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Assassin's Creed Unity -- The graphics "leap" we've all been waiting for.

Fafalada

Fafracer forever
VFX_Veteran said:
It's partially baked. Yes, the light probes that represent the indirect is baked. However, the dynamic character moving around still have to fire rays to these probes and get illumination from them. No other game does this except Far Cry.
The only relatively recent change(on consoles) with using light-probes to sample environment lighting onto dynamic objects has been sampling multiple-probes GPU-side. Other then that this has been common-place for at least 4-5 years - with early variants dating back to PS2/Xbox consoles/days.
 

Thrakier

Member
Looks messy. Also, pretty game at sub 60FPS on PC isn't worth anything. How you guys are able to play with a constantly fluctuating framerate is beyond me. You must be completly stutter blind by now.
 
The only relatively recent change(on consoles) with using light-probes to sample environment lighting onto dynamic objects has been sampling multiple-probes GPU-side. Other then that this has been common-place for at least 4-5 years - with early variants dating back to PS2/Xbox consoles/days.

Sampling multiple probes will definitely add to the fidelity and converge the rendering equation faster. It's like me firing more samples for indirect lighting.. it looks way better than only using 1 sample.

I know baked lighting has been around for years, but it's not been done like this before except in the games I mention. Not even Infamous or KZ:SF have it.. and those games are new.
 

b0bbyJ03

Member
Thanks for making this thread. We all get too caught up in only the negative aspects. It is easily the most stunning game I've experienced. The artists deserve recognition. I'm in awe every time I'm walking through the interiors of these lavish mansions. Amazing! I can enjoy this games just for the visuals. It's fun just exploring
 
This is the first game I've played that's made me consider upgrading to a 4K monitor. The amount of detail is so incredible that I feel like I'm missing out at 1080p.

It's the best looking game I've ever played and it's open world. That's quite an accomplishment.

Looks messy. Also, pretty game at sub 60FPS on PC isn't worth anything. How you guys are able to play with a constantly fluctuating framerate is beyond me. You must be completly stutter blind by now.

Framerate caps, breh.
 
Thanks for making this thread. We all get too caught up in only the negative aspects. It is easily the most stunning game I've experienced. The artists deserve recognition. I'm in awe every time I'm walking through the interiors of these lavish mansions. Amazing! I can enjoy this games just for the visuals. It's fun just exploring
id say whoever did their lighting engine is the one who deserves recognition except the artists who did elise's hair and model. those guys deserve an award. the texture artists too.
 

Thrakier

Member
This is the first game I've played that's made me consider upgrading to a 4K monitor. The amount of detail is so incredible that I feel like I'm missing out at 1080p.

It's the best looking game I've ever played and it's open world. That's quite an accomplishment.



Framerate caps, breh.

PC games capped at 30FPS mostly run and look like shit. Same is true for console though, but on PC it's worse.
 

benzy

Member
It's partially baked. Yes, the light probes that represent the indirect is baked. However, the dynamic character moving around still have to fire rays to these probes and get illumination from them. No other game does this except Far Cry. If you can name another -- please do.

Driveclub sports a real-time GI solution.
 

Moff

Member
iX10oxEBekFSd.jpg

15791287475_323506a2ae_k_d.jpg

igjwooyfwHvIS.jpg

T5pZgvh.png
939.gif
 

Jac_Solar

Member
What's that?

I just meant, why didn't you use a typing tool instead of manually writing with a brush or pencil, since most image editors have some sort of typing tool. No big deal, of course.

Wow, the woman, or especially the hair on her looks pretty much real here! Is that ingame or a cutscene? It looks slightly different than the other pictures.

T5pZgvh.png


Also, the lighting is amazing in this picture:

iX10oxEBekFSd.jpg
 

m360

Member
Yeah, it's incredible what they get done. Unity looks just fantastic. Not all the time but it got some unbelivable scenes in it. The lighting is just incredible and the faces are comparable to Advanced Warfare.
 

Eusis

Member
I think this makes it the most obvious. It's easy to blow off some of those screens as not being THAT huge of a leap over last gen, but when you see something you can directly compare to last gen it's pretty damn obvious.

