Now I understand why I stopped coming here.
 
Thank you, you've made me disinterested in this cesspool. Congratulations on scaring away a member.

Congratulations on your willful ignorance depriving yourself of great games, and unwittingly insulting the people who made all the great games you claim you like by replacing them and their years of hard work with a mere trademarked logo.

When you grow up a little, I'll always be willing to show the way to a world thats still square.

I will leave you with one last peice of advice:

Go look at the credits to your favourite square soft games. Look at the NAMES of the PEOPLE who MADE those games.
You will see names like Hironobu Sakaguchi, Tetsuya Takahashi, and Ubuo Uematsu.
Google these names, and see where they are today, and what games they have made.

Yes, "vapid" was the word and I misspelled it. My bad. But it still applies to your post, as it means "offering nothing that is stimulating or challenging."

I dont think think anyone here would think any of my posts could possibly be considered 'non challenging' or 'unforceful' as is the case with vapid. Quite the opposite, and I would ruffle far less feathers, including yours, if my posts in fact, WERE a little more vapid.
 
 

See, because of the fact that you just flat out insulted one of my favorite developers by telling me to "stop following them" is one of the many not good posts about Square I have seen many times before. It's just shocking that you, a Mod on this site, would say this crap to me. A staff member on a forum being rude to other people's likes by telling them the developer sucks and that I need to move on from them. Why did you even have to say any of that? To instigate a fight? If not, then what good could POSSIBLY come from you criticizing Square in one of the most stupidest comments I've seen?

Thats because you are blindly following a corporate trademark instead of the HUMAN BEINGS that made your favourite games, that made square soft, yours, mine, and practically EVERYBODIES favourite PRODUCTION HOUSE (might want to know what a developer actually is, and what a publishing house actually is) at one point in time, because of the unrivaled HUMAN TALENT they posessed in their development studios.

I tried to help you out, but you are still faaarrr to indoctrinated to be reasoned with.

So, you keep waiting on a corporate trademark that you THINK is your favourite developer, which is actually a PUBLISHING HOUSE, which no longer contains the developers that made the great games from the square soft days, for the next who knows how many years.Another two? Four? Seven? until they eventually, inevitably release yet another dissapointing product.

While I , actually WILL be playing the games from your favourite developers. Just as I have been for the past half a decade.
[\quote]
 
 

Again, how does A MODERATOR show off as a positive role model to people when they flat out insult members for expressing their opinions? I mean seriously? You made a very rude comment towards people like me liking Square, you don't think I was gonna let that go?
 
Reporting you and request that you be stripped of your mod powers. This is ridiculous.

For starters I dont coddle kids in desperate need of a wake up call. Insult kid? Where is the damn insult? The only thing I did was give you a dose of reality and some damn good advice. Quit whining, just because I dont shower the corporate conglomeration you are pavlovically conditioned to like in flowers and roses, instead, sending that praise to where it belonged, THE HUMAN BEINGS WHO ACTUALLY MADE THE GAMES, does not make an insult.

And yeah, I DO blame the public schools for setting you up for failure. You are going to get eaten alive in the real world as you are now.

Okay, SERIOUSLY? All I said was that I am a fan of Square Enix. THAT IS MY OPINION. How does me liking Square insult people? Seems like you just can't handle people with differing views as your own.
 
Is this how moderators get their kicks on here? Bullying people by telling them what they can and can't like, and then insult them by saying they must have had a lack of schooling? Is this really how an efficient community runs?
 
You can like whatever you like, but bare in mind that I can too. I will always stick by Square despite their shortcomings. For you to just act like an softshell lizard to me for no good reason other than because I like the "current" Square is really immature and it shows just how unlikeable you are.

Of course you can like whatever you like. That doesnt mean that its not foolish, and it most CERTAINLY does not mean I cant discuss your opinion, on a message board.

If you really want to know how your idolizing a company trademark is insulting the people who once made games under that trademark, perhaps you should read the ENTIRETY of my posts, instead of having kneejerk reactions to the first couple words.

Perhaps you should think of the reasons WHY the creator of final fantasy decided to leave square eenix when he did. And WHY the creators of chrono trigger and xenogears left when they did. Why the creator of valkyrie profile and vagrant story left when they did. Why the possibly most famous videogame composer in the world, Mr. Uematsu decided to leave square eenix when he did. And WHY they all left at the same time.

