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[Sn4ke_911]

While it is impressive for a game (a rather recent one at that). It does not compare in any way to what they are showing:

See how one looks like a game, and the other looks closer to a movie?

The screenshots you chose in the edit were fine examples too. The lighting plays a huge part!

Okay now ... I'll try and resist

One is a cross-gen game the other is a next-gen only game.

 

[DeSolos]

While it is impressive for a game (a rather recent one at that). It does not compare in any way to what they are showing:

See how one looks like a game, and the other looks closer to a movie?

The screenshots you chose in the edit were fine examples too. The lighting plays a huge part!

Okay now ... I'll try and resist

Yeah, that's PBR.

Also when it comes to model detail(achieved with photogrammetry), I'm sure they can manage it by making the maps relatively tiny compared to the size of the maps in DA:I.

 

[RoboPlato]

Edited my DAI post a bit to make my point a bit clearer.

 

[ArchedThunder]

Just for a reminder. This is what foliage looked like in Dragon Age: Inquisition on PS4. Huge variation and numbers with very minimal pop in, all within large environments. Throw PBR into the mix plus smaller areas and would get pretty close to Endor in the trailer without much change. These shots have Share compression. Sorry about that.

versus

Lighting is the key difference here but the foliage itself is quite close on an older version of the engine.

Yeah, when you take into account that one is a cross gen, open world game with no PBR and the other is current gen only with PBR the difference doesn't seem all that ridiculous. There is also a year gap between release AND Battlefront likely has a budge that makes DA:I's look tiny. It really does make me wonder what DA:I would look like with PBR though.

 

[Skyzard]

Yeah, that's PBR.

Also when it comes to model detail(achieved with photogrammetry), I'm sure they can manage it by making the maps relatively tiny compared to the size of the maps in DA:I.

PBR will help no doubt, but it makes the materials and objects look realistic, like a great texture/shader, it doesn't create life/movie-like lighting and shadows [see screens above this post]:

The effect is more apparent in-doors where the lighting is more uniform and they can pre-bake (or whatever it is) the whole room and have the shadows look more real, especially when darkness [or washing out] hides the variation in shadows.
The above image is very flat [compared to the trailer, not most games]. And even in-doors it was the furniture that looked real, but when it was mostly NPCs that move about:

...

One lacks PBR and is in a huge environment. The baked GI Battlefront is using (Enlighten) is very impressive but it's still baked and will be in a more contained area. I just wanted to show that even an older cross gen version of Frostbite excelled in foliage, which is where a lot of the doubt of the engine capabilities are coming from in regard to this trailer. The lighting on the vegetation is the main improvement here.

[I've no real issue with the foliage models, it won't be that crisp on consoles (and won't look like that because the lighting they used affects the look of everything majorly), but the models are nothing groundbreaking (although the trees look crazy detailed with depth in the bark, and the scenes are packed), crysis had it, skyrim mods have it, far cry 4 vegetation looked insane at times (with god rays before the patch) and also reacted to explosions (they move in this trailer too), even far cry 3 looked decent to a lesser extent, albeit without PBR].

It's not just baked, the models and everything in the scene are lit up so well and producing dynamic shadows that are incredibly detailed that is only possible with long ass rendering times, like the cinematic (path tracing) lighting used in the engine to produce the trailer, separate to what it would be like in-game.

I'm looking forward to what they're going to show and I am hopeful because DA:I looked great to me (even its lighting) and PBR will only help. But it's not going to be a bloody movie like that trailer, and not just because of the ridiculous resolution, AA, motion blur, and particle effects, but yes, them too It's just not what pisses me off the most about the trailer.

 

[MatrixMan.EXE]

I think, part of what makes the trailer unbelievable in terms of how possible that kind of fidelity is on consoles is the actual direction of whats going on on screen. It's incredibly movie like, with perfect animations and scripted dialogue and sometimes that gets in the way of picturing a game looking like that more than the visual assets themselves.

The game will obviously play nothing like that when you have the controller or KBM in front of you, but I think, if you ignore whats going on movement wise, and focus on picking apart the individual assets/lighting models etc, you can start to get a better idea of how this kind of fidelity may not be so far fetched with a few concessions.

