Why there used to be many games with interaction and mirror reflexions before?

[Ikagura]

I feel like many old game allowed that kind of thing (like being able to destroy or move many things in FPS) while current ones are almost struggling to make a simple mirror? RAM management is harder.

 

[Zerohour2k12]

Like in the Red Faction series? I could be wrong but I think it's the capabilities of the game engine. maybe it's more expensive to implement those now so some studios aren't going all in like they used to.

 

[LiberoVulpesLiberoVulpes's icon]

Many old games didn't actually have working mirrors as one would think, what they often did was to make a copy of the room with another player model moving around with your commands to simulate a mirror, sometimes just the player model.

Having an actual working mirror without using the trick I mentioned, used to be flex worthy, but now since graphics have become very resource intensive it would be too much work.

Unless its an immersive sim, I kinda don't care if it has working mirrors or not.

 

[Sheepy765]

I've noticed that too. My only guess would be mirrors needing to reflect more and more as games get more and more graphically intensive.

 

[CharlesPhoenix]

Many old games didn't actually have working mirrors as one would think, what they often did was to make a copy of the room with another player model moving around with your commands to simulate a mirror, sometimes just the player model.

Wow,i didn't know that

But wouldn't it be more resource intensive to render everything twice?

 

[LiberoVulpesLiberoVulpes's icon]

But wouldn't it be more resource intensive to render everything twice?

There are quite a few tricks with rendering textures to minimize their impact, I don't remember the name of the technique but it used to be the most common one, it goes like this: you don't actually see the details in the texture until you get close to the object, if you are observant in some old games, you can actually see more detailed textures pop-in as you get closer and pop-out as you go farther.

The mirror would never use the detailed textures since the camera won't get close them, effectively saving on resources, it would often render together with its attached room, just using less detailed objects, but you wouldn't notice cause the tricks of the camera.

This one fell out of fashion cause it can't really be done seamlessly with the hyper realistic graphics of today.

Another technique is to just make a smaller version of the room, and use optical illusions to make it seen exactly as the one you are on.

Both are far easier than programming a mirror.

 

[Spiral1407]

Techniques like planar reflections worked better on older hardware because scenes weren't as geometrically complex. As you increase the detail, it consequently becomes harder to re-render the scene at that different perspective.

There are quite a few tricks with rendering textures to minimize their impact, I don't remember the name of the technique but it used to be the most common one, it goes like this: you don't actually see the details in the texture until you get close to the object, if you are observant in some old games, you can actually see more detailed textures pop-in as you get closer and pop-out as you go farther.

The mirror would never use the detailed textures since the camera won't get close them, effectively saving on resources, it would often render together with its attached room, just using less detailed objects, but you wouldn't notice cause the tricks of the camera.

This one fell out of fashion cause it can't really be done seamlessly with the hyper realistic graphics of today.

Another technique is to just make a smaller version of the room, and use optical illusions to make it seen exactly as the one you are on.

Both are far easier than programming a mirror.

I believe you're referring to mipmaps. Though AFAIK, they're used mainly because higher detail textures exhibit aliasing when viewed at a distance.

 

[TechBlisSTer]

It's simply the fact that today's "programmers" aren't anywhere nearly as talented or as creative as the dedicated passionate professionals from before these studios / developers got overtaken by the HR departments. And the activist fools they now hire.

 

[Spiral1407]

It's simply the fact that today's "programmers" aren't anywhere nearly as talented or as creative as the dedicated passionate professionals from before these studios / developers got overtaken by the HR departments. And the activist fools they now hire.
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Not necessarily. Nobody sets out to make a bad/poorly optimized game and there's still plenty of talent out there.

The problem is that the people making the decisions these days are businessmen who care more about what their shareholders want rather than what's better for the game. Combine that with the fact that games take a lot longer to develop these days and it really isn't hard to see why more games are coming out undercooked.

Its also quite difficult to retain/develop talent when half the studio gets laid off after every release. Often including senior developers who've been working in the industry since the golden age.