Quantum Break: Graphics Tech

[OlegSH]

What's so special about its lighting technology?
Line-Sweep Ambient Obscurance is good, but it's still a screen space AO, moreover it has its own issues like those Line-Sweeps which are perfectly visible when reprojection fails, for example if you place the character against the wall, moreover it looks good on 1080p screenshots mostly because of large search window(since AO resolution is 720p), I wonder how it would scale beyond 720p

 

[Laa-Yosh]

I think VFX_Veteran's example pictures are worth a thousand words here. Those objects aren't grounded in the scene, whereas everything in QB is. The actual implementation is less important here, the point is their effect on the overall look and realism of the final image. This is also the basic philosophy in VFX and CG animation, the results are what matter.

 

[Billy Idol]

Maybe we have to define technical masterpiece.

If we say a game is a technical masterpiece when it is brilliant in one single aspect, then I agree with Ike T (you know he beat his wife, right?) and VFX, that QB is a tec master piece.

However, what I personally do not like about this definition is that it softens the term technical masterpiece tremendously.

E.g. take Mario64 port it to actual consoles at 10k resolution and call it a technical masterpiece.l because no game has this res. Or keep the resolution and pump out 600fps. Masterpiece. Or use 10xSSAA. (Exaggerated to make my point).

If we define a technical masterpiece as a game that is not only above average in all aspects but at least very good with some parts even brilliant, this would be more like my taste. And it would be quite selective as I can't think of a game right now that would fit?!?

With this definition, QB would certainly not be a technical masterpiece, due to obvious reasons. E.g. while the facial animations are top notch (which really helped me to attach to the characters), all other animations are below standards (jumping, running, crouching, etc)...calling those last gen-ish would be unfair to many last gen games. Furthermore, there are so many graphical bugs in this game ehile actually playing (probably due to a lod system that gets activated within 2 feet), that I often had the impression of playing an unfinished product in alpha stage and certainly not a technical masterpiece.

 

[VFX_Veteran]

What's so special about its lighting technology?
Line-Sweep Ambient Obscurance is good, but it's still a screen space AO, moreover it has its own issues like those Line-Sweeps which are perfectly visible when reprojection fails, for example if you place the character against the wall, moreover it looks good on 1080p screenshots mostly because of large search window(since AO resolution is 720p), I wonder how it would scale beyond 720p

It makes a difference in lighting. And if it's so simple, why isn't it used. It's clearly superior to the other screenspace techniques. It looks much closer than not having it at all.

 

[VFX_Veteran]

With this definition, QB would certainly not be a technical masterpiece, due to obvious reasons. E.g. while the facial animations are top notch (which really helped me to attach to the characters), all other animations are below standards (jumping, running, crouching, etc)...calling those last gen-ish would be unfair to many last gen games. Furthermore, there are so many graphical bugs in this game ehile actually playing (probably due to a lod system that gets activated within 2 feet), that I often had the impression of playing an unfinished product in alpha stage and certainly not a technical masterpiece.

I agree about the animation. It's pretty clunky and certainly not in the realm of UC4, DS, or AC games. The bugs in the game may be technicalities though. Crysis 1 had a lot of bugs and most people couldn't run it on high settings, but that didn't stop it from being a graphical showcase. QB does a LOT of things right and not just that one thing. But I'd say lighting should be counted over 60% weighting on a final showpiece. And QB has it here in spades.

 

[Laa-Yosh]

Maybe we could all settle for a significant step forward in general rendering technology?

 

[Billy Idol]

In comparison to me you guys have professional eyes and look at the results obviously in a different way.

I not only respect this view (although I do not agree with the conclusions) but also appreciate it, as it makes me re-evaluate my opinion trying to understand why you two guys who actually do CGI are so amazed by QB's graphics, while it left me quite unexcited.

 

[milk]

I'm talking about this:

What you are talking about is just good old Ambient Occlusion. What makes QB stand out is their implementation is indeed one of the best. The fact its done at native res (native to the g buffer's other render targets, not the output res) and they not bluring it, I think helps preserve a lot of its quality. They use a new implementation called line-sweep ambient obscurance, and this is, to the best of my knowlege, the first game to use it.
I agree its one of the best dynamic ao I've seen in an actual game to date, but its just wrong to call it a completely new feature. Its just an improvement on a very old trick.
Their line sweep has more obvious and distracting disoclusion artifacts than most other modern SSAO implementations used today (though it took many years for them to become as good as they are now at hiding those artifacts) so this novel line-sweep aproach is not an absolute win in every case, but it might become more stable with more work put into it.

PS: most of the other games you posted as exemples that lack that feature actually do have SSAO, but as results show, theirs don't lool nearly as good as QB's.

PS2: I love the look of QB, and to me it is a real technical showpiece, though a flowed one. Maybe not a masterpiece, but it certainly sets a high bar on many aspects.

 

[Laa-Yosh]

What you are talking about is just good old Ambient Occlusion. What makes QB stand out is their implementation is indeed one of the best.

No, I think you misunderstand. It's not about the actual technical details of the AO implementation, no matter how good it may be - but about how and where it's applied, which is basically everywhere.

 

[milk]

No, I think you misunderstand. It's not about the actual technical details of the AO implementation, no matter how good it may be - but about how and where it's applied, which is basically everywhere.

All SSAO are aplied everywhere. Screen space effects are shaders run over the g-buffer. They are geometry independant. You get AO for all objects (even small ones) for free. Again, the only diference is QB's is much higher quality.

 

[Laa-Yosh]

VFX Veteran's examples say otherwise...

