After a particularly trying shoot (it’s hard work making people laugh…
, the implementation period began and it was time to start playing with version 1.0 of our new PS4 engine.
Then came the first surprise: the graphic quality obtained with relatively little effort was a spectacular improvement on PS3. We obviously expected this, going from the tech specs, but it’s one thing comparing the number of polygons per second, and it’s quite another seeing it on the screen.
What surprised us first off was the global quality of the images. We are so used to seeing games in 720p (the standard on PS3) that we had forgotten how much full HD (1080p) changes life. If we add better anti-aliasing, HD textures, a real 3D depth of field and of course an avalanche of polygons and lights, we get an idea of the quality that the PS4 can produce.
On PS4, everything looks great, because the machine offers power that was totally inaccessible up until now. We can feel that we are closing in little by little on the kind of graphic quality we find in CG films.
In the current demo, there are about a million polygons in the set, and a little less than a million per character on the screen (i.e. a total of 4 million when the three characters are on the screen). Each character has about 350 MB of textures and about forty different shaders. It’s all managed with Physically Based Shaders, volumetric lights, full HDR, Color Grading, Physical Lenses (particularly useful for chromatic aberrations and 3D depth of field), and translucence for more realistic rendering of the skin. The change of set and all the lighting (and the behavior of the shaders) between the dramatic version of the set and the “studio” version is done in real time. The same holds true for all pyrotechnical particle effects.
The PS4 engine used for Dark Sorcerer is only in its first iteration, and most of the features scheduled for the final version of the engine haven’t yet been implemented. This demo is only a first test that is well below the visual quality we hope to achieve in our next game. The next game will not be based on this demo, obviously (I know, we’re a bit weird), but on an idea that is completely different from what we’ve done to date. It’s incredibly exciting, and I wish I could tell you more… but I can’t.
As I write these lines, I have absolutely no idea what the reactions to Dark Sorcerer will be. What I can say is that it is certainly the script that gave me the hardest time. The idea came very quickly, but then I had to fight with doubts up until it was too late to change my mind. I was ready to rewrite something completely different, something serious and dramatic like Kara, rather than run the stupid risk of writing something that wasn’t funny.
And at the end of the day, I stuck with it. Life is too short to waste time doing boring stuff. Better to take risks and do something you believe in. Both the team and I had enormous fun developing these eleven minutes and transcribing as well as we could the performances of these four totally wacky actors.
In a few months, we experienced something between Monty Python and Terry Pratchett (obviously without claiming to match their talent), and we laughed at each projection of the Goblin’s antics and the growing annoyance of the Sorcerer. We learned how attempting to produce beautiful images with such computing power is painstaking, how each second has to be worked out in minute detail, how light and shade became essential, how difficult it is to raise a smile.
To conclude, the whole team and I hope you like Dark Sorcerer. We put our hearts and souls into it, and we are happy to share the result with all those who keep track of and appreciate our progress. I hope you enjoy those eleven minutes as much as we enjoyed creating them.
If you smiled even once while watching this short film, our work has been worthwhile.
And lastly, a big thank you to all those who have stayed with us, write to us, come to meet us at conferences and fairs, to all those who buy our games. It’s your support that enables us to continue to create and experiment.