My point is the fur used in Bloodborne looks and moves far better than the typical fur shaders used on animals and monsters in current gen games. At least the Cleric Beast's fur sways according to its motion. The fur shaders on animals in Far Cry 4, for instance, are completely static if I'm not mistaken. HairWorks is a different story, of course.
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Game Graphics Technology | 64bit, procedural, high-fidelity debating
- Thread starter Dictator93
- Start date
My problem with the hair in Bloodborne is that it doesn't move very realistically. Vicar Amelia's hair for instance is super floaty.
https://youtu.be/H0ZGi_ymaQY
https://youtu.be/H0ZGi_ymaQY
Agreed about Vicar Amelia's fur. Her fur also clips through the Hunter if you stand behind her. However, I found Cleric Beast's and the its smaller minions' fur just fine.
Pretty much, It looks like she has a dress made out of toilet paper. Clipping is also a problem with these physicalized card methods. It works relatively well on short hair but on longer hair it breaks down.
I should also note it doesn't look very good on the Cleric beast. It works in those circumstances due to the otherworldiness but transposing this onto humans or more traditional creatures, it wouldn't work nearly as well.
Found the full longer article with detailed talks on how Square Enix does their lighting and volume clouds for FFXV.
Download here: https://mega.nz/#!ucQRGK4T!4yGvLzFz6kzNj0GyqOZNs0C2gPKPaNXt4lTtNn_5N9I
Download here: https://mega.nz/#!ucQRGK4T!4yGvLzFz6kzNj0GyqOZNs0C2gPKPaNXt4lTtNn_5N9I
Their lightprobe tech is quite interesting way to combine PRT, baking and realtime elements.
Dictator93
Member
Hey sorry not replying!
Regarding Bloodborne or regrading something like hairworks being on nextgen consoles?
@ Bloodborne - I think it looks OK on the Cleric Beat boss fight like you mentioned, but it is also a bit floaty ( I think this is done on purpose though since the whole game is ethereal and strange), whereby the hair is almost standing on end and never drooping down.
Beyond that it looks like the usual geometry fin style that you have seen in games for quite some time, just with a lot of them (other people in this thread mentioned the same). I am curious how they are simming the movement though and which device in the PS4 is hammering away at it. Being Havok, it could be CPU or GPU for all I know.
@ Hairworks-like stuff for nextgen consoles - do you mean like the next group of console releases (Neo and Scorpio)? If so, yeah of course!
Talking about hairworks in TW3 in general - Hairworks on Geralt though is an interesting conundrum as a number of mods out there exist to improve the look of his beard styles, density, etc. as well as his hair. They usually end up increasing the strand count, thinning the strands at different camera distances, and increasing the density of strands along with some other small things (straightening for some of the strands)... and it reveals a number of teriatry art and performance problems that occur. I am assuming the artists and tech guys at CDPR also encountered hence why they made default hairworks the way it is in the vanilla game (i.e. thicker strands with fewer of them). At normal camera distance, the increased strandcount is scarcely visible and instead you can only see macro effects from it at best, like the appearance of anisotropic specular over all the hairs. Furthermore there is the problem of increased aliasing as the strands are now so thin and dense and overlayed with one another that even 8XMSSA on top of the TAA in TW3 cannot handle them too well @ 1920X1080 at normal camera distance.
Though... at a close up in cutscenes with heavy downsampling these mods to hairworks can look rather convincing (images from Kanuuna from the PC screenshot thread!):
Thanks for rehosting this other day btw. 'twas very nice of you
Great post as usual, man. Thanks for answering. I was actually asking your opinions for both questions.Hey sorry not replying!
Regarding Bloodborne or regrading something like hairworks being on nextgen consoles?
@ Bloodborne - I think it looks OK on the Cleric Beat boss fight like you mentioned, but it is also a bit floaty ( I think this is done on purpose though since the whole game is ethereal and strange), whereby the hair is almost standing on end and never drooping down.
Beyond that it looks like the usual geometry fin style that you have seen in games for quite some time, just with a lot of them (other people in this thread mentioned the same). I am curious how they are simming the movement though and which device in the PS4 is hammering away at it. Being Havok, it could be CPU or GPU for all I know.
