The Order: 1886

[L. Scofield]

How do you create a game with all the high-end, demanding technologies running at the same time and looking good if your engineers aren't much cop? Only on PC can you brute-force a solution. On consoles, to feature all the desired components of a pretty render, you need to squeeze them onto decidedly limited hardware which requires good technical execution.

You can also do a corridor game, but then again, aesthetics =! tech level.

Really? Soft body physics. Facial animation. Material shaders and rendering pipeline including shader filtering. Lighting and shadowing. Motion blur. DOF. The usual litany of features of a good looking game of this ilk. Obviously it's stronger in some areas than others, but all round, each aspect of the graphics is probably a minimum 'good' by current standards with some 'excellent'.

What soft body physics? Just cloth? That's not high-end. Does it stretch, tear or push back objects it makes contact with? That would make it high end. Facial animation is good but nothing we haven't seen before. PBS is mostly about shader creation practices hence it has even been used in last-gen consoles (MGSV), most lighting and shadows are baked and those post processing effects were seen last gen already as well. Oh and it's all happening in closed, highly controlled static environments.

 

[VFX_Veteran]

You can also do a corridor game, but then again, aesthetics =! tech level.

While that's true, you can't bake everything and it look really good. Some very important things have to be done in real-time and can't be faked like the PBS and alot of post-processing.

PBS is mostly about shader creation practices..-snip-

But the complexity of the shaders has a LOT to do with render times and beauty. If they implement a GGX shader model compared to a Blinn shader, they are using more ms to achieve it. Their hair shader looks to be a good implementation of Kajia (which also takes some cycles). Their fabric shader could also be pretty expensive. Also the main character has a pretty good approximation of sub-surface scattering for the skin... even if that's a cheap technique, it's an added one that most games don't have while controlling the character. Just because you make the shaders at the beginning don't mean they don't take cycles.

most lighting and shadows are baked

We can't really say that yet. At least, I can't. I need to see the game in action and "observe" the lighting to make sure. Even still, if they are using light probes, that's costly to look up dynamically for all characters.

You fail to mention the FX work. While the particles die rather rapidly, they are there and look pretty good.

Oh and it's all happening in closed, highly controlled static environments.

That's true. But I would say most single player games are under highly controlled static environments. Ryse is one of them.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

You can also do a corridor game, but then again, aesthetics =! tech level.

An aesthetic that includes DOF will look better than that DOF is well executed. An aesthetic that wants realistic materials will look better when those materials are well executed. If The Order's tech wasn't high quality, all these parts wouldn't fit so well together. eg. DOF with hard shadows around geometry, materials with shader aliasing, yada yada.

What soft body physics? Just cloth?

Yes, and possibly hair.

That's not high-end. Does it stretch, tear or push back objects it makes contact with? That would make it high end.

It moves realistically without clipping constantly. Few games can claim that tech yet. Don't confuse 'high end' with 'bleeding edge'. Also, why would their coat material be stretching? For all we know their engine can handle stretching just fine but it doesn't feature in the game.

Facial animation is good but nothing we haven't seen before...

A game doesn't have to be full of never-before-seen features to be technically accomplished. You don't have to play a never-before-heard piece of music to be an accomplished pianist. Indeed, being able to play the conventional repertoire to a high standard is the mark of a technically accomplished artist.

What The Order does right is get the set of current rendering techniques and apply it all to great effect. It's not easy to pull that off. You can't just grab a box of assorted rendering techniques off the shelf, through them together, and have a unified, working aesthetic. I don't agree with those who leap to saying the game is the most technically advanced on PS4 - I've no idea how one could qualify that even with 100% understanding of every game out there - but I do recognise a technically accomplished engine.

Caveat, that's based on what's shown officially. I recall a review on EG that said the game was actually full of graphical glitches (one sign of a technically challenging engine). If the game is awfully bugged, clearly the technical accomplishment of the game is lower than the technical aspirations.

 

[L. Scofield]

While that's true, you can't bake everything and it look really good. Some very important things have to be done in real-time and can't be faked like the PBS and alot of post-processing.

Well post processing in this case helps hide any possible flaws like texture resolution.

But the complexity of the shaders has a LOT to do with render times and beauty. If they implement a GGX shader model compared to a Blinn shader, they are using more ms to achieve it. Their hair shader looks to be a good implementation of Kajia (which also takes some cycles). Their fabric shader could also be pretty expensive. Also the main character has a pretty good approximation of sub-surface scattering for the skin... even if that's a cheap technique, it's an added one that most games don't have while controlling the character. Just because you make the shaders at the beginning don't mean they don't take cycles.

