Uncharted 4: A Thief's End [PS4]

[Shifty Geezer]

Thanks Laa-Yosh. I always think (with my untrained eyes) that faces in bright light are much more difficult to make right...could it also be that the reveal trailer with its darker light conditions also helped quite a lot to make it more impressive?

With bright lights, secondary illumination becomes all the more important. In overcast lighting or low lighting, lack of illumination in the shadows isn't a problem.

Very few games are getting the secondary illumination on the characters AFAICS. I guess I'm now looking to that for the real 'next-gen' look. A complete lighting model is necessary to move towards 'CGI' type realism. Anything still using simpler lighting models is going to look a little retro to me, but realistically the consoles might not have the juice to really advance the lighting models. It'll be very interesting to see if software magic can make it happen with compute.

 

[DavidGraham]

In a way, the demo flips our expectations somewhat. Naughty Dog may simply be keeping its powder dry for now, but the visuals seen in this gameplay segment aren't quite the jaw-dropping spectacle we had hoped for based on the immense promise of the E3 teaser. Clearly, the slice of gameplay seen here is very attractive, if a bit subdued overall. However, we are surprised by the large number of meaningful changes to the gameplay that the studio is showcasing in this segment. First impressions might suggest a visually upgraded 1080p Uncharted experience - something we would relish - but could it be that the real generational leap lies in how it plays?

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/d...ed-4-the-generational-leap-we-were-hoping-for

while lighting and shading lack the sense of realism presented in the teaser

It's not helped by the fact that so many of these areas appear to lack proper occlusion properties, with bits and pieces fitting together without any sort of contact shadow.

 

[Scott_Arm]

The only real issue I have with what they've shown is the incredibly flat ground. It looks so arfiticial. You're scaling a rocky surface and climb onto a ledge that looks like it's been laser leveled.

 

[DieH@rd]

POM [or some other height displacement effect] on the ground is the only thing I would like to be added.

Still everything is amazing, even for a 30fps game.

 

[RenegadeRocks]

Watching the Gamersyde 1.6 gb video right now, can't help but marvel at the textures on Drake's face and hands ! The amazing texture worl on all rocks ! Wow ! The game is beautiful ! just fix the contrast.

I am guessing end of 2015 ...wish it was sooner, though. I hope MGS releases soon

 

[Nesh]

The case of Uncharted reminds me a lot of MGS4's case. When MGS4 was revealed at TGS, Kojima's demo was running at 60fps with much better shadows, lighting effects and speculars/reflections in some areas. The game trailer itself noted 60fps. The final game although looking good came very short on what was promised.

Uncharted4's case is so similar. Gone are the high precision lighting effects, shadows and the impression of a more dense world in terms of geometry that were so striking in the 60fps trailer. The flatness of the rocks were hitting me like a hammer when I saw the gameplay.

Not that the game doesnt look good. But I hate it when they get me excited over the roof and then show me something that is steps below.

There is only one developer that did the opposite of that and that was Santa Monica's GOD 3 (Edit: oops I ment GOW). Those guys showed us a trailer that looked nice. They give us a demo that looked awesome. And then a full game that was so much polished and improved that I couldnt believe I was playing a PS3. It was like playing on a PS4. I really hope Naughty Dog does the same with what they showed us this weekend

 

[ultragpu]

It's interesting that this gen the only game exceeded its seemingly impossible initial target render is The Order 1886, I mean damn the game has every excuse to not meet the trailer quality but somehow even their first real gameplay footage looked better. I don't know why ND couldn't do it themselves, perhaps Sony really rushed the PSX demo? Anyway ND has a tall order to reach, no puns, I hope to see major improvements at E3 2015.

 

[chris1515]

I wait to see the final game but it is impressive for a pre alpha game. If they succeed to progress like Ready At Dawn have done with the final build it will be very good. I think show the target render was an error and is not possible on PS4...

 

[Deleted member 11852]

It's interesting that this gen the only game exceeded its seemingly impossible initial target render is The Order 1886, I mean damn the game has every excuse to not meet the trailer quality but somehow even their first real gameplay footage looked better.

Let's not jump the gun, The Order 1886 isn't out yet and Uncharted is probably 11 months away. I am very much looking forward to the The Order 1886, it's very much my type of game and set in my home town too, but I recall the initial gameplay footage causing concern for some, like IGN's Colin Moriarty. I'm an ecstatic that recent gameplay report that the technical issues are well under control but don't forgot - in an increasing trend this generation - the release date was bumped. This is of course TheRightDecision(tm).

There's no right answer but would you rather have great, smooth framerate and a year to polish the rendering (U4), or have great rendering and have to fix the technical issues affecting framerate (TO1886)? Personally, I'm just looking forward the proliferation of what looks like great third person shooters in 2015 Plus Tomb Raider because I'll definitely have One by then.

