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[wmlk]

Again, why is the game so foggy? It's doing it a bit too much.

 

[Crossing Eden]

It's crazy how people can say "Black Flag looked better"

Just to put the final nail in that coffin that AC4 is even close visually, there's this comparison video that shows off the generational gap between Rogue, a game with the same engine as 4, and Unity.

Do not watch if you don't want to see a spoiler from Rogue.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qszDHrnmy6I
Also it's the ps4 version of Unity.

Again, why is the game so foggy? It's doing it a bit too much.

For some reason the French Revolution is usually portrayed as foggy.
Saw this good little joke about it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__d2FMCtgi4#t=145

 

[jim2point0]

Again, why is the game so foggy? It's doing it a bit too much.

It needs more fog if you ask me. Anything to hide the LOD on buildings farther than 20 meters. Ubisoft open world game's just can't handle a long draw distance without it looking like garbage.

 

[thelastword]

It's crazy how people can say "Black Flag looked better".

This room is amazing and i get 10fps with a 770gtx ^^

That's the power of the PC, with enough gpu power you can enable all effects and features to ultra, downsample from 4k and post screens at 5-10fps and call it the best looking game. It doesn't work that way, I'm sure if shadowfall was running at 10fps it would look much more impressive. If you can't get playable framerates what's the point of calling a game the best looking.

 

[nOoblet16]

Actually those NPCs are a big part of what makes the world feel alive. If you pay close attention to them, they all have their own distinct lives. The pop-in is broken. I'll give people that. But to take massive amounts of the crowds away would probably make the world feel less impressive. People complained a lot about Shadow of Mordor being an "empty and barren world".

Lol I'm sorry but that's just a truck load of bull.
This is nothing like the Bethesda games (Fallout/Oblivion) where the NPCs go about and do their thing have a schedule....not even close.

It's just like previous AC games but with a lot more numbers, at times you will have copies of NPCs or a group of NPCs who do the same animation...that breaks the look of the game far too much imo despite the fantastic lighting and shading. Also, when Arno is moving through the crowd the NPCs would just move away like bowling pins rather than Arno pushing them away and the NPCs following it with a being pushed animation as in previous AC games.

 

[KiraXD]

You can hold down R3 (or whatever you have right stick button bound to) to hide the HUD for better screenshots.

is there any way to disable parts of the HUD so you can play the game without it fucking up the prettiness? this was my main complaint for every AC game. Id love to playthrough with no hud... or at least very little hud (like JUST HP bar, or JUST minimap)

 

[Yibby]

the detail is just incredible

Looks even better in the game with all the reflective surfaces.

 

[Lulubop]

That's the power of the PC, with enough gpu power you can enable all effects and features to ultra, downsample from 4k and post screens at 5-10fps and call it the best looking game. It doesn't work that way, I'm sure if shadowfall was running at 10fps it would look much more impressive. If you can't get playable framerates what's the point of calling a game the best looking.

No you don't need 4k and everything cranked up at a native setting is doable on something modest at 30fps (maybe not msaa), but you can think you do if that makes you feel better console warrior.

 

[Yibby]

That's the power of the PC, with enough gpu power you can enable all effects and features to ultra, downsample from 4k and post screens at 5-10fps and call it the best looking game. It doesn't work that way, I'm sure if shadowfall was running at 10fps it would look much more impressive. If you can't get playable framerates what's the point of calling a game the best looking.

Those screens are not downsampled, 1080p, Textures only "high", HBAO+, FXAA

With a better CPU and GPU than my 770, i5-2500 you can easily get 30+ fps

 

[wmlk]

Just to put the final nail in that coffin that AC4 is even close visually, there's this comparison video that shows off the generational gap between Rogue, a game with the same engine as 4, and Unity.

Do not watch if you don't want to see a spoiler from Rogue.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qszDHrnmy6I
Also it's the ps4 version of Unity.


For some reason the French Revolution is usually portrayed as foggy.
Saw this good little joke about it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__d2FMCtgi4#t=145

It needs more fog if you ask me. Anything to hide the LOD on buildings farther than 20 meters. Ubisoft open world game's just can't handle a long draw distance without it looking like garbage.

Yeah, always thought it was a combination of both.

I don't like it. Along with the lighting, it just seems artificial.

Guess it's going for a filmic look.

