First Killzone screenshot/details? So says USAToday..

[dantruon]

The game has bad textures but do bad textures meen the game looks bad? Hell no, think back to Half Life 2 and Doom 3, one game had alot of normal and bump mapping and shaders and the other game had worse textures and bump mapping but we all know Half Life 2 looked alot better. Gran Turismo 4 vs Forza, theres no denying that Forza had the better textures and effects but GT looked more "real" because of the lighting system. People are just complaing that KZ2 does'nt follow Gears and use super duper over the top bump/normal mapped textures, IMHO thats a good thing as i cant stand over used bump mapping. While its good at first because they look really nice there far from being realistic and thats the word here "realistic" medicore textures with a nice ultra realistic lighting model makes for an overall more realistic looking game and i think GG are going for the realictic look and not the overdone gears look.

Now sure in some area's COD4 might look better then KZ and visa versa but it as an overall package and to my eyes KZ2 looks more appealing then COD4.

you made some very good points there, i think most of the people who wasnt impressed with this game yet did not see the right media, if they did they would at least give credit to GG for trying.

i mean just look at this gif ( i choose a gif instead of a screenshot because to judge a game properly it is better to see it in motion and not in still.) When was the last time you see something like this and come away not impress one little bit, sure the game is imperfect since it not complete yet but give credit where it is due people.

http://a113.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images01/116/m_e4dfe224d11e051e7b5eb99315cd6a10.gif

or you want to see the pictures instead of the gif then here it is.

 

[archangelmorph]

you made some very good points there, i think most of the people who wasnt impressed with this game yet did not see the right media, if they did they would at least give credit to GG for trying.

i mean just look at this gif ( i choose a gif instead of a screenshot because to judge a game properly it is better to see it in motion and not in still.) When was the last time you see something like this and come away not impress one little bit, sure the game is imperfect since it not complete yet but give credit where it is due people.

http://a113.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images01/116/m_e4dfe224d11e051e7b5eb99315cd6a10.gif

or you want to see the pictures instead of the gif then here it is.

Personally I think it's quite sad that certain individuals as so far jaded regarding the developer/the genre/the theme/setting/the publisher of this title that they act like there's nothing impressive about it when clearly the game showcases some truely evolutionary advances in audio/visual entertainment software..

Granted one might say this area isn't as good as it coule be, or this area isn't great but one cannot deny the fact that all parts work together so well in this game from what we can see, to produce an experience that truely encapsulates the epic, cinematic feel of the cgi concept trailer and the world/universe from which it was based..

VERY few games have ever looked this good in motion.. period..

So I really don't care what genre your into, what your feeling are against Sony or GG or whether you think the game will play well.. AT LEAST give GG credit for crafting something that from what I can tell, should be the first step in developers (across the board) building truely cinematic, movie-like degrees of quality & hyper-realism into a game to make it the most immersive and atmospheric our eyes have ever witnessed..

"GG = the true evangelists of high production values.."

 

[dantruon]

VERY few games have ever looked this good in motion.. period..

agreed, and i think many would too, to see the beauty of this game one must see it in motion to appreciate that cinematic feels.

 

[Neb]

The game has bad textures but do bad textures meen the game looks bad? Hell no, think back to Half Life 2 and Doom 3, one game had alot of normal and bump mapping and shaders and the other game had worse textures and bump mapping but we all know Half Life 2 looked alot better. Gran Turismo 4 vs Forza, theres no denying that Forza had the better textures and effects but GT looked more "real" because of the lighting system. People are just complaing that KZ2 does'nt follow Gears and use super duper over the top bump/normal mapped textures, IMHO thats a good thing as i cant stand over used bump mapping. While its good at first because they look really nice there far from being realistic and thats the word here "realistic" medicore textures with a nice ultra realistic lighting model makes for an overall more realistic looking game and i think GG are going for the realictic look and not the overdone gears look.

Now sure in some area's COD4 might look better then KZ and visa versa but it as an overall package and to my eyes KZ2 looks more appealing then COD4.

