Uncharted 4: A Thief's End [PS4]
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Some new tidbits from the Shader artist, claiming everything we've seen are real time in game etc.
http://www.dualshockers.com/2014/12...-were-made-shows-direct-feed-wip-screenshots/
Still need to work on that environment lighting tho.
http://www.dualshockers.com/2014/12...-were-made-shows-direct-feed-wip-screenshots/
Still need to work on that environment lighting tho.
Huh? Is today opposite day? You can't be any more wrong. In the U4 demo, the lighting is direct sunlight + skylight. See the hard shadows -
http://images.gamenguide.com/data/images/full/18409/uncharted-4.jpg?w=720
http://ps4daily.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/Uncharted-4-fight.png
In The Tomorrow Children, especially the picture I linked to, it's all soft light, though with a brighter side representing a large area light. See the soft shadows.
And the depth in TTC comes from the secondary illumination (and shadowing). Whether brightly lit or softly lit, it's always about the secondary illumination giving shape to form. If it wasn't, we wouldn't be seeing progress towards including secondary illumination in games and being impressed with how realistic it makes everything look.
Billy Idol
Legend
This is an interesting read about color grading applied to the (first gameplay release without color correction I suppose):
http://www.adammyhill.com/blog/
http://www.adammyhill.com/blog/
VFX_Veteran
Regular
If there was ONLY a hemisphere light from the U4 demo, then you'd get soft-shadows due to the environment being a real area light (which is not happening in a videogame). There has to be a direct light (representing the sun) in that demo because there are shadows. I just don't see any self-occlusion on Drake in the U4 demo which would him more shape and help it not look so flat.
I think he was refering to what Anthony Vaccaro said, namely --- and I quote "1.Time of day is different in both. – Our first trailer is at night, moonlight. Our gameplay demo is early morning. So the moonlight is slightly over exaggerated to give more contrast to give it that night feeling but enough light so you can see whats going on. Dawn is not a time of day where you have a lot of contrast."
So even if there is direct sunlight + skylight, the effect is obviously toned back accoarding to Vaccaro compared to the E3 teaser where the single lightsource (the moon) results in a more pronounced effect/contrast.
VFX_Veteran
Regular
A lot of games have "ambient" light. They are called environment lights in the film industry. I believe games use spherical harmonics to represent the HDR image that gets evaluated in the direct lighting. It is still a direct light source.. just without the soft shadows.
Whatever Vaccaro said about the demo's lighting, it's obvious there's a direct light source creating hard shadows.
Again, it's not about contrast but secondary illumination. Look at the E3 trailer with only one light source, yet the scene, and Drake, is very nicely lit all over thanks to reflected (and maybe additional 'ambient') light.
I never said there wasn't. I was just relaying the information on what Vaccaro said in direct reply to those comparing presicely those two scenes (like you are). IMO there are various factors contributing to what we are seeing and picking up on;
1.) some are judging the scene through highly compressed footage (YT) with possibly unaccurate colour so some of the more finer details like secondary ambient lighting is even less pronounced than in a setting where the primary light source is stronger or more exaggerated (like the teaser scene).
2.) the teaser is at night, so any effect one direct light source or secondary illumination will have, it will be more pronounced and much better visible, even if it's a subtle effect. I would expect a daytime scene to mask this subtler effect much more, hence why we might not be able to pin-point in through highly compressed feeds.
3.) it is a long gameplay trailer. Has dynamic day-night cycle been confirmed? Maybe the light source is moving, i.e. at the beginning of the gameplay footage, the lighting condition is different than at the end? Are we comparing like with like?
1.) some are judging the scene through highly compressed footage (YT) with possibly unaccurate colour so some of the more finer details like secondary ambient lighting is even less pronounced than in a setting where the primary light source is stronger or more exaggerated (like the teaser scene).
2.) the teaser is at night, so any effect one direct light source or secondary illumination will have, it will be more pronounced and much better visible, even if it's a subtle effect. I would expect a daytime scene to mask this subtler effect much more, hence why we might not be able to pin-point in through highly compressed feeds.
3.) it is a long gameplay trailer. Has dynamic day-night cycle been confirmed? Maybe the light source is moving, i.e. at the beginning of the gameplay footage, the lighting condition is different than at the end? Are we comparing like with like?
upnorthsox
Veteran
The last two really capture what's being talked about here:
Just the color correction gets you about 3/4 of the way. Add in some secondary illumination for better overall depth as Shifty suggested and this would really pop!
