Not comparable. Crysis 2 uses the classic "instancing" texturing with using the same texture for different objects over and over again.
The classic approach is more memory efficient at the expense of unique visual appearance and therefore less unique world detail.


Yep. It's a tradeoff. More different pixels to store, more memory space needed, less resolution as a result.

Keep in mind:
Crysis 2 fits on ONE DVD 9,
Rage needs THREE DVD 9s.

For a reason:
Rage has 22 GBs of data. Geometry and engine data is usually rather small so it is valid to assume that most of the data in these 22GBs is texture related.

If you double the horizontal and vertical resolution for a texture you need 4 times the space to store it.
It's absolutely unthinkable at this point in time to release a game that has more than 80 GBs of data.

Neither DVD based storage nor digital distribution would work.
The only way to distrubute it would be on TWO blu ray discs and that would end up being commercial suicide.

Yes it does. At least when talking about zooming in on far away objects. I thought this was your point.
Keep in mind it's not just the basic texture resolution we're talking about here but also the less detailed "mip mapped" pixels that end up on screen due to downscaling of the resolution in cases of lack of fillrate or far away objects.
There's no point in rendering more texels than pixel resolution is available on screen and should be avoided if possible to save fillrate.

But if you're talking about less detailed texturing of different artwork viewed from the same distance at the same framerate (remember Rage reduces resolution on the fly to keep a steady framerate) than that is something completely different.

I personally haven't noticed that much difference in texture resolution from one mesh to another on 360 when everything is properly loaded.
Any "in your face" examples?

The texture "issues" with Rage are very noticeable when you are walking around town. Ironically I think the uniqueness of the texturing works against it in that regard. You want to (or at least I do) read the signs, look at the portraits in the Mayor's office, read the graffiti, etc. If Rage was a pure shooter without all of those details the N64 level of detail wouldn't be so irritating.

Edit: Looking at what appear to be actual http://media.tojicode.com/onGameStart/images/textureatlas.jpg of the textures (I think they are, idk) it seems it's more chaotic for some things, like indoors, than I thought.
Anywho, as you can see the detailing is uneven, because they have shrunk in what they see as less important, usually props like books or lamps and bottles, etc.
Problem is, they're not less important. At least not in a visual perspective. They are what pops out the most, not the detailed ares. They pop out as big blurs.
But whatever I suppose. It can't really be solved until megatextures can be alot bigger, and that's not gonna happen for a while so once again I can only say that providing a good detail texture system can help.

I'll stop about the detail now, though, I'll just wait and see how Doom4 looks, hopefully they've made improvements.

Yes, there are low resolution textures, but there are also unique textures everywhere and you just have to be willing to make that trade-off.

OR you can wait until overall hardware is just better
But yes, for now the tradeoff was required. It's fine, besides it makes sense Rage wouldn't shot even the megatextures working at full potential, time will tell how practice with the engine pays off. Can't wait to see where they go

It'll be interesting to see how other next-gen games try to keep faking a good world with traditional texturing. Hard as they try, I'm the kind that always noticed tiling, lol

As with all id engines, their tech is ahead of the game - technology won't take long to catch up.

I checked the 360 version for uneven detail and the differences in texture res go from medium to low.
Nothing i would consider to be excessively out of proportion.

Pretty much everything locks blocky if you get to close.

The mountain rock sections you were talking about, change their detail from high at ground level to low at the top.
In other words: the farther away, the less detailed.

I'm absolutely sure they did this for reducing bandwidth and fillrate needs.
Even if the megatexture allows for an even resolution on different objects from a memory storage point of view, texture res is still an issue when you try to maintain a constant and high framerate of 60 frames pers second at all times.

And this is what i had in mind when talking about the sniper scope:
The rock formations look fine when you play the game it is meant to be played.
The higher sections of the mountains are not accessible without any cheatcodes and therefore less detailed.
At the usual distance the player will have when playing the game, they look fine.

Raising the detail on the rock formations just for the sake of making them look more detailed when using the scope would raise the bandwidth requirements permanently, resulting in a lower framerate at all times!
From the engine programmer's viewpoint, sacrificing overall performance for a very rare "abuse" of the gameplay possibilities is not an option.

Just try to only use the scope for what it was meant to be: zooming in on enemies and not the environment.

Even the Mona Lisa looks crappy when examined with a magnifying glass....

As for the low res textures on books, lamps and so forth:
I guess they made the decision to make the objects the player will likely look at most more detailed and the others less detailed for mentioned reasons.

Characters you have to talk to, your guns and the cars are very detailed.
The same applies to most ground textures as you will have them in view most of the time.
The books, paintings and pictures in some characters' offices are of lower importance as they are rarely in your view.

But it seems like not everybody shares id's decision on what's important and what is not.
I guess id has to live with this though.
Their games are more likely to be taken apart from a technological point of view as other games from other developers who talk more about gameplay than technology when it comes to their babies...

meh, I'll stop arguing

Besides, I have been completely awed and shocked by the amazing Scorcher temple.

I have seen all the "amazing" temples in medieval games, but the one in Rage is the best temple I have seen by far, personally. The scenery was just jaw-dropping

Yep!
But have you noticed, that the texturing in the scorchers DLC including the temple is more the conventional "oldschool" type and less picturesque?
It's primarily the huge geometry and the lighting that makes it look great.

