Is there any technical reason Source games look more photorealistic than UT3 games?

It's mostly the textures for the main reason why it looks realistic. Alot of the textures are direct photos of real materials in the real world, and modified so they tessellate. Plus lighting and shaders help.

Also look at the game Stalker: clear sky, which pushes realism to the max even more so than half life 2.

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Original post by ViperG It's mostly the textures for the main reason why it looks realistic. Alot of the textures are direct photos of real materials in the real world, and modified so they tessellate. Plus lighting and shaders help. Also look at the game Stalker: clear sky, which pushes realism to the max even more so than half life 2.

But that uses something called the "X-ray Engine 1.5"

Quick, which engine does this game use?

It uses the Source engine and it looks less realistic than any Unreal Engine 3 game I've seen. What the game looks like depends little on the engine and more on the art.

Edit: Fixed link.

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Original post by Ezbez Quick, which engine does this game use? It uses the Source engine and it looks less realistic than any Unreal Engine 3 game I've seen. What the game looks like depends little on the engine and more on the art. Edit: Fixed link.

Irrelevent.

I'm talking about the potential to look photorealistic, not the choice to.

I'm asking if the Unreal 3 engine has the potential to look photorealistic in it's environments, to not look like everything is an overshadowed/overcontrasted painting.

Source games, like Half Life 2, uses lightmaps generated by a radiosity renderer. This, plus photo-realistic textures, creates very realistic images.

In the other side, Unreal Engine 3, as far as I know, does not use lightmaps (or at lest they are more limited). This results in pure per pixel light, Doom3 style or close to that. The result is what you mentioned.

While the Source games can be more photo-realistic, Unreal Engine games can be more dynamic.

This may change a lot in near future since Unreal Engine is integrating Turtle Render as lightmaps generator. Turtle Render is quite more powerfull than the one used in Source.

The reason Unreal Engine games may look like paintings may be more because of pixel space color masterization. In there, you can fine tune contrast, saturation and stuff like that. I think those games use that alot.

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Original post by Phoenix_Fury I'm asking if the Unreal 3 engine has the potential to look photorealistic in it's environments, to not look like everything is an overshadowed/overcontrasted painting.

It's an art design choice, not an engine choice.

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Original post by Daaark Quote: Original post by Phoenix_Fury I'm asking if the Unreal 3 engine has the potential to look photorealistic in it's environments, to not look like everything is an overshadowed/overcontrasted painting. It's an art design choice, not an engine choice.

Obviously not. The engine issues have been explained.

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Original post by Filami Source games, like Half Life 2, uses lightmaps generated by a radiosity renderer. This, plus photo-realistic textures, creates very realistic images. In the other side, Unreal Engine 3, as far as I know, does not use lightmaps (or at lest they are more limited). This results in pure per pixel light, Doom3 style or close to that. The result is what you mentioned. While the Source games can be more photo-realistic, Unreal Engine games can be more dynamic. This may change a lot in near future since Unreal Engine is integrating Turtle Render as lightmaps generator. Turtle Render is quite more powerfull than the one used in Source. The reason Unreal Engine games may look like paintings may be more because of pixel space color masterization. In there, you can fine tune contrast, saturation and stuff like that. I think those games use that alot.

Is this turtle rendering already a part of the latest Unreal Engine build, the one they are using in hears of war, or is it some future planned feature?

Is there any chance of these features every being patched into the UT3 engine for modders, or are we basically SoL and have to wait for Unreal4?

One of the big downsides I noticed about the source engine was it's complete lack of dynamic lighting for weapons and such, but I have seen mods with dynamic lighting so on some level at least it's possible.

>>In the other side, Unreal Engine 3, as far as I know, does not use lightmaps

you might wanna tell the guys with gears of war 1/2 that
since they seem to do the majority of the diffuse lighting with lightmaps :)
aka its less sophisticated than doom3

but to sum up neither the source engine or UT3 arent the tops, on the PC side u have cryengine + on the console side u have the 'drakes fortune' engine

It's a combination of their precomputed radiosity system (and the overall lighting model that goes along with it) and absolutely brilliant artists. That's all there is to it.

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Original post by Promit It's a combination of their precomputed radiosity system (and the overall lighting model that goes along with it) and absolutely brilliant artists. That's all there is to it.

