[PS3] Uncharted 2

[deepbrown]

Nah dude, the one he posted is deffinately touched up. It looks a million times better then the gamersyde shots you posted.

Very clean and not a jaggie in sight were as the gamersyde have loads of them.

OT : This is a game that would really really benefit on PC over consoles, its just a shame that a game with good textures like this is spoilt by lack of AA and AF.

Gamersyde reduced the quality of the video by a long way. The video on Sony's press website is over 500mb's - they've reduced it to just over 100mb's.

ND don't add extra antialising to their screenshots. One of the few devs that don't do "bullshots". The shots are 2xAA. Might be 1080p though.

Anyway to the footage - I'm blown away...speechless even.

The shot he linked to had not a jaggie in sight and was chrisp and clean. Actually shots are the oposite

They are direct feed and most likely at 1080p. There's no added AA. I'm really amazed that this thread is filled with this - did you just watch that footage? Beyond incredible gameplay, animation and visuals.

 

[deepbrown]

What are you talking about, there's no OB motion blur in this video.

I also see they still use a horrible animation system, jumpy as hell and floaty characters. Lots of pop-in and jaggies as well.

Very dissappointing.

Haha! Insane. Their animation system is the best in the business. Some come close, but none as amazing as what was just shown in that video. Pop-in? 2xAA - Uncharted is still extremely clean. Disappointing? That's the most impressive in-game video I've seen, since well...an RE5 cutscene.

It is very dissappointing considering the praise it gets. Specially when it doesn't even improve on problems found in the first, most notably animation. There's nothing in the footage that suggest being the best ever at anything.

My aim is to express my opinion. Any problem with that?

They've improved on the animation greatly. It's smoother between changes, he doesn't slide when he starts to run. And there's no floating, because everyone is clearly attached to the world (just look at the collision detection.

 

[AlNom]

Gamersyde reduced the quality of the video by a long way. The video on Sony's press website is over 500mb's - they've reduced it to just over 100mb's.

I'm seeing both a 540MB WMV and 599MB MP4 on Gamersyde.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Final warning before infractions are given out. No-one is stupid or immature or a blind fanboy etc. or at least if they are, here isn't the place to talk about it. There's no point people making assertions 'these screenshots are in-game/doctored PR' without some reference to back them up; either developer quotes or examples in the screenshots that point to such-and-such being the case. eg. The Gamersyde pics are clearly in-game as the jaggies are manifest, which tells us the in-game IQ.

 

[deepbrown]

Final warning before infractions are given out. No-one is stupid or immature or a blind fanboy etc. or at least if they are, here isn't the place to talk about it. There's no point people making assertions 'these screenshots are in-game/doctored PR' without some reference to back them up; either developer quotes or examples in the screenshots that point to such-and-such being the case. eg. The Gamersyde pics are clearly in-game as the jaggies are manifest, which tells us the in-game IQ.

They've stated it before though Shifty.

 

[deepbrown]

I'm seeing both a 540MB WMV and 599MB MP4 on Gamersyde.

Oh sorry, they've updated it since they put it up.

Edit: Oh no, now I'm being mistaken completely. The first video - the short one that they first put up. THAT was over 500mb and they reduced it to 130mb. Imagine how big this 5 minute one is...

This sounds ridiculous probably, but Uncharted 1 was a game that sufferts a *lot* more from video compression than most, because the textures are so sharp - individual pixels really matter and make a difference. After having seen many a video, the actual demo on my TV completely blew me away. Something similar may be the case again here.

Yep, we had this problem from who hadn't played Uncharted saying the textures weren't great from the videos and screenshots they had seen.

When I posted the LOL I actually thought your post was sarcastic as well lol.
__________________________________________________________

In any case I think we should ban all comments like "best graphics ever", "best graphics on console", "best lighting ever" and so on. It would save a lot of silly discussions, don't you think?

We should be studying the best looking games. And the lighting/shadowing is incredible (was in the first game too)

 

[AlNom]

Oh sorry, they've updated it since they put it up.

Edit: Oh no, now I'm being mistaken completely. The first video - the short one that they first put up. THAT was over 500mb and they reduced it to 130mb. Imagine how big this 5 minute one is...

Oh ok. Yeah, the 5:40 min video is 599MB at most.

They've stated it before though Shifty.

This is where the "developer quotes" part would be helpful as not all of us have been following every single news piece or other-forum talk.

 

[deepbrown]

Oh ok. Yeah, the 5:40 min video is 599MB at most.



This is where the "developer quotes" part would be helpful as not all of us have been following every single news piece or other-forum talk.

Yeah, Gamersyde always do their best, but I still think the quality has been reduced by quite a way. I'll have a look, but it's hard. Arne went on Neogaf after talks of Bullshots and laid it all bare.

