• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Dark Souls II - Graphics Comparison - PC Preview

Shinjica

Member
It's a downgrade from the reveal, but it's still a new lighting engine, a noticable upgrade from the first game.

I consider the lighting inside Dark Souls 2 an improvement from the first game, not something new. The light at the E3 demo was something new, not this.

It's like I change the engine of my car and start calling it new. No, it's an improvement, not a new car.
 

Hypron

Member
There is a new lighting system in the game, and it looks great. The lie is not the new lighting system, but the fact that certain locations don't look like the same areas in the early footage and in the trailer.

Stop saying that there's no new lighting system in the game: going around with the torch in dark areas, other than being actually useful, is great to look at.

What's wrong with that level design? Have you found
the second bonfire
?

Yeah the game still has dynamic lightning and stuff. It's just less apparent. It still looks great (not as good but it's not ugly either, and it's better than DS1 on that aspect).
 

MaLDo

Member
Only messing with contrast plus adding a stronger AO

GWQ6NiL.gif
 

B-Genius

Unconfirmed Member
Are you serious about your word?

I hate to get nitpicky (and personally don't want to see another page full of comparison shots proving the downgrade), but that's a great example of the game generally looking better in context.

Take those areas full of crushed blacks - they might look "atmospheric" in a single screen, but imagine having to run up to every corner and search every nook and crannie with a torch to find levers, passageways, etc. Also I would argue that the top screen looks more "cel-shaded" and cartoony.

Lighting aside, look at the geometry around the ladder at the back. The information volume is far more impressive than what's in the "pre-downgrade" shot. As you work your way through the game, you realise that they've obviously chopped and changed a lot of assets (using more polys here, less there, etc.) since the initial reveal, and this is one example.

There are other areas of the game (that they never showed previously) that could have definitely used extra polish (gameplay/performance balancing issues aside), but for whatever reason were left quite bare. That's a shame, as it contributes to inconsistencies in visual quality, but that's more a commentary on the final product than anything. Speaking of which, so are complaints about the level design, which have absolutely nothing to do with the PC version vs. console version vs. "inevitable next-gen version" debate.
 
Are you serious about your word?
Absolutely, actually in the second image you posted the bonfire does not seem lit.

I watched again the IGN gameplay reveal, lighting "complexity" is the same. The difference in visuals is related to the exaggerated contrast, the extreme (and not realistic, human eye has more range) shadows.

Also, I'd like to add that, from a gameplay perspective, all that dark is not functional: there are truly dark areas in Dark Souls 2, but if every single indoor area was that dark, with such contrast, the game would be unplayable. In the IGN reveal, the part that starts at 3:09 is similar, there are 2 elements that cast shadows, the torch and the beacon, like in the retail game, and the dark corridor is similar, but a lot darker: light sources and cast shadows are the same, you could achieve the same effect in the gameplay reveal with a fullscreen filter that exaggerates the contrast, but honestly, if all the indoor area of the game were like that, to the point of not seeing any enemy until it comes very near to you, the game would not be fun.
 

Yoshichan

And they made him a Lord of Cinder. Not for virtue, but for might. Such is a lord, I suppose. But here I ask. Do we have a sodding chance?
Only messing with contrast plus adding a stronger AO
Do you have to change the contrast depending on the map? Some maps might fit for the changed contrast, but some maps might get too dark?
 

wickfut

Banned
Absolutely, actually in the second image you posted the bonfire does not seem lit.

Well that's even worse if the bonfire isn't lit. That means that the picture with the wall in shadow is from a lit bonfire light source while the other picture which has a lit up wall has no light source.
 

MaLDo

Member
Do you have to change the contrast depending on the map? Some maps might fit for the changed contrast, but some maps might get too dark?

Maybe that's the reason of bland levels in full game. I only edited that screenshot. I think that kind of massive contrast fits better in a trailer/pr material, but could be too much for a long game play session.
 