You are idolizing the trademark of a corporation that abused the people who made the games you like for YEARS, from the moment Eenix took over square soft, until they finally left. And when they left so they could continue making the kind of games squeenix would no longer let them make, you ignored them to continue doting on the empty husk of a trademark, instead of recognizing the abused people who made the games under that trademark.

Let me give you a little insight, here is something someone who worked for square eenix said on career contacts:

"There's dissatisfaction with the salaries and the auditing system. Motivation is low because the ways to move ahead in the company are not clear. Because producers are unable to clearly express their visions for games, the titles must be reworked over and over. That's related to games missing their release dates.... One's practical worth isn't really looked at, but rather, personal friendship is how merit is assessed."

And now, ff15, and kh3, despite being years upon years upon years upon years in development, were not shown at e3.

hmmm..... hmmmm.... 2+2 is..... HHHHHHMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM

Here, however, IS an actual insult against Square Eenix since you so desperately seem to be searching for one, whilst all I provide are facts you dont seem to like:

合併は完全に失敗。未来に対するビジョンが無い。

"The merger was a complete failure. There's no vision for the future." -Hisashi Suzuki, Former President of Square Soft, regaurding the state of the company a few years after the Eenix merger.

Nintendo, Atari and Sega abused the programmers for years too, people were fired for wanting credits for in their games.

This is so very true, Hiroshi Yamauchi was infamous for just this kind of thing. Which is one of many reasons I am such an avid supporter of Iawata,, who is for things like monolithsofts simply AMAZING pro employee workplace environments. Andit makes it all the better that monolithsoft basically is golden age squaresoft, releasing modern products comparable to the best square soft released in its golden age when they were part of it.

lol, I remember at least 3 times he's closed threads because of his arguments, and a few thousand deleted posts.

God I remember him.

Always with the him, everytime, spamming the same nonsense he already posted and failed with the past 2-4 pages of the thread, over and over and over and over.

Thank Kaz he got both his accounts banned.

It wasn't about what he said. It was just you pushing your agenda again. I don't care though. I know what you people are like and I'm more globin than that guy. I won't respond to you about this again, and I actually mean it. I think you're a smart guy but you need to calm down.

1. Agenda: a list of items to be discussed at a formal
meeting.

Oh noes not THAT!

2. Do you think you can possibly explain perhaps HOW, the reason square eenix employees state for why they are always missing deadlines and having no shows, has nothing to do with someone lamenting about square eenix having no shows at e3?

I dont think you sufficiently or reasonably can.

I think thats just your emotionally charged idle opinion responding to surface tone instead of subject matter. Its a pretty common, and sadly, very debilitating trait among the over privileged children of today, who havent had enough adversity in their lives to understand how to handle any manner of adversity or confrontation, neither the healthy discussion type, and most certainly not the malicious kind. Woefully unprepared.

 

Not treating everybody with rainbows and cotton candy, and kissy lips, is not the same thing as 'pushing an agenda'. I dont have a hidden agenda. I am fiercley, and openly, pro employee and pro consumer. That is not 'an agenda'. You'd best get used to it, what I do and expect of people, here, is NOTHING compared to what I expect from the people who work under me. And Im a saint compared to a lot of my peers.

Yeeeeaaahhhh, see, I've learned not to even reply to vapent replies like yours anymore.

Except... You just did.

Still love them, don't tell me what to do, ya foo'. Just was disappointed that nothing was shown this year.

That must be nice.

XV just going to be another Hallway combat simulator with a few small arenas to keep it looking pretty. Not the open world RPG that was promised many years back. That comes in the form of XBX. KH series is so freaking awful never get the following it has. Also did you just invent a word?

Pretty sure he was trying to use 'vapid'... Which is the opposite of what he would want to use in this situation.

I blame the state of the public schools and devolution of contemporary game design.

Just shut up. He said he wanted to see more about FFXV not that he was a big fan of the old games.



Oh really? You're the one that flipped out and didn't pay attention to what he actually said. Instead you start writing text walls about the old games developers which were never mentioned. He never said a thing about the old games. He said that he wants to know more about the new ones. It's no wonder he doesn't care for comments from people like you who have to mention how far these old companies have fallen every time someone shows interest in one of their games.

No. He complained that squeenix hasnt shown anything about ffX15 or kh3 at e3 despite them being in development for nearly a decade.

Everything I have posted is DIRECTLY related to that.

