The lighting was horrible, but the textures were crap too. And rather than modeling some things like Akira's muscles, and then have light shine on that like on Naomi2, they just drew it in an ugly overdone texture. It looks the same in the Evo port screenshots too. I think the graphics will be cleaner than they were with PS2 VF4, but it will still be far inferior compared to the Arcade Evo.

What I don't understand is how they managed to implement two proper directional lights on Jack's stage, but then no lighting whatsoever in all the other stages.

Surely the spotlight in Wolf's stage could have been implemented in the same way. Even if they turned off its effect on the crowd and environment and just had it applied to the characters - it would have made a huge difference.

Anyway fingers crossed that they'll get some more lighting into PS2 Evo. You can do it AM2!!

The spotlights in Jacky´s stage were a hack, they basicaly just used a 2d alpha channel.
A technique also used for instance on the good old Genesis/Megadrive in games like Batman and Robin.

It wouldnt have worked in a closed level like Wolf´s.

Hmm, strange--my TV is not HDTV, but I'm pretty sure it supports progressive scan (480p and 1080i 2 Fh, whatever they mean). It's the Phillips Pixel Plus TV. If that's the case, should I plug my PS2 into either of those jacks, or should I just connect in the regular component AV jacks?

Anyway, hopefully Evo will look beautiful regardless. Can't wait!

But you can see the light interacting properly with the fighters. How can the alpha channel produce different light values on different areas of the fighter?

I think AM2 can do it, look at Silent Hill 3, some of the best looking game on any system, If Konami can do why can't AM2?

They combine the alpha channel with a generic lightsource.

I don't understand. What do you mean by a generic lightsource?

I'm no expert on this matter but my knowledge of directional lights is that they simply apply colour values to the verticies of a poly (ie, add to the existing colour of the model's verticies under an ambient light) based on whether or not the light direction intersects the poly surface. The expense of this operation basically depends on the number of polys on the model, as the routine must check for intersection on every poly every tick.

From what I can tell of Jacky's stage, the characters are being properly influenced by two independent directional lights. As the fighter moves in front of the light, polys on the fighter's front are brighter, and polys on the back get darker.

I fail to see how this can be a hack. Perhaps you're meaning the spotlight applied to the environment? It's certainly true that the environment is not being lit properly - the spotlight is probably just an elliptical flat that moves along the floor with the lights theoretical position.

This is why I believe Evo stands a chance of having better lighting that VF4. In special circumstances, AM2 were able to get the PS2 to do proper light calculations on the characters (not environment). Perhaps it's just a matter of time and polish to get it right next time.

Didn't someone from AM2 say that if they had more time they could have got a perfect version of VF4? Or am I just dreaming? /versus/images/icons/tongue.gif

No Suzuki said VF4 on PS2 was a perfect conversion.

Well, Yu's far from being an idiot. So, I would gather from his statement that he's referring to how the gameplay was reproduced. Any monkey can see that the PS2 version's graphics are inferior to the arcade.

cheers,

As a direct response to someone asking him how the graphics would stack up against arcade VF4?

VF4 was a pretty much near perfect conversion, in terms of what could have possibly been done on PS2. That is what Suzuki meant. AM2 only had 6 months and produced such an outstanding port. Unfortunately, this does NOT mean the graphics are as good as the arcade.

....but, if given more time they could definintely improve over Ver.C's graphics. Imagine what could be done now that AM2 is accustomed to the PS2 hardware. Basically what I'm saying is: Anything they can add will be an improvement over Ver.C, so that's my only concern. I don't care if the PS2 graphics are "inferior" to the arcade version, the differences aren't as extreme as people make them out to be (IMO). I've played the arcade version and I don't see why the PS2 version couldn't at least come close. It's funny to me how people scrutinize graphics in such an extreme fashion.....just play the game.

Here we go again with that 6 month bulshit.
PS2 VF4 was anounced in january 2k1, then released exactly a year later.
If you guys wanna believe that Suzuki anounced the game and then decided to say hey guys why dont we make a this conversion a REAL challenge now that we have anounced it and do nothing on the PS2 rev for another 6 months youre more gullible then should be legally allowed.

Seriously why the hell would they anounce the game an then do shit on it for 6 months?

Bulshit claims like that arent exactly new either.
Namco did it with TTT for PS2, when Sony unveiled the PS2 hardware they had a tech demo running on PS2 hardware with TTT charas, then when the game released almost 18 months later they too claimed it was made in 6 months and that it would look so much better if the game would actually have gotten a full development cycle.

Agreed. I'm sure we'll see some big improvements graphically when Evo is ported to PS2. Sony's hardware isn't that far away from X-box, especially in raw processing terms. I see no reason why AM2 can't get the graphics 90 - 95% towards Naomi 2 level. Obviously, the fine details may be missing, but fundamental elements, like proper directional lights, shoud be possible.

Of course, at the end of the day it's the gameplay that'll matter most. VF4 port was a stunning achievement in this regard, and the many extra features more than made up for the slightly under-par visuals.

Urm, the PS2 is a far cry from the XBox hardwarewise.
The difference in pure raw horsepower between the PS2 and the XBox is like comparing a 1gigaherz pc with a geforce2 with a 2 gigaherz one with a geforce 4 4600

guys, take the console advocacy crap to another forum. News should be kept clean (i.e. used for news).

I think it's misleading to assume Xbox could do a perfect port of Evo while PS2 wouldn't have a hope. Look at the VF4 port as an example of what the PS2 can do with a competant team in a short space of time. It's a decent machine with enough horsepower under the lid to producea vey close representation of Evo. Perhaps the texturing will never be arcade perfect on PS2, but if the lighting were implemented you'd be a long way towards arcade perfection in my view.

Hopefully we'll see a version on both PS2 and Xbox, but given a choice between the two I'd rather see the game exposed to a larger user base on the PS2. Hence my main interest and enthusiasm rests with the PS2 version.

ok