New CRYENGINE Video Shows Impressive Normal Mapped Smoke Effects

YouTube’s member ‘shadowkiller123′ has released a new video, showcasing the normal mapped smoke effects that CRYENGINE is capable of.

[rodiabloalmeida]

Yeah. And when you pass through the smoke, it just does nothing. It stays the same, no interaction at all, "plastic graphics". That's the power of Cryengine 3 that you can't see in that video, very convenient.

[Neonridr]

what do you mean it does nothing? All that is being used here is various light sources showing you how dynamic the smoke is. Nobody is "passing through it" so how can you comment that nothing happens? It's not like the source that he is moving around is a physical object, it's simply a light emitter.

[theXtReMe1]

Exactly. Though I do question the necessity of normal mapping smoke when it is such a small part of a scene. Generally, if you have physically correct particles in place, the smoke should account for changes in the humidity, wind speed and direction, pressure from the explosions and physical properties in and around the smoke stream anyways. So the need to plump up the particles, like this video shows, isn't really a necessity I would see in any game environment. That is, unless smoke was part of, or controlled, in the gameplay.

I would imagine that this would just add extra stress to already maxed GPUs across the globe. :)

[Neonridr]

@theXtReMe1 - I figure this gives something for the Titan graphics cards to do in their spare time.. ;)

Agree completely, while it's a cool feature, completely frivalous and something that would create unnecessary strain on the graphics cards of normal PC's / game consoles.

[rodiabloalmeida]

"All that is being used here is various light sources showing you how dynamic the smoke is."

And that's exactly what I'm talking about. Everyone will praise this smoke effect but nobody will actualy think of how dynamic it could be. A Normal Mapped Smoke is as dynamicly useless as a POM effect on a brick for a nextgen game, which is what Cry Engine 3 claims to be the top notch to work with.

I just gave you an example of what a real dynamic and usefull smoke effect would be like: something passing through it, and it would interact showing some dynamic effect, something usefull, not just a color change cos thats very easy to achieve on other engines too. The video does not show this and, even so, people who doesn't know sh1t about 3D rendering will think "WoW! Awesome <colored by light> smoke. So next-gen. Cry Engine is the future. Cry Engine 3 FTW".

Agree if you disagree.

[Neonridr]

@rodiabloalmeida - whether or not you think this effect is fancy or useful is irrelevant. The fact is, no other engine has shown that they can reproduce what is being shown here. Sure it's pure icing, but it's still cool.

Just because the guy was showing off how the smoke can absorb and reflect light off doesn't mean that the smoke can't be interactive at all. We were never shown how a player would affect the smoke, just how a light would.

So I would reserve my judgement until that is demonstrated otherwise you might be jumping to conclusions without any real merit.

[stiggs]

@rodiabloalmeida

Who invited Debbie Downer to the party?

It's a simple tech demo...lighten up.

[UnHoly_One]

Good lord, thank you.

Everyone has to be SO negative about everything nowadays.

Don't bother to point out how the part they show you looks really cool, instead, come up with imaginary scenarios that aren't in the demo and talk about how they are going to look bad.

I just can't fathom that kind of thinking on a daily basis. It must be awfully depressing to only see the worst possibility out of every scenario.

[Audiggity]

Hahaha, exactly, yeah - the volume of people who just spew negativity on here constantly is becoming concerning.

Almost makes me miss the simple days when the first comment was "First!"... now to be replaced with some office chair know-it-all who never took a single computer science course, offering criticism and advice to those pushing the game industry to the next level.

Thanks for your input!

[ninjahunter]

You know, all those '0' games out there that use particle based smoke physics. Cryengine is definitely falling behind those '0' games.

[I_am_Batman]

It surely does look good. It's hard to judge how good it may end up though (for me personally) when the smoke comes out of nowhere. It would be great to see it used in a scene with fire or something like that.

I was really impressed with the Divisions smoke effects cause it was all integrated in a realistic scene.

It kinda throws me off with how far graphics have come when something doesn't seem right.

Cry Engine still looks really good however I feel like we're getting more and more engines that are on the same level if not even better than that.

[DoctorJones]

You'd downplay it no matter what you saw. Let's be honest.

[I_am_Batman]

What are you talking about? I don't even know how you come to the conclusion that I would play it down no matter what. I like the Cry Engine why would I want to downplay it?

I even said it looked really good and I'd like to see it in context so please explain to me why you assume I would play it down no matter what? I didn't think we know each other.

I probably should've said that it totally blew my mind away even though it didn't for you to accept it right?

There is a difference between downplaying and seeing it as what it is. It's not meant to be a public tech demo or advertisement for a new game.

[Audiggity]

That was some hot dirt!

[OutcastMosquito]

Great looking effects!

[Are_The_MaDNess]

looks good and its an cost effective effect over other types aswell. (performance vs quality)

[kakashi81]

Ryse 2 please!

[isarai]

Well it looks great but isn't really anything new, it's more prominent in here than most other games but i've seen normal/bump mapped smoke particles before