[Rant] Cel-Shaded, Transparency Effects, BLOOM, GOURAD SHADING!

A tangent before I get started. With my avatar and signature tipping my hand, I've been playing through the Thunder Force series. Whilst holding about a 3 month infatuation with overall presentation and cohesion the series provides, I figured I'd try and make a contribution to these forums with all these wonderful little ideas popping off in my head.

It is my opinion that the one standout thing about good games (or just popular games if you happen to dislike a title, YOU KNOW YOU DO) is that the persons involved in development have an overall appreciation for the world/universe/thing they're working with. A very short article/interview at Gamespy with the guy behind R-Type: Final had him quoted as talking to his development crew and saying something along the lines of "Let's make the best R-Type game we can! That's why we joined Irem, isn't it?"

Seeing Technosoft's work on Thunder Force V - Perfect System (PSX) and comparing it to Thunder Force V (Saturn), sparked a thought in me. Now, it is a given that the PSX version is a port and is graphically inferior to the Saturn version (though it has many more gameplay modes as well as additional bonus content). What I noticed though was how much more I enjoyed watching the Saturn version, and how much more I wanted to play it even though I'd played the PSX version countless times.

Today, in this "Next Generation" of consoles, we see what this technology is capable of and I notice that there is usually a collective set of disinterest in these supposedly impressive capabilities. We will more than likely look back at this generation and find little gems of our own as well, so here's one I found in the 32-bit era.

YouTube Video

So, again, the Saturn version of Thunder Force V. This video is of Stage 3 (note the awesome background music, at least I think it's awesome) and Stage 4, respectively. The theme is that you're defending an underground city built underneath the ruins/rubble of the previous city. Now, when I had first played Thunder Force V - Perfect System, I was asking myself why the stage looked so boring. Where was this supposed "City" the beginning text referenced? I then saw this play-through and took notice to the background.

If you look closely, you'll see that the Saturn's transparency capability shows that very city "under the rubble" I referenced. The kinetic feel of the stage is enhanced as you see those little blue pillars shifting by as you rocket through the stage, gunning down enemies. At least compared to flying through gray rubble in the PSX version. Overall, I just have to say, "Pretty clever there Technosoft!"

I remember all the discourse I used to hear about how the Saturn did polygons better and how it had transparency effects (more RAM) and it is only now at an older age that I notice why this was even a point. As a player, are then any graphical effects you've taken notice of as you've played games? Mode-7? BLAST PROCESSING? Care to share a rant of your own?

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Blast processing is the greatest concept ever. Bar none. Better than cold fusion. I'll also back up the Saturn, not only did it have some great games, a few of them just looked awesome. I'm going back to my old favourite, Dragon Force. Just check the intro and some game play footage. Just good stuff for the era.

"As with all such tales, bordering on morality plays, one lied in wait..."

YouTube Video

"..that one from time uncounted, was called Madruk."

YouTube Video

And, am I the only one who noticed how much faster NHL games ran on the Genesis than on the SNES? Must be that thar Blast Processing.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

I have to say that I'm waiting for the overall homogenized feel most games have visually to leave these days. It's not so much nostalgia, I just know that it's gonna take some time for developers to get in stride. As for the Dragon Force stuff, I've never seen it in action so that was a first for me. I remember reading the Saturn previews in EGM back in 1997 and how much it sucked to be poor at that time.

I wonder if I'd have had the same outlook on games if things were more readily available? Eh.

And that lose quote from the Generals in Dragon Force is hilarious. "What a disappointment." Looking to be a little more than just a "disappointment" there, guy.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Man, some of the quotes that Vic Ireland and his boys tossed in there were hilarious. They took the time to really build the personality of the main groups.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

I like how 10 years ago full-screen anti-aliasing was a breakthrough technology, and today it still is, only :noonecares:.

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I love games that are great AND have great graphics, especially ones in the 32-bit era. To me, Grandia is a great looking game because, unlike FF7 or some other games (but similar to DQVII), the amount of pre-rendered backgrounds are next to none. Nowadays, that impress me.

As for modern stuff, I like what they did with iDOLM@STER. Cel-shading's pretty common now, but I think iDOLM@SER is the best example.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

The problem with Thunder Force V is that it's too easy. Seriously, I can beat that game on the hardest setting w/o even losing one life! Great game though.

FELIPE NO

Presentation wise, I'd say it's one of the best shooters I've played. At that, it's a really decent pick up and play... which, unfortunately, I cannot say for most other shooters. I'd recommend it to people on the basis that they'd be able to finish the damn thing. Sadly, there just aren't a lot of people who don't find blowing up several times to be conducive to fun.

I'm actually pretty interested in what more power can do for celshading. Especially being a fan of Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter and Shin Megami Tensei.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

Since I've done a bit of 3d work and modding myself, I can certainly appreciate some well-done eyecandy. While I have trouble coming up with specific examples, it's still always impressive to see developers find ways to use technology to make the games more engaging.

I guess one of the earlier situations where I was totally floored by the graphics was Silpheed on the Sega CD. Seriously, I still get shivers down my spine when I see that colossal ship/space station slowly slide into view at the end of the first level and then see it ripped apart by laser beams, sending polygonal debris flying all over in the background. A gameplay montage showing off some of the pretty effects can be Found Here (sorry, for some reason my youtube embedding doesn't seem to be working)

Even though I had a few rough ideas about how graphics technology worked, it took me years to realize that all the pretty backgrounds in that game were actually streamed movies. Sure, the total lack of any shading or texturing makes the game look rather primative by modern standards, but it still amazes me how much effort they must've put into creating maybe an hour or so of pre-rendered video sequences and then synced it up with the gameplay so perfectly. And it also made me want to play the game over and over again just to watch that "movie" even though the gameplay was rather standard at the time.

