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Uncharted 4: Demos vs Final Game Comparison (Digital Foundry)

I prefer the more colorful retail version to the other gameplay demos, which looked pretty great too. The reveal trailer would probably explode a PS4 if it tried to match that in some of the more open areas.




Didn't Amazon recently announce a game engine? If so she was likely working on that.
Actually last l heard she was working for Prime Air.
 
You obviously didn't look around at the distant banks. It looks a generation behind what's seen in chapter 12.
Distant objects in later levels don't look any better technically. It's just art, that level in particular obviously didn't have as much care as the levels post chapter 12 which were basically created in sort of a Dark Souls manner where you could see the places you visited previously.

The lighting itself is the same, the tech behind it can't actually be worse in one level and better in another.
 
Ok so the demo looks slightly better?

When the final version of this game looks as good as it does...

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Distant objects in later levels don't look any better technically. It's just art, that level in particular obviously didn't have as much care as the levels post chapter 12 which were basically created in sort of a Dark Souls manner where you could see the places you visited previously.

The lighting itself is the same, the tech behind it can't actually be worse in one level and better in another.

The part in question is the only part in the game where the LOD was noticeably bad. I've actually been pretty impressed with the distant terrain throughout the game. Part of the problem in this instance is that it was so close. In other parts of the game the fully rendered area seems to be much larger. That or the LOD is out of view entirely. Or there's a lot of action going on and you don't even have time to look at it.

As for the lighting, I assume that light has minimal/no effect on LOD models/textures, so that would explain why it looks so bad in that shot. The trees look absolutely terrible. It's just one tiny scene so in the scheme of things it doesn't matter, but compared to the rest of the game it sticks out like a sore thumb. At least to me.
 
As a game artist, I can guarantee you that the first U4 demo was running real-time. It's just the nature of showing something so early, when all you have to do is run one scene with one character, with one settup, with a locked camera, with no gameplay, no ai systems, you tend to get a better picture. Plus most artists work higher and optimize further as time goes on, you have to fit everything under 50gigs and all streaming at the same time.

Plus even small lighting changes can dramatically change the look of a scene/character. That super higher contrast, dramatic, dark look of the initial demo just wouldnt work well for a full level.
 
As a game artist, I can guarantee you that the first U4 demo was running real-time. It's just the nature of showing something so early, when all you have to do is run one scene with one character, with one settup, with a locked camera, with no gameplay, no ai systems, you tend to get a better picture. Plus most artists work higher and optimize further as time goes on, you have to fit everything under 50gigs and all streaming at the same time.

Plus even small lighting changes can dramatically change the look of a scene/character. That super higher contrast, dramatic, dark look of the initial demo just wouldnt work well for a full level.

It had ridiculous image quality with perfect quality shadows, running at 60fps.

It was never real-time.
 
Yeah, I don't think anyone would angry about how the game looks now. It's amazingly stellar.

However, imagine how will this thread going if it's about ubisoft pulling out this kind of stunt.
 
Yeah, I don't think anyone would angry about how the game looks now. It's amazingly stellar.

However, imagine how will this thread going if it's about ubisoft pulling out this kind of stunt.

You're right that it was wrong by ND, but final Watch Dogs version was disappointing visually, so the disparity between their E3 demo to the final release was very jarring, we didn't get something that was amazing enough.

I bet that any company who would deliver one of the best looking games ever (for me personally THE) no one would be really mad at them no matter what stunt they used before release.

BTW The Division also missed its target and no one was pissed, why? cause it looks beautiful.
 
Yeah, I don't think anyone would angry about how the game looks now. It's amazingly stellar.

However, imagine how will this thread going if it's about ubisoft pulling out this kind of stunt.

If Ubisoft actually puts out a game that looks as good as Uncharted does and runs well then I am sure most people wouldn't care.
 
There's no accusations of lying in there. I'm not convinced that it was real-time, though. Besides the 60fps frame-rate, which is possible in a cut-scene situation, it's the image quality that leads me to believe it wasn't real-time. It basically looks as if it were downsampled from a very high resolution. The final game has outstanding image quality, but it's still not on par with that teaser - which could only have been achieved at a resolution above 1080p, I feel.

