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Graphical Fidelity I Expect This Gen

FATEKEEPER gives Demon's Souls vibes, too much inspiration by visually, straight Next-Gen feel. And you start to lose your mind when you think that only 14 people developed it...

I want to drown this place with screenshots in some time.
 
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Yes, because I definitely want a game called "Fable" to be as believable as possible lmao

FATEKEEPER gives Demon's Souls vibes, too much inspiration by visually, straight Next-Gen feel. And you start to lose your mind when you think that only 14 people developed it...

I want to drown this place with screenshots in some time.
Just got my Asus XG32UCWMG OLED yesterday and it blew my freakin mind.
I also tried Fatekeeper and it looks really good with the proper black levels and colors (in 4K now too).
 
Am I the only one that things the ass movement makes no fucking sense here? Seem amateurish
rihannas GIF


You have to keep in mind that the guys who make those games seldom see women irl
 
When an indie studio can make something like this, why does AAA exists? That sure says something about the future of the industry. Maybe small ambitious team take over. Who knows.
Lazy AAA devs are enjoying the comfort of their past successes. If you're a well-known studio with a large marketing budget, you don't need to worry about anything. Your game is guaranteed. And this is the point that vision and perfectionism to die, opening doors for copy & paste, low efforted prods like today's PS Studios games. Of course, there are still a few studios and directors out there who haven't given up on their passion no matter what.
 
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I would really appreciate if you provide top tier analysis on this topic if you have time, because I am also think Faye have some fourm of realtime rt lighting mixed in but I'dont have those top tier analysis skills like yours, you nailed many topics here👍

Alright guys Bojji Bojji dgrdsv dgrdsv SlimySnake SlimySnake C CGNoire ChiefDada ChiefDada analog_future analog_future A alloush Jack Howitzer Jack Howitzer Vick Vick and anyone else interested in Laufey's lighting model OR think it's all "just the same", but would like to be challenged. I think I'm ready to over-analyze this shit. Spoiler tagging this as it's a MASSIVE post. It took several days to put together and I'm not sure if anyone else on the internet has done this yet (DF clearly didn't bother, as usual). Allow me to go through my evidence step by step.

I think I'm going to have to go against my instinct here and conclude the game actually has some form of RTGI in place. Evidence points to some hybrid version that combines what ghost of yotei does and what Indiana jones base console does. To prove this out, we first need to look at how GI worked in Ragnarök. And the answer is simple. It's completely baked. No probes, no screenspace GI. Only a rarely used technique called SSDO, which is an AO technique that also takes directional light and color info while calculating AO. Very subtle stuff.

To see how fucking baked it all is, we just need some simple examples of low light. Baked GI has no influence on any dynamic object. So any moving character basically has no GI at all. They are either directly lit or not. You just don't see the issue as often in daylight because they can throw in a fake non-shadow casting light or two to mimic GI and there is no way to know that's not the Sun. It's why Vanaheim looks like utter trash because the tree cover fucks up the baked lighting and everything looks flat. At night time, you can't cheat that easy as any light in the scene that shouldn't belong would scream at you as fake. Fortunately, for GoW, they rarely use these fake lights during gameplay. Cutscenes always tend to have them. In fact they added a few for the PS5 version of Ragnarök that don't exist in the PS4 version. Just look up DF's Ragnarok PS4 vs PS5 comparison, if curious what the differences are between last gen and current gen (HINT: Not a lot).

Another myth that many believed, including myself, is that Kratos had hero lights always following him, like Aloy. Turns out, this is not true. I will dispel this myth first so you can better understand what is happening in Laufey. If Kratos or Atreus are ever being lit from any direction in Ragnarok, it's an actual fixed light placed in the environment (either fake or real). To be clear, by "fake", I mean one of them volume lights that don't physically exist in the game as Sun/Moon/lamp/torch/emissive/particle effect etc.

Here's proof of all these claims (much bigger post when you expand, but it's pretty light weight. You have been warned):

All of Kratos with no direct lighting or GI
EKBnjc29A2G79QLD.png


Most of Atreus with no direct lighting or GI

fvRNRPQ87prFmdld.png


All of Thor with no direct lighting or GI

UvQDi1IOoq5kFhdB.png


Freya's body with no direct lighting or GI
GVdjQ6G2kcBN47p4.png



Portion of Kratos' back and all of Mimir with no direct lighting or GI
D9dy54t6brZFjVYa.png


And Kratos' forearm, when the only direct light on him is occluded by the chains due to angle of incidence:
FhAPIi1jvRbWDM7y.png



Basically when portions of a character are not directly lit, they are not lit at all.

Now that we got that out of the way, here's how Laufey's lighting works. She too, has no hero lighting. There are several points in the trailer where it's pitch black and she too is pitch black. And she can either be lit by fake lights or real environmental lights. And from all the evidence below, she gets dynamic GI from them. There's good reason to believe there is no GI baking being done anymore. I'm not 100% certain of that, but there are clear hints.

