UC4: Best looking gameplay? *SPOILS*

[Shifty Geezer]

Oh i think it's understandable, the Uncharted 4 thread is quite hard to monitor and moderate...

True. Also grief from other sectors on the board. And Apple being utterly crap. I have to agree to the new iTunes Connect agreement to edit and add apps. Only I can't - there's no button to do so. The tutorials are four years out of date shownig/talking about an old interface and they can't be bothered to spend any of their crazy money on supporting the devs who make it for them. And stuff. Many things making Shifty Geezer into Grumpy Geezer.

 

[Jupiter]

The lighting is fantastic in Uncharted 4 although less dynamic than in DriveClub or QB.
(spoiler location)

I have spoken about the lighting of the Unreal Engine. For Uncharted 4 I need a closer look.

I can't agree with that, i don't think The Order lacks geometry often even though AF is indeed rather low (by PC standards)
It's definitely not comparable in terms of scope though, no question.

The ground and cover objects are mostly flat and with low detail. This is not seen in your screenshots but I played the game in summer 2015

The Division has more details but with much more low poly objects.

The Order has less details but with high poly everywhere.

I will post here a few screenshots soon. I already saw very detailed objects.

There are some POM used in The Order tho, just not as thorough as Bloodborn. But then when you compare those two games, which one has more depth to you overall? Like I said it's a combination of everything, The Order has done too many other things right to be not considered flat and it's consistent through and through.

I mean this especially for "bigger" places like streets in The Order 1886.

 

[ultragpu]

I'm not seeing a ton of POM in The Division either, what gives?
http://i0.wp.com/gearnuke.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/the-division-xbox-one-beta-20.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/WMn4JGl.jpg
http://cdn.wccftech.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/4-FEjRh8e.jpg

 

[VFX_Veteran]

And a good art is nothing without good shaders, good textures and many other technical stuffs...

Not good enough. DS3/Bloodborne arguably has better art direction. And it's shaders aren't all that physically based. Plenty of games have "good" textures -- especially on the PC.

You aren't specific about "other technical stuff".

If you're speaking about the XB1 versions :

- Higher resolution (compared to QB)
- Better framerate
- Better anti-aliasing
- 100% real-time cutscenes running at 1080p (900p for ROTR)
- No screen tearing

These are some objective facts.

Every last one of those features are better on the PC by default. Does that make every PC game the best looking game evah? Nope.

Where is the innovation? Like a better GI solution (ala QB), or excellent use of PBR (i.e. The Order, W3), dynamic day-night cycles, weather, etc.. (i.e. DriveClub)? How about displacements and massive tessellation (i.e. RoTR)? None of those aspects appear here.

 

[Clukos]

You can always play the game "what a game doesn't have" and you will always miss the point, no game has everything. Everyone has to cut something to achieve something else, that is the nature of real-time rendering.

 

[Jupiter]

The Witcher III never impressed me techincally. It also has no PBR. Has it even GI? Because of the missing GI the indoors were ugly. And I could not mention one aspect which is above other games.

You can always play the game "what a game doesn't have" and you will always miss the point, no game has everything. Everyone has to cut something to achieve something else, that is the nature of real-time rendering.

In February 2013 Crysis 3 was superior in almost every aspect to other games. It is possible.

 

[VFX_Veteran]

mate, I look at Screenshots and I dont even have the game, but based on screenshots I can see errors, the resolution (better res is better) but thats not the problem, the problem is the errors, which come from using screenbased info,
Using screen based info (except for perhaps AA or any hi frequency similar afterpass data 'but even then think of the screen edges' ) is going to 'not be correct' that is the nature of the beast.
I & the QB developers realize this and I think this (and I'm sure they will agree) is why theres a lot of distortion of the screen going on (to hide the mistakes, to stop you the viewer going hey, that doesnt look right, think of old sci-fi horror films when the alien comes out and all of the sudden the lights start flashing on and off, strobe lighting etc, the reason they do this is, is cause if you looked at it frozen with good lighting it would look very fake)

Every game that has ever come out uses screenbased/baked info. I will critique the hell outta UC4 and will guarantee you that I'll find screenspace stuff and "errors" in rendering (i.e. not having contact shadows), low res textures, low res normal maps, crude noise patterns to represent the surface of water, overblown ambient contributions from light probes when the character is in shadow, transparency strips to represent real hair that's not even self-occluded, etc.... I've already seen the reflections and their capsule based AO (which isn't applied to every object) is screenspace. Name a game that uses world space computations for everything or doesn't have rendering "errors".

