Weather Effects In Gaming!

Achja!

Hey, wazzup, I'm fweadum. I'm here to ask you a question. Weather effects? What are weather effects How do you define them? If you're talking about what you can feel, what you can smell, what you can taste and see, then 'weather effects' are simply electrical signals interpreted by your brain.

Now, going beyond that, what made me create this thread; The Mad Max game had a trailer. They went over a lot of stuff. Your typical "THIS IS WHAT YOU DO IN AN OPEN WORLD GAME", so I'm not bothered. Always the same shit, but near the end of the video they talked about "battling the elements". Lovely that. Tornadoes, sandstorms... spicy food. And that got me thinking.. weather effects in gaming. I like them. I love them.

What games do them well? Tell me. Would you like to see more tornadoes and stuff in video games, wherever it fits?

I'll start with something simple enough. Rain. GTAV is good with that. It looks nice.
Honestly, not the best pic to showcase it, but I don't have much else right now.

So, what do you have? Pics, games, anything. Share.

For realism, it's Driveclub. I've never seen weather done to that standard anywhere else.

Yeah, driving in heavy rain. It's mental. Last time I saw something as good like that in a racer was PGR. Good ol' PGR.

PGR4's weather races were fun as hell.

PGR4 was the shit. It's weather wowed everyone last gen like Driveclubs did this gen for sure.

weather king is Driveclub and the crown was placed there by DF.

/thread

Samurai Champloo?

Driveclub probably has some of the most impressive weather effects I've seen in a game yet. Agreed.

PGR is the only game I've played with decent weather effects. Here's hoping that MGSV's real time weather effects come out well.

@ReadingRainbow4: Yup. Buddy of mine made me watch it a while ago. Good shit. Very stylish, very funny. I liked it. Decided to mess a bit with the intro, hence the gif.

Yeah that's a fun show, loved the soundtrack.

The weather effects in Driveclub are just amazing, it should be illegal

Yeah, Drive Club looks awesome.

I know this is weird, but I watched this anime a while back.. It was about robots. Mechs, what have you. It was this dude. He was perverted, and the way he could power the mech, he had to touch a lady's breasts and such. It was a weird mech. Had a weird arm. It's like.. yeah, let's do this, but rub your tits in my face.. very Japanese,.. Didn't think much of it, but I liked the intro song because it was so ridiculous.

Anyone know what it is? ****.. No way I can figure that out on me own..

This girl became head of a cult of penguins, an they had penises.

Lol I watched an anime about a dude that powered up by drinking breast milk before.

There's so many amazing Japanese shows.

@ReadingRainbow4: Is it that milk lady?

That's the only pic I can come up with that was the equivalent of that.

They need more Zelda games with her in them. Damn Link was crazy to not hit that.

http://myanimelist.net/anime/6500/Seikon_no_Qwaser

I find STALKER to be most impressive when it comes to rain and lightening effects. Alan Wake for wind effects. Witcher 3 looks pretty epic in that department and its Weather Effects may become my favorite. Drive Clubs' effects are also amazing.

@ReadingRainbow4: That's a long anime, isn't it?

Yeah, I agree, but they won't. Cia is a Tecmo Koei created entity. Nintendo could never pull that off.

@freedomfreak:

Yeah I tried to do a few Google searches for that anime and no matter how I word it I get a lot of...erm...interesting results, shall we say? Type in any words related to mech and boobs in an anime and BAM...hentai/ecchi stuff.

Good luck sir. Lol

24 episodes so about average, anything absolutely ridiculous and I'm there lol. I need to find this penis penguin anime.

Wave Race on the Gamecube had cool weather effects.

Just the weather effects, lets not get carried away.

@ReadingRainbow4: Not that bad. Yeah, you and me both. ****..

@22Toothpicks: Thanks for trying, man. I'll bump upon it one day.

@Cloud_imperium: I really want to sail on the seas in TW3. Looks so good. As far as Alan Wake goes, still the best looking forests in a video game.

I was impressed with the storm effects in Ass Creed Black Flag.

Yup. I still like tackling the tidal waves. It looks epic.

@freedomfreak:

Prince vs. Penguin empire

I think Watch Dogs or Drive Club do rain best. But, GTAV has absolutely amazing lightning, I love it when the lightning hits behind the mountains causing some epic backlighting.

@ReadingRainbow4: @22Toothpicks:

@Chozofication: Holy shit, that's it! God bless you, you beautiful, beautiful man!

