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Epic releases the Unreal Engine 4 demo "A Boy and His Kite"

Exentryk

Member
Running at 30 fps on GTX 980 at 1080p. Amazing. Witcher 4 could look this good + all the special effect of magic and monsters.

Anyway, saw some weird stuff lol

4hAosia.jpg
 

Exentryk

Member
Was running around with a controller. You can jump and all too. Makes it feel like a game, but not much to do. Still, amazing tech demo, and hopefully we see this quality in the next generation of games.
 

Crossing Eden

Hello, my name is Yves Guillemot, Vivendi S.A.'s Employee of the Month!
I was having trouble where I'd seen that kid's face and what do you know its from a 2006 CG movie, Monster House.

img06.jpg


Guess we're reaching the point where games can near or pass CG animated movies.
This demo is extremely impressive. Especially the draw distance but I wouldn't say we're anywhere near close to CG.
MI3409_final_pub4k_v001.1069.jpg

2kw3Dvm.gif


Here's two toon models from two very recent CG films.
a8U7UUf_zps4664269f.png~original

V7VihkO7.jpg


Modern CGI is ridiculous. I don't think we'll ever be able to surpass it as it's always getting better.
 

Älg

Member
This demo is extremely impressive. Especially the draw distance but I wouldn't say we're anywhere near close to CG.


Modern CGI is ridiculous. I don't think we'll ever be able to surpass it as it's always getting better.

I think what he meant is that modern realtime looks better than old CG. Obviously CG is always going to look better; I mean, how will a regular consumer PC ever be able to do what takes a render farm 5 days.
 

Crossing Eden

Hello, my name is Yves Guillemot, Vivendi S.A.'s Employee of the Month!
Älg;167762945 said:
I think what he meant is that modern realtime looks better than old CG. Obviously CG is always going to look better; I mean, how will a regular consumer PC ever be able to do what takes a render farm 5 days.
How old are we talking though?
 
This demo is extremely impressive. Especially the draw distance but I wouldn't say we're anywhere near close to CG.

Modern CGI is ridiculous. I don't think we'll ever be able to surpass it as it's always getting better.

Yea, I just ignore those comments now. Even Monster House was using a ray-tracer and has perfectly smooth curved edges. Games can't even get that right yet.
 
Toy Story 1 is pretty ugly guys.

At least Toy Story 1 has proper shadows for every light source (here we go again with getting the basics down first) and geometry that is smooth for every character/prop in the scene.

These are first requirements IMO to approaching film quality that the latest hardware just can't seem to match even today.
 
At least Toy Story 1 has proper shadows for every light source (here we go again with getting the basics down first) and geometry that is smooth for every character/prop in the scene.

These are first requirements IMO to approaching film quality that the latest hardware just can't seem to match even today.

Couldn't we also talk about all the things that Toy Story 1 lacks as well though?
 
Couldn't we also talk about all the things that Toy Story 1 lacks as well though?

Compared to today? Sure. But you can't say this demo beats TS1 just because it has features that wasn't developed yet back then. That's an unfair comparison. I'd much rather have TS1 graphics for every game today than this UE4-demo because I'd still see things that annoy me like the low poly edges on that boy in that demo, or his backpack, or seeing only trees cast shadows instead of every blade of grass.. etc..
 
I just installed this demo to play around with it.

Honestly, W3's rendering of environments look better. The foliage has more detail in this demo but everything else isn't "wowing" me at all. And yes, this is far far from CGI.
 
Runs better than I'd have expected on my GTX 860M-powered laptop.

...which, granted, is still terribly. Really wish there were configuration options so I could dial down the resolution and motion blur a bit.
 

knerl

Member
I just installed this demo to play around with it.

Honestly, W3's rendering of environments look better. The foliage has more detail in this demo but everything else isn't "wowing" me at all. And yes, this is far far from CGI.

Hands down not even close. Subjectively speaking that is. A little bit objectively too. Just tried this kite demo and it blew my mind. Infinitely farther visibility than TW3 and much more advanced vegetation. Especially since the lighting is superior in every way. This demo to me looks very realistic and I can't stop thinking about getting to actually play a game with this scale and graphical fidelity. This is realtime. We have this tech realised in games now. Taking the complete composition into account I think this is really close to CGI. CGI per say doesn't necessarily look good. Remember the CGI cutscenes from PSX era Final Fantasy? We've had gameplay looking infinitely better than that for so long now.
 

knerl

Member
Runs better than I'd have expected on my GTX 860M-powered laptop.

...which, granted, is still terribly. Really wish there were configuration options so I could dial down the resolution and motion blur a bit.

They seem to allow the use of the console. Try standard UE console commands?
 

ViciousDS

Banned
Running at 30 fps on GTX 980 at 1080p. Amazing. Witcher 4 could look this good + all the special effect of magic and monsters.

Anyway, saw some weird stuff lol


My 970 didn't like it lol. But my system memory is only 8GB I think its time to pop at least 8 more into my system
 

SapientWolf

Trucker Sexologist
Yea, I just ignore those comments now. Even Monster House was using a ray-tracer and has perfectly smooth curved edges. Games can't even get that right yet.
No one that watches CG media cares about perfectly smooth curved edges unless they're a huge nerd.
 

