[Engine related] Glass and transparency

[AkiRouscelia]

Now this might seem like a waste of a thread for some people but I was just caught up watching this video from E3 2005 where the first concept video of the next generation MMO was being showcased.

Personally, I feel a lot of macro detail is missing from current stage FFXIV. Now we all know that the zone system will make a return to allow for macro detail and so on, which is fantastic news. Although, something else came to my attention when looking at the video, glass.

Have you ever had a slight irritation when walking through town or say, Gridania's own Carline Canopy and having not been able to see through the windows and wondered why? I do.
I feel when looking at that old tech-demo that having that see-through glass made it so much more attractive, and perhaps some over looked that small detail that certainly, in my eyes, added a lot for so little.

Has there been any mention of whether or not this will be included in 2.0?

[VoltaAsura]

Thanx for the link! I haven't seen that demo in many years.

It's a good question you bring up, and tbh I don't know if I ever realized u cant look through windows in FFXIV. Funny cuz I've been playing since beta lol. I think the issue here, as far as comparing that demo to FFXIV as of now, is the difference in gaming engine? Perhaps with the current engine, they weren't able to use those types of textures?

Also, not sure if this has ever been brought up before in the forums...

[Atoli]

I doubt it has, most people were occupied with complaining about gamebreaking problems.
But really, I'd love to have seethrough glass.
The style in the video is very FFXI-ish, granted, but the glass was just beautiful

Also..3 dimensional water instead of one layer of blueish color..

[Alhanelem]

The glass was probably done the way it was for performance reasons (e.g., probably ps3 considerations), and also for zoned interiors (e.g. the inn rooms), so that they don't have to re-build and re-render everything that might be outside (again, a performance thing)

[bobbygunz]

Hmm, i don't know. Transparent windows would surely just involve distorting the background a bit (I mean, it's not like they have to actually add a dynamic reflection or anything) much in the same way that the water in this game works.

If you remember the Halloween event (which had that distortion booth), and if you also consider how water works in this game, then there's really no overt reason why they shouldn't be able to have windows in FFXIV, when you think about it.

I mean, that's just a thought experiment, obviously. Maybe there's some glaring technical issue I failed to account for. i.e., PS3 limitations?

[AkiRouscelia]

Nice to see some replies. If you support this idea of immersion please help bring this to the attention of the developers in hopes of a response.

I think that regardless of PS3 and other hardware limitations transparent glass shouldn't be an issue. After all, is it not that Final Fantasy has always been quoted as a visual masterpiece series? I know little of the engine (as does anyone outside of Square Enix) but I believe there are always ways to work things like this into practice.

I can't stress enough the importance and generally huge effect macro detail has on the broader scale of presentation.

[Delmontyb]

Wow, haven't seen or thought of this video in a while. Neat to think that this could have been an early design for Limsa. With it having many bridges and being over the water and all.

[Morticous]

That town is cooler then any town we currently have!

[Sehro]

look how all those npcs are full of life and it would be cool if they add creatures flying around like in that CG at end for 2.0 .

[Sinzfeldt]

Funny this should crop up as this has crossed my mind a couple of times this week being sat in my inn room and not being able to see out! 14 has all nice high poly count models and everything but is really lacking in the shader/lighting/fx department. It would be nice if they fixed the flat texture water and added some reflections or added some transparent materials here and there but i imagine that is sadly not on the agenda.