World of Warcraft Water in the 2001 Alpha

[Synris]

The only similarities between Alpha and Cataclysm water is they both have kind of the same texture, but cataclysm water is COMPLETELY different in every other way, for a start its using its own physics engine. if u played with it at blizzcon u would notice the water moves according to how ur character is walking through it (a bit like halo 3). it also has random tides and its not a completely straight edge where the water meets the sand, it looks like a real beach.


EDIT: Oh cataclysm water also has reflections of the sky and players n shit

[ubergatuni]

Interesting, never saw that, lol

[TheZaronz]

Just to reply with the guy with the Source Engine water. The water used in source engine is completely different, it is not 3d in any way. It is using Bump mapping/normal mapping to make a unreal 3d effect however, if applied cubemaps it also can become reflective. However the Water in Cataclysm (and maybe 2001 alpha?) is 3d as the waves goes real upwards and downwards not using bump mapping it seems, and also do not reach to shore in a flat form as the Source Water does it is completely flat but the shaders makes it look 3d.

EDIT: I am not sure if the 2001 water got reflections as we got no clear screenshot or video to show it, however it seems that it is heavily affected by lightning and it's environment in some way.

[kitash]

Just to reply with the guy with the Source Engine water. The water used in source engine is completely different, it is not 3d in any way.

What is the name of the video showing the source engine? I was talking about the water seemingly having real time reflections. Just like the name of the video implied.

It is using Bump mapping/normal mapping to make a unreal 3d effect however, if applied cubemaps it also can become reflective.

The water in Unreal Engine 3 consists of two types. One that's just a flat mesh which material "moves" and one that's physics enabled. The second one is "real" as it distorts according to player movements, etc. Doing a real time reflection in unreal is somewhat difficult and affects performance. You're likely referring to the first one, which still wasn't my point with my earlier post :P.

As with cubemaps...

But it's not really reflective, it's just mirroring a screenshot of the environment. I was talking about the possibility that Blizzard made the reflection real time which is a huge change.

However the Water in Cataclysm (and maybe 2001 alpha?) is 3d as the waves goes real upwards and downwards not using bump mapping it seems, and also do not reach to shore in a flat form as the Source Water does it is completely flat but the shaders makes it look 3d.

Again, this wasn't my point with the source engine vid at all. What was it named again? Oh, Real Time Reflections.

EDIT: I am not sure if the 2001 water got reflections as we got no clear screenshot or video to show it, however it seems that it is heavily affected by lightning and it's environment in some way.

I can't see any sign of it, be it screenshots or the vid, sorry.

[TheZaronz]

The water in Unreal Engine 3 consists of two types. One that's just a flat mesh which material "moves" and one that's physics enabled. The second one is "real" as it distorts according to player movements, etc. Doing a real time reflection in unreal is somewhat difficult and affects performance. You're likely referring to the first one, which still wasn't my point with my earlier post :P.

Nooo, I don't mean unreal engine I mean unreal as in fake or whatever it is. And don't forget the fact that this was done in 2001, now there have been many changes since then, but my point is that the water in Cataclysm is based off that which it probably is or just simply the fact that the water looked beatiful in 2001 compared to the one we got today which is simply 30 frames of ugly yet unrealistic water which looks really bad.

[XpLoDWilD]

The water of cataclysm IS NO WAY BASED ON 2001's WATER ! Come on, I know what I'm talking about, I'm in the game industry. Alpha's water is just a stretched/repeated image which gives you the illusion of a beautiful water, but in reality it isn't. If you could have played the game with this water, you'd see it. Also, why would they remove this beautiful water if it was sooo beautiful ?

Cataclysm water is a real Ocean shader/effect, which calculates reflection/refraction in realtime, not a fake water with 50% transparency and a beautiful hand-drawn image on top of it.

So stop talking about things you don't know

[TheZaronz]

What the hell are you talking about? First of all back then the average scale of textures was 256 pixels which would **** up for being used as this is. Second this water got waves. It hits the shore and move a little up and down. And if you're in this game industry which still doesn't make sense you may would know that for the most succesful marketing they would need to make it run on as many computers as possible which is probably why they have removed the water. Also the water does not got a repeating pattern which means it's not any " stretched/repeated image " You can easily see when textures got a repeating pattern and this clearly don't.

Sorry, but you don't deserve to work in the "game industry".

[XpLoDWilD]

I didn't know that Shader Model 2.0 ran on 2001's graphics card, even the most recent ones... All the realistic water shaders require this. The first graphic card which started to support shaders (1.1) was on 2004 or so. They COULDN'T have made this water in 2001 or even before.

Moving a plane a little up and down is nothing compared to a realistic water with real waves (perlin noise).
The texture IS stretched and repeated, PLUS they added a "detail map" or "colormap" or whatever you call that on top of the base water and it's just scrolled to give the illusion of a real water. And it looks like there's a little specular on it. But it's DEFINATELY NOT Cataclysm's water or a base of it or whatever else.

Also, vertex displacement is only supported since GeForce 6xxx series, which was in 2005. No way it's real waves

[Ace94]

I am with XpLoDWilD i think if it was so good in 2001 they would not have put other water maybe they took something from 2001 but i dont think its going to be the same its going to be way diffrent then the 9 year old water...

[Norrin]

Taken from a "Preview" of World of Warcraft in 2001

Likewise, oceans and lakes in World of Warcraft are also composed of various undulating polygons, which give these bodies of water a lifelike aspect to them that would have been otherwise impossible to create using simple texture maps.

World of Warcraft Preview - Page 2 - PC Previews at GameSpot

Quite intresting to read the rest aswell

[TheZaronz]

There we have the answer. Now I really wish we could have that water now or at least try it out :P

[l1nk3]

This is not the same as cataclysm. Cataclysm's water reflects the sunlight/moonlight, it is CLEAR, and it probably has a lot better moving up the beach shore better.

[TheZaronz]

That have already been said. Many times.

[late1]

Heh.. I really doubt that Blizzard would use a water rendering from 2001. Now that would be just plain silly, as silly as just saying that someone would do it

Considering stretching/repeating textures, and how you can see where it is used, is from high above.. In the 2001 video you only see the water from the players point of view from the beach, so you aren't able to even notice the strected textures. If the camera was tilted to the zenith and zoomed all the way out, then you could see it. Just like when you would fly over a body of water.

[TheZaronz]

Sigh, everyone here is just repeating what already have been said.