 

[Skyzard]

I don't give a toss about the about the animations (or the camera angles) - that's what they rely on people thinking they meant when they say "Not Actual Gameplay." Hoping they still believe the graphics will be there - especially after opening with "Game Engine Footage," when the game engine can do shit like path tracing that isn't in the realm of video games' gameplay.

They can try and fake it roughly, but it won't look near as good especially in a large open environment - each object creates detailed shadows even on itself and surrounding objects - like I circled on that photo yesterday. Dynamic Global Illumination might make it really damn good looking and impressive when, but it's not going to be like the trailer - it's just too expensive on performance.
They set up the scene and have individual light rays calculated (their path and effects). And there are shitloads of light rays and objects to bounce off of. You'd get a frame every few seconds on top end dedicated hardware.

Although surprisingly I read a post from someone who watched the gameplay trailer who mentioned the animations weren't all that far off (obviously they aren't going to be exactly as detailed but perhaps they are more indicative than we assumed. Or perhaps they bullshitted in that too):

I saw actual ps4 gameplay today at Celebration. The actual graphics do look like the trailer, if you imagine it with a lot of jaggies with less clarity farther away. Obviously the footage was rendered on a much more beastly machine. However when it comes to lighting and models and even a bunch of the animations, it was all there. That is indeed in-engine.

Of course the exciting camera angles are not there in gameplay either which makes it look significantly less crazy cool. But it still looks awesome.

I was originally planning to get this on PS4 and while it still looks good on the console, seeing the difference between the in-engine rendering and the actual console output, I might go for PC.
If you have a beastly machine it seems perfectly possible to have trailer-matching graphics 100%



Third person was a little bit farther back from the player but still not too far.

Ignore the parts about lighting being all there (that's harder to remember clearly (a lot of you guys can't even tell from the trailer just how good it is), but it does suggest they did a decent job - in the closed presentation, which I can't comment on).
He specifies "death animations" in a later post.

One is a cross-gen game the other is a next-gen only game.

If that was the limitation on achieving graphics of this absurd quality, Sony or MS would have done it long ago to try and establish console dominance, huge franchises and leap ahead. So could any capable company, and it wouldn't have prevented them from using the same assets to make a more limited previous gen game.

I'm not being negative for no reason. Hype is through the roof thanks to the trailer. They knew that. They said it was going to break the internet. It's past 10 million views already.
I know people are looking forward to the game and pumped up. I am too and I'm sorry for raining on the parade but it has to be done with the very clear abundance of unrealistic expectations.

It will look very good, possibly great too (BF4 looked good and with PBR, it's going to look awesome). Just don't be fooled into thinking it's going to revolutionise graphics to the extent implied by the trailer - especially the lighting - which makes a scene look realistic and "movie" like. Like you see being reported "trailer looks just like the movies!" It's going to look closer to a video games as you know them, than the movie like trailer.

Lighting of that quality in real-time requires state of the art purposefully designed hardware and even then, in more simple scenes, will pump out a single frame every second or two.

I'm pissing in the wind compared to the influence of that trailer, but hopefully it helps to prevent some of you guys from getting so hyped up that the graphics in the game end up disappointing you more than they impress you, if that's even possible now.

I'm getting the game without a doubt. It's a battlefield star wars mang. Who wouldn't buy that. But let's not set unrealistic expectations. I won't be pre-ordering mostly to spite these fuckers, not that it would matter.

 

[Bazookaxp]

This game looks awesome so far. Cannot wait to see gameplay at E3.

 

[Kibbles]

No pinhole camera leaks yet?

 

[dogen]

You're getting my hopes up...I will crush them.

How is it from the ground-up if they use the same engine?

If the difference was that fucking monumental, why haven't any companies (especially Sony or MS themselves) capitalized yet on the new consoles that have been out for 2 years. Just for previous gen consoles sales?

It's not just dropping last gen support that facilitates large technological improvements. It's also the experience gained from already making a game and having a much better idea of how to really take advantage of the hardware. That way you're not building a game based on educated guesses. It's even worse for launch titles, where the hardware isn't even finalized until the game is halfway through development.

 

[MaddenNFL64]

So what, no one betrayed EA and leaked the closed door stuff yet?

