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Naughty Dog's final PS5 exclusive will probably be the first game to showcase photorealistic graphics in-game (or come very close to it)

Danjin44

The nicest person on this forum
You say this all the time but there is actually nothing wrong with liking photorealistic graphics. I like both cartoony, stylized graphics and photorealistic graphics. Also, no one dislikes The Last of Us Part II because its graphics are photorealistic, they dislike it because of its story and playing as Abby. This thread isn't even about The Last of Us Part II, it's about the graphics potential for the PS5.
It just my personal taste, especially in game photorealistic graphics have dullest character designs.
 
It just my personal taste, especially in game photorealistic graphics have dullest character designs.
I disagree, but you are right that it is a matter of personal taste. Still, the kind of graphics you prefer overall does not really have anything to do with what I was saying in the OP. I use Naughty Dog as an example of a developer constantly pushing the visuals envelope (in regard to chasing realistic graphics) on consoles because they are talented developers technically speaking.

Look, this thread isn't about picking sides. I just want to talk about game graphics. We're in a whole new console generation now.
 

Ammogeddon

Member
That totally depends on their art direction. I’m sure they could push photorealism if they wanted but it’ll be at the expense of something else.

I’m currently playing FH4 in XSX and there are moments in that where it looks photoreal, but it’s very superficial.
 

EDMIX

Member
What's the obsession with photorealistic graphics being seen as "The Best" graphics????
Doesn't great
art direction and a sense of escapism from the real world matter any more?
I'm a dev, working in the sector where photorealism is the aim and I still don't get it.

???

You can have great art direction with something photorealistic as those are not either or type things....

Sense of escapism? You can have that with photorealistic graphics though...

None of what you are saying are concepts against each other or can't be done at the same time etc. So....as someone that literally studies art direction (and is personally doing it right now with one of my projects), that is not an either or idea.


I mean....my god, help me understand where you seen this in real life to tell me it wouldn't count as "escapism".

tlou-2-combat-tips-1592425440421.png



So if you think Art Direction doesn't matter simply because something is photorealistic, I don't think you fully understand what that word or term actually means.
 
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I think more than just ND will hit close enough to "photo realistic" (by today's expectation) by the end of this generation. There were bits of Death Stranding that were already very close. And a whole heap of games that looked "not far" off. Will just be a design decision.
Yeah, Kojima Productions are very talented as well and I wouldn't be surprised to see a photorealistic game from them on the PS5. I think it happens every console generation where developers just continue to optimize their game engines to achieve more. Of course this is also true if you're developing exclusively for either the PS5 or Series X.

Take-Two's CEO said ten years until we start seeing photorealistic graphics but it could be sooner.
 

Sophist

Member
photo-realistic is when you use real photos as textures, nothing more. games have been doing that since forever. S.T.A.L.K.E.R is a notorious example
ss_a8717b953164310dc5jnjnn.jpg
 

VFXVeteran

Banned
In order to push photorealistic graphics, you have to have hardware with enormous bandwidth potential. When you say photoreal, are you talking about textures (i.e. photogrammetry) or PBR lighting/shading or both? ND could very well implement a certain photoreal "look" to go after without needing large GPU bandwidth to implement the more complex computations. Right now, the only realtime game that pushes photorealism the best is clearly FS2020 by far - if you want to call it a game.
 
In order to push photorealistic graphics, you have to have hardware with enormous bandwidth potential. When you say photoreal, are you talking about textures (i.e. photogrammetry) or PBR lighting/shading or both? ND could very well implement a certain photoreal "look" to go after without needing large GPU bandwidth to implement the more complex computations. Right now, the only realtime game that pushes photorealism the best is clearly FS2020 by far - if you want to call it a game.
I mean, everything from natural lighting and ray-tracing to things like physical based rendering and sub-surface scattering of light -- some of which we've seen in PS4/Xbox One games that clearly set the games apart visually from previous console generations. I can only imagine it will get better with exclusive games on PS5 and Series X.

Microsoft Flight Simulator looks amazing, by the way. I know I mentioned it in the past before how realistic it looks. Especially considering its huge scale but it does appear to come at a price where if you fly really close to the ground, it doesn't look as good as when you're flying farther up.
 

Amiga

Member
ND games look good because of the artwork not their tech. the gameplay is in small zones so the artists have a focused area to work on.
 

SirTerry-T

Member
???

