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

[djskribbles]

As shown in the link above, it's not that the PS3 is washed out, it's that a lot of 360 games have increased contrast due to an incorrect gamma curve.
Plus don't mistake poor captures as what you would see on your own screen. Many captures use the wrong combination of settings that do make games look washed out. My TV is fully calibrated (gamma, color and grayscale) and my PS3 and TV are matched with the correct luma range and PS3 games never look washed out.

 

[COPS N RAPPERS]

you know if you set the 360's contrast to "default" instead of "expanded" you can take off that black crush effect in some games.

the setting is usually made for tvs or lcds that have weak black levels or have some sort of fog in the image. all it does is it takes the dark levels in the image and makes them darker.

It's good for games that have a lot of that smog and dusty environments but if the game has a dark rich atmosphere like "deus ex" its going to add more black to the image. that's why the under the setting it says you can lose some of your image.

I don't use the setting anymore since my tv auto adjusts it. anyways, it seems some people do like black crush so it's not a big concern of the public.

the last thing i'd like to say also is, if you are an HDMI gamer the "YCBCR" setting on the 360 can also be bad for your gaming experience for some tvs as it can crop your image. for almost two years i had the setting enabled and noticed recently that i had lost about an inch in each direction of picture because the setting was on.

I now game with the gamma settings set to default and my color settings set to RGB. and it looks just perfect.

 

[TheWretched]

Makes me wonder if this was done for LCDs, as they used to have very bad contrast and black values, compared to CRTs.

Just take a game like Doom 3 and play it on an older LCD. You can't see jack.

 

[Beef Stallmer]

I don't know that they did in MGS4 (love that game btw), but without PS3 "deep color" (or what is the setting?) plus my tv set to 'extra black crush' mode; the game looks like ass.
With these settings however, it looks really great and with a lot of texture (depth) to the image.

But play any other game, without changing the settings, and it will look like a 360 game; black crush with broken gamma.

 

[TheWretched]

Well, the RGB color settings depend on the TV, not the console. Some TVs want 0-255 like my old Samsung and most PC monitors and others want 30-235 (or whatever) like my newer Sony Bravia. If I enabled the full RGB mode, blacks crush on my Sony, and if I don't enable it on my 3D lcd (LG PC monitor), the blacks look like ass. Makes me wonder, why EDID and whatnot doesn't tell the media player what it wants.

 

[AlNom]

Yeah... depends on the TV. I get better representation using the expanded setting with my TV. The easiest indicator was in Halo Reach at the end of level 1 when I could actually see objects in the dark.

 

[Arwin]

Gamma: 360 vs PS3

http://filmicgames.com/archives/14

/ Ken

There's a Digital Foundry piece on the same subject.

 

[eloic]

Hi.

Uncharted: Golden Abyss. The graphical quality of this game is pretty hot, but I feel the lighting of the character models is just a tad odd. It's like the ambient light value is set to 0.9. Moreover, it's like the light kind of surrounds the model, no matter where the light comes from or the position or angle of the character. It produces an effect similar to Oren-Nayar-Blinn materials in 3ds max, so to speak.

Any papers on the lighting model used by the developers? Are we talking about an artistic decision or a technical decision (and because of what)? Both?

 

[Gitaroo]

pre baked light maybe. Im surprise at the lack of AA in alot of those Vita games, I thought MSAA should be almost free or super cheap from the hardware. Guess they should start looking into adding FXAA support maybe....

 

[2real4tv]

pre baked light maybe. Im surprise at the lack of AA in alot of those Vita games, I thought MSAA should be almost free or super cheap from the hardware. Guess they should start looking into adding FXAA support maybe....

I agree the game would look almost ps3 quality with some AA.

 

[eloic]

pre baked light maybe. Im surprise at the lack of AA in alot of those Vita games, I thought MSAA should be almost free or super cheap from the hardware. Guess they should start looking into adding FXAA support maybe....

Hm, it doesn't look like it, to me (because of the high "ambient light value" or whatever it is, light and shadow effects are not very noticeable, but are still there). An hybrid solution, maybe?

I agree the game would look almost ps3 quality with some AA.

Well, it already looks almost PS3 quality, to me.