I'm not comparing those two scenes. Scofield said ambient lighting was dull. I'm pointing out that 1) UC4 has clear, direct light, not just ambient, and 2) Ambient lighting isn't 'dull', citing The Tomorrow Children as an example of how subtle ambient lighting looks fabulous when the secondary illumination is well implemented. It could be exactly the same lighting engine in effect for all I know in both E3 trailer and PSX gameplay, but it does look different, just as DriveClub's lighting engine looks different in sunlight and rain. And there's no denying DC looks way better in the rain than in the sunlight.
That Tomorrow Children shot is just unbelievable. They almost achieve that photorealistic shot of two puppets with (plastic) fruit and all that. Never seen something like that in realtime in a game. And I bet it takes so many resources to achieve that look that we won't get it in many games, surely not ones with the scale of UC4.
jeez, hard to believe it's the same game.By contrast, harsh direct lighting utterly brings out Driveclub's worst in some environments, especially where it wants to handle lots of fine details
There are a lot of factors.
Indeed. Puts it into perspective what we are 'nitpicking' about, especially in regards to the two scenes. I still maintain that the teaser did an exceptional job of portraying what their engine is capable of, but at the same time, it may also have raised expectations to a level that is perhaps too high to achieve in segments where they are targeting the scale, foliage and gameplay enhancements they showed off in the gameplay reveal. If it is indeed identical engine with give or take equal assets that were used in both the E3 teaser and the gameplay teaser - the former being a polished directed cut-scene, the latter a rough first-look at a playable segment of a different part of the game - we can look forward to more polish and perhaps other areas of the game that will be closer to what 'wowed' in the teaser.
Shifty; Fair enough. The discussion the last few pages (and what ever you chimed in with when bringing up the Tomorrow Children) stems from people comparing the gameplay segment to the E3 teaser. That is what has brought this line of discussion. People have since been nitpicking about the lighting differences and extrapolating this into either "downgrade" or the opposite argument that the footage looks different for various reasons (namely the ones I pointed out). While your picture of Tomorrow Children does prove your stance that ambient lighting doesn't have to be dull, it's IMO a bit of an unfair comparison; We are effectively comparing a rather simple scene with bland colour-palet to something from an - again - highly compressed frame out of a gameplay segment of a very complex and colourful environment. Coming back to teaser vs. gameplay segment, what we are seeing in the teaser is easily spotable due to the night-time setting, in the latter, it's not (even if it's there), not because it may be completely absent, but because the complexity of the environment, the lighting and the fact that we are looking at highly compressed videofeed (with possibly uncorrected colour) might be masking it. Yes, it could look better, but I'm still open to if that is due to it being completely turned off or if there are various factors contributing to what we are (not) seeing.
Absolutely. The game is effectively built around the lighting model. It's not in any way a reasonable target for other games, certainly not UC4. It's only proof that ambient != dull. What we can hope for is some suitable fakes on characters that give a realistic sense of secondary illumination, especially when devs get a handle on compute based renderers. Even if it doesn't make it into UC4, I'm sure ND's later games will do something clever in that respect.
There's definitely secondary illumination in effect in the gameplay, but it's off. As I observed earlier in the thread, one very apparent place it should be is when Drake's climbing the sunlit side of the rock. There should be loads of lighting bouncing back to illuminate his front-side even though it's shadowed from the direct lightsource. But my issue isn't with the nitpicky analysis, but the visceral response. In the trailer, thanks no doubt to it's artistic framing, every effect was beautifully obvious and apparent, and made something that looked like CG. No-one had to consider the light source and reflected light when viewing drake lying on the sand because the end result was so natural, it just worked. Come the game, it doesn't have the same CG vibe and cohesiveness, which causes people to question what's different. Which are then discussed.
Things like the DC example puts into perspective how the same game in different lighting conditions produces different results, some more impressive than others. Ergo, it's quite possible that the gameplay is the same tech as the trailer but producing different results. Not unlike racing games where a close-up of a car can make it look photoreal, whereas a chase-cam can make it look very much like a computer game. Maybe even the context of the visuals affects psychological perception, and having a chase cam immediately 'degrades' the visuals when it comes to interpretation?
VFX_Veteran
Regular
I'm getting confused with you guy's terminology.
Ambient lighting is considered light from the environment correct? So if I had a sky that was red with grey clouds and no direct light source, my character would get red with parts of grey all around his body.
Indirect lighting (i.e. what TTC is doing and DriveClub) is secondary illumination (very expensive to do in real time) -- that is, the sunlight hits a wall, and the wall bounces this light to the character who is standing in shadow and he still gets lit. I believe most games use light probes that represent the bounced illumination and just evaluate the lighting equation for each triangle based on the how close it is to the proximity of the light probes. I can see this in the UC4 footage where he picks up a green hue from the plants.
