Digital Foundry Article Technical Discussion [2023]

[Seanspeed]

Agreed on the polish being important, although I would disagree that Ark SA visually looks janky. Ark SE was 100% in the "followed some UE4 tutorials" space, but Ark SA art and graphics are actually quite good on average. The lack of polish in Ark SA is more in the edge cases... there are certain times of day where you get boiling from indirect lighting, there's flicker in certain shadows, and the animations are kind of inconsistent. And there's obviously still jank gameplay but that's as much a feature for Ark players as a detriment (although I have no idea why anyone plays Ark PVP).


Have you played both on max settings PC or just watched videos curiously? I'm surprised folks who had tried both would say that to be honest as the difference is fairly obvious even to a non-enthusiast (ex. my wife). That's not to take anything away from Avatar in particular, they are just aiming at a different target on the quality/performance curve. And indeed as I noted Avatar scales down quite a bit better; I haven't looked up console comparisons but I'm sure it looks better than Ark SA console which is merely "ok".

Subjective quality aside though, I'm just not entirely sure what new and exciting stuff is happening on the tech side in Avatar at first glance. Guess it will be interesting to hear about it at future GDC's, etc.

And similarly I wouldn't say Ark SA is necessarily some great demo of what AAA folks will come up with UE5, but performance aside I do think it is a pretty impressive game visually.

ARK SE just uses lots of environmental assets that look very generic when put together as a whole. Objectively, it looks very good, but it speaks to the power of UE5 that many others could do the same thing. Artistically, it lacks anything that distinguishes it. And that's very critical for a game's identity and for its graphics to be something of note, in my opinion.

It's impressive yea, but I would also completely understand why somebody would look at Avatar and think it's overall a more noteworthy accomplishment. Especially since Massive are using their own engine and achieving such great results.

 

[Dictator]

I can say the performance of Avatar is accompanying aspect in every scene in the Game that elevates It to impress far beyond other titles.
Sure it does not have VSMs or perfect shadows or RT shadows (lower quality BVH preventas that), but it actually does PSOs right, has no traversal stutters and is actually well multithreaded - that is just not the case for any dof the graphically interesting and dense UE5 releases. Maybe after 5.4. or whatever.

Also the game's asset scattering density and rules is what sets it apart from Ark - or other open world Games. The scattering is logical and naturalistic. Avatar's density is wonderful while not having bad frame-times, unlike other titles.


And lastly, even though it has that lower quality BVH, the GI is good - just Like hardware Lumen in that regard for diffuse. and they actually respect the PC User with good menus, good options, a Benchmark that works and is useful, and they inclue the ability to scale quality beyond.

I came away much more impressed with Avatar as a total package even though Sure, some aspects of some game or some Engine may be visually better in isolation.

 

[Andrew Lauritzen]

I can say the performance of Avatar is accompanying aspect in every scene in the Game that elevates It to impress far beyond other titles.

Agreed, I just think it's relatively more impressive in its visuals on the mid-range/console-ish spec rather than high end PCs where other things can eclipse it (albeit while using more processing power of course). Although I do think in some ways Horizon FW is in the same league if not better in some ways, but I eagerly await the console breakdown for Avatar!

Sure it does not have VSMs or perfect shadows or RT shadows (lower quality BVH preventas that), but it actually does PSOs right, has no traversal stutters and is actually well multithreaded - that is just not the case for any dof the graphically interesting and dense UE5 releases.

Ark SA is certainly not perfect in that regard, but it's also not too bad on high end PCs. It's overall quite heavy at the top settings, but it's pretty consistent at least. I'm curious if you've played much with it to date or plan to? As noted it has its own issues but in some ways it is surprisingly impressive IMO, which was not what I expected based on Ark SE.

And lastly, even though it has that lower quality BVH, the GI is good - just Like hardware Lumen in that regard for diffuse

So do you have confirmation that they have any dynamic GI in the game curiously? As I noted with some of my screenshots there are definitely areas where I would really expect to see different results than I do if there was GI, or even AO. Again, could just be I haven't gotten far enough and you've had a lot more time with the game so I'm wondering what setup they are using there.

In any case as noted Avatar does look reasonably good and I expect I'll be playing a fair bit more of it based on my son's excitement regardless Thanks for the great breakdown and coverage as always!

Sadly, RT shadows are only applied to the shadows from the sun.

How do I enable that? I could only get CSMs and the coverage in the DF video also clearly shows CSMs.

