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Next-gen consoles have reached CGI rendering in real time ?

uncharted4.jpg


maxresdefault.jpg



Were we watching the same footage?

Man, ND needs to show that first trailer part in gameplay!

Only way to shut everybody up.
 
Characters in SC will use enhanced TressFX technology for all characters hair, so this automatically means that hair will be much higher quality than in U4.
And in terms of general modeling and rig fidelity, they are aiming higher than Ryse.

And why its non-sensical?

Hmm, none of the character models they have shown thus far looked as impressive as in say Ryse to me, but they haven't shown much. Also, what about shader work etc? I don't expect animations to be as detailed either considering the type of game.

Don't get me wrong, I expect this game to look good. I just dont think it will surpass everything out there in every aspect in terms of visual output. Technical mechanics, sure. For instance, considering the type of game it is, there is no way it can surpass the level of customised detail as something like the Order. Nor would I expect it to.
 

KKRT00

Member
Hmm, none of the character models they have shown thus far looked as impressive as in say Ryse to me, but they haven't shown much. Also, what about shader work etc? I don't expect animations to be as detailed either considering the type of game.

Don't get me wrong, I expect this game to look good. I just dont think it will surpass everything out there in every aspect in terms of visual output. Technical mechanics, sure. For instance, considering the type of game it is, there is no way it can surpass the level of customised detail as something like the Order. Nor would I expect it to.
They are using Imaginarium, same studio as Ryse, Star Wars, Rise of the Planet of the Apes. They not only using this studio, but co-developing with them research on better motion capture.

All of models they've shown were from pre-alpha state, everything they've shown so far was a placeholder.

Ps. Rise of the Planet of the Apes and Maze Runner actually used CryEngine Cinema module for pre-shots.
http://www.fxguide.com/featured/cryteks-cinebox-an-update/

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I am not sure what compute shaders the Order is using beyond some GPU particles and its light culling / tile shading (forward+), but I would assume the primary reason why its art is so consistent has nothing to do with magical GPGPU technology.
I dont think they are using GPGPU for particles, they do not look complex or impressive, but i would guess that they are using GPGPU for AO capsules and post-processing.
 
Hmm, none of the character models they have shown thus far looked as impressive as in say Ryse to me, but they haven't shown much. Also, what about shader work etc? I don't expect animations to be as detailed either considering the type of game.

Don't get me wrong, I expect this game to look good. I just dont think it will surpass everything out there in every aspect in terms of visual output. Technical mechanics, sure. For instance, considering the type of game it is, there is no way it can surpass the level of customised detail as something like the Order. Nor would I expect it to.

They do not even have their character system in engine currently, let alone have showed anything from it. Those have all just been palce holder models and system till they put their character rendering tech in.

"the more you know."
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I dont think they are using GPGPU for particles, they do not look complex or impressive, but i would guess that they are using GPGPU for AO capsules and post-processing.

Even with the sparks gun or whatever it is?
 

Angelcurio

Member
I don't know how or when, but i want my games to look as good as this Destiny pic, which i don't know why it looks so much better than the actual game (maybe it's the illumination, someone please enlighten me):

ghagwyI.jpg
 

KKRT00

Member
Even with the sparks gun or whatever it is?
The sparks are really big, so the amount of them is not that high, also they disappear almost immediately. We had games that did similar particles count on CPUs.
Maybe they are accelerated by GPGPU, but seems quite unnecessary to me.
 

UnrealEck

Member
I've been waiting for this for almost 20 year and now it's true in the front of my eyes

That looks nowhere near good modern CG. The Order is covered in blur and grain and brownish greyish tonemap. Quality graphics are clear and sharp where you can see detail and volume. TO1886 seems to mask things behind the filters but the result IMO is just butchered image quality. It's like when people post little .gif images which reduce your ability to pick out things you would commonly notice as a game's graphics as opposed to real life for example.
The Uncharted and Star Citizen stuff people have posted is more impressive. AC Unity is also more impressive.
 