Good post, it's all about how all the parts come together (but I remember how GoW was flamed for having some low-res tex though! ) . GoW and KZ2 have 2 different art themes but one has to remember that becouse one looks more realistic doesnt mean the other (which does not strive to be realistically in graphis/artwork) are worse graphically/artistically. :smile:

on another note one of the developer suggested that one soldier model for Killzone 2 is equivalent to one single level of killzone 1 in term of poly counts. Now the question is how many poly were there in killzone 1 ?

That is marketing BS, other devs have said similar things. They count the mapping used as real polygons (bump/normal/parallax/other mapping). For example the UT3 devs have said that one weapon has as much polygons as a whole level in UT2004. That would mean 100k's of polygons for a weapon if true, but it is not. :smile:

 

[quest55720]

Very impressive as a whole I thought. It looks great in motion but not that far a head of games like CoD4. What I really got out of this E3 is it seems Sony is a whole generation a head of the whole world in animation. I will pick up a PS3 next round of price cuts.

 

[Mintmaster]

I am not going to tell you why Killzone is better than COD4 visually but I will do tell you what at least I personally like a lot better than COD4.

Personally I like the animation in Killzone more than the examples you mentioned. Actually much more.

The size of the characters..COD4 has small characters..there that scene in COD4 that looks much like KZ..and the guys are about 1/2 size of KZ's..that simply isn't impressive. The animation is poorer too.

Okay, listen up everybody.

FORGET COD4.

I'm sorry I ever brought it up. I should have used GT5 examples or something to show you what a game's unparalleled strength is.

COD4 was impressive with the sunny scenes in the jungle. Insane foliage, great daylight lighting and shadowing, and animation that was convincing for long stretches of time during gameplay. This type of scene was done a lot better than any other game so far, unless someone can show me otherwise. This is COD4's STRENGTH.

KZ2 has nothing like that, so why the hell are you all comparing them? What can you possibly prove by comparing KZ2's showcase scene to COD4's worst? Gears looks way better than COD4 in that type of scene. Even Resistance might.

Tell me KZ2's big STRENGTHS that, in your words (not you Nesh and Rangers, but people like joebloggs), "blow all other games away". Do not choose a game to compare it to, as you'll pick some crappy scene and think it proves you right. I'll find a scene to prove that other games are not being totally outclassed.

KZ2 does a lot of things very well, and you can tell that there's a huge budget behind it. However, it does not blow away all other FPS games. Nothing like how Doom3 took dynamic shadows/lighting and normal mapping to a completely new level, or how GoW one-upped both of those aspects by a big step again (among other achievements), or how HL2 took interactive physics to the next level, or how Far Cry showed us what extensive DX9 shader usage and HDR can do for visuals. Those are "best looking by far" type games when they came out.

(BTW, COD4 does not belong in that elite group either, but for those of you poo-pooing COD4's animation: Show me one example of extended character running in ANY game - KZ2, Drake's, GoW, GRAW - that looks as realistic as in this video:
http://www.gamersyde.com/leech_4049_en.html
That is an advancement in animation, not some 1 second mo-capped sequences in KZ2.)

 

[Mintmaster]

Best explosion i've seen in a game TBH. look at those purple beams of light shooting out from that high intensity explosion. truely AMAZING!

So far, you're the only one trying to point out a KZ2 strength that's not some trivial effect you see here or there, assuming you're talking about all explosions.

I disagree, though. Those screenshots look great, and I was baffled how I didn't see them before. Upon watching the HD video, though, I see them for just a few frames in a 10 second sequence. In motion, that explosion looks a bit goofy unless it's low res on youtube and your imagination connects the dots. It's like they have a sequence of textures that they blend between which are a poor imitation of a real animated billowing effect. I was waiting through that monotonous gameplay segment (they'll fix that, I know) expecting a climax where I see the most spectacular explosion, but was disappointed. Overall, it's around the level of today's better games, but doesn't blow away the competition at all.

