So I'm confused is there G.I. or not ?
And if there is, is the G.I. buggy on consoles ? If it is does that explain why some are not seeing the G.I. ?
Yes, G.I. is Enabled on consoles. It's pretty visible. I can't say exactly how it is on the PC because I don't have the PC version of Crysis 2 but whether it's more subtle or not on consoles or less in your face, it's clearly there.
I could never understand this stuff either... Until trying to be observant and noticing that the lighting is quite obviously different compared to 99% of current games.
I noticed it quite a few times, after trying to learn and discern how it works on Crysis 2.
Also, you have to trust developers. If they said the implemented it, it's because it's there. You only have to read their presentations. This one in particular.
https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=http://www.crytek.com/sites/default/files/GI_crytek_1.ppt
Not to defend Crytek or other developers just because I say so, but... People DON'T listen, and it drives me nuts.
In their presentation about GI and after a long and well explained exposition of the features and how it darn works, it says:
Console optimizations
• For both consoles
– Store everything in signed QUVW8 format, [-1;1] with scaling
factor
– Use h/w 3D textures and trilinear filtering
• Xbox 360
– Unwrap RT vertically to avoid bank conflicts during injection (next
slide)
– Use API bug work-around to resolve into a 3D slice
• PlayStation 3
– Use memory aliasing for render into 3D texture
– Use 2x MSAA aliasing to reduce pixel work twice
Console optimizations , cont’d
• Render Reflective Shadow Map
ď€ Usually 128 x 128 is ok
• Inject each pixel into unwrapped
LPV with a swarm of points
ď€ 16384 points in one DIP
ď€ Use vertex texture fetch on X360
ď€ Use R2VB on PlayStation 3
• Multi-layered unwrapping to avoid bank conflicts during RSM injection
• Combine LPV rendering pass with SSAO to amortize the cost
Then it says very clearly typed in
big letters!!!!
Refresh once per 5 frames
Reprojection for camera movement
This means they propagate the Light Propagation Volumes once every 5 frames, something that people won't notice because the human vision can't discern it. There is also a pic in the presentation's document showing a scene as an example of how the game looks using 3 Light Propagation Volumes.
Another very important aspect of their implementation -again, stated in their presentation- is the fact that the light emitters are distributed across Cascades based on their size.
Or Cascaded Shadow Maps as they call it. To achieve that -achieved with CryEngine 3- :smile: they create an uniform coarse 3D grid and then they sum up and average the radiance of each cell of the grid (there is an example showing 8 iterations). It's all in their presentation anyways, but to put it clear and simple.
Well, this is how they use what they call Reflective Shadow Maps -again, read the presentation, please, for those interested-, which is key in their implementation.
The transition areas are larger on the PC for performance and memory reasons, so you can see GI artifacts -pop in- on consoles a lot more, because it's quite affected by the LOD. This is clearly visible in the Harbor Lights Pier mission which I played today -began it yesterday-. (more on that later)
The technique is very very costly if not prohibitive nowadays even for PCs, so they are only used for a single light source (as
Alstrong has mentioned already, in this case the sun), which makes it assumable.
Meaning that the aforementioned grid's information, while the scene is being lit and getting ready for GI, would need to be rendered and propagated more times for
every light source of the scene, which would be completely crazy and would bring PCs and consoles down to their knees.
Projecting the information of the grid and their Reflective Shadow Maps (RSM that contain the info of the Depth, Albedo -colour?- and Normals as it's clearly visible in the document of the presentation) is what creates their GI solution.
Maybe some people think; "they could have done that, they could have done this..." but this implementation works really well both on consoles and PC, along with being quite fast compared to Raytracing -which I will never probably see real-time in my lifetime- and it's very good, really.
In fact, some beautifully done moments of the game, in a properly calibrated HDTV or PC display, are certainly a sight to behold. Sometimes I was stunned as if I were looking at a great painting.
The Light Propagation Volumes, as the name pretty obviously says, work propagating the light using the grid's cells colour and then creating a light rebound, which is attached to every light source of the scene.
The more light sources the more Reflective Shadow Maps are needed so with current technology the light sources are reduced and minimized to one, which in the case of Crysis 2 is the sun.
I also tested the lamps when I began playing the game days ago but I wasn't sure about how their implementation worked until the controversy arose from this thread so I just observed amazed how the blue beam of light of the lamps in the initial stage worked indoors, just out of curiosity.
The light propagation is probably a lot softer and unnoticeable on the PC, so artifacts and GI pop in shouldn't be as visible as it's on the 360, which is the rendition of the game I have.
My PC can't run Crysis anyways....
Some other very important details of their presentation:
Performance, cont’d
Conclusion
(Here, in the original presentation there is a graphic indicating how long it takes to render a frame for every platform but I can't copy and paste it in this post)
Full-dynamic approach, changing scene/view/lighting
GPU- and consoles- friendly
Extremely fast (takes ~1 ms/frame on PlayStation 3)
Production-eligible (rich toolset for real-time tweaking)
Highly scalable, proportionally to quality
Stable, flicker-free
– Supports complex geometry (e.g. foliage)
The SSAO, combined with the GI, light probes and some fixed lights creates some stunning moments, certainly. And as they say, it's consoles friendly.
Wait, so there is no realtime GI in Crysis 2 on consoles after all? How did Digital Foundry manage to completely overlook that?
