RealTime RayTraced Reflections on PS4? NOPE! (Strange Brigade, cross platform)

[Shifty Geezer]

Just noticed the game Strange Brigade from Rebellion has raytraced reflections! Very low res and noisy, and limited range, but they're there none-the-less...

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As well as being obvious in the blue buttons, they're also present in the water but I couldn't get a good screenshot. Far more obvious in a video but I've no easy way to do that, and I've reached out to Digital Foundry to do a Face Off, as it could be interesting to compare results on the different platforms. No point me putting a video somewhere if they'll do a proper job.

 

[DavidGraham]

A sign of things to come?

I remember when DXR and RTX were announced back in March, AMD said that a game using ray tracing on Vulkan will be shipped before the end of 2018. And Strange Brigade is one of the AMD sponsored titles that uses Vulkan as well, so it fits that description.

 

[milk]

I'm curious as to what specific characteristic of that reflection makes you think they were Ray traced.

 

[iroboto]

I have to ask, since I've been burned on this on several occasions, is there a specific instance that we can prove this isn't SSR with a cube map fall back?

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Admittedly the quality is very low and unclear, but there's a few things that lead me to claim RT instead of SS, not least because to my eyes it's obvious in motion. It doesn't break or distort or ever look wrong or out of place.

The shape and lighting is correct when reflecting the player avatar as the player walks over and you look down - the reflection is pinched appropriately, not deforming the camera view of the player to fit, so you don't see the top of the player. Another scene with railings around the button had the railings reflected though I'd have to recheck. The reflections don't match what's on screen. If you look at my second screenshot, the reflection doesn't resemble the screen render at all. The tree leaves are being sampled at a very low resolution and we see blue sky between.
There are gun highlights in the water that are brighter than the gun in screen space, for example.

Of course, I might be wrong which is where it's worth someone spending a little time on it. Trying to work out how to share a simple film clip from PS4...I think I need to install Share Factory and link it to a YouTube account? There's an 'upload' option from the Share button but I've no idea where it's uploaded to! How can I link to that? I don't think pictures can really convey much.

 

[Karamazov]

you can save a clip, then edit it in the screen/video viewer, then copy it to a USB key, then upload to youtube, or directly link you PS4 to your youtube account.

 

[iroboto]

not deforming the camera view of the player to fit, so you don't see the top of the player. Another scene with railings around the button had the railings reflected though I'd have to recheck.

See if you can find that angle, that would be great.
I thought I had found evidence of ray tracing in Anthem and after much examination, it was just SSR with a cube map fall back.

Though Bioware did say they were looking into it:
https://wccftech.com/bioware-looking-now-into-nvidia-rtx-dlss/amp/

 

[Graham]

At least in those pictures that looks just like SSR+cube map to me...?

 

[Shifty Geezer]

See if you can find that angle, that would be great.

The spikes converge but it's probably faked. Definitely SSR With the water, there was a clear red barrel behind a near beam that disappeared in the reflection when occluded. On the blue button with the fella's reflection, it stands up very well when viewed from different directions but you get disappearing legs from certain positions.





Still, at least I learnt how to access images on my PS4, which is obviously Library > Applications > Gallery...

 

[milk]

As the age old saying goes: When in doubt about screen space reflections, do the camera up and down bobbing test.

 

[eloic]

Please, Shifty, kill this thread with fire!

 

[Tkumpathenurple]

I think we're all going to spend next generation repeating this thread.

 

[milk]

View attachment 2799

The spikes converge but it's probably faked. Definitely SSR With the water, there was a

That says nothing about actual RT. Don't forget SSR does not have to be plannar (although it often is implemented that way to simplify the math, I guess)
All it shows is they added a strong normal distortion to that button surface, to very cool effect in my opinion.