Uncharted 4: A Thief's End [PS4]

[VFX_Veteran]

The game is unbelievably good looking, the way cutscene transits to gameplay is seamless without any visible quality loss, Photomode is gonna be so fun with this game.

But there is really a transition. Nake looks 3-4x worse while controlling him than the cinematics.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

But there is really a transition. Nake looks 3-4x worse while controlling him than the cinematics.

He's also about that much smaller.

 

[AlNom]

He's also about that much smaller.

It's how you control it anyway.

 

[Laa-Yosh]

I'm kinda disappointed - if anyone here should know the realities of a project, it should be you. Budgets and schedules and resources are all limited, and yet people are expected to deliver impossible numbers of assets - so you have to make compromises. And you know most people won't look at the background assets but will remember any flaw in the lead ones.

 

[Laa-Yosh]

But there is really a transition. Nake looks 3-4x worse while controlling him than the cinematics.

Yeah that's actually very evident, but hey, the player's supposed to be fighting for dear life during gameplay...

 

[orangpelupa]

Btw the graphics is obviously Superb but their cinematography is crazy too. I don't think any other developers can achieve that.

Heck, even bungie that so adamant of telling story through gameplay and environment is far below uncharted series in my opinion. Drake animation conveys story and emotion. The way he interacts with surroundings... The surrounding/level that interact with gameplay and give its own mini story / flavor.

Now hoping they used more real-time cutscene than pre rendered. I don't think it will be as lean as mgsv but any GB saved is nice (planning to buy the digital version because Sony games usually around 10-20 dollars cheaper digital)

 

[Laa-Yosh]

All cutscenes are realtime now. Would rather not talk more about where I've learned this though.

Edit: please don't repost it anywhere or stuff

 

[orangpelupa]

Nice! Hopefully the photo mode also works on cutscene. Like the photo mode on pc Witcher 3.

 

[DieH@rd]

f

All cutscenes are realtime now.

I really think ND openly talked about realtime cutscenes during/after last years PSX gameplay presentation. NX gamer proved it by showcasing one brief drop to 29fps when Sam appeared at the end of that demo [and the lack of any video artifacting or asset changes].

As for temporal aliasing/bluring, I somehow think that artifacts are somehow intensified by bad video encoding. I could easily be wrong on that, but for now that is my theory.

 

[Rikimaru]

ND talked about realtime cutscenes for a long time.

Nice! Hopefully the photo mode also works on cutscene. Like the photo mode on pc Witcher 3.

Sometimes scene missing a lot outside view. I think camera view will be locked in cutscenes.

 

[Karamazov]

Nice! Hopefully the photo mode also works on cutscene. Like the photo mode on pc Witcher 3.

i don't think we'll be able to move the camera during cutscenes photomode, maybe just playing with zoom and DOF etc... like in the order.

 

[Karamazov]

Yeah that's actually very evident, but hey, the player's supposed to be fighting for dear life during gameplay...

would be a waste of ressources, even in the order you can see the LOD transition on characters during photo mode by slowly zooming on them.

 

[Laa-Yosh]

LOD transitions are a different issue. VFX Veteran was talking about a general lack of detail and polish in background assets, those wouldn't get better no matter where you put the camera.

 

[VFX_Veteran]

I'm kinda disappointed - if anyone here should know the realities of a project, it should be you. Budgets and schedules and resources are all limited, and yet people are expected to deliver impossible numbers of assets - so you have to make compromises. And you know most people won't look at the background assets but will remember any flaw in the lead ones.

Was this directed at me? I'll comment anyway..

I think for a game of this caliber, all the assets should at least be as detailed as other games. W3, Batman AK, Dying Light, The Order, etc.. all have more detailed NPCs and some even have more detailed set pieces. I'm willing to bet that UC4's budget trumps them all.. It's clear that they focused more on the gameplay aspects of the game (collision detection, superb animation, procedural destruction, animated textures/FX, AI, etc..) as opposed to the visuals. Which is fine by me because the gameplay will definitely have more spice to it compared to the past UC games.

