New PGR3 pic *WOW*

[Bohdy]

With this in mind, then can people explain why no game has looked like this before.

More ram for higher res textures, more than enough polygon power for the shell they are mapped on, and anti-aliasing + motion blur for that photo finish. That and attention to detail by the artist is what makes this pic look so realistic. Its essentially a natural evolution of the rendering techniques that have been used for ages, as you say, which makes it less exciting to me than seeing some of the new possibilities that next-gen hardware affords.

 

[Sean*O]

They don't even need to do that. Just take a picture of the buildings, the lighting will be prebaked in the picture. Just slap in on a couple of polygons and stir for 2 mintues. Kids claiming "they look real" will be ready to serve immediately.

The lighting isn't going to match up because you aren't able to shoot all the photos around the city at the same time. It will probably look close enough with some tweeking though. I assume that is how they did it with the last one

 

[MrFloopy]

More ram for higher res textures, more than enough polygon power for the shell they are mapped on, and anti-aliasing + motion blur for that photo finish. That and attention to detail by the artist is what makes this pic look so realistic

Yes, which is the point.

which makes it less exciting to me than seeing some of the new possibilities that next-gen hardware affords.

But if it looks so good, why do you care about the technique.

 

[_phil_]

then can people explain why no game has looked like this before

ambient occlusion baked (very time consuming) + a lot of hirez photos.It mostly requires a lot of time ,and Vram.Time to get to the city ,snapshot every thing ,clean ,perspective correct,balance the photo data and so long...


I'm not sure they'll do the whole city like that. it's a showcase,IMO.

 

[Bohdy]

But if it looks so good, why do you care about the technique.

I said it looks realistic, not good. Realism doesn't do terribly much for me just on its own. I mean, a wall mapped with a photo of a wall looks 100% realistic at the right angles, but I am hardly going to be impressed by just one wall. The same principle goes here. If something impressive enough looks realistic, then I will be impressed! And for something more complex to look realistic, probably more advanced techniques will have to be used.

Is that clear enough?

 

[MrFloopy]

ambient occlusion baked (very time consuming) + a lot of hirez photos.It mostly requires a lot of time ,and Vram.Time to get to the city ,snapshot every thing ,clean ,perspective correct,balance the photo data and so long...

Okay my point has been missed. I am saying that an in-game shot is released and people are dissapointed. The comments of the these people centre around the fact that it's no big deal because this technique is simple even though it produces a result that is an appropriate difference for the change in hardware technology and process involved.

So the impression I get is that you are disappointed because this is what you should expect from a next gen product.

And for something more complex to look realistic, probably more advanced techniques will have to be used.

Judge it on it's merits mate. It's a racing game, and the best graphics of it's genre you've seen, what's your point?


Ok maybe this is a generation gap problem. See I am still amazed after all these years with the advancement of CGI hardware and techniques, (Volume shadows on PS2, who'd of thunk it) and I've been working with 3D graphics hardware for 15 years.

Maybe growing up with a different baseline changes your perspective on these things.

Eg, I was born just after the moon landing so aerospace advances (an industry I started in) don't really shock or amaze me, however for my parents born before the war, they are always amazed.

Ah I'm rambling now but as an old member of this board I hope that we are here because we love the advancement of 3D and appreciate all aspects of it's advancement.

 

[Qroach]

Mr Floopy,

(hehe you name make me giggle)

What I think this comes down to is simple. People here just can't tell that this in game shot is more that just applying photo's used as textures onto a bunch of polygons. They are completly missing the lighting which is what makes the scene look real, and that likely isn't prebaked into these textures.

now I've done a lot of work in Maya and 3ds max over the years, more than anyone that wasn't hired as a 3D artist should, and I can clearly see how impressive this shot it. I've used photo's textures before (jeeze so did a foolish amount of games this gen, yet they didn't look this good) and with simple lighting there's simply no way to make it look that good. You need to use a special type of lighting to achieve what they did in these pictures. anyone that claims this is vertext lighting or such is blowing smoke.

so basically what I see here is, a bunch of people complaining that it's not impressive or has been done before, blah blah. These are the same people where if this was classified as a PS3 shot, they would be jumping up and down at the power of the PS3. It's unfortunate, but it's exactly what's happening here. The rabid fanboyism is coming back at the start of last generation has reared it's ugly head again.