 

[Jupiter]

The level of detail per object is very high in Avatar and also above what I see in Horizon Forbidden West. The DF video showed that impressively. The DF video of Forbitten West can also be used for comparison if you don't have the game.
What is much more important than whether a rock has a few more polygons is how (preferably many different) assets are combined and distributed. This makes a much bigger difference to the overall impression and here Avatar, like The DIvision back then, is top of the class, even though they are large games.

I find the shadows in both ARK 2 and Avatar flawed. They need ray tracing. It would be good if Massive could add this later. Unlike CD Projekt, they have never upgraded their games graphically after release.

 

[Dictator]

They have CSMs mixing with RT shadows + SS shadows. You can see HW RT shadows for some large scale contact shadows (it only works on large scale due to simplified BVH). So you won't see it in grass or tiny things, those will be SS. You can see it on big tree trunks for example where the BVH more closely matches the real geo.

Since it is larger scale at a distance, you also see HWRT shadows on big things like the floating Islands, big Rock formations or large trees at a distance out of CSM range.

@Jupiter totally agree that I would love RT shadows that are total replacement for Shadow maps. They need a better more detailed BVH setting to make that possible I think First.

And yes it is confirmed real time HW RT for GI. I think it is visually obvious that is the Case @Andrew Lauritzen , but If you want, just open photomode and change time of day around an area with lots of occlusion to see the per pixel nature.

 

[Jupiter]

Thank you for the explanations.

I found your video so impressive that Avatar has now become a must-buy for me. I just have to decide whether to buy it quickly or wait until Christmas. It won't be a masterpiece of a game but I will enjoy it too. I will also like the Crysis style of play. This will be the first Ubisoft game for me since The Division 2. I would welcome it if other Ubisoft studios would switch to this engine. Especially Far Cry and Assassin's Creed. Assassin's Creed in particular has been treading water for years.

 

[Andrew Lauritzen]

And yes it is confirmed real time HW RT for GI. I think it is visually obvious that is the Case @Andrew Lauritzen , but If you want, just open photomode and change time of day around an area with lots of occlusion to see the per pixel nature.

I'll definitely play with that when I get the chance, thanks! Do you happen to know why it doesn't seem to really do much in the examples I posted above by chance? Is it just far too low frequency probes or something?

 

[Phantom88]

Thank you for the explanations.

I found your video so impressive that Avatar has now become a must-buy for me. I just have to decide whether to buy it quickly or wait until Christmas. It won't be a masterpiece of a game but I will enjoy it too. I will also like the Crysis style of play. This will be the first Ubisoft game for me since The Division 2. I would welcome it if other Ubisoft studios would switch to this engine. Especially Far Cry and Assassin's Creed. Assassin's Creed in particular has been treading water for years.

You don't have to buy the game. Subscribe to ubisoft plus for $15 for a month, then cancel it. Play Avatar, AC Mirrage and whatever else you missed in the meantime

Ubisoft+ Game Subscription Service | On PC & Xbox Consoles

Official site. Get unlimited access to all Ubisoft games, including new releases on day one, and enjoy our most premium editions.

store.ubisoft.com

 

[Dampf]

Indeed, Avatar looks very good. I'm not into the game but technical speaking, it's very impressive indeed. Bodes well for future Snowdrop games.

Snowdrop Engine is very powerful now.

 

[OlegSH]

There is no question about, Ark SA is a significant step up above Avatar.

Doesn't look the same to me. The problem I see with UE 5 in existing games is the complete static image. In Avatar, you can see plenty of beautiful plants whose leaves are animated and moving with the wind. In the ARC, everything is dead static unless touched and converted to a dynamic mesh, as if it was set in stone. Nanite is not a panacea for everything, there are still lots of environments for which it doesn't provide impressive visuals.

 

[cwjs]

Ubisoft's art team (and budget, surely) is a lot better than the team at ark, at a certain point any AAA game with up-to-date tech is going to look 100x more interesting, complex, layered, etc, than these early ue games.

 

[Andrew Lauritzen]

The problem I see with UE 5 in existing games is the complete static image. In Avatar, you can see plenty of beautiful plants whose leaves are animated and moving with the wind. In the ARC, everything is dead static unless touched and converted to a dynamic mesh, as if it was set in stone. Nanite is not a panacea for everything, there are still lots of environments for which it doesn't provide impressive visuals.

I don't really mean offense, but have any of you folks actually played Ark SA? There's wind and significant amounts of dynamic stuff. There's nothing "converted" to dynamic meshes. There's additionally more large scale fluid and foliage interactions than I've seen yet in Avatar (although again I've only played a few hours) with trees getting knocked over by dinos (and axes) knocking over other plants and ruffling foliage, all of which interacts at a pretty fine scale with fluid sims, waves, etc.

