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[PaintTinJr]

Of course it's in-engine real time 3D like most if not all of Shenmue 1 & 2 cut scenes, hence the higher res rendering/potential glitches/other improvements in emulators, hence knowing the polycount of this or that model as people have extracted it in various ways and got the data, etc., do you and Crusher know ANYTHING about the system you're dissing and its existing games before moving on to its theoretical max via ports or later generation titles that didn't happen or whatever you wanna pretend you know?

I was looking at the specific higher resolution shot, and the line rendering for hair, and the skin and eyes looked like it was multi-pass beyond the hardware capabilities of the DC, not the rest of the cinematics in Shenmue. hence I asked was that FMV.

 

[Alexios]

I was looking at the specific higher resolution shot, and the line rendering for hair, and the skin and eyes looked like it was multi-pass beyond the hardware capabilities of the DC, not the rest of the cinematics in Shenmue. hence I asked was that FMV.

He specifically said it was probably an emulator shot given the hair glitching which doesn't happen in game, don't pretend someone tried to pass higher resolution than Dreamcast can ouput as the real deal. So you're really discussing Dreamcast capabilities and don't even know what it does in its existing games. Like it's so hard to view any of the direct from real hardware videos here. Or like this example is some rare unknown Japan only game you've never heard of to know what it does.

I even posted a video that includes that footage in the last page myself after that Namco PS2 model (just timestamped differently to show other stuff):

Take it as a compliment to the DC hardware, that it is.

I'll stick with taking it as a sign of your ignorance over the subject matter you've been so adamant about.

 

[PaintTinJr]

...

The model are perfectly fine, I just posted and image showing you the same behavior on blender when you set the backface culling, that part shouln't be facing the camera, nothing to do with the Dreamcast GPU....

But general 3D models are self optimized for backface culling, because(opengl's state machine) rendering by default doesn't enable two sided lighting and polygons sent for rendering are either defined consistently as counter clockwise, or clockwise wound, and backface_culling is enabled by default.

So the model has had its attributes set with that as an optimisation for the scene it was render in on PS2, which if you alter in blender would let you use the model anywhere without visual artefacts in scene at the original position you placed it.

 

[Alexios]

The model doesn't have its back part anyway, whether you can see the backfaces rendered or not so it becomes invisible it still looks wrong and isn't intended to be viewed from that side and they didn't model or put that side in the original game at all knowing it won't be shown. Esppiral will make it so it's not visible in the available camera angles in the game imported in DOA2 either if possible and that's the end of that, now you're just arguing semantics that don't matter, the statue just isn't complete regardless of the backfaces. Many games only modeled what would be visible by the camera angles in game to maximize the possible details of said visible stuff (often not even caring about glitces in replay/reverse cameras at that for the game to look better during gameplay). Otherwise they'd lose precious rendering resources for stuff the player wouldn't see as again culling of non visible assets wasn't solved at the time, if it even is now (hence it was super funny folks earlier suggested the DOA2 models may not be fully rendered with all their polygons in game because Tecmo may have deviced a magical seamless invisible to the eye lod system better than tesselation).

 

[PaintTinJr]

He specifically said it was probably an emulator shot given the hair glitching which doesn't happen in game, don't pretend someone tried to pass higher resolution than Dreamcast can ouput as the real deal. So you're really discussing Dreamcast capabilities and don't even know what it does in its existing games. Like it's so hard to view any of the direct from real hardware videos here. Or like this example is some rare unknown Japan only game you've never heard of to know what it does.

I even posted a video that includes that footage in the last page myself after that Namco PS2 model (just timestamped differently to show other stuff):

Take it as a compliment to the DC hardware, that it is. I thought the image looked too good, and probably exceeded its cinematic real-time rendering abilities at a FPS of 24fps or more. It looks nice really and sharper than I remember seeing back in 2001 on DC hardware on a CRT

 

[Geometric-Crusher]

Let's make a simplified comparison between Shadow Man and Max Steel just for fun

Description: SM is a third-person action and adventure game, whose theme is hellish things and darkness. Max Steel is an action-adventure game with an industrial setting.

both are 30fps games

animations: Max Steel has few animated elements in the stages, most of the time they are stereo environments and the Skybox moves very poorly
SM has a greater number of animated elements such as rivers, traps, smoke, skybox has superior animations too.

