Quantum Break: Graphics Tech

Wow. Those are trully outstanding. "Grounded" is really the best way to describe it.
Yup definitely the right way to describe it. I just came across this fence on my second play through.. (it's partially hidden behind pillars)...thought it was a high res texture from a far but once I got closer noticed that it wasn't flat..got even closer and went "wtf!".. took dozens of screenshots of it..:-\
 
QB certainly does some things that no other game did before it, and in some ways it goes forwards in some ways it goes backwards. One thing that i really don't like is the screen space specular (or whatever the exact technical term is) on literally every material in the world

Example:
2krkm4.jpg

38kkrj.jpg


It is jarring to see that changing and breaks the image. Also while the occlusion technique is really good (i said so myself numerous times) it's not applied equally to every object and breaks in multiple cases, some examples:

1zqk7g.png

(baked shadowmaps? as well as missing occlusion)
7qtj0j.png


(ao low res artifacts?)
awxmk3x.png

jack5ckjjs.png


Asset quality (geometry/textures) is also all over the place. Some things look incredible while other things look not that great. May be a lod issue, QB has one of the most aggressive LOD systems I've seen in any game recently.
 
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Video of what i'm talking about in my first point

Can't say i'm a fan (look at his face too).
 
Yes, it's making compromises like every real-time rendered game under the sun; Ryse's "corridor levels", The Order's cubemap reflections, dodgy SSR and AO (+corridor levels..), Uncharted 4's lackluster AO, selective use of SSR on water surfaces (some have some don't), shadow & shader quality but a vastly bigger level scale compared to the other games mentioned etc..there's no perfectly rendered game unfortunately compromises have to be made every time..

(baked shadowmaps? as well as missing occlusion)

No..
LAURENT HARDUIN (senior lighting artist): On the lighting side, we wanted to build a unified solution for not only static and dynamic geometry, but also for scattering media. In Alan Wake, we used volumetric lighting as an effect, but going into Quantum Break, we wanted every light in the game to build atmosphere and contribute to participating media. Most of the direct lighting in the game is dynamic and respects the inverse square falloff.

Most..not all..just like 99% of the games out there..Your shot is literally taken in one of the only room in the entire game where the character isn't casting a shadow from the main light source. For example most vehicles headlights cast shadows nut some don't in scenes when there's already a primarily light source lighting the scene... compromise..anyway this wasn't the point of the thread... so here's my cheery-picked GIF of UC4 which is obviously representative of the whole game..

giphy.gif
 
You don't have to tell me it is a compromise, i already know it is. I'm just pointing out that it's one of the most jarring things about the game. Are we only allowed to praise the game in a "Graphics Tech" thread? If so, i love the facial animation in cutscenes, the visual effects and animated geometry, the time lapse sequences and the sound mixing especially (the guy who worked on the sound needs a raise, game is a treat on my system). Occlusion looks rather good in that U4 gif (look at his fingers), terrible quality gif tho :p
 
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You don't have to tell me it is a compromise, i already know it is. I'm just pointing out that it's one of the most jarring things about the game. Are we only allowed to praise the game in a "Graphics Tech" thread? If so, i love the facial animation in cutscenes, the visual effects and animated geometry, the time lapse sequences and the sound mixing especially. Occlusion looks rather good in that U4 gif (look at his fingers), terrible quality gif tho :p
I was obviously messing with you with the shitty UC4 GIF :p
 
To go more into detail about the facial animation there's a scene in the game near the end that impressed me a lot, major story spoilers
The scene where Jack is looking at Beth without saying anything, narrating that he is coming back for her. You could pretty much tell what the character was feeling and thinking without him talking

That is some A+ grade facial animation there in my book.

Edit: Found the scene 51:16 onwards

Subtle, but impressive.
 
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The jarring reflections artifacts are result of the same aproach to trade-offs behind their choice of line-sweep AO. When between a high-end but unstable solution, and a stable but flatter one, they chose the less stable. Those were disoclusion artifacts from specular reflections done in screenspace. When the reflecting object becomes hidden, its reflection goes missing. While doing away with that would fix that weird woblyness, it would probably negatively affect the look of a bunch of other objects and surfaces in which those obvious artifacts rarely manifest, or in which when they do it's not as perceptible.
For a fast paced game where you aren't expected to be carefully examining the scene too often, I think their choices were the best. But artifacts like that one are everywhere througout the game, just sometimes more distracting than others.
 
