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[TwEE-N-Toast]

GAF is split in half because, let's say it this way, "avid supporters of other brand consoles" are being fuckin obnoxious trolls, mainly the ones supportive of italian plumbers and green tunic wearing adventurers.

it's a sizeable jump over what the current gen offers. folks who don't see that have their head stuck in the sand, simple as that.

we talking about the same folks that said God Of War 3 looked like an HD version of 2.

I'm enjoying the Nintendo conspiracy posts.

 

[Izick]

A bit of a side note: it's weird to think how far we've come with graphics. The original Killzone is almost a decade old. At the time, it's graphics would have passed as "good for a console game", too. In 2004, I couldn't have fathomed a game looking as good as Killzone SF. 10 years from now, who knows how good games will look?

I don't know, but the future is bright my friend! (In more ways than one! Less low-light gray games is always good. SF looks fantastic.)

 

[Kadayi]

The thing I was hoping to see was a much greater degree of NPC variation given the massive step up in available RAM vs the previous generation. Killzone unfortunately seemed to be firmly rooted in the identikit dudes wearing uniforms & helmets arena, and albeit Watchdogs did look promising, it doesn't seem like a major step up from what's presently possible in AC III in terms mixing things up. Seemingly every one in the City of future Chicago is the same height and build based on their sex (no fatties thank you very much), every woman either sports a hat, short hair or a ponytail and that there was apparently some kind of pogrom of the old, young and the blonde at some point....

Early days yet obviously, but I'm hoping we can see more diversity of appearance as you get in reality with next gen Vs model repetition.

 

[szaromir]

Eh, we had small TV's and native resolution games (which we didn't have in the PS3 gen). The games looked soft and the SD image quality wasn't the shit that the first LCD screens offered for years.

The games look like crap if you watch screens of them on a high def display for sure, but at the time, nobody complained about the image quality of consoles. The games also tended to have higher framerates and less effects and filters that poison some of the last gen games IQ.

Many if not majority of PS2 games were sub-SD though. Many also didn't have v-sync and had a very variable framerate. I also don't think a 32' TV is small which is what I used for console gaming in 2002-2005.
It wasn't part of the discussion back then because people didn't know any better. But image quality used to be abysmal. Playstation 1 was far worse than PS2, too.

 

[Ash_69]

Nah.

I think the reason for all of this is pretty clear. We're seeing diminishing returns in the Polygon Wars. The PS3 can already push "enough." That flying thing in the SF shot you linked, there is nothing there that the PS3 couldn't do, in terms of building that model. And it could fake its way with normal maps and all manner of effects to make it seem like it's drawing more polys than it is. What we get from the PS4 is hugely better lighting and texturing. And yes, those are great, but they aren't what people usually expect from a new generation. They want MORE POLYGONS. More highly detailed geometry.

And duh, it does more polygons. But when you're showing off a scene that the PS3 could already do: namely 100% of the on-foot parts of the SF demo, it's not going to impress as much. But the shots that show SCALE, the flyover of the city, then you go "oh shit" because it's pushing far more geometry than the PS3 could ever hope to achieve. THAT'S where you see the generation gap. But on-foot in that demo, where all we have are new effects and textures and lighting on the skeleton of what might as well be a PS3 game? That's where it fails to impress as much.

Nailed it. Those getting butt hurt, this has less to do with next gen being underpowered (as clearly on a technical level they certainly are a generation leap) and more to do with how adequate ps3/360 could render a good looking game world. A jump from something that looks shit to decent is always going to appear greater than a jump from good to very good. This should not be taken to mean that I don't think next gen is necessary btw, I'm jumping in day 1.

 

[yurinka]

For the ones not impressed by Killzone visuals, here you have some screenshots of the uncompressed trailer sent to the press:

Anyway, here ya go - Killzone Shadow Fall trailer screencaps (from press site version).

https://docs.google.com/folder/d/0B0AH7KfJWxgBRTM4U05CbnNqbTg/edit?usp=sharing

Quite different than the youtube version, the streaming from the conference or the compressed screenshots took from them.
And the demo was real gameplay as shown in Jimmy's (forgot his surname) TV show.
Remember that they decided to move to 8GB last month or so, and that this guys still have almost a year to work on it.
Doesn't look like the games from this gen, specially considering that it's a launch game, which basically means it was made without the final hardware specs on mind or to test on it until later part of the development.