Here's a shot where she is partially lit by a direct light on one leg and by indirect bounce lighting on the other. Notice how none of the points of indirect lighting on her body are turning black. Meanwhile, there are plenty of points in the vicinity that are completely dark. So this can't be a fake light. A fake light will not just light a character, it will light the scene. Only hero lights can be exclusive to a character. Hero lights will light the character uniformly all the time. None of that exists in Laufey (or Ragnarok for that matter)
YCeRrqYUiFH4asTJ.png


Or here, where her face is indirectly lit. Even her clothes get an orange glow around the bust, versus the yellow you see on her shoulder.

cEwX93mHpMdJvT1c.png



This type of bounce lighting is happening in the environment too. If you look at the light shaft below, which makes it clear of the narrow directionality of light coming in, you can easily see the wall closer to it is brighter than the wall farther away. You can't fake this with a fake light as that will screw up the narrow directionality of the light shaft itself. It will flare up wherever it is placed, And you can certainly not fake that on Faye without lighting up everything else around her.
DPiBb2vPeLdyMdC6.png



And given the sheer amount of gradual variation just on her face above, this cannot be a probe-based approximation. It is likely per-pixel single bounce RTGI (and may be combined with RT probes to simulate multi-bounce like console version of Indy as well. I have investigated that later). The face and cloth response is very reminiscent of how RTGI works in Ghost of Yotei (they have a probe based GI fallback for dynamic objects, but still falls significantly short in low light)

DKW1nHtds9ZtDH60.gif


I have a super close up sample of Atsu's face with and without RTGI. Only the RTGI version prevents any light leakage (like glowing eyelids, lips etc). And I know a lot of of you think she is ugly either way, so I'll spare you the trouble. Just take my word for it. If not, whenever I get back on my PS5 Pro, I'll share that too.

But like I said, I think there is more to it than just GoY single bounce RTGI. A single bounce does not travel very far. For example, in GoY, any NPC or Atsu well inside an enclosure will get none of the RTGI. They get whatever probe based GI gives, which is aligned with the baked GI of the environment). But the evidence below suggests several bounces. At the same time, the intensity doesn't look like full multi-bounce GI. It doesn't seem screen space like 007 either, as there are no screen space GI disocclusion artifacts when she moves. And I'm not sure yet how non-Sun light sources work in Laufey. Will need even more time to analyze that. In any case, suffice to say that this is likely a novel approach.

This is not just cutscene trickery either. When Faye slides through the cave in gameplay, she is in complete darkness. The first thing that catches light is her hair, while she is wayyy inside the cave.
zbB3uYVgPnm4mXM1.png



Then she moves a little closer, even the backside of her armor starts to catch some light. YOU can see how far the light reaches and the directionality on the cave wall. The cave lighting could technically be baked, but Faye's lighting cannot.

F5C2TNzyOrrTjhji.png


Even closer and she is fully lit indirectly.

cGtQuoq2Nrb3QfoJ.png



And then she lights up further and further the closer she get to the mouth of the cave.
iBp2Pmbp5ST8jL7V.png


In GIF form for your viewing pleasure:

aCdg8eUKmGiR0G6f.gif



This is far too nuanced for single bounce, but far too expensive for multibounce (I think). Frequently placed probes with interpolated GI could pull it off. But the nuance on the face is not possible with just probes. So this has to be a combination of both per-pixel and probe. And there are other shots I showed earlier, where true multibounce GI would easily pick up far more light:

Inside crevice (the wall behind Faye's back should not be this dark if there were 2 or 3 bounces. Faye's armor is getting at least one bounce from the light pouring in above the cave, seen earlier in the footage (not the one ahead in screen space)
pXFQ2pb7If0rSMYR.png


And lack of nuanced multi-bounce lighting on the floor and walls in the opening area, like this one I already talked about below. This could be poor placement/generation of probes or just some drawback of their technique. The whole opening area is a mess TBH. I think they cobbled it together just for the reveal with rushed art direction.

YCeRrqYUiFH4asTJ.png



Hence my conclusion that it is some hybrid form of RTGI. All this is based on just one trailer where we have no control of the camera to mess around. So take it all with a grain of salt.

But I'm 100% certain this is not the same baked GI. There is significant RT involved. The subtle variations in her face, cloth, as well as when she moves around are far too precise and nuanced to not be RT. And given she never floats in the scene compared to other moving objects, we can assume this applies to all dynamic objects they have chosen to keep in the BVH.

There are times when she looks disconnected from the environment and that's still throwing me off. But the more I look at them, the more I think those moments occur when they are turning on fake lights in the environment because that particular area is too dark for natural lighting to bounce without PT or multibounce GI. Or some kind of adaptive lighting model to show her eye adjusting to the change in light as she moves from light to dark and vice versa.

Some examples here. A second or two later, she looks consistent with the environment.

Inconsistent:
PZ5Xiw5W3Luskr8E.png




More Consistent:
OQemSni3Z9d9aYkr.png


You can see these changes in the hair strand GIF I had posted earlier. Notice environmental lights fading in at the end. Either fake volume lights or some kind of aperture/retina adjustment

tufZZEM3AFirSdyT.gif

TLDR: RTGI is in. The actual technique used is anybody's guess. My guess would be a novel per-pixel + probe RT approach. All the issues I pointed out with it will go away IF they make a PT (or multibounce RTGI) version of this for next gen. One can hope.

