New PGR3 pic *WOW*

[BlueTsunami]

Wait wait wait wait wait....is the picture real or not? I'm confused....

ITs a real shot from the game . What acert is saying is its a picture from the real world made into a normal map that is placed over the geometry model of the buildings .

Oh ok...thats exactly what I saw when I saw the actual picture posted with the PGR3 in game picture. When we get closer and closer to photo realism I think this is going to occur more and more...the BLUR HAS STARTED!!!!

 

[Mefisutoferesu]

Oh that makes much much more sense. I was thinking if all the enviroments are going to be THAT detailed the artist team must be HUGE. However, mapping a photo onto geometry would make things significantly easier and faster. I wonder if they plan on doing this for every local in the game... lots of plane trips I would think...

P.S. jvd did you get my message?

 

[jvd]

Oh that makes much much more sense. I was thinking if all the enviroments are going to be THAT detailed the artist team must be HUGE. However, mapping a photo onto geometry would make things significantly easier and faster. I wonder if they plan on doing this for every local in the game... lots of plane trips I would think...

P.S. jvd did you get my message?

I don't think its one picture. Its most likely many normal maps . But its the same princaple .


Yea i got it . Worked till late today (goofed off to much with golden eye for the ds ) so the video thread took a back seat

 

[Mefisutoferesu]

Oh, wait, so it's photos of the textures that are mapped to the game or just a bunch of photos of different sections of the place? The former would mean a good deal of artist elbow-grease would be needed for signs and things like that, no??

 

[Inane_Dork]

Now I need to go find my hat and eat it... because I still am having a hard time believing that is "in game". I will be aweful ticked when we get the final game and it has been downsampled a ton. Yeah, I still have my doubts :?

That's reasonable. Just make sure you read the whole thread at Bizarre's forums.
I think this post sums it up for me:
"That is 100% an in-game shot. This is PGR3, and this is the bar we're setting."

 

[Rockster]

I'm with Acert93, I don't care what the website guys say. No way that is in-game. And for anyone to say that it's not impressive, well, that's just plain stupid.

 

[jvd]

I'm with Acert93, I don't care what the website guys say. No way that is in-game. And for anyone to say that it's not impressive, well, that's just plain stupid.

at this point in time there is no reason for them to lie we have 5 months about till the system is released. Lieing is bad

 

[PARANOiA]

This topic is not up for discusion at this website. Do not post about it again

 

[Acert93]

Now I need to go find my hat and eat it... because I still am having a hard time believing that is "in game". I will be aweful ticked when we get the final game and it has been downsampled a ton. Yeah, I still have my doubts :?

That's reasonable. Just make sure you read the whole thread at Bizarre's forums.
I think this post sums it up for me:
"That is 100% an in-game shot. This is PGR3, and this is the bar we're setting."

1. If it is an ingame shot, why is it not 720p? Looks like a PC resolution to me. If it is a PC/Dev Kit image grab it could very well be source work. Not saying it will not be exactly like this in game, but it does make me pause.

2. The textures are obviously high resolution. The system only has 512MB of memory. Taking the OS Kernal, game code, sound, etc... into consideration lets say they have 350MB for texturing. While the 360 has the benefit of using a large amount of the 22GB/s of bandwidth for texturing I still am stuck in "PC/This Gen" mode.

I have a hard time believing we will see entire streets that detailed to that level. The game mantra is, "Life starts at 170". The game is fast. That means you need to stream a TON of textures to maintain this diversity/detail. Not impossible, but I guess I want to see a 720p video confirmed to be coming from a real 360 before I am convinced, "This IS a 360 game". Sorry, Sony and MS and developers have made me a pessimist.

3. How smooth will it be in actual gameplay? I am a trained lemming: The better it looks the crappier it runs hehehehe

4. Uhhh WHY oh WHY did we not see more of this at E3? This only highlights, yet again, that MS is on crack. Fire the entire PR department. If this is real, and the PGR team has thrown down the gauntlet and put there money where their mouth is and has said it is, a 3rd grader could have marketed this stuff better.

5. This looks a lot better than the stuff shown in the PGR city street trailer. True, some of it (like the court house looking building with the horse statue) looked very nice, but the city street that has similar brick buildings did not look as detailed in polys OR textures. Now they explained why... but that is truly amazing. And anything amazing, not running on final HW, makes me suspecious!

I do believe the machines are capable of these types of graphics. It is, for all practical purposes, "only" very detailed textures with quality lighting on static geometry that is non-organic... I say "only" because we have never had anything like this before AND because the end result defunks any complaints about technical short cuts.