JordanN

Banned
Most screens look great, but this one's awful. What kindof material is that T-Shirt meant to be made of? And the backpack straps are low poly and badly textured.

Why skimp on those things when you're gonna have close ups of your character?

Yeah, the character is a very bad representation of what UE4 can do. I've seen people make better looking clothing in UE4.

Edit: But reading last page, apparently they were out of time. In that case, it's much more understandable.

24ocmUg.jpg

bXyC1tn.gif
 

HeWhoWalks

Gold Member
The throw off is hair. None of our character models in games are really there, even with Hairworks and Tress Fx. This is on top of other things like ray tracing, SSS (which has immensely improved from the 360/PS3-era), and dynamic lighting missing from most modern games.

Thus, don't expect PS5 (or whatever's next) to quite reach that, either. I'm rockin' PC specs that will probably beat that, and I don't have any Pixar-quality games to show off. If nothing else, the newest Ratchet and Clank shows that we're inchin', but not much else.
 
Hands down not even close. Subjectively speaking that is. A little bit objectively too. Just tried this kite demo and it blew my mind. Infinitely farther visibility than TW3 and much more advanced vegetation. Especially since the lighting is superior in every way. This demo to me looks very realistic and I can't stop thinking about getting to actually play a game with this scale and graphical fidelity. This is realtime. We have this tech realised in games now. Taking the complete composition into account I think this is really close to CGI. CGI per say doesn't necessarily look good. Remember the CGI cutscenes from PSX era Final Fantasy? We've had gameplay looking infinitely better than that for so long now.

Out of curiosity were you running this through the editor or the smaller standalone file? Visibility for vegetation lod didn't seem that great when I ran it. Admittedly vegetation assets are better than W3, but I think total package W3 wins hands down as feeling like a place due to just how much there is on screen at a given time when in the wilderness. Lots more foliage density and variety with better lod (especially with ini tweaks). Lighting does look prettier in this demo but not by a huge margin imo. For what was being rendered I was surprised how poorly it was performing, but then again I'm not familiar with all the newfangled bells and whistles going on under the hood.
 

martino

Member
the cinemactic is good but the demo....More impress by witcher 3 prestation (lod transition and quantity of tree/folage)
Being a small scope demo , i was expecting more when it comes to this.
 

ss_lemonade

Member
While the demo looked good overall, the chromatic aberration in it made everything seem extremely blurry, giving it almost the same look as 3d without glasses. I was never bothered by CA in games but this one seems to be dialled to the max. Now I question, what the hell is the point of that effect?

Also, this has to be the first time in many years I've encountered stuttering every few seconds. Is it because I'm running out of vram with a 780?
 
Hands down not even close. Subjectively speaking that is. A little bit objectively too. Just tried this kite demo and it blew my mind. Infinitely farther visibility than TW3 and much more advanced vegetation. Especially since the lighting is superior in every way. This demo to me looks very realistic and I can't stop thinking about getting to actually play a game with this scale and graphical fidelity. This is realtime. We have this tech realised in games now. Taking the complete composition into account I think this is really close to CGI. CGI per say doesn't necessarily look good. Remember the CGI cutscenes from PSX era Final Fantasy? We've had gameplay looking infinitely better than that for so long now.

The foliage has a level of detail that popins in about 50% of the screenspace. That's not a technical achievement in my book. Stop and look down at the ground with the foliage.. still using sprite cards that don't cast individual shadows on the ground. The ground underneath isn't even detailed enough like W3's ground. The rocks are even worse -- still polygonal silhouettes. Sky and clouds look standard.. no atmosphere fog in the distance..

Other than that, what else is there to look at.

Lastly, you really need to look at proper CGI for grass. Some companies use individual fur hairs with many segments for 1 strand of grass along with an actual SSS shader for capturing illumination.. on top of it casting a shadow with AO.

I-_48H.gif
 

desu

Member
Some comments in this thread are a little weird to me, perspective/relation wise.

I mean the point of the demo was to make an awesome cinematic and highlight the improved large scale world abilities of the engine (which are still far from perfect but much better than what existed before) as well as some other new features.

Comparing a complete game that has been in development for 3-5? years by a huge team against a small demo done by a few people in about 2 months for a specific puprose seems odd to me, just apples and oranges.

The cinematic is absolutely awesome, the downloable demo can look nice at times but its not hard to get not impressed because most of it is not really filled with anything meaningful. Foliage isn't the engines strongest feature and its nice that they made some improvements, far from what you usually see done with CE imho. Could always try to see what users do like Simon Barle: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/redwood-forest-wip
 

knerl

Member
The foliage has a level of detail that popins in about 50% of the screenspace. That's not a technical achievement in my book. Stop and look down at the ground with the foliage.. still using sprite cards that don't cast individual shadows on the ground. The ground underneath isn't even detailed enough like W3's ground. The rocks are even worse -- still polygonal silhouettes. Sky and clouds look standard.. no atmosphere fog in the distance..