I believe the image that was color corrected basically filled in the "sky" ambient contribution that's missing in the shadowed areas making the image seem more real (i.e. DC and TTC and many other games).
Is this what you guys are saying?
Ambient lighting is considered light from the environment correct? So if I had a sky that was red with grey clouds and no direct light source, my character would get red with parts of grey all around his body.
Indirect lighting (i.e. what TTC is doing and DriveClub) is secondary illumination (very expensive to do in real time) -- that is, the sunlight hits a wall, and the wall bounces this light to the character who is standing in shadow and he still gets lit. I believe most games use light probes that represent the bounced illumination and just evaluate the lighting equation for each triangle based on the how close it is to the proximity of the light probes. I can see this in the UC4 footage where he picks up a green hue from the plants.
I believe the image that was color corrected basically filled in the "sky" ambient contribution that's missing in the shadowed areas making the image seem more real (i.e. DC and TTC and many other games).
Is this what you guys are saying?
L. Scofield
Veteran
Couldn't you find worse U4 screenshots?Huh? Is today opposite day? You can't be any more wrong. In the U4 demo, the lighting is direct sunlight + skylight. See the hard shadows -
http://images.gamenguide.com/data/images/full/18409/uncharted-4.jpg?w=720
http://ps4daily.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/Uncharted-4-fight.png
In The Tomorrow Children, especially the picture I linked to, it's all soft light, though with a brighter side representing a large area light. See the soft shadows.
And the depth in TTC comes from the secondary illumination (and shadowing). Whether brightly lit or softly lit, it's always about the secondary illumination giving shape to form. If it wasn't, we wouldn't be seeing progress towards including secondary illumination in games and being impressed with how realistic it makes everything look.
Your comparison is ridiculous in the first place because you're comparing a completely white environment lit mostly by a strong directional light that bounces off of strongly colored objects to a scene with dark albedo materials lit mostly by a hemisphere light.
Couldn't be a worse comparison to be honest.
U4 is using the same simplified indirect shadow model from TLoU. The flatness comes from being strongly lit by the hemisphere light (and the low contrast of the video).
I hadn't seen those comments but yes, that's what I meant.
The TTC screenshot isn't realtime. It's a target render.
http://fumufumu.q-games.com/archives/Cascaded_Voxel_Cone_Tracing_final_speaker_notes.pdf
Pages 5 and 6.
Direct lighting is composed by light sources like the sun or lamps.
Ambient lighting is all the indirect lighting. For example, the skylight is sunlight bouncing off from the atmosphere. Since it comes from every direction from the upper hemisphere it makes the environments look quite flat.
The U4 demo occurs in an overcast dawn, so you get dim sunlight and strong ambient lighting.
Yes, I could have found worse screenshots. I picked these to highlight the differences. I picked a U4 screenshot that showcases the clear presence of direct light, instead of picking one of the screenshots where Drake is in the jungle and the direct light occluded.
It showcases that ambient light != dull. If ambient light == dull, a game (or render) lit almost entirely of ambient light would look dull, whereas it looks spectacular and beautiful.
Firstly, there are plenty of moments in direct sunlight, so it's not "mostly lit by the hemisphere light". Secondly, the issue is mostly one of the lighting being wrong. The first minute of climbing in the jungle, the lighting's clearly off, with Nate's trousers being illuminated on the wrong side and/or by occluded light sources. In fact it's when he's only lit by the skylight that it breaks the most. eg.
Here, Drake's lit only by ambient light, on a wall opposed to the sun direction. He should be very flatly lit (though still with subtle shading which the old-school fixed illumination of 'ambient' couldn't recreate, from the sky above and the reflected light from behind) but instead he's got exaggerated contrast, even around his crotch which is heavily occluded from all sides (not visible in this grab).
The lighting method is a WIP, seems to me. But importantly, in the trailer it was perfect, whether because it was set up to be perfect for that particular fraction of the level or because it was doing something the gameplay isn't. It's certainly possible that the gameplay was showcased on a level where the lighting had been thrown together without full and correct lightmaps being created.
That's untrue. The basis of Ambient Occlusion is how the hemispherical light source of the sky still shades. Even without secondary lighting, a reasonable hemispherical lighting model can produce fabulously convincing results with depth.
http://drolph.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/displacement-map-ambient-occlusion.html
The only time ambient light is going to look flat is if you are a effectively sampling it as uniform value (same intensity from all direction) and just applying a constant illumination value to surfaces, which is a technique employed for decades and very archaic and not at all convincing. There's no way the graphics wizards at ND would be doing that!
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