Stet

Banned
Take those areas full of crushed blacks - they might look "atmospheric" in a single screen, but imagine having to run up to every corner and search every nook and crannie with a torch to find levers, passageways, etc. Also I would argue that the top screen looks more "cel-shaded" and cartoony.

Those aren't crushed blacks. Not even a little bit. The attempts to post-process the game back to reveal, though, that's crushed blacks.
 
Those aren't crushed blacks. Not even a little bit. The attempts to post-process the game back to reveal, though, that's crushed blacks.
I clearly see crushed blacks in those images, the contrast is exaggerated: ambient light serves the purpose of avoiding unrealistic effects like the absolute darkness of things that are not directly illuminated.
 
Well that's even worse if the bonfire isn't lit. That means that the picture with the wall in shadow is from a lit bonfire light source while the other picture which has a lit up wall has no light source.
IIRC there is light coming from the ceiling in that area, that's the light source in the second picture.
 

Gurrry

Member
There are tons of places to use torches in this game to light up rooms, but they are never needed.

My theory is that they had the lighting engine in place, noticed that it was making the game run worse, so they scrapped it, but left all the torches in game.

The torch looked like it was going to be a huge mechanic, especially with the amount of scones you can light that serve no purpose at all. They just left them in the game after removing the good lighting.

Also, astrologist convenant in that reveal trailer... wonder why that got scrapped?
 
There are tons of places to use torches in this game to light up rooms, but they are never needed.

My theory is that they had the lighting engine in place, noticed that it was making the game run worse, so they scrapped it, but left all the torches in game.

The torch looked like it was going to be a huge mechanic, especially with the amount of scones you can light that serve no purpose at all. They just left them in the game after removing the good lighting.

Also, astrologist convenant in that reveal trailer... wonder why that got scrapped?
Again, the lighting engine is there, light sources/cast shadows are the same: what they is add more ambient light and remove all that contrast.

Also, there are plenty of places where the torch is not needed, but is useful. You don't need to use the torch in the gutter, but it's much better to navigate that area with the torch.
 
Again, the lighting engine is there, light sources/cast shadows are the same: what they is add more ambient light and remove all that contrast.

Also, there are plenty of places where the torch is not needed, but is useful. You don't need to use the torch in the gutter, but it's much better to navigate that area with the torch.

They're not. The Giant Bomb Quick Look shows that some torches cast dynamic shadows from the player character while some don't for no reason.

Shit is borked.
 
No, most baked shadows are gone.
What do you mean "baked shadows"? Shadows that are not dynamic?
They're not. The Giant Bomb Quick Look shows that some torches cast dynamic shadows from the player character while some don't for no reason.
Correct, but there's nothing in the gameplay preview that suggests that every single torch in the game casts dynamic shadows, the difference is visual. In fact, as I pointed out in the IGN gameplay preview, the two torches cast to sets of dynamic shadows, exactly like the retail game.
 
Yes, look at this area:

http://imgur.com/a/iCHZD/

Even though the light sources are located in the same places, all the ominous shadows are gone, cheapening the atmosphere.
Ok, that's not an example of different light sources or cast shadows: that's the result of a specific choice of lowering the visual contrast, that has no particular impact on performance. You find the high contrast / deep blacks images more appealing, I don't: I personally don't like exaggerated contrast in a game, it makes for suggestive stills but it's not practical.

With all that darkness in every indoor area, the game would be unplayable, and I think they realized that to have a consistent, coherent look, the same kind of lighting should have been used in every area, and they couldn't just use the same extreme shadows everywhere in the game just because they, wrongly, chose to show that early footage.
 

wickfut

Banned
Again, the lighting engine is there, light sources/cast shadows are the same: what they is add more ambient light and remove all that contrast.

