Addressing longstanding graphical issues with better technology

D

dten

Newcomer
With all the excitement over newer rendering and lighting tech in future consoles, I hope devs don't overlook distracting and immersion breaking graphical issues. In fact, I'd prefer simpler scenes if it avoids graphical issues. Some are listed below. I'm curious what graphical issues distracts others.

  • LOD/pop-in - Added processing and RAM in gen 9 should help. Unfortunately hard drives will likely still be a big bottle neck. Devs can also do their part in not overpopulating their scenes.
  • Pixelated closeup textures - Maybe not an issue anymore with 4K textures?
  • Oblique polygon blur/aliasing - If most gen 9 games can hit 16xAF, I think this is mostly solved?
  • Polygon clipping - Not just minor clipping but hair going through shoulders or weapons sheathed through people. Probably one of the most distracting things, just makes scenes look unpolished. Not sure if there is an easy fix unfortunately.
  • AA shimmering - Seems like this is mostly fixed with 4K and higher resolution?
 
Count me in on those. As well as the jitter and shimmer that's present (while in motion) in grassy shrubbery areas of games (e.g., GTA V, The Witcher 3, Far Cry 5, Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Wildlands, etc.).
 
Add to the list:
1-Flickering Textures caused by Z-fight.
2-Flickering Shadows and Shadow cascades, should be solved with Ray Tracing though
3-Color banding on smoke, fog and light halos


dten said:
Polygon clipping - Not just minor clipping but hair going through shoulders or weapons sheathed through people. Probably one of the most distracting things, just makes scenes look unpolished. Not sure if there is an easy fix unfortunately.
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It needs very strong collision detection, which needs massively better CPUs.
 
Xbat said:
When you say massively better CPUs are you referring to Jaguar or the potential Ryzen CPUs ?
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I think he is saying just in general. Avoiding polygon clipping also requires physics. For instance, without TressFX like tech, your character with long hair mesh would either clip into their body (bad) or can't even look up if forcing collision detection (also bad).
 
Half decent transparency with refraction.
Current methods of shifting texture reads are really bad.

Ray-tracing should help, but still one has to be carefull with intersecting surfaces.
I wonder how offline renders deal with it, I guess there must be a flag for leaving object or IoR change.
DavidGraham said:
Indeed. I meant it in the general sense. Even the best CPUs for gaming on PC would struggle with a strong collision detection algorithm. I think developers would have a hard time doing animation with that too.
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Yup, I'm quite sure this is as much artistic and design problem as it is physics and computation.

Designs would need to follow strict guidelines and so should animations.
Clothes and armour restrict movement.. should this be in original capture or algorithm forcing animation into constrains..
If physics interrupt a motion, what happens..etc.

I do welcome the day when there is no metal armour which looks like metal slime melded on character, but the additional work amount seems scary.
 
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Blame developers. You have 6th gen games with minimal pop up and 360 games with 4xMSAA and max AF like riddick and the darkness.

Clipping is the only real hardware problem here

Also I swear shadows only get worse with each gen transition. Chris seavor of Conker made this point... Do you want realistic diffusion or do you want it to look good? Sharp > blurry and jagged I say.
 
phoenix_chipset said:
Blame developers. You have 6th gen games with minimal pop up and 360 games with 4xMSAA and max AF like riddick and the darkness.

Clipping is the only real hardware problem here

Also I swear shadows only get worse with each gen transition. Chris seavor of Conker made this point... Do you want realistic diffusion or do you want it to look good? Sharp > blurry and jagged I say.
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This generation, dense foliage is the new bloom. Since that's the new norm, hopefully next gen hardware will have much faster disk->screen transitions. But even on PC, pop in is a big problem in the latest games such as Forza Horizon 4 so I don't know.

Shadows will likely not truly get fixed until RT so all the problems mentioned will probably stay next gen.
 
Skyrim modders seem to do a fantastic job of hair a cloth physics with full collision detection. It's definitely CPU intensive though.
 
I bet Naughty Dog's first ps5 game will be the first to feature fully modeled and physically simulated nostril hairs. Just you wait. It will be a true game changer.
 
dten said:
This generation, dense foliage is the new bloom. Since that's the new norm, hopefully next gen hardware will have much faster disk->screen transitions. But even on PC, pop in is a big problem in the latest games such as Forza Horizon 4 so I don't know.

Shadows will likely not truly get fixed until RT so all the problems mentioned will probably stay next gen.
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At least we finally broke free from 5th gen cardboard trees :p In most games anyway. SSD should help which I still think we'll get next gen.
 
milk said:
I bet Naughty Dog's first ps5 game will be the first to feature fully modeled and physically simulated nostril hairs. Just you wait. It will be a true game changer.
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Nah, knowing Naughty Dog they simulate the absolute minimum amount of things and use clever vertex shaders to fake most of the things.
 
jlippo said:
Nah, knowing Naughty Dog they simulate the absolute minimum amount of things and use clever vertex shaders to fake most of the things.
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You may be right. They do like to use more artist crafted solutions. Maybe nostril hair blend-shapes? Throw in some motion matching based on motion captured real nostril hairs... We'll be reaching new levels of immersion and beauty.
 
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