 

[Caayn]

is there any way to disable parts of the HUD so you can play the game without it fucking up the prettiness? this was my main complaint for every AC game. Id love to playthrough with no hud... or at least very little hud (like JUST HP bar, or JUST minimap)

Don't know if this goes for all version, I do assume that it does, but on the Xbox One it's menu -> options -> HUD options -> enjoy

Edit:

loooonnnggg post, read it !

Thank you for writing this all out and explaining it.

 

[TyrantII]

Well here is how the tricks go. I will try to explain as much simple as I can. I will need to bring some examples from UE4 that I did and I will use UE4 examples to explain this once and for all. In fact Lightmaps and shadowmaps have been used for a long time now in many engines to mimic the effects of global illumination. Here is how they do it. They use a static source of light which gives as result lit surfaces with indirect lights and lit ones with indirect lights and the resulting shadows. This light and shadow data can be stored in UV textures called lightmaps and shadowmaps and can be applied on surfaces and meshes' textures to give the impression of being lit. This has been done in almost every game from that last generation with old engines to make it run on low end machines (this has bene done even in Cryengine 2 with Crysis 2 and many UE3 games and so). Since the GI is basically textures, they have to be stored in the game files and disk and will eat more space just like regular textures. I take now the example of UE4 whihc has a a new and advanced ligthing tech compared to old gen. In fact UE4 uses what is called Lightmass. This tech is like a dynamic source of Light but instead it is either static or stationary (for example turning on and off but stayin in teh same position). This method creates indirect lighting from the direct light creating lightmaps and shadowmaps in real time on surfaces and meshes without creating UV lightmaps and shadowmaps that are stored as regular textures that are blended with surfaces and mshes UV textures to give the impression of being lit but instead the light data stays stored in static volumes instead of turning into textures files which saves much space. So let is say that is a semi automatic GI, it is still static but it doesn't involve the artists to store light data within textures. The benefit of such tech :storing the light data in volume instead of textures is that it can make movable meshes like charcters interact with it and get the diffused lights like here in Unity where Arno socks and shirt get lit by red light diffused from the red carpet, so if they were just simple lightmaps and shadowmaps, Arno wouldn't get such detail. Unity must be using sth similar to lightmass. The benefit of such tech is that it takes time to get built and rendred but the result is so accurate and without artefacts or flaws since the source of light is static. sadly this method has one disadvantage when it comes to surfaces and areas that are difficult to reach by light which gets special type of shades (no defined shadow shapes) which is caleld ambient occlusion that defines the edges of most things, that is why an extra effor or tool or program or option ahs to be added to put them in emphasis like here the HBAO+ which just gives approximative results by trying to guess the surfaces which are difficult to reach by the light without having a direct connection to the static light source, that is why it is just an approxiamtion.

yes UE4 dropped SVOGI because it is the most technically advanced algorithm of dynamic GI and it eats a lot of ressources even on highest end PCs. Thye secertly replaced with LPV (light propagation volumes) a very rudimentary way to get dynamic GI.

This technic stores moving light data in that propgates in to those big volumes and tries to diffuse them dynamically. Well you get dynamic GI but the results aren't that accurate. I will show how it goes (using examples I made using UE4). Here is the dynamic GI LPV enabled but the light source (the sun ) is not moving, you get awesome GI results with even blending colours: http://imgur.com/a/VGQnS

When you make the sun move thus making it a dynamic source of GI, you get colours changing and shadows too (here no lightmaps or shadowmaps stored at all), following the sun postion and day/night cycle you get the same wall getting different colour combination from orange to purple in real time which is very awesome and impressive. You can even get lit characters in real timeby lights switching colours accoridng to the sun position and time: here being lit eitehr by red wall thhen yellow wall and standing in the same position but in different time of the day (different sun position): http://imgur.com/a/I3spm

So techwise it is very impressive. Sadly this tech is not that accurate when it hits advanced meshes even static ones and you get archaic results not as accurate like in Unity here for example which has static GI: http://i.imgur.com/qiC6YMe.jpg

And it also only works with sunlight, directional dynamic light aren't supported in UE4, they only cast direct lights: http://i.imgur.com/6troVKM.png

A dynamic method of GI doesn't need extra work to mimic the results of ambient Occlusion since the light source is dynamic so it creates dark occlued (hardly reachable by light) surfaces. With LPV, occlued surfaces is horrendous they are very blocky and pixalated and huge and not subtle eventhough they are real time.

