The Technology of GTA IV/RDR *Rage Engine*

[doob]

Please look at these two images. Do you see how blurry the objects become? You cannot even see the faces of certain characters. Also, cars become extremely blurry.

Is this due to a filter, DOF, or what?

Post processing blur filter with bloom on top. Started as a cheap trick to get that light gloomy radiance suited in some cases of fantasy/cartoony/dreamming scenes etc...
Personally i hate those 2D post processing effects as if more blurring is making things better. It's a sad tendency that im still trying to understand why the #&!#$! it became so mainstream ammong the gaming industry and how often it is exagerated when implemented!
It only degrades the visual quality instead of helping.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Post processing blur filter with bloom on top.

It's not a straight blur filter. That's very obvious from the object edges.

 

[assen]

Personally i hate those 2D post processing effects as if more blurring is making things better. It's a sad tendency that im still trying to understand why the #&!#$! it became so mainstream ammong the gaming industry and how often it is exagerated when implemented!
It only degrades the visual quality instead of helping.

No, it improves the visual quality - compared to the unfiltered image you don't get to see. You compare the image to some nonexistant Platonic ideal of the image which is perfectly clear and high-detail and antialiased - compared to that, the postprocessed real-game image is degraded; however, compared to what you would get otherwise straight out of the renderer, it is probably considerably better. At least in our games ;-)

 

[doob]

Not every blur technique applied is going to hide aliasing in edges.
And no im not comparing it to some "platonic ideal ..." a simple image at 1280x720 with no post processing filters and msaa (or the current poor quality AA AMD is using)

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Not every blur technique applied is going to hide aliasing in edges.

I didn't mean hide edge aliasing. I meant blurring the object edges - that's clearly not happening here. Furthermore if the GTA look was just blur and bloom, lots of other games would look the same. GTA4 has an artistic difference to the norm, a paint-like effect of blocks of smooth colour.

 

[tabs]

Couldn't it just be attributed to a very low resolution being scaled to 720p?

 

[betan]

Couldn't it just be attributed to a very low resolution being scaled to 720p?

This oil painting like effect will not occur with typical upscaling.

But I'm not sure it's a postprocessing effect either.
I'd think texture work and pixel shading instead.

 

[assen]

Not every blur technique applied is going to hide aliasing in edges.
And no im not comparing it to some "platonic ideal ..." a simple image at 1280x720 with no post processing filters and msaa (or the current poor quality AA AMD is using)

My point was that you haven't seen such a simple image from GTAIV at 1280x720, as it came out of the primary rendering pass - it's probably uglier than you expect.

A bit like movie stars and makeup ;-)

 

[TimothyFarrar]

When does the AA not work? I've noticed during the latest trailer that there are several edges that don't get any edge AA, and it almost always seems to be the case when an object is against a distant background i.e. the sky.

I wasn't saying that the AA doesn't work, just rather pointing out that they probably merged the motion blur and "whatever they are doing to get this effect" into one single pass. Meaning, if pixel is under motion blur, then sample and average along the motion path, otherwise do the post processing effect. Also I have a feeling that they can skip using hardware AA and get this effect (could be wrong here, just a hunch). Obviously for this generation, hardware AA is relatively expensive (tiling issues 360, ROP+bandwidth issues PS3), so they might be using this effect not only to hide low resolution textures and low poly LOD, but also to avoid the mess of hardware AA on the consoles...

 

[....]

I'm a bit dissapointed with gta4 graphics wise. I've heard some of the more recent pictures hint at having downgraded graphics to stabilize framerate, at what 30fps? The prototype ps3 with down clocked cell and weaker gpu was running the getaway demo realtime at 60fps, iirc, and that wasn't the only impressive demo running on that hardware.