He had a negative reaction to reality, was not ready to think outside his bubble, and denied it. I then begin bringing up, example by example, the events that lead to the state of his current dissapointment.

I gave him the actual reason why, nothing was shown, along with advice to avoid inevitable future dissapointment. To pay attention to the people who make the games you like, and not the trademarked logo they temporarily worked under.

The game making end leadership of squaresoft has left the company resulting in a company with no direction, no vision, and a broken product throughput management system, whilst the employees who are left are abused, talent is neglected, good old boy buddy system is used for advancement, leading to the constant delays and no shows of games in developement (directly from the mouths of square eenix employees).

If he TRULY enjoys games from modern squeenix, if he TRULY appreciates the people who make, and currently are working on the games he is looking forward to, you would think he would want them to work in a positive, financially secure healthy work environment, and not a degrading, abusive, unstable environment.

To recap: Loss of key leadership personell and staff that followed+abusive corporate policy==No ff15 or kh3 shown, and a heavy basis for repeated behavior.

It was always about what he said.

Same thing We do every year Pinky.



Ask where the Hell the Last Guardian was.

I actually was very displeased with Square Enix's choice of not showing any progress on FF15 or Kingdom Hearts 3, besides an all-text scene at the end of 2.5's E3 trailer.
 
Seriously, you hype up 2 games that people have wanted for more than 7 years now and you don't bother to show some progress when you initially promise that the games are first on your priority scale? Dick move, guys. Dick move.

They most likely did it because those games are in no shape to show. 15 probably saw horrible downgrades when switching to the underpowered ps4 (compared to the pc the demo was being run on) and knowing squeenix, has made no progress at all. And KH is likely also syuck in squeenix dev hell.

Stop following squeenix. It will only dissapointment, again and again, and again. There is no square soft left in squeenix. Its an empty rotting shell.

Follow the people who made the great square soft games you remember. FF series, ff6,7,8 chrono trigger, Xenogears.... Squeenix cant make games like that anymore because the people who made them left squeenix a long time ago. But unlike squeenix, those people who left, are STILL making square soft top quality games.

All these old siggraph lectures and college guest speakers, recordings, etc I dug up, containing excerpts and interactions with designers like Blow and Rohrer made me go back and spend some more brutal time In The Castle Doctrine. (I was actually present in the conversation when he came up with the idea of allowing the wife to have a shotgun XD).

Apparantly ive still got it. I managed to Rob 7 people before I came home and found my own wife and family murdered, and my vault emptied, and committed suicide.

Final fantasy crystal bearers.

What a fantastic, criminally under rated adventure game.

Fantastic world design, fantastic exploration design, fantastic world interaction, fun combat.... And one of the worst vo's EVER.

Such a shame the large majority of gamz girnoliz were so damn stupid they couldnt figure out how the reaction system worked in relation to combat, and actually thought the only way to fight enemies was to throw rocks at them over and over and over again like morons instead of say, feeding those rocks to the large floating monster until it got too heavy to float and drowned, or shutting a giant robots visor before it fired its mega laser causing it to blow its head off....

Criminally under rated game. Probably be a great buy for 10 bucks and anyone wanting a good 20 hour adventure with tons of replay value beyond just running through the events until the end of the game while we wait for wii u's library to blossom.

Mk8. Surprise.

Heh, I have both Golden Sun and yggdra union on my android. Also got GS on my wii u. The miiverse integration was enjoyable.

Enjoy Golden sun much more. The dialog is extremely verbose, but it and the story is just as solid as yggdra union. Which is nowhere near compelling enough to make the games worthwhile without some solid game to back them up.

Golden sun has an interesting combat system, fun flashy battle graphics, fantastic world design, fantastic exploration, fantastic rewards for exploring, and great town and dungeon design.

Yggdra union has an interesting combat system, No world design, no exploration, no towns, irritating but very necessary item management... And some REALLY questionable character designs. I like how they simulate each character as being in charge of a battallion, and having to manage morale.

And since I cant stomach any more of bravely defaults truly atrocious end game... now Im going back to my Xenoblade replay.

I really don't know where you're getting that Golden Sun's storyline is on par with Yggdra's. Granted, Yggdra Union's story isn't really anything to rave about (much less validate the entire game), but at least it's functional and consistent, which is way more than can be said about Golden Sun's filler&sidetracking story.

Golden suns story is perfectly functional and consistant in comparison to yggdra union. Its not like we are talking disc one of Xenogears or Xenoblade level story here. And the simple fact it actually has SOME manner of stage direction to go along with the dialog and events, makes it much better than portraits and text.
 