And Bojji Bojji , I found this while looking through all the footage. The glowing ears you wanted.

Not exactly an ear, but it was the next best thing :P

NlhbjPHxfM0jI0bS.png

8F1q4dW6geXTIuvC.png



That whole segment slowed down in GIF form is real-time SSS fetish if you are into that sort of thing. I won't judge. Enjoy!

36TaowFuNZvCCvXv.gif
 
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Alright guys Bojji Bojji dgrdsv dgrdsv SlimySnake SlimySnake C CGNoire ChiefDada ChiefDada analog_future analog_future A alloush Jack Howitzer Jack Howitzer Vick Vick and anyone else interested in Laufey's lighting model OR think it's all "just the same", but would like to be challenged. I think I'm ready to over-analyze this shit. Spoiler tagging this as it's a MASSIVE post. It took several days to put together and I'm not sure if anyone else on the internet has done this yet (DF clearly didn't bother, as usual). Allow me to go through my evidence step by step.

I think I'm going to have to go against my instinct here and conclude the game actually has some form of RTGI in place. Evidence points to some hybrid version that combines what ghost of yotei does and what Indiana jones base console does. To prove this out, we first need to look at how GI worked in Ragnarök. And the answer is simple. It's completely baked. No probes, no screenspace GI. Only a rarely used technique called SSDO, which is an AO technique that also takes directional light and color info while calculating AO. Very subtle stuff.

To see how fucking baked it all is, we just need some simple examples of low light. Baked GI has no influence on any dynamic object. So any moving character basically has no GI at all. They are either directly lit or not. You just don't see the issue as often in daylight because they can throw in a fake non-shadow casting light or two to mimic GI and there is no way to know that's not the Sun. It's why Vanaheim looks like utter trash because the tree cover fucks up the baked lighting and everything looks flat. At night time, you can't cheat that easy as any light in the scene that shouldn't belong would scream at you as fake. Fortunately, for GoW, they rarely use these fake lights during gameplay. Cutscenes always tend to have them. In fact they added a few for the PS5 version of Ragnarök that don't exist in the PS4 version. Just look up DF's Ragnarok PS4 vs PS5 comparison, if curious what the differences are between last gen and current gen (HINT: Not a lot).

Another myth that many believed, including myself, is that Kratos had hero lights always following him, like Aloy. Turns out, this is not true. I will dispel this myth first so you can better understand what is happening in Laufey. If Kratos or Atreus are ever being lit from any direction in Ragnarok, it's an actual fixed light placed in the environment (either fake or real). To be clear, by "fake", I mean one of them volume lights that don't physically exist in the game as Sun/Moon/lamp/torch/emissive/particle effect etc.

Here's proof of all these claims (much bigger post when you expand, but it's pretty light weight. You have been warned):

All of Kratos with no direct lighting or GI
EKBnjc29A2G79QLD.png


Most of Atreus with no direct lighting or GI

fvRNRPQ87prFmdld.png


All of Thor with no direct lighting or GI

UvQDi1IOoq5kFhdB.png


Freya's body with no direct lighting or GI
GVdjQ6G2kcBN47p4.png



Portion of Kratos' back and all of Mimir with no direct lighting or GI
D9dy54t6brZFjVYa.png


And Kratos' forearm, when the only direct light on him is occluded by the chains due to angle of incidence:
FhAPIi1jvRbWDM7y.png



Basically when portions of a character are not directly lit, they are not lit at all.

Now that we got that out of the way, here's how Laufey's lighting works. She too, has no hero lighting. There are several points in the trailer where it's pitch black and she too is pitch black. And she can either be lit by fake lights or real environmental lights. And from all the evidence below, she gets dynamic GI from them. There's good reason to believe there is no GI baking being done anymore. I'm not 100% certain of that, but there are clear hints.

Here's a shot where she is partially lit by a direct light on one leg and by indirect bounce lighting on the other. Notice how none of the points of indirect lighting on her body are turning black. Meanwhile, there are plenty of points in the vicinity that are completely dark. So this can't be a fake light. A fake light will not just light a character, it will light the scene. Only hero lights can be exclusive to a character. Hero lights will light the character uniformly all the time. None of that exists in Laufey (or Ragnarok for that matter)
YCeRrqYUiFH4asTJ.png


Or here, where her face is indirectly lit. Even her clothes get an orange glow around the bust, versus the yellow you see on her shoulder.

cEwX93mHpMdJvT1c.png



This type of bounce lighting is happening in the environment too. If you look at the light shaft below, which makes it clear of the narrow directionality of light coming in, you can easily see the wall closer to it is brighter than the wall farther away. You can't fake this with a fake light as that will screw up the narrow directionality of the light shaft itself. It will flare up wherever it is placed, And you can certainly not fake that on Faye without lighting up everything else around her.
DPiBb2vPeLdyMdC6.png



And given the sheer amount of gradual variation just on her face above, this cannot be a probe-based approximation. It is likely per-pixel single bounce RTGI (and may be combined with RT probes to simulate multi-bounce like console version of Indy as well. I have investigated that later). The face and cloth response is very reminiscent of how RTGI works in Ghost of Yotei (they have a probe based GI fallback for dynamic objects, but still falls significantly short in low light)

DKW1nHtds9ZtDH60.gif


I have a super close up sample of Atsu's face with and without RTGI. Only the RTGI version prevents any light leakage (like glowing eyelids, lips etc). And I know a lot of of you think she is ugly either way, so I'll spare you the trouble. Just take my word for it. If not, whenever I get back on my PS5 Pro, I'll share that too.