You can have great art direction with something photorealistic as those are not either or type things....

Sense of escapism? You can have that with photorealistic graphics though...

None of what you are saying are concepts against each other or can't be done at the same time etc. So....as someone that literally studies art direction (and is personally doing it right now with one of my projects), that is not an either or idea.


I mean....my god, help me understand where you seen this in real life to tell me it wouldn't count as "escapism".

tlou-2-combat-tips-1592425440421.png



So if you think Art Direction doesn't matter simply because something is photorealistic, I don't think you fully understand what that word or term actually means.
Ok Mr Condescending, I'll bite...
From my experience, photogrammetry and the chase for photorealism has become both a blessing and a curse for modern art direction in games...yes, I do know what that phrase means, twenty years and counting.

The blessing is that along with PBR and modern rendering techniques it has become "easy" in the broadest sense of the word, to get some pretty believable graphics in modern games that almost cross the bridge into photoreal territory.

The only real thing letting the side down is on the animation front, where it's still difficult to get all those small micro movements of muscle twitches or an eyelid flutter that go a step beyond the regular motion and facial capture that we see the majority of the time.
That's as much a budget and time issue as it is a technology and talent one though.

My issue with the race to photorealism and a lot of the art direction in modern games is that all these new methods have also become a crutch for art directors and artists.

You can throw an actor in a scanning suite, grab PBR-friendly textures from online vendors and create realistic clothing in Marvelous Designer and you will have the raw materials to make a great "photorealistic" looking asset, but that's all you will have.

There's no sense of uniqueness and individual flair when a lot of art directors and devs are using the same tools in the same way...or even the same actors to scan, God forbid.

Photorealism should not be held up as the one shining example that decides whether a game looks great or not.

An 8 colour sprite can be just as worthy as a 20k Tri head capture with a suite of 8k maps and FACS motion capture.
In my opinion.
Each to their own, etc, blah blah blah.
 
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The Fartist

Gold Member
In order to push photorealistic graphics, you have to have hardware with enormous bandwidth potential. When you say photoreal, are you talking about textures (i.e. photogrammetry) or PBR lighting/shading or both? ND could very well implement a certain photoreal "look" to go after without needing large GPU bandwidth to implement the more complex computations. Right now, the only realtime game that pushes photorealism the best is clearly FS2020 by far - if you want to call it a game.
That's the most sensible comment I think I've ever read from you, all that time off has served you well.

9HOL0JR.gif
 

Greggy

Member
For one, we're still early in the PS5's lifecycle and so I think we have yet to truly see what the PS5 is capable of in terms of graphics. But Naughty Dog have consistently shown that they have a knack for showcasing the best realistic graphics from a first-party developer ever since The Last of Us released years ago on the PS3, and how much better that game looked compared to Uncharted 3. Whether you like or dislike their gameplay is not really the point, although perhaps it's because their games are designed a certain way, particularly the linearity of the levels, camera cuts and maybe just the talent from within Naughty Dog, their artists and programmers whose names we don't really know but are clearly able to push the visuals envelope. Or am I thinking of the ICE Team? In any case, there's clearly talent and money within the studio, when talking about realistic game graphics and animations.

I expect something like real-time raytracing will be a big breakthrough for developers like Naughty Dog chasing photorealistic graphics. I'm no tech expert but there's something fascinating about exclusive games, seeing how good a game looks when it's developed for one platform. Like how much of the attention to detail that we see in one game do we not see in other multiplatform games released the same console generation? How much of the attention to detail that we see in Naughty Dog games do we not see in games by Electronic Arts, Square Enix etc?

Do you think by the end of the PS5's lifecycle that Naughty Dog will showcase photorealistic graphics in-game (or come close to it)? If not, what do you think is missing?

You could play Flight simulator while you wait, you know.
 

EDMIX

Member
My issue with the race to photorealism and a lot of the art direction in modern games is that all these new methods have also become a crutch for art directors and artists.

Not really. Thats like saying real life in a live action tv show is um "become a crutch for art directors and artists". So....as an artist, making something realistic or stylized doesn't create some magically limitation in regards to art direction....the elements that make up art direction didn't just fucking disappear just because I want to make something more realistic or stylized etc.

So put it roughly art direction is simply the combination of things to specifically convey and evoke a specific emotion to bring together an idea.

So when art director is going to bring together iconography - the things you actually physically see in the world like buildings cars people.

