Uncharted 4: A Thief's End [PS4]

[London Geezer]

It's as simple as this:

You have an image with Drake in the foreground and a wall in the background. You want Drake in focus and the background out of focus. You create a mask (literally 'cut' Drake out of the picture) and blur everything but Drake.

Then Drake moves and the edges of that blur filter you just applied to the background 'bleeds' into the character as it moves and so you see the edge going funny.

Some games do the opposite and have a thin layer around the character which is not blurred - before the blur mask 'hits' the background. It's probably to do with the 'thickness' of the filter and the speed with which it is applied to the image.

That's exactly how you would 'fake' DOF in photoshop and one would assume that this is exactly how a post-process effect would be applied in games to get cheap and fast DOF. Only I would also assume that in a game the mask selection would be based on the real depth of the character, as that information is available in the pipeline, and not on colour values as in photoshop.

It's an assumption but I daresay a very informed assumption.

The end

 

[London Geezer]

I am not saying you aren't correct but could you post some examples because the first game i noticed this happening was Until Dawn, maybe i didn't pay attention to other games?

If I see it next time I fire up a game, I'll get an example for you. Not very high in my life priorities but I'll try!

 

[L. Scofield]

Guess we'll know for sure when GDC/Siggraph come around and they have a presentation. And i am not saying it's tessellation, i know what tess is and that's not it :smile:

NXGamer claimed the same thing but that turned out to be shader LOD.

Your GIFs show very well that it's a masking artifact. The only thing affected in them is the background near the silhouette of the shoulder, not the actual shoulder.

 

[AlNom]

Must have been some bad perfume.

 

[Shortbread]

The facial movement, skinning/shader details and constant eye contact looks supernatural... absolutely gorgeous.
http://gifyu.com/images/U4_NadineRoss2.gif

 

[Clukos]

Hmm could it be for performance saving reasons? I can't understand how something so obvious and visible goes over the head of ND, or the guys a Super-massive games. I guess that would make more sense?

 

[London Geezer]

Let's not forget the If I'm right bit - pretty sure I am but I stand to be corrected.

 

[L. Scofield]

Hmm could it be for performance saving reasons? I can't understand how something so obvious and visible goes over the head of ND, or the guys a Super-massive games. I guess that would make more sense?

Just like with the case of motion blur it's pretty clear that ND is skimping on resources for these effects.

 

[Clukos]

http://gfycat.com/GenerousIndolentCentipede



Whoever coded the rope swinging mechanics needs a raise, it's so much fun in the beta :smile:

 

[Clukos]

Let's not forget the If I'm right bit - pretty sure I am but I stand to be corrected.

Yeah what you guys said makes sense (I've played a bit with masks in PS myself, just not professionally). My question is if Horizon exhibits the same visual "error" would it be fair to assume this is done on purpose, or at least that it's done to save perf. I find it very odd that two exclusive games on Ps4 using first party engines would overlook something so obvious(it's something very easy to observe as it is usually in the foreground of each scene). That's why i excluded the most obvious answer in the first place. I think it's fair to say that you are most probably right but we should wait until we know more about the rendering tech behind characters in either Until Dawn, Uncharted or potentially Horizon before saying that's it definitely a masking error.

 

[London Geezer]

I'm sure there would be ways to avoid the bleeding of the blur into in-focus parts that are moving around the screen and I'm pretty sure they would require more juice to me performed so yes, it's probably a performance saving thing.

Also, you zoomed in the picture. It's hardly as visible as I've seen in other games where the effect is a lot messier. This looks much tidier, even if it still happens a little.

 

[Clukos]

This is still pre-release code so things can change as well :smile:

I am hoping for better moblur though, especially at 30 fps it can be a godsend. Bloodborne has a very nice moblur effect and From isn't really known for their technical prowess(frame pacing is still an issue in BB and probably DS3)...

 

[London Geezer]

For all we know, they might implement per object MB in that cutscene which might get rid of that little artifact. Maybe. I'm overreaching, I know.