But like I said, I think there is more to it than just GoY single bounce RTGI. A single bounce does not travel very far. For example, in GoY, any NPC or Atsu well inside an enclosure will get none of the RTGI. They get whatever probe based GI gives, which is aligned with the baked GI of the environment). But the evidence below suggests several bounces. At the same time, the intensity doesn't look like full multi-bounce GI. It doesn't seem screen space like 007 either, as there are no screen space GI disocclusion artifacts when she moves. And I'm not sure yet how non-Sun light sources work in Laufey. Will need even more time to analyze that. In any case, suffice to say that this is likely a novel approach.

This is not just cutscene trickery either. When Faye slides through the cave in gameplay, she is in complete darkness. The first thing that catches light is her hair, while she is wayyy inside the cave.
zbB3uYVgPnm4mXM1.png



Then she moves a little closer, even the backside of her armor starts to catch some light. YOU can see how far the light reaches and the directionality on the cave wall. The cave lighting could technically be baked, but Faye's lighting cannot.

F5C2TNzyOrrTjhji.png


Even closer and she is fully lit indirectly.

cGtQuoq2Nrb3QfoJ.png



And then she lights up further and further the closer she get to the mouth of the cave.
iBp2Pmbp5ST8jL7V.png


In GIF form for your viewing pleasure:

aCdg8eUKmGiR0G6f.gif



This is far too nuanced for single bounce, but far too expensive for multibounce (I think). Frequently placed probes with interpolated GI could pull it off. But the nuance on the face is not possible with just probes. So this has to be a combination of both per-pixel and probe. And there are other shots I showed earlier, where true multibounce GI would easily pick up far more light:

Inside crevice (the wall behind Faye's back should not be this dark if there were 2 or 3 bounces. Faye's armor is getting at least one bounce from the light pouring in above the cave, seen earlier in the footage (not the one ahead in screen space)
pXFQ2pb7If0rSMYR.png


And lack of nuanced multi-bounce lighting on the floor and walls in the opening area, like this one I already talked about below. This could be poor placement/generation of probes or just some drawback of their technique. The whole opening area is a mess TBH. I think they cobbled it together just for the reveal with rushed art direction.

YCeRrqYUiFH4asTJ.png



Hence my conclusion that it is some hybrid form of RTGI. All this is based on just one trailer where we have no control of the camera to mess around. So take it all with a grain of salt.

But I'm 100% certain this is not the same baked GI. There is significant RT involved. The subtle variations in her face, cloth, as well as when she moves around are far too precise and nuanced to not be RT. And given she never floats in the scene compared to other moving objects, we can assume this applies to all dynamic objects they have chosen to keep in the BVH.

There are times when she looks disconnected from the environment and that's still throwing me off. But the more I look at them, the more I think those moments occur when they are turning on fake lights in the environment because that particular area is too dark for natural lighting to bounce without PT or multibounce GI. Or some kind of adaptive lighting model to show her eye adjusting to the change in light as she moves from light to dark and vice versa.

Some examples here. A second or two later, she looks consistent with the environment.

Inconsistent:
PZ5Xiw5W3Luskr8E.png




More Consistent:
OQemSni3Z9d9aYkr.png


You can see these changes in the hair strand GIF I had posted earlier. Notice environmental lights fading in at the end. Either fake volume lights or some kind of aperture/retina adjustment

tufZZEM3AFirSdyT.gif

TLDR: RTGI is in. The actual technique used is anybody's guess. My guess would be a novel per-pixel + probe RT approach. All the issues I pointed out with it will go away IF they make a PT (or multibounce RTGI) version of this for next gen. One can hope.

And Bojji Bojji , I found this while looking through all the footage. The glowing ears you wanted.

Not exactly an ear, but it was the next best thing :P

NlhbjPHxfM0jI0bS.png

8F1q4dW6geXTIuvC.png



That whole segment slowed down in GIF form is real-time SSS fetish if you are into that sort of thing. I won't judge. Enjoy!

36TaowFuNZvCCvXv.gif
That's an amazing alanysis viveks86 viveks86 , thanks for your hard work on it 🔥🔥, since it's announcement I have feelings it's have some sort of rtgi and have better lighting than ragnarok 🔥🔥
 
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Alright guys Bojji Bojji dgrdsv dgrdsv SlimySnake SlimySnake C CGNoire ChiefDada ChiefDada analog_future analog_future A alloush Jack Howitzer Jack Howitzer Vick Vick and anyone else interested in Laufey's lighting model OR think it's all "just the same", but would like to be challenged. I think I'm ready to over-analyze this shit. Spoiler tagging this as it's a MASSIVE post. It took several days to put together and I'm not sure if anyone else on the internet has done this yet (DF clearly didn't bother, as usual). Allow me to go through my evidence step by step.