 

[Skyzard]

When was the last time you saw leaves casting a shadow on each other without faking it with textures:

This is beyond dynamic global illumination. It's full-on ray tracing. [I strongly believe, I'm not a video game professional in any way though, wish someone more knowledgeable would comment on the lighting].

Representative of PS7.

 

[dogen]

When was the last time you saw leaves casting a shadow on each other without faking it with textures:

The last game I played with ssao(and doesn't let you disable it) I guess lol.

This is beyond dynamic global illumination. It's full-on ray tracing. [I strongly believe].

But honestly, I'm not sure why you're convinced that can't be done with a shadow map. Doesn't look too exotic to me, but I dunno. Maybe I'm not seeing something you're seeing.

 

[OdysseusVA]

lol
"leave the devs alone!"

 

[Skyzard]

The last game I played with ssao(and doesn't let you disable it) I guess lol.




But honestly, I'm not sure why you're convinced that can't be done with a shadow map. Doesn't look too exotic to me, but I dunno. Maybe I'm not seeing something you're seeing.

That's just like HBAO where it darkens objects near it right?...whereas that's a full on detailed shadow.

Each individual leaf would have to have a shadow map for that to work out right?

Come on

 

[dogen]

That's just like HBAO where it darkens objects near it right?...whereas that's a full on detailed shadow.

Yeah, I was just joking. SSAO would shadow nearby leaves, but not in that way.

Each individual leaf would have to have a shadow map for that to work out right?

Well, I think it's more of an issue of quality. I remember the original far cry had shadows for individual leaves.

 

[Skyzard]

Yeah, I was just joking. SSAO would shadow nearby leaves, but not in that way.



Is that not the case? I remember the original far cry had shadows of individual leaves.

I assume because the object as a whole casts a shadow (giving an appearance of individual leaf and branch shadows), not the individual leaves each having a shadow that they can cast on each other, which suggests much more complex light paths and calculations (on everything, giving it that movie look).

 

[Spinluck]

PC folks, expect a downgrade too. Don't think we're safe here. The graphics looked better than real life. They set the engine to max, the game won't be running like that, or else it would be the slowest slideshow we've ever had to sit through.

just look at it (from MattyG) above:

No. Way.

I really wish they'd cut the bullshit already, the game doesn't need the negative publicity later on when the truth comes out and it will still look decent. They're just trying to fake how different it will look, hoping people can't tell.

The footage in the gif.

I don't remember seeing that, source?

 

[Skyzard]

^At about 20 seconds in the trailer.

 

[icecold1983]

When was the last time you saw leaves casting a shadow on each other without faking it with textures:

This is beyond dynamic global illumination. It's full-on ray tracing. [I strongly believe, I'm not a video game professional in any way though, wish someone more knowledgeable would comment on the lighting].

Representative of PS7.

ps7 will have graphics so far beyond this. a game designed from the ground up for a current high end pc(980+) by crytek could definitely come very close to this trailer(not last years e3 tho).

 

[injurai]

#ps7gate

 

[DeSolos]

When was the last time you saw leaves casting a shadow on each other without faking it with textures:

This is beyond dynamic global illumination. It's full-on ray tracing. [I strongly believe, I'm not a video game professional in any way though, wish someone more knowledgeable would comment on the lighting].

Representative of PS7.

Not ray tracing. Just a good foliage lighting model.

I've been able to achieve similar results in UE4. No baked lighting. 1 directional light(sun) and one skylight(image based light to fake GI). All shadows are done with cascaded shadow mapping(nothing new), and I'm using Epic's Two-Sided Foliage shading model. The grass casts shadows on itself, the ground, and anything it occludes(even other grass).

DISCLAIMER: Just one guy. Painted grass by hand. Using simple two plane grass for testing purposes. Only one type of grass right now.

 

[Skyzard]

Not ray tracing. Just a good foliage lighting model.

I've been able to achieve similar results in UE4. No baked lighting. 1 directional light(sun) and one skylight(image based light to fake GI). All shadows are done with cascaded shadow mapping(nothing new), and I'm using Epic's Two-Sided Foliage shading model. The grass casts shadows on itself, the ground, and anything it occludes(even other grass).

DISCLAIMER: Just one guy. Painted grass by hand. Using simple two plane grass for testing purposes. Only one type of grass right now.

