Lackluster Graphics in FFXIV

[Abriael]

I stopped reading your post after this statement.

Too bad, because the whole post proves you wrong (selective reading mh?). And you may not like the statement, but it's true. Dynamic lights need to be placed,and even more so manually tweaked (or you'll see stuff like out of place shadows that pass through the environment and horrible glitches like that, that are quite well known in MMOs that include that kind of effect) or you think they magically appear by themselves?

You seem to have a very, very simplified idea of game development. Something like "oh yeah, all effects are just a toggle, add a line of code so that they are enabled and they magically appear".

I'm sure many developers wish you were right

I'll give you a little "educational" piece of advice. To distinguish between effects that require just a toggle, and effects that normally require much more work, go to your NVIDIA or ATI control panel, and check what you can force on the engine. Those are the effects that can be simply "toggled" in most engines out there.
It's not a 100% comprehensive list, but it's a very good place to start. You'll notice that Ambient occlusion is there. Reflective Water or dynamic lighting are not.

[Meleena]

I'm no journalist, but I do know that if your article's headline has a controversial twist that doesn't quite fit within the context of your article, it'll draw a lot more attention. News joints do this all the time... Looks like it work out for me.

Not right tags, not right language = skipped.

[BelgianRofl]

^0:43 of that video shows what a game will look like when it's low-poly, low-res textures, but has real shading

[Abriael]

^0:43 of that video shows what a game will look like when it's low-poly, low-res textures, but has real shading

Without any character/mobile on an undisclosed system, from afar. Even WoW shown scenes that look as good/better than that, out of context.

It doesn't even compare to FFXIV.

[Wenceslas]

Without any character/mobile on an undisclosed system, from afar. Even WoW shown scenes that look as good/better than that, out of context.

It doesn't even compare to FFXIV.

That why I said "(and yeah, I know what you'll say : this is not the final product, it'll certainly not run like this with 1000 characters, so the graphics will be downscaled on final version. And you may be right. We can just wait and see...)
"
And well.. theres no characters.. maybe cause it's a WIP. But here's not the subject.
I'm glad if you've understand that i'm not yelling that "FFIXV have horrible graphics" or stupids things like this.
I just think a little optimisation should let the dev add one or two more effect. Crystal tool is prefectly capable to do it.

[Abriael]

And well.. theres no characters.. maybe cause it's a WIP. But here's not the subject.
I'm glad if you've understand that i'm not yelling that "FFIXV have horrible graphics" or stupids things like this.
I just think a little optimisation should let the dev add one or two more effect. Crystal tool is prefectly capable to do it.

What I'm saying is not that the engine cannot be optimized further (NO engine cannot be optimized further, in fact we're running on a quite advanced version of the CTE compared to older games, as much as versions of every third party commercial engines continue to be released), What I'm saying is that the engine is much more optimized that people would say, and there's really no tools to state that it's not, as no other comparable game (MMORPG with the same graphical quality) has been released or even officially announced.

As I said before, it's very possible that the engine will be improved further down the line. It happens with every MMORPG out there (that has a decently active development), but this doesn't imply that the engine isn't as optimized as possible for the *current* time.

[Wenceslas]

What I'm saying is not that the engine cannot be optimized further (NO engine cannot be optimized further, in fact we're running on a quite advanced version of the CTE compared to older games, as much as versions of every third party commercial engines continue to be released), What I'm saying is that the engine is much more optimized that people would say, and there's really no tools to state that it's not, as no other comparable game (MMORPG with the same graphical quality) has been released or even officially announced.

As I said before, it's very possible that the engine will be improved further down the line. It happens with every MMORPG out there (that has a decently active development), but this doesn't imply that the engine isn't as optimized as possible for the *current* time.

Oh yeah. I agree with you.

[BelgianRofl]

There's not even 1000 characters logged into an FFXIV server at any given time. At most there are like 100 Characters on screen, all of which cast shadows, and all of which have different sets of gear and armor. Is it so much to ask SE to make the landscape cast shadows as well? Easy Peezy Japaneezy!

[Abriael]

Oh yeah. I agree with you.

Glad to see we could see eye to eye.

There's not even 1000 characters logged into an FFXIV server at any given time. At most there are like 100 Characters on screen, all of which cast shadows, and all of which have different sets of gear and armor. Is it so much to ask SE to make the landscape cast shadows as well? Easy Peezy Japaneezy!

Do you mean that they should code the game based on the current population? Come on. This is silly.

Obviously they have to take in account the possibility of heavy traffic. Do you expect them to tell us "oh yeah, now we're adding more effects, but mind you, we're taking them away when the PS3 version launches".

100 characters on screen are a TON (mind you, even 50) of stress on the hardware. Especially with the level of detail we have in FFXIV. If landscapes casted shadows, they should cast shadows not only on themselves, but on the characters as well (otherwise it would look absolutely ugly). This means that every shadow has to interact with every polygon of the characters. That's quite a lot further calculations weighing on the graphics chip.

Just think about this. Your character walks in a shadow under a mountain. Everything around him is dark... and he's perfectly lighted!

Honestly, it'd look much worse than what we have now.

[BelgianRofl]

If landscapes casted shadows, they should cast shadows not only on themselves, but on the characters as well (otherwise it would look absolutely ugly).

The 100 on-screen characters already do this. I'll repeat myself again and again to keep my info-graphic on the front page.... Ambient Occlusion taxes the system waay more than landscape and structures casting shadows.

This: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...Floodlight.png :will make the game look greattttt for those of us crazy enough to spend $400 on a GPU!!!! WOOOOO!