 
 
 
 
 

I disagree about the combat system. It's just too unbalanced and devoid of challenge to consider it interesting. Yggdra Union fluctuates a lot in terms of difficulty, but the game at least tries to push you into properly learning the system.

Opinon invalidated on basis of ignorance. Good luck spamming the same single element classes, summon spams and other junk you used for the cannon fodder on the secret bosses.... And seeing someone who thinks like that get an eye openeing smackdown in the battle mode is always amusing.

Ygdrra union doesnt have a particularly interesting battle system once the novelty wears off... ANd the game drags on for an eternity after that point. Its a shallow and pretty transparent finite state machine. The game in General is heavily outdone several times over by series like fire emblem, with the sole exception of the fairly interesting player 'interaction' and special move aspect.... I cant even really give props for the 'ganging up/linking' strategy... I feel fire emblem also does a much better job with this with its own take. It really just isnt interesting or varied enough to make up for the poor map design, and complete and absolute lack of player agency, and the hours upon hours it drags on.... ANd of course, Ive always had a distate for the card thing style. 

 
 
 
 
 

The dungeon design didn't really do anything for me. At first I thought it was great, but the game recycled the pushing puzzles so much that I lost all interest on it by the time I was done with the mercury lighthouse. Didn't really help that the game has a fetish for samey-looking caves, either. I do appreciate that they tried to do something besides just linear dungeons though, so that's something to praise about it.

I find it amusing that you complain about repitition and golden suns dungeons not having enough variety visually... Whilst comparing it to yggdra union. Which is a consistant, constant, and far greater offender in this category.

 

As for Yggdra Union lacking exploration... well, it's an srpg. No exploration is pretty standard for the genre, so I don't really think it's anything to hold against it. It sounds like you place a lot of value in exploration. It's not like I don't get why people like Golden Sun,

Fire Emblem has great exploration. To the effect of

A. Finding information leading to secret campaigns.
B. Finding and recruiting characters for your army
C. Finding Finding great weapons
D. Finding tactically advantadgous avenues of approach.

Its called ensuring the player is able to act upon their own agency.

People who enjoy Golden sun are very, very, VERY well aware of the series shortcomings. Which is why Golden sun 2 is such a huge deal, as its damn near perfection for the series, fixing every problem Golden sun had (Except the extremely verbose dialog), and improving and adding on a massive scale. And also why they find Golden sun 3 so dissapointing.
 

it's just that the opinion on this game is so one-sided that I feel compelled to point out its flaws.

Funny, your one sided opinion compelled me to do the same.

Nice strawman.

Not saying it's not there.

Saying that's not an example of it. I've even carefully explained exactly where I'm referring too...

But keep playing your little charade.

You specifically said that 'they must be calculating it differently there' as if not using uniform lighting was a negative. Look, just circle the area you are talking about, and comparing it too on a screenshot and post it up so we can be sure we are talking about the same thig. Although you may not care anymore because youll be too busy looking at this:

And its also going to have day/night cycles, AND DYNAMIC weather,

Wow at that road texture, 8k indeed.

*update* Megaphenix asked shin en about tesselation and got a response, good job phenix!

@ megafenix64 2d
@ShinenGames wow, the geometry looks
so real and shadows seem to respect the
bumpy areas of the silhouette,must likely
tessellation work
View details ·
Shin'en Multimedia
@ ShinenGames
1d
@megafenix64 @ShinenGames We used a lot of 3D scanning. Great results but

hard to work with >1GB files for a single
mesh...

 

 

 

 

3dude and Shinen ALREADY ANSWERED YOUR FREAKING QUESTION, NUMEROUS TIMES.

 

 

Yeah, hes not pulling the repeating the same exact crap over and over and over again here. Any copy pasta repeats are getting hidden with a label explaining why. 

 

This isnt IGN Fenix, you arent going to fill 25 damn pages with the same exact crap post about the same exact damn rock, ignoring everything that proves you wrong along the way.

 

If you want another 'repeat zone', as cloud succinctly put it in response to your obnoxious nonsense, go back to ign. You arent turning this thread, into THIS:

 

http://www.ign.com/b...775697/page-267

If you won't get into technical jargin then your thoughts are worthless when you been told by 3dude and others it can do 1080P just fine.
Seriously stop. Stop talking. Jesus are you the new Mahmood? Negative Nancy.

