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Unreal engine makes beautiful landscapes, horrible models
fwhite
Member Posts: 34
Ok, so this is the third MMO that I have looked at that uses the Unreal Game Engine. This makes for great collision, physics, landscapes, and junk on the ground that either gets in your way or doesnt depending upon how important it is - very nice.
However, the models for characters and NPCs of all types are simply horrible. They are gangly, animate poorly, and rely on the model to handle the textures instead of the skins handling the textures. All in all, this leads to bad perfomance and gaphically hideous game.
Could we just have games with modeling and graphics created by the studios?
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Delanor
I'm a little over my head in terms of the technicalities when it comes to texturing and character models using the UGE2.0+.
I'm curious though, I've seen a few games that use the Engine and the models like great, Fable comes to mind if I'm not mistaken. It's quite possible this is different in an MMO Environment though, can anyone share why this is ?
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Of course they also have rather few models...
Good catch Cadamire.
As per: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lineage_II
Lineage 2 does indeed use the same engine. And I agree, it has some amazing character models.
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Its really up to how the companies create them. It also has some importance on how the company wishes to spend its resources for the game. Take Lineage 2 for example. The character models are gorgeous, but the actual environments are a little sparse with large polygons.
The reason why many pick up an engine like the Unreal Engine or the Quake Engine is because it saves time in redoing work. If a company made a new engine for every game they made, it would just be a huge waste of time. Its alot easier to spend the million on a pre-existing engine. Actually its very reasonable to see the market shift to programmer houses that solely create engines and sell them out. This would inturn make the artists creating the levels save time in learning a new engine, and it would make the actual game engines run and look better through committed development.
Unreal Engine in action there.
It's more the people doing the models than anything.
One team does the maps, the other does the models.....
You are just pushing your video card too far. The models are done in entirely seperate programs and basically just loaded by the engine. What is happening is you are looking at very high polygon models (relative to previous games) and that is multiplied by the number of players.
It is simple math:
15 characters with 500 polygons each = 7,500 polygons + the background
15 character with 1000 polygons each = 15,000 polygons + the background
Which will run better on an older system? The one with fewer total polygons. The animations are fed in likethe models. However the engine will cut out frames if your card is being pushed too hard (lots of models in one area) making it look choppier than designed. This will happen a lot if you setup you graphic settings t work well when stationary in low pop areas.
Although I am not a fan of L2 they optimized the engine well. By removing a lot of extranious things entirely they reduce the load and were able to up the polygon count as well as keep it running well on older systems. The Unreal engine isn't the issue. It is partially user error and poor programming the vast majority of the time.
- Lineage 2
- Vanguard
- Spellborn
Lineage performance was better because of the limited number of models ... as the models become more specialized, the performance slows down. But the rendered models in Lineage are also gangly and dont carry their weight correctly. This works fine for anime style animation as the characters do not have realistic body distributions to begin with.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining about that, I like cartoonish graphics if they fit to the game. One thing I like very well is the thing about collision. Really looking forward to it because it really ruins the atmosphere seeing someone sitting or standing in a solid object.
If I should upgrade to a new grafik-card i would need to update my entire computer (using a AMD 754 socket, and AGpX8, so that would mean new mboard, new processor, new grafficard).
iv a pretty vet MMOPRG player, so its rare mmorpgs only aims after high end system (they are almost, always pretty versatile), But in these days with the grafik-card companies paying off the game companies to optimise the Req specs to suit their needs, you can never know..
And that's the story with all engines: it's as nice as the developer makes it.
Give the Unreal Engine 3 to me and it will still look horrible. Give it to John Carmack and you will have to blink several times to see if you are watching a game or a movie.
current game:
world of warcraft.
how original
they're using a modified unreal 2.0 engine, same as Lineage 2, RF Online and some other mmorpgs also used. Ofcourse the developers alter the engine and add some extra graphical stuff in it
Fragland.net - Fragland Arcade - Fragland.be - ScifiBelgium
When the next generation of PC gaming begins, it requires a monster PC. And a monster PC costs a lot of money. That's the big downside for PC gaming in my opinion: it's too expensive. Consoles are something you buy once in the 5 years and then you can play games. Off course, the PC beats the consoles over time with graphics, but at least you don't spent thousands of dollars to play the most recent games.
current game:
world of warcraft.
how original
"The swedes are well built, powerful, supple, capable of enduring the hardest work, starvation and trouble. They are born warriors, full of pride..."
- Francois Voltaire, 1731
That´s right, the system requirements are ok. I think that the graphic style from Spellborn will make the difference, it looks a little bit like comics, but not too much, I love it!
CoX is the only other game I like the models in besides L2.
The only things you create in the engine's editor itself is the terrain, any BSP geometry for basic level creation, lighting, in-game cinematics and ai-nodes for bot/npc pathing.
and the cash shop selling asphalt..." - Mimzel on F2P/Cash Shops