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Oh come on, my laptop can handle Grandville.
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Originally Posted by Severe
there are people who still cant play in grandeville for crying out loud cause its too laggy.
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And how big is your hard drive? 6 GB?
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Originally Posted by Severe
as nice as it is..i think it was a big waste of time.
the game is in a huge lull and i think they could have done something better with their time then give a buncha shadows to a 6 year old game with a dwindling playerbase the % of people who will actually use ultra mode is so low i really cant believe they think it was a good idea. there are people who still cant play in grandeville for crying out loud cause its too laggy. |
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Couldn't disagree more. No wait... there, I disagreed a tiny bit more.|
Originally Posted by Severe
as nice as it is..i think it was a big waste of time.
the game is in a huge lull and i think they could have done something better with their time then give a buncha shadows to a 6 year old game with a dwindling playerbase the % of people who will actually use ultra mode is so low i really cant believe they think it was a good idea. there are people who still cant play in grandeville for crying out loud cause its too laggy. |
But I guess every thread has to have at least one "doom" post, it seems to be the supreme law of MMOG forums.
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Originally Posted by Severe
as nice as it is..i think it was a big waste of time.
the game is in a huge lull and i think they could have done something better with their time then give a buncha shadows to a 6 year old game with a dwindling playerbase the % of people who will actually use ultra mode is so low i really cant believe they think it was a good idea. there are people who still cant play in grandeville for crying out loud cause its too laggy. |
Yeah, progress stinks.
And my laptop will play well in Grandville. As would my previous laptop with half the graphics card in it.
Please limit your trolling to that done on a boat with a fishing rod.
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Man, I can't wait until this goes live. I'm upgrading to a quad core so my puter can handle all this goodness. Already running a GTX 260 with 2 gb ram. About 2 weeks and I'll be ready.
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Changing from true black to the darkest shade of gray does wonders for making your metallic tights look like reflective black metal.
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Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
My knowledge in metallurgy is severely limited, and thanks to that dang rock'n'roll, I can't look for "black metal" and actually find ANYTHING to do with metallurgy, so I can't even do research on this. I would assume metal that is black is usually painted, but I wouldn't know.
However, the only reason I brought in realism here was to explress that black reflections are something that ought to be available SOMEHOW. I mean, Impervium is a blackish purple metal and THAT is plenty shiny enough. Just look at your typical Combine architecture Arachnos fort. Whether that's plastic, paint or magical black shiny metal, shininess shouldn't be restricted to bright colours only, sinply because dark colours can be glossy, too. That's kind of the point of Environment Reflections. I have quite a few black-metal-clad heroes and villains. I don't know if that's realistic, but that was never really my prerogative. I know they look cool, and I wanted to see if they couldn't look cool and shiny. No such luck. Considering everything ELSE that I can see Environment Reflections on is terrible (doesn't actually reflect the environment in real time), this is kind of disappointing. |
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Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
My knowledge in metallurgy is severely limited
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Well, I've just lost all respect for you. All the cool kids study metallurgy as a hobby!
Also, the dark-dark gray instead of black comment above might be a good idea, I think. They're usually much nicer than black at showing detail.
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Reflective Black Metal sounds like a pretty good band name.
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Well, i am an metallurgist and so far i've not run into any metal or alloy which is black on it's own. The closest i've seen are some forms of oxides which are black in color, but they are matte and not reflectve at all.
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Huh... You have a point here. Darkest grey instead of black does actually look a lot more glossy and, if you squint, it does reflect things, too. However, it also looks grey, not black, and I know it's not because it reflects grey and blue surroundings. There are a few colours that my eyes pick out in a big way. Usually primary colours, like pure blue, green or red. White, and especially black, are probably the most telling to me, likely why I like black so much. A very dark grey is still just that - grey. And even then, it's still murky.|
Originally Posted by flashrains
Changing from true black to the darkest shade of gray does wonders for making your metallic tights look like reflective black metal.
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I guess I shouldn't really be complaining. It's not THAT big of a deal, in the end, because new Metallic looks a lot like old Metallic in pure black, and I had a glowy aura on top of it to make it look gleaming, so I'll manage either way. It's just odd they'd rig it up that way. Maybe I don't know enough about graphics technology, though.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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Actually, there are apparently ways to make black metal using high intensity lasers.
Here's some black titanium doesn't look very reflective at all.
And thinking on it. Real black absorbs all light, and hence cannot really reflect anything.
