Eye-candy fans will be pleased to know that Invisible War is no slouch. IW fans with
older hardware will be pleased to know that the game pulls it off with fewer requirements than you would expect.
Thanks to the wonder of “normal mapping”, characters and textures look extra realistic,
without using a ton of polygons. Normal mapping is like bump mapping: it gives flat surfaces a 3D appearance.
That brick wall is flat, but with normal mapping it has indents between bricks.
Granite even has realistic cracks, and points where it juts out cast shadows.
When applied to character models, normal mapping allows cloths to look crumpled or
creased without adding more polygons. Speaking of polygons, the characters in IW have around 3,000 each,
but it looks like they have more like 10,000.
As well as polygons, characters in Invisible War have bones. Most of these bones are
in the facial area. This means they can display emotion, and their mouths match up to what they are saying.
Lighting also plays a big part in the game. Invisible War is the first game to use completely dynamic,
real-time lighting. This works in conjunction with the physics systems and normal mapping to provide
a realistic visual experience. Although the player doesn’t cast a shadow, everything else does.
And those shadows can change depending on the situation, as well. Introduce a new light to a room
and the shadows change to match the new circumstances.
The Screenshots page has many excellent examples of the new look and feel.
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