22 replies to this topic

[Mewbot]

the lod system has really been ironed out, 

Definitely, there's almost no pop in for grass whatsoever after those other trailers showed tons of pop-in. Also the ground and rock formations look nicer and the monster designs have seen a touch-up (those flying whale things look a lot better than they used to).

[NintendoReport]

Yeah, a pretty big one. Many placeholders have been replaced, near lod models for many assets have been added, many more assets period have been created, and the lod system has really been ironed out, functioning at proper distance sets instead of the randomness of the earlier build. A few bad pairings (a mid model rock is replaced by a near model rock, of blatantly different size and shape for example, but by and large a vast, vast improvement.

Still a lot of noticable work to do, heading into the final phase (mob collision detection, more near lod's like certain car and civilian models etc), but the fruits of monoliths hiring spree is already very apparent.

Looks like well finally get the uncompromised gears/saga game and story package neither squeenix nor namco ever let them make. And it will be amazing.

 

Dynamic lighting and weather correct? There was debate on gaf *mostly from a troll it appeared* that the shadows were baked but you can clearly tell in the one shot of the streets how the shadow changes over the tall alien as he walks.

 

Also, how did they manage the grass detail over such a large world? Is it sprite based? and is this different then what Zelda U is doing for foliage/grass? 

Edited by Sorceror12, 07 November 2014 - 05:31 AM.

[3Dude]

Dynamic lighting and weather correct? There was debate on gaf *mostly from a troll it appeared* that the shadows were baked but you can clearly tell in the one shot of the streets how the shadow changes over the tall alien as he walks.
 
Also, how did they manage the grass detail over such a large world? Is it sprite based? and is this different then what Zelda U is doing for foliage/grass?

Yeah, you could tell the environment/sky light was dynamic since day 1, but its improved considerably in the latest build.

The grass looks similar to xenoblades system, which was a mix of several things, texture put over a single transparent triangle/quad with the value of the rotational axis set to always face the camera, along with some that were only done with the horizontal axis (so if you elevated the camera they would respond correctly to vertical foreshortening but the horizontal rotation would still face the camera) and modeled fauna. Intanced hundreds of times (many more for x).

Zeldas grass appears to be a fully modeled blade, with a decent amount of articulation points, most likely with models of decreasing complexity the further into the distance, independent of camera rotation, instanced thousands upon thousands of times, to fill the environment without the cpu choking on draw calls.