Glorious 3D battles....not!

They promised epic 3D battles, but after looking through the files and then playing a few games I noticed that the game still uses 2D sprites! If your camera is at a high attitude, you probably won't see any unit in 3D. :worried2: These sprites also have less resolution than the M:TW ones, so that is probably why units become blurry from a distance. It's all well since it's probably needed for memory-management, but still it feels like cheating after expecting 3D battles and then almost constantly looking at sprites unless I zoom in.

To avoid posting a pure rant thread, I wonder wether some people do see 3D units constantly. You can check this by viewing closely at an unit and then moving away while still looking at it. At a certain point, you will see a change in the look of the units, less colour, slightly wrong facing and less detailed. At that point you are looking at 2D sprites.

:sad:

Yes, I'm sure it is done for fps reasons. Big battles lag enough as it is.

I don't feel annoyed by that - I can see them in 3D when zoomed in, when zoomed out I am not admiring their smallness and could care less if they're 2D to save memory. Sure it is irksome, but at least they didn't make it FULL 3D and have the min sys reqs super high.

The battles look great to me. No complaints here. Maybe if I ever get a PC that can play the game on the highest graphics settings, then I'll get bored and want more, but at the moment I am pleased as punch. ~D

Well they are beatiful 3d when I zoom in, I don'tmind them being 2d from far away to make the game run smoother :)

I think they did a VERY smooth job of integrating sprites and 3D. It's noticeable if you're looking for it, but not by much.

After realising that, though, I feel very sorry for the poor artists who had to generate all the sprites, AND come up with the textures.

no complaints about the 3d battles

my only issue is on the campaign map some ships (facing sideways) get lost to vision when the map zoomed out

Interesting, Duke John. I don't know anything about graphics or 3D, and it could be that my laptop is just not cutting it, but I swear the RTW units and indeed terrain look worse zoomed out than those in MTW and (especially) STW. Closer in, they are amazing, of course.

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Originally Posted by Duke John

They promised epic 3D battles, but after looking through the files and then playing a few games I noticed that the game still uses 2D sprites! If your camera is at a high attitude, you probably won't see any unit in 3D. :worried2: These sprites also have less resolution than the M:TW ones, so that is probably why units become blurry from a distance. It's all well since it's probably needed for memory-management, but still it feels like cheating after expecting 3D battles and then almost constantly looking at sprites unless I zoom in.

To avoid posting a pure rant thread, I wonder wether some people do see 3D units constantly. You can check this by viewing closely at an unit and then moving away while still looking at it. At a certain point, you will see a change in the look of the units, less colour, slightly wrong facing and less detailed. At that point you are looking at 2D sprites.

:sad:

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Well you've discovered the secret of RTW's engine haven't you? That's why it can render so many soldiers onscreen at once. Far Cry's 3D engine uses these same 3D/2D tricks with objects that are a certain distance from the camera. That's how it can render all that foliage without requiring the use of a 3D card that has yet to be invented... ~;)

Anyway, what's your Unit Detail setting at? I play with High unit details at 1024x768x32bit with 4x anti-aliasing and 16x Anisotropic Filtering and I really don't notice the sprites as much. I did notice when I dropped Unit Detail down to Medium the transition from 3D to 2D become more obvious.

This is not something I really care about, but there is a point, roughly 40-50m away, where they change from 2D to 3D.

Ironically my game runs better zoomed in that zoomed out.

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Originally Posted by solypsist

no complaints about the 3d battles

my only issue is on the campaign map some ships (facing sideways) get lost to vision when the map zoomed out

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yeah I lost a naval battle this way because I attacked what I thought was 2 ships, I didnt' notice the half stack of ships hiding nearby up against the coast in their "sideways" pose

Strange...

I looked 'till my eyes bleed, and I didn't noticed anything like that. I even made the units move, and I distinctly see them marching. Certainly not sprites.

I couldn't get this 3D to 2D point, anyway.

Its very subtle and you hardly notice it.
I just think this is yet another "Lets Find Something To Bitch About RTW" post.