I come back to the method Epic dropped aka SVOGI, but let me begin with the method Nvidia are devloping aka VXGI which is Voxel Global Illumation. This method is just like LPV but wayyyy more precise , it almost can reach the accuracy of the static lightmass. While LPV uses big volumes and stores big chunks of diffused lights in one direction per big volume, VXGI stores light information per voxel (cubic piwel) which is very tiny and can propagte light in different directions, now sum all the data colelcted in those tiny voxels and you will get avery accurate approximation of diffused lights IN REAL TIME. So this can be applied to everything going from moving light sources to emissive materials or textures. You can read about it here and watch videos : https://developer.nvidia.com/gi-works and here : http://www.geforce.com/hardware/technology/vxgi/technology and you can download the recently released VXGI UE4 Apollo 11 demo here: http://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2014/11/11/maxwell-apollo-demo/

Enlighten is also developing an effective dynamic GI for UE4 with multiple dynamic sources and emissive materails that can interact with static and mocing meshes : https://forums.unrealengine.com/showthread.php?50658-Geomerics-Enlighten-Finally-supports-UE4

The SVOGI (Sparse Voxel Octree Global Illumination) is even more impressive tech since it uses a sparse voxel octree which can collect light data from voxels from different shapes in an area accessible to the user's eyesight and it can even collect data and render from light sources invsible light sources and display their diffused lights in the field of view of the user. Both VXGI and SVOGI have also dynamic reflections created by dynamic GI sources. Sadly both techs require too much ressources: The Apollo 11 VXGI demo needs at least a GTX 970 card to just render a very simple scene with just 3 meshes and no complex surronding environments. Not only that but both can only have just one bounce per dynamic light source and light only get diffused in few directions per voxel making deeper areas dark and that still needs an external intervention of a method of Ambient Occlusion. Here is an exmaple fo someone who tried to enable two bounces per dynamic GI light in cryengine. (you can download the demo in the description if you have a hefty PC) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8PCnkJBvIrY

As you can notice dynamic reflections created by dynamic GI sources are not accurate and are blocky : https://forums.unrealengine.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=16047&d=1414981939 and the same blocky real time reflections are noticable on the helmets of the cosmonauts' helmets https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RNt5znFLv9Y

And both demos don't uses PBR materials and simple scenes otherwise it would be an overkill.

The only best and accurate instance of dynamic GI is used in The Tomorrow children wihic uses Cascaded Voxel Cone Ray Tracing. This method is very good and gives very gorgeus results. Ok it is not the same method as the SVOGI or VXGI, since both are 100% automatic methods meaning that anyone can throw them on the go and work and can work with anything in th scene from static to dynamic meshes. Q-Games tried SVOGI but they found out it was very slow so they ditched octree hiearchy stores data and to determine distance from the camera to scale voxels and optimize for distance, much like LoD for a new approach aka 3D textures that developers would have to generate the textures, mostly by hand, prior to importing the models or assets into the game. That is why they are using ray-traced generated volumes instead of polygonal models. The advantage of this method is that not only it frees up ressources but it also allows desv to get better results and verty realtsic ones too. Raytraced generated volumes and models are very accurate and you will never find any hard edge like in polygonal meshes that need heavy tesselation to correct the edges. They can now go for 16 diffused light directions per voxel and they can even reach 3 bounces per light direction (even for invisble light sources) which even Pixar movies didn't reach (and the dev confirmed that). Reflections are as accurate as in real life and you won't get blocky reflections. They can even apply 3 types of AA and the list goes one. Ok, their method isn't as impressive as VXGI or SVOGI, ok their GI is still dynamic but it needs extra interventions from the the devs to fill data in each 3D texture and get their own approximations so it means only Q-Games devs cna use it sinc ethey ahve to interact with it, while with VXGI and SVOGI it is automatic and anyone can integrate it on the game by just dropping it in any scene with any object without extra work. So their method is dynamic is dynamic but semi automatic while VXGI and SVOGI is dynamic and automatic, yet Q-games approach has better and more accurate results on screen than SVOGI and VXGI just like I said before that the static GI in Unity looks better than the dynamic GI available now which are more impressive and demanding techwise.