@ Hairworks-like stuff for nextgen consoles - do you mean like the next group of console releases (Neo and Scorpio)? If so, yeah of course!
Talking about hairworks in TW3 in general - Hairworks on Geralt though is an interesting conundrum as a number of mods out there exist to improve the look of his beard styles, density, etc. as well as his hair. They usually end up increasing the strand count, thinning the strands at different camera distances, and increasing the density of strands along with some other small things (straightening for some of the strands)... and it reveals a number of teriatry art and performance problems that occur. I am assuming the artists and tech guys at CDPR also encountered hence why they made default hairworks the way it is in the vanilla game (i.e. thicker strands with fewer of them). At normal camera distance, the increased strandcount is scarcely visible and instead you can only see macro effects from it at best, like the appearance of anisotropic specular over all the hairs. Furthermore there is the problem of increased aliasing as the strands are now so thin and dense and overlayed with one another that even 8XMSSA on top of the TAA in TW3 cannot handle them too well @ 1920X1080 at normal camera distance.
Though... at a close up in cutscenes with heavy downsampling these mods to hairworks can look rather convincing (images from Kanuuna from the PC screenshot thread!):
Anyway, for the fur in Bloodborne, I think "realistically" may be the wrong term I used. The movement definitely isn't very realistic and as you said, likely intentionally stylized and exaggerated. But in my opinion, at least, I find the movement pretty impressive, regardless of realism. So I will simply say "it looks great". I wish Japanese devs would share more about their technical accomplishments like Kojima Productions and Square Enix, though. Our best guess puts the fur in Bloodborne as polygon strips with Havok applied to them, but it would be nice to have a detailed explanation on it from the devs themselves. Regardless, my point was that the fur looks much better than the typical fur shaders in games.
As for the next gen consoles, I personally wouldn't consider Neo and Scorpio to be such. Both consoles still have games built to cater for their predecessors but with increased visual fidelity and performance. With this limitation, devs cannot simply use many techniques and effects that are only able to run on Neo and Scorpio. Besides, I'm expecting the true next gen consoles to be at least 12 TFlops machines. Don't know about Microsoft, but Sony should stick to console generations. So, my question was, do you think Hairworks like techniques for hair and fur in next gen games are possible?
Excuse my ignorance, but what does PRT stand for? I'm assuming it has something to do with global illumination?
Precomputed Radiance Transfer.
Basically baking radiance transfer information to vertexes/textures so you can relight the object and get shadowing/light bounce etc.
Oh, thanks for clearing that up. I thought FFXV was using real time GI, though? Or is this one of those situations where the pre computed GI is updated so it's considered real time?
They dropped their attempts at real time indirect bounce. Too expensive.
Wait, when did this happen? Did the Duscue and Platinum demoes have real time GI or was it dropped even before then?
Yes.
Similar to enlighten, long baking time and then you can relight the object or scene. (What kind of lights and limitations depend on method used.)
It was in the presentation that they had couple of methods which they tried for moving local lights.
They ended up using the resources for better skylighting and clouds instead.
One was the Fast Indirect Illumination Using Two Virtual Spherical Gaussian Lights.
http://www.jp.square-enix.com/tech/...ing Two Virtual Spherical Gaussian Lights.mp4
http://www.jp.square-enix.com/tech/publications.html
Dictator93
Member
Stepehen Hill's yearly blog for Siggraph stuff got some updates:
Physically Based Sky, Atmosphere and Cloud Rendering in Frostbite (Sébastien Hillaire) has been posted and can be downloaded. Basically, they chose to go with very similar technology that GG is using for Horizon with some changes.
Physically Based Sky, Atmosphere and Cloud Rendering in Frostbite (Sébastien Hillaire) has been posted and can be downloaded. Basically, they chose to go with very similar technology that GG is using for Horizon with some changes.
http://www.siggraph.org/learn/conference-content
I should point out that Open Access to Siggraph content is currently running. From what I understand it will finish at the end of this week.
