Dangling the Dollar -- VR/4K Vs. Photorealism

[orangpelupa]

I just tried vr in DK2 with shitty looking screen and HTC VIVE.

Surprisingly, shitty looking DK2 immersed me more, I even do some stuff instinctively!

Vive looks much better but I only tried the lab arrow gallery (the exhibitors refuse to change it to other games), and not impressed.

So here I confident to say that the balance is more important than simply chasing 4k.

 

[Sigfried1977]

I tried Playstation VR today for the first time.
They had monitors showing what the players were playing on VR and the game didnt look special visually. But oh my dear lord. When it was my time to try it, it was a whole new experience. The most immersive experience I have ever had.
I can say with utter confidence that over reliance on photorealism for VR is overestimated. If a game has Uncharted 4 level of graphics on VR it would simply be awesome. It WONT look more real, but it WILL feel more real because your brain thinks YOU are the one experiencing the environment instead of some virtual character on a screen.

It does feel pretty real. Too real for me in many cases unfortunately. By far the most interesting aspect of VR was movement in 3d space for me (none of that teleportation stuff. Kinda funny how that's gonna be the best method of interacting with a game like Rise of the Tomb Raider. Taking movement out of a game that is all about movement - great idea) , and recently (via both Vive and Oculus) I found out that I will be able to play just about none of the games I was looking forward to the most. I didn't last longer than a minute in Eve Valkyrie before my stomach angrily told me to go fuck myself.

 

[Cyan]

Now that VR is going to be common, Realtime Raytracing is the next big thing, imho. Actually, it ever is

 

[steveOrino]

A 4.2TFlop PS4NEO running a game utilizing this technology at 30FPS and using LOD when the the characters are farther away from the screen should be able to produce such near photorealistic graphics in real time in an actual game.

Not even close. That image from Activision is so far away from convincing its laughable (and it isn't even in motion).

The path to convincing real time graphics isn't some arbitrary quantity of flops they slap on a tech sheet. There needs to be a dramatic revolution in realtime simulation (Muscle simulation, blood flow, hair simulation, tissue deformation, locomotion, light, weather, thermodynamics, fluid dynamics, So on and so forth), asset creation, workflow and general processing power to make an organic object look anywhere close to realistic in real time at reasonable cost (let alone an entire game world). Considering that low framerate pre-rendered CG fails the eye test from even the very high end studios, the games industry might at well be in the dark ages. Even more dire is that pushing the envelope in realistic graphics has yet to prove it actually translates to increased software sales (with good reason since photorealism doesn't make a game play better).

 

[hughJ]

I'd feel a whole lot more sympathetic to the topic of this thread if there were numerous proofs of concept (actual shipped games) that show what's being asked for is something both concrete and specific as well as technically feasible for a broad variety of game genres.

If target renders, tech demos, and live action captured on 35mm and viewed on a 480p display are the primary basis for complaining about the lack of photorealism of modern games, then it would seem to me that the error is not in the design of games but the expectations set by marketing and a lack of technical understanding of the consumer in order to discern what is reasonable or not.

 

[eastmen]

http://www.develop-online.net/news/vr-momentum-slows-dramatically-on-steam/0223756

Speaking of VR, I'll be very curious to see how the sales continue after the early adopters. While the article paints a bleak picture, I still remain in the wait and see camp. I'm hoping to try a demo one of these days but based on what I've seen, there's a level of complexity involved that might become tiresome over time.

Having to put on the device itself, controllers in hand, space to move around makes it more of an event than a casual, pick up n game.

If anything, I'm more interested in VR for movies it ever comes to it. Much more appealing to me than 3D for movies.

seems odd that they are using steam to find out how many people have rifts. The rift uses oculus home not steam and the steam survey doesn't pop up for everyone. I never got it the few times I used my rift on steam.

 

[Cyan]

From Forza Horizon 3 on the X1.

 

[eloic]

I would certainly prefer a more realistic approach in some games, rather than an ultrahigh res. Just when we thought that we "had to" sacrifice some graphical effects to achieve 1080p, now we have 4k. Let me roll my eyes, please...

I've played in all kinds of TVs, and I still don't get why resolution is that important when we already have HD and have to play at a fair distance from our screens. Sure, I can notice a higher res and I can say it's better, but I value more a good AA method on top of graphics as pretty as they can get. I'm not saying I don't like games at 60 fps and higher resolutions... I just say that I don't understand why some people can't understand that the same way they prefer games targeting higher fps and res, some other people prefer other things.

