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Why does FF: XV Demo's IQ look so bad? Artificial sharpening filter in place?

vpance

Member
Just wanted to highlight:

This


and


are the same piece of software.

If the final game looks like the former, no problem. If it looks like the latter, you can bet the internet will be up in arms.

edit: ignore the clipping in the first picture, heh.

They are both equally 'bad' in terms of asset quality (low polyness mostly). It's just that the harsh mid day lighting gives it an extra unflattering look. It happens in all sorts of games, but I think it's extra worse in this because of the strong tendency to turn areas not lit directly into pitch black. Basically it reverts to looking like an early PS3 game. Their lighting method works best when its overcast, or at dawn and dusk, where it can simulate that GI bounce light more obviously.
 

benzy

Member
Am I the only one who thinks this game is gorgeous? Did you see the floor and walls in the long hallway?

Plus art direction > tech and XV has flawless art direction.

IMO the art is pointless if it all gets destroyed by very shitty image quality.

It seems they're testing out different AA methods to see what will work best for them. Last case scenario they can always lock it at 900p and apply cheap blurry FXAA which they did for Episode Duscae, which still isn't ideal but looks much better than the shitty artifact-inducing AA they have in Platinum Demo.

Duscae
kzMb.png


mzMb.png


vs.

Platinum
tzMb.png
 
The game is super rough looking, asset quality and lightning are there, but everything that surrounds it: AA, Shadow quality, LOD, etc.. makes for some very lows and hurts the visual consistency add that poor performance and definetly is dissapointing.
 

Diablos

Member
I sure hope that gamespot quote in inaccurate. If this is the image quality we can expect in the final game that's really bad, it's a huge downgrade from Duscae. There's no excuse.

Honestly some of the textures look straight out of a PS3 game.
 

Adaren

Member
Something about the IQ in the trailers has been looking off to me. I haven't played either demos, but it was very noticeable in their latest trailers.

That hair is more reminiscent of FFXIII 360 than FFXIII PS3.

 

Andromeda

Banned
Thank god they aren't using this frankenstein engine for future games like FF7r, KH3 and DQXI. I bet it's a nightmare to work with.

That said, I think Duscae looked pretty good in motion.
FF7R trailer had even worse frame rate than either XV demo and also doesn't look as good.
 
Someone asked this before, but why hasn't any of the devs looked into implementing SMAA? It's the most favored post-AA method used in PC gaming, so how come they haven't applied it to console? Is it too costly?
 

Maxey

Member
Someone asked this before, but why hasn't any of the devs looked into implementing SMAA? It's the most favored post-AA method used in PC gaming, so how come they haven't applied it to console? Is it too costly?

Some console games use it. InFamous Second Son uses SMAA+Temporal AA.
 
http://www.novacrystallis.com/2016/04/24996/

"Regarding framerate and optimization on the full game, Tabata says the team will continue to improve on the final product. Platinum Demo uses a dynamic resolution process as a sort of experiment and the upper limit is full HD. The point of the demo wasn’t to show off the framerate but for fans to experience a part of Final Fantasy XV‘s world. The team focused on resolution first"

Tabata says Platinum Demo has the same specifications across PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. The full game will be optimized for each console, though they haven’t decided if both console versions will be exactly the same once optimization is finished.
 

Diablos

Member
http://www.novacrystallis.com/2016/04/24996/

"Regarding framerate and optimization on the full game, Tabata says the team will continue to improve on the final product. Platinum Demo uses a dynamic resolution process as a sort of experiment and the upper limit is full HD. The point of the demo wasn’t to show off the framerate but for fans to experience a part of Final Fantasy XV‘s world. The team focused on resolution first"

Tabata says Platinum Demo has the same specifications across PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. The full game will be optimized for each console, though they haven’t decided if both console versions will be exactly the same once optimization is finished.
That's more about framerate though and not overall IQ.
 

The Lamp

Member
*cough* Witcher 3, Uncharted, Tomb Raider. Plus a lot of modern Third person games.

You did ask.

Yeah, not really. Witcher 3 is gross-looking on the PS4. Who has bouncing hair as you walk in Uncharted 4? Tomb Raider has TressFX on PC but it's not the same as this game.

I'm failing to co-relate the hair physics with a proper AA implementation. Issues here are deeper than just that.

Everything takes resources, no?
 

tuxfool

Banned
Everything takes resources, no?

AA has very little to do with the physics simulation that is happening on the CPU.

You asked about bouncing hair. Witcher 3 still has way better IQ than this currently and more importantly Bouncing hair. As previously mentioned one has little to do with the other. Even if it did, who gives a shit if there is springy hair when it looks the way it does?