Shadows: only SM has proper shadows

lighting and lighting effects: Max Steel has inferior lighting, flat, grenades and shots don't emit dynamic light.

Max Steel: Covert Missions is a video game developed by Treyarch (Dracunus) released for the DC exclusively in NA on December 5, 2000.
Shadow Man is a video game developed by Acclaim Studios released for the Dreamcast on November 30, 1999.

What does Max Steel do better than Shadow Man? honestly, nothing. But someone might suggest that MS has better texturing maybe more poly count. Max Steel apparently doesn't use mipmaps, and unfortunately has an unusable portion of most stages, making use of invisible walls. Where is the power? how can I compare these games with X-Squad Release August 3, 2000 ?

X-Squad settings

CD-Rom game
polygonal water
5,000 polygon characters
Lighting with some volume
Shadows on all characters and enemies.
reflections
bullet marks on the walls
Destruction of glass.
specular in environments
solid 30fps

 

[PaintTinJr]

The model doesn't have its back part anyway, whether you can see the backfaces rendered or not so it becomes invisible it still looks wrong and isn't intended to be viewed from that side and they didn't model or put that side in the original game at all knowing it won't be shown. Esppiral will make it so it's not visible in the available camera angles in the game imported in DOA2 either if possible and that's the end of that, now you're just arguing semantics that don't matter, the statue just isn't complete regardless of the backfaces. Many games only modeled what would be visible by the camera angles in game to maximize the possible details of said visible stuff (often not even caring about glitces in replay/reverse cameras at that for the game to look better during gameplay). Otherwise they'd lose precious rendering resources for stuff the player wouldn't see as again culling of non visible assets was hardly solved at the time, if it even is now (hence it was super funny folks earlier suggested the DOA2 models may not be fully rendered with all their polygons in game because Tecmo may have deviced some magical seamless invisible to the eye lod system better than modern tesselation).

Nonsense, I described exactly how the industry standard Opengl by SGI did backface culling, and that was defined in reference book: Computer Graphics Principles and Practice by Foley, and that was long before any of the consoles or PC GPUs were 3D capable, and frustum culling and BVH were all further visibility testing features, before we even mention a zbuffer.

So the last two lines of the paragraph above are completely showing your technical ignorance of how polygons actually make it through the vertex pipeline if you think any of the obscured or internal geometry within the DOA2 models actually gets rendered; especially as the Dreamcast even sorts overlapping polygon layers - like an old software hidden surface removal prepass - to eliminate even more redundancy in the polygon rendering. In any fighting gaming on any system, with any model polygon count, when you render the characters in an effective 2D orthographic side camera for fighting, half the model is back facing or occluded by the front facing geometry, meaning if you compare the same exact same models at 1200polys to 800 polys in that scenario, the comparison of rendered triangles in absolute terms isn't 800polys different from 2400 vs 1600, but 400polys 1200 vs 800.

And if we are comparing different models (say between PS2 SC2 and DC DoA2) where lots of polys in the high poly model are in eyes, fingers and ears, or arms and chest pre-occluded by the models large polygon clothing, then that differential of what is actually being rendered alters further towards parity. just with the eyes, say comparing madeup numbers 30polys vs 100polys. If in both games while fighting neither eyes are seen, then it is 120 polys vs 400polys, resulting in 280 more redundant polys on the DoA2 model that don't get rendered, taking our earlier 1200 vs 800, to a madeup 800 vs 680 render, and it wouldn't stop there, for similar differential redundancy savings for ears, feet, hands, clothing occlusion, and that one console does cheap polygon count re-projected alpha transparency shadows on a flat plane, and the other I believe does real character geometry coherent lit shadow maps on any surface on Cube and PS2 versions of SC2 IIRC,

DoA2 looks great, but SC2 on cube and PS2 is a bigger rendering workload - can't remember about xbox shadows and fx because it had the poorest bonus character as I recall, and was painful on an xbox pad to play.

 

[Esppiral]

I set the model texture to render in single side instead of two sides so only the normals facing outside will render effectively doing blackface culling, end of the story and the models weren't fully modelled to begin with.

Nothing to do with what the Dreamcast can or can't do, pretty standard in the industry.