Sadly don't expect any accuarte GI method to work correctly with open world settings with rough reliefs neither from VXGI nor from SVOGI , let alone a full automatic q-games like approach in the near future: maybe for next-gen.

Sorry for making it soooooooo long , but trust me I tried to make is as simple as possible.

Thanks for taking the time to post that, very informative.

 

[omonimo]

No you don't need 4k and everything cranked up at a native setting is doable on something modest at 30fps (maybe not msaa), but you can think you do if that makes you feel better console warrior.

Surely you feel a better pc warrior after this post.

 

[theWB27]

I'm a staunch Unity supporter.

Its fair to compare them. Absolutely.

Doesn't matter if you support Unity....you can't compare visuals between an open world game and a linear one.

 

[PLASTICA-MAN]

Thanks for taking the time to post that, very informative.

You are welcome

 

[wmlk]

Doesn't matter if you support Unity....you can't compare visuals between an open world game and a linear one.

This notion is kinda dumb.

There are varying degrees to what a game actually renders depending on its scope. It's not as if it's one or the other.

If we're going to talk about visuals, it's totally fair to compare visuals from one game to another, regardless of how "open world" it is by your definition.

Take Infamous: Second Son for example. That game doesn't have nearly the amount of stuff that AC: Unity has, but it's still considered an open world game. It treads some middle ground but that doesn't mean we shouldn't be able to compare its visuals to open world or linear games or whatever.

Linear games might have better visuals than an open world game, or vice versa, and that's fine.

 

[thelastword]

Those screens are not downsampled, 1080p, Textures only "high", HBAO+, FXAA

I know your's weren't in particular, I could see the extreme jaggies and blurriness in your screens, I'm sorry it just does not look that hot outside of the art.

Now I've seen better screens than yours for sure, from guys with pc's much more powerful than yours, guys who downsampled for the best IQ and sharpness, it seems you really have to throw power at this game to make it look decent, yet the low quality npc models, lod issues and some subpar textures still raise their ugly heads.

So of course you've made my point, if your pc which has a very decent card can't run this game decently at 1080p with cheap AA, I'm not sure what's so impressive, clicking on your pic and watching them at native rez shows me a really underwhelming pic at the cost of 10fps.

 

[The Janitor]

That's the power of the PC, with enough gpu power you can enable all effects and features to ultra, downsample from 4k and post screens at 5-10fps and call it the best looking game. It doesn't work that way, I'm sure if shadowfall was running at 10fps it would look much more impressive. If you can't get playable framerates what's the point of calling a game the best looking.

Unity's performance ≠ all PC games

I can run a lot of games at 4k downsampling with 60 fps on my Titan (which is like a 970 performance-wise)

 

[theWB27]

This notion is kinda dumb.

There are varying degrees to what a game actually renders depending on its scope. It's not as if it's one or the other.

If we're going to talk about visuals, it's totally fair to compare visuals from one game to another, regardless of how "open world" it is by your definition.

Take Infamous: Second Son for example. That game doesn't have nearly the amount of stuff that AC: Unity have, but it's still considered an open world game. It treads some middle ground but that doesn't mean we shouldn't be able to compare its visuals to open world or linear games or whatever.

It isn't my definition. Infamous is open world. It doesn't tread a middle ground. Your put into a world and are able to go where ever you want. Skyrim...Sunset....GTA are open world games.

Uncharted...The Order...God and Gears of War are linear games.

There are some in between that are linear and offer a few open areas like Tomb Raider did.

If you don't think rendering more onscreen at once has any effect on visuals then I don't know what to tell you.

Just like when people tried to compare DC to Horizon. One is a track racer and the other is open world. There were people who argued it's not fair to compare because of what has to be shown on screen which has an impact on things.

You can't tell me like God of War would have looked exactly the same on PS3 if it were open world as opposed to what it was.

Comparing the Order to AC...in order to up The Order's visuals...doesn't mean much. Compare the Order to when Uncharted releases.

 

[VFX_Veteran]

Again, why is the game so foggy? It's doing it a bit too much.

I showed one of our look development artists these screenshots and what grabbed him was indeed the use of fog in the environment. He told me that it adds much more realism to the game because our atmosphere indeed does have a haze.