That said, this is leaps and bounds better than I expected. And having seen a ton of "this gen" media from real games this just seems... WOW? I guess this is how 1st party games SHOULD look, but so far everything we have seen has looked like a step above top flight PC games... for example NFS, Test Drive, and the other racing games (this looks far beyond full auto). These shots are a good ways beyond those even, which makes me wonder... Again, pessimist!

Btw, in their defence: Moving to REAL HW is a big step. Another issue: 360 got a 256MB bumb only 3-4months ago according to Ballmer.

2x the memory really can do wonders. So maybe that is part of the recent jump in quality.

I look forward to being proven wrong


On a related note... I watched the QuakeWars video... great particle smoke. Not as good as KZ2, but it does make me consider that the particle effects in the KZ2 trailer may be attainable to some degree. Maybe not the same quality or dynamic, BUT if it looks good who cares, right?

 

[Acert93]

I'm with Acert93, I don't care what the website guys say. No way that is in-game. And for anyone to say that it's not impressive, well, that's just plain stupid.

at this point in time there is no reason for them to lie we have 5 months about till the system is released. Lieing is bad

I do not think they are lieing. But it is one thing to say "This is 100% ingame... this is the bar we are setting" and then, when release time comes, having to cut down some quality (light maps, texture resolution) to attain smooth framerates.

PGR is fast. If the game becomes main memory bandwidth limited cutting 20% of the quality could result in a large jump in framerate.

Like I said, I believe this to be possible. Technically it is not a huge problem. It is more an issue of time and memory/memory bandwidth. There is just a lot to make me suspecious. But I will give them the benefit of the doubt, but for the end product I will wait to see how the game looks on final HW with someone controlling a car.

I think we would all agree there is a BIG difference between seeing TD or NFS or UE3 being PLAYED and seeing a single screenshot. Not that all screenshots lie, but they do not always live up to that standard... if that makes sense? Moving footage on real HW does not lie.

 

[jvd]

1) Its part of a larger shot . Its in game think of whats missing. Your missing the cars , the tracks and the rest of the backrounds .

2) Yes high res. Current pc cards have 256megs with new ones inching up on 512 megs . So realisticly we have the same amount of ram as a pc game has acess too. Then factor in that each of the compression schemes (i believe there are over 40 ? ) will be used for maximum benfits and its quite achivable .

As for oyur next comment in part 2 , look at gears of war , huxley , unreal 2k7 . They all have highly detailed backrounds and these games are not slated till 2006 -2007. So i would think pgr is further in development .

3) 720p should be easy for a gpu of xenos's power . Half life 2 looks beautifull and runs fast and smooth on a 9600pro at 720p res

4) Uhhhh because ms used what they had . This is now a month after e3 and most likely 6 weeks or so those videos were put together . Ms got burnt for using fake stuff at the xbox launch and now they are playing the safer route

5) I dunno. I never grabed a still of the buildings in the trailer and looked. But as i've siad above the trailers for e3 are very old now . Over a month old . Those for the mtv show are most likely hitting 2 months or more .

 

[Almasy]

To answer Acert´s question. I´m not being an ass, and I don´t think anybody else who doesn´t find it impressive is being one either. In my case, I don´t find it impressive due to 2 things:

1. I´m not seeing anything that hasn´t been done before nor doing anything interesting that has already been done for that matter. It just doesn´t seem like an enormous feat to go outside, take a few photographs, and apply those with some prebaked lightning to very angular shapes.

2. Screenshots of that type don´t impress me. I usually get more impressed by other kinds of things, such as an incredibly detailed character in the middle of an animation, a forest, an imaginary city (like FF for example).

I mean, it´s just an incredibly boring building. That kind of thing just doesn´t make me go wowzors, as realistic as it can be.

 

[passby]

I want to see a 720p video confirmed to be coming from a real 360 before I am convinced, "This IS a 360 game". Sorry, Sony and MS and developers have made me a pessimist.

Words of Wisdom(TM)

 

[Rockster]

1. I´m not seeing anything that hasn´t been done before nor doing anything interesting that has already been done for that matter. It just doesn´t seem like an enormous feat to go outside, take a few photographs, and apply those with some prebaked lightning to very angular shapes.

Done before where? If it's so easy, how come everyone doesn't just go snap a few photos and bake? I have never seen anything running in real time, be it a techdemo, game, or otherwise, render anything close to looking that realistic. Please enlighten me. Point me to the screens.

