• 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.

Housemarque Tech Deep Dive: Global Illumination in Returnal

ChiefDada

Gold Member


I was replaying through the first biome the other day and was reminded just how impressive the lighting is in the game. This prompted me to search for deep dive on the tech used and I stumbled upon this video. Its pretty technical so I picked up what I could. Some interesting tidbits:

1. The RT implementation is much more involved than I originally thought with RT global illumination and occlusion.

2. SSD helped a lot with streaming GI data and keeping memory usage to a minimum, but kraken decompression didn't help much with reducing GI data size on disc (13GB of game install size is GI data).

Returnal doesn't get the credit it deserves as a next gen title imo but it's been the pinnacle of PS5 showcase so far for me. It will be interesting to see minimum PC requirements for the port. I predict it will be pretty beefy.
 
Jwe6uco.jpg


Magic Cerny Super SSD Strikes Again!

Jokes aside, thanks OP for sharing this, interesting stuff!
 

ClosBSAS

Member
Oh so does sit have rt? The PC leaked screenshots says it does but some folks were saying Sony would never release an inferior to pc version. So it does have rt?
 

MadPanda

Banned
I'm playing it right now, started the other day. Any tips for newbies?

The game is good and it looks good but it's artstyle isn't appealing, at least in the beginning.
 

Mister Wolf

Gold Member
So basically its using raytracing to make the probes the more accurate. I believe that game Chernobylite is doing the same thing with its raytracing uodate. Not as accurate as what Metro Exodus is doing with its infinite bounce triangle raytraced GI but certainly more performant and better than nothing. Clearly a step above Screen-space global illumination. NVIDIA does this method too. They call it RTXGI:

https://developer.nvidia.com/rtx/ray-tracing/rtxgi
 
Last edited:

Black_Stride

do not tempt fate do not contrain Wonder Woman's thighs do not do not
Oh so does sit have rt? The PC leaked screenshots says it does but some folks were saying Sony would never release an inferior to pc version. So it does have rt?
Pretty sure we knew the game had RT from all the tech deep dives way back when.
Its not "traditional" Ray traced global lighting though.
13 minutes into the DF breakdown they talked with Housemarque about the RT implementation.


Radiance probes can utilized RT hardware to accelerate the calculations needed, but it isnt actually RTGI.
The PC version is probably gonna be a fully dynamic RTGI solution.
 

th4tguy

Member
So pre calculated GI data is stored on disk ( large foot print on disk) and streamed in super fast in 300 mb chunks to sit in ram.
Are they using RT to calculate anything related to GI in real time?
 

Hobbygaming

has been asked to post in 'Grounded' mode.
I'm playing it right now, started the other day. Any tips for newbies?

The game is good and it looks good but it's artstyle isn't appealing, at least in the beginning.
Once you get the Electropylon Driver gun it makes the campaign easier and if you see the Adrenaline Leech in the fabrication room get it
 

Mister Wolf

Gold Member
Pretty sure we knew the game had RT from all the tech deep dives way back when.
Its not "traditional" Ray traced global lighting though.
13 minutes into the DF breakdown they talked with Housemarque about the RT implementation.


Radiance probes can utilized RT hardware to accelerate the calculations needed, but it isnt actually RTGI.
The PC version is probably gonna be a fully dynamic RTGI solution.


Right, and if someone didn't know any better they would think its something equivalent to what Metro, Cyberpunk, Dying Light 2, and Control are doing. Raytraced GI is such a broad term for implementations of various levels of quality. Hell, Screen Space GI is technically "raytraced global illumination".
 

ChiefDada

Gold Member
Pretty sure we knew the game had RT from all the tech deep dives way back when.
Its not "traditional" Ray traced global lighting though.
13 minutes into the DF breakdown they talked with Housemarque about the RT implementation.


Radiance probes can utilized RT hardware to accelerate the calculations needed, but it isnt actually RTGI.
The PC version is probably gonna be a fully dynamic RTGI solution.


I must have missed this for some reason I thought Returnal was a Demon's Souls type situation where the talk of RT was that Housmarque didn't have time to implement for visuals and only audio used RT.

Hell, Screen Space GI is technically "raytraced global illumination".

The presenter/Housemarque made a point to disagree.

h37Icc0.jpg
 

Mister Wolf

Gold Member
I must have missed this for some reason I thought Returnal was a Demon's Souls type situation where the talk of RT was that Housmarque didn't have time to implement for visuals and only audio used RT.



The presenter/Housemarque made a point to disagree.

h37Icc0.jpg

Thats his opinion. What it is, is right in the name.
 
Last edited:
Top Bottom