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The Big Graphics Problems Bungie Wants To Solve

Y2Kev

TLG Fan Caretaker Est. 2009
Reach is gorgeous apart from the weird ghosting, which I assume is a byproduct of the post-processing AA. The game had awesome particle effects, though, and tons of stuff going on at once.

It's some kind of temporal AA. It's in Crysis 2, too, effectively. It's AWFUL. Jaggies > ghosting. It doesn't even work that well, IMO.
 

Zabka

Member
Game in development: We're going to eliminate jaggies, have crisp shadows and improve texture filtering/loading. Image Quality is very important to us!

Two weeks before game's release: Oh shit TURN ON THE MOTION BLUR!
 

vumpler

If You Can't Beat 'Em, Talk Shit About 'Em
They're saying you can improve detail in the simulation, but as you do that, you need even greater image quality to discern that detail. That's why something like Crysis with no AA at all looks far more jaggy than the average console game with no AA. You have lots of sub-pixel size geometry that's still being displayed as some ugly jaggy mess.

Virtualized geometry would allow for more resources to be spent on image quality, but that technology as it stands could only really be used as a skin on top of a game. For example those fancy trees, if you actually built a tree from a billion voxels, when you hit it, you need to calculate the trajectory of a billion voxels, which isn't going to happen. So you'd still need the same technology under the fancy little balls.

I thought that was a polygon rendering limitation? They talk about eliminating that. *dunno*
 

evilalien

Member
It's some kind of temporal AA. It's in Crysis 2, too, effectively. It's AWFUL. Jaggies > ghosting. It doesn't even work that well, IMO.

Yes, the blurring is because of the temporal AA that Reach uses. It is essentially blending the current frame with some of the previous frame which is why it looks like total shit during fast motion.
 

soldat7

Member
Reach is a beast of a game considering the console it runs on, the recording features of the engine, the size of the levels, the complex encounters, and just how dang good it looks compared to other shooters on the system. Forge World is insane.

And Halo 3 still has the best lighting of any 360 game, bar none. I can't wait to see Bungie's multi-platform efforts. I think we'll be blown away.
 

Somnid

Member
Never understood the obsession with AA. On PC I often turn it off just because I don't like the blurring. Considering the cost it just doesn't seem worth it much of the time. I'd rather that power go to framerate first and foremost, then draw distance and then if there's cycles to burn AA/AF.
 
Never understood the obsession with AA. On PC I often turn it off just because I don't like the blurring. Considering the cost it just doesn't seem worth it much of the time. I'd rather that power go to framerate first and foremost, then draw distance and then if there's cycles to burn AA/AF.

Huh? MSAA doesn't cause any blurring and properly implemented post processing AA (e.g. FXAA with subpixel smoothing turned off) shouldn't either.
 

benzy

Member
FF xiii-2's grass is nice.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5S6DaeHB-B4&list&t=2m23s

Final-Fantasy-XIII-2_2011_12-01-11_020.jpg_600.jpg
 

Somnid

Member
Huh? MSAA doesn't cause any blurring and properly implemented post processing AA (e.g. FXAA with subpixel smoothing turned off) shouldn't either.

The entire point is to average a bunch of samples for a pixel. Your black becomes a shade of grey. It blurs regardless of the type and where the sample came from. This blur is exactly what people like about it because it reduces hard edges.
 

racerx77

Banned
For those hoping for 60fps on the next consoles (I am too), I think we are going to be let down. Most developers will, I'm sure, go for more detail and 30fps. I would love to see otherwise, but..
 

elsk

Banned
Bungie talking about graphics, quite ironic. This thread just made me feel bad about Rare now making Kinect games :(
 
Damnit, after seeing those Kameo, Viva Pinata and Banjo shots I'm even more sad about what Rare has become. I'd love to see what they could be pushing on the 360 now :-(

ah well, i'll always have the memories.
 

Binabik15

Member
I just started Skyrim maxed with a couple of mods and the pixilated foliage and trees make my eyes water. Blergh. Crysis 1 was gorgeous, but the palm trees were super aliased, shattering the illusion and killing the look. In a lot of pc games grass often looks like PS1 sprites or maybe PS2 sprites photoshopped next to super smooth, awesomly lighted, highly detailed characters and great textures. The only thing worse than super fake looking and aliased to hell vegetation is when.it.doesn't.move. And edge shimmering, but with a lot of AA you can get that down.

That MGS3 pic is shaming a lot of devs.

PS: I still want 60 fps, though.

Edit: Oh god, I totally blanked out the shadows in Skyrim. I had to check if they were set to (super) low.
 