 

[Catchpenny]

It's a substantial improvement, but not close to what we saw during the last generational leap. Anyone stating otherwise is either a fanboy or hasn't played a PS2 game in ages.

 

[nelsonroyale]

It's a substantial improvement, but not close to what we saw during the last generational leap. Anyone stating otherwise is either a fanboy or hasn't played a PS2 game in ages.

I don't quite agree, it wasn't until maybe Heavenly Sword when I was properly felt there was a serious bump in the visuals. Obvioiusly the early vids of Gears and Uncharted blew me away as well. Launch games were a noticible step up, but mostly didn't wow me that much. FFXII in particular impressed me much more than stuff like oblivion, even though technically oblivion was obviously more impressive. Here you have stuff like KZ2 (which came in a few years in the cycle) which was already great looking versus the new KZ at launch.

 

[Cyborg]

It's a substantial improvement, but not close to what we saw during the last generational leap. Anyone stating otherwise is either a fanboy or hasn't played a PS2 game in ages.

Stop calling other people fanboys you fanboy!
See how much is happaning on the screen? The world feels alive its not possible on this gen. Stop bitching about the launchgames

 

[Nekofrog]

We're deep in the land of Uncanny Valley. Not much to do but wait out these dark ages to come with everyone obsessed with realism.

I hate it when people use this term without understanding it

 

[Enlil]

I have a hard time believing that everything we saw was in game. SONY (an others as well) have the habit showing CGI. They did with the ps2 and ps3. So I am not going to get hyped. If next gen can't bring realisitc dymanic weather or clothes moving in a realistic way then i am not really impressed.

If deep down is real, which i doubt, then we are in for some good looking games.

 

[Alex]

We are finally, seemingly, going to have a generation where shitty low res gifs, compressed streams and oddball shots won't represent console visuals decently due to the games actually having proper resolutions and image quality.

Moving from 720p to 1080p on a modern TV alone is a bigger leap than just about anything else you could do with asset work or post processing. The detail and clarity you gain is huge, not to mention the general crispness if your screen is 1080p native.

 

[Jack_AG]

I would get a PS4 for the IQ improvements alone. I could plug it up to my PC monitor without wanting to scratch my eyes out.

Yup. 1080p native. My TV is slowly going and i'm toying with the idea of getting a proper 24" gaming monitor (BenQ or the like) since they are cheaper, I game on PC and they are monumentally lower for video latency than TVs - improving my online presence when reaction is critical.

Plugging my PS360 into my 23" monitor makes my eyes bleed compared to my 42" TV. IQ I think will be up there this coming gen.

 

[Jack_AG]

I hate it when people use this term without understanding it

Holy shit bro if that avatar is you - you are my doppelganger... or I am yours. I just freaked out a bit

 

[yurinka]

I hate it when people use this term without understanding it

Way pedantic comment. He seems to understand it very well

Holy shit bro if that avatar is you - you are my doppelganger... or I am yours. I just freaked out a bit

I think you need googles too. He's not Skeletor.

 

[Nekofrog]

Holy shit bro if that avatar is you - you are my doppelganger... or I am yours. I just freaked out a bit

I don't look like Skeletor.

edit: jacked

 

[Manmademan]

Way pedantic comment. He seems to understand it very well

I think you need googles too. He's not Skeletor.

not really:

The uncanny valley is a hypothesis in the field of robotics[1] and 3D computer animation,[2][3] which holds that when human replicas look and act almost, but not perfectly, like actual human beings, it causes a response of revulsion among human observers. The "valley" refers to the dip in a graph of the comfort level of humans as a function of a robot's human likeness.

