Hell's Highway Graphical Questions + Bonus Question

[Pachu]

Okay, since I have nothing else to do, I thought I might nag the devs a little while with irrelevant questions:

1-Will the game feature Parallax Mapping in order to make everything else seem less...Bidimensional? It's just a relative question, because maybe Parallaxing a brick wall would give it a more slimy extraterrestial look (Bump Mapping tends to be all extaterrestial) as in most games, and we sure as hell don't want that going on around 1944.
It would be nice though to see litle bumping rocks on dirt floors and not just plain textures.

2-Will there be, uhm...what do you call them?...Global Lightning? What is it?
What I mean (Let's see if I can put my words together), will the level's light source be, like, the SUN (As in Crysis, for example) with other little light sources such as muzzle flashes and others which basically cast lightning and shadow on EVERY SINGLE GEOMETRICAL ASSET of the level? Or will it be an omni-present source which will cause shadows to be casted only on non-static objects, such as character models and such?
Damn, that was a long question.
Let's put it this way: with the levels light source, will static objects such as walls or even little rocks on the floor cast shadows, making it the ultimate most-close-to-real experience in World War II tactical shootin'?

Or let me put it this way: Will EVERYTHING cast beatiful shadows?

3-Will the colors remain as what we've been seeing lately? I know that those pictures might be of really early builds, but it's the latest we have.
Thing is, at least to my appealing, it's really...colorful.
The first pictures that were released just had the perfect color balance, both in texturing as in enviroment overall.
Now it kinda looks...cartoonish, god forgive me. The uniforms are too green, the brick are too red...
It just worries me because even though it's not the biggest deal, color balance really sets the mood for a game. Too live colors will make you forget you're fighting germans and take you right back into jumping on Koopa Troopas to save the princess.
I'm not saying to go for something as dead and dark as colors in, say, Band of Brothers or Saving Private Ryan, but if that can be aimed for, it would just improve the experience.

I think that's about it by now. If I can think of something else really unimportant to bother people about, I will. ^^

BONUS:

You guys remember this promotional picture for Road to Hill 30 a good couple of good years ago?
http://www.hcgamer.hu/gamer/images/c...04_07/br02.jpg
...
Are ALL of those Sam Corrions?

[mn9500]

1. its unreal engine 3, so i would assume yes.
2. i would assume that there will be global lighting, most games that have very good graphics have it, and im sure the unreal engine 3 can handle it.
3. i think they will make the colors darker, but idk, it might be intensified for certain moments.

Bonis, yes all those are indeed Sam Corrion.

[LV-426]

1: yes. Botman mentioned it a while back ago.
2: yes.
3: depends what sort of tv you have and what settings your tv has... the game might not be all that colourful if you're using a B&W tv

[robotboots]

i can add a little to question one cause i have some time right now.

yes we have parallaxing much like most games currently (i'm going to stop calling it Next-Gen as it is current Gen)

now parallax mapping comes at a cost as it counts for more instructions against you. like most tech we get lots of new toys to use but they are not free. you get more power in the hardware with new things like 360 and PS3 however with things like normal maps, color specular, detail map, bump offset and so on and so on it starts to add up. we use parallax mapping but there have been times that we look at an area and review performance. then our goal becomes how do we keep up quality with performance. thus is the current task ahead of us.

Hell's Highway will have as many bells and whistles that we can afford to have without killing you guys on the performace. the classic tightwire act that we devs have to face

[el expl0siv0]

Originally Posted by robotboots

Hell's Highway will have as many bells and whistles that we can afford to have without killing you guys on the performace. the classic tightwire act that we devs have to face

I like the way you think, good sir!

[Pachu]

Originally Posted by robotboots

i can add a little to question one cause i have some time right now.

yes we have parallaxing much like most games currently (i'm going to stop calling it Next-Gen as it is current Gen)

now parallax mapping comes at a cost as it counts for more instructions against you. like most tech we get lots of new toys to use but they are not free. you get more power in the hardware with new things like 360 and PS3 however with things like normal maps, color specular, detail map, bump offset and so on and so on it starts to add up. we use parallax mapping but there have been times that we look at an area and review performance. then our goal becomes how do we keep up quality with performance. thus is the current task ahead of us.