Other than that, what else is there to look at.

Lastly, you really need to look at proper CGI for grass. Some companies use individual fur hairs with many segments for 1 strand of grass along with an actual SSS shader for capturing illumination.. on top of it casting a shadow with AO.

I-_48H.gif

The Witcher 3 isn't better in regards to the level of detail. It wins slightly when it comes to far away trees. Not surprising since they've invested a lot of time in the tree tech.
W3 is also not different when it comes to sprite cards. They don't cast individual shadows either. Ground detail is about the same in the two I think. Clouds look pretty much like in real life if you ask me. In the kite demo that is. The Kite demo does have atmospheric fog in the distance. The distance which reaches so much farther than in TW3. "proper" CGI is a term that should be used with care. CGI quality varies so much. Point is that this demo shows an extremely realistic visual composition while rendering scale perhaps not seen before. In games. During gameplay. Comparing this demo aimed to be playable on consumer hardware with todays highest available standard in CGI that requires insane amounts of computational power isn't really fair. Nitpicking about the character model that doesn't look like the best work out there is just that. Nitpicking. (sentence not aimed towards you, but in general.) They could've easily increased the quality of the boy beyond insane levels if they've had the time. It could also have been a design choice. To make the boy look cartoonish. UE4 is extremely capable when it comes to rendering characters and this demo wasn't meant to highlight those capabilities in particular.

Just to compare TW3 (maxed out at 1080p without motion blur and depth of field) with the Kite demo: TW3
3uRBHEu.png
AwOUe8E.png
RAHaUkT.png

Kite:
ApsIZot.png
AP4NQ3R.png

NQq6s26.png

umhzqfo.png

EyE2XrE.png

Not the best images or comparisons between the two perhaps, but they do show that the Kite demo allows for superiority in pretty much every aspect over TW3. With reservation of the lighting condition being completely different considering the time of day. Especially as a general composition. Used the smaller standalone version of the Kite demo btw. I believe it's running at 1080p automatically? Looks a bit blurry so I'm wondering if it's actually rendered at a 100% scale?
 

Lokimaru

Member
Geforce GTX 750 Ti
Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-4790 cpu@ 3.60GHz
12.00 GB RAM
1920 x 1080,60hz
MW 8.1

Can I try this or will CLU try to create the perfect system?
 
W3 is also not different when it comes to sprite cards. They don't cast individual shadows either.

I never said W3 does.. There are two arguments in this thread.

1) W3 looks more impressive than this demo while actually playing it. I agree with this. Yes, it's a demo, but for all the power from a GPU it requires, it's not really doing anything that screams "incredible".

2) This demo rivals movie quality graphics such as Monster House. This is pure hyperbolic and doesn't even come close to the complexity of even Toy Story 1. The example given is the limitation that today's hardware still can't push a crap load of triangles through the pipeline without compromising the real-time defintion. On top of that, they can't process shadowing every light source for every object in the scene. Again, a big limitation in hardware. Without those two fundamentals, you can't really make comparisons to CGI and be taken seriously.
 

CHC

Member
Just checked it out for a bit. Not trying to sound all jaded but it's just not that impressive. Just a huge landscape. Tech-wise, yes it beats things like Far Cry 4 or the Witcher 3, but it doesn't actually look better than them. Also kind of wish you could actually run around as the boy or the kite, in 3rd person mode. It also had a smeary, blurred look that I'm sure could be gotten rid of with downsampling or SweetFX, but I'm not really in the mood since it's not actually a game.
 

tuxfool

Banned
Just to compare TW3 (maxed out at 1080p without motion blur and depth of field) with the Kite demo: TW3
3uRBHEu.png
AwOUe8E.png
RAHaUkT.png

Kite:
ApsIZot.png
AP4NQ3R.png

NQq6s26.png

umhzqfo.png

EyE2XrE.png

The grass they use in this demo is a lot more densely placed and uses better looking sprites but the actual grass draw distance is a lot shorter than that of the witcher 3 (especially with ini tweaks). In the demo this isn't apparent, but on free roaming there is a very abrupt ground foliage cutoff. Trees and larger objects have pretty good LOD transitions and distances though.
 

FtsH

Member
They look very low resolution/blurry on my computer...what have I done wrong? Why can't I see the individual grass as clear as they are in your guys' pictures?
l0yb.jpg
 

FtsH

Member
While the demo looked good overall, the chromatic aberration in it made everything seem extremely blurry, giving it almost the same look as 3d without glasses. I was never bothered by CA in games but this one seems to be dialled to the max. Now I question, what the hell is the point of that effect?

Completely agree with you on this chromatic aberration thing. It feels to me like years ago when they first invented bloom effect they had to bloooooooooooom everything to the hell. Now they can't stop playing this new toy called chromatic aberration...
 
I didn't expect much, but damn my 7870XT runs horrible in the free roam. I can't even run the kite demo. It get about a frame every 2 secs. It just keeps freezing.
 
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