They will also bring together specific color palettes that might match that emotion your dark Browns greys etc

They will also bring together specific textures that might convey certain ideas

The same can be said about how a scene is composed on top of the lighting and Shadow.

My friend all of that encompasses Art Direction.... but all of those ideas can be found in real life in a obviously photorealistic setting so the thing you're talking about is not an either-or or something it is not something that somehow is going to be absent in a photo-realistic work on the contrary I would argue those ideas can be conveyed even stronger because a photorealistic world is going to show off some of these elements to a hyper extreme compared to something stylized that might have a limited palette..... as in...when you cartoon, you LIMIT ideas to simple forms.

So I want you to think about that CW show The 100 are you trying to tell me because it's not a cartoon there's no fucking art director working on it? Did you just assume that any photorealistic work simply has none of those elements at all and they just taking pictures and completely ignoring every element of art or something weird like that?

So.....as an artist, understand what I'm saying, creating something realistic will take lots of work to convey many ideas no different then if stylized and I'd argue it would take even more work as cartooning seeks to limit ideas to more simple things.

5d2c778272bbe.jpg



So the art director is still deciding to add the tree trunk as an object to convey something, they are still deciding the palette to fit a idea, same with the value, hue, saturation etc Stylizing it simply removes that texture and uses less information to convey something.

The art director and artist is still needed to create that though... Having better tools or scanning objects doesn't magically mean no artist is involved or no direction is needed. This is a massive misconception that I don't even fully understand where it comes from other then most not really knowing what artist are actually doing when creating. So...when I'm making my work, its not like me using reference of something from real life some how means NO art direction is needed or something, I'm not really sure where this notion even comes from btw.

So sir
You can throw an actor in

a horror film and you still need to fucking have a art director. They will help with set design, costume design, cinematography etc Did you not realize that such people exist in LIVE ACTION FILM to actually convey certain ideas and give the artist a direction (see what I did) to focus the film in a certain artistic area?

That is not an idea solely about cartoons or anime or stylized things etc, that is an idea about ALL ART IN GENERAL. It is not exclusive to anything stylized.

"Photorealism should not be held up as the one shining example that decides whether a game looks great or not"

Thats a great story, no one said anything remotely like that btw. So art direction matters and that isn't some how ignored in photorealistic games anymore then film, tv shows etc. Its a disrespect to the art directors that work hard to help bring those worlds to life. The game doesn't just magically make itself.
 
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Kholinar

Banned
Your kind is so shortsighted

Learn to distinguish who is the 'victim' of an accusation before talking
Mate, he singled out 'lesbian' as if it was a legitimate critique of the game, and the word 'tranny' is an offensive term, especially in the context I'm seeing.

Perhaps your kind is ignorant?
 

01011001

Banned
just driving by to point out that photo realistic is a subjective term that changes meaning all the time.
I remember when this game was called Photo Realistic:

Re1dff72487454dadee5bb8f334741482


it was called that because they used photos for a lot of textures including the faces. and the faces looked vaguely realistic at the time.
 

EDMIX

Member
just driving by to point out that photo realistic is a subjective term that changes meaning all the time.
I remember when this game was called Photo Realistic:

Re1dff72487454dadee5bb8f334741482


it was called that because they used photos for a lot of textures including the faces. and the faces looked vaguely realistic at the time.

We need a remake of Max Payne 1 and 2 like yesterday lol
 
Well, the last of us 2 is better than any game out there so yes 🙌

and people complain but I would like to play some real life style game done well. no zombies this time.
 

EDMIX

Member
yeah, but with as many of the original cast as possible! that is actors for the photos and the voice actors! SAM LAKE HAS TO RETURN WITH THAT SMIRK!

facts. If done, they'd likely have an option to play the classic face I mean how could they not.

It was an option to play PS1 snake in MGSV and MGSIV. I believe RE2 remake also had that.

how-to-get-98-classic-costumes-in-resident-evil-2.jpg
 

01011001

Banned
facts. If done, they'd likely have an option to play the classic face I mean how could they not.

It was an option to play PS1 snake in MGSV and MGSIV. I believe RE2 remake also had that.

how-to-get-98-classic-costumes-in-resident-evil-2.jpg

Max Payne 3 also had that somewhat

 
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Optimus Lime

(L3) + (R3) | Spartan rage activated
All that edginess gave me a paper cut.