 

[babcat]

Sony seems perfect fine with promoting the PS4 Pro as a 4K device when in reality they are having to cheat to reach that resolution.

So, does anyone know if developers are allowed to render at 720P on the PS4 Pro and use checkerboard rendering to reach 1080P, the minimum resolution allowed?

If they don't have a problem promoting fake 4K, they shouldn't have a problem with developers publishing a game with fake 1080P.

Do any developers here know if using checkerboard rendering on 720P is allowed? It would allow for all of the tiny power upgrade to be used for better graphics.

 

[MrFox]

Sony seems perfect fine with promoting the PS4 Pro as a 4K device when in reality they are having to cheat to reach that resolution.

So, does anyone know if developers are allowed to render at 720P on the PS4 Pro and use checkerboard rendering to reach 1080P, the minimum resolution allowed?

If they don't have a problem promoting fake 4K, they shouldn't have a problem with developers publishing a game with fake 1080P.

Do any developers here know if using checkerboard rendering on 720P is allowed? It would allow for all of the tiny power upgrade to be used for better graphics.

What specific aspect of the graphics would be improved?

 

[milk]

So, does anyone know if developers are allowed to render at 720P on the PS4 Pro and use checkerboard rendering to reach 1080P, the minimum resolution allowed?

I'll ask you again, did you play Quantum Break? It did precisely that. Plus, it shoots for non-stylised photorealism, and doen't waste resources trying to run above 30fps. Isn't it everything you ever wishes for? Doesn't it look perfect?

 

[babcat]

milk,

I have watched clips of Quantum Break. I think it attempts to go for photo-realism, but the power of the XBox One isn't enough. The characters don't look near as realistic as what is possible real time. My guess is that if a sequel was made for the PS4 Pro and it remained at 720P (upscaled to 1080P) the game could look much more photorealistic. The problem is that Sony requires a minimum of 1080P on the PS4 Pro and we don't know if they allow upscaling from 720P.

 

[babcat]

What specific aspect of the graphics would be improved?

The number one graphical improvement needs to be the face, skin, and hair of characters. On a scale of one to ten (one being a total cartoon and ten being no different than real life) there are already games with environments that I'd give an eight. However, when it comes to characters, we are stuck at probably five or six. I would love a Tomb Raider game, for example, in which Laura Croft actually looks like a real life person. It will be impossible to reach a ten with the PS4Pro, but I think an eight or nine is possible if *all* of the additional power of the PS4Pro was used for characters in a game rather than higher resolution.

The number two graphical improvement needs to be the occasional horrible unrealistic object. In many games there are some scenes that are absolutely wonderful and then all of a sudden a box or barrel comes into view that looks horrible. Every single object in the game needs to have the same level of photorealism.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I would love a Tomb Raider game, for example, in which Laura Croft actually looks like a real life person.

She won't move like a real life person.

The number two graphical improvement needs to be the occasional horrible unrealistic object. In many games there are some scenes that are absolutely wonderful and then all of a sudden a box or barrel comes into view that looks horrible. Every single object in the game needs to have the same level of photorealism.

That's typically because the engine isn't universally lit and shaded. eg. UC4 could vary from stylised photorealistic lighting to plain broken pre-lit objects slapped in a scene. To achieve uniform visuals you'd need a massively more computationally demanding engine*. Again, you don't appreciate what's required to achieve the results you're after. You look at a few numbers and a gut feeling and guess the correlate in some way that extrapolates to your fuzzy thinking. We've had a "photorealism at 40 TF" prediction recently. How do you take something like that from Tim Sweeney and then decide 4 TF in PS4Pro is going to be good enough?

* There's always hope for clever software solutions to take a leap forwards

That's not going to happen for character animation though.

 

[Cyan]

Forza Horizon 3

 

[MrFox]

The number one graphical improvement needs to be the face, skin, and hair of characters. On a scale of one to ten (one being a total cartoon and ten being no different than real life) there are already games with environments that I'd give an eight. However, when it comes to characters, we are stuck at probably five or six. I would love a Tomb Raider game, for example, in which Laura Croft actually looks like a real life person. It will be impossible to reach a ten with the PS4Pro, but I think an eight or nine is possible if *all* of the additional power of the PS4Pro was used for characters in a game rather than higher resolution.

The number two graphical improvement needs to be the occasional horrible unrealistic object. In many games there are some scenes that are absolutely wonderful and then all of a sudden a box or barrel comes into view that looks horrible. Every single object in the game needs to have the same level of photorealism.

I'm not sure I understand, can you elaborate?