Star Citizen, Roberts Space Industries - Chris Roberts' life support and retirement fund [2012-]

A nice looking game gets posted, PS exclusives somehow get involved and we have a lengthy discussion. Maybe better to just discuss DF's video on how they accomplished things rather then the politics and how it compares to PS games.
CIG politics doesn't really belong here. The tech showcased in the video can be discussed and compared, with screenshots and videos as evidence, as long as people are talking technology and not just ooo, pretties! Opinions are welcome, but they need to be intelligently qualified and not just presented as fact - "here's 300 screenshots that show this is the prettiest thing ever, while here's a dozen of the worst looking screens I could find of that game you're talking about." ;)
 
This footage is from me walking around the aberdeen moon in an area with caves:
aberdeenxrkqc.png
If procedurally generated, that has some merit, but as a pure environment render it's not on par with other games. The lighting is pretty flat (no/weak ambient occlusion on the low outcroppings) and the contrast with sun present is unconvincing. You have more illumination from the atmospheric light than the sun. I immediately thought of Tatooine on SW:BF for a superior desert scene with more detail (although textures in your image are being butchered by compression it seems) and better, more realistic lighting where views with contrast from direct sun is very convincing, while the indirect lighting perfectly balanced. Artistically, Tatooine is helped by having a different atmospheric colour to the sun and rocks, which obviously impacts aesthetic, but just in terms of lighting execution, SWBF and others are significantly better than this SC shot.

What is SC doing here that's noteworthy?
 
That is from version 3.0 - which is rather old. IMO, just try out the game in the free weekends they have to take some screens and get a look at it.
If you go to other areas, depending upon the geology or what type of scattered object is placed, you get different results:
This footage is from me walking around the aberdeen moon in an area with caves:
aberdeenxrkqc.png
That reminds me of a dream I have played on PS4. Well it's less detailed here and the lighting is more flat but otherwise it's a very similar scene.
 
I'm sorry but,

CIG politics doesn't really belong here. The tech showcased in the video can be discussed and compared, with screenshots and videos as evidence, as long as people are talking technology and not just ooo, pretties! Opinions are welcome, but they need to be intelligently qualified and not just presented as fact - "here's 300 screenshots that show this is the prettiest thing ever, while here's a dozen of the worst looking screens I could find of that game you're talking about." ;)

I took that as it was allowed. Instead of deleting my post, you could have moved it to the appropiate topic? Since everyone was posting screens, why delete only mine?
 
You didn't post any technical considerations but just posted, "look at these lovely pictures," and spammed a truckload of screenshots, which is what I expressly said don't do. ;) But this discussion is getting too much for this thread so I'll move it out to the SC thread.

Edit: Having moved the posts...

Some of your images aren't bad, though they're in no way superior to the other game examples. Some, like this, are weak.
QsfPtmeZbFvHFPp4gZURSSgXDXW-4d3O3-uzs64Si5o.jpg


Shading is very poor. Clear instanced trees, no tree shadows, no secondary illumination in the shadow-side of the rocks. Doesn't look at all realistic. Likewise, this one isn't doing anything every other forest-containing game hasn't been doing for years.

5440.jpg


There are way better foliage examples across dozens of games. This is very flatly shaded with simple looking shaders.

Among the better looking images, they're not doing anything more than anything else. Death Stranding has great terrain lighting with solidly composited detailing. It's only fall-down is the shadowing on vegetation. The lighting in the shadowed side of the terrain is superb.

tr4bpj5kb4931.jpg


I hadn't actually looked that much at DS screenshots, but it's actually pretty phenomenal. When you consider it's rendering on a 4 TF PS4 and is created by a far smaller team than CIG, it shows the difference on developer quality and why CIG's brute-force strategy is uninspiring to a lot of us. Note DS is just one example. There are other games (though different graphical content so not comparable) which also push the envelope in terms of rendering quality far more successfully than SC, both cross-platform titles and other exclusives, so it's nothing to do with exclusives. Heck, DS is quite possibly coming to PC anyway!
 
Last edited:
Ok well if you say so :)

Heck, DS is quite possibly coming to PC anyway!

Yeah heard about that, if it's a Sony owned studio chances become slim though. I might buy it (ps4 fat) if the game itself is anything i like. The graphics are great.

Edit: what about the other SC stills, do they compare to DS, and others?
 
Last edited:
Not all areas of Mars look like that though. Some areas are much flatter, just like on Earth.

I know too ;) but I had trouble to find a video with some planet with more details but the last video with build 3.7 it looks better but it is not look better in this alpha test on planet imo than the best looking game of current-generation after because of the number of planet they need to create I do not expect the game to look as good as the best looking next-generation game. This is not a matter of power but of budget and time limit.
 
What the hell is going on here. Didn't look in for a few hours and now there are tons of new comments here. Maybe I'll write later more but first of all I'll say so much about it.

As for the planets and moons. They will be improved with new rock assets, new shaders, new graphics tech (fog, improved atmspheric scattering, large scale shadows, better shadows in general etc.) but now they want to develop the technology first and then do it again. Curently the best graphics for landscapes has clearly Ghost Recon Breakpoint at ultimate settings.

What is certain in any case is that SC would not work on the current consoles. It's simply is too complex and huge. You need to check out the Origin Jump 890. You can look out of the ship or the other way around from the landscape into the ship. In addition it is extremely detailed.

Some of the current landscapes:

890 Jump

EDIT:

CIG can improve the graphics tech bit by bit. The biggest problem in contrast to new PlayStation 5 games would be the polygon density per asset. You can't constantly improve or redo all of them. However, CIG does make most of the assets in a very high quality.

In some areas CIG already has the better tech (like hair) but they still have to create the assets. Until then we'll be dealing with the old hair. Same goes for many of the landscape assets.
 
Last edited:
Kinda obvious, the graphics are in the realm of next-gen. The planets are lacking, read shifty's comments on the screenshots i posted.

For my what is not doable on current gen is the "management" of the whole world. The visuals are nothing out of this world...
 
The game is inconsistent. Some videos look really good and some videos are rather unimpressive. But there are too many versions of the game, so it might be because we're looking at an old build.

There is one consistent point that impresses me since the beginning though, it's the polygon density that is clearly unmatched.
 
For my what is not doable on current gen is the "management" of the whole world. The visuals are nothing out of this world...

It’s only and only the visuals that impress but when they do it’s next gen realm. The planets are lacking for the most according to most.
 
The game is inconsistent. Some videos look really good and some videos are rather unimpressive. But there are too many versions of the game, so it might be because we're looking at an old build.

There is one consistent point that impresses me since the beginning though, it's the polygon density that is clearly unmatched.

Is it impressive since it runs like crap ? I mean I'm sure alot of devs can pull that of if the deal was "ok, 40fps on a 2080ti"....
 
Is it impressive since it runs like crap ? I mean I'm sure alot of devs can pull that of if the deal was "ok, 40fps on a 2080ti"....

Exactly, it’s a trade off between performance and graphics fidelity. 30fps is generally still accepted if it pushes graphics/systems.
 
Back
Top