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Assassin's Creed Unity PS4 version leaked and footage (Spoilers)

R

R_Deckard

Member
UrbanRats said:
Seeing how the game can barely keep 30fps and 900p like this, it seems to me like it's definitely a performance issue.
Not saying we're never getting any form of GI with real time day/night cycle (isn't Driveclub doing something of the sort?) but given how many current gen games seem to opt for an arbitrary shift in the cycle (Infamous SS, even Shadow of Mordor) it's probably the easiest trade off.
If that email to GiantBomb was true, further more, implementing this lighting has been a huge challenge for them, so they probably cut corners where it made the most sense.
And the real time day/night cycle is something most people didn't even notice was there.

There should still be atmospheric changes in real time though, that would change the lighting.
Click to expand...

Any additional process always comes with some performance hit, but as WatchDogs having a cycle in free-roam in fully possible even on weaker machines.

The performance issues are well documented but I would not apportion this to the lighting model in the game specificly, as seems to be a trait with ubisoft we have yet another game that just seems to be not as well managed and planned, a result of many hands and teams trying to complete a final product like a game that does not work as well with so many bolted in middle ware solutions. Aside from Far Cry AC and WD just seemed rushed and paid the price in its performance.
 
artsi

artsi

Member
Looks good. Seems like there's only one "pass" of shadows, the one that sunlight casts. So when the object is already in shade indoors it doesn't cast another one from the indirect light. I imagine it would be a big performance issue.
 
FeiRR

FeiRR

Banned
UrbanRats said:
Seeing how the game can barely keep 30fps and 900p like this, it seems to me like it's definitely a performance issue.
Not saying we're never getting any form of GI with real time day/night cycle (isn't Driveclub doing something of the sort?) but given how many current gen games seem to opt for an arbitrary shift in the cycle (Infamous SS, even Shadow of Mordor) it's probably the easiest trade off.
If that email to GiantBomb was true, further more, implementing this lighting has been a huge challenge for them, so they probably cut corners where it made the most sense.
And the real time day/night cycle is something most people didn't even notice was there.

There should still be atmospheric changes in real time though, that would change the lighting.
Click to expand...

Night & day cycle isn't really that much a problem from a computational point of view. You have to track the source of one light (usually sun) and change colours and other values associated with them. The problem is how the graphical assets will look in changed lighting. It's a problem of graphic designer work hours so really of money. With higher resolution of current gen, the problem increases.

Unless somebody finds a way to create procedural graphics which looks well (something No Man's Sky devs are trying to achieve), graphical costs of development will continue to rise and devs will still opt for pre-baked lighting just like in the case of AC:U.
 
K

Kezen

Banned
FeiRR said:
The problem is how the graphical assets will look in changed lighting.
Click to expand...
If your pipeline is fully physically correct then where is the problem ? Assets should look accurate regardless of the lighting conditions, that's the whole point of PBR.

PBR is more effective than tweaking materials.
 
U

UrbanRats

Member
FeiRR said:
Night & day cycle isn't really that much a problem from a computational point of view. You have to track the source of one light (usually sun) and change colours and other values associated with them. The problem is how the graphical assets will look in changed lighting. It's a problem of graphic designer work hours so really of money. With higher resolution of current gen, the problem increases.

Unless somebody finds a way to create procedural graphics which looks well (something No Man's Sky devs are trying to achieve), graphical costs of development will continue to rise and devs will still opt for pre-baked lighting just like in the case of AC:U.
Click to expand...

Isn't the game still featuring a plethora of various time of day and atmospheric conditions though? So they must be facing that problem already.
It just doesn't shift from one to the other in real time, but through a loading.
 
D

dex3108

Member
People are complaining about shadows but if you look around you in your house you will see that there are not that much items that cast shadow indoor. Maybe there should be more AO for certain elements.
 
FeiRR

FeiRR

Banned
Kezen said:
If your pipeline is fully physically correct then where is the problem ? Assets should look accurate regardless of the lighting conditions, that's the whole point of PBR.

PBR is more effective than tweaking materials.
Click to expand...
The problem is you need developers (both programmers and graphicians) who have experience in this kind of engines. It's still a very modern approach (presented at SIGGRAPH just 4 years ago, IIRC). But you're right, it's the future. My remark about procedural graphics was a bit offtopic in this view.

UrbanRats said:
Isn't the game still featuring a plethora of various time of day and atmospheric conditions though? So they must be facing that problem already.
It just doesn't shift from one to the other in real time, but through a loading.
Click to expand...

Yes, it is a problem. If the dev letter is not fake, they have 25 GB of textures with pre-baked lighting in the game. That's a tremendous amount of artists' work caused by an old programming approach in effect.