 

[chris1515]

I'm told ACU is almost working by now so it's kinda starting to become fair...

(sorry couldn't resist )

I keep asking myself what can do Naughty Dog on a PS4 title if they decide to target 900p, FXAA and an average framerate of 25 fps with dips to 20 fps...

 

[Ethatron]

Like, even in PBR you use two separate models for dielectric materials (metals) and insulators (wood, cloth, skin etc).

I'm sorry to correct you on this: metals are conductors (they conduct electricity), a dielectric is an insulator. We normally use the terms conductor and dielectric for metal and non-metal, Sebastien uses the terms conductor and insulator .

 

[TomRL]

There's still hope for change, look at this Uncharted reveal trailer.

 

[chris1515]

There's still hope for change, look at this Uncharted reveal trailer.

The final game will be much better. I watched again the Order 1886 reveal and the game visuals are much better now.

 

[Laa-Yosh]

I'm sorry to correct you on this: metals are conductors (they conduct electricity), a dielectric is an insulator. We normally use the terms conductor and dielectric for metal and non-metal, Sebastien uses the terms conductor and insulator .

Actually, thanks for correcting me - it was kinda late here when I wrote that and of course I messed it up

 

[Shortbread]

Umm, I own the PC edition and the characters are still visually a step or two down from what UC4 has shown, IMHO.

 

[Gitaroo]

unity still runs like crap on my 670, hardeven even consider fixed. Skin doesn't looks as detail either.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

There's still hope for change, look at this Uncharted reveal trailer.

Absolutely! Not just hope, but there will definitely be improvements. The only real question is if ND went overboard with the reveal trailer and won't really be able to capture that in the final game.

I'm reminded of EA's next-gen madden from 2005, and I'm thinking we won't even get that this gen. ND maybe have been a bi Guerilla in their targets, or maybe they'll do ND Magic and pull the reveal quality off in the end (maybe in another game or two after UC4)?

 

[AlNom]

I trust ND will do what they can to hit 60fps.

Perhaps they will also consider what more to do with a 30fps mode ala TLOU.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

Absolutely! Not just hope, but there will definitely be improvements. The only real question is if ND went overboard with the reveal trailer and won't really be able to capture that in the final game.

I for one would be astonished (and very disappointed) if Naughty Dog have oversold the graphical fidelity of the final game. Being home to Sony's ICE Team, they should have a better grasp than most devs of where the PS4 will be in a year's time. It may be the reveal easier is representative of what the PS4, using a future SDK, will deliver but right now the demo is where it's at.

We frequently overlook the optimisations that new SDKs and firmware bring, often focussing on overt feature like media playback, but these developments can be significant. It's very cool we have both the reveal trailer and the gameplay shown at the weekend - it'll make for a very interesting reflective article from Digital Foundry once the game is launched

 

[Laa-Yosh]

Umm, I own the PC edition and the characters are still visually a step or two down from what UC4 has shown, IMHO.

That's probably more about your tastes and such.

Unity's characters, except for the two leads, are near 1:1 implementations of scans from real living humans. They'r full of subtle touches of life in their faces and the extremely realistic lighting makes them look very real. Arno is very likely based on our original character sculpt (as he looks very similar) and I believe Elise is a heavily modified scan of a real person. My only other suspect from the supporting cast is Napoleon, who's probably also an original sculpt or a modified scan, as in his case Ubi obviously wanted to go for a likeness of the old paintings. Still,all of the characters are very well done, the facial animation is a big step up from AC4, and cutscenes are very movie-like, also because of the lighting.

UC4's characters however are probably all hand crafted, and as amazingly talented ND's artists are, you can still easily tell that they're not real people. The lighting is a bit simplistic as well, probably because they're still aiming for 60fps and have to take some shortcuts for efficiency. But once again, they're absolutely top quality, I don't know if there's any other game studio with such a level of artistry.
What they certainly have on ACU is that the game renders at 1080p with very nice antialiasing and there's a lot of high frequency skin pore detail in the textures, accentuated by the high specularity and the renderer brings out those details very sharply. I don't want to sound like I'm trying to degrade it, but it's a visual 'trick' to push the results. People are right noticing that it's reminiscent of FFTSW, where the same technique was used to 'sell' the characters. It's a very conscious artistic choice which you may or may not like, but it doesn't make the faces more real or lifelike or convincing IMHO. But that is good, the jump from previous games is still quite large and very near the limit of turning Drake unrecognizable and maybe even a bit creepy. Had they gone with scanned faces, it'd feel very weird and disconnected from UC3.

All in all I wouldn't say that there's a great gap between the two games' assets, the difference has to do a lot more with art direction.