 

[Alexios]

Nonsense

No u! That statue is not a complete model because it never needed to be. It doesn't have a back, it's not supposed to be a paper thin hollow statue, it just doesn't have its back side modeled (either as a complete statue or as just a straight cut) and is only visible from the front in the game it came from. So it doesn't matter if you make the backfaces visible or not because they won't be visible regardless, just as Namco intended. FACTS. And anyway DOA2 characters have more polygons than SC2 characters so it's smart to save elsewhere as it's always smart to save anywhere, just as Namco did. And again the polycounts given for DOA2 characters are accurate with what's rendered in game in real time, if certain clothes remove invisible bits underneath then that particular costume version's polycount can also be measured by exporting it as esppiral has done for various. And he never claimed to be a master modeler with all the time in the world for this hobby project for you to tell him what he should spend more of his time doing when once again it's gonna be useless for the way he wants to use this model in the game, ie just as it was used in the game he got it from.

Let's make a simplified comparison between Shadow Man and Max Steel just for fun

X-Squad

You say you'll compare two games then you add a third? And again, confirmation bias the poster.

You can compare a multiplatform 3rd person action game of the era like MDK2 (which is better than both, if not all 3 games), a few less/less severe frame drops and additional effects/better texturing on DC over PS2 but quite similar...

​

Then you can claim it's just one game and doesn't indicate much for PS2's power because there are better. But then you can claim it maxes out the DC for whatever reason same as any random game/port you claim does that. Go ahead.

Skim around to see the lighting, shadows, breakables, speculars, vast areas/levels etc. Of course NONE of these features is a simple on/off like you keep comparing them in different games, constantly showing how ignorant you are about these things you're adamant about, so with their specific methods and engine they cause this or that performance and require this or that reduction on this or that platform. It also happens to be quite the leap from MDK on the original PlayStation so that can also show what kind of a gap is possible when they aren't merely porting a last gen game.

​

So there you go, thank God MDK2 happened to be made for DC too otherwise you'd keep claiming minor enhancements like those of the Tomb Raider games are all Dreamcast can ever hope to do over the PlayStation, or something.

 

[lakitu1982]

wow I'm pleasantly surprised with the wealth of Dreamcast knowledge in this big thread. Very enjoyable read.

 

[PaintTinJr]

I set the model texture to render in single side instead of two sides so only the normals facing outside will render effectively doing blackface culling, end of the story and the models weren't fully modelled to begin with.

Here's the important question: Why not just fix the model when I first mentioned the missing geometry in your remaster?

Why continue to double down on the wrong focus and course of action, when it is a simple fix for someone with your blender modelling skills?

Nothing to do with what the Dreamcast can or can't do, pretty standard in the industry.

I agree, so patch up the missing part of the model, and do another video with it working correctly in the original location

You were the one that took a half complete model and placed it in a scene where the missing geometry would be visible, so you can see why I didn't think a highly competent modeller like yourself would have done that, and that it looked like an engine issue, yes?

 

[Fat Frog]

For 2 decades, Sony boys told us that Douglas was out of reach for the Dreamcast in terms of geometry. According to 3D beyond it has 8800 polygons...
Konami were wizzards but it has nothing to do with the stellar raw power of the PS2 . (probably modern tools helped a lot as well)

(amazing model by the way...)


On the other hand, Shenmue was so amazing in 1999 that Sony believers even think on GAF that the intro is a FMV .

And a little details just for you:

Shenhua (Shenmue intro) :

9104 polygons/ In Engine.
9104
9104
9104
9104
9104
9104
9104

Panic at Playstation Home:




Yes, it is.

The Dreamcast was actually a power house at launch ​

 

[Esppiral]

Here's the important question: Why not just fix the model when I first mentioned the missing geometry in your remaster?

Why continue to double down on the wrong focus and course of action, when it is a simple fix for someone with your blender modelling skills?

I agree, so patch up the missing part of the model, and do another video with it working correctly in the original location

You were the one that took a half complete model and placed it in a scene where the missing geometry would be visible, so you can see why I didn't think a highly competent modeller like yourself would have done that, and that it looked like an engine issue, yes?

Because the back part of the model will never be seen since is supposed to be in front of a wall, it would be a waste of time and resources, I will leave the model as is and how the original developers used it in soul Calibur 3

 

[Geometric-Crusher]

You say you'll compare two games then you add a third?