IcyEyes

Member
This (vidogame graphics, cgi, etc) is a fascinating arguments (actually is part of my job...) and right now I agree with most of the post I read here.
The Order is the game that comes closest to a CGI and even if some games like Infamous, DriveClub, KillzoneSF, Ryse (on PC) are pretty impressive, The Order is an awesome mix of tech and art direction that create a jaw dropping visual.
I'm still on the fence with SC. Looks amazing, I like the art direction, but I really need to see more. Of course, I have this game installed on my PC and I tried to "play" this game @4k with the highest setting (even though there is no way right now to have a decent frame rate) and well, it's awesome, but not jaw dropping right now.

Anyway, The Order plays on the advantage of closed and "controlled" environment, this helps a *lot* ... but this is another story ...

UC4 may surpass The Order ... I'm absolutely curious to see how this game will run on my screen and I hope they will opt for the 30fps with all the bells and whistles.
 
They do not even have their character system in engine currently, let alone have showed anything from it. Those have all just been palce holder models and system till they put their character rendering tech in.

"the more you know."


Even with the sparks gun or whatever it is?

Fair enough, I stand corrected. Not much to say about that then.

They have taken a very strange approach to developing the game. I have not seen much yet which resembles a game. I have no doubt that the game will have some intriguing content (these guys made Wing Commander didn't they?), but it does seem to be very early based on what little I have seen.

Those gifs above do look impressive. Still far from realism, but very beautifully rendered.

Unrealeck: It looks very impressive in motion, much better in terms of visual consistency and coherence than Unity: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZ3N2kLKdX0
 
D

Deleted member 17706

Unconfirmed Member
In terms of graphical techniques? Sure, we're way passed stuff like the Tekken Tag intro.

Pre-rendered stuff really doesn't have any limitations when it comes to number of polygons in a scene and rendering resolution, though, so it will always have that massive advantage.
 
D

Deleted member 17706

Unconfirmed Member
That looks nowhere near good modern CG. The Order is covered in blur and grain and brownish greyish tonemap. Quality graphics are clear and sharp where you can see detail and volume. TO1886 seems to mask things behind the filters but the result IMO is just butchered image quality. It's like when people post little .gif images which reduce your ability to pick out things you would commonly notice as a game's graphics as opposed to real life for example.

The copious amounts of post processing effects definitely remove the rough edges, but that's really the only viable solution right now when rendering at a higher resolution is so resource intensive.

I'm perfectly happy with an image quality like that of The Order. It allows them to do incredibly consistent high quality visuals that you just do not see in other games.
 

koutoru

Member
I personally think that by the end of this generation we can have character models that look as good as the models in Final Fantasy: Spirits Within, except for the hair, that is. (2001 CGI film)


Fun fact: the character models in this movie used just over 100,000 polygons (not counting clothing or hair). Infamous SS already uses 120,000 poly character models.
 

TGO

Hype Train conductor. Works harder than it steams.
The Order, I think it's actually better then some CGI, obviously there's better but overall The Order just looks so natural and fantastic.
 
D

Deleted member 17706

Unconfirmed Member
I personally think that by the end of this generation we can have character models that look as good as the models in Final Fantasy: Spirits Within, except for the hair, that is. (2001 CGI film)



Fun fact: the character models in this movie used just over 100,000 polygons (not counting clothing or hair). Infamous SS already uses 120,000 poly character models.

I think they already look better in stuff like Assassin's Creed: Unity and The Order. The shaders being used in these games are far more advanced and, in combination with the animation, make for much more convincing faces.
 

sn00zer

Member
We've definitely surpassed CG in the past...things like realtime physics, polygon count, and perfect AA still have a while to go, but the look has certainly surpassed many years of CG. Lot of it has to do with modeling techniques for saving polys, shader research, post processing...and basically decades of experience allowing realtime effects to make up for pure processing power. But Cg has also jumped by leap and bounds so we're still a decade behind Avatar.
 

i-Lo

Member
Depends on how old it is. But prerendered CGI industry isn't frozen in time and thus will always have the advantage.
 

XiaNaphryz

LATIN, MATRIPEDICABUS, DO YOU SPEAK IT
We've definitely surpassed CG in the past...things like realtime physics, polygon count, and perfect AA still have a while to go, but the look has certainly surpassed many years of CG. Lot of it has to do with modeling techniques for saving polys, shader research, post processing...and basically decades of experience allowing realtime effects to make up for pure processing power.

