Digital Foundry Article Technical Discussion [2018]

[milk]

They're as realistic as a realistic videogame can get.

Although having very detailed models, and high quality lighting, the whole thing just looks sort of doll-like to me. Not in that ps2ish plastic way of Ghosts of Tsushima, but in a silicon rubber doll type way... I don't know what are they doing wrong, but there certainly is something they are.

 

[phoenix_chipset]

Both rich and John have said nier on the pro is using post process aa, but having extensively played the game on pro I'm pretty sure it's using msaa. It's too sharp to be any form of fxaa and its edge coverage seems too consistent to be smaa 1x.

Curious to see how poor the base Xbox runs the game.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

Wow, they made her in game likeness a LOT thinner. Did they think she was too fat? I guess if you want to be the lover of the main protagonist, you should be thin and sexy. Definitely don't want any girls that aren't super skinny, I guess? Meh.

When you're young your body is naturally disposed to collect what is often called puppy fat, when you're older not so much, particularly in a post-apocalyptic world where food is going to be less rich.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

When you're young your body is naturally disposed to collect what is often called puppy fat, when you're older not so much, particularly in a post-apocalyptic world where food is going to be less rich.

Duly noted on the post-apocalyptic setting affecting body fat. However, I personally don't match that as I gained more boy fat (as a proportion of body mass) in my 20's than I ever had when I was a teen despite the same level of physical activity. And looking at the active friends around me (versus the sedentary ones), that applies to them as well.

And listening to my significant other, she's the same. Except she tries far harder than I do to regain the body fat ratio that she had as a teen.

Regards,
SB

 

[chris1515]

Better results are better results


They made her stinky to compensate.

It looks like you don't know about what you are talking. All team can do photogrammetry if they want and have a photorealistic art direction. But many teams choose not to do it. Some like Guerrilla Games choose hyper realism with HZD. Other stylized reality like Naughty Dog or AC Origins. And The Witcher 3, it is stylized graphics.

http://buhaydigital.com/gaming/homeland-talent-interview-naughty-dog-art-director-erick-pangilinan/

From the Naugthy Dog art director himself...

Buhay Digital: The art direction in Naughty Dog games has evolved from a cartoony style during Crash Bandicoot and Jak and Daxter, to a more realistic or hyper realistic style in Uncharted and The Last of Us. What direction do you see the artwork taking in future Naughty Dog games?

Pangilinan: It really depends on the story and genre. I believe we will always be about telling a compelling story to our viewers. Whatever the story is about, we will build the right art direction, music direction, animation direction and game direction that matches with it. Like for example, Uncharted and The Last of us were from the same platform and were both realistic games, but the art direction on both were very different. Future naughty dog games I assume will be bigger, and wider-linear, and will try to push the console hardware to the maximum. The art we do here is very stylized or directed but rendered to a realistic level.

They keep some part of stylized art into the game. In TLOU the scenery is more realistic and less cartoony than in Uncharted but the character are stylized.

Edit2: Some people use photogrammetry and stylized graphics

https://www.thegnomonworkshop.com/tutorials/environment-art-lookdev-using-unreal-photogrammetry

This workshop is for intermediate to advanced environment artists in the games industry that want to hone new skills in photogrammetry to assemble a look-dev environment using Unreal. In this title, Brian Recktenwald goes over the entire process from start to finish and addresses different approaches and techniques used to create a photorealistic, yet stylized, scene

 

[Karamazov]

Better results are better results

Results that suit your taste better would me a more appropriate answer.

I like both styles

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Wow, they made her in game likeness a LOT thinner. Did they think she was too fat? I guess if you want to be the lover of the main protagonist, you should be thin and sexy. Definitely don't want any girls that aren't super skinny, I guess? Meh.

BTW - don't take this to mean I don't like thin girls or thick girls in games or that they shouldn't be used. Just find it interesting that they decided to change how the source actress looks in game to make her look more attractive. As if they didn't think she was attractive enough in real life (I think she is) to be used in game as she is.