I compared the two. I just said that if I put X-squad neither of them would be able to reach
But if you want to use MDK2 against XS be free.

X-Squad settings

CD-Rom game
polygonal water
5,000 polygon characters
Lighting with some volume
Shadows on all characters and enemies.
reflections
bullet marks on the walls
Destruction of glass.
specular in environments
solid 30fps

 

[PaintTinJr]

Because the back part of the model will never be seen since is supposed to be in front of a wall, it would be a waste of time and resources, I will leave the model as is and how the original developers used it in soul Calibur 3

Your whole tinkering unofficial remaster is completely at odds with how the original developers intended the game to be, and you put time and resources into making a SC3 inspired level for DoA2, where you are now the original creator of that mod level, an have used a model from the PS2, and you are drawing your line in the sand at fixing a model you've already used in an area where its missing geometry section can be seen, and doing a 5min edit on that is where you supposedly draw the line for authenticity? really? Are you sure it isn't just you don't like the source of the suggestion and are now struggling to get out of your own way to do what's best for your creative work, and the people you are asking to buy you Coffee if they appreciate that effort?

Go the Ubisoft early launch modelling route if you want, but why not try both options? You can always go back to the authentic incompletely model if you really want.

 

[Alexios]

Your whole tinkering unofficial remaster is completely at odds with how the original developers intended the game to be, and you put time and resources into making a SC3 inspired level for DoA2, where you are now the original creator of that mod level, an have used a model from the PS2, and you are drawing your line in the sand at fixing a model you've already used in an area where its missing geometry section can be seen, and doing a 5min edit on that is where you supposedly draw the line for authenticity? really? Are you sure it isn't just you don't like the source of the suggestion and are now struggling to get out of your own way to do what's best for your creative work, and the people you are asking to buy you Coffee if they appreciate that effort?

Go the Ubisoft early launch modelling route if you want, but why not try both options? You can always go back to the authentic incompletely model if you really want.

If you don't like his mod don't use it, who do you think you are dictating what he should or shouldn't do with his time & patronizing him about the awesome skills he never claimed to have (I guess the next step is to demand ground up new assets rather than take from other games), it just makes you look silly. He could say he "fixed" it according to your (Not Ubishit but Namco btw) standards and then not do it but just polish the level select screen or wherever else you could see its back so that it never is visible and you'd never know better. He's just honest/shows WIP. I already said I prefer the more consistent vanilla look myself (at least from how it's done so far, I personally have no idea how much he can polish the new stuff so that they have the correct placement and collisions etc. when he's just editing someone else's game without the source/an official editor but I guess we will find out) and in this level which was a semi request from a user iIrc I prefer the original sand texture for example as to me the new one doesn't look as fitting with the way characters sink in the sand and I could say many other things but it's not my patronizing way or his oh so wrong way and the same goes for you. He already said his bit regarding the model, Idk why you are being so childish pushing him to what you want pretending it's the objectively right way. Buying him a coffee doesn't give you the right to demand anything of the sort either and you're free to not buy anything too.

Thanks for the report, whoever, I guess you've already reported esppiral to Namco/Tecmo for using/distributing assets without permission hoping to shut down the project before it gets polished and shows how wrong you've been about everything and/or if it doesn't go your way, lol.

 

[Geometric-Crusher]

Straight facts. Also i do get some of points of Geometric-Crusher and PaintTinJr but dudes, you can write off all that you want, but Esppiral being just one person with no budget it´s taking one of the most demanding and advanced games on DC and further than anythingwe have seen befotre and still 60fps.

I respect the remaster that Esppiral is doing but I need to point out that he is just stressing the engine created by Tecmo, believe me Tecmo delivered the best product they could, yes I personally prefer the official versions from Tecmo But again I respect anyone who prefers the mod.

So just go and wonder what AM2 or another studios would had done if the console stood commercially alive and selling well at least another FY. DC just had tecnhically one generation of AAA games, most of them started since 99 or with technology created on that year or before.

studios can do a lot, however the power of a console is finite. There are a number of textures you can use, there are a number of polygons you can use, you know? Thanks to the Dreamcast community, today we have access to incredible data, for example we know that the Blue Stinger model has 3,000 polygons (in-game) and 18 wheeler can reach 5,000 polygons F Fafalada explained about rigid body (the truck) when talked about CT2 limitations.

