- Dec 26, 2004
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Here's my opinion. Hope that the "game-tech" savy can correct me:
I've owned both games for about three weeks and can't decide which looks better. From what I can desipher and observe, Doom 3 took no shortcuts in it's design. Everything is bump and displacement mapped, and where applicable, geometry, not textures, were used, which accounts for the heavy processcing power required by the GPU. But I did notice one thing that seemed what I call "sloppy" : There is a line of seperation on every human character, right down the middle; this means that in the creation process, Id designers made one half of a character, then mirrored it to create the other side. And I found the PDA to be a little annoying. But otherwise, the art department must be commended. The enviornments look amazing, as do the creatures, and the aliasing is kept to a minimum. Lighting and shadow really helps the game look, well, "CREEPY".
Half-Life 2, however, is another beast. The story is simply great; drew me in the first 30 seconds. Being a sci-fi fan really helps, too. Anyway, the visuals are stunning. Not only is HL2 infinitely brighter than Doom 3, the Source engine and it's corresponding shaders, which I hear were used by Pixar, does an amazing job of rendering characters, enviornments, shadows, etc. But what really caught my attention was the Havok engine. How did they make the most complex physics engine in a game ever run so well? I was expecting the CPU load to be immense, as the CPU takes care of AI, physics, etc., but I was pleasently supprised that there was no slowdown when using the GG. The only problem I found was variety: there should be a larger variety of "Zombies", and human models repeat every now and then. Oh, and the friendly AI could use some work... when I go into a bathroom, I don't need a cheerleading squad to accompany me! But otherwise, GOOD WORK.
Fell free to comment and post your thoughts
I've owned both games for about three weeks and can't decide which looks better. From what I can desipher and observe, Doom 3 took no shortcuts in it's design. Everything is bump and displacement mapped, and where applicable, geometry, not textures, were used, which accounts for the heavy processcing power required by the GPU. But I did notice one thing that seemed what I call "sloppy" : There is a line of seperation on every human character, right down the middle; this means that in the creation process, Id designers made one half of a character, then mirrored it to create the other side. And I found the PDA to be a little annoying. But otherwise, the art department must be commended. The enviornments look amazing, as do the creatures, and the aliasing is kept to a minimum. Lighting and shadow really helps the game look, well, "CREEPY".
Half-Life 2, however, is another beast. The story is simply great; drew me in the first 30 seconds. Being a sci-fi fan really helps, too. Anyway, the visuals are stunning. Not only is HL2 infinitely brighter than Doom 3, the Source engine and it's corresponding shaders, which I hear were used by Pixar, does an amazing job of rendering characters, enviornments, shadows, etc. But what really caught my attention was the Havok engine. How did they make the most complex physics engine in a game ever run so well? I was expecting the CPU load to be immense, as the CPU takes care of AI, physics, etc., but I was pleasently supprised that there was no slowdown when using the GG. The only problem I found was variety: there should be a larger variety of "Zombies", and human models repeat every now and then. Oh, and the friendly AI could use some work... when I go into a bathroom, I don't need a cheerleading squad to accompany me! But otherwise, GOOD WORK.
Fell free to comment and post your thoughts