I should point out that Open Access to Siggraph content is currently running. From what I understand it will finish at the end of this week.
dr_rus
Member
Some PDFs of NV's Siggraph'16 talks are available here: http://www.nvidia.com/object/siggraph2016.html
Lots of links here as well: http://blog.selfshadow.com/2016/07/31/siggraph-2016-links/
This looks pretty cool: http://on-demand.gputechconf.com/si...shetov-textures-infinite-resolution-image.pdf
Lots of links here as well: http://blog.selfshadow.com/2016/07/31/siggraph-2016-links/
This looks pretty cool: http://on-demand.gputechconf.com/si...shetov-textures-infinite-resolution-image.pdf
In PRT you store information that describes, more or less, how applied light would bounce around your scene. In realtime, you take information describing the light that you're actually applying to the scene, and you use it with the baked PRT data to calculate the lit result.
The characteristics of the bouncing are baked, so the system largely can't accommodate dynamic geometry. In that sense, it's not real-time.
However, the lit results are generated in real time from light sourcing that can be changed in real time. In that sense, it's real time.
This is so confusing, LOL. Thanks for the explanation, though, definitely cleared things up, at least. Am I right in assuming Quantum Break uses a very similar approach for its "real time" GI? On the other hand, is the cascaded voxel cone GI method in TTC the only true real time GI we have in games now?
For flashlight bounce there is classic reflective shadowmap and virtual point light method.
Uncharted 4 TAA presentation had some info on their latest implementation.
http://advances.realtimerendering.com/s2016/index.html
Currently there isn't really one solution that could handle all cases.
Dictator93
Member
The presentation from ND about their character shading clears up a historical point a lot of people were curious about. Remember how people were saying how that the original UC4 demo rendering is not the same as the one in the launched game / was perhaps not actually real time?
According to their chracter slides:
Then they ended up using some very different tech / paradigms.
---
Doom uses Clustered Forward, interesting!
According to their chracter slides:
Then they ended up using some very different tech / paradigms.
---
Doom uses Clustered Forward, interesting!
No in PRT (a form of mesh based precomputation) the information regarding how light should bounce is precomputed, while the light themselves could be moved it didn't work well if the environment moved. It basically means PRT doesn't play well with dynamic objects.
Quantum Break used Irradiance volume, which is a form of mesh less precomputation technique to achieve GI.
Very interesting. Thanks! This whole "real time" and "pre computed" GI thing is so confusing to me, LOL. Seems like the only game using fully real time GI is TTC. Or is that partially pre computed as well?
So, basically it wasn't real time? Damn, the final product was very close in overall visual fidelity IMO, but technically, it seems significantly behind this target render. MSAA? No wonder this tech demo had no dithering and artifacting from the TAA in the final game. Just out of curiosity, can you make a summary of the very different tech they ended up using? Is there any mention of their GI solution?The presentation from ND about their character shading clears up a historical point a lot of people were curious about. Remember how people were saying how that the original UC4 demo rendering is not the same as the one in the launched game / was perhaps not actually real time?
According to their chracter slides:
Then they ended up using some very different tech / paradigms.
---
Doom uses Clustered Forward, interesting!
Also, did you check your PM's, man?
dr guildo
Member
Very interesting. Thanks! This whole "real time" and "pre computed" GI thing is so confusing to me, LOL. Seems like the only game using fully real time GI is TTC. Or is that partially pre computed as well?
So, basically it wasn't real time? Damn, the final product was very close in overall visual fidelity IMO, but technically, it seems significantly behind this target render. MSAA? No wonder this tech demo had no dithering and artifacting from the TAA in the final game. Just out of curiosity, can you make a summary of the very different tech they ended up using? Is there any mention of their GI solution?
Also, did you check your PM's, man?
Hey, man, great shot, but what is this supposed to prove? I already said the end product looks very close.
dr guildo
Member
Hey, man, great shot, but what is this supposed to prove? I already said the end product looks very close.
I don't get your IQ's issue. quite frankly, I find it above what The industry has provided on consoles... And in full screen...
Please, do not downplay ND's accomplishment ! Really stunning what they have achieved with a mere PS4 look by yourself, :
I mean, come'on !
Downplay? What? Dude, I've said numerous times that Uncharted 4 is the best looking game out now in my opinion. Even before the game's release, I already said the character models are the best I've seen in games. If anything, many will think I'm overpraising the game's visuals, LOL. I only stated the facts. Is Uncharted 4 the best looking game now? Arguable and I think so. Is the E3 2014 teaser significantly more technically impressive? Definitely. Does the final product come close? Absolutely if you ask me.I don't get your IQ's issue. quite frankly, I find it above what The industry has provided on consoles... And in full screen...