The Blue Stinger (contrary to popular belief that games evolve, improve) all the main characters (in-game model) on Dreamcast of the games that matter ( like MDK2) has fewer polygons than it (a launch game ! ). In general, the main characters on the Dreamcast have 900 to 2,000 polygons in-game and accumulate more than 3,000 in-engine (6,627 on Kou the green guy in Death Crimson ox, even 9.104 polys Shenhua Shenmue intro) .
I interpret that the Dreamcast had 3 generations of games but was maxout since day one with VF3TB. SC looks best ? but it's simpler ( imo vf3 looks way better on vga too).

The first gen from 98 to 99 is defined by poor use of polygons, Seventh Cross/MK Gold are the symbol.
The second gen 2000/2001 is defined by the maturity in the use of the Dreamcast Dead or Alive 2 is the symbol.
The third generation of games begins with Skies of Arcadia/HeadHunter and through the arcade Naomi and Atomiswave with games such as Mazan Flash of the Blade and Under Deafeat, this phase is marked by the abandonment of maximizing the hardware, preferring only that the game looks beautiful on the screen.

Obviously an project AAA which would had started from zero in late 2000 or even 2001 would had take the console beyond to what we have just seen...I insist, just look the Atomiswave games like Demolish Fists, Faster Than Speed and Force Five...Yes, all DC elite games still stomps them, but they make interesting things which help them to look better than the equivalent budget games of actual DC lifespan, incluiding all 32/64 bits ports.

Again, the console is a finite entity, you can claim 'art' over 'technique' but this was done while the DC was active, in HeadHunter a very good game, technically simple but which seems more advanced than it really is. Mazan Flash of the Blade too.

I agree that the Atomiswave games were doing things that the usual Dreamcast games didn't do Ranger Mission has a 3D forest have you seen another DC game with a forest? The nice effects in Force Five but usual problems remain like the black glass in racing games, the lack of shadow in Demolish Fist (simple game) there is no way to change that, DC has sensitive weak points that limit its range of action That's why a game like X-squad is impossible.

Let's imagine that GTA 3 is possible on the Dreamcast, Can you imagine (seriously) all vehicles with black windows? you know In Crazy Taxi, the only transparent glass is that of the player's taxi.

 

[Esppiral]

VF3TB maxed out the console? Ok I've have enough of this nonsense.

 

[Alexios]

The Blue Stinger (contrary to popular belief that games evolve, improve) all the main characters (in-game model) on Dreamcast of the games that matter ( like MDK2) has fewer polygons than it (a launch game ! ).

That just means they all balance the polygon budget and other resource hogging content in different ways and may also be wasting polygons just as they were wasting polygons in VF3tb (which is excused for being a 1996 pioneering game, the know how wasn't there) for a game that doesn't look better than SC with way less polygons and like Namco (who did seemingly get good at modeling PS2/DC gen characters before most people, even Sega, hence SC1-2 looking so good despite modest specs) believed they wasted polygons in TTT on PS2 so every later Tekken game on PS2 has even lower polygon characters (even though they already were less than DOA2's) and more details elsewhere, that doesn't mean TTT maxed PS2.

And again how does VF3tb max out the Dreamcast when DOA2 (vanilla) does a LOT more with polycounts, lighting, effects, arena complexity and even still includes uneven surfaces like VF3tb which Tekken didn't have until 4 and a tag mode with 3 full detail visible characters in tag moves/throws (which Tekken didn't do until PS3)? It exceeds DC with magic and then does it all over again with the still further improved DOA2 Japanese version?

CT2 is a 60fps game, they had the headroom to reduce a lot of things, from the draw distance to the traffic density to the blazing fast gameplay that enables good players to zoom around the map at crazy speeds, allowing much more time for the CPU/GPU to calculate additional visuals or gameplay aspects or stream more assets in. That they didn't add windows to other cars doen't mean they couldn't anyway, they just decided not to prioritizing other aspects (like potential quantity of traffic vs individual detail per vehicle to bother modeling interiors for the glass windows to make any sense) since it's not GTA (and doesn't wish to drop down to 15 fps) so you can't switch cars to care about their detail and the traffic is just obstacles/backgrounds you zoom past.