I can see grass bunches casting a shadow on other grass bunches, but not the individual grasses shadowing each other (other than possibly proximity based darkening like hbao) in the same bunch, any chance for closer and higher res? I heard UE4 has pretty awesome global illumination (fable legends) but I didn't think it was close to ray tracing.

 

[UrbanRats]

When was the last time you saw leaves casting a shadow on each other without faking it with textures:

This is beyond dynamic global illumination. It's full-on ray tracing. [I strongly believe, I'm not a video game professional in any way though, wish someone more knowledgeable would comment on the lighting].

Representative of PS7.

Wut? Ray Tracing because an asset casts some shadows? Also, i'm pretty sure Crysis 3 at high settings and even GTAV (at least on PC) have self shadowing grass, bushes, and trees.

Either way, regardless of whether or not it'd be realistic for a PS4 (at 60fps, no less) you don't need ray tracing for that, lol.

 

[SneakyStephan]

Just for a reminder. This is what foliage looked like in Dragon Age: Inquisition on PS4. Huge variation and numbers with very minimal pop in, all within large environments. Throw PBR into the mix plus smaller areas and it would get pretty close to Endor in the trailer without much change. These shots have Share compression. Sorry about that.

versus

Lighting is the key difference here but the foliage itself is quite close on an older version of the engine.

Those da:i screenshots and the star wars screenshots look a full generation apart

The lighting is so much better in the star wars one it's not even funny

 

[Skyzard]

Wut? Ray Tracing because an asset casts some shadows? Also, i'm pretty sure Crysis 3 at high settings and even GTAV (at least on PC) have self shadowing grass, bushes, and trees.

Either way, regardless of whether or not it'd be realistic for a PS4 (at 60fps, no less) you don't need ray tracing for that, lol.

If everything self-shadowed, shadows would look pretty similar...and be similarly taxing right?

I'm looking but I see individual leaves in the same bunches as a pretty flat:

 

[VisceralBowl]

When was the last time you saw leaves casting a shadow on each other without faking it with textures:

This is beyond dynamic global illumination. It's full-on ray tracing. [I strongly believe, I'm not a video game professional in any way though, wish someone more knowledgeable would comment on the lighting].

Self shadows on foliage is not ray tracing....or GI. It's just self shadowing. Plenty of games already do it. Many don't use it (and those that do don't use high resolution shadows for it) as the performance hit when casting (and receiving) is pretty heavy.

Some shots I took in Unreal Engine 4 where it is easily visible:

 

[Lemonte]

I think those trees rival uncharted 3 trees.

 

[Skyzard]

Self shadows on foliage is not ray tracing....or GI. It's just self shadowing. Plenty of games already do it. Many don't use it (and those that do don't use high resolution shadows for it) as the performance hit when casting (and receiving) is pretty heavy.

Some shots I took in Unreal Engine 4 where it is easily visible:

It doesn't prove raytracing but it suggests that's what's going on when the shadows are that clear and detailed.

In your shots I can't tell that the self-shadows reflect where the light is coming from...but I understand self-shadowing can be done without raytracing. It just doesn't look similar. While I see shadows on leaves, it looks comparatively uniform, unlike the trailer example.


Are you sure it wasn't faked through textures? Was everything self-shadowing? how was the performance? Were they static?

It looks like an approximation still, whereas the other example was on a different level of detail in terms of lighting and shadowing.

 

[Hollow]

I think those trees rival uncharted 2 trees.

That's Uncharted 3.

 

[DeSolos]

I can see grass bunches casting a shadow on other grass bunches, but not the individual grasses shadowing each other (other than possibly proximity based darkening like hbao) in the same bunch, any chance for closer and higher res? I heard UE4 has pretty awesome global illumination (fable legends) but I didn't think it was close to ray tracing.

Since I'm using really simple geometry, it'll be easier to show you it in the material preview applied to a sphere. The grass shades itself.

The GI in Fable Legends is ok, but the new one Epic is developing in-house is more promising.

 

[KKRT00]

When was the last time you saw leaves casting a shadow on each other without faking it with textures:

This is beyond dynamic global illumination. It's full-on ray tracing. [I strongly believe, I'm not a video game professional in any way though, wish someone more knowledgeable would comment on the lighting].