It's really hilarious how much people on here hate ND because their last game had some LGBT themes. Must really hurt for you guys. So offensive.
I didn't say anything about 'LGBT themes'.

I didn't like 'The Last Of Us 2', for the same reason I didn't like 'Uncharted 4'. It's an extremely boring, self-important, pretentious interactive movie which gets the pass because it appeals to video game critics who are desperate to be taken seriously.

Oh, and people like you. You know. Dumb people, who accuse others of bigotry because they have no other argument.
 

SirTerry-T

Member
Not really. Thats like saying real life in a live action tv show is um "become a crutch for art directors and artists". So....as an artist, making something realistic or stylized doesn't create some magically limitation in regards to art direction....the elements that make up art direction didn't just fucking disappear just because I want to make something more realistic or stylized etc.

So put it roughly art direction is simply the combination of things to specifically convey and evoke a specific emotion to bring together an idea.

So when art director is going to bring together iconography - the things you actually physically see in the world like buildings cars people.

They will also bring together specific color palettes that might match that emotion your dark Browns greys etc

They will also bring together specific textures that might convey certain ideas

The same can be said about how a scene is composed on top of the lighting and Shadow.

My friend all of that encompasses Art Direction.... but all of those ideas can be found in real life in a obviously photorealistic setting so the thing you're talking about is not an either-or or something it is not something that somehow is going to be absent in a photo-realistic work on the contrary I would argue those ideas can be conveyed even stronger because a photorealistic world is going to show off some of these elements to a hyper extreme compared to something stylized that might have a limited palette..... as in...when you cartoon, you LIMIT ideas to simple forms.

So I want you to think about that CW show The 100 are you trying to tell me because it's not a cartoon there's no fucking art director working on it? Did you just assume that any photorealistic work simply has none of those elements at all and they just taking pictures and completely ignoring every element of art or something weird like that?

So.....as an artist, understand what I'm saying, creating something realistic will take lots of work to convey many ideas no different then if stylized and I'd argue it would take even more work as cartooning seeks to limit ideas to more simple things.

5d2c778272bbe.jpg



So the art director is still deciding to add the tree trunk as an object to convey something, they are still deciding the palette to fit a idea, same with the value, hue, saturation etc Stylizing it simply removes that texture and uses less information to convey something.

The art director and artist is still needed to create that though... Having better tools or scanning objects doesn't magically mean no artist is involved or no direction is needed. This is a massive misconception that I don't even fully understand where it comes from other then most not really knowing what artist are actually doing when creating. So...when I'm making my work, its not like me using reference of something from real life some how means NO art direction is needed or something, I'm not really sure where this notion even comes from btw.

So sir


a horror film and you still need to fucking have a art director. They will help with set design, costume design, cinematography etc Did you not realize that such people exist in LIVE ACTION FILM to actually convey certain ideas and give the artist a direction (see what I did) to focus the film in a certain artistic area?

That is not an idea solely about cartoons or anime or stylized things etc, that is an idea about ALL ART IN GENERAL. It is not exclusive to anything stylized.

"Photorealism should not be held up as the one shining example that decides whether a game looks great or not"

Thats a great story, no one said anything remotely like that btw. So art direction matters and that isn't some how ignored in photorealistic games anymore then film, tv shows etc. Its a disrespect to the art directors that work hard to help bring those worlds to life. The game doesn't just magically make itself.
Edmix, I'm not having a go at art directors.
It's 2.20am here and though your well written response warrants it, I'm too knackered to write one, so let's agree to disagree on the whys, wherefores...pros,cons and everything in-between about photorealism and how it's used (or abused) and move on. Cheers.
 

Butch_0451

Member
Too bad their gameplay is still 8bit. Hopefully by then Sony would’ve turned them into a movie studio just like they always wanted.
 

SlimySnake

Flashless at the Golden Globes
For one, we're still early in the PS5's lifecycle and so I think we have yet to truly see what the PS5 is capable of in terms of graphics. But Naughty Dog have consistently shown that they have a knack for showcasing the best realistic graphics from a first-party developer ever since The Last of Us released years ago on the PS3, and how much better that game looked compared to Uncharted 3. Whether you like or dislike their gameplay is not really the point, although perhaps it's because their games are designed a certain way, particularly the linearity of the levels, camera cuts and maybe just the talent from within Naughty Dog, their artists and programmers whose names we don't really know but are clearly able to push the visuals envelope. Or am I thinking of the ICE Team? In any case, there's clearly talent and money within the studio, when talking about realistic game graphics and animations.