There are some light sources that aren't shadow casters I've noticed. It's not the only one though IIRC.
Yes that's literally what I'm saying in my next sentence with my car headlights example. But this room in the screenshot (which is when you enter the library IIRC is AFAIRemember the only room in the game where the main light source doesn't cats a shadow. :)
 
Just wanted to point out that the PC patch has been released and that there's now the option of rendering without upscaling. In this case there's still temporal reconstruction happening for screen space effects ( LSAO, SSR, Specular etc) which are now calculated at native resolution. This results in the FPS tanking faster than the Titanic... which IMO isn't worth it as the difference in IQ gameplay isn't really that noticeable to justify cutting sometimes more than 50% of the fps.
 
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It upscales everything but from the native res, there's still visible ghosting (more visible now because of the cleaner IQ). Runs at 20 fps on my measly overclocked 970 at 1080p and medium/high settings.
 
Yes, it's making compromises like every real-time rendered game under the sun; Ryse's "corridor levels", The Order's cubemap reflections, dodgy SSR and AO (+corridor levels..), Uncharted 4's lackluster AO, selective use of SSR on water surfaces (some have some don't), shadow & shader quality but a vastly bigger level scale compared to the other games mentioned etc..there's no perfectly rendered game unfortunately compromises have to be made every time..

It's obvious but less compromised have to be made on a more powerful hardware...

Last example to date :
 
Edit : "It's obvious but less compromised have to be made on a more powerful hardware..."

compromises

 
26 png captures from chapter 4 on high settings on PC with upscaling turned off (native 1080p) and AF forced to x16 through nvidia driver
http://abload.de/img/quantumbreak5_2_20161ydkef.png
http://abload.de/img/quantumbreak5_2_20161gvkfq.png
http://abload.de/img/quantumbreak5_2_201613gkyd.png
http://abload.de/img/quantumbreak5_2_20161jpjgk.png
http://abload.de/img/quantumbreak5_2_201619pk7x.png
http://abload.de/img/quantumbreak5_2_20161i5kws.png
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http://abload.de/img/quantumbreak5_2_201617kk8g.png
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http://abload.de/img/quantumbreak5_2_201617qkx0.png
http://abload.de/img/quantumbreak5_2_20161x8k0i.png
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http://abload.de/img/quantumbreak5_2_20161vtkb1.png
http://abload.de/img/quantumbreak5_2_20161kekf0.png
http://abload.de/img/quantumbreak5_2_2016106j7f.png
http://abload.de/img/quantumbreak5_2_20161vejur.png
http://abload.de/img/quantumbreak5_2_20161imj95.png
http://abload.de/img/quantumbreak5_2_201615uk93.png
http://abload.de/img/quantumbreak5_1_2016430j4p.png

I think the reconstruction technique fits the style and asset quality of the game more, as you up the resolution more things become obvious, while they are cleverly hidden with the normal reconstruction technique. IQ gets a big boost though. Some of my other shots with the normal rendering (i think some have reconstruction off though, not sure)

http://abload.de/img/quantumbreak4_15_201698j62.png
http://abload.de/img/quantumbreak4_15_2016rij9t.png
http://abload.de/img/quantumbreak4_15_2016bzkhu.png
http://abload.de/img/quantumbreak4_15_2016tekko.png
http://abload.de/img/quantumbreak4_15_2016fdjcm.png
http://abload.de/img/quantumbreak4_15_2016a0jvh.png
http://abload.de/img/quantumbreak4_15_2016ghkts.png
http://abload.de/img/quantumbreak5_1_20163kjjlv.png
http://abload.de/img/quantumbreak5_1_201647ejy6.png
http://abload.de/img/quantumbreak5_1_20164yikk1.png
http://abload.de/img/quantumbreak5_1_20165mrjw5.png

A weird bug after the latest patch
http://abload.de/img/quantumbreak5_1_201648nkpy.png
http://abload.de/img/quantumbreak5_1_20164txkso.png
http://abload.de/img/quantumbreak5_1_20164pljcs.png
 
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For a fast paced game where you aren't expected to be carefully examining the scene too often

The game forces you to walk slowly in quite a few cases though, during which you can do exactly that, examine the environment. I think it was more of a hardware limitation than anything, they said they checked voxel cone tracing initially but dropped it due to performance reasons. Could be the same case for all the screen space stuff.
 
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