Let's Talk Watch Dog - Cause it's the best thing on E3 right now - Page 9

Azisien · 06-04-2014, 11:59 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arcanum

Since the ctOS mobile app is the only Watch Dogs I can play at the moment until I get my new rig, I can second that it is a boatload of fun. Except when the person I'm relentlessly pursuing with 5 SUVs ramming the crap out of them disconnects and I don't get any exp.

Yeah I've had one disconnect too and I dislike the lack of reward on either side for such an event. I can see that it might be an anti-exploit maneuver, but still, if the runner is through multiple checkpoints I don't see why they couldn't get a partial reward. They put the time in, etc.

Also, add me to Uplay so you can SUV ram me to death.

Arcanum · 06-04-2014, 04:43 PM

I assume you're Azisien on Uplay, because it succeeded in adding that user to my contacts list. Dunno if you have to accept or add me or something, but I'm HyperionMBD on Uplay.

Azisien · 06-04-2014, 07:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arcanum

I assume you're Azisien on Uplay, because it succeeded in adding that user to my contacts list. Dunno if you have to accept or add me or something, but I'm HyperionMBD on Uplay.

Sure am. I'll add you when I get home.

rpgdemon · 06-04-2014, 08:58 PM

Re: Reflections.

Essentially, there are a couple of different ways that real-time reflections can be handled in games, and none of them are good, performance-wise.

The first thing that you can do is render the entire world twice, with a "window" letting you look into the other set of objects being rendered. This is expensive, as you can imagine, because you're rendering every object twice.

The "better" way to render things, which is the way that it is done in the Computer Graphics world, is to use what's called ray tracing. The general idea of ray tracing is that for every pixel on-screen, you're shooting a ray out into the world, figure out what that ray hits, and then coloring your pixel to be that color. When your ray hits a mirror, it bounces off the mirror and continues onward, until it hits a non-reflective surface. This technique is used in computer graphics because it can produce spectacular results, looking incredibly lifelike. Unfortunately, it's ALSO very expensive. Like, potentially days rendering your scene, expensive.

It is very pretty, though.

How do games handle reflections then, if ray tracing is way too expensive? Well, in general, video games use real computer science or computer graphics techniques that cannot run in real time, but cheat, so that they can run in real time. They pre-calculate as much as they can, so that the load at runtime is lessened. In the case of reflections, a "reflection map" is used. You can imagine the reflection map as a box that surrounds the reflective surface, which is textured on the inside with what you want the surface to reflect. A ray being shot out against your mirror doesn't bounce into the world, but instead would hit a certain pixel on the texture surrounding your object. This means that instead of doing a raycast to figure out what the mirror is reflecting, you just have to look at your reflection map, and display the pixel at the correct position. This is immensely faster, and can give the illusion of a reflective surface, assuming that your reflection map actually corresponds to the way that the world looks around your object. Unfortunately for Watch Dogs, your texture has to look somewhat like the world around the reflective surface. Most games don't use a unique map per reflective object (That amount of textures would start getting huge in memory), but a single texture per type of visual "zone". Watch Dogs, however, just didn't make a "top of the roof" reflection map, to their detriment.

Aerozord · 06-04-2014, 11:20 PM

I want to see if I get what you are saying. Sounds like the method used in games, only works with static objects.

akaSM · 06-05-2014, 06:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aerozord

I want to see if I get what you are saying. Sounds like the method used in games, only works with static objects.

Except, not really.

http://www.rigidgems.sakura.ne.jp/index_en.html#spec

Granted, this is hybrid raytracing but, you can move the gems around and it looks pretty.

rpgdemon · 06-07-2014, 11:34 PM

The method most often used in games works for objects which are moving, but the scene that is shown in their reflection will be static, as it is being drawn from a texture. The reflections will move around and stuff like they should, and moving to a different viewing angle will cause a different thing to be reflected, like you'd expect, but what's shown IN the reflection will not be moving.