Though given the framerate I do call into question whether it's worth it, but it DOES sound like that's mainly a problem of too many people walking around at times (does that actually accurately reflect Paris then? Or just how movies present it?)
 

Durante

Member
PC games capped at 30FPS mostly run and look like shit. Same is true for console though, but on PC it's worse.
It really depends on how you implement the cap. E.g. dynamic 1/2 frequency V-sync in the NV driver combined with a 31 framecap gets pretty damn good results in many games. Well, as good as 30 FPS gets that is.
 

Thrakier

Member
It really depends on how you implement the cap. E.g. dynamic 1/2 frequency V-sync in the NV driver combined with a 31 framecap gets pretty damn good results in many games. Well, as good as 30 FPS gets that is.

Since when the 31 framerate cap? That is new to me. Tell me more.
 

luca_29_bg

Member
It really depends on how you implement the cap. E.g. dynamic 1/2 frequency V-sync in the NV driver combined with a 31 framecap gets pretty damn good results in many games. Well, as good as 30 FPS gets that is.

And on amd with radeon pro ? Double vsync ?
 

Skyzard

Banned
I tried it with 1/2 rate vysnc but I got pretty high input lag. Regular mode worked fine for me though (capped at 30, not sure how to do 31 in NI either).
 

Durante

Member
Since when the 31 framerate cap? That is new to me. Tell me more.
Well, it really depends on the game what works best - a bit of experimentation is required. The frame cap can help with frame pacing.
^^^ Input lag also depends on the game, you can always try reducing the number of buffered frames. Anyway, this is a bit OT in here, I think we had a framecapping thread.
 

IcyEyes

Member
The other thing is that the character models stand out in every screenshot during the daylight. The graphical shading style used on the characters does not match the realistic environment style at all. I've taken so many screenshots where I wish I could erase Arno because without him in the shot it looks extremely photo-realistic, but he looks like a cartoon character on top.

It's missing the whole package look.

Yes, in certain situations that "effect" is pretty strong and of course, this is not a positive factor.

I remember, during the E3 2014, that I was incredibly impressed by the graphics of The Order, but, talking with a guy from RAD, I expressed my "concern" that the difference between Gallahad (and the other characters) and the environment was too noticeable. The character looked amazing, the scenario not as good as the character. Of course, the game was in alpha and the guy from Rad assured me that the environment would get a graphics boost. So, basically, it was the opposite case.

It's not so easy (at all!) for a game with a strong graphics component to keep consistency between the characters and environment.
 

camac002

Member
The light does indeed change during the course of play, so watch out with those consoles/pc comparison shots of regular Paris.

iX10oxEBekFSd.jpg


Where on the map is this room? I want to go there now.
 
The game is so good looking within a 20 meter radius of your character but looks like something from the 32 bit era at a distance not far past that, it's incredibly jarring.
 
I have to agree the graphics on this thing are quite the next level and you have to give a thumbs up to the developers for pushing the envelope here but cmon guys optimise optimise optimise.... I can't help but think if this game moved and controlled like shadow of mordor we would have the perfect game
 
Driveclub sports a real-time GI solution.

Do you have and screenshots showing it? Not doubting you but I'd like to see these kinds of things. Alien:Isolation also has real GI, but those environments are static too and it doesn't look anywhere near AC:U.
 
Sampling multiple probes will definitely add to the fidelity and converge the rendering equation faster. It's like me firing more samples for indirect lighting.. it looks way better than only using 1 sample.

I know baked lighting has been around for years, but it's not been done like this before except in the games I mention. Not even Infamous or KZ:SF have it.. and those games are new.

Almost every current gen game uses multiple baked probes for indirect lighting, even launch ones like Killzone, Dead Rising 3, Ryse, etc.
 
The game is so good looking within a 20 meter radius of your character but looks like something from the 32 bit era at a distance not far past that, it's incredibly jarring.
Yes I second that, I even posted the exact same thing on another thread a few days ago...it just completely takes you out of the game, such a shame. I've stopped playing it for now it's so bad but I am hoping a future patch will sort so I can revisit.
 

Thrakier

Member
Well, it really depends on the game what works best - a bit of experimentation is required. The frame cap can help with frame pacing.
^^^ Input lag also depends on the game, you can always try reducing the number of buffered frames. Anyway, this is a bit OT in here, I think we had a framecapping thread.