Obviously there's gonna be a lot of hot takes on forums and that's ok, but given how easy it is to cherry pick footage/screenshots to support whatever narrative, I really do encourage you guys to at least try some games for a few hours before you form opinions on the tech. Ultimately most of our takes are going to be subjective and affected by lots of variables, but at least having played the game makes it easier to have a productive conversation with people starting from more similar places.

And to qualify yet again... there's plenty of problems with Ark SA. I'm not trying to hold it up as some bastion of game graphics or anything. But it's an interesting comparison point for other open world games with lots of foliage.

 

[pharma]

I don't really mean offense, but have any of you folks actually played Ark SA? There's wind and significant amounts of dynamic stuff. There's nothing "converted" to dynamic meshes. There's additionally more large scale fluid and foliage interactions than I've seen yet in Avatar (although again I've only played a few hours) with trees getting knocked over by dinos (and axes) knocking over other plants and ruffling foliage, all of which interacts at a pretty fine scale with fluid sims, waves, etc.

Obviously there's gonna be a lot of hot takes on forums and that's ok, but given how easy it is to cherry pick footage/screenshots to support whatever narrative, I really do encourage you guys to at least try some games for a few hours before you form opinions on the tech. Ultimately most of our takes are going to be subjective and affected by lots of variables, but at least having played the game makes it easier to have a productive conversation with people starting from more similar places.

And to qualify yet again... there's plenty of problems with Ark SA. I'm not trying to hold it up as some bastion of game graphics or anything. But it's an interesting comparison point for other open world games with lots of foliage.

Based on videos floating around the internet I'd have to agree with @OlegSH. Unless something is completely off in the videos foliage motion seems staged and lacks natural movement in ArkSA.

 

[Riddlewire]

I disagree with Tom's conclusions regarding Xbox One S/X.
He states it as an absolute that the 30hz cap is still the best way to play on those machines. That's just wrong. Uncapped with VRR is the best way to play on both.
Also, he apparently forgot that the Xbox emulator allows you to turn off the X enhancements on One X. He didn't test it running at 720p on One X.

 

[Andrew Lauritzen]

Based on videos floating around the internet I'd have to agree with @OlegSH. Unless something is completely off in the videos foliage motion seems staged and lacks natural movement in ArkSA.

Just... play the game if you care to compare. Is it really too much to ask as a baseline for detailed tech discussion?

Here's a 30 second video of where I happened to be with whatever weather happened to be occurring. There are absolutely better examples, but look... trees moving! Whatever you may think of the artistic quality of the foliage animation (which TBH I would not say is particularly special in either Ark or Avatar), it's pretty easy to tell that all the trees are using dynamic WPO all the time and the sun is constantly moving. Further there is no VSM caching for the directional light at all in Ark SA; things would be somewhat faster if there was.

In any case I think I got my answer: no one has played it even for 10 minutes. That's totally fine, but then it's probably a waste of time to discuss it much further

 

[OlegSH]

I don't really mean offense, but have any of you folks actually played Ark SA? There's wind and significant amounts of dynamic stuff. There's nothing "converted" to dynamic meshes.

I have not played both games yet (the first ARK was enough for me to realize it's not my type of game), but from every video I've seen on YT, the jungle setting in ARK appears very static to me. It seems there are two types of foliage in the game: the first one utilizes Nanite and can be identified by its triangular leaves, while the second type consists of typical trees with alpha transparencies and does not use Nanite. Trees with alpha transparencies feature pronounced swaying animations in YT videos, mostly noticeable in the winter biome. The Nanite trees seem static in these videos, mostly noticeable in the jungle biom. I know there is the WPO thing, which should allow for simple motions like swaying on Nanite trees, right? However, I'm wondering about its flexibility and performance. From my experience in Fortnite, it appears limited to basic swaying motions. It seems quite restricted in its capabilities and is not as versatile as skeleton animations. It also doesn't support deformable geometry, so large palm leaves won't interact during player collisions as they did a decade ago in the Crysis. That's why I assumed that Nanite meshes might be converted to dynamic meshes upon colliding with the player, similar to the cars in the Matrix demo, which changed types in the debug view after collisions (or was that a bug?).

 

[Andrew Lauritzen]

It seems there are two types of foliage in the game: the first one utilizes Nanite and can be identified by its triangular leaves, while the second type consists of typical trees with alpha transparencies and does not use Nanite.

Literally everything in Ark SA other than the dinosaurs, humans and water surface is Nanite. There are various console commands you can mess with to effectively make the nanite stuff disappear to confirm, although they have been gradually removing some of those as they are obviously an issue in PvP (it's kind of ridiculous that console access is allowed in PvP in the first place, but welcome to Ark ).