 

[L. Scofield]

Hi.

Uncharted: Golden Abyss. The graphical quality of this game is pretty hot, but I feel the lighting of the character models is just a tad odd. It's like the ambient light value is set to 0.9. Moreover, it's like the light kind of surrounds the model, no matter where the light comes from or the position or angle of the character. It produces an effect similar to Oren-Nayar-Blinn materials in 3ds max, so to speak.

Fresnel, maybe?

 

[COPS N RAPPERS]

Final fantasy XIII-2

Lastly, I asked the PR representative, Laura Shiraishi, a question. “Will there be significant visible differences in the graphics between the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 version of the game?” We were able to see the two hardware versions side-by-side to confirm. “What do you think, are there any differences?” we were asked. “There’s almost no difference between the two,” I replied. Laura continued to explain, “Unlike the first installment, we’re using a lot of real time technology for the sequel. Compression for the pre-rendered scenes has also been improved. If you really look, you might see some differences in the hair [dithering],butduring play, both versions will provide beautiful graphics, so there’s not much to worry about.”

That being said, for those with both systems, the PlayStation 3 version of FINAL FANTASY XIII-2 did have an edge over its counterpart.

http://ps3.rpgsite.net/articles/311-final-fantasy-xiii2-tokyo-game-show-handson

....So in essence the ingame graphics issues such as ugly shimmering hair and foliage are still present in 360's version, and the only improvement was better compression for the movies?

It's a start, but it now feels like it's still going to be more less the same. is eidos even participating with the port?

 

[Sigfried1977]

Why would they?

 

[eloic]

Fresnel, maybe?

Isn't fresnel related to reflection, refraction and diffraction? Then, I don't think this is it, in this case.

 

[Laa-Yosh]

Yeah I think it's sort of a misconception. The Fresnel effect is basically that reflectance and some other surface properties are dependent on the viewing angle relative to the surface normal - basically this is why a smooth surface like a table or a lake is more reflective if your view direction is nearly parallel to the surface. It's also dependent on the index of refraction of the material and so on.

Of course in CG, both realtime and offline, it's something that you can fake and tweak, so some games introduce a sort of an edge highlighting effect dependent on the difference between the camera axis and the surface normal. It's not realistic at all and usually hasn't got anything to do with IOR, but it helps to separate characters and objects from the background.
Gears 1 is another good example of this by the way, especially when you zoom in on Locust characters.

Nice demonstration of realtime versions here:
http://xoliulshader.com/features

 

[COPS N RAPPERS]

Why would they?

If you mean why would eidos help It would be cause square-enix bought out eidos a while back. So that means the number of staff members increased.

 

[eloic]

Yeah I think it's sort of a misconception. The Fresnel effect is basically that reflectance and some other surface properties are dependent on the viewing angle relative to the surface normal - basically this is why a smooth surface like a table or a lake is more reflective if your view direction is nearly parallel to the surface. It's also dependent on the index of refraction of the material and so on.

Of course in CG, both realtime and offline, it's something that you can fake and tweak, so some games introduce a sort of an edge highlighting effect dependent on the difference between the camera axis and the surface normal. It's not realistic at all and usually hasn't got anything to do with IOR, but it helps to separate characters and objects from the background.
Gears 1 is another good example of this by the way, especially when you zoom in on Locust characters.

Nice demonstration of realtime versions here:
http://xoliulshader.com/features

Yes, I know. Thank you for the info and the examples.

In this case, this lighting solution for Uncharterd: Golden Abyss' characters is not of my taste.

 

[Laa-Yosh]

I'm guessing they're using it because the Vita has a small display and they need to make the characters stand out from the background a bit more. Just as Gears 1 used it because the lighting was rather flat, the details on every surface pretty dense, and so it helped to identify characters in a bit of cover.

 

[eloic]

I'm guessing they're using it because the Vita has a small display and they need to make the characters stand out from the background a bit more. Just as Gears 1 used it because the lighting was rather flat, the details on every surface pretty dense, and so it helped to identify characters in a bit of cover.

Yes, it might be a good reason. I haven't been able to play with a Vita, yet, so I wonder if (in the case that screen issues are the reason behind this) it's truly necessary to display the characters this way.