I do think it was made using the renderer and tools for the game, though, but I doubt it was actually real-time. If not for the image quality, I could believe it was real-time.

So.... the graphics engine programmer straight out lied when she said it was real-time?
 
So.... the graphics engine programmer straight out lied when she said it was real-time?

I remember they did a presentation saying this was the model in the game, but obviously using static lighting, faked shadows, and light probes is not going to provide the same lighting. Anyone who has played the game know that this is not possible with how lighting is done in the game. Since the game uses static lightmapping, the models are lit separately from the environment through light probes and the shadows are added into the scene, which sometimes gives the models a bluescreen effect against the backgrounds.

nHguc1g.jpg
 
I remember they did a presentation saying this was the model in the game, but obviously using static lighting, faked shadows, and light probes is not going to provide the same lighting. Anyone who has played the game know that this is not possible with how lighting is done in the game. Since the game uses static lightmapping, the models are lit separately from the environment through light probes and the shadows are added into the scene, which sometimes gives the models a bluescreen effect against the backgrounds.

nHguc1g.jpg

They said the lighting model is different in the game.

 
As a game artist, I can guarantee you that the first U4 demo was running real-time. It's just the nature of showing something so early, when all you have to do is run one scene with one character, with one settup, with a locked camera, with no gameplay, no ai systems, you tend to get a better picture. Plus most artists work higher and optimize further as time goes on, you have to fit everything under 50gigs and all streaming at the same time.

Plus even small lighting changes can dramatically change the look of a scene/character. That super higher contrast, dramatic, dark look of the initial demo just wouldnt work well for a full level.
That they never bothered to actually show off the demo and moved the camera around or other ways to prove that it's real time, is pretty suspicious to me. And now that we know that the game barely reaches that level of graphics with 30 fps it is very hard to believe that they actually had that Demo running on a PS4.

And if it was possible because they only had one character no AI etc. then why set such a lofty goal they know they're not going to reach?
 
As a game artist, I can guarantee you that the first U4 demo was running real-time. It's just the nature of showing something so early, when all you have to do is run one scene with one character, with one settup, with a locked camera, with no gameplay, no ai systems, you tend to get a better picture. Plus most artists work higher and optimize further as time goes on, you have to fit everything under 50gigs and all streaming at the same time.

Plus even small lighting changes can dramatically change the look of a scene/character. That super higher contrast, dramatic, dark look of the initial demo just wouldnt work well for a full level.

Yep. You simply cannot make assumptions about performance either. Consistency across the game is the paramount concern. So even if certain sequences could potentially render at 60fps, they would still need to run at 30 in the final so as to match with more taxing cut-scenes and the gameplay.

Its aggravating to me when people treat game trailer footage like movie trailer footage; a game is a machine made up of thousands of interlocking parts and assets, not just a string of discrete shots edited into sequence. You change one element, anywhere, and you will see those changes reflected in any other part where the asset is shared.

Generally, this is a great thing, but obviously it also means that results can be very changeable between builds. Differences are to be expected.
 
I remember they did a presentation saying this was the model in the game, but obviously using static lighting, faked shadows, and light probes is not going to provide the same lighting. Anyone who has played the game know that this is not possible with how lighting is done in the game. Since the game uses static lightmapping, the models are lit separately from the environment through light probes and the shadows are added into the scene, which sometimes gives the models a bluescreen effect against the backgrounds.

nHguc1g.jpg

The model in game can look much better than the right one under more ideal circumstances, it's weird you chose this one to compare, some took amazing model shots that look incredible (right there at the top with The Order), but, I do think that the left one might not be reachable during gameplay, at least from what I've seen.

During cut scene though? Sure looks as good and more so.
 
It had ridiculous image quality with perfect quality shadows, running at 60fps.

It was never real-time.
I think there's a video out there showing that it is indeed real time and one glaring point was that the sand deformation was not very good and his ring was clipping or something. However we have to take into account how it's likely a target render video that has none of the gameplay components fitted into it.
 
