The Game Technology discussion thread *Read first post before posting*

[Fafalada]

Are there any other titles that use something more advanced than SSAO?

I kinda liked what was employed in the last splinter-cell - it's a whole lot smoother and less-prone to unwanted artifacts than any SSAO method I've seen to date, and it wasn't too costly to render.
It's somewhat more complicated to implement and manage though.

 

[Gitaroo]

AO isn't supposed to be so blatently obvious as in a number of other games. I mean, put your own hand against a wall and there shouldn't be occlusion that spans several inches. In L.A. Noire or Gears 2/3 or Uncharted 2, it's like a massive dark energy field surrounding objects or characters that are close to one another.

I see what you mean, but I personally like it when its more obvious; the one with smooth shadow edge and you definitely notice it right away when you look at it and it doesn't show up under intense sunlight/UV which make them looks out of place. Which was why I thought U2 AO was nicely done. LA Noire PS3 and Gears 2 are too wide and rough on the edge, and watching them loading in Gears 2 is even worse. Some of the worse has to be Homefront, they looks like stencil shadows overlay on top of each other, and Fear 2, which was like dithering stencil shadows. Whats LBP 2 using?

 

[-tkf-]

I'm getting 1120x720 for the 360. It seems fairly consistent. PS3 version is 1280x720. Certain edges are kinda odd...

Did they change the Engine since GTA4? This game looks much sharper , considering the higher res it should of course, i just thought they used the same engine...

 

[Trejser]

That was about Brink. And yeah, LAN is not running on RAGE.

 

[MJP]

I kinda liked what was employed in the last splinter-cell - it's a whole lot smoother and less-prone to unwanted artifacts than any SSAO method I've seen to date, and it wasn't too costly to render.
It's somewhat more complicated to implement and manage though.

I do too. AO volumes produce much more realistic occlusion effects, and don't suffer from the haloing and artifacting that plague most SSAO implementations.

 

[MJP]

I see what you mean, but I personally like it when its more obvious; the one with smooth shadow edge and you definitely notice it right away when you look at it and it doesn't show up under intense sunlight/UV which make them looks out of place. Which was why I thought U2 AO was nicely done. LA Noire PS3 and Gears 2 are too wide and rough on the edge, and watching them loading in Gears 2 is even worse.

What makes Uncharted 2's look decent (IMO) is that they don't just apply the SSAO to all of their lighting terms all willy-nilly (only the ambient). A lot of games apply it to their diffuse/specular from all light sources, and you end up with a corner being hit by direct sunlight, but rendered all dark due to the SSAO. In reality a corner being hit direct sunlight should be very bright, due to all of the bouncing.

 

[Gitaroo]

the Ubi method is called dynamic occlusion or something right, it was used in AC2B, POP, and Conviction. I think they mention it was cheaper than other method and works better for them. I thought it looks kind of similar to U2, not very wide and not very rough on the edge; but it shows up under sunlight.

 

[Trejser]

It looks good, but it was limited only to closed loacations is AC:B U2 SSAO is still the best on consoles IMO. Overall Crysis has the best implementation.

The worst: Gears 2, Batman AA, Just Cause 2 (PC), Dark Athena (PC).

 

[nightshade]

Crysis has some pretty strange and ugly haloing as well, much obvious when you go inside a room with lots of clutters.

 

[Gitaroo]

nothing beat this

http://imageshack.us/f/535/homefront20110521215231.jpg/

 

[MJP]

the Ubi method is called dynamic occlusion or something right, it was used in AC2B, POP, and Conviction. I think they mention it was cheaper than other method and works better for them. I thought it looks kind of similar to U2, not very wide and not very rough on the edge; but it shows up under sunlight.

I'm not sure what they call it or if they used it for other games, but in Conviction they used AO volumes. If I remember correctly, they used capsules and spheres that were bound to the bones of the skeleton (similar to physics primitives).

 

[MJP]

nothing beat this

http://imageshack.us/f/535/homefront20110521215231.jpg/

Wow, that's awful. Is that homefront? It could desperately use some blurring to get rid of the banding. I played it on PS3, and it looked liked they used the SSAO that's available in the edge library (which is the same one that Uncharted 2 used).

 

[Gitaroo]

ya, on PC it looks awful, never played the console version so I cant say. I thought UE3 support AO by default, it might not be compatible with their lighting engine or something? FEAR 2 is also some of the worse.

 

[Fafalada]

If I remember correctly, they used capsules and spheres that were bound to the bones of the skeleton (similar to physics primitives).

Yes - also binding AO shapes to rigid dynamic objects, and use precomputed AO for anything that never moves.
How it interacts with sun(or other lights) is really up to the lighting model used, not AO itself. There's usually nothing with most AO methods(short of the ones that bake AO directly into color-maps) that prevents you from correctly interacting with light.

 

[L. Scofield]

Metal Gear Solid Rising's AO is pretty good:

http://i52.tinypic.com/2ljjbmh.png

Looks much better in motion:

http://www.gametrailers.com/video/e3-2010-metal-gear/101272

 

[nightshade]

Err...wasn't that trailer prerendered?

 

[Nesh]

yes it was

 

[L. Scofield]

Proof?

 

[AlNom]

Well, it was certainly using game-quality assets. Nothing out-of-this world. Considering it was a small environment, it's not unlikely they would jack up quality on shaders, lighting, and shadowing though.

 

[Trejser]

Proof?

It was 60 fps (info from DF twitter).