What makes UT3 truely unreal...
Posted: Sun Jun 28, 2009 7:03 pm
I would appreciate any suggestions or links for further study on the following topic or any feedback you think may be of some interest on the technology that makes Unreal Tournament 3 truly Unreal and that is the manipulation of surface normals. Now I'm not going to bother explaining what this is because their are many better descriptions than I can offer out there but it is my main area of study right now with the exception of the projects I have assigned to me, and it is amazing! I would love to get others input on the subject and I would suggest anybody that would like to get into game development to look into this technology. Look here to get an understanding of Surface Normals.
First was the manipulation of the way light is reflected of the surfaces of the mesh by using an algorithm to smooth the transition of light reflection off the surfaces of one polygon to its neighboring polygon otherwise known as a shader model. Look here for shaders.
The latest technology in this area is Normal mapping or Dot3 mapping, and this is truely what makes Unreal unreal. Normal mapping store the information of a high polygon model and maps it to a low polygon model making the world look as if it is made of millions of polygons when in fact it is a small fraction of that allowing for speed and less over head. This is not just important for modeling or UT3 but the future of gaming in general. Check it out because this is where the future is going! Normal Mapping!
First was the manipulation of the way light is reflected of the surfaces of the mesh by using an algorithm to smooth the transition of light reflection off the surfaces of one polygon to its neighboring polygon otherwise known as a shader model. Look here for shaders.
The latest technology in this area is Normal mapping or Dot3 mapping, and this is truely what makes Unreal unreal. Normal mapping store the information of a high polygon model and maps it to a low polygon model making the world look as if it is made of millions of polygons when in fact it is a small fraction of that allowing for speed and less over head. This is not just important for modeling or UT3 but the future of gaming in general. Check it out because this is where the future is going! Normal Mapping!