Not really. It's a PC thread after all. Why 31? Are you capping at 61 also?
 
The game is so good looking within a 20 meter radius of your character but looks like something from the 32 bit era at a distance not far past that, it's incredibly jarring.

Pretty much this. Large crowds are comical with people's textures/models popping in constantly all around you, and buildings in the distance even on ultra settings are a really hard transition. I'd gladly cut crowd density by 25% or more to recoup some extra power for city geometry or general performance.

But other than that the game can look amazing, yeah.
 

camac002

Member
The game is so good looking within a 20 meter radius of your character but looks like something from the 32 bit era at a distance not far past that, it's incredibly jarring.

Yeah the medium distance details are a bit too low. Maybe they could have thrown up a DoF effect for the far distance.
 
Almost every current gen game uses multiple baked probes for indirect lighting, even launch ones like Killzone, Dead Rising 3, Ryse, etc.

I'd like to see some screens with them in motion on a dynamic object. I couldn't find it affecting any dynamic objects at all in Crysis 3 or KZ:SF.

Here is an example image of what I'm talking about:

NWLOR8.png
 
The game is so good looking within a 20 meter radius of your character but looks like something from the 32 bit era at a distance not far past that, it's incredibly jarring.

To me, it feels apparent that the LOD and pop in was some last minute, half assed attempt at salvaging performance. It isn't well thought out, and there isn't a developer on that team that wouldn't hate the way it compromises the game visually. This is where I think someone in management should have realized that the game needed to be delayed.
 
Yeah I agree with the OP. This is real next gen stuff, first next gen game to really impress me. Ive had great performance on ultra on PC, very few bugs or crashes too. The lightning is just sublime, the textures are amazing, and ive never come across a world that feels so lived in and lifelike
 
To me, it feels apparent that the LOD and pop in was some last minute, half assed attempt at salvaging performance. It isn't well thought out, and there isn't a developer on that team that wouldn't hate the way it compromises the game visually. This is where I think someone in management should have realized that the game needed to be delayed.

Very much this. I think that the game is just too demanding and they tried to scale back. They'll take away some things to scale back for consoles I'm pretty sure.
 

scitek

Member
Holy mother of god! Look at all those details. And dat lighting!

The Ubi team must have spend so much time to design that.

I'm sad they get that much critic, sure bad performance is awful but there are more important things than that. Everyone just bashes Ubi and the game because of the performance but nobody acknlowledges this incredible amount of details.

It's pretty clear they worried more about the game's visuals than the gameplay itself. They must have shat bricks when they realized it wouldn't run on the consoles like they'd initially hoped for.
 

RedSwirl

Junior Member
This is how game looks like on my PC that is not high end anymore (i7 2600K + GTX760 2GB)



So you don't need monster PC to see beauty of this game.

Wow. What kind of performance do you get? I'm running on the same GPU but with a 4670k. I haven't heard much about how CPU-bound Unity is on PC.
 

D23

Member
Saw my friend played this in his high end rig and wow. It looks like really really good. Like hes playing cg
 
Looks messy. Also, pretty game at sub 60FPS on PC isn't worth anything. How you guys are able to play with a constantly fluctuating framerate is beyond me. You must be completly stutter blind by now.

Gsync? I know I ain't touching this game until I have a Gsync monitor :D
 
I'd like to see some screens with them in motion on a dynamic object. I couldn't find it affecting any dynamic objects at all in Crysis 3 or KZ:SF.

Here is an example image of what I'm talking about:

NWLOR8.png


There's no performance penalty to sampling them on a dynamic object vs a static one.

Here's an old presentation from the Cars 2 game where they use light probes to light the cars

The earliest I remember something similar being mentioned was actually Stranger's Wrath fror the original Xbox, some really cool tech in that game.
 
This is a lot less impressive than the screenshots

It's 1080p using FXAA and it's a youtube video. The screenshots here are mostly 4K with at least 4x MSAA and little to no compression. I was mostly demonstrating that you can get decent performance but on very high end hardware. The really poorly made ports typically run like shit on just about anything.
 
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