Hmmm....

I personally feel he did a pretty good job expressing himself with this line right here:

"The best looking graphics in Native 720p and gameplay at 60fps."

Which I feel covers the best graphical fidelity, with 60fps, would be generally @720p, leaving exceptions of simply outstanding examples of technical prowess.

Also, to me this leaves room for:

lowering graphical bells and whistles for increased resolution, like 1080.

Or lowering frame rate to 30fps for increased graphical fidelity/bells and whistles and resolution.

Or even lowering resolution for increased graphical bells and whistles and frame rate.


I see considering the wii u to be a machine, where your best graphical effects for at 60 frames per second, is generally at 720p as pretty reasonable. And anything that surpasses that, would be fantastic and very impressive.

I definately see it as more reasonable than his prior negative nancy days of 'well see if it can have any good graphics', perhaps seeing fast racing neo screens made him consider the console had some grunt behind it third parties really were missing.

oh it does, here

 

it loos pretty good to me, the terrain and the rocks have pretty good lod and judging by the geometry and the shadows seems they used tessellation with dispalcements here

 

No tesselation w/displacement maps. Thats just good lighting, shadow maps, ssao, and excellent ibl tricks

oh shiznet.

Yeah, can't really tell if there is tessellation present or not unless you see it moving.

The environment shadows look great. So do the models (except the large racetrack enclosure... Not overly thrilled with that. Low poly and some old tricks used to flesh out geometry with texture maps pretending to be geometry. But a team that small putting out a game this fast that looks this amazing... Nor prob. Just being hyper critical. The reason it stands out so much is directly due to just how outstanding everything else looks. ) and textures.

But the shadow where the large track enclosure meets the "land" area is really old school. Would be nice to dial down the "photoshop drop shadow effect" there.

Now I'm excited to see the vehicle models.

So glad they chose a realistic art direction.

Not sure what you are seeing with the racetrack overhead, it is simple, but by design, its supposed to be a trapezoid, and Im not sure what you are seeing with the textures trying to emulate geometry, as it appears to be completely smooth slabs of concrete beams in the shape of a trapezoid. If it was trying to shave polies, it would do it on the perfectly round er... air conditioning units on the underside. Why is the track air conditioned? In the open desert? Does anyone know what else those units could be? Anyways, another reason I dont think this is a low poly shortcut is because in several instances down the track it switches from the trapezoid to a perfectly smooth half dome.

A good example of what I think you were talking about can be made note of with the trees in the background, especially the trees on the nearest rock, as they are close enough to see that they are, in fact, completely flat like billboards, but given the illusion of being full trees by very well done lighting and shading.

As for the photoshop drop shadow, if its what I think you are talling about, the strip on the left side of the track, thats actually not a shadow at all. From where the light source is (sun) overhead and on the left side, and seeing how the shadows of everything is casted from left to right, and rather long indicating time of day/angle) we can tell that the sun is rising (assuming the track is heading south, as it doesnt look like a setting scene) we can tell that there in fact, should be no cast shadow at all there, as that is the side and direction the sun is on and coming from.

So, what is it? Well, its an approximation on global illumination called ambient occlusion. As opposed to a shadow, which is cast by an object blocking light leaving a shadow in its shape, what we have here is the simulation of bouncing light not making it into that corner.

The majority of the light hits the ground, bounces off and up, and hits the concrete and reflects away, leaving a portion of the ground now without as much light.

*update* Megaphenix asked shin en about tesselation and got a response, good job phenix!

@ megafenix64 2d
@ShinenGames wow, the geometry looks
so real and shadows seem to respect the
bumpy areas of the silhouette,must likely
tessellation work
View details ·
Shin'en Multimedia
@ ShinenGames
1d
@megafenix64 @ShinenGames We used
a lot of 3D scanning. Great results but
hard to work with >1GB files for a single
mesh...


So it is indeed ibl, thanks for the confirmation phenix. Fantastic ibl results, the ibl looks really great.

I appreciate the amazing graphics on display in that one screen. Very much so in fact.

But I'm also objectively critiquing as well. I can do the same with any game on any console.

Obviously the budget and time constraints here are so much more sever than say Bungie and Activision and the massive staff that worked on destiny (which won't be moving near as fast. Lol) And I have found some rare compromises there too.

