I think you're referring to normal mapping, which is what of the latest games are using. Actually, the Unreal 3 tech is pretty cool. They start with a 1-2 MILLION poly mesh, simplify it to 20-50 THOUSAND, and then to raycasting/tracing (I'm not sure what's it called), from the low-poly model to the high poly model to get the normal map, and use that for rendering. They get the about the same amount of geometric detail as the other games of the day, but 100x more lighting detail.
Um... Halo 2, Doom 3, FarCry, and Unreal 3 are ALL using per-pixel lighting. Mesh simplification is a NECESSITY if you want a fast and good game. All modern game engines already do some sort of LOD on their meshes. This new technique is really cool though.
No, EVERYTHING will be vector based. Lines, brushes, buttons, list boxes, all the widgets and everything the user interacts with. At the PDC they apparently had a 200 dpi screen from SONY demonstrating the need for true resolution inpendence throughout the platform. Avalon gives you that. Bitmaps are history (except for cached copies of the composited result). You can make things as big or as small as you want, and zoom in without any loss of detail. The whole media framework has been re-written with low-latency and consumer electronics grade performance and reliability in mind. The audio mixer has been moved from kernel space into user space and enhanced. There is just SO MUCH to this, you really need to be familiar with how annoying Win32 is, how much better Windows.Forms is, and how much more you wished everything was in a unified managed framework, to get excited about how cool all this is.
Plus, they have XAML, which is a one-to-one correspondence to the object model, except you write it in XML. You set up the look-n-feel in XAML, including things like embedded animations and such, which are COOL, and then write your logic code behind it in some.NET language (C#,VB.NET,ect...).
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I think you're referring to normal mapping, which is what of the latest games are using. Actually, the Unreal 3 tech is pretty cool. They start with a 1-2 MILLION poly mesh, simplify it to 20-50 THOUSAND, and then to raycasting/tracing (I'm not sure what's it called), from the low-poly model to the high poly model to get the normal map, and use that for rendering. They get the about the same amount of geometric detail as the other games of the day, but 100x more lighting detail.
Unreal 3 tech can be found Here.
Um... Halo 2, Doom 3, FarCry, and Unreal 3 are ALL using per-pixel lighting. Mesh simplification is a NECESSITY if you want a fast and good game. All modern game engines already do some sort of LOD on their meshes. This new technique is really cool though.
No, EVERYTHING will be vector based. Lines, brushes, buttons, list boxes, all the widgets and everything the user interacts with. At the PDC they apparently had a 200 dpi screen from SONY demonstrating the need for true resolution inpendence throughout the platform. Avalon gives you that. Bitmaps are history (except for cached copies of the composited result). You can make things as big or as small as you want, and zoom in without any loss of detail. The whole media framework has been re-written with low-latency and consumer electronics grade performance and reliability in mind. The audio mixer has been moved from kernel space into user space and enhanced. There is just SO MUCH to this, you really need to be familiar with how annoying Win32 is, how much better Windows.Forms is, and how much more you wished everything was in a unified managed framework, to get excited about how cool all this is.
.NET language (C#,VB.NET,ect...).
Plus, they have XAML, which is a one-to-one correspondence to the object model, except you write it in XML. You set up the look-n-feel in XAML, including things like embedded animations and such, which are COOL, and then write your logic code behind it in some
Some quotes from tonights(Todays ?!?) coverage...
This much tension you can't cut with a saw, you need a blowtorch.
So close you can't put cigarette paper between 'em.
Heart pumpin' twist like a roller coaster ride.
The good book says the race is not always to the quick, nor the battle to the strong.
Counted those absentee ballots till the cows went to sleep.
The bandwangon is hmmmmmm... resting.
It's spandex tight.
Round and round it goes who gets the electoral vote win, and from where nobody knows.
The presindential race still hotter than a loreto parking lot.
This thing is as tight as the rusted lug nuts on a 55 ford.
He hasn't gone to bed, you can bet the rent money on that.
When it comes to reporting a race like this I'm a long distance runner and an all day hunter.