Wow the people here talking of the first unchy 3 videos how the definitive code ... I'm mean, after the GOW 3 difference with the final build and the demo, someone try again to judging the flaws of unchy 3 how definitive? I'm pretty laugh when the game coming out to see the differences of the post...
Uncharted 3
- Thread starter corduroygt
- Start date
It's even in their promo shots. Also on moving character in sunlight. Maybe time for a new monitor?
http://www.abload.de/img/sullyshoot4d4j.jpg
http://www.abload.de/img/grabkickjc03.jpg
Ah! Ok, now I see what the fuss is about, still, don't get what the fuss is about though
Looks good to me and don't see how blooming the lighting that falls in the character model in for example this picture would improve it, other than make it more washed out 
http://i53.tinypic.com/23kbzhu.jpg
I still see it as a matter of taste.
Or am I missing something?
I'm not sure I understand why the presence of bloom would help with overblown or brightly lit materials. All that bloom does is blur the brightness beyond the boundary of the object being affected creating a glow effect. A higher precision buffer would allow for tighter control of the bloom distance* whilst maintaining original detail near the brightly lit surfaces without washing out the rest of the frame.
We can already see some limitations with the bloom used here when Drake starts getting the orange glow from the fire. I'm quite curious as to how much they save by switching to RGBM versus the logluv HDR encoding/decoding as used in the first game, especially now that they're making heavier use of the SPUs.
*when masking out the objects for the bloom operation, these are objects beyond a certain brightness, for example.
L. Scofield
Veteran
Bloom simply makes the scene look natural. Having such a brightly lit area with no bloom looks bad and fake.
This is a ridiculous analogy. Sure, it's going to improve, but there's a huge difference between building onto an already established engine (Uncharted 3) and building and engine from scratch (GOW 3).
L. Scofield
Veteran
Yep, but it looks more natural and pleasing to the eye. Graphics (realistic specially) aren't about practicality.In Uncharted 2 when you have lighting that strong bloom doesn't do it any favors. It just makes you see even less detail:
Besides, I don't remember anybody complaining about this with Uncharted 1/2.
That's because it only appeared that strong in the bright snow levels, where it did look natural.
You can manually adjust the sun strength to look like that in the cinema, as I did in that first image. If you were to zoom out of that shot, it wouldn't look right (it is technically a snow level but it has more of a dark brown theme due to the temple design and the large mountain that doesn't mesh too well with overblown bloom).
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All my shots are from the cinema mode which only works for multiplayer maps(hope this changes with U3).
Google turns this up though..
(looking at the above, U3 could really use some AF too
)
Are you saying there's no difference between technical choices like rendering resolutions and artistic choices like motion blur? I think your confusing over-rationalized arguments with rational responses to a poorly considered phrase.
No, because AA and IQ features are technical. You'd always want those as high as you can possibly make them. Whether you colour your space-marines blue or brown isn't a technical choice but an artistic one; you wouldn't complain about the team's technical competance if they choose to create a brown universe. Whether you render 1280x720 or 640x480 is a technical choice. If you use low-res particle buffers, that's a technical choice. If you add lens flare or film grain, those are artistic choices. Perhaps the resource budget will be so tight you cannot implement one of these artistic features, but no-one is going to complain about a game not having film grain as if it were some technical shortcoming.
You're right, it may not be. That's subjective.
What definition are you using? Photorealistic means trying to reproduce the look of a photo. ND's choice of clearly handpainted and hand-designed everything is not in any way trying to recreate a photo. It's more like a graphic novel. IIRC they even said as much once.
Yes, and if someone is wanting to try to recreate a camera look, they may want to add bloom. But then they may choose not to.
I'm not going to thrash this out any more. I wasn't making remark in favour or against ND's choices. I was only pointing out your assertion they are going for photorealism and so need to recreate real-world effects is plain wrong. If you want to rephrase your opinion to something like, "ND are trying to create a style of a realstic camera filming a fantastically coloured world, and so should be aiming to capture optical effects like DOF, lens flare, and HDR glow," then I'll nod in agreement. However, you cannot look at a computer game that is clearly not trying to recreate the real world in the same vein as a realistic racer, and expect it to use real-world effects. I trust you don't begrudge the lack of bloom or DOF in something like Okami. A stylised renderer is free from the constraints of real-world optics, so the artists are free to go with whatever look they want. If they choose a clinical look for a sense of the artifical, or a graphic novel look that's fairly realistic but lacks bloom, or some new hybrid graphic-novel/Hollywood blockbuster look picking and choosing style components from each, that's their call. You may like or dislike the results, but the artist knows what look they want and it's down to them to choose. You are free to say you'd prefer the look with bloom, but don't confuse your preferences with absolute authority and claim it's wrong for ND to include bloom in their choice of rendering style.
