UC4: Best looking gameplay? *SPOILS*
- Thread starter RenegadeRocks
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No, that's a technical limitation of the solution.
Which is precisely the point! Everything's absolutely fabulous on the whole, how do you explain the glowing rocks? Unlike the screen-space example you give which is uniformly problematic in all applications, UC has amazing lighting except sometimes when it's diabolical. There's only two explanations (these aren't sporadic bugs that could go missed during development so the 'noone noticed' explanation won't fit):
1) ND are technically incapable of producing rocks lit correctly in all cases and paper lit correctly in all cases, or
2) ND would ahve had these looking just as good as the other parts of the game if Sony had let them spend more time on it
Unless you can think of a third explanation.
Don't get me wrong, i agree with you on the rocks that they look off and i think the GI solution is to blame (bounced light is sometimes inaccurate on that level), what i think is that it's more a result of how lighting works in that scene and that could possibly be solved if given more time/money or they hit a wall in the rendering budget and they couldn't make it work in time without rebuilding the whole scene. Anthony Vaccaro from ND (the guy who worked on the Madagascar level) said this a while ago (before going gold): https://twitter.com/vaccaro3d/status/708533472319549440
Maybe that is the problem (time) and these rocks where a late addition. Or maybe they had something else working and they had to scrap it off. In the end, I don't think these rocks take much away from the achievement, Madagascar as a whole is absolutely beautiful. And while the GI can look off sometimes i think it helps ground the whole scene. The part of Madagascar they were going after does have that radioactive look to it in real-life as well:
http://c8.alamy.com/comp/EBKGE2/madagascar-big-eyed-gecko-paroedura-masobe-on-sand-EBKGE2.jpg
Although the lighting is immeasurably more accurate in real-life i think that was the intended look
Maybe that is the problem (time) and these rocks where a late addition. Or maybe they had something else working and they had to scrap it off. In the end, I don't think these rocks take much away from the achievement, Madagascar as a whole is absolutely beautiful. And while the GI can look off sometimes i think it helps ground the whole scene. The part of Madagascar they were going after does have that radioactive look to it in real-life as well:
http://c8.alamy.com/comp/EBKGE2/madagascar-big-eyed-gecko-paroedura-masobe-on-sand-EBKGE2.jpg
Although the lighting is immeasurably more accurate in real-life i think that was the intended look
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rockaman
Regular
Game doesn't look invariably perfectly even = unfinished. This is what NeoGAF... err.... I mean... B3D has taught me
3) The PS4 has a limited amount of VRAM and GPU power, and ND a limited amount of time, money, and human resources, and skill, to make the game as good as they can make it look, and it's actually no one's fault that it doesn't look "even better", not ND's or even Sony's? That ND judged based on their own expectations and in designing their game that this is a reasonable compromise between time and money spent, and human workload, and the final outcome? And that it is probably much to do with their skill that it even reaches the point where it happens to look as good as it does?
I mean I'm sorry if that's not cynically or salty flavoured enough for appetites here, but it's probably a lot more accurate than "Well Sony didn't spend enough money" or "Naughty Dog is just incapable of this." That kind of nonsense is just so disconnected from reality, and just so incredibly reductionist of the work they have probably done for 4 years or even more to make a game look like this on PS4.
These guys are at the top of their trade pretty much, and people here are acting like they have so many glaring weaknesses? I'd love to see everyone here apply to Naughty Dog and see how they can personally work there and increase their efficiency and quality of their output.
Let's put it this way: if ND only spent as much effort as B3D does in making half-baked explanations for why the game doesn't look "even better", then Uncharted 4 would be a much worse looking game
Like really, this is the type of complaint: "The rock is not lighting up well enough accurately to my satisfaction. I can't believe Sony or ND didn't take this into account when making the game for 4 years. What were they thinking?" Lmao
That's a big assumption first of all that they didn't review everything rather meticulously, or that you know.... they actually have to release the product at some point with something they probably judged to be acceptable from a cost/benefit perspective and budget/performance limitations perspective as well.
I mean really, I've been away from this forum for what.... 4 or 5 years? It's the same petty criticisms that say "Why aren't these developers more skilled than they are?" Don't you guys realize you would probably break down and cry if your own professional work was judged similarly? Lol
And trust me, this is not about a defensive mindset over Naughty Dog. If the criticism leveled at any game becomes this unfair, I would defend those developers hard work just the same. They actually have to do the dirty work and get a product out the window, so give them a little bit more credit for the work that you can safely assume they actually do. Armchair general only knows so much, etc etc
3) The PS4 has a limited amount of VRAM and GPU power, and ND a limited amount of time, money, and human resources, and skill, to make the game as good as they can make it look, and it's actually no one's fault that it doesn't look "even better", not ND's or even Sony's? That ND judged based on their own expectations and in designing their game that this is a reasonable compromise between time and money spent, and human workload, and the final outcome? And that it is probably much to do with their skill that it even reaches the point where it happens to look as good as it does?
