On Thu, 17 Sep 1998 10:59:39 +0200, "Jeroen van Engelenhoven"
>Just a little remark (on what is still a great game): much is said (here and
>there) about the great reflections on the car: 'You can really see the
>surroundings on it! Wow! Awesome! How did they do that? Very realistic!'
>Well, look again. In the demo you can clearly see the reflection is nothing
>else than a single rotating texture projected on the car. When you pass the
>rocks or when you drive through the tunnel, you still see the same trees on
>the car! Ha! Realistic! Gimme a break! It's a cheap trick! It looks nice
>though, and it doens't make the game worse. Just wondered if anybody else
>noticed this already. BTW I always use the bumper (or in-car) view, so...
>Jeroen van Engelenjoven
hrm...I dont recall anyone saying there realistic and there not
exactly new. They where in NFS2 SE as well. the effect is actually the
most often used, even in profesional renderings. Even the arcade
racers (yes..even segas all powerfull model 3) use the same trick, its
called an environment map. To actually reflect the true surroundings
you would have to raytrace and no 3d card..glint or not..could do that
in real time at a passable frame rate. so they take a seperate
teaxture... usually a good representation of the surroudnings..and
make it a nice panoramic oval wich invisiable to the user, is put
around each car and then the glossy shell mirrors that. if you tried
to mirrior the true surroundings all the rays of light boncing off of
each pixle would have to be calculated. (another note, in 3d games
when you see things like water reflections and stuff.. its not usually
a true reflection..but everything you see flipped upside down, wich
itself can lead to slow down since your rendering alot of polygons
twice now.. esp on big bodys of water.)
Atleast now in NFS3 its a new more accurate map for each map..in NFS2
se it was teh same map for every track. One thing i dont get is the
tunnels. they should have made a new map for that. I remember screamer
used a new tunnel map for its windows. Another thing too... why the
hell did they make the map stationary? It oes look fake when I'm
cruzin in a straight path at 140mph and the teaxture dosnt move on my
car. it only moves when your turning and suff.