Mori's original hypothesis states that as the appearance of a robot is made more human, a human observer's emotional response to the robot will become increasingly positive and empathic, until a point is reached beyond which the response quickly becomes that of strong revulsion. However, as the robot's appearance continues to become less distinguishable from that of a human being, the emotional response becomes positive once more and approaches human-to-human empathy levels.[8]

So the "uncanney valley" hypothesis says that as we get better at creating robots and CGI renders, we become MORE positively disposed to them, not less- except at ONE specific point where it's "not quite" real enough and the response is strongly reversed.

we aren't anywhere near this point yet. there are plenty of CGI movies (say, beowulf or a christmas carol) that are still far, far beyond the technical achievement of these games. We won't hit the uncanny valley for at least a decade or two (assuming it exists) and the theory states that once we do, we'll quickly be right back out again. We may never hit it at all- since motion capture means that CGI can get human movements EXACTLY right, as opposed to a robot attempting to mimic human movements and being "close."

it's not applicable at all to current or next gen gaming.

 

[yurinka]

we aren't anywhere near this point yet. there are plenty of CGI movies (say, beowulf or a christmas carol) that are still far, far beyond the technical achievement of these games. We won't hit the uncanny valley for at least a decade or two (assuming it exists) and the theory states that once we do, we'll quickly be right back out again. We may never hit it at all- since motion capture means that CGI can get human movements EXACTLY right, as opposed to a robot attempting to mimic human movements and being "close."

it's not applicable at all to current or next gen gaming.

I experienced the Uncanny Valley with both Heavy Rain and L.A. Noir during some few moments in each game.

In both cases, both aren't human because even if were motion captured, their faces weren't 100% acurate, both in case of models, animation, texture and lighting even if they were really close.

 

[Manmademan]

I experienced the Uncanny Valley with both Heavy Rain and L.A. Noir during some few moments in each game.

In both cases, both aren't human because even if were motion captured, their faces weren't 100% acurate, both in case of models, animation, texture and lighting even if they were really close.

there's a difference between the uncanny valley, and "I don't like this CGI." If the uncanny valley theory was correct, then anything significantly better than those tech wise would be past that point and back to "pleasing" to humans. it's the uncanney valley, not the uncanny black hole.

Again, heavy rain and LA noir aren't anywhere close to something like a christmas carol, and that film certainly didn't inspire mass, strong revusion in the people that saw it.

 

[PetrCobra]

I cannot say I've expected more from the preseted games than what was shown.

It will take a few years before affordable PCs will be able to significantly outperform that.

 

[yurinka]

there's a difference between the uncanny valley, and "I don't like this CGI." If the uncanny valley theory was correct, then anything significantly better than those tech wise would be past that point and back to "pleasing" to humans. it's the uncanney valley, not the uncanny black hole.

Again, heavy rain and LA noir aren't anywhere close to something like a christmas carol, and that film certainly didn't inspire mass, strong revusion in the people that saw it.

It was enough for me with these games to feel a weird slight sentiment of repulsion when perceived that some character felt too human (while until them I was enjoying the game visuals very happy with them) and few seconds later to feel again 'that's just's a well made game character, it's ok for me'.

It wasn't something related with the character itself because he has a 'bad guy' or something, or with the quality of the game visuals, that in both cases I liked them. It was a really weird feeling.

Obviously there are better examples outside gaming. As I remember I experienced it for the first time with Final Fantasy the movie.

 

[Manmademan]

It was enough for me with these games to feel a weird slight sentiment of repulsion when perceived that some character felt too human (while until them I was enjoying the game visuals very happy with them) and few seconds later to feel again 'that's just's a well made game character, it's ok for me'.

It wasn't something related with the character itself because he has a 'bad guy' or something, or with the quality of the game visuals, that in both cases I liked them. It was a really weird feeling.

Obviously there are better examples outside gaming. As I remember I experienced it for the first time with Final Fantasy the movie.

That's not the uncanny valley. That's just you not liking the CGI. The uncanny valley is a specific phenomenon that refers to STRONG revulsion in the majority of people that see it. Past that point CGI/Robotics would be indistinguishable from people and the revulsion disappears.

you're misusing the term here, and the OP was correct.