I expect something like real-time raytracing will be a big breakthrough for developers like Naughty Dog chasing photorealistic graphics. I'm no tech expert but there's something fascinating about exclusive games, seeing how good a game looks when it's developed for one platform. Like how much of the attention to detail that we see in one game do we not see in other multiplatform games released the same console generation? How much of the attention to detail that we see in Naughty Dog games do we not see in games by Electronic Arts, Square Enix etc?

Do you think by the end of the PS5's lifecycle that Naughty Dog will showcase photorealistic graphics in-game (or come close to it)? If not, what do you think is missing?
ND isnt the only studio to achieve realism in graphics this gen. RDR2, Detroit, Death Stranding, Gran Turismo, DriveClub are proof of that, and several other third party developers can easily put out photorealistic visuals next gen.

giphy.gif

643649552280bb4aad598eaaa88bb0010aa98ec8r1-500-248_hq.gif

1b0754d0e0ea07d623f7d14897a5f6472005e373.gifv

giphy.gif


DICE is a graphical powerhouse and they have already shown stuff that is as close to photorealism as you can get.
5R3UzbP.gif



Criterion has already topped both GT Sports and GT7 with their first entry.
BFAGbBS.gif



You dont have to wait for ND's final game to get photorealistic graphics. There are plenty of studios talented enough to do this.
 

AGRacing

Gold Member
What year will that be ? 2026?
I hope I can survive for that long without knowing whatever important moral lesson it has to teach me.
 

Batiman

Banned
Yeah I’m not worried about graphics when it comes to naughty dog. It’s the gameplay really. Just gave up on TLOU2 and I like the first one. I prefer uncharted but tbh, it isn’t the gameplay that I like about them. I’m a sucker for that Indiana Jones theme. It seems the more realistic their games get, the less gameplay we get.
 

VFXVeteran

Banned
I mean, everything from natural lighting and ray-tracing to things like physical based rendering and sub-surface scattering of light -- some of which we've seen in PS4/Xbox One games that clearly set the games apart visually from previous console generations. I can only imagine it will get better with exclusive games on PS5 and Series X.

Microsoft Flight Simulator looks amazing, by the way. I know I mentioned it in the past before how realistic it looks. Especially considering its huge scale but it does appear to come at a price where if you fly really close to the ground, it doesn't look as good as when you're flying farther up.

There are limits to ALL hardware - whether PC or console. Some of the things we saw in the previous generation, while still good looking, had many sacrifices in quality of render. Take SSS for example. While it was implemented in cutscenes, it was nowhere to be found in actual gameplay. Reflections, water, transparency FX, etc.. were all of lower quality in order to make the game playable at the target resolution and framerate. My advice would be to keep your expectations realistic for the hardware we have.

Concerning FS2020. Yes, some of the assets don't look so well up close, but that's an intentional twofold decision: 1) The captured world data is up to 3 meters in detail. That's plenty for a flying simulation. 2) Bandwidth. Even the highest end graphics cards can't hold 60FPS @ 4k with good quality rendering settings. It would be a complete waste of resources to stream in textures as detailed as a FPS game when modeling the entire planet and if you are that close to the ground, you'd be crashing. I would say that the kind of graphics features that FS2020 has clearly shows it was designed for future hardware not yet announced. That team has a great foundation that's futureproof.
 
I'm honestly still really excited to see what their PS5 update for TLOU2 brings. I never finished my NG+ run of it, maybe when it gets upgraded I will go back and get the plat.

As far as true photorealism, I dunno. If there is one dev I would bet on, Naughty Dog would be up there. Though I am not sure true photorealistic graphics are really something we are gonna see anytime soon, honestly. With some exceptions, of course. I'm talking more in terms of big action packed games.
For me there were moments on tlou 2 that looked photorealistic. Especially at the beginning when you're playing with abby, there are several moments that look so real thanks to the camera an the motion.
 

N1tr0sOx1d3

Given another chance
And will be 2 gens old gameplay wise
I’m not being an ass, serious question, what is next gen gameplay? What does it look like? What can be improved over what we’ve been playing for the last few decades?

If you’re talking AI I’d defo agree with that. AI seems to be going backwards rather than improving on the likes of Fear, but beyond that I’ve no idea what next gen Gameplay is?
 
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