 

[Clukos]

I think i am getting the hang of this game

After playing about 30-40 games i think i can comment on some gameplay elements

What makes it different:

• Rope swinging is probably the best in any game i played, makes a TPS with great verticality even more fun, you can swing and shoot, swing to traverse faster, swing to higher/lower places, swing to melee someone below (really satisfying )
• Treasure hunting throughout the game means players move around the map a lot, you don't see many people staying in one position for long, everyone is on the move and that makes the game more fun because the maps are very well designed
• Mysticals add that supernatural element to the game very nicely, they are well balanced and really rewarding to use(when you do it correctly)

What it does right:

• Shooting feedback, each gun feels different and really great to use (recoil, gun sounds, range)
• On the topic of sound, the game sounds amazing the firefights have a great punch to them, weapons sound great (better than ever in an Uncharted game), directional audio is very impressive (especially listening to ambient sound and distant firefights), different surfaces have very believable and distinct sound to them
• Game length, my average game length ranges from 7 to 11 minutes. I think this is perfect with how fast paced the game currently is, each game feels unique and you always want to play more

What needs improvement:

• Sidekicks, at this moment sidekicks seem imbalanced. Brutes feel way too OP and teams can spam them together (2-3 brutes at once for example) they have way too much HP and dmg even if they are moving slowly, what this ends up doing is that teams group up around brutes, spawn 2 or 3 together and mow down everything. This is not that much fun imo. Hunters are good enough and Snipers need a buff because they feel really weak.
• Framerate, the game can dip quite a lot in some heavy firefights. The framerate usually dips when there're lots of explosions so i guess alpha effects are the culprit. Out of those specific instances the framerate is a very smooth 60 fps
• Time to find the first match, sometimes it's really fast, sometimes extremely slow. This needs to improve before release imo.

 

[goonergaz]

yeah, pretty much spot on...I struggled to begin with and wasn't feeling it - I was missing the Battlefront simplicity - but then I started figuring it out and quite enjoyed it.

The only issue (for me) is due to the only mode being deathmatch if you go against a good team it's quite demoralising.

Does anyone know if beta players get anything when the games released? (ie does anything carry over)?

 

[L. Scofield]

This is still pre-release code so things can change as well :smile:

I am hoping for better moblur though, especially at 30 fps it can be a godsend. Bloodborne has a very nice moblur effect and From isn't really known for their technical prowess(frame pacing is still an issue in BB and probably DS3)...

I don't think they'll do much with the motion blur anymore. While it looks awful in static screenshots it looks pretty decent in motion. Certainly much better than the E3 build which looked like ghosting. It kept giving me flashbacks to early PS2 games lol.

 

[Clukos]

Holy crap...

>E3 2014, this is the best looking game I've seen. Need uncompressed footage. It doesn't look gamey/cgi-ish, this is the most impressive part.

 

[Clukos]

I love how Sam says "start from the best part" and they give you the option between the three games. It's actively asking the player what his favorite Uncharted game is. And what follows after they picked the first option is a throwback scene to the ending of Uncharted 1(with the boat), followed by the theme. I am pretty sure option 2 or 3 do something similar. This is the best way to do fan service for fans of previous Uncharted games, i love it :smile:

 

[DieH@rd]

[among many other things] I really liked the look of the water wave created by that boat in the harbour. So good.

Naughty Gods indeed.

 

[Clukos]

So much for "under-powered consoles"

Some screens i took from the youtube video (500 kb jpegs so compression is an issue till gamersyde provide better quality)

This whole trailer comes off as a mature use of technology. Nothing out of place, nothing screaming "LOOK! MATERIALS, PBR, NEXT GEN!", everything just sits in place, rendering tech, animation, lighting, dof, shadows. Everything sticks. And that's the most impressive part of it for me. If they manage to keep it that consistent throughout the game it has the potential to be the best looking game so far, by a good margin too.