 

[Deleted member 11852]

The lighting is often unrealistic in ROTR :

I'm fine with unrealistic lighting. Realistic lighting means that to setup some scenes for a specific mood or atmosphere you need the digital equivalent of a good lighting director to combat the realistic lighting.

 

[Clukos]

Posted before one example of real time GI in Uncharted 4 during gameplay

Also showcase of the shader work and one of the most impressive looking hair shaders I've seen, period. I'll have to give animation of hair to FFXV though.

Name a game that uses world space computations for everything or doesn't have rendering "errors".

Maybe The Tommorow Children? They use voxels and sdfs for most stuff that devs currently are doing screen space calculation (AO, GI, reflections). But i'm not sure, i didn't play the beta too much, you can look at this video to get up to speed

It still has errors mind you, their third bounce calculation is a hack and not exactly technically correct, but it's very hard to spot.

 

[Recop]

Not good enough. DS3/Bloodborne arguably has better art direction.

This is precisely my point. Art alone isn't sufficient to produce good graphics... unless you consider that DS3 is the best looking PC game ?

Every last one of those features are better on the PC by default. Does that make every PC game the best looking game evah? Nope.

Your original sentence : "There literally is nothing technical that anyone has mentioned yet that makes UC4 stand out above even RoTR let alone QB's lighting (which received a patch on PC to run at full res btw)."

I wasn't talking about the graphics. Resolution, framerate, screen tearing are objective measurable facts.

Where is the innovation? Like a better GI solution (ala QB), or excellent use of PBR (i.e. The Order, W3), dynamic day-night cycles, weather, etc.. (i.e. DriveClub)? How about displacements and massive tessellation (i.e. RoTR)? None of those aspects appear here.

Indeed, where is the innovation in QB ? Is it the first game using GI ?

Dynamic day/night cycles ? Already present in last gen games...

Etc.

Also, you seem to fail to understand that the final result is more important than the tech used. Saying that a game must use an innovative technology to be technically/graphically impressive is a completely arbitrary statement...

 

[VFX_Veteran]

Since everyone seems to be ignoring these i'll put them in a spoiler tag for the lazy

Spoiler

Again, these are not photomode shots, straight up gameplay shots running on a Ps4 (not PC like every other screenshot in this page ).

I can point out significant number of status quo rendering in these shots. Other than the beautiful art direction, there is nothing over-the-top about these screens that hasn't been done before. AC:Unity still has the best chapel art direction and while the lighting is baked, it looks astounding. Rocks in these screens need displacement for sure. Trees also have low polys. Self-occlusion is jarring as seen on the hand on the balcony at the bottom pic, the character leaning against the wall in the screen above the last one, etc.. On Tuesday, we'll dissect frames of gameplay...

 

[Clukos]

I'm not sure you remember Unity correctly

This is a png capture at 2560x1440 of the maxed out game on PC, i'm sure you can find equally as many rendering "errors" here or even more. AO (one of your favorite subjects) isn't nearly as good as that last or second to last picture here for example (look at the statue on the left or the missing shadows from npcs/in-game geometry).

 

[VFX_Veteran]

This is precisely my point. Art alone isn't sufficient to produce good graphics... unless you consider that DS3 is the best looking PC game ?

I would never say any game is the best looking game because I can see errors in all the games (which is my point).

I wasn't talking about the graphics. Resolution, framerate, screen tearing are objective measurable facts.

That all has to do with "graphics".

Resolution: Other games render at full 1080p (i.e. Killzone)
Framerate: plenty of PS4 games are continuous 30fps
Screen Tearing (or lack thereof): Turn on V-sync and target 30FPS

Indeed, where is the innovation in QB ? Is it the first game using GI ?

First game to do GI lighting properly even if it's screenspace.

Dynamic day/night cycles ? Already present in last gen games...

Yep. Agreed. Obviously expensive to keep that 30FPS target for UC4.

Also, you seem to fail to understand that the final result is more important than the tech used. Saying that a game must use an innovative technology to be technically/graphically impressive is a completely arbitrary statement...

Purely subjective opinion. I think the more technical breakthroughs you make, the better the game is going to look (assuming a talented art staff).

People were raving over the next-gen console tech demos thinking it would be actual gameplay (remember the UC4 reveal that was touted as being on another level only to NOT appear in the game) -- all using innovative and graphically impressive bells-n-whistles to make an impressive overall image. We all now realize the consoles can't push these levels (not even PCs).