Well I'm not sure what you mean, but I guess I missed it indeed because of great use of geometry and lighting.
Also I must say, the lighting is indeed spectacular, my favorite in the whole game.

Edit: Temples seem to be perfect with Tech5, this is good for a Quake reboot

There's less world detail there, no trash or little pieces lying around.
It's more like they focused on standard wall textures, lighting and gameplay.

Compare the completely trashed and dirty Gearhead vault or the Dead City map filled to the roof with broken pieces of concrete or rusted cars to the rather clean and tidy looking scorchers' temple.

A Quake reboot with the original Quake 1 style and some spooky Trent reznor soundtrack would be a very good idea on idTech 5.

Just imagine how awesome Rage 2 will look on Next Gen consoles...... Rage is easily amongst the best looking this ten,if not THE best.

Ah, I see what you mean. Well to be honest, it looks much better this way than with all the world detail. Why? Because the world detail is always very blurry in Rage. It's good that they found weaknesses in the game's required design.
For example, I personally am not a huge fan of the gearhead vault, because so much of it is really blurry, plus it's very dull, just brown and grey everywhere

So id, if anyone of you is reading, use this as an advantage. Less world detail, more texture detail and great lighting. Scorchers really does overall look better than the rest of the game, and I mean that in a good way, it's advancement

Oh and yes, I did mean a Quake reboot in Quake1 style. I want to fight the nightmare like monsters again, oh those awesome hairy lech-faced snowmen
I agree mostly, and yes, I can't wait for Rage2 on next gen, theoretically it must look better. They already have it at 60fps with everything baked, so they shouldn't have too much trouble improving some things. Megatexture resolution is mostly fine, so I don't expect a huge boost there.

What I do expect is that more lighting be dynamic, so that it's not as baked as Rage1. I also would hope for 3d plants (sprites look like [censored]).


Edit: OH, and as a personal request, bring back the blue tinge that Dead City had at first. It looks amazing. I hate the yellow piss-looking atmosphere, it looks... like piss. Oh and ACTUALLY, what would be much better is if you have it dark, cloudy, and raining!

I agree, RAGE really needed a night time and rain!

Never mind what I said about world detail

Dead City world detail looks amazing! But please id, do it right, don't make everything so blurry! World detail like rubble and debris is good. But please don't place any more blurry lamps, blurry toilets, etc.... the levels look so much better in scenario selection, because I don't have to walk around seeing blurry glowing bottles and blurry loot junk

My personal favorite graphicswise is the Jackal Canyon.
It has the perfect balance between geometry, lighting and textureing.
Amazing to see such eye candy running at 60fps!

Dead City is the ace when it comes to atmosphere....

Hm, I think you're right, Jackal Canyon is perfectly balanced out. Best "total graphics" in the game

Of course it is possible. It's just a matter of John Carmack forcing ID's artists to spend more time taking better care of the texturing.

I would just like to point out that Rage looks WAY better than Crysis 2, so the argument there is pointless.

Both games have something going for them. In Crysis 2 important textures look nice up close, and reflection looks amazing. However, Crysis2 also has uberly blurry and uberly low-poly props... I shouldn't even have to mention their box-looking trees.
Rage has much better lighting and atmosphere, and the characters are more detailed. Both games have their graphical upsides and downsides

Anyway I'd like to end the post showing the amazing world/geometric detail Rage has, and no other game has
http://cloud.steampowered.com/ugc/612755607727803503/D6C6DE9A6CB474FA4078ADACB81ED77A2149CBBF/
Crysis wishes it had that level of detail.
Most of Crysis2 is absolutely flat and box-like, with hd textures slapped on. Just like most other hd-textured games.

Have a look at everything going on in this one: http://i45.tinypic.com/2e3msms.jpg


Did you actually even bother trying to understand anything at all about what the technology is and how it works?

Nope, I just bang my head on the keyboard randomly and post what comes up.

It's the opposite: idTech 5 was designed to give artists maximum freedom in doing their work.
But it's never a good idea to render textures in highres that might not be noticed by the majority of gamers.
Every pixel drawn needs fillrate. So less texture resolution = higher framerate.

Maybe they made the some compromises between texture res and game performance.

It's also a matter of learn-as-you-go. I think it's obvious that the artists didn't take full advantage of the capabilities at first
That doesn't mean they're bad artists.
Before Tech5, I don't think there has been any game where artists had to "paint" a world. So they're not to blame, would've happened to any and every artist first-timing.


Anywho after seeing Scorchers it's pretty clear they're learning how to balance everything graphically, including nice texture detail where it should be.

Just look at the beauty:
http://cloud-2.steampowered.com/ugc/594739388753963391/1CF9C31F17E12F77323AEDAAA85884F8A7489EE3/
http://cloud-2.steampowered.com/ugc/594739931209943912/EF796B2AB56DCD6B1BB8DE202156E23AB15A3809/
http://cloud.steampowered.com/ugc/594739931209940991/0F8740BCFF053A9276EE3C3BF38A71512E1D2255/

I wish we could revisit all the areas in the game even after completing the missions in them, it would be great if they were re-filled with enemies and loot after we completed them. The scenario selection just doesn't cut it for me, it's not enough.