 

[Laa-Yosh]

Yeah it was meant for you. And I believe UC4's hero assets are head and shoulders above all the other games you've mentioned, both technically and artistically.
I'm also not sure about budgets - the sums might be in the same range but I'd argue that ND gives you a LOT more in the overall experience. Set pieces in particular have to be incredibly demanding, with all the crazy amount of stuff going on; but UC games have always been about some crazy globe-trotting, so it's not like the devs are constrained to a single city like in Batman AK or The Order. And of course this usually means plenty of different costumes for the main characters and all.

But comparisons aside, the trade-off between hero and background assets is a challenge that I believe everyone working in DCC has to face every single day. Maybe it's because I'm too faced with such decisions every day that I tend to sympathize with game devs so much; and I imagine it has to be the same with movie VFX as well. So that's why I'm a bit disappointed as I believe expectations are always pretty much impossibly high and something's just has to give...

 

[VFX_Veteran]

Yeah it was meant for you. And I believe UC4's hero assets are head and shoulders above all the other games you've mentioned, both technically and artistically.

With respect to actual gameplay? Definitely disagree there.

I'm also not sure about budgets - the sums might be in the same range but I'd argue that ND gives you a LOT more in the overall experience. Set pieces in particular have to be incredibly demanding, with all the crazy amount of stuff going on; but UC games have always been about some crazy globe-trotting, so it's not like the devs are constrained to a single city like in Batman AK or The Order. And of course this usually means plenty of different costumes for the main characters and all.

Well, it's still inherently a linear experience. Yes, the Order is very linear. And maybe Batman: AK is constrained within a city, but it's still open world. Same with Dying Light and W3, but I digress from the comparisons.

But comparisons aside, the trade-off between hero and background assets is a challenge that I believe everyone working in DCC has to face every single day. Maybe it's because I'm too faced with such decisions every day that I tend to sympathize with game devs so much; and I imagine it has to be the same with movie VFX as well. So that's why I'm a bit disappointed as I believe expectations are always pretty much impossibly high and something's just has to give...

Agreed.

 

[zed]

After viewing that Uncharted video you've gotta applaud, A new gaming benchmark has been reached
It must be demoralizing to some other developers

 

[L. Scofield]

That's the temporal AA.

Looks like they use animation LOD @ 1m22s - the crowd at the far back seems to be updating at half-rate as they duck.

Seems like the same old crap motion blur that they've been using since forever. Time to give Guerilla a call and ask them for their algorithm. The ghosting caused by their AA solution just makes it worse.

Also, I don't think the amount of rigid bodies and breakables is impressive. You could get a comparable level of physical interaction at the first shack in Crysis, a game released 8 years ago with large, free roaming levels.

 

[ultragpu]

But there is really a transition. Nake looks 3-4x worse while controlling him than the cinematics.

OK there may be a transition but it's seamless, by the time they switch the cutscene LOD0 to gameplay LOD1 your view distance would be already much further, so it's pretty redundant if they kept LOD0 in gameplay since you can't see the detail anyway, or another word LOD1 at that distance would look the same as LOD0. And how do you exactly tell it's 3-4 times worse, not even UC3 Drake cutscene model looks 4times better than ingame model.

 

[VFX_Veteran]

OK there may be a transition but it's seamless, by the time they switch the cutscene LOD0 to gameplay LOD1 your view distance would be already much further, so it's pretty redundant if they kept LOD0 in gameplay since you can't see the detail anyway, or another word LOD1 at that distance would look the same as LOD0. And how do you exactly tell it's 3-4 times worse, not even UC3 Drake cutscene model looks 4times better than ingame model.

I'm just noting that gameplay assets always look worse than cinematic assets. You can tell with the materials, lighting, textures, different animation, etc.. Basically Drake doesn't look as well when you are in complete control of him with the joystick and able to move the camera around him at will.