I remember they did a presentation saying this was the model in the game, but obviously using static lighting, faked shadows, and light probes is not going to provide the same lighting. Anyone who has played the game know that this is not possible with how lighting is done in the game. Since the game uses static lightmapping, the models are lit separately from the environment through light probes and the shadows are added into the scene, which sometimes gives the models a bluescreen effect against the backgrounds.

Here are shots of his face I took, seems like more viable comparison then that other shot.

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You're right that it was wrong by ND, but final Watch Dogs version was disappointing visually, so the disparity between their E3 demo to the final release was very jarring, we didn't get something that was amazing enough.

I bet that any company who would deliver one of the best looking games ever (for me personally THE) no one would be really mad at them no matter what stunt they used before release.

BTW The Division also missed its target and no one was pissed, why? cause it looks beautiful.

On gaf, perhaps. Gaf is generally more mature in terms of shitposting compared to other sites.

But everywhere else, everyone is bringing that E3 footage/screens in every The Division discussions, screaming downgrades.

If Ubisoft actually puts out a game that looks as good as Uncharted does and runs well then I am sure most people wouldn't care.

But that's not my point.
 
On gaf, perhaps. Gaf is generally more mature in terms of shitposting compared to other sites.

But everywhere else, everyone is bringing that E3 footage/screens in every The Division discussions, screaming downgrades.



But that's not my point.

I'm just saying if this game actually didn't look good graphically there would be more people upset, the Ubisoft comparison isn't valid
 
Yeah, it's crazy what they've pulled off and I'm still pretty early in the game.
You didn't see shit, at the start I was like "yea it looks incredible, right there at the top with the best looking games this gen"...*couple of chapters later* "fuck it this is the best looking shit I've seen, WTF how did they do it!? :O"
 
So.... the graphics engine programmer straight out lied when she said it was real-time?
Let's put it this way - if it was real-time, they were displaying a scene on PS4 at a resolution greater than 1080p at a perfect 60fps with detail beyond the final game. That would mean that they failed to match what was shown.
 
I remember they did a presentation saying this was the model in the game, but obviously using static lighting, faked shadows, and light probes is not going to provide the same lighting. Anyone who has played the game know that this is not possible with how lighting is done in the game. Since the game uses static lightmapping, the models are lit separately from the environment through light probes and the shadows are added into the scene, which sometimes gives the models a bluescreen effect against the backgrounds.

nHguc1g.jpg

Not selective in the least ...
 
Let's put it this way - if it was real-time, they were displaying a scene on PS4 at a resolution greater than 1080p at a perfect 60fps with detail beyond the final game. That would mean that they failed to match what was shown.

i think there is nothing wrong with showing what the PS4 could do in a closed environment when you just concentrate on visuals but the result was that people's expectations based on it went through the roof and that is where ND should be blamed as it was and still is unrealistic to expect these graphics at 60fps.
 
Not selective in the least ...

Holy shit that's the closest one I've seen, amazing shot, no doubt that under the right conditions you can get very very close to their model, so no way they lied with that tech slide that's for sure.

And yeah I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt that he didn't do it on purpose although people here posted tons of better model shots, let's say he "missed" them and what he posted was the only one he saw ;)
 
it's funny how certain games get free passes with lying, but others get slaughtered. i'm not saying this game deserves criticism, i just wish the leniency in this thread applied to other games.
 
Tbh I agree with the video, the only other demo the game falls short in comparison to is that very first 60fps teaser. People really underestimate the amount of difference colour grading and different lighting can make. The lighting is definitely not worse in most of those scenes, just different.
 
it's funny how certain games get free passes with lying, but others get slaughtered. i'm not saying this game deserves criticism, i just wish the leniency in this thread applied to other games.

The only killer here is the 60fps unfortunately not coming true, otherwise the 'downgrade' is incredibly minor in this case. This is no Division and it sure as hell aint no dark souls 2.
 
it's funny how certain games get free passes with lying, but others get slaughtered. i'm not saying this game deserves criticism, i just wish the leniency in this thread applied to other games.
Seems to be a lesson in communication. Sometime in 2015, Naughty Dog publicly admitted they were falling short of the 1080p/60/E3 target.

