curl-6 said:
Galaxy 2 looks great, but its shaders aren't as advanced as Jett Rocket's. Fewer surfaces feature shader effects, and none of them (as far as I recall) go as far as things like the distortion of a character's reflection across uneven metal/water surfaces, which features often in Jett Rocket. |
You couldn't be farther off on the shaders not being advanced. Mario Galaxy 2 not only had a larger variety of shaders in use, but it also used normal mapping like on the ragon he battles in this video. Normal mapping is nonexistant in Jett Rocket. Mario Galaxy 2 had far more complex shadows and geometry as well more diverse, layered lighting effects without even getting into polygon count. There are plenty of games that use relfective surfaces.
Mario Galaxy didn't use reflective surfaces that often because it didn't need them. I can think of games that did it far better than Jett Rocket as well, like The Last Story. Its not as remarkable an effect as you seem to think. I remember seeing it in use on the Dreamcast and PS2 often. Normal mapping, on the other hand, is far more taxing on the hardware. It wasn't even possible on the DC and PS2 unlike dynmaic reflective surfaces.
