This easter long weekend I spent way too much time with the graphical configuration of the game and all its levels. There are some suprising (and baffling) choices made by GBX/Timegate on this game that to be perfectly honest, do nothing but worsen the games look and feel!
Shader Changes
Ambient Light removed from all shader models : Previously any item not lit by a local (game-world) light source gained additional lighting and specular from a non-existent constant that is completely unrealistic. This has been removed
Ambient Specular removed. Specular lighting on objects is now only caused by actual local light sources : Objects in the dark are no longer shiny, shiny-ness is now only created by local sources
Normal Detail Mapping improvement : Detail map tiling increased, and strength tweaked to give better looking details to take use of the new lighting model
Material Changes
Specular Power Adjusted : Objects all had a specular power level of 30+ this is idiotic and makes everything appear like its chrome. Now everything has a specular power of between 1 and 8 depending on what they are made of (much more realistic values)
Specular Level Adjusted : Objects not only had huge Spec Power, but they also had huge specular levels. Now they are much more realistic ranging from 0.01 to 4 depending on what they are made of
Blinn Edging reconfigured : Blinn shading is a very simple approximation of light reflecting off the surface at harsh angles. This has been reconfigured to have more realistic settings on things like cloth/rubber/skin. Makes these items look alot better when lit from behind
Fog / Smoke / Steam / Vapor density and opacity increased : Makes them more visible and the levels scarier!
Particle Changes
Particle LOD Levels redone : Each particle system has multiple particle emitters. each emitter has 1-3 LOD levels which decides how many particles are generated for that emitter depending on how far from the player it is. Every one (this took a while!) has been reset so that ALL lod distances use the same settings. This means no matter the distance, Particle effects are always at their highest quality!
Smoke / Fog / Steam / Vapor / Dust lifetime increased a fair bit so it effects the gameworld more
Fire / Sparks tweaked to look better close and at a distance. adds alot to some of the larger scenes and longer corridors as the special effects are now visible from a long way off
Check out the latest vid to see what the Sulaco looks like now!
I've wanted to complete this game for some time even though people sad it was bad, out of respect for the other awesome games in the series. Imagine my hype when I found out on Kotaku about these cool overhauls. When will v3 be available for download? If it is too long I will just use the v2.
He said earlier maybe today but nothing so far. *crossesfingers
Its out :)