that you've seen the door it will appear on the map.
To be honest though I never realized Doom actually had a map
I don't even know how to access Rage's tools.
Its an entire different download in the tools section.
It also takes up nearly as much space as the regular game.
There is absolutely no visual difference PBR or not PBR if the artists know what they'r doing. In fact I believe PBR imposes unnecessary restrictions and have its own disadvantages for not so hi res textures (edge artifacts, etc)
So while I agree materials could look a bit more real and less stylized it's totally understandable if they decided to use old spec/glossiness approach.
I would do so too If I could to be honest
That probably depends on its implementation. UE4 one is still allowing a lot of freedom for the artists for the price of redundant realtime calculations, double extra fresnel, few extra macro layers etc. So not that bad.
Never understood that guess work problem everyone is talking about since in my experience what you do speclevel/glossiness way rarely differs at all if you understand how things work. And possible slight deviation is so subtle I never, really NEVER seen any problem with other lighting.
And with PBR you have to non stop fight with all those edge artifacts and inability to fake some small effects, like shadows in surface imperfections , cracks etc. since even 100% rough materials reflect highlight . Especially when you can't allow too hires textures to have decent normalmap resolution.
If I remember correctly John Carmack mentioned something about the implementation of a PBR workflow for Doom 4 during a quakecon a few years back, so it's probably being used.
In this screenshot the water and the ground have a very nice transition, so the engine probably uses the PBR shading in conjunction with an updated megatexturing technology to make everything blend together well. The damp areas of the ground look very well done too.
Also, standardization also ensures that the materials will behave consistently across many different lighting environments. It also opens the door for procedural approaches to shading.
Its reasons like this that make me love that most modern engines use PBR. There's just so much more opportunity.
And yes, its way easier for a less experiences artist to make something that looks passable with PBR.
But I do agree that it helps immensely.
Still what I see on the ground could be done in old good specular/glossiness without any problem.
As of "easy" it 's absolutely no harder to have inverted roughness which we called "glossiness" before and toned down specular channel in some places
As for unexperienced artists I agree but I consider myself experienced , he-he, and don't like to be restricted by some simplified physics rules which don't allow you to do necessary and useful fakes on complicated materials where that physics rather irritates
For standardization purpose I also don't understand what the problem with having a library of spec/glossiness materials or value pairs and how it would differ from roughness/metallic ones
calibrated/referenced specular values in a PBR renderer is an absolutely viable way to achieve energy conserved lighting, like in unity 5 or toolbag 2. the principles of pbr is just a way to ensure that calibrated albedo/spec/roughness (or albedo/metalness/roughness) + proper physical light size & intensity = consistently realistic shading can be expected every time every where
But what I have to deal with is rather different. It's a super "effective" idea that you need only roughness/glossiness and the video cards have enough processing power to derive specular values by their own on the fly.
Messing pixel to pixel precision and depriving artists from a number of useful tricks.
Moreover that consistency being a good thing in theory sometimes prevents you from compensating/hiding/faking an absence or presence some material properties like anisotropy , grainy nature, dusty , porous or whatever nature of a surface.
From my experience typical PBR materials works ok for characters/props having a lot of metal parts and hi res textures but turns into alot of headache on not so hi res outdoor environment things where you rarely see any metal.
http://www.marmoset.co/toolbag/learn/pbr-conversion
I hope this clarifies things. But then again, every engine is different ...
Back on topic : absolutely loving the clarity of the Doom4 look. It may look a bit barebones in some areas, but the value range seems to be very nicely controlled which in turn looks like a great base for some nice color correction after the fact. Can't wait to see more. I think my only nitpick would be about the DOF effects and the relative lack of atmospherics, which seem to make some parts of the game look like miniature models. But that's probably easy to adjust.
Also based on Rage and now this, it's pretty obvious that ID has some amazing animators on the team. Impressive stuff ...