Ubisoft artists did their homework for sure.

 

[wmlk]

It isn't my definition. Infamous is open world. It doesn't tread a middle ground. Your put into a world and are able to go where ever you want. Skyrim...Sunset....GTA are open world games.

Uncharted...The Order...God and Gears of War are linear games.

There are some in between that are linear and offer a few open areas like Tomb Raider did.

If you don't think rendering more onscreen at once has any effect on visuals then I don't know what to tell you.

Just like when people tried to compare DC to Horizon. One is a track racer and the other is open world. There were people who argued it's not fair to compare because of what has to be shown on screen which has an impact on things.

You can't tell me like God of War would have looked exactly the same on PS3 if it were open world as opposed to what it was.

Comparing the Order to AC...in order to up The Order's visuals...doesn't mean much. Compare the Order to when Uncharted releases.

My point is that there's no preset definition to how much a game renders. It's not as if there are two presets and they're open world or linear.

How much the game renders is totally dependent on the game itself. It's not something that we can just assume.

 

[VFX_Veteran]

It isn't my definition. Infamous is open world. It doesn't tread a middle ground. Your put into a world and are able to go where ever you want. Skyrim...Sunset....GTA are open world games.

Uncharted...The Order...God and Gears of War are linear games.

There are some in between that are linear and offer a few open areas like Tomb Raider did.

If you don't think rendering more onscreen at once has any effect on visuals then I don't know what to tell you.

Just like when people tried to compare DC to Horizon. One is a track racer and the other is open world. There were people who argued it's not fair to compare because of what has to be shown on screen which has an impact on things.

You can't tell me like God of War would have looked exactly the same on PS3 if it were open world as opposed to what it was.

Comparing the Order to AC...in order to up The Order's visuals...doesn't mean much. Compare the Order to when Uncharted releases.

Yeap.. I agree with this.. funny thing is -- I still think AC:Unity will look better than the Order. Uncharted 4 I'm not so sure about.. We'll see..

 

[ymmv]

It's crazy how people can say "Black Flag looked better".

This room is amazing and i get 10fps with a 770gtx ^^

Many amazing screen shots in this thread. I'll pick up this game after a few patches (and a price cut since I haven't even finished AC3 and Black Flag).

 

[Yibby]

So of course you've made my point, if your pc which has a very decent card can't run this game decently at 1080p with cheap AA, I'm not sure what's so impressive, clicking on your pic and watching them at native rez shows me a really underwhelming pic at the cost of 10fps.

That whole place needs a lot of optmization, if possible. Just standing on the building and looking at the direction of the room kills my framerate.

And i noticed that the game looks better in motion than on screenshots.

 

[Loofy]

Let me try to imagine what the PS4 version could and should have looked like.

But I guess this is why they make PC's.

I guess but arent some of the screens in this thread from people maxing out settings at non playable framerates?
I guess this is why they make SLI setups.

 

[theWB27]

My point is that there's no preset definition to how much a game renders. It's not as if there are two presets and they're open world or linear.

How much the game renders is totally dependent on the game itself. It's not something that we can just assume.

Sigh, ok.

Yeap.. I agree with this.. funny thing is -- I still think AC:Unity will look better than the Order. Uncharted 4 I'm not so sure about.. We'll see..

Thank you

 

[PLASTICA-MAN]

Yeap.. I agree with this.. funny thing is -- I still think AC:Unity will look better than the Order. Uncharted 4 I'm not so sure about.. We'll see..

The Order uses a very advanced PBR tech that relies on 1:1 almost atomical photoscanning of materials and it was posted many times here in neogaf (Look for it), this is at least one domain (that you can't afford in an open world game) where it beats Unity. the physics of the order was reported to be insane compared to almost non existent one in Unity (except for clothes which already look and behave better in The Order),r: http://www.el33tonline.com/post/201...ced-physics-system-revealed-at-gamescom-2013/ . I didn't also notice any instance of sub-surface scattering in Unity (neother on characters nor on translucent objects if there are any in the game) while it is a very noticable and prominent feature in the Order. Uncharted 4 has an equivalent version of the Q-Games lighting which is by far the best and most accurate dynamic GI (Q-Games confirmed that Naughty Dog are using the equivalent of their approach In Neogaf). So in terms of Lighting at least Uncharted 4 is unbeatable, until a more complex and a more dynamic version of VXGI comes out and a certain game uses it. You see? You can't afford a very advanced version of a specific tech in open games like Unity, but the latter has almost of all them to an extent in such big scale which makes it very impressive overall. Let's say a certain racer can be the champion in 100m race while another can be the champion of 10000m race if tries the race of the otehr he can fail and obtain the last place and vice versa. So both excel in his category eventhough it is the same domain.