Sure but they're nothing we haven't seen this gen already in most major games. It doesn't stand out in those aspects. I think Shadow Fall / Infamous / Ryse already do all of that.

We can't really say that yet. At least, I can't. I need to see the game in action and "observe" the lighting to make sure. Even still, if they are using light probes, that's costly to look up dynamically for all characters.

Actually we can because RAD released a paper on it. They're using lightmaps for most of the lighting. Light probes are a standard device used along baked lighting for many years now. Maybe even a decade or more.

You fail to mention the FX work. While the particles die rather rapidly, they are there and look pretty good.

They do, but again, nothing out of the ordinary.

That's true. But I would say most single player games are under highly controlled static environments. Ryse is one of them.

At least from what we've seen Ryse has a lot more going on in each scene that what what we've seen in The Order.

An aesthetic that includes DOF will look better than that DOF is well executed. An aesthetic that wants realistic materials will look better when those materials are well executed. If The Order's tech wasn't high quality, all these parts wouldn't fit so well together. eg. DOF with hard shadows around geometry, materials with shader aliasing, yada yada.

It helps, but it isn't required, see HL2 or RE4.

Yes, and possibly hair.It moves realistically without clipping constantly. Few games can claim that tech yet. Don't confuse 'high end' with 'bleeding edge'. Also, why would their coat material be stretching? For all we know their engine can handle stretching just fine but it doesn't feature in the game.

I use it as an example of a high-end feature. Simple cloth isn't one. And we've seen it clipping pretty bad before.

A game doesn't have to be full of never-before-seen features to be technically accomplished. You don't have to play a never-before-heard piece of music to be an accomplished pianist. Indeed, being able to play the conventional repertoire to a high standard is the mark of a technically accomplished artist.

What The Order does right is get the set of current rendering techniques and apply it all to great effect. It's not easy to pull that off. You can't just grab a box of assorted rendering techniques off the shelf, through them together, and have a unified, working aesthetic. I don't agree with those who leap to saying the game is the most technically advanced on PS4 - I've no idea how one could qualify that even with 100% understanding of every game out there - but I do recognise a technically accomplished engine.

Caveat, that's based on what's shown officially. I recall a review on EG that said the game was actually full of graphical glitches (one sign of a technically challenging engine). If the game is awfully bugged, clearly the technical accomplishment of the game is lower than the technical aspirations.

As I said, it's good, but not really a standout.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

It helps, but it isn't required, see HL2 or RE4.

I don't understand the reference. Are these examples of games that execute the tech poorly but look good?

 

[L. Scofield]

Both were using pretty low end tech and still today look pretty great, thanks mostly to art direction.

 

[DrJay24]

It seems whenever one person says "best looking game ever!", two more posters pop up to knock it down a notch.

Maybe someone should make a thread in the tech forum... "Why L. Scofield thinks good looking game does nothing new". Let the rest of us discuss the actual game.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Both were using pretty low end tech and still today look pretty great, thanks mostly to art direction.

That was never the argument. No-one said good aesthetics needs complex tech, and of course you can create an aesthetically pleasing game without using sophisticated tech (see Nintendo!). What you can't do is create a good looking game using complex tech that's poorly implemented. If you take a game and throw DOF and moblur and film grain and complex shaders and complex lighting and facial animation and cloth physics but don't implement these well, the game will look ugly. The Order with rigid cloth (or chaotically noisy-moving cloth) constantly passing through entire limbs, and rubber faces, and inconsistent lighting and noisy film grain and blur that clips with hard edges at the geometry would look pretty poop.

 

[VFX_Veteran]

Well post processing in this case helps hide any possible flaws like texture resolution.

Maybe but we can't see that yet until we see the game in motion. Ryse has film grain and post-processing, and it still has high res textures.

Sure but they're nothing we haven't seen this gen already in most major games. It doesn't stand out in those aspects. I think Shadow Fall / Infamous / Ryse already do all of that.

That's not the point though. Infamous may have PBR, but it looks horrible. AC:Unity has PBR materials and in most cases, it looks better than Ryse materials. KZ:SF has PBR, but it's low texture resolution rendering and bland lighting of characters offsets it's overall look. To be honest, I can't really tell about the PBR until I can move the camera around and see things in-game. Which is my point, we can't really judge The Order fully until we have it in our hands.

Actually we can because RAD released a paper on it. They're using lightmaps for most of the lighting. Light probes are a standard device used along baked lighting for many years now. Maybe even a decade or more.

Where is this paper? Also, light maps are old, but not light probes that are looked up dynamically by a moving character. And again, we have to see it in motion. Art direction is a big factor in how to use hardware lighting.