I said it before and I'll say it again, I think Wii U has done away with ugly shadows going by the Bird demo and Lego City Stories:

4lletv.jpg


L2vl9.png

Lol wut? Wii U doesn't contain some magic shadowing hardware that modern PCs don't have and if they still face shadowing problems, so will Wii U. Even the Bungie graphics guy says that shadows probably won't be 'solved' even by the end of next gen and that we'll have to wait longer. It's a shame since realtime lighting is advancing ridiculously quickly and you need good shadows to back that up.
 
I just want great A.I. It's the elephant in the room these days in a world where nearly every game released on next gen platforms looks acceptable visually.

You look at a game like Skyrim where you break into a dudes house, kill his wife then cast invisible...dude looks at his wife dead on the ground, shrugs and goes back to bed.

SMH
 

zoukka

Member
I just want great A.I. It's the elephant in the room these days in a world where nearly every game released on next gen platforms looks acceptable visually.

You look at a game like Skyrim where you break into a dudes house, kill his wife then cast invisible...dude looks at his wife dead on the ground, shrugs and goes back to bed.

SMH

That shit can be done already.
 

RooMHM

Member
Here's what Bungie needs to solve :
-making a good graphics engine
-making good looking games
-Try not to be 3 years late in terms of graphics technology

They have failed horribly so far.
 

Blizzard

Banned
Thanks for the link. That was an interesting article. Personally I would rather have great image quality and hardly any aliasing, with hardly any shadows, than mediocre image quality/aliasing/blur/bloom and better shadows.
 

Walshicus

Member
Bungie talking about graphics, quite ironic.
Not ironic at all?

If you're used to playing set-piece a-to-b-to-c FPS on consoles then yeah, I guess some of the design decisions made with the graphics in Halo games might seem "poor". But when you compare what Halo actually does as a game; compare the attention to detail in lighting, combat effects and so forth... well, it's ridiculous to doubt their pedigree.
 

Special J

Banned
bungie is approaching this in the wrong way.

these problems are fixed by having more powerful hardware. they need to focus on the much bigger picture like refining their art, and color tone.

their engine isnt cutting edge in visuals but they do have different priorities like control response and large scale sandbox environments and excellent dynamic a.i.
 

op_ivy

Fallen Xbot (cannot continue gaining levels in this class)
those doubting reach's technological achievements should read digital foundry's article on the matter.

Halo: Reach is that game, an enormous technical leap over its predecessors and competitors on 360 and an exciting example of a first-party exclusive that genuinely pushes the console into new technological territory - something we don't see so often on the Microsoft platform.
 

Ranger X

Member
Those aren't true problems to me. If there's pretty much only jaggies and shadows in order to "solve" graphical problems we are in the god damned golden age of gaming!

What would wow more next gen in my opinion is if devs would actually focus to pull off 1080p native games at 60fps. They wouldn't even NEED soft shadows if normal shadows simply were 1080p. Jaggies would also be a story or the past.
 

Special J

Banned
The guys at Sony Santa Monica had a specific code/engine for shadows in GOWIII, and I haven't seen anything come close to that on consoles since. Wish they'd share the love.

god-of-war-3-1.jpg

looks precalculated, what happens when you move kratos over the shadows, do the shadows from the chains actually cast on kratos character model?
 

StuBurns

Banned
those doubting reach's technological achievements should read digital foundry's article on the matter.

I don't see how the game is pushing any boundaries. It can't possible be the scope that's hurting the IQ. GTA4 was 720p with decent AA, considerably better than Halo Reach, and it's open world, it has to be more than twenty times the size of any level in Reach.
 

Gravijah

Member
I don't see how the game is pushing any boundaries. It can't possible by scope that's hurting the IQ. GTA4 was 720p with decent AA, considerably better than Halo Reach, and it's open world, it has to be more than twenty times the size of any level in Reach.

you brought your face back!

edit: god damn it
 

benzy

Member
looks precalculated, what happens when you move kratos over the shadows, do the shadows from the chains actually cast on kratos character model?

You can still have baked-in environmental shadows look like they're casting over moving object models. Forza does it.
 
looks precalculated, what happens when you move kratos over the shadows, do the shadows from the chains actually cast on kratos character model?

I hope those aren't pre-baked. They look like utter shit if they're pre-baked. You can see the fucking aliasing in the shadows. This does not (or at least, should not) happen with pre-baked shadows.

Also the chain shadow looks identical in quality to the enemy's shadow, so I really doubt it's pre-baked.
 
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