I think I'm going to have to go against my instinct here and conclude the game actually has some form of RTGI in place. Evidence points to some hybrid version that combines what ghost of yotei does and what Indiana jones base console does. To prove this out, we first need to look at how GI worked in Ragnarök. And the answer is simple. It's completely baked. No probes, no screenspace GI. Only a rarely used technique called SSDO, which is an AO technique that also takes directional light and color info while calculating AO. Very subtle stuff.

To see how fucking baked it all is, we just need some simple examples of low light. Baked GI has no influence on any dynamic object. So any moving character basically has no GI at all. They are either directly lit or not. You just don't see the issue as often in daylight because they can throw in a fake non-shadow casting light or two to mimic GI and there is no way to know that's not the Sun. It's why Vanaheim looks like utter trash because the tree cover fucks up the baked lighting and everything looks flat. At night time, you can't cheat that easy as any light in the scene that shouldn't belong would scream at you as fake. Fortunately, for GoW, they rarely use these fake lights during gameplay. Cutscenes always tend to have them. In fact they added a few for the PS5 version of Ragnarök that don't exist in the PS4 version. Just look up DF's Ragnarok PS4 vs PS5 comparison, if curious what the differences are between last gen and current gen (HINT: Not a lot).

Another myth that many believed, including myself, is that Kratos had hero lights always following him, like Aloy. Turns out, this is not true. I will dispel this myth first so you can better understand what is happening in Laufey. If Kratos or Atreus are ever being lit from any direction in Ragnarok, it's an actual fixed light placed in the environment (either fake or real). To be clear, by "fake", I mean one of them volume lights that don't physically exist in the game as Sun/Moon/lamp/torch/emissive/particle effect etc.

Here's proof of all these claims (much bigger post when you expand, but it's pretty light weight. You have been warned):

All of Kratos with no direct lighting or GI
EKBnjc29A2G79QLD.png


Most of Atreus with no direct lighting or GI

fvRNRPQ87prFmdld.png


All of Thor with no direct lighting or GI

UvQDi1IOoq5kFhdB.png


Freya's body with no direct lighting or GI
GVdjQ6G2kcBN47p4.png



Portion of Kratos' back and all of Mimir with no direct lighting or GI
D9dy54t6brZFjVYa.png


And Kratos' forearm, when the only direct light on him is occluded by the chains due to angle of incidence:
FhAPIi1jvRbWDM7y.png



Basically when portions of a character are not directly lit, they are not lit at all.

Now that we got that out of the way, here's how Laufey's lighting works. She too, has no hero lighting. There are several points in the trailer where it's pitch black and she too is pitch black. And she can either be lit by fake lights or real environmental lights. And from all the evidence below, she gets dynamic GI from them. There's good reason to believe there is no GI baking being done anymore. I'm not 100% certain of that, but there are clear hints.

Here's a shot where she is partially lit by a direct light on one leg and by indirect bounce lighting on the other. Notice how none of the points of indirect lighting on her body are turning black. Meanwhile, there are plenty of points in the vicinity that are completely dark. So this can't be a fake light. A fake light will not just light a character, it will light the scene. Only hero lights can be exclusive to a character. Hero lights will light the character uniformly all the time. None of that exists in Laufey (or Ragnarok for that matter)
YCeRrqYUiFH4asTJ.png


Or here, where her face is indirectly lit. Even her clothes get an orange glow around the bust, versus the yellow you see on her shoulder.

cEwX93mHpMdJvT1c.png



This type of bounce lighting is happening in the environment too. If you look at the light shaft below, which makes it clear of the narrow directionality of light coming in, you can easily see the wall closer to it is brighter than the wall farther away. You can't fake this with a fake light as that will screw up the narrow directionality of the light shaft itself. It will flare up wherever it is placed, And you can certainly not fake that on Faye without lighting up everything else around her.
DPiBb2vPeLdyMdC6.png



And given the sheer amount of gradual variation just on her face above, this cannot be a probe-based approximation. It is likely per-pixel single bounce RTGI (and may be combined with RT probes to simulate multi-bounce like console version of Indy as well. I have investigated that later). The face and cloth response is very reminiscent of how RTGI works in Ghost of Yotei (they have a probe based GI fallback for dynamic objects, but still falls significantly short in low light)

DKW1nHtds9ZtDH60.gif


I have a super close up sample of Atsu's face with and without RTGI. Only the RTGI version prevents any light leakage (like glowing eyelids, lips etc). And I know a lot of of you think she is ugly either way, so I'll spare you the trouble. Just take my word for it. If not, whenever I get back on my PS5 Pro, I'll share that too.