For the metalness workflow, processors don't derive specular values; at least not in any engine I've seen. Non-metals default to 4% reflectivity, and metals derive their specular strength from their albedo value.
not true unless energy is conserved throughout a surface's direct/indirect reflection i.e. specular and roughness and diffuse affect each other + they are calibrated to allow for measured material roughness/specular values to be recreated in the renderer (important distinction being measured instead of observed)
it's a fairly safe assumption that most insulated materials have similiar specular values. Traditonally specular values in insulators had to be varied to compensate for roughness and diffuse colors, but both are now done automatically in PBR renderers. In either case, the metalness workflow is not exclusive or linked to the concept of physically based rendering - a PBR renderer can take specular maps and a traditional renderer can take metalness maps if configured to do so
I just think that while the art should be constructed around the conservation of energy as a base idea , the shaders shouldn't restrict an artist to deviate from it where it might be necessary since some things are still to complicated and can't be achieved without faking some aspects.
And I just don't want to fight with the shader for that and try to deceive it somehow because it locked top down
Specular (highlight) intensity, roughness and base(diffuse) color do affect each other as diffuse(indirect) and direct reflections. I did so long before PBR letters appeared. So I don't understand why "not true" I just think you could do so using common sense and eyes without any precise measuring and any subtle deviation from 100% energy conserving doesn't make things visually unreal , sometimes pretty opposite.
I really wish for a return to the Doom 64 style of Hell, featuring large, intimidating architecture covered with giger-esque detailing and patterns. All while being lit with a flamboyant range of hues and colours.
[ame]
It gave a very unearthly feeling to Hell and implied that the demons may have developed culture and understanding of physics. I like it a lot more than the typical fire and brimstone Hell.
However I really hope that Doom 4's levels are as varied as possible. Perhaps the hell in the demo was a early segment set far outside of the main part of hell where everything is more primitive.
You got me all nostalgic here, I love this game from the bottom of my heart. Such great level design!
But guess what, colors like that have niche appeal and not mainstream appeal so... nope.
I hope this will turn into mod.
Top left is the original released screenshot.
Of all of the recolours I've seen, the bottom right one is my favourite.
It captures a nice vibrant tone but looks modern, maybe because everything that's colourful is glowing and bright with a deep red fog to add depth. Meanwhile the bottom left is dull and looks plastic-y because it doesn't change the value and makes the sky look like a 2d backdrop.
However the top right is the original image with the spepia filter removed and the saturation boosted and it already looks far better, so I'm willing to bet that the post processing might be responsible for the washed out colour
Energy conservation is important not only in terms of diffuse vs specular reflections, but also roughness/glossiness. Rougher reflections will appear dimmer, even with a material that has the same reflectivity (say, rough vs polished silver), this is because the light is diffused and shoots off in random directions so it spreads to a larger area. The reflectivity doesn't change, but the perceived brightness of the highlight does. This is very important with PBR systems.
Sure, you can take old school shaders, and you can set up your materials so that your metals are black in diffuse and so that your insulators are generally around ~4% reflectivity, and you can even compute the energy conservation due to roughness yourself and vary the reflectivity, but this is a lot less accurate, and importantly, slower way to work. However, many good material artists worked like this before PBR was a buzzword.
Honestly, energy conservation is not the most important part of physically accurate shaders, it is an important part, but there are many improvements. For instance, fresnel in older shaders generally was not physically accurate in any way, and many shaders had unrealistic "ambient" to fake ambient diffuse lighting (blurry cubemaps do this now), didn't use IBL (very hard to do accurate metals without cube map reflections) or didn't do cubemap blurring (can't do gloss properly without it), many shaders did very unrealistic things like diffuse fresnel shaders which essentially gave a permanent rim light to your model. A lot of progress has been made to get to the point of what we call PBR, and most of it is essential to having quality, consistent, believable lighting.
Energy conservation in terms of diffuse vs reactivity is really just a fail safe for artists entering completely unreasonable values, which is something that has historically been very common with game art. Just ask yourself how many times you saw a texture with chrome or some other metal that had a bright diffuse and spec map - this is what reflectivity energy conservation tries to prevent, and for good reason. Sure, if you understand the physics of light and matter, it won't really affect your work. Additionally, if you understand the physics, you understand that there is no situation where your total diffuse + specular light would be greater than 100%. It's simply physically impossible. For specific materials that would have such complex needs that you would not want reflectivity energy conservation, you're much better off using a custom shader anyway.
More on PBR:
http://www.marmoset.co/toolbag/learn/pbr-theory
http://www.marmoset.co/toolbag/learn/pbr-practice
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