Animated feature CG maybe.

Live action VFX CG though? Still a long way to go there, at least 10 years behind in that regard for real-time. The models and animation rigs alone at places like WETA or ILM are way too heavy and complex for real-time.
 

Three

Member
It's a pet peeve of mine. All games are CGI, whether realtime or pre-rendered. Lets call them what they are. Pre-rendered and realtime. As for whether we are there yet I'd say absolutely but that depends on what pre-rendered CGI you are referring to.

Most pre-rendered work will always look better than realtime in a given year but the question is what budget (how long to render) are we talking about and what years are we comparing.

For example I think the Heavenly Sword pre-rendered Movie looks like PS3 graphics. Clearly they had a small budget and little time.
 
Fair enough, I stand corrected. Not much to say about that then.

I imagine they will show off the character rendering tech around e3 whe there is a squadron 42 trailer. That should be interesting to see and compare to other linear games.

In the mean time we can get excited for their volumetric particles, voxel asteroids, and dynamic ship damage that they will present at GDC.
And just cool looking ships... because why not.
http://a.pomf.se/gwexro.webm
 

Sipheren

Banned
Not sure if it has been mentioned but CGI just means computer generated graphics, so everything in this thread is CGI and some is better than others.

The quality of what you can produce with a computer is directly tied to the computer/s rendering it and the artist making it.

CGI pre-rendered with a massive render farm will always exceed what is capable using a single computer and rendering in real time. With a render farm at your disposal the model detail, world detail, materials, lighting, etc are all only limited by the artists investment in time.

So the answer to the title of this thread is no, next gen (or any gen for that matter) will never be able to render in real time what is being rendered on a render farm.

A better questions is, given the technologies and techniques available, can single computers render graphics that 'look' almost as good as something that was pre-rendered, which the answer can be yes at times, but even the Order is miles away (technically) from something like Toy Story 3 or Transformers.

 

TAJ

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
The Spirits Within is straight up primitive compared to The Order.
Sucks that it will never be on PC. I really want to see it at 8K with higher precision effects.
 

KKRT00

Member
Fair enough, I stand corrected. Not much to say about that then.

They have taken a very strange approach to developing the game. I have not seen much yet which resembles a game. I have no doubt that the game will have some intriguing content (these guys made Wing Commander didn't they?), but it does seem to be very early based on what little I have seen.

Those gifs above do look impressive. Still far from realism, but very beautifully rendered.

Unrealeck: It looks very impressive in motion, much better in terms of visual consistency and coherence than Unity: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZ3N2kLKdX0

Its mostly, because they were working on basics first and were scaling they studios.
They started with like 20 people, now they have 300. It takes a lot of time to get a studio, get a concept and train people to start with full production.
And by basic they meant physics, netcode and art workflows.

They still didnt transitioned to double precision in Arena Commander for example.
Oh and they've just opened new studio in Germany, Frankfurt that will be focused solely on game engine engineering. We dont have full info about it yet, but i wouldnt be surprised if it was somewhere near Crytek's headquarter, i mean, it would make total sense.
 

DeSolos

Member
Nowhere near. We're several console generations away from something like this... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TLzhlsEFcVQ And lord knows how many CPU/GPU years away.

If I had to guess, I'd say we're ten years behind on cinematics.

The thing is with real time vs. pre-rendered graphics there are so many different factors that its hard to say how far away it is.

To get something that is pretty close to that, we can do that right now(or at least within 2-3 years), but for more specific effects like fluid simulations(fire/liquid) and hair, yeah those are much further off. Even still, for the most part we could pretty much match that look now while having to fake the more challenging effects.

Agni's Philosophy is pretty close to the video you linked. No not everything in Agni is viable for consoles and it's not quite as good looking as the Draenor video, but the differences really aren't that great.
http://youtu.be/UVX0OUO9ptU
 
Its mostly, because they were working on basics first and were scaling they studios.
They started with like 20 people, now they have 300. It takes a lot of time to get a studio, get a concept and train people to start with full production.
And by basic they meant physics, netcode and art workflows.

They still didnt transitioned to double precision in Arena Commander for example.
Oh and they've just opened new studio in Germany, Frankfurt that will be focused solely on game engine engineering. We dont have full info about it yet, but i wouldnt be surprised if it was somewhere near Crytek's headquarter, i mean, it would make total sense.