Also just remembered a game that has nice hair on PS4, Paragon. TR has tressfx everywhere and have you not seen anything of UC4?
 

Shin-Ra

Junior Member
That said, temporal AA is a technique that looks better in motion. It looks very bad in screenshots, but typically much more acceptable in motion.
There's too many variables with TAA (and combinations with other forms of AA) to make a blanket statement like that. iSS is probably the best example of TAA benefitting screenshots without blurring fine detail.

(I think the morphological (SMAA) pass is to blame for blunting some of Delsin's fingertips here, not the TAA.)

22460064121_b487383102_o.png


And a more layered, high frequency detail scene.

22488073611_1209dae7d4_o.png


iSS doesn't benefit as much in motion as some other implementations of TAA though.
 

Astral Dog

Member
There's too many variables with TAA (and combinations with other forms of AA) to make a blanket statement like that. iSS is probably the best example of TAA benefitting screenshots without blurring fine detail.

(I think the morphological (SMAA) pass is to blame for blunting some of Delsin's fingertips here, not the TAA.)

22460064121_b487383102_o.png


And a more layered, high frequency detail scene.

22488073611_1209dae7d4_o.png


iSS doesn't benefit as much in motion as some other implementations of TAA though.
this game looks gorgeous
 

The Lamp

Member
AA has very little to do with the physics simulation that is happening on the CPU.

You asked about bouncing hair. Witcher 3 still has way better IQ than this currently and more importantly Bouncing hair. As previously mentioned one has little to do with the other. Even if it did, who gives a shit if there is springy hair when it looks the way it does?

Also just remembered a game that has nice hair on PS4, Paragon. TR has tressfx everywhere and have you not seen anything of UC4?

I think more realistic hair physics is more important for realism and aesthetics than how smooth the hair lines are.
 

RoboPlato

I'd be in the dick
IMO the art is pointless if it all gets destroyed by very shitty image quality.

It seems they're testing out different AA methods to see what will work best for them. Last case scenario they can always lock it at 900p and apply cheap blurry FXAA which they did for Episode Duscae, which still isn't ideal but looks much better than the shitty artifact-inducing AA they have in Platinum Demo.

Duscae
kzMb.png


mzMb.png


vs.

Platinum
tzMb.png

As someone that's only played the Platinum demo, I'm kind of shocked how much better Duscae looks. That also had motion blur in gameplay, right?
 

coolasj19

Why are you reading my tag instead of the title of my post?
So I have a question.
Why can't Final Fantasy XV look like inFamous? Is it because Sucker Punch is excessively awesome? Maybe there's less going on in inFamous? The potential is there and there's 2 years separating.
 

Havok1313

Member
So I have a question.
Why can't Final Fantasy XV look like inFamous? Is it because Sucker Punch is excessively awesome? Maybe there's less going on in inFamous? The potential is there and there's 2 years separating.

inFamous is not a very big game compared to a Final Fantasy.

VII Remake should be amazing though.. i hope..

I don't think they can win with that game. They are only going to be able to please a small segment of people with whatever that ends up being.
 

benzy

Member
As someone that's only played the Platinum demo, I'm kind of shocked how much better Duscae looks. That also had motion blur in gameplay, right?

I think the motion blur in Duscae is the same as in Platinum, some attacks and Armiger have motion blur. There's no per-object motion blur on character movements which this game could benefit from.
 

RoboPlato

I'd be in the dick
I think the motion blur in Duscae is the same as in Platinum, some attacks and Armiger have motion blur. There's no per-object motion blur on character movements which this game could benefit from.

Ah, gotcha. Yeah, I think it would benefit the already great animations quite a bit if it was implemented more fully.
 

tuxfool

Banned
I think more realistic hair physics is more important for realism and aesthetics than how smooth the hair lines are.

Did you read nothing I wrote? The physics simulation is running on the CPU. Most AA mechanisms are mostly GPU bound. These are orthogonal concerns. Never mind the fact that the shitty resolution is due to the game being GPU bound foremost.

I should also that the hair shaders in this game aren't even that impressive, or badly employed on the men, they're ok but far from the best. Go look at AC games, UC4, the Order, TR and Paragon (a game that actually uses temporal techniques to improve the hair).


This is all superficial, you're arguing for nerfing the look of the whole game (or outright sabotage in this case) in order to have springy hair. Your priorities are all wrong.
 

CGwizz

Member
the AA is vomit inducing, never seen such bad AA this gen from all the games i played, its horrible....
 

chozen

Member
Wow people are really worried about the graphics here huh, wasn't witcher 3 also terrible on consoles ?

Also what about this Umbra engine or what ever they are implementing wouldn't it help in the final product?
 