Interest reading on the subject of PBR and how future engines should help have more realtime look http://www.fxguide.com/featured/game-environments-parta-remember-me-rendering/
 
K

Kezen

Banned
FeiRR said:
The problem is you need developers (both programmers and graphicians) who have experience in this kind of engines. It's still a very modern approach (presented at SIGGRAPH just 4 years ago, IIRC). But you're right, it's the future. My remark about procedural graphics was a bit offtopic in this view.
Click to expand...
Your remark about procedural graphics is true in the sense that producing high quality assets is expensive, they require authoring, artist inputs. Procedural could allow for a wealth of assets at a cheaper cost but a team is still needed to ensure quality.
Ryse has fully transitionned to PBR, and it's a launch game. I would be very surprised if Unity is not PBR'd to the bone as well just like pretty much any game targetting modern systems.
 
R

rockman zx

Member
So with 2 weeks to go, the game is out there and the risk of being spoiled is big, I hope they do the sensible thing and release it ASAP, after all the game is already done and packed.
 
D

dex3108

Member
rockman zx said:
So with 2 weeks to go, the game is out there and the risk of being spoiled is big, I hope they do the sensible thing and release it ASAP, after all the game is already done and packed.
Click to expand...

Distribution + potential day one patch is main issue. Game is maybe done but it is not distributed everywhere.
 
DOWN

DOWN

Banned
Is anyone else blown away by how elegant the music sounds? Reminds me of Casino Royale, Pride & Prejudice, or The Duchess.
 
G

Gaffercake

Member
1414617248-wp-20141029-003.jpg
 
N

nelsonroyale

Member
Rivyn said:
Based on crappy footage. PC-Elitism right here.
Click to expand...

Yeah, most of the next gen feature compared to ACIV are intact on consoles: PBR, geometry, lighting system, animation system, etc. IQ and fps are the main concerns. Considering the amount of detail I think excellent IQ will really do this game justice. Hoping it hits 1080p on PS4, but seriously doubt it will considering recent news.
 
F

Fafalada

Fafracer forever
FeiRR said:
Unless somebody finds a way to create procedural graphics which looks well
Click to expand...
Procedural will never be a complete answer to reducing costs.
First - many big game productions(including AC) have been using procedural generation tools to create large scale content for years (possibly decades) now - and it's even more prevalent in movie industry where all content is offline so performance considerations are considerably lessened.
Second - it's never worked as an end-2-end solution - lots of pretty photos made with say - world-builder are just as much hand crafted as any oil-painting is, ie. procedural content is another type of "paintbrush" in artists-hands(just a lot more clumsy to use than most traditional tools), not a solution into itself.
The clumsy part is bound to improve over time - but as long as we're looking for any sort of creativity/art(as well as perception of production values) in content we consume, the artist-input will never cease to be a fundamental part of creation process.
 
U

UrbanRats

Member
FeiRR said:
Yes, it is a problem. If the dev letter is not fake, they have 25 GB of textures with pre-baked lighting in the game. That's a tremendous amount of artists' work caused by an old programming approach in effect.

Interest reading on the subject of PBR and how future engines should help have more realtime look http://www.fxguide.com/featured/game-environments-parta-remember-me-rendering/
Click to expand...

I guess my question would be, can current gen consoles handle real time GI? I know UE4 dropped their solution, to implement a simpler one afterwards, i wonder if we'll see a big open world game like Assassin's Creed (or GTA or what have you) run with it, on this hardware.
 
artsi

artsi

Member
Are there any companies offering vast 3D asset libraries that developers can access to buy and focus on the overall world building, instead of building every piece themselves? I think that would be one way to cut costs per game.
 
Y

Yeul

Member
The music is really nice, but that has never disappointed me in AC games. I'll get this eventually, I just don't know if my wallet can withstand the pain of $120+ for games in a two week span of time.
 
M

MaLDo

Member
Kezen said:
If your pipeline is fully physically correct then where is the problem ? Assets should look accurate regardless of the lighting conditions, that's the whole point of PBR.

PBR is more effective than tweaking materials.
Click to expand...

The problem is that GI and probes are backed. For the whole game. That's why the need half the data for lighting only having a few predefined times of day with a loading process in between (I guess under cinematics). They can't store those bits for every time of day (too much GB) and load them smoothly.

This problem doesn't exist in a realtime gi.
 
DOWN

DOWN

Banned
artsi said:
Are there any companies offering vast 3D asset libraries that developers can access to buy and focus on the overall world building, instead of building every piece themselves? I think that would be one way to cut costs per game.
Click to expand...
The big publishers use plenty of middleware, but they also want to save money by having strong internal studio resources. theyd rather own the content and get to streamline their own studios and asset banks. EA and Ubi are great examples of the recent push to get a single engine for their whole network as early in the gen as they can.
 
artsi

artsi

Member
CannonO said:
The big publishers use plenty of middleware, but they also want to save money by having strong internal studio resources. theyd rather own the content and get to streamline their own studios and asset banks. EA and Ubi are great examples of the recent push to get a single engine for their whole network as early in the gen as they can.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I'm just thinking a future where creating realistic game worlds would be like creating movie sets. You still have to design the set, but instead of creating every single object you could just buy the props in a standard format and place them according to the design.

It would need a really large library though to not be limited.
 
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