 

[danwarb]

This thread makes me want to play AC Unity. It's a shame it's not on Steam.

 

[Self_Destructive]

This thread makes me want to play AC Unity. It's a shame it's not on Steam.

LOL


Check again.

 

[Crossing Eden]

This thread makes me want to play AC Unity. It's a shame it's not on Steam.

Didn't they fix that?

 

[Ashad Mamood]

It needs more fog if you ask me. Anything to hide the LOD on buildings farther than 20 meters. Ubisoft open world game's just can't handle a long draw distance without it looking like garbage.

Maybe you should check out Far Cry 4?

 

[Gundy2010]

Unity has the best kiss scene in any video game i've ever seen... screen shot anyone?

 

[PLASTICA-MAN]

Unity has the best kiss scene in any video game i've ever seen... screen shot anyone?

French Kiss !!!

 

[jim2point0]

Maybe you should check out Far Cry 4?

I haven't seen anything that would indicate that Far Cry 4 is any better... but we'll see. So far it looks like Far Cry 3 in another setting.

 

[VFX_Veteran]

The Order uses a very advanced PBR tech that relies on 1:1 almost atomical photoscanning of materials

Lafortune material model is equivalent. No film studio uses it because it relies on BRDF data. Guess what? Mitsubishi labs did an experiment and tested over 100 materials using a BRDF scanner recording all the data. LIterally over 90% of them can be mimic with just 1 shader. I've implemented such a shader at our studio. There is no need to store different data for different materials. Our artists can just dial in exactly what they want and the shader will compute it.

That's probably an optimization technique moreso than something very demanding on hardware. Brute force method would be to just let the shader evaluate the math and return the approximation -- instead of reading tables and getting the values that way.

the physics of the order was reported to be insane compared to almost non existent one in Unity (except for clothes which already look and behave better in The Order),r: http://www.el33tonline.com/post/201...ced-physics-system-revealed-at-gamescom-2013/ .

I need to see the physics in motion before judging where it's "insane" or not.

I didn't also notice any instance of sub-surface scattering in Unity (neother on characters nor on translucent objects if there are any in the game) while it is a very noticable and prominent feature in the Order.

There is SSS on the characters faces (in cutscenes) and someone posted a screen of Arno having it on his clothing. SSS isn't just being able to see through the outer part of the skin. Pixar/Disney, etc.. go overboard with it for cartoon purposes, but SSS is pretty subtle for skin (unless seen under backlit conditions).

Uncharted 4 has an equivalent version of the Q-Games lighting which is by far the best and most accurate dynamic GI (Q-Games confirmed that Naughty Dog are using the equivalent of their approach In Neogaf).

UC4 is also using the old UC3 engine. I'm not going to assume that it will make it into the game and used liberally like a lot of games boast but never deliver on that front. I'll just wait and see it for myself.

So in terms of Lighting at least Uncharted 4 is unbeatable, until a more complex and a more dynamic version of VXGI comes out and a certain game uses it.

Just because a game has a dynamic GI solution doesn't automatically make it a "win" in my book for best lighting. Truth be told, GI is only part of the solution to lighting. There is the added element of tone-mapping, linear workflow, skill of the lighter, which lights to use, exposure, gamma correction, etc.. as well as materials being used and how physically correct they are.

-M

 

[Bebpo]

To be fair with Black Flag (unity looks way better, no question, generational for sure), it's visual strengths are foliage and water, so comparing cities is not really ideal. I mean Unity beats it in a million visual things, but BF's water looks much better than Unity's rivers and water pools, as does the grass/trees/foliage which is Unity's weakest visual spot. I'm guessing BF quality water effects would have hurt performance even more, same with good AC3/4 foliage and bushes, grass which react to every step so they cut those effects out. Would like to see them brought back next game though.

 

[NullPointer]

It's crazy how people can say "Black Flag looked better".