 

[yurinka]

That's not the uncanny valley. That's just you not liking the CGI. The uncanny valley is a specific phenomenon that refers to STRONG revulsion in the majority of people that see it. Past that point CGI/Robotics would be indistinguishable from people and the revulsion disappears.

you're misusing the term here, and the OP was correct.

No, I was liking the CGI. Felt the same than with the A Christmas Carol movie. It's hard to explain, and English isn't my native language so sorry.

 

[Manmademan]

No, I was liking the CGI. Felt the same than with the A Christmas Carol movie. It's hard to explain, and English isn't my native language.

then that's not the uncanny valley. If you had to get up and leave the room, if it turns your stomach, it's something you can't watch because it's disturbing, THATS "strong revulsion."

seriously, I don't know what's so hard to understand. it's spelled out in black and white. if your discomfort runs the gamut from the Final Fantasy movie, To LA noir, to Heavy Rain, to a Christmas Carol, then that's not the specific effect referred to as the "uncanny valley." it's something else entirely.

 

[mentalfloss]

It's a substantial improvement, but not close to what we saw during the last generational leap. Anyone stating otherwise is either a fanboy or hasn't played a PS2 game in ages.

I think the more important question is 'does the difference even really matter?'

 

[Woo-Fu]

I think the more important question is 'does the difference even really matter?'

A question that an individual can only answer for himself/herself, after actually playing games on the PS4.

 

[mentalfloss]

A question that an individual can only answer for himself/herself, after actually playing games on the PS4.

Not really.

If they are not enticed by the console's intentions, they won't buy it.

 

[Mr.Squirrel]

I think the beauty of the next generation is that a lot of those tricks used to make bullshots will be possible in real time and games will genuinely be using them.

Until we reach photorealism, there's going to always be something that can be done to make an image look better than it really is. And even after we hit photorealism, someone will come up with a way to make the game look more "marketable."

There are live streams of the presentation demo showing the game in action and it looks pretty fucking sweet, why would anyone even go on just the press shots?

Because there's someone in marketing who wants to give the impression that it looks better than it really is. It's why movies have incredible trailers, then when you see the film, the only good parts of the movie was in that 60 second trailer.

I'm not saying the game is going to not look good. But it definitely will not look like the perfectly flawless media/PR shots that we've been given.

LOL I'm actually shocked people are falling for this. Bullshots have always existed in this industry. You think now all of a sudden they're going to go away?

 

[Mr.Squirrel]

Comparing to launch games of PS3 doesn't make sense either. It's not like the average person will compare PS4 to something from 7 years ago.

I'm not comparing Killzone to Resistance as evidence that Killzone will look bad. I'm just trying to have everyone remember that press shots exist and this isn't the first time we've seen them. It's been happening for decades. I personally feel KZ looks next-gen, but this is our 4th generation of Sony consoles. We've had enough evidence of PR firms using down sampled images and post processing to make images look better. Why is that so shocking to some people?

 

[dragonfart28]

Not really.

If they are not enticed by the console's intentions, they won't buy it.

To be fair, some people are easily pleased.

 

[Loofy]

Looking at the shadow fall trailer again theres something that kind of annoyed me. Clothing still moves like its been bathed in starch, as in it never moves. Will next gen still rely on textures making up the creases and folds in clothing or could we get something physics based?

Like this.
http://youtu.be/TEvtvDjV90E?t=10m29s

 

[TUROK]

then that's not the uncanny valley. If you had to get up and leave the room, if it turns your stomach, it's something you can't watch because it's disturbing, THATS "strong revulsion."

seriously, I don't know what's so hard to understand. it's spelled out in black and white. if your discomfort runs the gamut from the Final Fantasy movie, To LA noir, to Heavy Rain, to a Christmas Carol, then that's not the specific effect referred to as the "uncanny valley." it's something else entirely.

The uncanny valley doesn't necessarily have to elicit revulsion. Sometimes it's just a nagging feeling of "this doesn't look right."

That said, you're right. Video games for the most part aren't anywhere near hitting that point.