Bump-mapping works with OpenGL and DirectX. You can allready see the effect in the renders of the Spitfire where the rivets and stuff are quite overdone to show the possibilities.
But HDR lighting, caustics and radiosity?
A friend of mine works as a 3D-artist for a games company. He stated several times that using D3D offers a great variety of effects you can only software-simulate under OpenGL with a lot of workarounds and extra-scripting.
I have not enough insight into his business, but it seems you have to make the decision to either be able to run a game on a wide range of operating systems using OpenGL or go for effects and eyecandy and use D3D. Downside of this is, that Vista does not fully support OpenGL AFAIK.
Instead it uses a new driver-version to emulate OpenGL via D3D with heavy losses in performance and quality. I hope this is not true or there is a workaround when BoB is released. Demanding many customers to switch back to XP for the complete life-cycle of StormOfWar will be a death-sentence.
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01-14-2008, 08:16 PM
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