At least from what we've seen Ryse has a lot more going on in each scene that what what we've seen in The Order.

Probably. But that depends on where you are in the game. Ryse runs pretty close to 30fps (@4k) in the opening scenes as there isn't much to render heavily. We could compare those scenes with The Order. However, in the forest level, Ryse fps drops to the low 20s for me (@ 4k res). In that regard, yes, I'd agree with you from "what we have seen". But that doesn't mean we've see the entire game of The Order.

 

[HTupolev]

Where is this paper?

RAD has made a couple of presentations about their lighting and shading.

They did one at SIGGRAPH 2013:
http://blog.selfshadow.com/publications/s2013-shading-course/

And one at GDC 2014:
http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1020162/Crafting-a-Next-Gen-Material

Also, light maps are old, but not light probes that are looked up dynamically by a moving character.

What are we calling "old" or "new"?

Having dynamic objects sample baked light probes was common all through the seventh gen. Even in the sixth gen there were plenty of games which had dynamic objects sample environmental lighting distributions in some way or another, although much of the time that was crude low-frequency nondirectional stuff.

 

[Scott_Arm]

I'd be curious to see what it looks like without the vignetting. Not sure I've played another game that has it. Maybe I did, but I don't remember.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I'd be curious to see what it looks like without the vignetting. Not sure I've played another game that has it. Maybe I did, but I don't remember.

Widescreen PS2 games on a 4:3 TV.

 

[L. Scofield]

Maybe but we can't see that yet until we see the game in motion. Ryse has film grain and post-processing, and it still has high res textures.

The last time we got to see them clearly they weren't that good.

That's not the point though. Infamous may have PBR, but it looks horrible. AC:Unity has PBR materials and in most cases, it looks better than Ryse materials. KZ:SF has PBR, but it's low texture resolution rendering and bland lighting of characters offsets it's overall look. To be honest, I can't really tell about the PBR until I can move the camera around and see things in-game. Which is my point, we can't really judge The Order fully until we have it in our hands.

Infamous's PBR looks horrible? WTF.

Where is this paper? Also, light maps are old, but not light probes that are looked up dynamically by a moving character. And again, we have to see it in motion. Art direction is a big factor in how to use hardware lighting.

If you mean lightprobes that update dynamically, we haven't seen those in games with the exception perhaps of racing games.

http://mynameismjp.files.wordpress.com/2014/03/rad_gdc_2014.pptx

Probably. But that depends on where you are in the game. Ryse runs pretty close to 30fps (@4k) in the opening scenes as there isn't much to render heavily. We could compare those scenes with The Order. However, in the forest level, Ryse fps drops to the low 20s for me (@ 4k res). In that regard, yes, I'd agree with you from "what we have seen". But that doesn't mean we've see the entire game of The Order.

Though Ryse doesn't use baked lighting, unless you consider IBL as such.

 

[chris1515]

The last time we got to see them clearly they weren't that good.


Infamous's PBR looks horrible? WTF.


If you mean lightprobes that update dynamically, we haven't seen those in games with the exception perhaps of racing games.

http://mynameismjp.files.wordpress.com/2014/03/rad_gdc_2014.pptx


Though Ryse doesn't use baked lighting, unless you consider IBL as such.

I agree Infamous PBR is good!

 

[VFX_Veteran]

RAD has made a couple of presentations about their lighting and shading.

They did one at SIGGRAPH 2013:
http://blog.selfshadow.com/publications/s2013-shading-course/

And one at GDC 2014:
http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1020162/Crafting-a-Next-Gen-Material

I'll look at these.

What are we calling "old" or "new"?

Having dynamic objects sample baked light probes was common all through the seventh gen. Even in the sixth gen there were plenty of games which had dynamic objects sample environmental lighting distributions in some way or another, although much of the time that was crude low-frequency nondirectional stuff.

Environment lighting isn't really what I"m talking about. I should have been more clear. I'm talking about indirect bounce of light -- which is farily new and does require more memory and ms to implement on dynamic moving objects. So yea, spherical harmonics to sample sky/sun is fairly old. Having secondary bounce and stored in light probes and using it to sample dynamic objects isn't so old.

 

[VFX_Veteran]

Infamous's PBR looks horrible? WTF.

I have the game and haven't been impressed with any of the materials. Outside of reflections, show me a section of the game with good PBR materials (and no cutscenes).

If you mean lightprobes that update dynamically, we haven't seen those in games with the exception perhaps of racing games.

Any dynamic time of day game would have that.