But like I said, I think there is more to it than just GoY single bounce RTGI. A single bounce does not travel very far. For example, in GoY, any NPC or Atsu well inside an enclosure will get none of the RTGI. They get whatever probe based GI gives, which is aligned with the baked GI of the environment). But the evidence below suggests several bounces. At the same time, the intensity doesn't look like full multi-bounce GI. It doesn't seem screen space like 007 either, as there are no screen space GI disocclusion artifacts when she moves. And I'm not sure yet how non-Sun light sources work in Laufey. Will need even more time to analyze that. In any case, suffice to say that this is likely a novel approach.

This is not just cutscene trickery either. When Faye slides through the cave in gameplay, she is in complete darkness. The first thing that catches light is her hair, while she is wayyy inside the cave.
zbB3uYVgPnm4mXM1.png



Then she moves a little closer, even the backside of her armor starts to catch some light. YOU can see how far the light reaches and the directionality on the cave wall. The cave lighting could technically be baked, but Faye's lighting cannot.

F5C2TNzyOrrTjhji.png


Even closer and she is fully lit indirectly.

cGtQuoq2Nrb3QfoJ.png



And then she lights up further and further the closer she get to the mouth of the cave.
iBp2Pmbp5ST8jL7V.png


In GIF form for your viewing pleasure:

aCdg8eUKmGiR0G6f.gif



This is far too nuanced for single bounce, but far too expensive for multibounce (I think). Frequently placed probes with interpolated GI could pull it off. But the nuance on the face is not possible with just probes. So this has to be a combination of both per-pixel and probe. And there are other shots I showed earlier, where true multibounce GI would easily pick up far more light:

Inside crevice (the wall behind Faye's back should not be this dark if there were 2 or 3 bounces. Faye's armor is getting at least one bounce from the light pouring in above the cave, seen earlier in the footage (not the one ahead in screen space)
pXFQ2pb7If0rSMYR.png


And lack of nuanced multi-bounce lighting on the floor and walls in the opening area, like this one I already talked about below. This could be poor placement/generation of probes or just some drawback of their technique. The whole opening area is a mess TBH. I think they cobbled it together just for the reveal with rushed art direction.

YCeRrqYUiFH4asTJ.png



Hence my conclusion that it is some hybrid form of RTGI. All this is based on just one trailer where we have no control of the camera to mess around. So take it all with a grain of salt.

But I'm 100% certain this is not the same baked GI. There is significant RT involved. The subtle variations in her face, cloth, as well as when she moves around are far too precise and nuanced to not be RT. And given she never floats in the scene compared to other moving objects, we can assume this applies to all dynamic objects they have chosen to keep in the BVH.

There are times when she looks disconnected from the environment and that's still throwing me off. But the more I look at them, the more I think those moments occur when they are turning on fake lights in the environment because that particular area is too dark for natural lighting to bounce without PT or multibounce GI. Or some kind of adaptive lighting model to show her eye adjusting to the change in light as she moves from light to dark and vice versa.

Some examples here. A second or two later, she looks consistent with the environment.

Inconsistent:
PZ5Xiw5W3Luskr8E.png




More Consistent:
OQemSni3Z9d9aYkr.png


You can see these changes in the hair strand GIF I had posted earlier. Notice environmental lights fading in at the end. Either fake volume lights or some kind of aperture/retina adjustment

tufZZEM3AFirSdyT.gif

TLDR: RTGI is in. The actual technique used is anybody's guess. My guess would be a novel per-pixel + probe RT approach. All the issues I pointed out with it will go away IF they make a PT (or multibounce RTGI) version of this for next gen. One can hope.

And Bojji Bojji , I found this while looking through all the footage. The glowing ears you wanted.

Not exactly an ear, but it was the next best thing :P

NlhbjPHxfM0jI0bS.png

8F1q4dW6geXTIuvC.png



That whole segment slowed down in GIF form is real-time SSS fetish if you are into that sort of thing. I won't judge. Enjoy!

36TaowFuNZvCCvXv.gif

Wow, awesome analysis and you've convinced me. Seeing some of these specific shots/screengrabs/gifs make me appreciate what I'm seeing more. Definitely has raised my excitement for this game.
 
Yea I think you and ChiefDada ChiefDada had the right instinct. I didn't :messenger_grinning_smiling:
Instinct won't mean much if you don't support them with actual evidences your analysis on this topic and others are really professional ones, like back when digital Foundry providing full tech analysis on games unlike current day's, truly thank you
 
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Alright guys Bojji Bojji dgrdsv dgrdsv SlimySnake SlimySnake C CGNoire ChiefDada ChiefDada analog_future analog_future A alloush Jack Howitzer Jack Howitzer Vick Vick and anyone else interested in Laufey's lighting model OR think it's all "just the same", but would like to be challenged. I think I'm ready to over-analyze this shit. Spoiler tagging this as it's a MASSIVE post. It took several days to put together and I'm not sure if anyone else on the internet has done this yet (DF clearly didn't bother, as usual). Allow me to go through my evidence step by step.