The point where it happens anyway is quite far out, where I doubt 3D would make a incredably difference.

I think its "efficient programming" on the part of CA.
For all the 3D rendering this game puts hardly any strain on my video card.

I had never noticed that untill you mentioned it. I agree that this is not valid flaw. What exactly is wrong with 2d? Even if you for some reason don't like 2d, what exactly is the problem if you can't tell the difference?

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Originally Posted by Duke John

They promised epic 3D battles, but after looking through the files and then playing a few games I noticed that the game still uses 2D sprites! If your camera is at a high attitude, you probably won't see any unit in 3D. :worried2: These sprites also have less resolution than the M:TW ones, so that is probably why units become blurry from a distance.

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Yes. I had noticed that in the demo already. Not a pleasent surprise I might say... :cry:

I think the battles look great!

I've got the game running at 1600x1200 in 32 bit colour on an ATI 9800 Pro and it looks fantastic. From near or far. No complaints here.

Perhaps it is extra unpleasant for me, because I am modding new units and now the 3D models are not looking the same as the 2D sprites. And then the transition from 3D to 2D is very clear. So that means redrawing all the sprites. And I hoped that was no longer necessary after M:TW...

After reading your opinions I tested the different unit detail settings.
Highest: 3d models seem to be used at all times
High: 3d models until beyond bowshot, then 2d sprites
Medium: 3d models until beyond charge distance
Low: 3d models until beyond about the length of 30 men. So unless you're really zoomed out you only see sprites. And what is even worse (at least to me), those sprites aren't animated, they are just stills that move around.

This may seem like "R:TW bitching" to some but I think this information could be useful when you want to buy a graphics card for R:TW. I did so and now I notice that the quality of unitgraphics are even worse than M:TW unless I zoom, but then I lose overview of the army. If I had known this before hand then I had probably bought a different card.

I am running AMD Athlon 2500 processor and a Radeon 9200 128 MB card with 512 MB of memory and it runs nicely on medium.

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Originally Posted by Duke John

After reading your opinions I tested the different unit detail settings.
Highest: 3d models seem to be used at all times

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Oh, ok, that would explain why I NEVER see any 2D sprites ^^

In other words, the detail level on units is simply a measure at how far you need to go to get 2D sprites, with highest meaning you never get these sprites.

As such, I don't see what's the problem. If people don't want sprites, they just have to put the unit details at max. And they have the advertised "full 3D battles".

BTW : I've only a Radeon 9700 (non-pro) and a 2200+, and all runs great in normal battle, and ok even in huge. So it's not like the highest-details settings on units isn't available to most ^^

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As such, I don't see what's the problem. If people don't want sprites, they just have to put the unit details at max. And they have the advertised "full 3D battles".

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But then you are expecting that everybody can set it on high without having a slideshow. What is the memory of graphics card and how much do you internal,512 or higher?

If folks are only going to run the game on highest unit detail the 2D sprites would not need to be created for new units/models then?

Normally I set the unit detail on medium and that allows me to maintain a decent framerate at all times.

If I turn down the landscape and effects detail somewhat I'm able to run fairly smooth (though slightly laggy in larger battles) the units on highest detail (large unit size) @ 1024x768 with a GeForce 4 Ti4200 128MB, Athlon 2500+, and 512 DDR RAM.

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Originally Posted by Duke John

But then you are expecting that everybody can set it on high without having a slideshow. What is the memory of graphics card and how much do you internal,512 or higher?

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128 Mo on the graphic card, and 1 Go for the computer.

I don't expect everyone to be able to put the unit details to max, but I point that complaining that the game isn't in full 3D while you put the detail slider lower to diminish the graphic quality, is somehow pointless.

The game IS in full 3D, and can runs so on quite average computers like mine. There is an OPTION to decrease the graphics to run smoother, but then it's an option, and it's not some kind of false advertisement about the 3D-ness of the game :)

No complaints on the battle graphics here. I have a mid-range system and the subtle switch to 2D when fully zoomed out in battle doesn't cause me any soreness. I actually admire CA's flexible programming on this issue. I concur though that fleets are wacky. I'm not sure, however, that an admiral would always know even the general size of an enemy's fleet until it's too late? I admit, however, that's a lame excuse for the subpar graphical renderings of fleets facing sideways.