Hell's Highway will have as many bells and whistles that we can afford to have without killing you guys on the performace. the classic tightwire act that we devs have to face

Thanks for the answer, Robot.
I think that Parallax is only necessary when it's absence is really noticeable, like previously mentioned brick walls or floors, which just don't look right on Normal-non-bumpmaps nowadays given the actual graphic standars (Unfortunately rocketing above gameplay).
I have full confidence that the game will run smoothly. You are after all working on one of the most hardware-friendly engines.
I've seen Gears of War and Unreal Tournament 3 run really smoothly and looking awesome on mid-end pc's, so at least on my behalf there's no worry that Hell's Highway will look and run awesomly on pretty much any gaming pc.

I JUST WANT TO PLAY IT SO DAMN BADLY!

[NanoFlak]

Half life 2 did it really well, what with the real time lighting and all...

[Necros]

Originally Posted by robotboots

i can add a little to question one cause i have some time right now.

yes we have parallaxing much like most games currently (i'm going to stop calling it Next-Gen as it is current Gen)

now parallax mapping comes at a cost as it counts for more instructions against you. like most tech we get lots of new toys to use but they are not free. you get more power in the hardware with new things like 360 and PS3 however with things like normal maps, color specular, detail map, bump offset and so on and so on it starts to add up. we use parallax mapping but there have been times that we look at an area and review performance. then our goal becomes how do we keep up quality with performance. thus is the current task ahead of us.

Hell's Highway will have as many bells and whistles that we can afford to have without killing you guys on the performace. the classic tightwire act that we devs have to face

Sounds great! Thanks for posting. But there's one thing I'd like to ask. Since the PCs can have more RAM and better hardware than the X360/PS3 are you doing some extra work on it, I mean adding some more/nicer features, other than DirectX10?

[Fletch]

1. Yes - See RobotBoots' answer
2. It's a combination. Static lighting is baked into the map, and from there, dynamic lights affect certain objects, but not others. It's a balancing act. Pure dynamic lighting is pretty expensive (note how Crysis doesn't run on 99.99% of computers on Earth), so we use it smartly. That way you get nice crisp shadows on people, vehicles, physics objects, etc, but you don't need a dynamic light to cast 1 pixel of dynamic shadow on a rock on the ground. It's a balancing act.
3. Those pictures are from the pre-alpha build, so they're not a fair representation of the game in it's current state. The new pictures are a much better reflection of our color palette. One of the great features of Unreal Engine 3, is we can do post-process color correction on levels to get the exact look and feel we want. On a sunny day, we can make it feel bright and bleached out. On a dark night, we can increase the blacks in the shadows. We tend to do each level separately so that each has the appropriate feel, while still somehow tying to what the player has seen before. There's a lot of the game we haven't shown yet that will help get those different moods across.

[dudas_91]

Originally Posted by Pachu

Thanks for the answer, Robot.
I think that Parallax is only necessary when it's absence is really noticeable, like previously mentioned brick walls or floors, which just don't look right on Normal-non-bumpmaps nowadays given the actual graphic standars (Unfortunately rocketing above gameplay).
I have full confidence that the game will run smoothly. You are after all working on one of the most hardware-friendly engines.
I've seen Gears of War and Unreal Tournament 3 run really smoothly and looking awesome on mid-end pc's, so at least on my behalf there's no worry that Hell's Highway will look and run awesomly on pretty much any gaming pc.

I JUST WANT TO PLAY IT SO DAMN BADLY!

*Cough... Cough* Here I go referencing MoH:A again. MoH:A uses UE3 and so does CoD4. However, I run MoH:A at middle settings with about 100% CPU usage. I can run CoD4 at full without maxing my CPU. And trust me. CoD4 should be more CPU intensive.

So if UE3 in hardware friendly than are the EA developers retarded?