DeSolos

Member
There's too many variables with TAA (and combinations with other forms of AA) to make a blanket statement like that. iSS is probably the best example of TAA benefitting screenshots without blurring fine detail.

(I think the morphological (SMAA) pass is to blame for blunting some of Delsin's fingertips here, not the TAA.)

22460064121_b487383102_o.png


And a more layered, high frequency detail scene.

22488073611_1209dae7d4_o.png


iSS doesn't benefit as much in motion as some other implementations of TAA though.

Sorry, to be clearer. Due to TAA's ghosting artifacts in motion, it frequently makes this game look like ass because it's an action game. Especially in screenshots as you're forced to look at the single frame.

Considering this is an action game, I just feel that TAA isn't the right tool for the job, or at least, they don't have enough time to make it the right tool for the job.
 

tuxfool

Banned
Sorry, to be clearer. Due to TAA's ghosting artifacts in motion, it frequently makes this game look like ass because it's an action game. Especially in screenshots as you're forced to look at the single frame.

Considering this is an action game, I just feel that TAA isn't the right tool for the job, or at least, they don't have enough time to make it the right tool for the job.

Here is a scene from Paragon with a lot of motion. It absolutely can work. You can also look at screens of Ryse or UT4 too.

Lesser versions such as the one in FO4 (which is a bit too soft) still produce relatively low levels or artifacting in motion.


And another shot showing more artifacting. Note that while it does produce ghosting it is nowhere as severe and it only affects objects in motion.
Good use of light motion blur helps immensely too.
 

Soriku

Junior Member
Wow people are really worried about the graphics here huh, wasn't witcher 3 also terrible on consoles ?

Also what about this Umbra engine or what ever they are implementing wouldn't it help in the final product?

Witcher 3 is among the best looking games on consoles, at least on PS4 where I played it. It's definitely the best looking of the games that I own.
 

Pachinko

Member
So I have a question.
Why can't Final Fantasy XV look like inFamous? Is it because Sucker Punch is excessively awesome? Maybe there's less going on in inFamous? The potential is there and there's 2 years separating.

Different engines and different goals to answer question 1. Answer to question 2 is Sucker Punch are indeed pretty great and they were probably focused on a singular game design goal unhampered by 6 years of false starts. Question 3 , at points I imagine FFXV's engine will have to handle a lot more stuff but just in the platinum demos case I'd chalk it up to Infamous being a finished product compared to the platinum demo being like a developer training / testing demo.

Really, all we can hope for is that the engine gets polished up really nice in the next 6 months. I have some faith here, it should only go uphill from here on out. In this games case, they need a cleaner AA solution and they really need to lock that framerate down while also tweaking the input lag to be as low as possible. Final game resolution I don't feel will matter as much if the overall image looks a little cleaner and the game feels a little more responsive.
 

chozen

Member
Witcher 3 is among the best looking games on consoles, at least on PS4 where I played it. It's definitely the best looking of the games that I own.

Though I'm still pretty sure The Order 1886 has the best graphics on PS4

But yeah Witcher 3 used Umbra as well right? Maybe XV can still look and perform well when this is applied in the coming months.
 

platina

Member
Wow people are really worried about the graphics here huh, wasn't witcher 3 also terrible on consoles ?

Also what about this Umbra engine or what ever they are implementing wouldn't it help in the final product?

We all care about the graphics of ff xv. We want it to look it's absolute best so we look back and remember how beautiful the game looked. I know this game will be special but as of now, the frame pacing, lack of any character motion blur when moving and worse of all; aa need some serious work to make this game look stellar. It's getting there and it's great they have more time to iron things out.
 
We all care about the graphics of ff xv. We want it to look it's absolute best so we look back and remember how beautiful the game looked. I know this game will be special but as of now, the frame pacing, lack of any character motion blur when moving and worse of all; aa need some serious work to make this game look stellar. It's getting there and it's great they have more time to iron things out.

To say I don't care about graphics would be a lie but I'd rather they reduced the graphics to ensure a consistent frame rate. I'd take a drop in resolution. Games can still look fantastic at 720p, just take a look at Quantum Break. When I look back at a previous FF I think about the story, the characters, the music before I think about graphics. But your right they do have time to make changes, they may have already done it and the Platinum Demo was a relatively last minute thing and being just a demo it wasn't optimised brilliantly. I'm confident SE will deliver.
 
Hopefully SE is aware of all of this, as far as I know I've only heard them mention the framerate, they haven't mentioned anything about this.
 

gamerMan

Member

Yikes! This is what most of the demo looked like. Forget image quality. This straight up looks like a PS2 game. The modeling, lighting, and texture work is terrible here. The only time the demo looked decent was when it was indoors and the engine didn't have to render much like the hallway with the marble floor other wise everything looked like a placeholder.
 
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