A much overlooked point in gaming

[wolfshrimp]

The current trend in the hype for games these days is 'realism'- the simulation of a world within our screens that captures the image and laws of the physical world. Lighting effects, dynamic shadows, water effects, fire effects, realistic weather patterns, day and night cycles, physics engines are all testimonies to the innovation and intelligence of game developers. The experiences we have are more immersive, far more enjoyable. Well done, pat on the back and all that.

But there is something that is teeth-grindingly flow breaking that I have noticed even in recent releases. Rain. I had a long and passionate love affair with the sandbox free-roaming RPG par excellence Morrowind but while scampering among the cities I noticed that the raindrops during the storms would fall straight through the buildings which could be seen when walking through external tunnels. As a modder for Morrowind I understood why that happened- it was the way the models were made. I tolerated it, after all Morrowind had many flaws and awkward bits (not that Oblivion was an improvement, hem-hem. But just recently I was playing Crysis Warhead and noticed the exact same problem. When inside a building, the rain was coming straight through the roof!

Now I know this will be relegated to the shelf of whiney gamerness but I just think it's weird that for all the touted advancement to the gaming experience developers of really detailed games overlook this. I have a middle-of-the-road laptop that is definitely not built for gaming but can run Crysis, FarCry 2 and CoD4 with a couple of settings turned to low and the graphics are breathtaking and the framerates are fine, so why can't we get some decent rain effects here guys?

Can anyone else think of examples to further my point?

 

[Nimbus]

Really? I never noticed that in crysis...

What settings were you using?

 

[Spunderbungle]

Good point.

Lack of good circles bothers me. You can have beautiful water effects but the wheels on a car always look like dodecahedrons!

 

[Meado]

Actually, a lot of games I play do well with rain. It generally depends on the engine the game is runing on, but simulating the look of rain, and water in general, has pretty much reached it's peak. The effect of water however (realistic flooding & floating, temperature changes, etc) is still in it's infancy. Water is overlooked and ignored, and I think the first game to realistically simulate water in large volumes will get a load of attention.

 

[wolfshrimp]

Really? I never noticed that in crysis...

What settings were you using?

Medium

 

[veryboringfact]

i think if they applied any game engine's physics to every drop of rain it would kill even the most powerful PC. With that said i don't want to see rain in games anyway. If it's raining outside i stay in to play games, more rain on-screen is just going to drive me even deeper into my depression

 

[Lios]

Having actual colliding rain would pretty much destroy most computers processors with our current technology. It would be (relatively) simple to just make it so rain doesn't show under models, but even that would be somewhat tedious and unneeded work for something that isn't actually that important or widely noticed.

 

[Archemetis]

not being privvy to the knowledge of how things are created in games or how they're maintained after creation I'm sure this might come across as a bit thick, but wouldn't it just be a case of setting the outer parts of building models to be impassable by effects as well as character models?

Although really, I've never encountered many problems with weather effects in games, i've found much more game-breaking stuff.

None that immediately come to mind, but I know they're there.

 

[James Rednok]

Can anyone else think of examples to further my point?

In Star Wars: Battlefront 2 for the X-box (although I was playing it on my X-box 360); I noticed the same problem in the Kamino map. Only in one small space though; I didn't really think It that big of a deal as it didn't impact gameplay.

 

[Kiutu]

Small detail, but that kind of stuff I always find cool. Maybe that water guy from Bioshock should work on that. (The guy who just focused on water graphics)

 

[LazerLuger]

I like realism up to the point where it interferes with the entertainment factor. To quote Ed Boon, "Reality is boring. Nobody wants to pay for reality."

 

[GodsOneMistake]

Ya i've noticed rain does suck, someone should get to working on that

 

[Xelanath]

As I began reading the OP I really wasn't expecting it to lead onto talk of rain; what a wonderful surprise!

I have to admit that it's not something I recall ever noticing, but you can be sure that the next time I play a rainy game, there's one thing I'll have in mind.

 

[Shapsters]

It's not as though it truly bothers me, but rain has always been a problem, it never seems to to 'real' you know?