Shift: 2 Unleashed

[Toptube]

Originally Posted by Ascended_Saiyan

And, mechanical damage (right before the 60fps question)? BTW, thanks for your take on my questions.

I already implied the answer earlier in my post, which is why I didn't include that question. Shift 1 had mechanical damage. Yes, Shift 2 has it.

The graphical quality, from pictures, are similar to GT5 (minus resolution increase). They have lots of 2D trees as well. You can easily see them in the pic below (pic 2 of 8).

http://www.computerandvideogames.com...icle&id=240598

I just don't understand why a 30fps racer would have that many 2D trees. I would like to know how many polys they are pushing per track.

Well, those trees aren't 2D. They are 3D objects, just very simple. If they were 2D, you'd only ever see one side of them and they would appear to turn as you went by them. Its just one of those things. Graphics power isn't enough yet to put tons of model detail into all of your assets. So certain things that you'll only ever see from far away will be made more simple. In racing games you are also generally moving pretty fast, so things like trees that don't have hard edged defined shapes can get away with simple assets. As they'll still look reasonably complex at speed. and in the end, you gotta cut corners somewhere. Very few games have convincing trees as it is, for a racing game, that's like the last thing you'd invest detail into.

Shift 2 seems to have nice shadow resolution, however it doesn't seem to match the cars. It could just be my mistake. Judge for yourself (pic 8 of 8). Also, shadows are missing, altogether, in some pics (pic 2 of 8). The tents and RVs have shadows in a certain direction, but the cars on the track don't have any. That would suggest the shadows aren't dynamic. That would, also, suggest the nice HDR lighting is static.

Baked shadows/lighting or not, this seems to be a nice multiplatform showing, so far.

A. The shadows don't look right due to perspective. First of all, placement of the light source in relation to the object casting a shadow will net different results for what the shadow will look like. Stand in front of a window with the sun shining through it into your house and you'll likely cast a shadow that's 8 feet long or whatever. Also, the placement of the camera further skews the perceived shaped of the shadow. Those amazing sidewalk chalk drawings that look like 3-Dimensional are actually an optical illusion based on perspective. The drawings are actually VERY long, but you place the camera in the right position and everything looks right.

B. The chase shot from the sky with no shadows, likely an LoD (Level of Detail) issue. 3D engines are typically programmed to dynamically simplify objects as you get further away from them. You may also notice sometimes that lightsources, shadows, and other small objects will dissappear or reappear as you lose or gain distance. Looks like their shadow LoD may be a little too aggressive. It'll be interesting to see if that's something that is tweaked by release.