Doom Eternal's pretty, shiny and reflectively nonsensical surfaces

[Foebane72]

I remember playing through Doom Hunter Base, fresh off the train from Cultist Base, and how shiny and especially reflective the floors were, especially in that first big battle there. But then I noticed something odd: the reflections have no bearing on the environment. I know that there have to be compromises in game engines, but in the following screenshots, there are these bright white light reflections on the floor, with no corresponding source on the ceiling. Was some advanced shader used on the floors here, and that it was just one of many shiny surfaces made for the game which don't match that no-one picked up on? I'm not nit-picking here, just an observation. Sorry if the pics are blurry, I couldn't stop moving when taking them.

 

I've always loved these kinds of game engine tricks, and this for some reason reminds me of id Tech 3 (another favourite engine of mine) with its various shiny surfaces that were also very nonsensical in terms of realism of reflection (or lack thereof).

 

It reminds me of Pixar's work on Toy Story, which had to use similar tricks sometimes with the constraints back then: taking a render of a view of a bedroom and then mapping it onto the reflective surface of a clear plastic helmet. Same principles, basically.

 

[Foebane72]

Either I'm now a pariah on this site, or no-one knows what the bloody heck I'm talking about.

 

[Gerardo194]

You are not a pariah, bro. I know what you are talking about. 

The fact is that modern Doom games are not as good as Classic Doom. 

 

I guess those shiny floors are leftovers of some areas that were modified at last moment. I think I saw that in Doom 2016 as well. 

Edited June 12, 2020 by Gerardo194

[Edward850]

Light spot reflections are estimations or pre-generated, they aren't done in realtime. If you want realistic light reflections, wait for ray-tracing support, and then buy a ray-tracing capable GPU.

Edited June 12, 2020 by Edward850

[BarabaszEnthusiast]

18 hours ago, Gerardo194 said:

You are not a pariah, bro. I know what you are talking about. 

The fact is that modern Doom games are not as good as Classic Doom. 

 

 

 

ok boomer

[Foebane72]

On 6/12/2020 at 5:40 AM, Edward850 said:

Light spot reflections are estimations or pre-generated, they aren't done in realtime. If you want realistic light reflections, wait for ray-tracing support, and then buy a ray-tracing capable GPU.

 

I know they're not done in realtime, even if I didn't make that clear. But I do wonder about the mirrors in id Tech 3 and 4, where the whole room and all the objects and models in it were reflected. I even made my own map for Quake 3 that used mirrors, and people told me it was useful for looking at themselves when trying new skins, etc.

 

With those mirror rooms, I wonder if the geometry of the reflected room was added to the BSP tree during the BSP process? I doubt it could've been done in realtime.

 

[NoXion]

On 6/12/2020 at 5:33 AM, Gerardo194 said:

You are not a pariah, bro. I know what you are talking about. 

The fact is that modern Doom games are not as good as Classic Doom.

I don't think it's fair to compare the two. They're each products of very different eras in the industry. I mean do you think it would be fair to compare a 1908 Ford Model T with a 2019 Ford Mustang?

[SaladBadger]

Basic mirrors are one of the easier things to do, because in practice you can render the scene twice with some changes in parameters. Downside is it has the cost of having to render the scene twice. Reflections on arbitrary surfaces become a lot harder to do accurately without any sort of ray tracing, and with current rasterizing technology the only option is approximations, like you see here. There's technology like Screen-space reflections to make much more detailed approximations, but it still has a ton of associated limits (it can only reflect things that are visible in the current view)

[GuyMcBrofist]

It might just be the specular highlighting from some detached light sources used to fill the room. You can see it on the plasma rifle in the second to last shot.

Edited June 14, 2020 by GuyMcBrofist

[Gerardo194]

On 6/12/2020 at 5:27 PM, BarabaszEnthusiast said:

 

ok boomer

Hahaha, take it back lol

 

@NoXion comparing cars with a videogame doesn't have sense to me. I don't like cars to be honest. 

 

I gave you guys a react point. 

 

Why do you guys get upset when someone say something about modern Doom??? This is just between Foebane and I. 

15 hours ago, NoXion said:

I don't think it's fair to compare the two. They're each products of very different eras in the industry. I mean do you think it would be fair to compare a 1908 Ford Model T with a 2019 Ford Mustang? 

Edited June 14, 2020 by Gerardo194

[Gerardo194]

On 6/11/2020 at 10:40 PM, Edward850 said:

Light spot reflections are estimations or pre-generated, they aren't done in realtime. If you want realistic light reflections, wait for ray-tracing support, and then buy a ray-tracing capable GPU.

Interesting, I always thought it had something to do with levels development. 

[Skeletonpatch]

My best guess pretty much matches what GuyMcBrofist said here. I once dabbled with mapping for the Source engine, and noticed a specific light object that you can place in the map that is basically an invisible point in space that emits light in all directions. If you've ever wondered why Portal's maps are so evenly lit without clear light sources, that's the reason. In terms of the images, I would speculate that the floor has been made into a semi reflective surface and in some spots the "light" object was placed close enough to the floor to create a bright reflection.

[oCrapaCreeper]

Lighting in this game is more functional than pretty. Demons themselves cast a light source from themselves so they are visible in any condition, and so does the slayer (hence why the view models are lit in darkness), so there can be a lot of out of place reflections the game is trying to estimate.

Edited June 14, 2020 by oCrapaCreeper

[Gerardo194]

Doom 2016 has some slowdowns when Doom Eternal does not. I own both on PS4. 

Has this something to do with these shiny and reflective surfaces??? 

[Edward850]

Unlikely, the reflections seem to be the same between them. It's more likely that Eternal is just better optimised (I noticed its dynamic resolution scaling seems to be much snappier this time round, which might be part of it). 

[Cruduxy Pegg]

I too can make any game look like shit with motion blur and static screenshots. 

[Foebane72]

55 minutes ago, Pegg said:

I too can make any game look like shit with motion blur and static screenshots. 

 

What do you want, a YouTube video??

 

And I already said I couldn't stop moving during the taking of the photos. That's GeForce Experience for you, and the default key is Alt-F1 for screenshots, and my right move key is also Alt. Go figure.

 

[BarabaszEnthusiast]

22 minutes ago, Foebane72 said:

 

What do you want, a YouTube video??

 

And I already said I couldn't stop moving during the taking of the photos. That's GeForce Experience for you, and the default key is Alt-F1 for screenshots, and my right move key is also Alt. Go figure.

 

 

Dude, it's time to stop posting.

[Foebane72]

6 hours ago, BarabaszEnthusiast said:

 

Dude, it's time to stop posting.

 

I'll post whatever I damn well want!

 

[Deimos]

I think it's supposed to be some kind of brushed metal that became "shiny' due to regular mechanic abrasion caused by everyday use. It's not supposed to be mirror-like reflecting surface. I'm almost certain we'll see "proper" reflections when RTX support comes in but will it necessarily make more sense anyway?

Edit: About the colors not matching i agree but maybe it was on purpose to have cold and warm color schemes clash on purpose. A realistic application of light in these environments could possibly make them less interesting looking

Edited June 15, 2020 by Deimos