 

[JasonLD]

I have no problem believing that that is real in-game shot..since I expected that those kind of visuals are completely archivable in next-gen consoles..
But, I think we will see those kind of details when we pause the replay and zoom in the cities, but I doubt that those details will remain intact when we actually play game...since we can't see those details anyways at 170+mph, it is wasteful..for framerates sake.
For replay zoom-in stills, possible, but during gameplay...no.

 

[Acert93]

1. I´m not seeing anything that hasn´t been done before nor doing anything interesting that has already been done for that matter. It just doesn´t seem like an enormous feat to go outside, take a few photographs, and apply those with some prebaked lightning to very angular shapes.

Mind to share some real game shots that "done this before". Some games have used real world source art, but the game rendering engines ALWAYS make it look really fake. The quality of the lighting (prebaked or not) and the quality of the textures and the rendering engine maintaining the integrity of the general feel of the image + the believable geometry is nothing I have seen in a game. Every game that has used this technique has fallen short in basically all those areas. Look at HL2. It looks great, but clearly not mistakable for photorealism. The color quality and lighting are lost in translation and the geometry is really low.

I am not aware of any ingame gameshots of real scenery that could pass for a real photo. Mind sharing some?

2. Screenshots of that type don´t impress me. I usually get more impressed by other kinds of things, such as an incredibly detailed character in the middle of an animation, a forest, an imaginary city (like FF for example).

I mean, it´s just an incredibly boring building. That kind of thing just doesn´t make me go wowzors, as realistic as it can be.

You are talking art direction.

So you are saying ingame assets that look photo realistic *in the game engine* is not impressive? Boring building or not, I have not seen any game reproduce a building so well that is could be mistaken for a photograph.

I don't care if it is a bowl of fruit, when game engines begin depicting real world environments--as "boring" as real world stuff is--that is impressive.

Why? Because it has not been done before. You have ever right not to be impressed with the art direction. But I see a trend.

Personally I thought the entire FF demo was totally lame. I hate the art direction and think it is a waste of good resources. But that never stopped me from being impressed with what it achieved technically OR from a creative standpoint. That is indeed impressive. Same with UT2007. I think the art direction is poor, but the game is very impressive--especially if you have played a lot of FPS. It is a huge leap in quality.

Ditto for this. From a creative standpoint--getting real world assets looking like real world object INGAME--is indeed impressive. The technology is always secondary to reaching your goal. Realtime rendering is ALL about cheating. Just ask Laa-Yosh. An offline renderer is going to do things a different way to maintain quality control. Yet it is indeed impressive when realtime renderers are able to fake the effects offline models use and get basically the same result.

Until I see where I this has done before and is old hat I stand by that. This is clearly far beyond what we have seen in Full Auto and NFS and even Test Drive's best screenshots pale in comparison from a "realistic" standpoint.


NFS 360

Full Auto

Test Drive Unlimited

PGR3

 

[Pozer]

Welcome to the new beyond3d console forum. Here are the rules.

1. If a nextgen image is posted from a console your not a fanbouy of, and the image looks bad ..... rip on it. Claim it doesn't impress you and it's not truly nextgen quality. Use that bad image to boast your favorite company.

2. If the image looks really good..... claim its not real, do anything you can to explain why. Use bad math if necessary. Whatever it takes.

 

[pegisys]

I don't see why people doesn't think this could be done in real time, it looks great and better than anything I have seen in a racing game but, it's still flat, just great textures,

and considering how good the buildings looked in part 2 I wouldn't expect anything less

 

[Acert93]

2. If the image looks really good..... claim its not real, do anything you can to explain why. Use bad math if necessary. Whatever it takes.

I think that is a generalization in the wrong direction. Many of us have reason to be skeptical (reasons given above). Skeptical does NOT mean we are calling them liars, but a hesitant, "Been burned before... lets see it on real HW". All I have done is give questions based on the other media and the general trend we have seen from both MS and Sony. I need not mention media from either company that was not representative of ingame quality. We just endured an entire generation of high res super AAed PR shots. Need I say more?

Just because someone has doubts does not make them a fan-boi of the other system. JVD was cool enough to give his thoughts on my points. Most of them are guesses on both our sides, but at least it is discussion. I even stated I think it is possible and the bump in RAM and development time may explain a bit. But there are still reasons to give pause. Especially when the line is blurring between game footage and photorealism.

I think general blanket statements like the above do not contribute too much to the conversation, especially when they begin to lump legitimate discussion as "fan-boi bashing".

 

[Acert93]

pegisys,

I am not sure I am getting your point. Do you mind rephrasing (that is a PGR2 shot). Are you saying "PGR2 had good textures, so this is believable"? Kind of confused.