Regards,
SB

Likely more representative of a world where food and resources are hard to come by. Everyone will be skinny. Also not many muscle people around as whey protein suppliments aren't going to be all that common... Not really the thread for that discussion though.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

Duly noted on the post-apocalyptic setting affecting body fat. However, I personally don't match that as I gained more boy fat (as a proportion of body mass) in my 20's than I ever had when I was a teen despite the same level of physical activity. And looking at the active friends around me (versus the sedentary ones), that applies to them as well.

It's very much about the food you are eating. Post apocalyptic The Last of Us is mostly an agrarian society so look at rural Asia and Africa and you won't find too many people with much excess body fat. In the West, much (not all) fat is artificial from processed foods or unbalanced diets - rich sources of diary for example but that would be a rare luxury in the post apocalypse. Refined sugars would also be hard to come by. You'd be less worried about being overweight than you would of catching scurvy!

Ironic as I was less thrilled about finding food in The Last of Us than finding a a pile of parts to mod my weapons.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

One thing I find interesting about the talk of TLOU 2 and how the developers are going for a less realistic looks versus a more stylized look and how people find it great, when it's brought up by some that the people in TLOU 2 don't look very realistic.

At the same time, some of those same people argued against the stylized look of Forza vs. the more realistic look of GT and how a stylized look is a sign of worse graphics.

In both cases the developer deliberately chose to go for a slightly less realistic look and a slightly more stylized look, but on the one hand it's fantastic and on the other hand it's horrible.

Myself I think all of those games look great.

Regards,
SB

 

[OCASM]

It looks like you don't know about what you are talking. All team can do photogrammetry if they want and have a photorealistic art direction. But many teams choose not to do it. Some like Guerrilla Games choose hyper realism with HZD. Other stylized reality like Naughty Dog or AC Origins. And The Witcher 3, it is stylized graphics.

http://buhaydigital.com/gaming/homeland-talent-interview-naughty-dog-art-director-erick-pangilinan/

From the Naugthy Dog art director himself...

They keep some part of stylized art into the game. In TLOU the scenery is more realistic and less cartoony than in Uncharted but the character are stylized.

Edit2: Some people use photogrammetry and stylized graphics

https://www.thegnomonworkshop.com/tutorials/environment-art-lookdev-using-unreal-photogrammetry

Photogrammetry is the best way to get realistic characters but it's not the only one.

Also, that comment by the art director doesn't specify anything about what is stylized and in what way. Could be as simple as the color palette, which is pretty obvious in the case of Uncharted. Realistic characters and mo-capped animations clearly not.

Results that suit your taste better would me a more appropriate answer.

I like both styles

You're certainly free to prefer whichever but it's clear one gets more realistic results.

One thing I find interesting about the talk of TLOU 2 and how the developers are going for a less realistic looks versus a more stylized look and how people find it great, when it's brought up by some that the people in TLOU 2 don't look very realistic.

At the same time, some of those same people argued against the stylized look of Forza vs. the more realistic look of GT and how a stylized look is a sign of worse graphics.

In both cases the developer deliberately chose to go for a slightly less realistic look and a slightly more stylized look, but on the one hand it's fantastic and on the other hand it's horrible.

Myself I think all of those games look great.

Regards,
SB

Well, as you know, ND is the best developer ever. The only reason why it would appear another dev surpassed them on something is because you don't understand they weren't even trying to compete in that area. Duh.

 

[chris1515]

One thing I find interesting about the talk of TLOU 2 and how the developers are going for a less realistic looks versus a more stylized look and how people find it great, when it's brought up by some that the people in TLOU 2 don't look very realistic.

At the same time, some of those same people argued against the stylized look of Forza vs. the more realistic look of GT and how a stylized look is a sign of worse graphics.

In both cases the developer deliberately chose to go for a slightly less realistic look and a slightly more stylized look, but on the one hand it's fantastic and on the other hand it's horrible.

Myself I think all of those games look great.

Regards,
SB

I can understand for a car simulator I prefer the realistic way because a car simulator try to mimic the reality. And another point car don't have facial expression no uncanny valley problem. It is more difficult with human face and animals too.