GRAW2, for example has very nice explosions:
http://www.gametrailers.com/player/17591.html

Lost Planet has some incredible explosions with superb animation, though occasionally there's a cheesy canned smoke fadeaway (again with a sequence of textures):
http://xboxmovies.teamxbox.com/xbox-360-hires/3978/Multiplayer-Mech-Warfare-HD/
The one at 16 seconds is my favourite. This is in dynamic game play and not a tuned scripted sequence like the KZ2 explosion you're referring to. You see these all the time!

 

[Lycan]

You want people to convince YOU that the title is technically amazing ? What kind of challenge is that ? If you don't see anything remotely impressive, good for you.

 

[Mintmaster]

and they also have tons and tons of fillrate intensive stuff on screen with no apparent slowdowns (edram is overrated anyway this generation )

Did you really see "tons and tons" of that stuff? I saw maybe 2-3MPix of transparent pixels at most at one time, and lots of transparency effects looked like they were trying to avoid high overdraw (see my prev. post). Anyway, eDRAM is about more than just transparency. Try doing KZ2 graphics with a 128-bit bus for the whole system...

MSAA and deferred rendering at the same time is quite a new thing, not groundbreaking cause the theory behind it is pretty simple, nonetheless I don't know any game (so far) that does anything like that, and I wonder if they even shade different lighting terms as diffuse, specular, occlusion, etc..at different rates.

So what are you willing to share about your knowledge of KZ2's rendering system? Do you think it has a way of skipping calculations on non-edge pixels where all four subsamples are the same?

KZ2 does a lot of things, tech wise, and it seems it does them very well.
The overal result is very solid, immersive and impressive, that's why ppl (me included) like it a lot.

I'll agree with that. Very solid indeed.

 

[morlock]

Did you really see "tons and tons" of that stuff? I saw maybe 2-3MPix of transparent pixels at most at one time, and lots of transparency effects looked like they were trying to avoid high overdraw (see my prev. post). Anyway, eDRAM is about more than just transparency. Try doing KZ2 graphics with a 128-bit bus for the whole system...

So how are they doing all this "transparent stuff" with the deferred rendering engine? Are they using a mix of deferred and forward rendering or something?

 

[betan]

The game has bad textures

The game doesn't have bad textures, everything seems uniquely textured, tiling is not apparent and above all it is an FPS.

 

[Mintmaster]

You want people to convince YOU that the title is technically amazing ? What kind of challenge is that ? If you don't see anything remotely impressive, good for you.

I never said nothing is remotely impressive. Show me where I did. Almost everything is well done, and KZ2 is impressive overall.

But for anyone who thinks this game is the best looking FPS ever by far and blows everything else out of the water, though, KZ2 is a hell of a lot better than simply impressive. Those are the folks that have to back that up with a few things in KZ2 that are way better than every other game, or they're full of hot air. Yet they can't even find one aspect.

I mean how can people call this the clear game of show with titles like LBP out there? Plenty of other top notch stuff too.

 

[Rangers]

Well, two things KZ2 does very well:

Extremely high level of AA, higher than any other graphically impressive shooter I know of on console.

Extremely good animation.

Of course those two facts dont begin to describe why it looks so amazing, but they're facts nonetheless.

Again, compare the animation here to Gears of war. No comparison. Compare the AA to Gears. No comparison.

Extremely good in-battle faces, in fact best ever on these consoles. For a third.

 

[archangelmorph]

Extremely good animation.

This should close the book on these stupid comparison discussions..

There hasn't been any game that has showcased animation at this level of fidelity that's not only active in real-time but also completely dynamic too..

That couple with the graphics fidelity (amazing degree of polygonal detail and high visual impact post-porcessing), physics and art put this game where it is..

Then again if you don't care for experience the game seems to present in motion and therefore reject acknowledging the absolutely stellar quality of such a believable, living breathing, animatyed world then that's your own..

"cough.. static graphics whore.. cough"

 

[Neb]

Well, two things KZ2 does very well:

Extremely high level of AA, higher than any other graphically impressive shooter I know of on console.

Aye how they managed to have such clean and jaggy free image (or so it seems based on video gameplay) with only 2xAA is impressive (use of filters perhaps?).

