Theory on the Further Developement of Game Textures - Vectors - Developers

[QUOTE=MCPeePants;16360043]But the adding of more vectored details the closer you get could emphasize realism. Creating the high res picture is basically the thing here. You could have more textures from the minimal size the vectors consist of (memory wise).[/QUOTE] I guess that would be true. An added bonus of it would be that you could make a proprietary vector format for games where you can define places where it can take out detail for more speed. And you'd only add a couple KB of data instead of having 3 or 4 texture files.

[QUOTE=jivemasta;16360229]I guess that would be true. An added bonus of it would be that you could make a proprietary vector format for games where you can define places where it can take out detail for more speed. And you'd only add a couple KB of data instead of having 3 or 4 texture files.[/QUOTE] That's exactly what I was thinking of. If this could launch off, it could change a lot for the industry. Sure, it may take a while, but this could be the next step forward in the realism department!

[QUOTE=ROBO_DONUT;16355076]They're actually flat. They just turn so that they always face the player.[/QUOTE] Things like the ropes and whatnot are, sure. But I think on one of the train models or something, there's a wire modeled on and it's just a triangle. I'd have to go browse through stuff in GMod.

[QUOTE=MCPeePants;16360979]That's exactly what I was thinking of. If this could launch off, it could change a lot for the industry. Sure, it may take a while, but this could be the next step forward in the realism department![/QUOTE] Realism? Barely. Vector graphics aren't suited to representing anything photorealistic.

So my understanding of vector graphics is that it defines a bunch of cubic curves or something into closed figures. It is easier to procedurally rasterize that entire image than it is to take independent samples of it, unfortunately. However, it should be possible to tell if any particular sample is on the inside or outside of a closed parametric curve. I just gotta recall some 3d calc.

[QUOTE=Cathbadh;16365130]So my understanding of vector graphics is that it defines a bunch of cubic curves or something into closed figures. It is easier to procedurally rasterize that entire image than it is to take independent samples of it, unfortunately. However, it should be possible to tell if any particular sample is on the inside or outside of a closed parametric curve. I just gotta recall some 3d calc.[/QUOTE] I think it would be easier with regular images, since that's what we've been doing for ages. But It would make a ton of progress in the trimming of the size of a game. It's pretty much a trade off, you give up some realism for a tiny game size. With vector graphics, you'd potentially have games with the graphics of mirror's edge's style, or cel shaded style, but with the size of a DS game. I can think of more benefits than downsides, but it would really only be for games that are going to exploit the benefits and not go for realism in graphics. There's a bunch of little neat things you could do with them like procedural textures, dynamic quality adjustment, editable textures ingame, animated textures, textures that interact with the game and so on.

It makes more sense to me if you used some specialized language for defining a procedural texture, instead of just using vector graphics. Then rendering them to a texture before using them. Something along the lines of: [code]texture a = noise_mono(); //Some noise or something texture b = load("something.png"); //omg a image return b-0.5+a*0.1; //Return a now grainy image[/code] Edit: Scratch the above example. Or use some sort of tree structure like .theprodukkt does: [img]http://www.theprodukkt.com/img/texte/1.jpg[/img]

[QUOTE=noctune9;16371118]It makes more sense to me if you used some specialized language for defining a procedural texture, instead of just using vector graphics. Then rendering them to a texture before using them.[/QUOTE] I don't know, really, depends on how much overhead that adds.

[QUOTE=noctune9;16371118]It makes more sense to me if you used some specialized language for defining a procedural texture, instead of just using vector graphics. Then rendering them to a texture before using them.[/QUOTE] That doesn't exactly give you a whole lot of benefits. It drastically reduces the disk space you require, and lets you achieve any level of quality and complexity, but it doesn't reduce memory usage at all, nor does it let you get the fine real-time detail of vector graphics.

[QUOTE=Cathbadh;16373299]That doesn't exactly give you a whole lot of benefits. It drastically reduces the disk space you require, and lets you achieve any level of quality and complexity, but it doesn't reduce memory usage at all, nor does it let you get the fine real-time detail of vector graphics.[/QUOTE] Detail? You mean resolution. And the texture could be computed on the fly if needed (and if there's enough processing power). The problem I see with using vector graphics is that, although they might have a limitless resolution, they are not detailed enough to create (for example) a brick wall. And other seemingly simple stuff like a concrete floor. In other words, it doesn't look photorealistic.

[QUOTE=noctune9;16377483]Detail? You mean resolution. And the texture could be computed on the fly if needed (and if there's enough processing power). The problem I see with using vector graphics is that, although they might have a limitless resolution, they are not detailed enough to create (for example) a brick wall. And other seemingly simple stuff like a concrete floor. In other words, it doesn't look photorealistic.[/QUOTE] Is that why all flash games ( or the majority ) of them have the same look, graphic wise?

[QUOTE=Rowley;16380359]Is that why all flash games ( or the majority ) of them have the same look, graphic wise?[/QUOTE] Flash can use raster graphics, but the majority just use vector graphics.