I mean I'm sorry if that's not cynically or salty flavoured enough for appetites here, but it's probably a lot more accurate than "Well Sony didn't spend enough money" or "Naughty Dog is just incapable of this." That kind of nonsense is just so disconnected from reality, and just so incredibly reductionist of the work they have probably done for 4 years or even more to make a game look like this on PS4.
These guys are at the top of their trade pretty much, and people here are acting like they have so many glaring weaknesses? I'd love to see everyone here apply to Naughty Dog and see how they can personally work there and increase their efficiency and quality of their output.
Let's put it this way: if ND only spent as much effort as B3D does in making half-baked explanations for why the game doesn't look "even better", then Uncharted 4 would be a much worse looking game
Like really, this is the type of complaint: "The rock is not lighting up well enough accurately to my satisfaction. I can't believe Sony or ND didn't take this into account when making the game for 4 years. What were they thinking?" Lmao
That's a big assumption first of all that they didn't review everything rather meticulously, or that you know.... they actually have to release the product at some point with something they probably judged to be acceptable from a cost/benefit perspective and budget/performance limitations perspective as well.
I mean really, I've been away from this forum for what.... 4 or 5 years? It's the same petty criticisms that say "Why aren't these developers more skilled than they are?" Don't you guys realize you would probably break down and cry if your own professional work was judged similarly? Lol
And trust me, this is not about a defensive mindset over Naughty Dog. If the criticism leveled at any game becomes this unfair, I would defend those developers hard work just the same. They actually have to do the dirty work and get a product out the window, so give them a little bit more credit for the work that you can safely assume they actually do. Armchair general only knows so much, etc etc
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Fucking interns can't do anything right!
I scrolled through the millions of photos above, and while a lot of the scenes look incredible, you can pick out some things that are inconsistent at a glance. One thing that jumped out at me immediately when scrolling through was Drake looking into a fridge, and a lot of the items int he fridge are missing even simple contact shadows, so they look kind of strange. I doubt you can move the items in the fridge around, so I'm not sure why they wouldn't have a baked shadow to make it look right. Way back in the thread there was a screencap of Drake beside a sink in the house, and the items on the sill had the same issue, missing shadows on the sill itself. One item, that I can't remember, even seemed to have light bleeding from underneath the object, which didn't make a lot of sense. THey're incredibly minor details, but they stand out because everything else looks so good.
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rockaman
Regular
God damn. I forgot about the interns!
Yes, the shadows resolution. It's hard for PS4 to maintain many shadows, it's very performance heavy for them.
Given the limitations of the PS4, and the gameplay overall, shadows is generally a weakness though, sometimes they become very low resolution.
But again I would at least have to assume that with the 4 years behind the work in this project, I'm sure they evaluated multiple ways they could extract detail from all these scenes. If they wanted to put more/less shadows, while increasing/decreasing detail elsewhere (we are talking about items in the fridge, after all), those decisions were probably very deliberate.
After all, I'm sure they value the shading of Drake himself (he has a pretty high resolution self shadowing solution for example) in the house more than the shadows on the items in the fridge.
The PS4 simply does not have infinite resources to assume they could've added a detail without subtracting something else, of what would be subtracted, we probably don't know.
That's not the radiocative look. That's secondary illumination and look right. The object is lit from above, shadowed below from the direct lit, but illuminated from below from the secondary light. The radioactive look I'm talking about is a rock that's lit on all sides from the direct light source and also lit from below by secondary illumination, hence it's glowing. It's actively brighter than its environment, as if emmissing light. The secondary illumination generally looks okay, save where it's uncomfortably baked such as on the characters with orange undersides to their arms even when not standing on the orange earth.
Eh...what determined the time and money they have? Sony, the publisher. Sony had a choice to ship the product as is or give it a few more months to make it even better. They chose the former for business reasons. That was probably the right call because the graphical issues aren't going to impact sales one jot, so there was nothing to gain from allowing the product to be perfected.
Which is exactly what I've said!! That's explanation number 2.
Please expalin what is absurd and disingenuous about recognising rendering faults (on a board dedicated to 3D graphics) with the game and interpretating them as the result of business choices and discussing what solutions real-time graphics have to address such issue in future.
Let's not make this personal. There's an argument about the criticism. I'd like to hear it explained, whether those disagreeing think/feel I'm saying something other than 'point 2, lack of budget' or whether they acknowledge they misunderstood and agree, or what.