Please, do not downplay ND's accomplishment ! Really stunning what they have achieved with a mere PS4 look by yourself, :
I mean, come'on !
My issues with the IQ is when the characters move, you can notice artifacting behind them. Reducing motion blur to low values has definitely helped, however. Regardless, it is one of the cleanest games on consoles. The AA looks almost as good as SSAA at times.
Edit: Just to add, even ND themselves admitted that they overshot their target render for the PS4 specs and had to use more technically conservative methods. Also, I primarily game on PS4, my PC is weaker than a PS3, so I really have no hidden agenda.
No one is downplaying anything, not need to get defensive now. There are definitely IQ issues, the TAA causes ghosting and the motion blur is low quality to top it off.I don't get your IQ's issue. quite frankly, I find it above what The industry has provided on consoles... And in full screen...
Please, do not downplay ND's accomplishment ! Really stunning what they have achieved with a mere PS4 look by yourself, :
I mean, come'on !
Plus it's pointless to post shots from character renders when the question is about gameplay models which have been confirmed to be lower quality than the character viewer and cutscene models.
His entire post was about how the original trailer was beyond what PS4 could do even in cutscene...let alone gameplay. And that is the truth at the end of the day.
dr guildo
Member
Shots are part of the ingame models....
I do agree that under the right lighting conditions and more confined areas, you can get the gameplay model to look as good as the cutscene model. However, the E3 2014 teaser used more technically advanced methods for hair and self shadowing. If you quoted my post solely for the artifacting from the TAA I mentioned, then you should be grateful you don't notice it. Thankfully, I can tolerate it much better now by turning motion blur down to 2.
dr guildo
Member
Yeah, but the showroom shots are not cutscene models, they are the ingame models, point per point. I think people are exaggerating the ghosting issue. the price for having a crystal clean IQ as showed ingame is very cheap imo.
Aliasing ghosting free IQ or aliasing free but ghosting IQ ?
For me, the choice is quite easy. Once you have acknowledge that TAA=ghosting as LCD technology=clouding, the complaint about it is vain...
Thing is, few other games that use TAA manage to do both. For example, DOOM uses TSSAA that results in an extremely clean image but with little to no ghosting. The post processing in DOOM are also of much higher quality than in Uncharted 4. That motion blur and bokeh DoF look amazing! I haven't played it, but the videos I've seen definitely don't suffer from ghosting or any visible artifacts.
I think tbe artifacting is more due to the low quality motion blur and not the TAA method. I really hope that the motion blur gets a big improvement with a Neo patch.
dr guildo
Member
The real test for a AA solution are hair, foliages and power grid. Doom only display buildings, corridors, and mountains, most easy things that an AA has to handle... Plus the fact that all is static in Doom,
Moblur is barely noticeable in Doom, you really notice it during gameplay screenshots in motion (on consoles).
Dof is really amazing tho !
To be fair, good motion blur is one where you don't really notice. It's meant to look subtle anyway. For instance, in MGSV, the motion blur is very noticeable when Snake runs because it is a bit too aggressive. That's my opinion, at least. The problem with the motion blur in Uncharted 4 is that it is relatively low quality and it sticks out when geometry intersect on screen and such.
You might be right. I reduced motion blur all the way down to 2 and it's far less noticeable than before. Still there, but at least the image quality doesn't get affected too much.
Wishmaster92
Member
The presentation from ND about their character shading clears up a historical point a lot of people were curious about. Remember how people were saying how that the original UC4 demo rendering is not the same as the one in the launched game / was perhaps not actually real time?
According to their chracter slides:
Then they ended up using some very different tech / paradigms.
---
Doom uses Clustered Forward, interesting!
Yup it was pretty obvious even though people got mad at me for pointing it out. Can these effects be introduced via a neo patch? Or do we have to wait for tlou 2 where it is more than likely developed with the neo in mind?
Doom has one of the most heavy AA setup due to heavy specular highlight situations.
It has also a lot of rails in its geometry.
Nope. They mention exactly the causes of artifacting right in that presentation. If people bothered to look.
