I feel like im the only one who feels that while good, the unreal engine doesn't shine as much as the competitions visually stunning engines shine. I'm with the camp that also knows that an unreal engine, out the box, is going to have a certain look to it. Its usually plagued by bloom, and for some reason, normal mapped to hell models/characters. That don't have a balance with the world around them detail wise. I know thats up to the dev, but i feel like when choosing an engine, you're going for a certain look. I've yet to be dazzled by any unreal engine title. The closest would be Arkham Asylum I'd say. But again, you had super detailed models, and the enviro just didn't pack the same punch equally. Lighting is another issue with the engine, it just doesn't seem to be able to pull itself out of its signature lighting look. People are always in awe at some in the dark corridor with a glow in the corner, i'm not. Playing Stalker/Metro/Crysis/Arma, and hell.. even Half Life 2 & Bf2 your eyes have to adjust when you load up an unreal game.
I think its because the games mentioned strive for photoreality, I've yet to see this approached in an Unreal engine title, I can't put my finger on what the requirements are, if its post + hdr or whatever, but its just so shiny and a signature look. I think its the shaders, they are just flat?? Like Skin and wood aren't too far apart from each other specularity\reflection wise. Other engines seem to pull it off. A rock is shaded to be coarse, wood dull, glass looks good, metal looks like metal, you know?
Also, Fool me thrice? Epic hasn't raised the bar visually with any of their own titles, except gears of war 1. And even with gears 1, it never looked like its infamous "screenshots" and the engine never took the form that it was shown to before release, yet they keep getting a pass for under-delivering. Their engine has great toolsets & flexibility, But they themselves haven't pushed it near any of the levels of their Bullshots, which everyone seems to be forgetting? Epic shows big, then releases a good looking, but not visual-hall-of-fame worthy title(s). The pattern of being impressed by screens, then even more so by the dev can be followed for Dice, Crytek(crysis1.. 1 i say!!!), Naughty Dog, Rocksteady, Valve, etc. But Never Epic.
Its a great demo, but Epic and many dev's using this engine to save money aren't going to be spending the money on modelers/texture artists/animators/fx to pull off anything of the quality they are showing. No one is going to keyframe those interactions for an entire game. Theres no reason current games can't look severely close to that without the shadow casting/model/fabric/fx debris detail, and maybe even physx could do the fabric. There really wasn't much there that deferred engines aren't already pulling off. Its cool, the lighting is dark, stuff thats wet looks wet! Theres film grain. Tech demo's are great, but when the delivery is so not impressive, its hard to get excited for these guys. Knowing the effort it would take to put that into a game, is an effort that isn't seen in todays gaming worlds non-exclusive-games. Budget/time eat up that effort I think.
I hope developers do start pouring money into what it takes to make these visuals, but Activision will probably still be selling trillions of copies of a hardly updated COD engine next gen, and thats what most of these devs are looking to do.
I think its because the games mentioned strive for photoreality, I've yet to see this approached in an Unreal engine title, I can't put my finger on what the requirements are, if its post + hdr or whatever, but its just so shiny and a signature look. I think its the shaders, they are just flat?? Like Skin and wood aren't too far apart from each other specularity\reflection wise. Other engines seem to pull it off. A rock is shaded to be coarse, wood dull, glass looks good, metal looks like metal, you know?
Also, Fool me thrice? Epic hasn't raised the bar visually with any of their own titles, except gears of war 1. And even with gears 1, it never looked like its infamous "screenshots" and the engine never took the form that it was shown to before release, yet they keep getting a pass for under-delivering. Their engine has great toolsets & flexibility, But they themselves haven't pushed it near any of the levels of their Bullshots, which everyone seems to be forgetting? Epic shows big, then releases a good looking, but not visual-hall-of-fame worthy title(s). The pattern of being impressed by screens, then even more so by the dev can be followed for Dice, Crytek(crysis1.. 1 i say!!!), Naughty Dog, Rocksteady, Valve, etc. But Never Epic.
Its a great demo, but Epic and many dev's using this engine to save money aren't going to be spending the money on modelers/texture artists/animators/fx to pull off anything of the quality they are showing. No one is going to keyframe those interactions for an entire game. Theres no reason current games can't look severely close to that without the shadow casting/model/fabric/fx debris detail, and maybe even physx could do the fabric. There really wasn't much there that deferred engines aren't already pulling off. Its cool, the lighting is dark, stuff thats wet looks wet! Theres film grain. Tech demo's are great, but when the delivery is so not impressive, its hard to get excited for these guys. Knowing the effort it would take to put that into a game, is an effort that isn't seen in todays gaming worlds non-exclusive-games. Budget/time eat up that effort I think.
I hope developers do start pouring money into what it takes to make these visuals, but Activision will probably still be selling trillions of copies of a hardly updated COD engine next gen, and thats what most of these devs are looking to do.
Although it obviously isn't useful in this case with those requirements but in general.