Though Ryse doesn't use baked lighting, unless you consider IBL as such.

Let's establish terms.

1) Baked Lighting used to create shadows from direct light sources (old school Quake 2 stuff)
2) Baked Lighting using light probes to sample environment lighting ONLY (Crysis 1).
3) Baked GI using light probes to sample the indirect lighting (Crysis 2, FC3, etc..).
4) Baked GI but dynamic lookup of light probes for dynamic objects (FarCry3/4, Ryse, AC:Unity etc..)
5) Dynamic Lighting time of day (used in racers, Watch Dogs, and some other games) only for sampling the environment at different times.
6) Dynamic GI light probes (i.e. Alien:Isolation and The Tomorrow Children)[/QUOTE]

Damn it. I tried to edit my message but only have 5 minutes to do so?

1) Lightmaps
2) IBL
3) Baked GI using light probes
4) Baked GI using dynamic lookup of light probes for dynamic objects
5) Dynamic IBL
6) Dynamic GI

 

[L. Scofield]

I have the game and haven't been impressed with any of the materials. Outside of reflections, show me a section of the game with good PBR materials (and no cutscenes).

Since pretty much all materials in an urban setting are reflective in a PBR system I doubt I can fulfill your request.

Any dynamic time of day game would have that.

If you mean sampling the probes at runtime, sure. Updating the probes at runtime? I haven't seen any released game that does that.

Let's establish terms.

1) Baked Lighting used to create shadows from direct light sources (old school Quake 2 stuff)
2) Baked Lighting using light probes to sample environment lighting ONLY (Crysis 1).
3) Baked GI using light probes to sample the indirect lighting (Crysis 2, FC3, etc..).
4) Baked GI but dynamic lookup of light probes for dynamic objects (FarCry3/4, Ryse, AC:Unity etc..)
5) Dynamic Lighting time of day (used in racers, Watch Dogs, and some other games) only for sampling the environment at different times.
6) Dynamic GI light probes (i.e. Alien:Isolation and The Tomorrow Children)

Damn it. I tried to edit my message but only have 5 minutes to do so?

1) Lightmaps
2) IBL
3) Baked GI using light probes
4) Baked GI using dynamic lookup of light probes for dynamic objects
5) Dynamic IBL
6) Dynamic GI

Crysis 1 doesn't precalculate the lighting at all. It's all realtime so no probes.

 

[HTupolev]

Environment lighting isn't really what I"m talking about. I should have been more clear. I'm talking about indirect bounce of light -- which is farily new and does require more memory and ms to implement on dynamic moving objects. So yea, spherical harmonics to sample sky/sun is fairly old. Having secondary bounce and stored in light probes and using it to sample dynamic objects isn't so old.

I'm not really sure what you're saying. Are we talking about secondary bounce that itself responds to dynamic objects, or simply storing bounce information in the light probes that dynamic objects sample?

If the former, yeah, that's still quite uncommon.

If the latter, though, there's no reason that it requires more information than probes that don't have any bounce information baked into them; that's the entire point! If anything, bounce info doesn't rely as much on high-frequency shenanigans, so any spherical harmonic (or similar) irradiance representation that works for direct light should be decent for bounce as well. And since this light probe data is baked offline, why wouldn't you account for at least some bounce? Certainly, if I load up Halo 3 and walk into a cave, it seems that the reflections off of stuff seen from the cave entrances dominate the lighting response.

 

[VFX_Veteran]

Since pretty much all materials in an urban setting are reflective in a PBR system I doubt I can fulfill your request.

PBR isn't just specular surfaces..

If you mean sampling the probes at runtime, sure. Updating the probes at runtime? I haven't seen any released game that does that.

Alien: Isolation does that.

Crysis 1 doesn't precalculate the lighting at all. It's all realtime so no probes.

Calculated what in realtime(i.e. environment, GI, direct light, etc)? I'm not sure I understand what you are getting at.

 

[VFX_Veteran]

If the latter, though, there's no reason that it requires more information than probes that don't have any bounce information baked into them; that's the entire point! If anything, bounce info doesn't rely as much on high-frequency shenanigans, so any spherical harmonic (or similar) irradiance representation that works for direct light should be decent for bounce as well. And since this light probe data is baked offline, why wouldn't you account for at least some bounce? Certainly, if I load up Halo 3 and walk into a cave, it seems that the reflections off of stuff seen from the cave entrances dominate the lighting response.

I know.. but it's not old. Only within the past 2-3 years have we seen GI bounce being stored into probes and being sampled from dynamic objects. I, personally, started to see this with Farcry 3 and Crysis 3.