For example the reason there is ghosting in the hair is because they dropped alpha for the hair cards. Instead they use the UE method and and dither (producing the effect you see in FFXV or MGSV). They then use TAA to blend the frames, thus producing nice looking hair, at the cost of ghosting.
On the contrary as it has been mentioned specularity is the biggest issue with AA and Doom has plenty of it. UC4 on the other hand avoids specular highlights like a plague as much as possible...Doom also has lots of thin geometry like railings. Doom also has a lot of transparency.
And the fact that motion blur is not noticeable in Doom during gameplay is due dueit being so high quality. The real good implementations are the ones that blend in and you don't notice much. Side by side comparison Doom motion blur has a higher sample count and quality. Doom's motion blur on console is equal to PC's high.
Did I say otherwise?
You say model viewer shows gameplay models not cutscene models...where are you getting this? I find it hard to believe that the model viewer would not use the highest quality models available. There is also the question of model viewer models being lit with a diffuse light that favourably lits up the model. This does not happen in gameplay usually.
Nope, it's TAA artifacting and motion blur artifacting both.
Even when Nate is standing and doing his idle animations, you can notice ghosting around his silhouette. Object motion blur wouldn't work for those idle animations because the speed is too low.
dr guildo
Member
I have another theory that I shared in another thread, please have a look :
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1247688&page=9
I'm getting this from my eyes and my experience with the game. Please, check by yourself, all of the following shots are from gameplay :
showroom :
At around 55ish seconds in this video (I captured during my playthrough), Nate tweaks out for a second and there's a black outline for like 1 frame where he was. Is that an artifact of the TAA solution?
https://youtu.be/aWxWknip54k
Edit: shown in this GIF
Wishmaster92
Member
Your character model pics are awesome and very well taken but it is in a completely different realm when comparing it to the e3 2014 teaser (i assume that's what you're trying to compare to) The sss, lighting, pbr on the character, shadows, hair quality, much better motion blur implementation and of course msaa.
At least the character model itself didn't get downgraded as much as other things
Same level, 1:1 cutscene vs cutscene
This is another one although not to be taken as a direct comparison because one is a realtime cutscene and the other one is a ps4 server farm but it's the same setting.
Big noticeable difference
edit: Here i tried to wait for lightning to hit drake, but it's still not the same. The hair alone brings the character to life.
Edit2: Added one with the normal stage lighting
I'm addicted to the e3 2014 visuals so much and i hope tlou 2 is developed entirely with ps neo in mind and then just downscale on ps4 and we get all the graphical effects from that trailer. I don't care if the trailer was 1080p60 i just want those visuals in 30 fps.
dr guildo
Member
I'm quite aware of the gap between the E3reveal trailer and the final code of the game.
But when I see this :
I don't know, I prefer the natural approach of the skin shader and the moonlight (way more natural too) exposed in the retail version over the reveal one.
He looks way more like a real human on the final product. Just my opinion, even if technically, the reveal is above.
For the rest of your shots comparison, I think the gap is essentialy the lighting and how it react on materials. It makes all the difference. For an example, cuscenes are not very far from the reveal trailer, and we know now that cutscenes model = ingame models + better lighting (more light sources, better SSS...), even in ND's slides they show that cinematics are ingame models with a superior lighting :
When you take my first screenshot in this page, the lighting is more powerful and closer to the reveal trailer than the one in the storm beach scene. As I told, for me the gap is mainly set in the lighting...
However wet skin is more convincing in the final product :
But when I see this :
I don't know, I prefer the natural approach of the skin shader and the moonlight (way more natural too) exposed in the retail version over the reveal one.
He looks way more like a real human on the final product. Just my opinion, even if technically, the reveal is above.
For the rest of your shots comparison, I think the gap is essentialy the lighting and how it react on materials. It makes all the difference. For an example, cuscenes are not very far from the reveal trailer, and we know now that cutscenes model = ingame models + better lighting (more light sources, better SSS...), even in ND's slides they show that cinematics are ingame models with a superior lighting :
When you take my first screenshot in this page, the lighting is more powerful and closer to the reveal trailer than the one in the storm beach scene. As I told, for me the gap is mainly set in the lighting...