Care to explain? The only game i remember being disappointed about recently was Quantum Break only because of all the screen space shenanigans (something i really don't find pleasing personally, be it Driveclub, Crysis 3, ME:C or any other game that is using them). And i still think the game looks fantastic overall (have said so many times). Battlefront i have issues with the pop-in and missing shadows/ao but this an engine wide problem (at least from what I've played last year) and i still think the game looks fantastic (was my close second after The Order last year). In neither case have i said these games are unfinished or rushed to get them out on the market (as the word implies). It's the wording that i have a problem with, not the actual complaint (which i agree with).
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Pick another word then. Personally 'unfinsihed' doesn't mean rushed. As I say, it's the right business move. Let's all find a word to mean 'released as is with known imperfections' other than 'unfinished; and move on.
Edit: Compulsory internet dictionary reference:
"unfinished = not finished"
"finish - to complete and perfect in detail; put the final touches on (sometimes followed by up): "
Personally the word carries no connotations of cause for me. I suppose it's more widely used in gaming for games that are clearly hack jobs like those Skate or Aliens games, so could be quite offensive by association.
rockaman
Regular
No no not personal! I just wanted to play devil's advocate for a bit, sorry if it came off too harsh XD
Genuinely, I don't disagree there are inconsistencies. I think the most obvious stuff for me personal is the shadows, they are much lower resolution than other details (or like someone else pointed out, absent in some scenes for smaller details e.g. the fridge inside Drake's home),
But I do understand the limitation of PS4 hardware in this regard. Just in the same way they must bake shadows, or avoid doing realtime shadows for small items, they also need to bake GI to include such a visual effect without sacrificing too much detail elsewhere, in their judgment for the visuals they want to achieve of course. Not that any answer is "correct."
It is the similar debate of whether or not Uncharted 4 should've used "realtime GI" in certain scenes. As one person argued, it is an extraction of extra detail to do this in realtime, which is agreeable. At the same time, if GI was to be realtime in any scene in Uncharted 4, in what measure would other effects and details and cost to IQ would there be? It would probably be quite massive, based on the theoretical maximum performance of PS4 GPU.
If we are talking inconsitency in fidelity of certain effects, arguably the shadows would be most glaring, at least for me. But this will always be an Apples to Oranges comparison, between different effects, since they are not particularly directly comparable. Every effect brings something different to the table in terms of what it adds to the overall image, and they certainly aren't all equal under the Sun, and not equal in demands of performance from the GPU
I imagine if they spent a lot of money on increasing shadow detail they would have to sacrifice details in other areas, at least based on their current knowledge and use of the PS4 hardware.
I also expect Naughty Dog's next game to look even better, even on PS4 Vanilla
But I also don't doubt that ND's expertise also lets them evaluate their own work much more closely than we ourselves can. I am certain they evaluated the benefits and drawbacks on spending resources on all different elements of the IQ and effects quality.
Remember, this game was originally targeting 60 fps, and they scrapped that to focus more on visuals, so they are definitely evaluating many possibilities in their development cycle
This I don't disagree with, but it is not just on the face of it. Obviously Sony is the one who pays the bills (from Naughty Dog's forecasted earnings potential), but that's not the exclusive or ultimate deciding factor in "how good" the effects are. It is just one of many facets that plays into this role of determining what is possible. We don't even know if Naughty Dog or Sony for example is directly responsible for the hiring or not hiring of individuals, or how stringent/lenient the human resources department is, or does that department first answer to ND or Sony?
There's so many variables beyond just "Sony pays the bills." Just like does ND license out work to others? Which work is that? How does that play into the workflow at ND? There's so many variables that are impossible to answer beyond hypotheticals from our view so removed from ND's processes. We truly are outside observers and simply seeing the end product, we were not with them from the start to finish of development
I agree that they must eventually release the product. Timing of release is just as important. I personally think Sony is now targeting Spring releases for their biggest games, to avoid the blood baths in the September to November season of games releases from third parties (I think a good strategy).
I agree with your other sentiment as well, maybe a few more months would fix this or that, maybe, but only in a vacuum, we can't judge their work in a vacuum alone
Based on their current PS4 knowledge, and comparable to the achievement of others on the same console, I would say their output is magnificent. Even if some parts are "inconsistent", I think they also judged measuring each effect and detail well in a way that gives off an overall excellent image.
Well I think Clukos' point is, if the word is taken to be used by its literal meaning, which would mean that no game is finished, how does this apply distinctively to Uncharted 4 in a way that truly means something?Pick another word then. Personally 'unfinsihed' doesn't mean rushed. As I say, it's the right business move. Let's all find a word to mean 'released as is with known imperfections' other than 'unfinished; and move on.
Edit: Compulsory internet dictionary reference:
"unfinished = not finished"
"finish - to complete and perfect in detail; put the final touches on (sometimes followed by up): "
Personally the word carries no connotations of cause for me. I suppose it's more widely used in gaming for games that are clearly hack jobs like those Skate or Aliens games, so could be quite offensive by association.
