Agreed. The benefits of baked outweigh the cons, imo. If epic really wanted to go the extra mile, they could add dynamic shadows to moving things (e.g. banners and trees) but more importantly, the player character. I would be pretty impressed to see my own shadow as I walk around.
You are probably right. Still, the comparison to HF2 is very apt: it's an incredibly immersive experience even with the use of "old techniques". Games like GoW or MGS on the PSP manage to generate an amazing amount of atmosphere without the use of any dynamic lighting or shadows either -- the devs just knew how to cheat really, really well. In the end, it's all about creating an immersive experience; it doesn't really matter if it's generated by "fooling" the eye.
You are right. All I care is the immersiveness. As a matter of fact this demo really spoiled me. All of the 3d games on the AppStore right now looks like cheap toys to me. That's not my fault I think.
Same here. One day before, I was praising Spider-Man and liking the graphics of Mirrors Edge. After playing this demo, these games just look years older, like being on another system. Epic Citadel is THAT good.
Agreed! If we can feel immersed in the game's fantasy world, that is all that matters at this point. I'm just concerned (yeah, I'm concerned about heaps of things) that Epic Games might get bad rep over false advertising. @red12355, hey that sounds plausible. I think that is what we're going to get! Though it may be much more memory-friendly if the dynamic shadowing is only for the player character and NPCs. Banners and vegetations don't really need dynamic shadow and can be simulated using animated textures. @squarezero, after reading red12355's post, I'm beginning to see that HL2's 'cheating' method might be the best approach for the iPhone platform: bake the whole level's shadow and use dynamic lighting on moving characters. BTW, I'm also impressed by the realtime reflection on the floors inside the temple. Wonder if they'll update this tech demo with peasants walking around. They have a camp outside the compound that can easily double as a festival ground where we can see some fire jugglers or whatever doing tricks around the camp. It's a good way to show how the particle system looks! Damn, this is an Epic news (pun intended) that fills my head with ideas!
I believe that the demo is exactly the same environment they're using for Project Sword, so in a way I guess they will be updating the demo with folks walking around . Seems to me that with all the work they've into the environments, it would end up looking pretty dorky if the characters all end up having blob shadows, but I guess we'll see. As long as a game uses a consistent light source, I don't see the need for all illumination to be dynamic, especially if the performance hit is significant. Now, on something like Aralon, where you have day and night cycles, torch use in caves, etc., dynamic lighting is huge, and it makes sense to sacrifice some texture detail to implement it. As the best developers for the DS and the PSP have shown, it's all about being smart with the available resources. The Unreal engine just gives smart folks more options.
I don't think they will update the demo. If they do there won't be any surprise in the game and that would be a bad move unless they care much more for the engine than the game. The demo itself is not silky smooth at this time. Wonder how it will run with all the animated characters on the screen. I hope they will be able to optimize it much more and extract some more performance out of the device.
As a test I left this running on my iphone 4 in guided tour mode: 100% down to 23% in 4hours 44minutes with brightness on full, not bad at all!
Just upgraded to 4.1 on my iPhone 4 and the framerate improved slightly. The most noticeable area is the courtyard in the upper castle with the archery targets and stable area. It used to hesitate just a bit, now it's much smoother, indifferent from the rest of the level. In fact the only aberration I could pull out of the consistent framerate was panning over the entire castle from the bazaar. If just this little can do this much imagine what a few months more in optimization might yield? This is, after all, Epic we're talking about.
I knew it. I knew it. An actual game. As long as this is under £10, instant buy. (£7.49 being Chaos Rings)
Ya I thought that but still, what the heck why not ask maybe they will take a couple maybe 5 I mean you could have 99 testers..... I am optimistic
In the article on the TA main page it says this is a "full RPG". Can anyone confirm this? Is it really a full RPG like Elder Scrolls: Oblivion? From the tech demo a while back, I couldn't tell what type of game this was, or what it's going to be like.
I believe it is a full rpg with upgradable characters and one on one multiplayer duels. The game is so good it will probably only support games 3rd gen or higher though!
That's was the head of Epic talking, so I don't know how anybody could "confirm" what he said. I assume he know what a full RPG is. He also said that it's releasing "soon," BTW.
Having just upgraded my old 2G ipod to the new 4G, one of the first things I did was download this to see what all the fuss is about. I simply have no words to describe the absolute beauty of what I saw. you thi8nk videos and screenshots can prepare you, but until you see it with your own eyes, it's like nothing I've seen before. Well not in iOS game. I've spent a good hour walking around, finding back alleys and nooks and crannies and just enjoyed the sounds. I'll be interested in seeing not only what their pricing is, but how they may balance a higher price with game length, battery usage and the overall footprint. I'm betting this could very well be one of those games that could be a gig or so to download, depending on how many areas there are other than this demo, game mechanics, NPC's etc. Having said all that, my most important concern is gameplay. no matter how pretty a game may be, if the gameplay sucks, I wouldn't spend 99 cents on it. If the gameplay is good, has a decent length (10-15 hours seems reasonable) then I'd plop 30-40 bucks no questions asked.
