Old 3d graphics

Game Play & Game Design
#1

So most people don’t get it, but I’m a massive fan of some of the old so called terrible graphics from systems like the ps1, and earlier 3d pc games. I was wondering if anyone with more knowledge on 3d graphics than I could tell me what is causing a few of these, and maybe if there is a way I can achieve this today?

I think I get a few things - low resolution and linear filtering for that blurry look?

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So in some games, (Dungeon Keeper (#3) - the floor) when you look up close at textures they begin to curve or warp?

Also on loads of playstation games when anything moves it sort it… stutters around? #1 is silent hill, and at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WI5FCJF-Fas&feature=player_detailpage#t=389 (6:29) you can see his hands going wild even though they are still.

I also don’t understand how they used to light their games, even with modern hardware lighting is the bane of my life performance wise. The last 2 are resident evil survivor stories. I don’t see they lit them, is it lightmaps for the level and ambient for the players? Whenever I used ambient lights everything looks terrible, but in the outdoor parts of Silent Hill I couldnt figure out how it was lit, but it does’t look horrendous. And the colours, were they limited?

Purely as a hobby type project, I want to achieve the kind of graphical look many old playstation games had and am a huge fan of low poly models of which I make many.

(I know #2 is pre-rendered backgrounds not sure why I included that one)

#2

While I’m not an expert on it, I think most of the old PSOne quality graphics were a side effect of extremely low polygon textures and complicated render culling to improve performance that didn’t always work very well, but was still pretty much required to get a decent frame rate.

As for the blurriness, that’s just simply really low resolution blurry textures rendered on SD resolution displays, either with or without interlacing depending on if it was a console game on an old CRT TV or a PC with a (usually) higher quality CRT.

#3

One way of achieving something like this is to render the scene to a scaled down FBO, as seen here:

#4

Just tried rendering to a smaller fbo and fillining the screen with it, looks pretty cool! Still curious about how they lit stuff though if anyone knows

#5

That’s because older software renderers as well as the PS1 couldn’t do perspective correct texture mapping. I don’t think that you can disable perspective correction on current hardware. You might be able to set some hint but the hardware will most likely ignore it.

#6

Ah, but you could write a shader to get the effect :slight_smile:

#7

Yes, you could, but i really don’t think that it’s worth the effort.

#8

I agree with you completely. The OP seems to think otherwise, so I was just pointing out it is possible.

#9

You just need to set interpolation type qualifier as [noperspective]. Simple as that.

#10

Whoa, what game is that? That is beautiful.

#11

Interesting (but still pointless… ;)) ! I wasn’t aware of that option.

#12

Speaking as someone who has no clue what that means, (and despite it being pointless :P) where would one look to find a way of setting that…

#13

I dont get what you guys mean by “pointless”… the point is to make it look like a PSX game, so… it has a point
WHY is a different question which is probably fueled by nostalgia, which is fine :smiley:

so yeah low polygons, no AA, low res textures, low res screen
another thing is pre rendered backgrounds. so much pre rendered. I mean look at RE 1

http://theisozone.com/images/screens/pc-40325-41324177121.jpg

3 models and one background texture, ok maybe 4, one more for the optional knife

#14

690 polygons

#15

Texture curving and warping is due to them not interpolating the texture values based upon the 3d position , instead they have a large number of textured triangles , when you zoom they change shape the texture is the same.

#16

[quote=“Cero,post:13,topic:52637”]
For some reason I really like the graphics from the first Alone In The Dark, although I guess those are way too primitive for the OP (No lighting, software rendering).

#17

[quote=“Oskuro,post:16,topic:52637”]

Offtopic: Man, I remember when Alone In The Dark was released, it was so groundbreaking and revolutionary… :stuck_out_tongue:

#18

Acually I love that too, in particular the textureless flat shading of the main character.

I even went as far as to remove textures in one of my billions of projects (kept lighting though, character uses a head torch)

#19

The original PS1 Silent Hill is one of those games that gains a lot from its crappy graphics. It’s a bit like looking at an old pinhole photograph in that it becomes a bit abstract in places and your imagination takes over and fills in the gaps. I believe the imagination is more powerful than anything, so I actually get your point.

That, and the way it uses fog /darkness to keep the draw distance down really made it terrifying IMO. Playing it on an emulator with smooth shading and filtering etc actually removes something!

#20

Jester, which project is that, and is it downloadable/playable?