I think the people that doubt it's real are in a seperate more obviously less fan-ish catagory, as those people are simply doubting it's real and not saying it doesn't look good.

 

[ims]

Irue. If this was a PS3 shot I would imagine all "fanbois" would be 5 knuckle shuffling in front of their Pc's

Sweet

Ims

 

[wireframe]

Taken from P5:

OK, once and for all, that is an in game screenshot.

Alan

Yup - I'm going to back this one up as well.

That is 100% an in-game shot. This is PGR3, and this is the bar we're setting.

Chris

both from http://bizarreonline.net/forum/view...t=15&sid=fd3bf5fd78fc74fa488c3665f9970cd7

I hope they realize how high they've set the bar.

Thanks for the link. I somehow missed that one from the previous pages. So, it's real then. Absolutely fantastic graphics. It would be really nice to see the image deconstructed and the real, underlying level of detail exposed.

 

[_phil_]

Okay my point has been missed

Gears of war is much more impressive because it's not mapped reality.simple.

that shot is unimpressive on both technical and artistical point of view.
But it's realistic enough on a static image.

 

[Rockster]

QRoach, I agree. Either they can't see the forest for the fanboys, or have no appreciation for what it takes to do something like that. If it was as easy as slapping some pictures onto some geometry, surely we could come up with other examples that look as good. No way. Destilling digital images into textures, achieving results like that, is extremely difficult and labor intensive. I'm still unwilling to believe they would go through that kind of effort for an entire game. It's probably something like in-engine created for the trailer or something, limited in scope. We'll see.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

It is relatively easy. I've used this software (demo or early limited freeware edition, can't remember which)...
http://www.photomodeler.com/index.htmlI'm not detracting from the visuals. I think the PGR shot shown is great, and if all the scenery looks like that, wahay! I don't care what techniques are used so long as it looks good.

However, the idea of mapping photos or baking lightmaps isn't new or amazingly difficult. Why hasn't it been done this well before? Perhaps technical limitations? Perhaps no-one thought of going to all that effort for a game (obtaining the photo's is hard). But like I complain about repeated grass textures, even the most basic of 3D hardware that can cope with 2 layer texturing can produce non repeated grass textures. This could be done 7 years ago. So why are we still seeing repeated tiles in grass? For some reason artistis on games aren't making the most of the options available, it would seem.

 

[London Geezer]

Sad how discussions boil down to "fanboys can't accept this cause they're blinded" when very valid technical points have been raised.

 

[Acert93]

You are comparing totally different genres, where different technologies, gameplay, and art directions are needed.

GOW is a tactical fighter in a fake post-apocolyptical world. The protagonist is a stiff jawed "convict" out to save the world from a manacing alien race that loves the dark. Non-realistic, over the top action is married with interactive environments. The gameplay and that theme merit non-realistic settings.

PGR3 is set in NY and is a racing game focused on driving through city streets at fast speeds. The environment is for looks only and mainly-noninteractive. The point of the game would be to have the feeling of "being there" and at high speeds.

I never heard an outcry against GT3/4 when they tried to have realistic settings. Instead I heard "breathtaking" "awesome" and "a technical feat". The level of quality between PGR3 and GT4 is impressive, yet all of a sudden trying to attain "realism" in a car game is "unimpressive".

Comparing GOW to PGR3 is kind of silly. It would be like me saying, "GT4 was unimpressive because Tekken4 had better art direction and more interactice and GT4 just had copies of real world stuff at lower resolutions". They are just not comparable because they set out to do totally different things.

I am willing to bet that more gamers would appreciate REALISTIC looking racing games over cartoonish ones. Not even a realistic bet because I would already win that. Car racing is rarely about interaction with the environment, so high quality non-interactice "photorealistic" rendering methods fit quit nicely with the genre because it is the immersion of the surroundings are going for. Yes, that means "boring real stuff". But seeing as that is the FIRST screenshot I ever mistook for being real, it is laughable to indicate this is a "been there done that". No one has even ventured to post pics of games that look real simply because they do not exist.