For an arcade game everything is valid.

Edit:

The making off

Edit:
One of reason of this choice is to avoid uncanny valley.

 

[BRiT]

DF Videocast: Cyberpunk 2077's Playable Demo - Is This Truly Next-Gen?

There's a lack of video assets or capture, but John has seen a 50-minute Cyberpunk 2077 demo... so what makes it different, special and dare we say it, next-gen? We have a lot of info to pass on, so we put together this videocast to share as much as we can.

 

[vipa899]

Really impressive, like DF said the hottest game of E3, visually aswell to me. This was running on a 1080ti with the newest i7, is this what we can expect on PS5 and next xbox? A 1080Ti alone cost alot

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Yup, from what I've heard the crowds around the CDPR rooms (where they were having closed showings to the media) were the largest in all of E3.

That was due to CDPR letting regular people in if their media appointees didn't show up or were late. So tons of people were waiting hours and hours just on the hope they might be able to get into see Cyberpunk 2077. It's just crazy how many people want to see this game.

One person even mentioned how some people in the crowd were raging about how long they'd waited and that it was BS that they couldn't get in.

The hype and the anticipation for this game is on a whole different level from any other game shown this E3.

Regards,
SB

 

[vipa899]

The guy from DF that played was blown away, he doesnt think its possible on the large scales for current gen without scaling back. They think it could be a cross-gen game, with next gen perhaps being able to run it like a 1080ti/i7, thats max settings native 4k.

 

[Megadrive1988]

The guy from DF that played was blown away, he doesnt think its possible on the large scales for current gen without scaling back. They think it could be a cross-gen game, with next gen perhaps being able to run it like a 1080ti/i7, thats max settings native 4k.

I'm pretty sure the guy from DF just watched the game being played, he didn't play it himself.

That said, I'm pretty hopeful about the next gen consoles (PS5, next Xbox) being able to play Cyberpunk roughly on par with the PC demo at native 4K, 30fps. Maybe a higher framerate mode with something like CB rendering or at 1440p/1600p

 

[Recop]

At the same time, some of those same people argued against the stylized look of Forza vs. the more realistic look of GT and how a stylized look is a sign of worse graphics.

Except that Forza and GT are simulation games... going for a stylized look in such a type of game is more discutable.

In my opinion, they had difficulties to hit a more realistic look.

 

[ultragpu]

Still need to see this demo footage before I get truly hyped about the graphics despite what the trailer has shown or DF's impression. As for if it's truly next gen? Far from it, most likely a cross gen. For it truly to be next gen it won't be able run on current gen at all (especially base consoles) no matter how much you downgrade or downport it. Sure it takes a 1080ti to run it at 4k/30fps but it's still not natively coded or designed for a 1080ti, 8700k, 32gig ram machine as a baseline, the visual output and complexity of such a machine would be far greater. You can categorize it as a next gen launch title maybe but not truly next gen .

 

[Nesh]

One thing I find interesting about the talk of TLOU 2 and how the developers are going for a less realistic looks versus a more stylized look and how people find it great, when it's brought up by some that the people in TLOU 2 don't look very realistic.

At the same time, some of those same people argued against the stylized look of Forza vs. the more realistic look of GT and how a stylized look is a sign of worse graphics.

In both cases the developer deliberately chose to go for a slightly less realistic look and a slightly more stylized look, but on the one hand it's fantastic and on the other hand it's horrible.

Myself I think all of those games look great.

Regards,
SB

GT has set realistic standards because it tries to mimic the looks of watching a real life racing sport. It wants to satisfy the car enthusiast. Pro Evo and Fifa are trying to do the same and hence the devs are making it as accurate as possible to watching actual football on TV.
This is why Forza as a car simulation that tries also to mimic the real life sport is receiving criticism regarding it's stylized looks but not games like The Crew or On Rush. You wouldnt want your Fifa to look stylized either.

 

[turkey]

Thanks for moving it to the correct thread.