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Originally Posted by Duke John

Perhaps it is extra unpleasant for me, because I am modding new units and now the 3D models are not looking the same as the 2D sprites. And then the transition from 3D to 2D is very clear. So that means redrawing all the sprites. And I hoped that was no longer necessary after M:TW...

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Not to worry, for a solution is close at hand... our artists would also have complained at doing two sets of artwork ;) The 'imposters' in Rome (which is really just a fancy way of saying "a sprite which is pretending to be a 3d object") are all auto-generated from the 3d models. The auto-generator is built into the main Rome exe but is not exposed in the current build; I'll see if we can make it available in a patch. But be warned it does take a while to run.

i found a funny bug related to this subject yesterday. i was playing as julii and i hired a barbarian cav that i deployed in a battle. this merc unit which is green in color would magically change color to red, julii color, when i zoom out. the funny this is that the color change occur at a certain distance from you camera position automatically, so if i zoom slowly i can make half of the merc green, and the other half red. i think i can fix this if i mess with the model.txt file, but why bother...

someone mention earlier that 2d sprites isn't used if you set the graphic option to the highest setting. i don't think it's true. i set everything to the highest and i still see sprites.

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Originally Posted by JeromeGrasdyke

Not to worry, for a solution is close at hand... our artists would also have complained at doing two sets of artwork ;) The 'imposters' in Rome (which is really just a fancy way of saying "a sprite which is pretending to be a 3d object") are all auto-generated from the 3d models. The auto-generator is built into the main Rome exe but is not exposed in the current build; I'll see if we can make it available in a patch. But be warned it does take a while to run.

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Now this would be a very nice gesture on CA's part. It would also go a long way in preventing the inevitable outbreak of anger, rioting, looting, self immolation and other means of expression available to the Org's industrious modding community... ~;)

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Originally Posted by Spino

Now this would be a very nice gesture on CA's part. It would also go a long way in preventing the inevitable outbreak of anger, rioting, looting, self immolation and other means of expression available to the Org's industrious modding community... ~;)

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Heheh, yes it would. Thanks Jerome

:thumbsup:

Ugly graphics solution: antistrophic filtering. I have it on at X2 and the game went from but ugly to as good as the fancy screenshots. You have to enable it outside the game in your graphics card's control panel and it takes a bit of extra juice but it makes a huge difference.

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Originally Posted by frogbeastegg

Ugly graphics solution: antistrophic filtering. I have it on at X2 and the game went from but ugly to as good as the fancy screenshots. You have to enable it outside the game in your graphics card's control panel and it takes a bit of extra juice but it makes a huge difference.

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The ingame setting worked for me, and made a huge difference with barely any performance hit. Normally my Nvidia cards suck for AA too.

Only problem is I cant take ScreenShots's with AA turned on :(

Morindin you are talking about anti-aliasing(AA).
AA removes what people like to call "jaggies" which is straight lines of 3D objects not looking sharp and clear which is a side-effect of digitized graphics similar to how a line in MS paint can look segmented.

Frog is talking about anisotrophic filtering (AF).
AF usually works to remove flicker of textures (especially ones in the distance) and improves image quality by sharpening textures etc (probly other things I don't know about) AF can not be turned on in-game in RTW.

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Not to worry, for a solution is close at hand... our artists would also have complained at doing two sets of artwork ;) The 'imposters' in Rome (which is really just a fancy way of saying "a sprite which is pretending to be a 3d object") are all auto-generated from the 3d models. The auto-generator is built into the main Rome exe but is not exposed in the current build; I'll see if we can make it available in a patch. But be warned it does take a while to run.

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JeromeGrasdyke, watch it now! You are starting to spoil us modders :grin: Thank you very much. It's good to see that you and the other programmers have thought seriously about modding. This game is just getting better and better, before you know it you are telling me that we will be able to make our own campaign maps :wink3:

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Originally Posted by Thoros of Myr

Morindin you are talking about anti-aliasing(AA).
AA removes what people like to call "jaggies" which is straight lines of 3D objects not looking sharp and clear which is a side-effect of digitized graphics similar to how a line in MS paint can look segmented.