I am flabbergasted at the lengths some are going to say how un-impressive this is. Just amazing.

 

[Bohdy]

I am flabbergasted at the lengths some are going to say how un-impressive this is. Just amazing.

And I'm amused at your inability accept that some people are unimpressed, and that they are perfectly justified in being so.

Qroach: Mr. Floopy seems to agree with me and others that it *is* as simple (technically) as applying photos to textures, but his point is that if it looks so good then the complexity of the technique shouldn't matter. I don't disagree with that in the general case, but I am just not impressed with this case for the reasons that I have already mentioned.

 

[Acert93]

I don't care what techniques are used so long as it looks good.

That is the hitch. Some are saying it does NOT look good.

However, the idea of mapping photos or baking lightmaps isn't new or amazingly difficult.

Same debate from id/D3 haters last year. There has not been anything "revolutionary" in 3D rendering in a long time. D3 did nothing new... just to a larger degree/quality than ever before. The almost* completely unified lighting/shadowing engine was new for real time rendering and it was to a degree of quality not seen before.

So although it was an engine doing shadowing/lighting in realtime to a very high quality it did not stop a flood of posts of, "That is not impressive" and "This is not new" etc... Of course it is not "new" but it sure was to real time gaming on a PC.

Ditto this.

The tricks are not new, but the implimentation, and specifically the QUALITY, are.

Shifty, I know we discussed this before: This gen is going to be one of those times when art direction and technology become really fuzzy. 3rd 3D console gen, developers have a decade of experience. The tools are mature and power limitations are on the back end of the curve.

The art and the technology are going to be harder and harder to separate, but just like you said: Who cares as long as it looks good? I 100% agree with that. As long as a rendering engine--simple or complex--does the job the artists intend then who cares? I think we would both choose a simple engine that produces art that is better than a more advanced engine with poorer art.

 

[Acert93]

And I'm amused at your inability accept that some people are unimpressed, and that they are perfectly justified in being so.

If you call comparing an unrealistic FPS to a realistic looking racing game justified

And I am still waiting for all these games that look use this technique and look just as good. Or a game that uses a new rendering technique at all. Technically none of them are impressive, even if they raytrace, reyes, or whatever fancy technique offline renderers have been using for years.

 

[London Geezer]

No one's saying it looks BAD.

We're just saying it doesn't deserve the WOW some people attributed to it, considering what it is.

 

[BlueTsunami]

Sad how discussions boil down to "fanboys can't accept this cause they're blinded" when very valid technical points have been raised.

I can't stand that an opinion is being forced on the ones that aren't amazed by the pics posted. It isn't fanboyism (well maybe for some of the dislikers...is that a word? dislikers?..probably not)...but back to the topic at hand. The pics are very very nice but....

1) I want to see a car within the pic
2) I want to see an actual picture of the game while racing the car in the actual camera angle that will be used the most (and is the most practical)
3) The wall itself is nice but like I stated, I would like to see a car within the pic....
4) City tracks to me are (no matter how detailed it is) bland to me, what they need to show is a night shot with all the lights in the backround and lots of neon signs....now I would be wooed by that...

All and all its the dev's choice what to show us (or whoever). I get more excitment out of seeing the game in motion...still frames never really get my blood pumping...on the PS3, X360 or Revolution...

 

[Acert93]

No one's saying it looks BAD

Go back some posts. Certain people are explicitely saying it does not look good.

We're just saying it doesn't deserve the WOW some people attributed to it, considering what it is.

Maybe you can help out then. Certain posters claim that there are other games that have used the same technique and look as good. Can you link some realistic looking games?

I think we both know up to this point the lighting, color depth and accuracy, aliasing, geometry, and such have been glaringly obvious. As Shifty noted in the NBA Live thread, as certain things become more "realistic" they stick out even more because of the things that are out of place. See a picture where at first glance nothing seems out of place has never happened in my experience. Until last night (and I am still waiting to see that in a real game... but we are discussing the pic and not the final game at this point). So maybe you have some links?