Trees biom. I know there is the WPO thing, which should allow for simple motions like swaying on Nanite trees, right? However, I'm wondering about its flexibility.

WPO is the most flexible mechanism possible for animation... it is effectively a per-material vertex shader where the material can output whatever vertex positions it wants. Because of this, the downside it can be a relatively inefficient way to do animations that could otherwise be hierarchical, especially on high detail assets. As noted - Ark is a very heavy game, but there is no limit on what it is doing functionally. You can evaluate an arbitrarily skeletal animation, simple mathematical function, precomputed vertex animation or anything in between.

It also doesn't support deformable geometry, so large palm leaves won't interact during player collisions as they did a decade ago in the Crysis.

All of this is deformable geometry, none of these are rigid. Leaves absolutely react to player and dino interaction if the setting is enabled, as does water with a full fluid sim.

That's why I assumed that Nanite meshes might be converted to dynamic meshes upon colliding with the player, similar to the cars in the Matrix demo, which changed types in the debug view after collisions (or was that a bug?).

Matrix demo was before UE shipped Nanite programmable raster support. It could be done with WPO animation now, although there are often various technical tradeoffs associated with each case.

Foliage is pretty much all done with WPO-style animation currently, across most games. In the future we will (all) likely need to do it more efficiently in various hierarchical ways and utilizing displacement as geometry gets more detailed.

[Edit] Since I happen to still be up playing, here's a couple quick ones of fluid and foliage interactions. The fluid stuff in particular is actually super cool and is driven by pretty detailed collision bounds. Additionally it's not just the player character/dinos that drives these animations, it's all the wild dinos too. It's kinda neat to see big rustling in the bushes and trees falling over and be worried about what's gonna come out of it.

 

[OlegSH]

All of this is deformable geometry, none of these are rigid. Leaves absolutely react to player and dino interaction if the setting is enabled, as does water with a full fluid sim.

In the YouTube videos I've seen and in Fortnite, there's a simple swaying motion for collisions with players and for the wind, which can be accomplished with some arbitrary procedural displacement of vertices and objects rotations for collisions with player.

It would be great news if Nanite trees can really interact with colliders as in Crysis, where leaves are not just arbitrarily displaced in random directions to "simulate" the wind, but can also bend and interact with the ground and other surfaces in a physically accurate manner.

Anyway, thanks for explaining this stuff; it seems to be more flexible than I thought. I need to dig deeper into it. It seems the static appearance of current games could be caused by the late introduction of WPO, when these games were already too far along in production. Would love to see more games with dynamic geometry on UE5.

 

[Below2D]

Just... play the game if you care to compare. Is it really too much to ask as a baseline for detailed tech discussion?

Here's a 30 second video of where I happened to be with whatever weather happened to be occurring. There are absolutely better examples, but look... trees moving! Whatever you may think of the artistic quality of the foliage animation (which TBH I would not say is particularly special in either Ark or Avatar), it's pretty easy to tell that all the trees are using dynamic WPO all the time and the sun is constantly moving. Further there is no VSM caching for the directional light at all in Ark SA; things would be somewhat faster if there was.

In any case I think I got my answer: no one has played it even for 10 minutes. That's totally fine, but then it's probably a waste of time to discuss it much further

I don’t know about this either. This video kind of proves the point you’re addressing and not the other way around.

There’s a snowstorm in the video with strong winds and the tree leaves and branches are barely moving. I’m also unsure if it’s because I’m on mobile but, there doesn’t seem to be any snow or terrain deformation beneath that hulking animal’s feet. Also, when the sabretooth thing runs through the bushes, there doesn't seem to be any interactions either. The foliage seems to just sway in a generic manner, not actually responding to movements. In Frontiers of Pandora on the other hand, it seems that even individual leaves react to the player's movements.

I haven’t played the game myself but watched a few videos, but aside from trees getting knocked over, this game seems a lot more lifeless and static than Frontiers of Pandora. It may be great from a technical perspective if you stop and pick apart the different aspects of the rendering, but honestly just looking at them from the eyes of a layman, Avatar looks way better.

Ark looks like a UE5 school project with poor art direction.

And yeah, you're right about the shadows in Avatar. They look pretty awful for how good the rest of the game appears. This pic doesn't do justice to how bad they look in that part. They look pixelated and blocky.

 

[Scott_Arm]

@Below2D Ark is made by a company that has 35 people arcording to Wikipedia. Avatar is a mega budget property and made by a mega budget developer. Of course there will be vast differences in art direction. But Ark still looks very good in the videos above.