Frog is talking about anisotrophic filtering (AF).
AF usually works to remove flicker of textures (especially ones in the distance) and improves image quality by sharpening textures etc (probly other things I don't know about) AF can not be turned on in-game in RTW.

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*doh* You're right. Skim reading is bad sometimes :P

I have a Radeon 9200 with 128mb, an Athlon 64 3000+ and 512mb of RAM. When I saw this, I found that setting it to highest detail made the game lag until I removed high quality shadows. Now it works fine.

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Originally Posted by JeromeGrasdyke

Not to worry, for a solution is close at hand... our artists would also have complained at doing two sets of artwork ;) The 'imposters' in Rome (which is really just a fancy way of saying "a sprite which is pretending to be a 3d object") are all auto-generated from the 3d models. The auto-generator is built into the main Rome exe but is not exposed in the current build; I'll see if we can make it available in a patch. But be warned it does take a while to run.

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Great! When this patch will be released?

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Originally Posted by Duke John

Perhaps it is extra unpleasant for me, because I am modding new units and now the 3D models are not looking the same as the 2D sprites. And then the transition from 3D to 2D is very clear. So that means redrawing all the sprites. And I hoped that was no longer necessary after M:TW...

I am running AMD Athlon 2500 processor and a Radeon 9200 128 MB card with 512 MB of memory and it runs nicely on medium.

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BTW, JFYI, the 9200 is a fairly low level card and is neither DX9 nor vertex shader 2.0 capable, this has a major effect upon the quaility of your graphics.

Here's an older comparison Chart, listing grahpic cards and their basic capbilities (listing the 9200):

VGA Charts III

Here's the latest updated Chart (the 9200 is no longer listed):

VGA Charts IV

Be aware that the amount of video memory on your card has little to no effect whatsoever, unless you have one of the very latest cards and use it with certain of the very latest games, and then the extra memory has only marginal effects. 128 is as good as 256. The card companies use 256 as hype to make more money from the uninitiated, Caveate Emptore (sp?). Though, 64 to 128 can be effective. In about a year or so 512 will be the standard and there s/b software to take advantage of it.

I've got a 9700 pro w. 128 megs and 1 gig of system memory. I play the game at 1600x1200x32, low AA, highest settings, no sprites visible.

"You have to enable it outside the game in your graphics card's control panel and it takes a bit of extra juice but it makes a huge difference."

Do you have to override letting the application pick the AF?

Or can you leave that checked, and select 4xAF, and RTW will go with the 4xaf?

Hello,

This is an Interesting Topic here.

I would not want to disagree with any of the Veterans of the Org here, specially not Duke John ;)

However, I think what you are observig, and I read all the posts in this thread to make sure that I am not repeating here, is actually LOD.

So that at different distances, the actual model changes to a simpler model, sometime very simpler model, like a rectangle face, containing 2 polys per.

I am thinking that this transition from a Higher LOD model to a lower LOD model is what is being observed here. I would have trouble immagining the amount of work of making two sets of graphics.

Just a thought.

The battles look awesome, no complaints here.

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Originally Posted by Ulstan

"You have to enable it outside the game in your graphics card's control panel and it takes a bit of extra juice but it makes a huge difference."

Do you have to override letting the application pick the AF?

Or can you leave that checked, and select 4xAF, and RTW will go with the 4xaf?

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I'm not sure if the ATI drivers will default to the X4 if the program doesn't set its own preference; I have never got around to experimenting. I know my default in my card's settings was X0, so I had to alter it anyway. I just left it as an override for all programs, since I am not playing any other 3D games.

I wish this option was included in the in-game menu; it's a bit of an oversight.

I personally was shocked at how nice and smooth everything runs, even at higher settings. In alot of games to get the smooth play I want I turn everything to the min setting. Not this game! I am very impressed with that part of the game.