I think I'm going to have to go against my instinct here and conclude the game actually has some form of RTGI in place. Evidence points to some hybrid version that combines what ghost of yotei does and what Indiana jones base console does. To prove this out, we first need to look at how GI worked in Ragnarök. And the answer is simple. It's completely baked. No probes, no screenspace GI. Only a rarely used technique called SSDO, which is an AO technique that also takes directional light and color info while calculating AO. Very subtle stuff.

To see how fucking baked it all is, we just need some simple examples of low light. Baked GI has no influence on any dynamic object. So any moving character basically has no GI at all. They are either directly lit or not. You just don't see the issue as often in daylight because they can throw in a fake non-shadow casting light or two to mimic GI and there is no way to know that's not the Sun. It's why Vanaheim looks like utter trash because the tree cover fucks up the baked lighting and everything looks flat. At night time, you can't cheat that easy as any light in the scene that shouldn't belong would scream at you as fake. Fortunately, for GoW, they rarely use these fake lights during gameplay. Cutscenes always tend to have them. In fact they added a few for the PS5 version of Ragnarök that don't exist in the PS4 version. Just look up DF's Ragnarok PS4 vs PS5 comparison, if curious what the differences are between last gen and current gen (HINT: Not a lot).

Another myth that many believed, including myself, is that Kratos had hero lights always following him, like Aloy. Turns out, this is not true. I will dispel this myth first so you can better understand what is happening in Laufey. If Kratos or Atreus are ever being lit from any direction in Ragnarok, it's an actual fixed light placed in the environment (either fake or real). To be clear, by "fake", I mean one of them volume lights that don't physically exist in the game as Sun/Moon/lamp/torch/emissive/particle effect etc.

Here's proof of all these claims (much bigger post when you expand, but it's pretty light weight. You have been warned):

All of Kratos with no direct lighting or GI
EKBnjc29A2G79QLD.png


Most of Atreus with no direct lighting or GI

fvRNRPQ87prFmdld.png


All of Thor with no direct lighting or GI

UvQDi1IOoq5kFhdB.png


Freya's body with no direct lighting or GI
GVdjQ6G2kcBN47p4.png



Portion of Kratos' back and all of Mimir with no direct lighting or GI
D9dy54t6brZFjVYa.png


And Kratos' forearm, when the only direct light on him is occluded by the chains due to angle of incidence:
FhAPIi1jvRbWDM7y.png



Basically when portions of a character are not directly lit, they are not lit at all.

Now that we got that out of the way, here's how Laufey's lighting works. She too, has no hero lighting. There are several points in the trailer where it's pitch black and she too is pitch black. And she can either be lit by fake lights or real environmental lights. And from all the evidence below, she gets dynamic GI from them. There's good reason to believe there is no GI baking being done anymore. I'm not 100% certain of that, but there are clear hints.

Here's a shot where she is partially lit by a direct light on one leg and by indirect bounce lighting on the other. Notice how none of the points of indirect lighting on her body are turning black. Meanwhile, there are plenty of points in the vicinity that are completely dark. So this can't be a fake light. A fake light will not just light a character, it will light the scene. Only hero lights can be exclusive to a character. Hero lights will light the character uniformly all the time. None of that exists in Laufey (or Ragnarok for that matter)
YCeRrqYUiFH4asTJ.png


Or here, where her face is indirectly lit. Even her clothes get an orange glow around the bust, versus the yellow you see on her shoulder.

cEwX93mHpMdJvT1c.png



This type of bounce lighting is happening in the environment too. If you look at the light shaft below, which makes it clear of the narrow directionality of light coming in, you can easily see the wall closer to it is brighter than the wall farther away. You can't fake this with a fake light as that will screw up the narrow directionality of the light shaft itself. It will flare up wherever it is placed, And you can certainly not fake that on Faye without lighting up everything else around her.
DPiBb2vPeLdyMdC6.png



And given the sheer amount of gradual variation just on her face above, this cannot be a probe-based approximation. It is likely per-pixel single bounce RTGI (and may be combined with RT probes to simulate multi-bounce like console version of Indy as well. I have investigated that later). The face and cloth response is very reminiscent of how RTGI works in Ghost of Yotei (they have a probe based GI fallback for dynamic objects, but still falls significantly short in low light)

DKW1nHtds9ZtDH60.gif


I have a super close up sample of Atsu's face with and without RTGI. Only the RTGI version prevents any light leakage (like glowing eyelids, lips etc). And I know a lot of of you think she is ugly either way, so I'll spare you the trouble. Just take my word for it. If not, whenever I get back on my PS5 Pro, I'll share that too.

But like I said, I think there is more to it than just GoY single bounce RTGI. A single bounce does not travel very far. For example, in GoY, any NPC or Atsu well inside an enclosure will get none of the RTGI. They get whatever probe based GI gives, which is aligned with the baked GI of the environment). But the evidence below suggests several bounces. At the same time, the intensity doesn't look like full multi-bounce GI. It doesn't seem screen space like 007 either, as there are no screen space GI disocclusion artifacts when she moves. And I'm not sure yet how non-Sun light sources work in Laufey. Will need even more time to analyze that. In any case, suffice to say that this is likely a novel approach.