 

[Ike Turner]

In comparison to me you guys have professional eyes and look at the results obviously in a different way.

I not only respect this view (although I do not agree with the conclusions) but also appreciate it, as it makes me re-evaluate my opinion trying to understand why you two guys who actually do CGI are so amazed by QB's graphics, while it left me quite unexcited.

Fun fact: My first reaction when I entered the University Building that you see in the QB screenshot above was: "This is a milestone that only people who work or have worked in CGI will really appreciate" I then starting sending screenshots to friends who are in the CG industry to get their reactions and most of them say the same thing. "Everything in grounded". It reminded of the first time I saw Marcos' work http://www.3dluvr.com/marcosss/ and when I started playing around with the first Brazil r/s Alpha...

It should also be noted that the lack of edge aliasing helps a lot (as it did in Ryse with is superb SMAA implementation and The Order with it's 4XMSAA)

 

[milk]

VFX Veteran's examples say otherwise...

All objects do cast and recieve AO in pretty much every inplentation. Its the nature of how SS effects work. They don't look at geometry. They just take the depth map (which obligarorily has all objects in it for correct z-sorting) as imput texture, and some times the full screen normals as well. Not every single solitary pixel gets sampled, so theoredically if something is just a couple pixels large the AO could miss them, but thar aplies to QB too.
Its all about quality. QB's line sweep ao is indeed very inovative and samples the depth map very diferently than past SSAO algos, and is able to take samples from the entire screen for about the same cost as the "classical" aproaches.
In most games, small objects do cast a weak and spotty ao, but it gets almost completely lost when the whole AO buffer gets blured to hide the noise.
Since QB's ao gets high quality and noise-free results out of the gate, it requires no bluring, so even small objects contributions survive.
See, I'm not saying QB's AO is not exceptional, it really is. I just wanna clarify what about it is different to other games and how.

 

[OlegSH]

All objects do cast and recieve AO in pretty much every inplentation

That's for sure, but sometimes AO is masked for directly lit surfaces

Since QB's ao gets high quality and noise-free results out of the gat

Personally, I don't like those line artifacts of LSAO and banding due to low amount of gradients, LSAO's output desperately needs to be filtered or blurred because temporal reprojection alone is not enough for gradients quality of HBAO. LSAO looks like a good trade for a higher occlusion range, but at cost of banding and additional artifacts, unfortunately, filtering alone can't solve LSAO's dynamic aliasing issues and temporal reprojection alone can't fix banding issues, then we have to solve ghosting due to reprojection, it's quite funny how some approximations can introduce a whole bunch of additional issues

 

[VFX_Veteran]

All SSAO are aplied everywhere. Screen space effects are shaders run over the g-buffer. They are geometry independant. You get AO for all objects (even small ones) for free. Again, the only diference is QB's is much higher quality.

I like how you downplay "good old" AO. It is a very very important detail in lighting that you simply can't do without to get good images.

It's obviously very expensive to capture that kind of detail (for those small objects) using typical SSAO conventional methods because NO ONE has done it (even on PC).. and yet in QB it captures all those details.

Even the famed UC4 is missing the AO entirely -- notice when Drake hops on the jeep feet, gun, hands on hood, the jeep wheel wells, the shocks, the hand of Sully on the jeep, tires on wooden bridge, etc.. all missing that important lighting detail that would make the game look much much better. So even their capsule technique fails to capture those small objects.

 

[VFX_Veteran]

That's for sure, but sometimes AO is masked for directly lit surfaces


Personally, I don't like those line artifacts of LSAO and banding due to low amount of gradients, LSAO's output desperately needs to be filtered or blurred because temporal reprojection alone is not enough for gradients quality of HBAO. LSAO looks like a good trade for a higher occlusion range, but at cost of banding and additional artifacts, unfortunately, filtering alone can't solve LSAO's dynamic aliasing issues and temporal reprojection alone can't fix banding issues, then we have to solve ghosting due to reprojection, it's quite funny how some approximations can introduce a whole bunch of additional issues

You are talking about reprojection artifacts from a low res to a high res. That's not the point. I'd rather have the upscaling/banding/ghosting than no AO at all in shadowed areas (i.e. EVERY game out except QB). It just looks "wrong". I can always brute force my resolution on the PC.

 

[OlegSH]

You are talking about reprojection artifacts from a low res to a high res

No, ghosting is a common issue for all reprojection methods

I'd rather have the upscaling/banding/ghosting than no AO at all in shadowed areas

To be honest I don't see a big difference in comparison with other top tier SSAOs, take a look at depth buffer captures is AC:S for example http://www.geforce.com/whats-new/guides/assassins-creed-syndicate-graphics-and-performance-guide

 

[milk]

I'm not downplaying AO. It was responsible to a great improvement in lighting quality of games this past decade.
I just want to get facts straight in this technical thread.
QB has great screen space AO, one of the best and most CG like I've seen. It uses a new implmentation, which despite its good results, introduces a whole new slew of artefacts that the "classical SSAO" didn't have to deal with, as mentioned by OlegSH. Given the depth it provides, I think the final result is worth the artifacts. I do hope new implementations can improve on it.
So, I'm not downplaying QB's AO. In fact I personally love it.
I wanted though, to better clarify the actual tech at play here, in the terminology comonly used in real time engines. "every object has self occlusion" was just too vague thats all.
Let's try not to get all confrontational about this gentlemen.

 

[Ike Turner]

QB's AO ( & AA) in action (on Xbox One):

 

[milk]

Wow. Those are trully outstanding. "Grounded" is really the best way to describe it.