If you're looking at a cars paint job the reflection comes from the clear coat, not the black itself.
Does the floor in City Hall in Atlas reflect player models now? I remember being disappointed that it didn't when I first saw it.
I tried on test and it didn't for me, but I dunno if I just haven't got the hang of the Ultra Mode settings.
Sadly the 'reflective flooring' of the Atlas city hall is actually an optical illusion.
It's not a true reflection instead they built the atlas city hall upsidedown underneath the regular city hall, made the floor semi-transparent and wholia! Reflective flooring.
That's the reason it doesn't reflect players is because it's not actually a proper reflection.
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As a graphics person: The thing about the metallic tights is that in order for dark tights to be as reflective as light-colored tights, there would need to be a different shader applied to handle the reflections - the current reflections are subtractive, which gives a mirrorlike finish when your tights are silver or gold, but doesn't show much when they're black, and indeed if it were real metal with no coat of paint on top of it that's what it'd look like. In order for black costume parts to reflect the surrounding environment, the reflections would need to be additive, but if they were, then they wouldn't show up at all on anyone's tights that were not a dark color and would look completely not like metal on medium colors.|
Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
Huh... You have a point here. Darkest grey instead of black does actually look a lot more glossy and, if you squint, it does reflect things, too. However, it also looks grey, not black, and I know it's not because it reflects grey and blue surroundings. There are a few colours that my eyes pick out in a big way. Usually primary colours, like pure blue, green or red. White, and especially black, are probably the most telling to me, likely why I like black so much. A very dark grey is still just that - grey. And even then, it's still murky.
I guess I shouldn't really be complaining. It's not THAT big of a deal, in the end, because new Metallic looks a lot like old Metallic in pure black, and I had a glowy aura on top of it to make it look gleaming, so I'll manage either way. It's just odd they'd rig it up that way. Maybe I don't know enough about graphics technology, though. |
That said, a costume texture with additive environment reflection would be pretty neat to have - the result would look like slick enamel paint ala the black cars Sam mentioned, patent leather, or vinyl, depending on how it was used, and I think it'd be pretty sweet to see this as a new texture for Tights Sleek (though unfortunately they haven't done that).
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Theoretical pure black does absorb all light, but as far as I'm aware, a material of that colour doesn't exit. "Black" objects still reflect plenty of light, or we wouldn't be able to see their contour lines. Black metals, even if they're not reflective in the traditional sense, still reflect enough light for their edges to white out and for their facets to be of different shading. White objects, by contrast, reflect a lot of light, but they scatter it, so you don't see a reflection you can recognise as such.|
Originally Posted by Sapphic_Neko
And thinking on it. Real black absorbs all light, and hence cannot really reflect anything.
If you're looking at a cars paint job the reflection comes from the clear coat, not the black itself. |
A further note on reflections - most object in real life are reflective, even those we traditionally don't view as such. Sitting on my desk right now, I can tell the wood grain on the desk itself is reflective, but very faintly. In fact, the fabric sweater I'm wearing right now can be viewed as reflective, as I can both see a faint image of brightly-coloured objects under sufficient lighting in it, and I know it can reflect enough light on a sunny day to cast a shadow.
The point of it all is that, yes, black is traditionally the absence of light, but black objects still reflect.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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Yeah, I figured it was something like this. That's why I went out hunting for that article on transparency. I guess it does make sense for brighter metals to be reflective, but as we've already established, more than just metals reflect light. Glass, plastics, leathers, rubbers and, heck, water reflect light. I mean, your typical tar monster is usually pretty shiny and slimy, at least in CGI. I doubt tar itself is, though.|
Originally Posted by flashrains
As a graphics person: The thing about the metallic tights is that in order for dark tights to be as reflective as light-colored tights, there would need to be a different shader applied to handle the reflections - the current reflections are subtractive, which gives a mirrorlike finish when your tights are silver or gold, but doesn't show much when they're black, and indeed if it were real metal with no coat of paint on top of it that's what it'd look like. In order for black costume parts to reflect the surrounding environment, the reflections would need to be additive, but if they were, then they wouldn't show up at all on anyone's tights that were not a dark color and would look completely not like metal on medium colors.
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| That said, a costume texture with additive environment reflection would be pretty neat to have - the result would look like slick enamel paint ala the black cars Sam mentioned, patent leather, or vinyl, depending on how it was used, and I think it'd be pretty sweet to see this as a new texture for Tights Sleek (though unfortunately they haven't done that). |
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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Out of curiousity, has anybody tried to make a Silver Surfer clone in the creator? I suddenly remembered the 2nd Fantastic Four movie and realized SS was pretty much reflectively shiny.