Some light sources may still cast shadows but that doesn't mean the same lighting engine is still there. Look at the differences between the skeleton dragon preview and release images/videos. Lowering the image brightness/altering the gamma isn't going to make that scene look anything like the pre-release footage. They've also removed or decreased the specular reflections and environment maps across the whole game rendering the textures as flat.
Look at the dark dungeon levels in Dragon's Dogma, that's how Dark Souls 2 should have looked on console. Dark Souls 2's lighting is flat by comparison.

http://youtu.be/sBPlHDNwl4U
 

Grief.exe

Member
I should have clarified that the consoles were the inhibiting factor. The PC is just unfortunately relegated to a direct port despite earlier claims of it being a "lead platform". They aren't going to realistically maintain two separate builds with drastically different feature sets.

Just because a game isn't a graphical powerhouse or From stopped development on some graphical features doesn't preclude the PC lead development platform.

If you think about the situation logically, any development on PS3/360 engine compatibility is going to be a throw away investment. x86/x64 is the targeted architecture going forward.
 

Haunted

Member
There's a lot of grey and some of the areas just look... flatly lit.

Only messing with contrast plus adding a stronger AO
Downloaded SweetFX + configurator just to be ready for some post-processing settings magic the community will surely figure out shortly after release.

It should be able to fix the former and help with the latter.


Of course, with this post-processing we're squarely in the realm of subjective tastes. Going to be important to reach a balance between how From wanted the game to look and how you as the player prefer it.
 
Only messing with contrast plus adding a stronger AO

Im a huge fan of your work but im really worried about SweetFX solutions like this in Dark Souls.

From uses weird postprocess effects where they change the contrast based on location, so a SweetFX with huge contrast would look nice in one area and it would look completely wrong in another.

ixUYw4QtIEyBC.gif


izzcDWiylTBuO.gif
 

MaLDo

Member
Im a huge fan of your work but im really worried about SweetFX solutions like this in Dark Souls.

From uses weird postprocess effects where they change the contrast based on location, so a SweetFX with huge contrast would look nice in one area and it would look completely wrong in another.

ixUYw4QtIEyBC.gif


izzcDWiylTBuO.gif

I have no doubt that a slight modification using sweetfx will help a bit on the flatter scenes.

But really, the comparison I made was ​​to note that, while is not always true in every scene, some of them that were shown monhts ago, only differ from actual game because a bigger contrast and stronger AO. I do not think they were going up the contrast editding trailers, but configuring into the game a bigger contrast between shadows and highlights. Surely using the same routines that are seen in your gif.
 

Holdfing

Member
They've also removed or decreased the specular reflections and environment maps across the whole game rendering the textures as flat.

My theory is that the ambient light they use to brighten the whole game up just dampens the effect of specular/normal maps. Comparing that big mirror dude in reveal vs. retail for example, I can see the specular/normal map stuff in the enviroment, but it's significantly less pronounced.
 

ElFly

Member
The problem is that, if shadows are prebaked in the sconces/bonfires that don't generate dynamic shadows, forcing dynamic shadows in them won't delete the prebaked shadows, making things look funky.
 

Garcia

Member
One of the most important things I'm looking forward to be implemented down the road by modders is the original darkness featured in the beta build of the game. Regardless of the stable framerate and high resolutions, the game will still look washed out and too bright:

Do you guys think tweaks and mods can bring the game back to these levels of dark?

Is it within the realm of possibility? Are there any other games that have had their brightness levels fixed by the community?
 

masterkajo

Member
81U7bt4.jpg


This was just a Photoshop where I changed the contrast. Also a slight reduction in gamma. It looks a bit better but it is true that without "fixing" the ambient lighting itself you can only crush the blacks and artificially lose information.
 

Durante

Member
I wish I was allowed to talk right now and irrefutably demonstrate just how ridiculous the idea that DS2 PC assets aren't improved over their console counterparts is.

...

activity82svr.png
 

Durante

Member
Btw, please don't take this as "It's the vertical slice".
It isn't

And I can't say any more. Probably said too much already. There will be an article.
 

feel

Member
I wish I was allowed to talk right now and irrefutably demonstrate just how ridiculous the idea that DS2 PC assets aren't improved over their console counterparts is.

...

activity82svr.png
ooooh sheeeeeeeeeeeiiiiiiiitttttttt

DS2fix ready to go by launch
 
Top Bottom