I don't know how many have English as first language here, but English is a very literal language, compared to most others! Precision with language is exponentially more important in English in general
But I have to admit my demand of English fluency and deliberation in writing is probably much higher than compared to most ^^
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VFX_Veteran
Regular
DOOM is on another level from UC4 technically. That's just a fact. The engine is incredibly robust, implements really complex 3d features, and moves at blazing speeds. I can see why we shouldn't compare DOOM to UC4 (aside from one being a FPS and the other a 3PS).
I don't mean to offend but that is a vintage VFX_Veteran post right there
Start with a hyperbole to make things juicy: Check!
Talk about facts: Check!
Provide no actual information and keep things vague so no counter argument can be made: Check!
It always has to be PC -yours preferably- vs console: Check!
The only possible answer to this sort of post is: "Feel free to explain" but I know you can't/don't want to do that anyway.
It's just your opinion... and your opinion doesn't have a great value to me since you have been proven wrong so many times on factual things... for instance, you said that Uncharted 4 screenshots were downsampled in the photomode while they were not.
And the AA in Uncharted has to deal with much more complex issues : huge amount of foliage, thin details everywhere.
Also, what's the buzz word for an advanced AI, good textures, variety of assets, incredible amount of details, discret popping, very high poly characters, very complex action scenes, etc. ?
You can't simply judge a game just with some buzz words such as "GI", "SSR"...
And in the case of Doom, i don't think you can really compare them. Especially so because one is an FPS, and one is a TPS (render budget allocated differently, you have to render high poly characters with complex shaders almost always on a TP game). And even then Doom spends most of its budget on close proximity around the player (because of the level design, this is pretty much a gameplay arena type of shooter). The only comparison (which is still pretty inaccurate imo) is this with the Madagascar level, which both have similar enough color palette:
Looking downwards towards scenery close to the player
http://images.eurogamer.net/2015/articles//a/1/8/3/1/6/9/0/PC_001.bmp.jpg/EG11/quality/90/format/jpg
https://abload.de/img/uncharted4_athiefsendikaq1.png
Looking towards the level
http://images.eurogamer.net/2015/ar.../ultra_000.bmp.jpg/EG11/quality/90/format/jpg
https://abload.de/img/uncharted4_athiefsend14yeh.png
You can immediately see the difference in the visual approach of each game makes most comparisons moot, this is the reason i said the generalized numbering system for all games wouldn't work.
Looking downwards towards scenery close to the player
http://images.eurogamer.net/2015/articles//a/1/8/3/1/6/9/0/PC_001.bmp.jpg/EG11/quality/90/format/jpg
https://abload.de/img/uncharted4_athiefsendikaq1.png
Looking towards the level
http://images.eurogamer.net/2015/ar.../ultra_000.bmp.jpg/EG11/quality/90/format/jpg
https://abload.de/img/uncharted4_athiefsend14yeh.png
You can immediately see the difference in the visual approach of each game makes most comparisons moot, this is the reason i said the generalized numbering system for all games wouldn't work.
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VFX_Veteran
Regular
I don't mean to offend but that is a vintage VFX_Veteran post right there
Start with a hyperbole to make things juicy: Check!
Talk about facts: Check!
Provide no actual information and keep things vague so no counter argument can be made: Check!
It always has to be PC -yours preferably- vs console: Check!
The only possible answer to this sort of post is: "Feel free to explain" but I know you can't/don't want to do that anyway.
I don't feel like explaining it - nor seeing countless pages of screenshots of UC4 (I've already finished the game as well as most and we know how the game looks).
You have good enough knowledge on what DOOM and UC4 are both doing technically. Compare and contrast at your leisure. Start with one uses multiple light sources that cast dynamic shadows/AO and the other has 1 direct light source (the Sun/Moon/Flashlight) with baked AO. You can start from there with the "on another level" technically.
I also mentioned that we should NOT compare the two as one is a FPS and the other a 3PS.
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Doom has different constraints from UC4 technically. That is a fact. Whether it's on another level is an opinion.
The lighting model can afford to be much simpler, as scene makeup is mostly a classical blend of static opaques plus simple transparencies, even including character models. There's less in Doom's environments which would be prone to unavoidable overdraw issues, such as dense foliage. Doom also features far less dynamic interaction with such things, which has real-time processing implications along with its own design constraints. Etc.
Doom picked a smaller technical scope and did things very well within it.
VFX_Veteran
Regular
Just because the scale is smaller doesn't mean it's not doing things better. I also mentioned they are 2 different types of games and shouldn't be compared. It does have cleaner AA, does have better MB, does have better AO, etc.. whether they were afforded all those niceties because of a smaller scope is a different discussion. DOOM looks stellar and more consistent while maintaining an incredibly smooth FPS and implementing some of the features that most games just can't afford. It is all in my opinion of course.
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