 

[Cheezdoodles]

ND don't add extra antialising to their screenshots. One of the few devs that don't do "bullshots". The shots are 2xAA. Might be 1080p though..

http://ps3media.ign.com/ps3/image/article/945/945191/uncharted-2-among-thieves-20090115041035897.jpg

This doesn't look like 2x AA to me, neither do plenty of others on the IGN site. If Uncharted gameplay can look this clean, i will be amazed, but seems to me that it looks to clean. I can spot jaggies in GT5 which is 2x AA @ 1080p\4xAA @ 720p.

I failed to spot any jaggies at all in many of these pictures that IGN have.... Something tells me (a hunch) that i will be able to spot jaggies in the actual game -> these are bullshots.

Their animation system is the best in the business.

Amongst the best. The First game had good animations but didn't look nearly as smooth as assasins creed, aspecially noticeable when you try to climb stuff, jump up things etc. Drake would float into position for his next animation to fit, wheras in AC its much less noticeable (i didn't notice it at all, but then again, long time since i played it).

Their system has a lot of potential thought, so i reckon this time around it will deliver something better. I hope they've removed the floating.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

http://ps3media.ign.com/ps3/image/article/945/945191/uncharted-2-among-thieves-20090115041035897.jpg

This doesn't look like 2x AA to me.

No, it certainly looks artificially high IQ. One would expect jaggies to be manifest on the blue beam or overbright ground. These jaggies are visible in the Gamersyde stills.

 

[deepbrown]

No, it certainly looks artificially high IQ. One would expect jaggies to be manifest on the blue beam or overbright ground. These jaggies are visible in the Gamersyde stills.

Yeah could very well have taken the pic at a much higher res than reduced it...which would look like more AA. Interesting. But still, i think when watching the gameplay (same with Uncharted) it looks very clean, with of course the fact it is just 2xAA. I believe that they try to do shading tricks to make it less obvious (shading edges darker etc) which they can't do in GT5P - it's obvious there because of the harsh light white against dark colours.

Still. We have the fact that we thought the same about Uncharted screenshots compared to gameplay. U2 will be as clean/have as much AA as UDF. If that was good enough then don't worry here, if it wasn't enough then...well you know what to expect for U2.

 

[Cheezdoodles]

Yeah could very well have taken the pic at a much higher res than reduced it...

Which means that they are bullshots.. Didn't you just say that they never do bullshots? Im confused

I believe that they try to do shading tricks to make it less obvious (shading edges darker etc) which they can't do in GT5P - it's obvious there because of the harsh light white against dark colours.

Well, the picture surely doesn't show this, there is no jaggies, anywhere, no matter if its dark edges or no... There are many many more pictures on the ign site, with no jaggies at all. Which i find unlikely.

Look at the gun or anywhere

Certainly more than 2x AA here

Looks to high here to


This certainly isn't 2x AA either.

2x Aa? I think more

Naughty Dog never does bullshots huh?

Still. We have the fact that we thought the same about Uncharted screenshots compared to gameplay.

And if you take a look at those, you will find that there are pictures there which imply more than 2x AA aswell..

http://ps3media.ign.com/ps3/image/article/815/815969/uncharted-drakes-fortune-20070827034544639.jpg

U2 will be as clean/have as much AA as UDF. If that was good enough then don't worry here, if it wasn't enough then...well you know what to expect for U2.

But thats hardly the point of where this discussion was heading, the debate was if the other screenshots where representative of gameplay or not. Not if people on a personal level think 2x AA is enough or not.

 

[deepbrown]

You mean because of their layering system? Yeah, that's great but if they can't get the basics right then it's hardly the best.

http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y83/radicalnsx/roll.gif

It's like somebody yelled "freeze" in the middle of the jump :/ And there many other glitches and jerkyness like that during the video just as there were in Uncharted 1.

See what I mean? Almost nobody gives concrete arguments.

http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y83/radicalnsx/popin.gif

I didn't say it was dissapointing to everybody, just to me.

You mean like this? http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y83/radicalnsx/float.gif

GameS, yes. Claiming one as superior to all with no solid arguments is silly.

The shadowing seems to have taken a hit this time around.

I can't make gifs...and it's good to see because this is the first time you have given concrete examples.

Talked about that very roll before. It's about the trade off between gameplay and smooth animations. I think they're still working on it, but to move out from something quickly and move on there's going to be some jerkiness. But yeah I noticed that roll too. Still doesn't rule out the rest of the great things they're doing.