As GPUs get increasingly powerful, we'll start to see more hybrid techniques like akaSM showed, and there are a lot of different tweaks that you can do to get better results. What I gave was pretty much just an overview of the basic techniques and ideas, not a comprehensive explanation of everything.

MSperoni · 06-08-2014, 10:20 AM

I'm not particularly interested in Watch Dog, but here's an article about it that I found kinda neat:

link

Kind of about the genre in general.

Nique · 06-11-2014, 11:42 PM

So far I have had really little interest in the story, seeing as the relevant criticisms of it stated in this thread so far have been pretty much on the money.

The online multiplayer is where it's at - hacking other players is an ultra-fun & tense game of hide and seek. If the whole game were just an expansion of that that aspect, with a story that was better suited to a custom character then dumb Aiden who is dumb and boring, then you could be like, your own hacker guy/gal in hackerville chicago with your RL hacking buddies with their own hacker gal/guy hacking it up.

---------- Post added at 08:42 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:35 PM ----------

The human trafficking part is totally gross and despite it's predictable finger-wagging at the practice, it's still comes off as voyeuristic and as being intended to titillate.

Like, there are no healthy portrayals of sex in this game at all and I don't understand why there can't be positive sexual imagery in games if there's going to also be horrifying (or worse - not horrifying portrayals of actual awful things) sexual imagery in games.

Bells · 06-17-2014, 10:00 AM

So... Watch Dogs? Yeah... it has a fucking E3 Mode Button.

FUCKING. E3 MODE. TOGGLE IN THE CODE.

Did you buy Watchdogs for PC? Here. Read this thread on Neogaf, get the patch, improve your game.

Not only it brings the game closer to the original 2012 demo, but it FUCKING IMPROVES PERFORMANCE.

God damn it Ubisoft...

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=838538

Get the super small patch, patch your game. Play the game you were supposed to have got on PC before they dowgraded to be on par with console versions. This is super new and the Mod for the patch is already being improved, so if you want your copy of Watchdogs to be 100% of what is was supposed to be, follow up on these news.

06-04-2014, 04:43 PM	#82
Arcanum Strike the Earth! Join Date: Nov 2007 Location: Canada Posts: 3,185	I assume you're Azisien on Uplay, because it succeeded in adding that user to my contacts list. Dunno if you have to accept or add me or something, but I'm HyperionMBD on Uplay. __________________ POS Almighty has spoken.

06-04-2014, 08:58 PM	#84
rpgdemon Not a Taco Join Date: May 2005 Posts: 3,313	Re: Reflections. Essentially, there are a couple of different ways that real-time reflections can be handled in games, and none of them are good, performance-wise. The first thing that you can do is render the entire world twice, with a "window" letting you look into the other set of objects being rendered. This is expensive, as you can imagine, because you're rendering every object twice. The "better" way to render things, which is the way that it is done in the Computer Graphics world, is to use what's called ray tracing. The general idea of ray tracing is that for every pixel on-screen, you're shooting a ray out into the world, figure out what that ray hits, and then coloring your pixel to be that color. When your ray hits a mirror, it bounces off the mirror and continues onward, until it hits a non-reflective surface. This technique is used in computer graphics because it can produce spectacular results, looking incredibly lifelike. Unfortunately, it's ALSO very expensive. Like, potentially days rendering your scene, expensive. It is very pretty, though. How do games handle reflections then, if ray tracing is way too expensive? Well, in general, video games use real computer science or computer graphics techniques that cannot run in real time, but cheat, so that they can run in real time. They pre-calculate as much as they can, so that the load at runtime is lessened. In the case of reflections, a "reflection map" is used. You can imagine the reflection map as a box that surrounds the reflective surface, which is textured on the inside with what you want the surface to reflect. A ray being shot out against your mirror doesn't bounce into the world, but instead would hit a certain pixel on the texture surrounding your object. This means that instead of doing a raycast to figure out what the mirror is reflecting, you just have to look at your reflection map, and display the pixel at the correct position. This is immensely faster, and can give the illusion of a reflective surface, assuming that your reflection map actually corresponds to the way that the world looks around your object. Unfortunately for Watch Dogs, your texture has to look somewhat like the world around the reflective surface. Most games don't use a unique map per reflective object (That amount of textures would start getting huge in memory), but a single texture per type of visual "zone". Watch Dogs, however, just didn't make a "top of the roof" reflection map, to their detriment. __________________ I did a lot of posting on here as a teenager, and I was pretty awful. Even after I learned, grew up, and came to be on the right side of a lot of important issues, I was still angry, abrasive, and generally increased the amount of hate in the world, in pretty unacceptable ways. On the off chance that someone is taking a trip down memory lane looking through those old threads, I wanted to devote my signature to say directly to you, I'm sorry. Thank you for letting me be better, NPF.