So they have showing what they got as they are working at it, since it is a publically funded project I suppose. Hopefully by E3 they have something substantial to show then. Looking forward to seeing something that resembles a game with what they are putting togther.
 

jerry1594

Member
I don't think lighting, textures or physics are anyway near CG movies. They look very impressive but the level of detail isn't close, considering a CG movie is a 2 hour thing that takes at least as long to produce as a typical big budget game.
 

KKRT00

Member
So they have showing what they got as they are working at it, since it is a publically funded project I suppose. Hopefully by E3 they have something substantial to show then. Looking forward to seeing something that resembles a game with what they are putting togther.

Yes, they are basically showing anything they've finished or they are prototyping. They are making like 2h of videos per week with content and discussions about the game. Not holding anything back, which was never done for AAA game.

Sneak peak of early version of new procedural destruction tech - https://gfycat.com/VacantFrayedFrilledlizard#
From other interesting facts, one guy that is working for CIG was Visual Effects Art Director in ILM :)
http://www.ghull.com/about/
 

JordanN

Banned
I think the reason games "look like CGI" isn't really the tech, but the art.

For example, those images Sn00zer posted. It's obvious when those pictures were made, everyone was still trying to make the transition to 3D. So while the tech behind those movies were great, the art behind them were subjectively weaker.

A game like The Order isn't going to push the millions of polygons or calculate every single strand of hair like old movies. However, how much of that matters when the art direction does a better job at portraying realistic humans or London in a game setting?

Of course, the same can be said about VFX as well. Pixar has hired a lot more people since the first Toy Story. Their artists are now much more skilled at making high quality humans or lighting realistic/stylized environments. This, combined with their massive renderfarms is what makes their movies look better now.

Simply throwing a million polygons at something wont make a better looking picture. Knowing how to wisely use those polygons is what matters.

88ccYge.jpg


Similar polycount, yet one looks better.
 

Sweet Ivy

Member
If you contemplate last year's CGI, both the Oder and DriveClub are likely superior, more will also be achieved by coming games such as Uncharted 4.
 
The thing is, apart from pixar having literally whole farms to render frames, they take hours to render even 1 frame. So if naughty dog made uncharted 0.001 fps, then it would look absolutely glorious akin to a real life movie.

For toy story it took 2-15 hours per frame. So assuming the average of 7 hours which = 25,200 seconds to render one frame. Time 30 fps for uncharted is around 750,000 more seconds to render a frame.

Imagine that, nearly 1 million times more power. The games would have better graphics than real life at that point.
 

XiaNaphryz

LATIN, MATRIPEDICABUS, DO YOU SPEAK IT
If you contemplate last year's CGI, both the Oder and DriveClub are likely superior, more will also be achieved by coming games such as Uncharted 4.

Wait, are you saying these games are superior to CG that came out last year? Something like Interstellar that just won the VFX Oscar?
 

XiaNaphryz

LATIN, MATRIPEDICABUS, DO YOU SPEAK IT
Until gaming reaches 8k resolution, this will always exist.

Rendering resolution by itself isn't the main issue. Most VFX CG renders are still only at 2k for example. AA is only a part of the equation.

The post you quoted doesn't make any sense anyway, mid-2000s CG includes stuff like King Kong and Davy Jones.
 

Eggbok

Member
I could generally agree in the past, but then i've seen Avatar. I was like :O

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Pre-alpha? Isnt it like 3 years in making already?

I'm not sure, its confirmed that the demo was pre-alpha build though. That doesn't mean that they were actually still in the pre-alpha stage. (Or maybe it does, I don't know lol.) They just showed the game at it's pre-alpha stage. :p
 

McLovin

Member
The order looks pretty damn insane. Youtube clips and gifs dont do this game any justices. The game looks as good in cutscenes as it does during gameplay.
 

LCGeek

formerly sane
Anyway, The Order plays on the advantage of closed and "controlled" environment, this helps a *lot* ... but this is another story ...

True but I wish more would remember that when comparing it to a game like infamous. The amount of power you can wield in controlled vs open environment is immense.
 
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