Horizon: Zero Dawn - Graphics de-Gushing

The shadowmap filtering is really exceptional, no flicker or artifacting 99% of the time, makes UC4 look bad by comparison in that aspect, Aloy gets a special treatment during gameplay but regular npcs don't look bad either
Yep, the shadow quality in Horizon is pretty impressive overall, especially for an open world game. The only drawback is the relatively low shadow range. In the village of Meridian, this can be especially noticeable, but generally a non issue. Shadows are drawn much further than FFXV, at least. As for ND, the improvement I want to see in TLOU2 over UC4 is definitely shadow quality, which was a low point for the latter.
 
Yep, the shadow quality in Horizon is pretty impressive overall, especially for an open world game. The only drawback is the relatively low shadow range.

I think the lod is fine, it's in the hundreds of meters. It's just that the shadow quality drops after a short distance. The key thing is that they are nicely filtered so even if low res they don't flicker, Guerrilla probably did the best they could given the h/w limitation

horizonzerodawn_20170cmjk2.jpg
 
I think the lod is fine, it's in the hundreds of meters. It's just that the shadow quality drops after a short distance. The key thing is that they are nicely filtered so even if low res they don't flicker, Guerrilla probably did the best they could given the h/w limitation
It's generally good in the open world. It's just in the Meridian village that shadow pop in was quite noticeable for me. Then again, I'm on base PS4 and the Pro version supposedly has greater draw distances, so that could explain it.
 
Does Horizon have Global Illumination? I think Uncharted 4 had it with the flashlight.
Probably not, there aren't the light bounces and color bleeding typically associated with global illumination. Most indoors also lack any sort of GI, it seems, the lighting can look flat at times. Not sure about Cauldrons and ruins, though. The indirect lighting looks much better in these places.
 
Does Horizon have Global Illumination? I think Uncharted 4 had it with the flashlight.
UC4 didn't have GI. It had a number of situations that implemented localised fakes (underwater flashlight scene) but it wasn't a universal lighting solution. It had baked lighting and occlusion drawing (shadows) that wasn't implemented in some places.
 
UC4 didn't have GI. It had a number of situations that implemented localised fakes (underwater flashlight scene) but it wasn't a universal lighting solution. It had baked lighting and occlusion drawing (shadows) that wasn't implemented in some places.
While it didn't have global solution, it did have a light bounce for flaslight using reflection shadowmap and 64k virtual pointlights.

Sadly flaslight had really limited range and they most likely used clipped light radius for vpl. (Thus not as visible than it could have been othervise.)
http://advances.realtimerendering.com/s2016/s16_Ke.pptx
 
Last edited:
Shadowmap lod is much better than what I gave Guerrilla credit for, it extends for miles. It is low res for sure, but because they use a great filter it's never really a problem. This is much better than having no shadows at all. In terms of draw distance this is much improved over what was originally shown back at the reveal.

horizonzerodawn_20170kpkka.jpg

horizonzerodawn_201704tjq0.jpg


Also, I don't even know what this is:

horizonzerodawn_20170aqjw5.png

horizonzerodawn_20170q2jof.png


Checkerboard artifacting on steroids? (i got stuck with the camera in photomode inside the terrain :)) And I also forgot the letterbox :LOL:
 
I really hope your PS4 breaks down Clukos!!!, I keep clicking this thread but I just started playing Shadow of Mordor, and all your (beautiful) screenshots make my PS4 pro patched version or Mordor look like a 2004 Xbox one game :(
 
NPC's model quality keeps astounding me, I think they're pretty much Until Dawn level which is pure sorcery.
2iujyj.png

1wdklc.png

This is in game:oops:
3eajse.png

4eejz7.png

6djkh0.png

5xwjon.png
 
Back
Top