More importantly, there is no PC version. So no 980Ti owners unhappy about a visual-flagship title dumbed down for the Jaguars.
 
Holy shit that's the closest one I've seen, amazing shot, no doubt that under the right conditions you can get very very close to their model, so no way they lied with that tech slide that's for sure.

And yeah I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt that he didn't do it on purpose although people here posted tons of better model shots, let's say he "missed" them and what he posted was the only one he saw ;)
some i took, all in game gameplay not cutscene.
lighting is everything.
 
Heh, just to note, this video was not created to suggest any kind of downgrade - it's merely a set of observations since I think it's interesting to compare final games to older demos.

Only the teaser really outshines the original game, but that was basically a concept video, I believe, and the final game comes remarkably close. The rest of the changes are just kind of interesting observations.
So you concluded that the original teaser was pre-rendered even though they stated it wasn't? Or wait, did they say in-engine? Having a slightly less detailed texture set and more going on with the SSS and accumulation of other details takes priority for real time, at least.

I think a single high quality character model in a low detail and dark environment like that can definitely be done on a PS4 (with less IQ), but as soon as you want any other effects and shader details or transitions into gameplay you won't hit that quality anymore.
 
I remember they did a presentation saying this was the model in the game, but obviously using static lighting, faked shadows, and light probes is not going to provide the same lighting. Anyone who has played the game know that this is not possible with how lighting is done in the game. Since the game uses static lightmapping, the models are lit separately from the environment through light probes and the shadows are added into the scene, which sometimes gives the models a bluescreen effect against the backgrounds.

nHguc1g.jpg

From gameplay. It always depends on the lighting.
 
I remember they did a presentation saying this was the model in the game, but obviously using static lighting, faked shadows, and light probes is not going to provide the same lighting. Anyone who has played the game know that this is not possible with how lighting is done in the game. Since the game uses static lightmapping, the models are lit separately from the environment through light probes and the shadows are added into the scene, which sometimes gives the models a bluescreen effect against the backgrounds.

nHguc1g.jpg
Uh what?
You're just using random buzzwords here.

Lightmaps are used for indirect lighting where the GI data is baked into the scene, you can have baked GI but still have real time lighting from direct light sources to light and shadow the environment and characters and this game does that.
 
Drake looks good, though the final looks like a lot of the age (liver) spots, freckles, and blemishes from the earlier model(s) are largely gone.
 
I prefer the lighting used in the final version of the game. In demos the game used "cool" colors which made everything kinda bluish.

Also, the retail game has quite a bit better ground geometry and texturing.

The one thing I prefer from the demo is the more "glossy" lighting. I dont get why they opted to change that. It is still there but brought down quite a notch compared to the demo. Which seems deliberate, but still I prefer how it was in that version.

All in all amazing work i dont feel cheated or downgraded. Its ridiculous to even hint anything towards a downgrade with this game.
 
The defending of ND in here is unbelievable.

At the end of the day, they bullshitted in the highest order to sell the game/pre-orders and ps4's. End of.

And they'll do it again....and again...and again...

They need (and everybody that does it) calling out to fuck so they stop getting away with it ffs - smh.
 
I do agree that ND should be scolded for that initial reveal trailer. They duped people, even if unknowingly due to setting their goals too high, and it is very bad form. I'm actually disappointed in ND for it. That said, gameplay reveal wise things have actually been graphically improved from demo's to final reveal, and I do think that the cutscene and gameplay model is the same, the difference being that ND likely changed initially higher quality cutscene models, to instead the gameplay model for added consistency. Playing the game, because of the smooth transitions it's clear the cutscene and gameplay models are the same, only it's the lighting that sometimes changes.

Overall though, Drake's model looks great, even in gameplay. And yes lighting can make all the difference. Not to mention because he's always moving about, it's hard to get a tack sharp shot.

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