Representative of PS7.

Not sure if serious.

 

[Lemonte]

That's Uncharted 3.

ah.. Never played any Uncharted. My bad.

 

[AESplusF]

Regardless of weather it's ray tracing or not, why does it matter? There are other games that utilize ray tracing, Killzone Shadow Fall and Crysis 3 for example.

 

[red731]

The footage in the gif.

I don't remember seeing that, source?

Nothing on minimap is moving and the hud looks superimposed on the image from some Battlefield 3/4. Go figure

 

[KKRT00]

Regardless of weather it's ray tracing or not, why does it matter? There are other games that utilize ray tracing, Killzone Shadow Fall and Crysis 3 for example.

Thats screenscape ray marching and Crysis 3 shot shows a cubemap.

 

[LowSignal]

It's Watchdogs all over again, there is no way the PS4/XB1 look anywhere near as good. The trailer even has a disclaimer at the end, hope for the best thou.

 

[AESplusF]

Thats screenscape ray marching and Crysis 3 shot shows a cubemap.

Still doesn't change the fact that those shadows being cast by those leaves probably aren't anything that special.

 

[Trace]

It's Watchdogs all over again, there is no way the PS4/XB1 look anywhere near as good. The trailer even has a disclaimer at the end, hope for the best thou.

I don't think anyone really expected PS4 to be able to do Watch_Dogs reveal, I remember "the PS4 would probably explode trying to do this" threads. The problem with Watch_Dogs was that even maxed on PC it didn't look nearly as good. As long as Battlefront maxed out on PC looks as good as the reveal I won't be complaining, compromises have to be made but don't straight up lie about what the game looks like.

 

[dogen]

Still doesn't change the fact that those shadows being cast by those leaves probably aren't anything that special.

Not the same guy.

 

[AESplusF]

Not the same guy.

I know just sayin

 

[King Tubby]

No hype til gameplay. Don't set yourselves up for disappointment.

 

[Jonm1010]

I get the sinking feeling this is EA's current gen version of the Madden "target render" of last gen. Just swapped with "in engine" which is almost equally deceptive.

I have every little hope that even maxed out this game will resemble this trailer.

I fully expect that e3 will show an unrelated area and do their best to hide the obvious downgrades and then we will see a thread on release comparing the original trailer and in-game footage and laugh.

Hope I'm wrong though.

 

[Hidden One]

PS9 will be able to run Star Wars Battlefront in 2078.

 

[Skyzard]

So instead of raytracing, they enabled accurate self-shadowing on every object (in a densely packed forest) to make it look like that?

Whats sort of performance hit would that entail

 

[mrklaw]

I find this thread perplexing. We get trailers all the time before we get gameplay demos, why is this one so terrible? The game isn't out until november, surely people didn't gameolay to be shown publicly yet? And the language used a small print is the same used in most trailers isn't it? In engine assets used but rendered either on a PC or a console in non-realtime with potentially added postFX.

Trailer is designed to set up the atmosphere and get across what the game may feel like. You add your own personal filter to extrapolate what you think the game might actually look like (same models, lower red, no AA etc) and enjoy the theatrics.

it is a cinematic trailer, so even if it looked identical on PS4, it would still look very different because of the HUD and different camera angles. Being so picky about whether the final game will have shadows on leaves is getting silly IMO. We haven't seen gameplay footage yet. People that were at celebration say it looks similar to the trailer, at least with models and animation etc, sothat's good. The minutiae of which specific effects are present can surely wait?

If it makes people feel better, I bet a maxed out PC version will look damn close to that.

 

[AESplusF]

We get trailers all the time before we get gameplay demos, why is this one so terrible?

It's a mystery

 

[Skyzard]

@mrklaw - The shadowing on individual leaves in a dense forest was me trying to show that it's using a rendering technique on the whole scene to make it look special that won't be in the game. There are a lot of people excited for the graphics shown and a big part of that is the lighting.

 

[EmptySpace]

oh gosh, we've been reduced to discussing the shadows on leaves on a plant that was shown for a frame or two.

 

[Valnen]

AA isn't the only aspect of visuals, you realize that, right?.

One of the most important parts. They're claiming the game will look like this though on PS4, so they're going to deserve a storm of backlash if it doesn't.