While i love alan wake i think crysis 3 is the foliage master.

Fully agree. Crytek is hard to beat when it comes to foliage, but as far as a forest looking like a forest, I think Alan Wake has its beat. It's more of an artstyle thing.

oh yeah the whole atmosphere and art direction of alan wake was awesome.

It's not a stretch to say GTA V has the best weather affects of any released open world game. Rain effects in particular look amazing.

I've always liked the weather effects in F1 games and other sims when they can affect your race strategy. Switching to intermediate/wet tyres at the right time can make or break your race when you put them on too early or too late.

The only time I was ever just blown away by some weather effects was the tanker mission in MGS2. That shit was jaw dropping, it was just such a leap for the time. What really sold it was the little details like making it appear that droplets were colliding with the models and the splash effects when running. Even leaving wet footprints for a few steps after entering a dry area.

Of course it looks like balls by todays standards, but at the time it was just like "wow, this is next gen shit!".

GTA always manages to impress me though. I'm not really a fan of the games, but they do get a lot of things right and weather is one of them.

i remember seeing the trailer for mgs2 and snake in the tanker, for the first time i was like holy fuk, i think it was my most hyped game ever, something that i have always liked about mgs and kojima is the level of detail he puts on the games, is just incredible.

Yeah man, it was amazing and the fact they actually made it look even better by release time was just awesome! Upgrades rather than downgrades. What happened to those days? lol

You're right though, the eye for detail in the MGS games is astounding at times. The weather effects are always nice too. The blizzard effect upon entering Shadow Moses in MGS4 was simply awesome.

I'm hoping they go all out with the weather systems in TPP. They already look nice, but I'm hoping for some straight up storms and not just the occasional slight shower.

lol5club. I'm still not impressed.

well in some demo video i saw there was a sandstorm, would be nice if they add little details like those.

@ConanTheStoner: Brilliant. Still can't believe how Kojima, with his design of the Tanker, went to that Outer Heaven ship in its design. That place was shit.

Also, wet box is best box.

@freedomfreak:

Haha, wet box for prez! Really, that was a cool little detail.

And yeah man, **** that Mount Snakemore ship lol. I would have rather just played the damn tanker mission reworked.

I like that more than the actual Shell base. Honestly, I've been through the tanker so many times I can't remember. Same goes for the Shell, but still, the Tanker was just a load of fun. Especially remembering all the small things.

For example, fucking up the framerate by kicking the outer marine in the face, and having them all fall upon each other. Thank God, I have multiple copies of this game, because I know I'll wake up someday, wanting to do just that.

@freedomfreak:

Yeah, the tanker was great man. It packed more detail and interactive stuff than Big Shell. It also just had more fun sneaking scenarios.

At an earlier stage of development they actually planned on the tanker being the entire game, and it shows. Then they realized there was no way to stretch a game out over one ship and BOOM we got Big Shell... which isn't so bad, the tanker was just better.

@ConanTheStoner: Fully agree. It was also the intent of having the Tanker flood entirely, and you having to escape, like actual gameplay, but they cut the escaping part.

Even with how soldiers held their guns down in the final version. Before that, Kojima had them pointing their guns with the muzzle upwards, but the specialists told him it didn't make sense, considering it would block their view a bit. Shit like that. My MGS2 copy came with a "making of", and I watched that a lot. It was shit like that, and Kojima messing with toys to set up scenarios. Ray jumping out the water, over the tanker, for example.

@freedomfreak: Welcome :D

Weather effects in games definitely add a level of needed immersion, especially if it has an actual affect on gameplay. Not sure what I'd vote for as the best but GTA V is pretty impressive. Especially the lightning (I don't have a screen shot of that yet though)

Seeing as foliage has been added into the mix, I think there is one clear winner for that though

Most games, even the ones regarded as having impressive plants and leaves still use paper cut outs for grass and very often leaves as well. In the vanishing of Ethan Carter every blade of grass is a single plant not a 2d flat cut out used repeatedly and placed at different angles to give the impression of deep grass

Far Cry 4 at 1440p and maxed out is pretty impressive but look closer

It doesn't matter if you're on a 360 or a high end PC or whether the game is Crysis 3 or Far Cry 4, they all use the same flat paper cut out technique for foliage. This goes for leaves on trees as well.

Here's one lightning shot from GTA V. As for other games..... I also like the rain/fog in Watch Dogs.

seizure warning

I'm happy to see PGR 4 get some love. Game is dope.