However wet skin is more convincing in the final product :
Caayn
Member
Skin looks like plastic to me. Also, is it me or does it look like Nathan has something in his right?However wet skin is more convincing in the final product :
RenderJosh
Member
Your character model pics are awesome and very well taken but it is in a completely different realm when comparing it to the e3 2014 teaser (i assume that's what you're trying to compare to) The sss, lighting, pbr on the character, shadows, hair quality, much better motion blur implementation and of course msaa.
At least the character model itself didn't get downgraded as much as other things
Same level, 1:1 cutscene vs cutscene
This is another one although not to be taken as a direct comparison because one is a realtime cutscene and the other one is a ps4 server farm but it's the same setting.
Big noticeable difference
edit: Here i tried to wait for lightning to hit drake, but it's still not the same. The hair alone brings the character to life.
Edit2: Added one with the normal stage lighting
I'm addicted to the e3 2014 visuals so much and i hope tlou 2 is developed entirely with ps neo in mind and then just downscale on ps4 and we get all the graphical effects from that trailer. I don't care if the trailer was 1080p60 i just want those visuals in 30 fps.
What makes the original demo really shine, apart from the larger amount of light sources, far higher quality SSS, a lot more self-shadowing/contact shadows, textures etc, is really the Depth of Field effect.
The DoF is present absolutely everywhere in the shot, with its strength varying not only using the whole object's distance (here Nathan) from the camera, but also using, it seems, something like a per-fragment distance from camera, giving a lot more subtle details and the Holy Grail-ish cinematic/CGI feel. In the retail shot, just like in most of games and especially on consoles since you can't use a shitload of samples for your DoF, the object, if close to the camera, seems to be "cut" from the world. The effect is still quite nice given the approach used, since we can't really see artifacts around the objects (*wink wink FFXV*).
The Order 1866's IQ always seems so clean and silky smooth because of its DoF, just look at any shot, especially the ones in interiors environment with a lot of objects and clutters. By playing with the camera's position/angle, it is possible to nearly eliminate the DoF effect, and things get suddenly a lot less pretty. Which is normal.
EDIT : Just look at these shots. Despite having excellent materials, texture arts... what really convey the filmic look is definitely the DoF. Jesus, the second one just nailed it perfectly.
I agree with most of your post, except the bolded part. I don't know I think skin shaders actually look more natural in the final product. Even if the E3 2014 teaser had higher quality SSS, it certainly isn't "far higher". Keep in mind that the images you quoted are gameplay shots. The quality of SSS is reduced during gameplay.What makes the original demo really shine, apart from the larger amount of light sources, far higher quality SSS, a lot more self-shadowing/contact shadows, textures etc, is really the Depth of Field effect.
The DoF is present absolutely everywhere in the shot, with its strength varying not only using the whole object's distance (here Nathan) from the camera, but also using, it seems, something like a per-fragment distance from camera, giving a lot more subtle details and the Holy Grail-ish cinematic/CGI feel. In the retail shot, just like in most of games and especially on consoles since you can't use a shitload of samples for your DoF, the object, if close to the camera, seems to be "cut" from the world. The effect is still quite nice given the approach used, since we can't really see artifacts around the objects (*wink wink FFXV*).
The Order 1866's IQ always seems so clean and silky smooth because of its DoF, just look at any shot, especially the ones in interiors environment with a lot of objects and clutters. By playing with the camera's position/angle, it is possible to nearly eliminate the DoF effect, and things get suddenly a lot less pretty. Which is normal.
EDIT : Just look at these shots. Despite having excellent materials, texture arts... what really convey the filmic look is definitely the DoF. Jesus, the second one just nailed it perfectly.
I definitely agree on the DoF part, though. While it's arguable that The Order has been beaten by Uncharted 4 in overall visual fidelity and technical prowess, the post processing in the former is significantly better. Both use bokeh DoF, but I hope ND will improve the quality of DoF in their next game.
RenderJosh
Member
The retail shot I quoted are indeed using the gameplay shaders (that does not seems to feature SSS at all actually, at least for the characters' skin, but even the clothes when very close to the camera does not seems to absorb any light), I know that the cinematic ones are more complex and close to the early demo
(but still inferior I think)The lack of shadows also really hurt the global quality of the quoted, and give the "ultra low setting" feel, if your know what I mean. Now that I think about it, It is actually strange that this part of the game use the gameplay shaders since it is supposed to be a cinematic...