But the graphical fidelity here is the winner. The racetrack is supposed to be trapezoid and I'm sure polygon budget came into play with that design decision. There are a lot of polygons already in the environment. Factor in the race vehicles and the. The sheer speed at which you'll be racing, and it's very much an achievement. And the polygons trying to be geometry aren't where you're looking.

They are specifically the piping and/ or support structures laid on invisible polygons as texture maps on the upper end of the structure.

But the shadow the meets the ground from the structure... I'm still hoping they rethink that. It is a shadow effect. Looks like an extra texture layer. And it beyond respecting the lighting, there are many issues with it. May just be wanting to actually ship the game now. But there is still time. Everything else is so perfect that's something like that is almost jarring.

Oh, I see what you are talking about now. I dont really put to much care into scrutinizing low-mid lod assets, beyond do they transition to the close lod smoothly. Its kind of like concentrating on mid-far mipmaps. Although I dont think they are trying to be textured to look round. They look like they are supposed to be flat, thin rectangular prisms. With the hdr image based lighting they are using, if they wanted them to look round with the texture, the texture would look round as hell, as far as the texture is concerned anyways. Its shaded as if it were a flat peice of metal, and while I agree using that technique with something thats supposed to be round, like pipes is an eye sore, using it on something thats already supposed to be flat... doesnt look that out of place. At least the mid lod, looking at the picture on my monitor now, the far lod used on the last 2 sections actually DOES look pretty out of place. So yeah, totally. Still Im more concerned with how the transition to the close lod 3d model will be jarring or not, as you will never see the game from this angle as you will be on the track.

If you are looking to run a critical eye on something, dont forget to also look at the nearest group of trees, they arent supposed to be flat like billboards.

As for the shading on the left hand side, nope not a shadow, thats 100% Screen Space Ambient Occlusion, and a damn fine job at it too. Probably the best example of showing what ssao does for corners in terrain that ive seen in a long time.

If only I could get an ssao off version it would easily replace this for obvious/easiest visualization of ssao.


As its still a complex scene in frneo, but the ssao is really obvious and well done. And well, any active global illumination technique is the exact opposite of 'old school shading', even an approximation like ssao, and especially when its this well done.

Don't need to read what I already know.

And that doesn't look like ambient occlusion to me. If it is, they are applying it much differently than say to the mountain/hill models where they meet the ground where the lighting is the same.



What is seen in that screen is not present in higher end games on any of the new consoles, but IS on phones and mobiles. If it is ambient occlusion, it is an overzealous implementation that ruins the reality simulation the effect is supposed to achieve.

I don't think this is ambient occlusion at work either. Not in the actual area I'm referring to.

This isn't the inside of the structure. It's the OUTSIDE. where there is no need for a darker appearance/shadow. Where lighting wouldn't affect it. Not angles or corner. Literally spread out over the texture for quite a ways. And in a manner that doesn't jibe with the lighting. Capice?

Look at where the other geometrical structures meet the ground where the lighting is the same. There is a proper realistic shading from AO. Not this, which doesn't feature anywhere else.

If it is AO, they are using different calculations in that area and its a poor implementation. Needs to be refined so as not to look "cheap" while the rest of the scene looks great.

Let's keep it real here.

 

 

Every. single. ps4/xbone game out currently uses ambient occlusion.

 

http://www.fxguide.c...se-son-of-rome/

 

For some reason, you think lighting should be calculated uniformily across an entire environment, this is primitive, wrong and backwards. That is local illumination. This is GLOBAL illumination, with the lighting data painstakingly scanned from an actual image/extremely high fidelity render SPECIFICALLY to ensure the environments lighting is NOT uniformily calculated, because real life is NOT uniformly lit. Welcome to image based lighting.

 

Those other structures WONT be suffering the same light occlusion for a number of different reasons.

 

1. The main light source is coming at them from a different angle, because they are in very different positions.

2. They are at a different angle relationship from to the ground, one that does not occlude light from entering nearly as much. While the concrete is sloped over the sand, and the sand is sloping down instead of level, creating a light occluding funnel.

3. The rocks you are talking about are similar colors to the sand, a light tan as opposed to a concrete grey, their ambient reflection will have little noticable effect, while the concretes ambient reflection will add more.

3. There are no other objects nearby the big rocks, while the concrete slab has tons of objects diffusing and occluding light before it ever makes it to the concrete.

4. The angle from those objects to the camera/eye is very different, as they are in very different places to each other.

 

You have a LOT of reading to do.