I've only seen that sentiment when discussing the IQ on the consoles. BF is sharp and clear, and of course performs great. That contrast seems to be why it gets brought up.

 

[PLASTICA-MAN]

There is SSS on the characters faces (in cutscenes) and someone posted a screen of Arno having it on his clothing.

Can you please refer me to that photo? I couldn't find it.

 

[SaberEdge]

Videos of the cutscenes on YouTube look truly ridiculous.

I honestly think that besides the hair the character models look as good as Uncharted 4.

Hair is really hard to do though. Especially long hair. I think the hair in Unity is really impressive. I was slack jawed the first scene with an adult Elise and Arno. I couldn't believe how good the hair looked...Elise's hair in particular.

Nathan Drake's character model in that trailer does look extremely detailed and the hair looks good. But it's a lot easier to do short hair like that. We'll have to wait and see how good the hair on other character models looks. But I'm almost certain it will look amazing. Naughty Dog are always at the cutting edge with their graphics techniques.

 

[DOWN]

You are why the Xbone black crush and sharpening filter exist.

How dare you? I hate the black crush.

Unity is a Vaseline mess if you leave it on flat settings and it's a bit of a mess to play now anyway. It's the first game I've changed the Sharpness setting for this gen.

 

[SaberEdge]

I've been playing Ryse over the past two weeks, and frankly the screenshots you posted do nothing for me. Ryse looks so much better than anything else I've played that I can't even appreciate something like Assassin's Creed Unity.

That's strange to me because Ryse was literally the game I had been playing through right before I played AC Unity and the latter game immediately struck me as a somewhat better looking game. This was especially true once I actually became an assassin's and started exploring Paris. I was floored by the lighting, geometry, materials, shading, and effects. The game just feels so detailed and massive in scale. The art style is spot on and gorgeous.

Ryse on PC is a very close second, but it also doesn't have nearly the scale AC Unity has.

 

[thelastword]

Unity's performance ≠ all PC games

I can run a lot of games at 4k downsampling with 60 fps on my Titan (which is like a 970 performance-wise)

Well, we're in a thread talking about the best looking games where unity is suggested to be one of those. I'm not talking about games like battlefield 2, Ultra SF4 and Pod. If you're able to run Crysis 1 and 3, Ryse, Metro 1+2 with everything maxed out, downsampled from 4k and can hold 60fps I'd love to see those.

In any case, the poster I quoted has a $350 gpu (currently priced), don't know how much it debuted at, a cpu that many pc gamers tell me runs circles around the PS4's laptop cpu, yet he's getting 10fps in a recent release at only 1080p, no downsampling, fx-blur-aa and the like, you click on his shot and it's some of the most low detailed low poly blurry looking games I've seen. Outside of the colorful scene and unique vintage art it would look even more awful.

That whole place needs a lot of optmization, if possible. Just standing on the building and looking at the direction of the room kills my framerate.

And i noticed that the game looks better in motion than on screenshots.

I think the whole game needs better optimization, people are quick to say that the consoles' cpu's are weak and they may very well be comparatively to your cpu, but here you are with an assy framerate regardless. This just goes to show that the cpu may not be the reason for poor performance as opposed to poor coding and lack of optimization. I'm sure that If this game was properly multithreaded it would have fared much better graphically and performance-wise across all platforms.

The game is inconsistent graphically, it doesn't lend itself well to scrutiny apart from some good art, performance is for the most part inconsistent just the same. It's blurry, has bad looking textures and terrible lod issues, faces in the game are not impressive at all, not even the main characters, farless the thousands of npc's. Coming off the main chars of Iss and First light, it's really not amazing as some persons say.

Ryse had the same bald warrior in loop but ryse npc's are better looking than those in Unity by far, all these things do stand out. I'm not sure how such an inconsistent looking and performing game can be considered a best graphics contender, farless take the prize, but I guess soon, when more impressive games come out people will see Unity for what it is. I also suggest that some people revisit games like Shadowfall and ISS for a refresher, apparently people forget how good these games look, funny thing is, they hold up very well in screens and look even better in motion due to the effects.

That loss of detail just 20 metres away from you in Unity is very jarring coupled with the npc popping and general lod issues. There's just something about the final image that looks soft or unappealing. It's artsy and busy but it's not sharp and detailed.