 

[Clukos]

Why would a game like Uncharted 4 need dynamic day cycles? You said you were interested in going into real-time rendering but you fail to understand the basic principles of real-time rendering in the first place. QB had a reason to use TOD (and the engine was already optimized for that in Alan Wake) as it needed those time traveling sequences. A game like Uncharted doesn't need that. Unity doesn't even have dynamic TOD (like inFAMOUS second son). I'm trying to make sense of your arguments but you are all over the place man.

 

[VFX_Veteran]

Why would a game like Uncharted 4 need dynamic day cycles? You said you were interested in going into real-time rendering but you fail to understand the basic principles of real-time rendering in the first place. QB had a reason to use TOD (and the engine was already optimized for that in Alan Wake) as it needed those time traveling sequences. A game like Uncharted doesn't need that. Unity doesn't even have dynamic TOD (like inFAMOUS second son). I'm trying to make sense of your arguments but you are all over the place man.

I agree it doesn't need dynamic day cycles. It doesn't need cans and bottles to obey physics either, but it's there. DriveClub didn't need dynamic TOD either (look at all the other games before it where TOD was fixed and people were ok with that). My point is, there isn't much rendering innovation used in UC4 so why call it such a technical achievement? Simply put, where's the beef?

Btw, I understand that reaching a target FPS is #1 priority. Eventually, hardware will be powerful enough that making it look physically correct will be #1 because we'll have much more ms at our disposal. I won't need to become expertly fluent in RT graphics as the merger of film and RT is inevitable. We picked up UE4 in house and one of our Look Dev Sups (that sits beside me) was tasked to make a shot we rendered in Renderman look similar in UE4. He literally is frustrated at the hardware limitations.. take real fur and converting it to sprite cards, baking every lighting feature down in that shot.. I can imagine the frustration.. but eventually we'll get more powerful hardware and the way game artists work now will change to more offline-centric workflows.

 

[Clukos]

I agree it doesn't need dynamic day cycles. It doesn't need cans and bottles to obey physics either, but it's there. DriveClub didn't need dynamic TOD either (look at all the other games before it where TOD was fixed and people were ok with that). My point is, there isn't much rendering innovation used in UC4 so why call it such a technical achievement? Simply put, where's the beef?

Let's keep that discussion for after finishing the entire game. From what I've seen the innovation is in the way it handles draw distance and pop-in, which is one of the best implementations in video games today imo. Then you got the super clean IQ produced by a very good AA solution, plus a wealth of material shaders that exceeds The Order in variety and potentially quality too (need to see the final game). Seamless transitions between entire levels during real-time cutscenes (something no other game does, not even The Order). And probably many other things we don't know yet. Oh, and probably the most physically accurate human animation system in a third person shooter. It definitely doesn't innovate everywhere, but to say it doesn't do anything new is naive.

If you don't mind getting spoiled about early gameplay scenarios also watch this: https://gfycat.com/BlankOrnateFlyingfox

Can you bring an example of another game doing what is happening in the water dynamically? Also notice how the smoke trail is properly lit in those moving objects.

 

[VFX_Veteran]

Let's keep that discussion for after finishing the entire game. From what I've seen the innovation is in the way it handles draw distance and pop-in, which is one of the best implementations in video games today imo. Then you got the super clean IQ produced by a very good AA solution, plus a wealth of material shaders that exceeds The Order in variety and potentially quality too (need to see the final game).

I wouldn't make that statement at all until we get the final game.

Oh, and probably the most physically accurate human animation system in a third person shooter.

This was never debated. I agree. I want to focus on "rendering" innovations.

Can you bring an example of another game doing what is happening in the water dynamically? Also notice how the smoke trail is properly lit in those moving objects.

I don't want to be spoiled by the game so I'll just guess that AC:Black Flag has the best surface water rendering I've seen. Batman: AK also has some incredible water.

 

[Clukos]

I can safely say that neither B:AK nor Black Flag were doing what's in that gif, i also tried to search for other games and found no answer. Halo 3 did some sort of approximation though.

 

[AlNom]

Can you bring an example of another game doing what is happening in the water dynamically? Also notice how the smoke trail is properly lit in those moving objects.

AC 4?

 

[Clukos]

AC 4?

Spoiler

I meant with dynamic light sources affecting it inside, not just the surface shader.

Obviously the only possible way for that to happen in AC4 is during naval warfare, i don't think it does though.