PeterT said:
The top pic screams "I need anisotropic texture filtering".
/signed.
If you compare the "artists impression" and compare the pictures, some very clear differences appear:
-Lighting (very high quality with degrees of intensity
-Shadowing (excellent self shadowing)
-Geometry (either detailed meshes OR really high quality normal maps)
-Texture resolution
-Texture quality (mip mapped, filtered to the wazzo)
-Field grass (the CGI looks realistic... the new pics the turf looks really flat when in fact that fake grass turf, well, like fake grass!)
I am starting to get a feel for this gens "PR shots". Similar to how super high AA is used on this gen shots, it seems some of the above, especially the geometry, lighting/shadowing, and texture quality, are all bumped up in the target renders. Even though the final game may look very similar and use the same assets, the actual quality is significantly lower. Every render target seems to exhibit this behavior.
I would be REALLY interested in Laa-Yosh posting in this thread. I am not a graphics engine designer or CGI producer. I can "see" the differences without always "knowing" what I am seeing.
My specific questions would be
1. CGI always tends to have this REALLY clean look to the textures/rendering. Some of this is lighting, self shadowing, and the level of detail of those proceedures. But when you see the CGI and then the ingame there is this "feel". Its like the "quality" of the render.
What is that? What features are making this different? What is an offline renderer doing that a realtime renderer is not?
2. Could you list the major differences between the two media from a rendering stand point that you see. In MANY ways the new media is MUCH closer to CGI, but as we have gotten closer to CGI quality that last 10% is REALLY becoming appearant.
So what tricks and techniques are we seeing in CGI that we currently are not seeing in some of these shots?
3. Of those techniques which can we realistically expect to see at a quality that is, for all practical purposes, indistinguishable from CGI. (e.g. 16x AA is basically as good--from an end user perspective--as an 128x AA sample. This is not true between 2x and 8x, which there is a noticable difference).
Anyone who has worked with CGI and/or realtime engines your feedback and thoughts would be very interesting
Ps- That said some of the new games seen in realtime, like Gears of War and PGR3, while showing obvious "hacks" and such seem to be on the other side of the spectrum and DO have a CGI like feel... they feel "solid" ... I just cannot put my finger on it!
