Cinematic Effects in Source

There was a new steam news update which talked about Darwinia and some
new effects done by bit-tech.net for DoD:S. I read through the
tech brief and then downloaded the trailer which integrates all the
described effects (such as depth of field, motion blur, and film grain)
and I have to say I was floored. This is the best looking piece
of machinima I have ever seen, and I URGE you to download and watch
it. Download links can be found on the last page of this site:

http://www.bit-tech.net/gaming/2005/12/09/source_film_effects/

What did you think?

I heard about this awhile ago. It looks cool ... but not $15 cool.

[EDIT]
Replied before I downloaded the video, or clicked the link.
I'm downloading the torrent now. So I'll check those out in ... ten hours.

Thought you were talking about Darwania, sorry.

The effects do look cool though. Wonder what type of control developers will have.

---

Blame it on Microsoft, God does.

I can't download it from anywhere without having to register first. That's annoying.

---

"The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return." -- Toulouse-Lautre, Moulin Rouge

You can download it from fileshack without registering. It just caps it at 100kbps, which is fast enough.

The video for film grain looks a hell of a lot better than the still images. I played DoD the other day in Sepia through the ATi filter, it's a lot harder, but I still pulled off some impressive scores.

All in all I really like the effects, though I'd certainly avoid
playing with the film grain effect I think. Motion blur is something
I've fallen in love with since playing Project Gotham Racing 3 on the
Xbox 360 briefly - it really is the most beautifully used effect in
that game.

---

[img]http://card.mygamercard.net/sig/Default/reno84.png[/img]
Designer @ Haiku Interactive | ReNo-vation.net

I loved the Depth of Field stuff.

The visual effects look great, but some of the model animation for the NPC's look crude (like the guy who threw the grenade into the hole in the wall).

I don't particularly care for the graininess.

---

"The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return." -- Toulouse-Lautre, Moulin Rouge

Yeah, I noticed that part as being particularly jerky.

The only thing I don't like about source games is that the second
anyone is killed, they go limp immediately, which looks artificial.

I was watching the trailer for Call of Duty 2 and the most impressive
part was watching the death animations. A soldier who got shot in
the shoulder would reflexively reach up to the wound as he fell.

Crono and I were talking about this yesterday. How much of the
movie do you think was scripted, and how much was done by real people
(ie. actors)?

The thing I like about it is that it's real gameplay, I always see the CoD stuff and it's never really close to what it's like playing, or it's too similar to a single player scripted sequence. DoD is strictly online and while the animation might be a little more rough, it's certainly a huge jump from DoD v1.3.