You can't just take the worst aspect of every game, combine it all in one imaginary soup and arbitrarily decide that's the system's max and ignore the best aspect of every other game, lol.

MDK2 that you fault for its main character runs worse on PS2 than DC (depsite longer porting time, rebalances and tweaks dubbing it the Armageddon edition) so clearly it does resource intensive things other than the main character model(s), whether justified or not as that also doesn't mean they maxed either the DC or the PS2 (duh) but could further optimize their engine to handle this or that better and do more, maybe even improve the characters, in a sequel that never happened. It also already happens to have tons of often huge transparent glass surfaces and domes and other stuff to break since you want to fixate on that one thing. Why arbitrarily claim Bioware were DC experts with one game and took it to the max but PS2 noobs and did so very little on it?

This is all basic knowledge and common sense we've had to repeat every other post just because you refuse to use any kind of logic beyond your confirmation bias for DC having been maxed with some PS1 ports that aren't much improved and/or 60fps, ignoring better ports/games and tech seen elsewhere and pretending feature x or y is just a toggle you can/should put in any other game regardless of what else it is doing with its engine and design if only the system is good enough.

The posters you want to idolize and like all their posts as if they agree with you just because they attack other positive DC posts have also shot down most of your arguments mind, perhaps you missed that or willfully ignore it.

 

[Fat Frog]

VF3TB maxed out the console? Ok I've have enough of this nonsense.

That's why i trolled them since the beginning .

A rushed launch title with no versus mode ported by Genki maxed out the console ?

Like the PS2, their bad faith has no limit.

 

[Geometric-Crusher]

VF3TB maxed out the console?

That depends, what does maxed out for you mean?

Do you think the Dreamcast is superior to the arcade board model 3? you know, no Model 3 game was better on DC not even Fighting Vipers 2 ported by AM2 on January 18, 2001

 

[Geometric-Crusher]

And again how does VF3tb max out the Dreamcast when DOA2 (vanilla) does a LOT more with polycounts, lighting, effects, arena complexity and even still includes uneven surfaces like VF3tb ?

Physics and animations present in VF3 are very good, there are animated elements, such as a subway running in the backgroundd (I don't remember anything like that in doa2, only in Blood Roar Primal) there are physics in the leaves, leaving marks in the sand, lighting flashing over the character and stages completely made of glass, motion blur in the characters' movements. However, the Dreamcast lacked juice to match the arcade 100%, so it was Maxout with 95%.

Soul Calibur is in the same hierarchy but is simpler. Doa2 compares better, twice as many polygons in the arena and in the models, there are stages with glass too. Yes DOA2 outperformed vf3tb overall, the only thing missing was motion blur (present in the first PS2 version).

Have you ever noticed that except for games like Vanishing Point from December 21, 2000, there are few games on the Dreamcast whose car has transparent windows? This is a fact, I'm a Dreamcast fan and I've learned to deal with it.

 

[RetroAV]

That depends, what does maxed out for you mean?

Do you think the Dreamcast is superior to the arcade board model 3? you know, no Model 3 game was better on DC not even Fighting Vipers 2 ported by AM2 on January 18, 2001

Again, for $199? Close enough and running at a better resolution:

 

[Kataploom]

It was powerful, it had N64 and PSX to compete against, the fact they were a generation behind means nothing in the end... What surprises me is that those games could be emulated in a Pentium 4 I had in early 2000s, they looked and ran great even tho that machine wasn't too far from PS2 in terms of how game looked

 

[Xaeroxcore666]

That depends, what does maxed out for you mean?

Do you think the Dreamcast is superior to the arcade board model 3? you know, no Model 3 game was better on DC not even Fighting Vipers 2 ported by AM2 on January 18, 2001

Yes, but also no Model 3 fighter looks better or even on par to DOA 2....and even Soul Calibur despite having less polycount and complex backgrounds than, let´s name FV 2, surpasses that one and any Model 3 fighter on several aspects, like lighting treatment. This, thanks to Namco investing several months studying DC hardware and making the game with more modern tools than the 96,97 Model 3. And it´s a launch game, running on an effectively weaker system than Model 3...So?