I gave concrete examples when Uncharted 1 came out. You can see the quality of the animation very clearly. I'm talking about better than AC etc. because of the layering and the fact that the gameplay looks like CG animation at points. But it's also the gameplay it gives you...in AC you hold down X to climb anything, in Uncharted you can do multiple moves at your will. Making it play good and look as good as that means there must be trade offs.

I didn't notice the shadow pop-in, I was looking for object pop-in.

The floating - I was talking about Drake's connection to everything - his hands touch every brick, when he gets up from being blown away, you'll see that he'll move his hand down from the curb to push himself up. You've shown the shadow not being close enough to the character's feet. A shame.

The shadows look like their res is selected depending on the object/person.

That you say you think RE5 looks better kind of, to me, makes me question your opinion. Bad animations, low-res textures, the game looks worse as it goes on. Sure it's up there (the first couple of chapters), but it's certainly not amazing. But I'll forget you said that.

 

[SonComet]

I also find the animation in the uncharted franchise to be very very impressive. Sure it has small moments where it can glitch a little, but overall the layering they do gives Drake an incredibly natural and fluid feel. AC looks better in the sense that it doesn't glitch, but the game is much more controlled in terms of environmental traversal and it feels more robotic. It still looks great though, and arguably better.

I just feel like ND is trying to do something new on the animation front, and for the most part it's working very well. It looks varied, smooth, and natural for the most part. Though I guess they could make it boring and completely robotic like RE5/Gears 2 to avoid these minor issues.

It will be fun to see how ND will further refine the game before release. Better explosions and even more work on the animation engine is what I'm really hoping for.

I kind of wish I was more technically oriented so I could explain why I like something on a technical level rather than just how it looks to my eyes .

 

[djskribbles]

The nitpicking is normal here at B3D. But I just don't see how people are disappointed with the visuals of Drake 2.

 

[-tkf-]

People here are wierd. Scofield is a troll\fanboy\whatever for not posting full arguments, and your replies are just "its better because i say so".

The fact that it looks like CG animation? What the hell? To who? To you perhaps.

The fact that it has layering? That doesn't mean its better. It means nothing, it means that theoretically you can have benefits when you do certain things, but you can achieve the exact same results by motion capping enough animations.

Altair got 8000 mo-capped animations. If there is no way of doing something with the control that would need an animation that isn't allready there, then layering has no benefits at all.

So far you have done nothing to show that uncharted animations is the best.

PRESENT ACTUAL ARGUMENTS!!!! NOT Because i say so arguments.

But is it possible to Mo Cap enough animations? Isn´t the point of the Uncharted sysem that you gain more than you loose?

This board is not weird, its´what it´s users make it, you included.

 

[betan]

This animation discussion is quite funny. I think ND's animation system doesn't always scale well and relatedly (lack of better) geometry awareness is sometimes disappointing, but to nay sayers I have to ask, what game has fast, responsive controls/animation system with lots of freedom, suitable for interacting with complex environments and overall with more variety and smoother than Uncharted?

 

[betan]

But is it possible to Mo Cap enough animations?

No it's not possible.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

To sum up your post: Trying too much to nitpick.

99% of the game runs "flawlessly". But 1% is enough to make you describe the game as flawed and disappointing

But if that 1% is constantly in your face during the entirety of the game, then it can be a problem.

However, until the game is actually released there's no way to tell if those will be a persistent problem or not.

Pausing everytimg you do a jump/roll could be distracting. I would hope they would fix that before release.

Same goes for shadow popup happening constantly. Again, I would hope they would fix that before release.

And again character shadows disconnected with the characters casting them would be a major distraction. And same here, I would hope they fix it before release.

I think the problem in many threads like this is that some people have a tendency to present their Opinions as Facts. Or word it in such a way that people feel like they are presenting their Opinions as Facts.

Even if he's nitpicking at least he's providing concrete examples of what he finds "wrong."

Likewise, some people seem to have this inner urge to word things in such a way as to try to make someone else look like an idiot as if that in some way makes their opinion more valuable or "correct."

Regards,
SB

 

[AlNom]

Same goes for shadow popup happening constantly. Again, I would hope they would fix that before release.

I'm not so sure they will "fix it" as they have shadowmaps in the rest of the scene that would be more important to be in the shadow buffer(s). The nominal solution would be to increase the memory allocations (depth precision or res) so they can get that particular SM in that cascade without affecting the rest...

And again character shadows disconnected with the characters casting them would be a major distraction. And same here, I would hope they fix it before release.

This is something that will probably be fixed nearer to release. Fable II had this issue at the GDC08 showing, for example. I'm sure many games have had similar issues before the final polish.

The shadows look like their res is selected depending on the object/person.

The sun being the main light source, some of the resolution issues will be more noticeable with the initial occluder being relatively close to the receiver, such as the room at 2:48/5:40.