Quote. In a recent thread I've read that Source uses a '3-way' lightmap system. This means that there are actually 3 lightmaps at the same time for each polygon, and each one holds the light contribution from a specific direction (i.e, one from up, one for left/bottom, one from right/bottom).
If this was true, this may explain why lighting in HL2 looks so wonderful compared to anything else I've ever seen (sometimes even better than Crysis, wich is fully dynamic though).

This and those amzing artists.

EDIT:
By the way, really nice image, the one taken from Stalker: clear sky!

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Original post by cignox1 I've read that Source uses a '3-way' lightmap system. This means that there are actually 3 lightmaps at the same time for each polygon, and each one holds the light contribution from a specific direction ... this may explain why lighting in HL2 looks so wonderful compared to anything else I've ever seen (sometimes even better than Crysis, wich is fully dynamic though).

The technique is called "radiosity normal mapping", I think. There's a paper on their publications page titled "Shading in Valve’s Source Engine" that describes it. There's also "Efficient Self-Shadowed Radiosity Normal Mapping" that describes the enhancements that they created for Episode 2.

I'm curious, what source engine game looks anything even remotely "photorealistic"?

Maybe you consider this word to mean something else, but source engine looked outdated even before it was released.

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Original post by cignox1 If this was true, this may explain why lighting in HL2 looks so wonderful compared to anything else I've ever seen (sometimes even better than Crysis, wich is fully dynamic though).

Well that should make sense: you can make your lighting calculations a whole lot fancier when you're doing them offline! Of course this means that a map in Source engine only exists at one time of day. So it's a tradeoff of quality vs. flexibility.

Personally I'm willing to be a little forgiving on quality if the content is dynamic.

This is the article that describes how lighting in source was done (PDF)
http://www2.ati.com/developer/gdc/D3DTutorial10_Half-Life2_Shading.pdf

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Original post by Phoenix_Fury Irrelevent. I'm talking about the potential to look photorealistic, not the choice to. I'm asking if the Unreal 3 engine has the potential to look photorealistic in it's environments, to not look like everything is an overshadowed/overcontrasted painting.

Stop being so oblivious to logic and reason. First of all, UT3 is a game and not, in fact, an engine. Unreal Tournament 3, along with Gears of War, are both pseudo-photorealistic games that have go for a gritty realism in an unrealistic world. Whether you consider the visualization of a non-realistic world photorealistic or not is irrelevant.

Now, let's look at some other Unreal Engine 3 games:

Medal of Honor: Airborne; man, these look almost like real people at times!

Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway: take a look at this screenshot. This game is driven by Unreal Engine 3 and is going for a relatively realistic look, wouldn't you say?

And, then, of course, there's the look of games like Team Fortress 2 which use the Source engine which are clearly non-photorealistic. It all comes down to how a given team of developers want to utilize an engine. Unreal Engine 3 and Source Engine are both huge engines that, really, can be used for whatever type of game/look a developer wants for their individual work. I can usually tell when certain games use Unreal Engine 3 but that's solely due to a vaguely-unique rim lighting model that the engine employs. I can also usually tell when a game uses the Source Engine because, outside of Valve, there are only about two-three titles that use it. Does that count?

The smug-factor of this forum is off the charts. Mittens assumes I don't know what I'm talking about, when really he can't even bring himself to comprehend what I'm asking.

I'm talking about the UT3 engine, not the game. I'm asking why all U3 engine games are overly dark and have a unnatural sheen around objects and people.
This is a recognizable trait of any game that uses the engine (You're MOH Airborne screenshot only proves i), and the reason for why has already been explained - They don't use lightmaps like Source. But source also lacks decent dynamic lighting.

Pure dynamic lighting is awesome and all, but as the Quake3 and UT3 engine show us, there's something else missing from the equation to make the game look less like a stylized painting and more like a photo snapshot of a real life location.

Phoenix_Fury

you are a [ true gentleman. ]

[ No flaming. --Sneftel ]

[Edited by - Sneftel on August 26, 2008 9:39:14 AM]

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Original post by Filami In the other side, Unreal Engine 3, as far as I know, does not use lightmaps

Incorrect.