Per-Pixel Software Bump Mapping in Trespasser (1998)! — Pentium II 400 Mhz + 3Dfx Voodoo 2 PC
REAL HARDWARE CAPTURE IN 4:3 ASPECT RATIO.
Trespasser: The Lost World - Jurassic Park (1998, Dreamworks Interactive) was a really ambitious game, design-wise and technologically. It was also the first game ever (that is currently known) to render TRUE per-pixel grayscale Bump Mapping, just as James Blinn had defined it in the SIGGRAPH 1978 paper on 'Simulation Of Wrinkled Surfaces'. The effect is rendered entirely by the processor (software rendering) and requires no 3D hardware feature on the video card (in fact, no 3D card/GPU at the time could render per-pixel Bump Mapping)! They look absolutely wonderful for the time and some surfaces also feature the use of Specular Highlighting (looks like a per-pixel implementation, so maybe it's Specular Mapping here?), which adds a glossy/wet look on any surface that uses it. This is per-pixel lighting in 1998!
Montezuma's Return (also 1998) doesn't count as using true Bump Mapping, as it used Emboss Bump Mapping (courtesy of the Voodoo 2) which might as well be called simply Emboss Mapping because it's nowhere near as complex or convincing as true per-pixel sloped Bump Mapping (Emboss is a per-vertex effect and does not properly convey extreme light angles or fully shaded surfaces). I have seen 3Dfx fanatics retrospectively bemoan the fact that Sega settled for the PowerVR CLX2 instead of a Voodoo solution for graphics in the Dreamcast, but the Dreamcast actually had its own take on Normal Mapping (a Videologic-made method unrelated to the common DOT3 Bump Mapping method of Normal Mapping), making it superior to all contemporary 3Dfx cards in that regard and matching the realism of Trespasser's use of Bump Mapping, albeit with filtering (etc.). Sadly, it was grossly under-used and with the exception of some cool test programs made by users on forums the Dreamcast Normal Mapping never showed its true colors in official retail games.
Trespasser's Bump Mapping looks the best when you crank the Brightness setting in the game as far DOWN as possible. This is due to the fact that the brightness slider only affects the brightness of shaded elements on the screen — namely the real-time Shadow Mapping and the Bump Mapping — and not the image brightness as a whole. This will make the Bump Mapping really pop and makes it possible to see it on surfaces that are ordinarily too bright with the default brightness setting. Some textures look less convincing with Bump Mapping because of shadow details having been painted onto the textures, meaning that it will be less obvious when viewing certain objects with Bump Mapping applied. Still, minus the environment textures, the effect is essentially everywhere!
Trespasser also features the use of awesome positional/spatial 3D audio (done in software, without the use of 3D audio cards like the A3D Vortex cards!) and good use of EAX throughout the game. HRTF and Elevation filtering gives you a great headphone experience, especially on the Sound Blaster Live.
This footage and audio was captured from the following computer:
- Dell Dimension XPS R400 case and motherboard (manufactured on April 30th 1998)
- Intel 440BX motherboard (chipset manufactured week 7 1998)
- Intel Pentium II 400 Mhz processor (S-Spec SL2S7, manufactured week 14 1998)
- Matrox Millennium II AGP (8MB) video card
- Creative Labs 3D Blaster Voodoo 2 (CT6670) (12MB) 3D accelerator card
- Creative Labs Sound Blaster Live! (CT4620) sound card
- Turtle Beach Montego (Aureal Vortex) (A3D) sound card
- 192MBs of PC100 SDR SDRAM
- Windows 98 (FE) operating system
The capturing was done in VirtualDub2 using a Datapath VisionRGB-E1S PCI-Express capture card plugged into an ASUS Maximus IV Extreme motherboard with an Intel Core i7-2600K using 8 GBs of DDR3 SDRAM and an nVidia GTX 580 video card installed. Audio capture was done by feeding a 3.5mm stereo jack cable into the line in on the ASUS Maximus IV Extreme motherboard. Resizing/upscaling of the raw original 640x480 capture to 3200 x 2400 was done using VirtualDub2.
0:00 - Beretta 93r
0:28 - M14 rifle
1:32 - Desert Eagle
2:25 - Basketball
3:42 - Calico MP50
4:17 - Dinosaur skull
5:56 - H&K 91
6:38 - Yellow InGen box
7:24 - Jeep Wrangler
7:56 - Pacifist raptor
9:06 - Sniffing raptors
10:30 - Albertosaurus
11:14 - Parasaurolophus
12:20 - Plastic chair
13:22 - Fuel drum
14:52 - Tyrannosaurus
16:22 - Stegosaurus
17:48 - Office chair
18:59 - Crates
19:54 - Brachiosaurus
21:27 - Soda can (flattened)
22:23 - Lindstradt tranquilizer pistol
22:55 - Computer case
23:21 - Plant
23:42 - Gold bar
24:14 - Tree stump
#trespasser #jurassicpark #thelostworldjurassicpark #windows95 #3dfx #bumpmapping #hrtf #binaural #pentium2 #windows98 #datapath #upscaling #voodoo2 #eax #soundblasterlive
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