Trailer from the movie
You'll see that he reflects.
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We don't have a smooth reflective texture, and the Surfer didn't have the same grooves our Metallic does. We also don't have a good smooth, reflective face. That, and we don't have a surfboard
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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Originally Posted by Dr_Mechano
Sadly the 'reflective flooring' of the Atlas city hall is actually an optical illusion.
It's not a true reflection instead they built the atlas city hall upsidedown underneath the regular city hall, made the floor semi-transparent and wholia! Reflective flooring. That's the reason it doesn't reflect players is because it's not actually a proper reflection. |
wow..really?
I would never have guessed that!
...that is an AWESOME cheat!
I hope they 'fix' it sometime in the future, but now when I see it I won't be miffed that I can't see me - thanks!
It's true that metal is very rarely truly black. What we see as black metal (if it doesn't involve thrashing death guitars) is metal that's been painted, or perhaps galvanized. Like a simple mailbox:
It's reflective enough to show up the sky, but details of the surrounding environment aren't strong enough to be seen.
If we want to be really anal, we can say that from a concept point of view, all of our characters would use painted or galvanized metal armor/skin/plating/whatever to make them look black, rather than hunting out some rare, esoteric and possibly weak metal which is naturally black. Well, yours might. Mine doesn't.
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See, when I think black metal, I think cast iron stove, if for no reason other than because a character of mine was once described as this I didn't intend it, but the pic I picked seems to be sort of mildly reflective, as well. I'd assume that's galvanised, as well?
And, yes, I agree that if we want to be fair to the concept, a lot of us are going to be using painted or otherwise coated metals on our armour, especially those sporting snazzy logos, cool patterns or funky colours. I mean, I assume you can find a metal that is HOT PINK, but it's much more likely to be painted that way.
I don't really want to bring realism in this, by the way, but shiny metals tend to not stay shiny for very long in actual use. That's why fire engine tool compartments have those circular sanding wheel patterns - to hide the scratches that moving tools in and out will invariably cause, We get shot at, blow up, burned and so forth, so shiny metal unmaintained is going to tarnish REALLY quickly. And if I'm going to spend time polishing my pecks to a mirror shine, I can spend the time to slap a coat of pain on there for good measure.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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Yep, and fabric rips. It's assumed that we polish, sew, repaint, and otherwise maintain our costumes, or that they're made of Magical Superhero Materials that never need maintenance or are self-healing.
Metal can also be enameled in those weird colors (hot pink, etc), which would let it keep a metallic shine rather than a plastic onem like this carabiner here. Just keepin' it out there that unnatural metal colors can be the same shine we see on the Metallic tights is all... not even sure what my point is, or if I have one. By the way, Sam, if you polished that stove to a finish that would reflect the surrounding environment, it wouldn't be black anymore.
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Originally Posted by Blacjac84
Out of curiousity, has anybody tried to make a Silver Surfer clone in the creator? I suddenly remembered the 2nd Fantastic Four movie and realized SS was pretty much reflectively shiny.
Trailer from the movie You'll see that he reflects. |
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Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
We don't have a smooth reflective texture, and the Surfer didn't have the same grooves our Metallic does. We also don't have a good smooth, reflective face. That, and we don't have a surfboard
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Maybe my knowledge of materials is failing me here, but what I mean is:|
Originally Posted by flashrains
By the way, Sam, if you polished that stove to a finish that would reflect the surrounding environment, it wouldn't be black anymore.
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You know those coloured balls you hang on your Christmas tree? If a red Christmass ball can be shiny, reflective AND red, can we not have one that's shiny, reflective and black?
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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the game is in a huge lull and i think they could have done something better with their time then give a buncha shadows to a 6 year old game with a dwindling playerbase
the % of people who will actually use ultra mode is so low i really cant believe they think it was a good idea.
there are people who still cant play in grandeville for crying out loud cause its too laggy.
Your computer sucks.
Side note: All existing ATI issues on live are gone on test. ALL of them. They wouldn't have bothered fixing those without ultra mode coming down the pipe. Course, now there's the new issue with FSAA and Occlusion not playing nicely, but I've a sudden newly rekindled faith that even that will get dealt with.
Time, and money, well spent by the developers.
Be well, people of CoH.