 

[Neb]

But remeber that the Getaway techdemo didn't have AI, pathfinding or other gameplay stuff found in games. Although good looking a great part of it was due to good photo textures and lighting, the rest was quite flat in visual IQ looking it upclose IMO niot to forget the very small size scope. Also there exists no Cell + Cell +RSX, which means the Cell will have to do other things than just helping out RSX.

GTA4 is a free-roaming game that aims to be dynamic and alive. Of course it will cost perfomance in contrast to games where the gameplay path is carved out before hand by the devs. In that case it is much easier to concentrate the detail to the player accessible paths and lower detail to the non accessible areas.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

But remeber that the Getaway techdemo didn't have AI, pathfinding or other gameplay stuff found in games.

Actually I think you'll find there was. Each character was supposed to be an intelligent entity navigating it's way through the city. They didn't have any player-invoked gameplay responses to worry about (duck and run when the player starts shooting) but it's wrong to say the Getaway demo was just a rendering engine. The emphasis of that presentation was on the living world - the 'photorealistic graphics (according to Phil)' were almost an aside.

 

[Arwin]

I'm a bit dissapointed with gta4 graphics wise.

I tend to agree. The technology seems fair, but I can't judge that yet - a lot depends on the weather and real-time day cycle, interactivity and such. First looks though, it seems 'just ok' to 'decent', depending on what is shown.

The art is even more diverse in quality, to me from 'poor' (characters look hideous) to 'decent' (lighting is ok and that last shot on the previous page looks quite nice). I may change my mind when I see things running, but right now this is not at all a title I am looking forward to. But I was never a big GTA fan - I've always liked the open worlds and the stuff you can do, but the gameplay never gripped me.

 

[rekator]

I tend to agree. The technology seems fair, but I can't judge that yet - a lot depends on the weather and real-time day cycle, interactivity and such. First looks though, it seems 'just ok' to 'decent', depending on what is shown.

The art is even more diverse in quality, to me from 'poor' (characters look hideous) to 'decent' (lighting is ok and that last shot on the previous page looks quite nice). I may change my mind when I see things running, but right now this is not at all a title I am looking forward to. But I was never a big GTA fan - I've always liked the open worlds and the stuff you can do, but the gameplay never gripped me.

We have the same opinion Arwin !
But many actual games don't look so good on screenshot, but look pretty good when you play it, so we have to wait for good HD video (ex:Gamersyde).

 

[....]

Actually I think you'll find there was. Each character was supposed to be an intelligent entity navigating it's way through the city. They didn't have any player-invoked gameplay responses to worry about (duck and run when the player starts shooting) but it's wrong to say the Getaway demo was just a rendering engine. The emphasis of that presentation was on the living world - the 'photorealistic graphics (according to Phil)' were almost an aside.

They also likely did not use even the full capabilities(6 spes + 1ppe) of the downclocked cell and weaker gpu at that time.

 

[babcat]

I've been looking at more screenshots of this game and the LOD is insane. It's beyond aggressive.

I think that they put a lot of work into the "detail" of this game but did very little to try and enhance their graphical engine. The graphics are actually decent, but the LOD makes them look horrible.

Of course why should you pay good money to enhance the graphical engine of your game when you know people are going to buy it regardless if the graphics are good or not?

 

[TimothyFarrar]

After a second look at more screen shots, it is obvious that some of them are 2xMSAA, so that about kills my idea that the post processing was used in any way to help hide aliasing...

 

[Neb]

I've been looking at more screenshots of this game and the LOD is insane. It's beyond aggressive.

I think that they put a lot of work into the "detail" of this game but did very little to try and enhance their graphical engine. The graphics are actually decent, but the LOD makes them look horrible.

I think it is more about RAM limitations. Aggressive LOD is also visible in Mafia 2, building s a bit away look like ~flat cubes.

 

[Laa-Yosh]

GTA 4 looks very good IMHO, long viewing distance, nice lighting, nice post processing effects - a little break from the common look and shaders...

 

[Bludd]

Compared to the old ones, it looks amazing.