How are glowing people or fabric more natural
It just needs to be sutble bloom unless the bloom quality is really 'elcheapo'. It's like spherical harmonics in ME2 which gives a very subtle sheen on characters when they get lit (default value or around that). Same on some scenes surfaces. Makes surface lit look more natural with "light bouncing off" especially if lighting system makes surfaces white crush or the tonemapping. BFBC2 pulls it all off very nicely in most cases.
Like here on the cap.
http://img299.imageshack.us/img299/546/bfbc2pcdx10.jpg
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L. Scofield
Veteran
There's bloom at the top of the picture where it's most bright.
Let's see. Environment design goes for a realistic look, so does character models, animations, texturing, lighting, physics, etc... They may tweak it a bit to achieve a stylized look but the core aim is realism. That much is obvious from just looking at the games where they use GI, HDR with eye adaptation, SSS, etc...
AND they DO use bloom for bright surfaces both in Uncharted 1, Uncharted 2 and in the trailer for Uncharted 3. They fact that it appears in the latter is proof that they rendering choices include bloom, but for some reason is not apparent in realtime gameplay either because of bugs of technical limitations (3D is not cheap).
And that surface is nowhere near as bright as those shown in the gameplay videos.
The art card doesn't really hold in this case.
Oh and your distinction between technical and artistic is weird. A developer can choose to use a lower rendering resolution to provide a softer look while at the same time saving performance. Motion blur is both technical and artistic as well. If a developer chooses to implement MB it can be analyzed, criticized and compared to other methods (e.g, capcom's vs guerilla's). The same holds true for HDR, GI and any other graphical effects.
Other things can be both technical and artistic like framerate and tearing (Crysis uses it when you're hit).
Exactly.
Exactly the same realistic look, character models, 'animations', texturing, lighting, can go into a graphic novel, but the artist may choose to keep just the high-contrast of no simulated optical effects.
I'm not using the art card to explain the absence of bloom. I'm pointing out the photorealism card can't be used to criticise the absence of bloom.
The absence of bloom in this case is, going by ND's choices in previous games, likely just a lack of implementation/tweaking at this point, and I expect it to feature along wtih other effects that make the Uncharted games so nice to look at. IMO. Still, if they choose to go more graphic novel with it, and maybe introduce some cel-shading outlines, sort of Borderlands-y, they could choose to drop bloom purely for artistic reasons.
L. Scofield
Veteran
To be honest nothing in the Uncharted games graphics seems cartoony to me. Everything seems aimed at graphical realism. Sure, textures are handpainted but that really doesn't mean anything. Most graphical assets are hand made in most games even for those shooting for photorealism.
Naughty Dog has definately dedicated some research into camera effects to use in their games, specially HDR:
http://www.slideshare.net/ozlael/hable-john-uncharted2-hdr-lighting
Simply calling it an art decision seems like a cop out, specially when we see the prerendered footage (that of course doesn't have the realtime limitations) doing it right.
Those non-bloom whites make the game look as if it had HDR turned off. Not a good thing.
If you compare the lighting and textures of Crysis 1 and Uncharted 2 you'll see the former is definitely rendered with photo realism in mind. UC games never tried to emphasize the extreme sharpness of the textures on the character's face where a more realistic game would benefit from. ND uses some kind of soft lighting effect to the scene and more saturated colors in their textures so that the game doesn't feel so gritty or faded like the real world even though they may use similar techniques to create photorealism.
Not cartoony. Fine art, hand-painted. Are you telling me when you look at screenshots like this, you see something closer to a photograph than a painting? The style is definitely not trying to recreate a photograph, but go for an artistic look.
That doesn't preclude camera effects. That doesn't preclude bloom, or make it a necessary addition. The joy of computer games is developers are free to mix and match styles to come up with something that works well (for them, as they choose the look).