In the Saturn/PS1 era, the backgrounds in Battle Arena Toshinden impressed me, especially that stage where it has a monitor in the background that shows what's on your screen (creating that weird picture-of-the-picture-of-the picture effect like when you hold a camera up to a monitor that it's displaying on). It was a nice framebuffer trick, and amazingly the effect is still used today in some games. Also, the water in the Panzer Dragoon games was always a treat to behold. Long before we had pixel shaders, the fancy effects that the half-broken Saturn architecture could pull off were really quite impressive, even from launch. I'm not even sure how they did it exactly even today, but I can tell it certainly used some fancy tricks.

Moving on, I was just impressed that the Dreamcast ran at a full 640x480 resolution. After being stuck in the Saturn/PS1 era for so long, and only getting a 3d accelerator for my PC a few months beforehand, I have to say that seeing games in full resolution on a TV, and later monitor, was marvelous. Somehow, it seemed to make every game better when you could actually see the backgrounds and objects in the game, rather than being either a muddy (N64) or pixelated (Saturn/PS1) mess. Also, pixel shaders were wondeful, finally the water in a game (Morrowind) was able to surpass what was seen in Panzer Dragoon Zwei over 6 years earlier.

Later on, lighting was the biggest thing that impressed me. Long before anyone knew of Doom 3, I was having a blast with Nocturne's shadows. Seeing a realistic lightsource casting a full shadow was a sight to behold, and actually being able to walk into and interact with it was impressive. They even managed to use the lighting for a few puzzles in the game. Doom 3 of course blew me away in the shadowing department, and even Silent Hill 2 got it's fame for it. Also, seeing HDR in action for the first time in Far Cry was truly amazing.

Originally Posted by The Dopefish

I like how 10 years ago full-screen anti-aliasing was a breakthrough technology, and today it still is, only :noonecares:.

It's actually a fairly big deal still, although we have yet to get to the point where AA on a console is something that's commonplace. They've been trying almost every generation to allow for it: the N64 had it in every game, but it was a rather archaic method of it which ended up bluring the games significantly (although I still greatly prefered it over the alternative of not having it at all); the Dreamcast and PS2 advertised the ability to do it but it was extremely difficult to get working properly on the systems, the Xbox was capable of it but most games ran too poorly when it was enabled, and now the Xbox 360 has a method for "free" AA but developers have to specially plan for it from the begining of their development (and high-profile engines like Unreal Engine 3 don't support it at all, oddly enough).

I for one would love to see more console games use AA (hell, my PC videocard isn't even as powerful as the one in modern console, and I still use AA on it with almost every game), but right now they seem more concerned with getting games up to playable framerates instead of adding features like tiling for AA which may or may not cause other problems further down the line.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

My point was this: here was this technology that was supposed to be the mark of a great step in bringing a graphical presentation that rivaled no other, yet I'm sure those people who get the NEXT NEW GAME for their PC will be entirely disappointed that they'll still get jaggies at full resolution and highest quality everything, or a slow or jumpy framerate, regardless of how new their box is. Meanwhile, graphics keep improving. So, if nothing else, all FSAA might be (and this is a conspiracy theory, here) is an invention of the video game developers and graphics cards makers to make you buy brand spanking new systems every time you feel inadequate about your current setup.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Personally, my beef is with framerate issues, on PC (but to some extend they're excused since it's such an unpredictable platform) but especially on consoles. The PS3 seems a really bad culprit when it comes to this. Every game I played on that thing slowed down to a crawl at times. Considering it's supposed to be the strongest of the consoles, I was kinda shocked by it. Motorstorm was especially bad, it was simply unplayable (and videos of the release version have had the same problem, so I know that it wasn't just a bug in the demo version).

I don't think the graphics have to be super stunning, as long as everything runs smoothly. Especially with a fucking racing game, I mean what the hell were they thinking? "It doesn't have to go fast, as long as it's pretty and has lotsa bumpmapping, cause people will pay attention to that going at 90mph up a cliff!"

There are plenty of other "quality" games on various consoles that have the same problem, so this is just an example that I can remember off the top of my head. But it really annoys the fuck out of me. We should NEVER have to deal with slowdown, it's Goddamn ridiculous.

What's really bad though is that reviewers don't seem to notice, or don't care. I haven't seen one review with a game with obvious slowdown take note of it.



And yeah I agree that the Saturn was a really awesome console for its time, especially compared to the "polygon-vomit" of PSX. Too bad Sega did everything they possibly could to sabotage its success. Still, there's a couple awesome games on it, totally worth snagging if you see it for a couple bucks, especially one of Japanese region (or a modded one). Also, the SSF emulator is becoming pretty good (though you need a hefty PC to play the games at a decent framerate).

How ya doing, buddy?

Originally Posted by The Dopefish

My point was this: here was this technology that was supposed to be the mark of a great step in bringing a graphical presentation that rivaled no other, yet I'm sure those people who get the NEXT NEW GAME for their PC will be entirely disappointed that they'll still get jaggies at full resolution and highest quality everything, or a slow or jumpy framerate, regardless of how new their box is. Meanwhile, graphics keep improving. So, if nothing else, all FSAA might be (and this is a conspiracy theory, here) is an invention of the video game developers and graphics cards makers to make you buy brand spanking new systems every time you feel inadequate about your current setup.

FSAA is really no more than a blur filter applied to every frame. I personally don't mind jaggies, I think pixel art is sexy. If you can't stand it, move away from the TV or put a transparent paper on the screen. Same effect for free.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?