06-04-2014, 11:20 PM	#85
Aerozord So we are clear Join Date: Jan 2004 Location: Former murder capital of the world Posts: 13,824	I want to see if I get what you are saying. Sounds like the method used in games, only works with static objects. __________________ "don't hate me for being a heterosexual white guy disparaging slacktivism, hate me for all those murders I've done."

06-07-2014, 11:34 PM	#87
rpgdemon Not a Taco Join Date: May 2005 Posts: 3,313	The method most often used in games works for objects which are moving, but the scene that is shown in their reflection will be static, as it is being drawn from a texture. The reflections will move around and stuff like they should, and moving to a different viewing angle will cause a different thing to be reflected, like you'd expect, but what's shown IN the reflection will not be moving. As GPUs get increasingly powerful, we'll start to see more hybrid techniques like akaSM showed, and there are a lot of different tweaks that you can do to get better results. What I gave was pretty much just an overview of the basic techniques and ideas, not a comprehensive explanation of everything. __________________ I did a lot of posting on here as a teenager, and I was pretty awful. Even after I learned, grew up, and came to be on the right side of a lot of important issues, I was still angry, abrasive, and generally increased the amount of hate in the world, in pretty unacceptable ways. On the off chance that someone is taking a trip down memory lane looking through those old threads, I wanted to devote my signature to say directly to you, I'm sorry. Thank you for letting me be better, NPF.

06-08-2014, 10:20 AM	#88
MSperoni Artist and Writer of Comics Join Date: Aug 2009 Posts: 2,666	I'm not particularly interested in Watch Dog, but here's an article about it that I found kinda neat: link Kind of about the genre in general. __________________ I do commissions! So Email me if you'd like anything and we'll work out the details! matts_1104@yahoo.com Follow me on Twitter for Dreadful news and random info! (though mostly it's just me babbling about nerd-stuff) http://twitter.com/#!/mSperoni Check out my Deviant Art page if you'd like to see other pictures I've made! http://exmile.deviantart.com/ Follow The Dreadful on Facebook! Last edited by MSperoni; 06-08-2014 at 10:26 AM.

06-17-2014, 10:00 AM	#90
Bells That's so PC of you Join Date: Sep 2004 Location: In a Server-sided Dimension where time is meaningless Posts: 10,490	So... Watch Dogs? Yeah... it has a fucking E3 Mode Button. FUCKING. E3 MODE. TOGGLE IN THE CODE. Did you buy Watchdogs for PC? Here. Read this thread on Neogaf, get the patch, improve your game. Not only it brings the game closer to the original 2012 demo, but it FUCKING IMPROVES PERFORMANCE. God damn it Ubisoft... http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=838538 Get the super small patch, patch your game. Play the game you were supposed to have got on PC before they dowgraded to be on par with console versions. This is super new and the Mod for the patch is already being improved, so if you want your copy of Watchdogs to be 100% of what is was supposed to be, follow up on these news. __________________ *BELLS STORE : Clothes! You wear* them! Free US Shipping Subscription System? WTF?! Zazzle Black!**