Extremely good animation.

Although other games have similar level of animations, they dont really give the same "real body weight, flesh movement" animation effect as in KZ2.

Again, compare the animation here to Gears of war. No comparison. Compare the AA to Gears. No comparison.

But a game not only consists of animations and AA, there is more to it!

Extremely good in-battle faces, in fact best ever on these consoles.

That may be very possible if talking about console games even though some face gest seemed a bit untweaked. For example the intro scene and the kind of "Max Payne/rat face" face animation was a bit off IMO. :smile:

 

[Love_In_Rio]

I would say the key is the big amount of characters geometry + gow level in the rest ( maybe better lighting, but i haven´t seen enough of it ).

Is KZ2 a technical milestone? I don't know, but I do know it looks VERY good, it has a consistent look, a lot of geometry on screen (the intro is really impressive from this standpoint!) and it does not try to overdo any effect (for example motion blur is subtle and effective, it's not just used to say "hey guys, we can do it!")
Their lens effects are cool (and..HS has something very similiar, maybe even more subtle..) and all the other post processing/color transform contribute to give to the game its own signature film grain/color scheme, and they also have tons and tons of fillrate intensive stuff on screen with no apparent slowdowns (edram is overrated anyway this generation )
MSAA and deferred rendering at the same time is quite a new thing, not groundbreaking cause the theory behind it is pretty simple, nonetheless I don't know any game (so far) that does anything like that, and I wonder if they even shade different lighting terms as diffuse, specular, occlusion, etc..at different rates.
Physics is also well done, it's true that ragdolls are nothing new..then why the vast majority of games out there get them all wrong?
KZ2 does a lot of things, tech wise, and it seems it does them very well.
The overal result is very solid, immersive and impressive, that's why ppl (me included) like it a lot.

Any clue about indirect lighting ? was it there ?

 

[Neb]

I would say the key is the big amount of characters geometry + gow level in the rest ( maybe better lighting, but i haven´t seen enough of it ).

Yes the characters are well detailed. The only thing was that the LOD was to aggressive for the characters (LOD transition could be seen upclose) but probably nothing one cares about since there is a battle going on.
There was also quite a lot of objects (houses even if quite flat) on the battlefield to make it look like it has "mass". :smile:

 

[Mintmaster]

Extremely high level of AA, higher than any other graphically impressive shooter I know of on console.

Point taken, but that's not enough to blow all other games away. We'll see it in several titles before KZ2 comes out.

Extremely good animation.

I see plenty of short motion capture sequences, but that's about it. Running still looks like other games and I still see the awkward transitions of today's games. Death animations show characters taking a step or two before reverting to ragdoll style, and I think that's what everyone seems to love about KZ2 over others. I guess that mimics Hollywood action movies, but I don't know if it's more realistic than what's in other games.

Along the same lines, I will say that the subtle animations pointed out, like enemy AI flinching, are a very nice touch. If there's one thing that I'm very impressed by, given that the game is far from release, it's the amount of polish we've seen.

Extremely good in-battle faces, in fact best ever on these consoles. For a third.

I'll give you AA over Gears, and animations are more realistic in KZ2 but that's mostly an art choice by Epic going for fast UT-style action. But in-battle faces? What's so much better than Gears or COD or Mass Effect or R6:Vegas or a bunch of other games?

Okay, you guys are convincing me that it's up at the top of the heap of FPS games, although I never really thought otherwise. I still say it is not way beyond other games out now or coming soon, but it is very solid with few weak points, and impressive indeed.

 

[morlock]

It looks very satisfying shooting these bastards.

http://i9.tinypic.com/664vgcp.gif

 

[DJ12]

Extremely high level of AA, higher than any other graphically impressive shooter I know of on console.

One of Gueriella's emplyees (motherh) stated that it is only 2xAA.

While it looks really good and appears to be much higher quality than that, he hasn't bullshit anyone about the game.

Maybe they are employing a "temporal" AA like ATI offer in their drivers to make it look better than it actually is.