 

[IcyEyes]

Yeap.. I agree with this.. funny thing is -- I still think AC:Unity will look better than the Order. Uncharted 4 I'm not so sure about.. We'll see..

Well ... no.

In term of "pure" visual The Order is miles ahead. Really.

(of course we will not take in consideration the fact one game is open world, another one is a corridor shooter)

Edit : sigh, I lost my (very) long edit ! Next time

Infamous SS has a lot of colorful particles that mask it's generic look. The animation, art direction, scale and scope of the game -- as well as lighting and materials don't even come close to AC:U..

...and I really disagree here

 

[SaberEdge]

Well ... no.

In term of "pure" visual The Order is miles ahead. Really.

(of course we will not take in consideration the fact one game is open world, another one is a corridor shooter)

The Order 1886 used to really impress the hell out of me when I saw the first few trailers, but now after playing games like Ryse and AC Unity on PC it looks more "normal". Still very impressive, don't get me wrong.

Well, it's not miles ahead really. It uses many of the same graphics techniques Ryse and AC Unity use. We'll have to see what the final results will be. I'm sure it's going to be one of the best looking games around.

 

[thelastword]

Ryse looks more solid when you see the picture full-rez. I'm not sure what purpose it serves to suggest that Ryse is lower scale, especially when the thread title says "ACU, the graphics leap we've all been waiting for". I don't think we should be making excuses for it now.

 

[SaberEdge]

Ryse looks more solid when you see the picture full-rez. I'm not sure what purpose it serves to suggest that Ryse is lower scale, especially when the thread title says "ACU, the graphics leap we've all been waiting for". I don't think we should be making excuses for it now.

I think you misunderstood me. I genuinely think AC Unity looks better in any given area on average. I'm just adding that it's all the more impressive because of the huge scale of the game.

 

[IcyEyes]

The Order 1886 used to really impress the hell out of me when I saw the first few trailers, but now after playing games like Ryse and AC Unity on PC it looks more "normal". Still very impressive, don't get me wrong.


Well, it's not miles ahead really. It uses many of the same graphics techniques Ryse and AC Unity use. We'll have to see what the final results will be. I'm sure it's going to be one of the best looking games around.

I'm pretty sure we are on the same boat. I agree with you that all these games looks amazing, but in my eyes (I'm also a 3D graphics artist, modeller, etc) a game like Unity shows some cohesion problems in the lights, textures and other details (not to mention to the animation. Arno movements are amazing, the other characters moves, well, not so amazing).

I'm not here to bash Unity, not at all, I'm just thinking that a game like The Order (for some obvious reasons!) will be less affected by these coherence problems.

 

[nelsonroyale]

Yeap.. I agree with this.. funny thing is -- I still think AC:Unity will look better than the Order. Uncharted 4 I'm not so sure about.. We'll see..

You don't say...

Personally i think we will see a number of games that surpass Unity visually next year. The Order isn't the only early candidate...Look forward to W3 I reckon. If they can reach that Sword of Destiny trailer...well that impressed me more than anything in Unity...

 

[SaberEdge]

Infamous SS has a lot of colorful particles that mask it's generic look. The animation, art direction, scale and scope of the game -- as well as lighting and materials don't even come close to AC:U.

FF15 does look really good. But it's scale doesn't seem to tax it and the lighting still isn't quite up to snuff with AC:U. I need to see more with FF15 before I reserve judgement though.

I seriously can't think of another open world game which comes close to Unity at maxed settings on PC. I played Infamous and it's not on the same level at all, and tessellation will only make that more impressive (and taxing hehe).

I wholeheartedly agree.
Pretty ? Sure but I have not been blown away as I'm right now before Unity, what a marvel.

I still think Infamous Second Son is a gorgeous game. Definitely one of the best. But I do agree with both of you that I have never seen a better looking game than Unity on PC. And I'm on "high" textures and FXAA, everything else maxed out. I can't wait until I get my GTX 980 and can use ultra high textures and a bit of downsampling. And I wonder how much better the tessellation patch is going to make the game look.

 

[JordanN]

Oh shieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeet, anyone else getting hype now?

Next year is going to be all out war. The Order 1886 vs Uncharted 4, vs Ass Creed Unity vs Witcher 3 vs Ryse.

This is what next gen is all about.