If there's no realtime GI, then why doesn't it look and run much better?
No, DF was right. They didn't overlook anything. GI is enabled on consoles, although sometimes it seems buggy, just sometimes. I will add some pics later.
The numbers and values
Neb posted could mean anything at all. They can be right or not, maybe just wrong, or they are both and neither.
It's like the water tesellation values that had been posted during the beta days. The water tesellation value in the config files was 6 for the PS3 and the 360's water tesellation value was 1. Yet the water looks exactly the same on both consoles!
The same can be said about the draw distance -which judging from the config files seemed to be lesser on the PS3 rendition, when in the end both consoles apparently share the same draw distance and pop in...even some people say pop in is less noticeable on the PS3, whether it's true or not I can't say-.
GI's value was 1 in the beta and it's 0 in the final version. But it could mean anything, not necessarily that 0 is OFF and 1 is ON.
If that's true, I am always wondering..., why did Crytek go through all this creating a game and a new GI implementation during 4 whole years and then not using their GI technology at all in the final version? Does it make sense? It doesn't.
So just imagine they made that decision -to get rid of GI on the retail copy and allowing it for the beta-, and everything changes for them. What's the point? 4 years of work and development, employing quite a few brilliant developers as part of the staff... for this?
I do not know. Am I the only one who feels like, if this was true, there is something here that doesn't fit together for some reason, compared to what they showed for almost two years when they stated they were adding GI to their engine? I think most developers are responsible and reliable.
It makes no sense promoting something and then leaving everything, and waste all the effort you've put into it. No. It doesn't make sense to me.
Now for some real life examples of how GI is implemented on consoles.... Well, as I said before, the Harbor Light Pier stage is a clear example of how Crysis 2 GI works, from the very beginning to the end.
There I found some GI pop in, for instance. By the other side of the building where you begin the mission, before you get into the big building, reaching your destination, there is a place where you can see a very big wheel in the distance -can't remember what it was, sorry, that's why I define it as a wheel, like a doughnut.
Well, there's a place where you can see the lighting that is being thrown and projected on this part of the map changes drastically in a matter of seconds, because of the Global Illumination LOD for consoles, I think.
Close to the edge of the mole you can see it lit, but I moved my character backwards and it suddenly turned dark where the "wheel" is. Then I moved forward and suddenly there it was, fully lit and looking nice.
When you meet Gould, (it's fresh in my memory because I played that level yesterday and also some time today) the game can look like this on the 360....
While on the PS3 looks like this, with GI being more apparent.
http://images.eurogamer.net/assets/articles//a/1/3/4/2/7/9/3/lighting2_ps3.bmp.jpg
However, the 360's version looks exactly the same as that, because in that particular area something seems to be buggy,, at least on the 360. While talking to Gould the scene would suddenly being lit like the first pic but briefly, as far as I remember, and then once more, it would abruptly look exactly like the PS3 version scene depicted here.
Another GI artifact I found, I think, is on the next level after meeting Gould, at the very beginning, on the roofs. I found it on a ventilation duct --which would make for a great crawlway. : P -a good idea for that particular level, though I loved it as it was-
As I stated before, DF wasn't wrong. There's no need to compare the GI at first, although it would make a very interesting DF article indeed. Digital Foundry captures show clearly that GI is enabled on the PS3 & 360.
This one is a VERY good example of the Global Illumination in Crysis 2:
(The battledress of the guy looking at you looks a lot more illuminated at the soldier's hips height because of the light rebound from the ground into his legs)
The same exact pic on the PS3 shows their GI solution is almost identical in both renditions.
http://images.eurogamer.net/assets/articles//a/1/3/4/2/6/0/5/PS3_066.jpg.jpg
The very first moment you arrive at Harbor Lights Pier you can see the GI everywhere, just looking at the windows and the walls/floor surrounding them.
I also took my own pics using my mobile phone -sorry for the quality- showing how GI works in the game.
My TV is a Samsung model that I calibrated time ago. I set it to 1080i -no 1080p on my TV- via HDMI with Standard mode activated -I think my TV is HDMI 1.2 not 1.3, but I had set it to Expanded before. However, I followed Crytek's advice and set it to Standard just in case it is HDMI 1.2 as I suspect.
The first pic shows how the light rebounds off the wall on the right and bounces bathing in light the wall by the left side.
Same here, just the other way around, since light bounces from the left wall to the right one.
Now the previous place exactly, just a little below compared to the preceding picture. Notice how the area were the character is looks dark on both sides -seemingly unaffected by the light, as it should be- and how light doesn't rebound off the left wall where it isn't lit, but it does on the part of the building above where the player is, lighting up the building by the right side at the same height where the light bathes the opposite wall.
Some bonus pics I took -not to show GI, just because they look great to me-.
http://s1.postimage.org/ckunx6n00/30032011_024.jpg
http://s2.postimage.org/gjw6lvaac/30032011_023.jpg
http://s2.postimage.org/uqc0s6a5a/31032011_001.jpg
That's how I understand Crysis 2 GI works, if I am not missing anything here. Finally, I would love to see Battlefield 3 implementation, as far as I know they use Light maps? in a special way, so to say, but it's a different kind of approach, I think.
p.s. Full DF comparison gallery;
http://www.eurogamer.net/gallery.php?game_id=11876&article_id=1342605