This is not just cutscene trickery either. When Faye slides through the cave in gameplay, she is in complete darkness. The first thing that catches light is her hair, while she is wayyy inside the cave.
zbB3uYVgPnm4mXM1.png



Then she moves a little closer, even the backside of her armor starts to catch some light. YOU can see how far the light reaches and the directionality on the cave wall. The cave lighting could technically be baked, but Faye's lighting cannot.

F5C2TNzyOrrTjhji.png


Even closer and she is fully lit indirectly.

cGtQuoq2Nrb3QfoJ.png



And then she lights up further and further the closer she get to the mouth of the cave.
iBp2Pmbp5ST8jL7V.png


In GIF form for your viewing pleasure:

aCdg8eUKmGiR0G6f.gif



This is far too nuanced for single bounce, but far too expensive for multibounce (I think). Frequently placed probes with interpolated GI could pull it off. But the nuance on the face is not possible with just probes. So this has to be a combination of both per-pixel and probe. And there are other shots I showed earlier, where true multibounce GI would easily pick up far more light:

Inside crevice (the wall behind Faye's back should not be this dark if there were 2 or 3 bounces. Faye's armor is getting at least one bounce from the light pouring in above the cave, seen earlier in the footage (not the one ahead in screen space)
pXFQ2pb7If0rSMYR.png


And lack of nuanced multi-bounce lighting on the floor and walls in the opening area, like this one I already talked about below. This could be poor placement/generation of probes or just some drawback of their technique. The whole opening area is a mess TBH. I think they cobbled it together just for the reveal with rushed art direction.

YCeRrqYUiFH4asTJ.png



Hence my conclusion that it is some hybrid form of RTGI. All this is based on just one trailer where we have no control of the camera to mess around. So take it all with a grain of salt.

But I'm 100% certain this is not the same baked GI. There is significant RT involved. The subtle variations in her face, cloth, as well as when she moves around are far too precise and nuanced to not be RT. And given she never floats in the scene compared to other moving objects, we can assume this applies to all dynamic objects they have chosen to keep in the BVH.

There are times when she looks disconnected from the environment and that's still throwing me off. But the more I look at them, the more I think those moments occur when they are turning on fake lights in the environment because that particular area is too dark for natural lighting to bounce without PT or multibounce GI. Or some kind of adaptive lighting model to show her eye adjusting to the change in light as she moves from light to dark and vice versa.

Some examples here. A second or two later, she looks consistent with the environment.

Inconsistent:
PZ5Xiw5W3Luskr8E.png




More Consistent:
OQemSni3Z9d9aYkr.png


You can see these changes in the hair strand GIF I had posted earlier. Notice environmental lights fading in at the end. Either fake volume lights or some kind of aperture/retina adjustment

tufZZEM3AFirSdyT.gif

TLDR: RTGI is in. The actual technique used is anybody's guess. My guess would be a novel per-pixel + probe RT approach. All the issues I pointed out with it will go away IF they make a PT (or multibounce RTGI) version of this for next gen. One can hope.

And Bojji Bojji , I found this while looking through all the footage. The glowing ears you wanted.

Not exactly an ear, but it was the next best thing :P

NlhbjPHxfM0jI0bS.png

8F1q4dW6geXTIuvC.png



That whole segment slowed down in GIF form is real-time SSS fetish if you are into that sort of thing. I won't judge. Enjoy!

36TaowFuNZvCCvXv.gif
Pretty in-depth post. Really great & valuable work! I always had a sense that it is using RT per-pixel solution.

What's puzzling me is I'm not noticing or perceiving any sort of fizzling or boiling/swimming noise that is typically inherent to optimized RT (perhaps YT video quality hides them?), which slightly pushes me towards believing that what we're seeing is a single-bounce RT solution since it's much easier to clean its noise artifacts or their denoising algorithm is miraculously good even under more substantive multi-bounce RT.

Off-topic: one of the things that made Demon's Souls PS5 look jaw dropping is their aggressive usage of SSDO in 99% of lights or emissive effects generated by the game, even the sparks from a sword hitting an armor cast their own point lights & SSDOs, it's so delicious looking, almost like you're playing a movie!
 
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Pretty in-depth post. Really great & valuable work! I always had a sense that it is using RT per-pixel solution.

What's puzzling me is I'm not noticing or perceiving any sort of fizzling or boiling/swimming noise that is typically inherent to optimized RT (perhaps YT video quality hides them?), which slightly pushes me towards believing that what we're seeing is a single-bounce RT solution since it's much easier to clean its noise artifacts or their denoising algorithm is miraculously good even under more substantive multi-bounce RT.

Off-topic: one of the things that made Demon's Souls PS5 look jaw dropping is their aggressive usage of SSDO in 99% of lights or emissive effects generated by the game, even the sparks from a sword hitting an armor cast their own point lights & SSDOs, it's so delicious looking, almost like you're playing a movie!
I'm not sure about single bounce being easy to clean up. If it's per pixel, then the fewer bounces, the more noise/chance that a ray doesn't hit anything on screen after shooting it, resulting in a black/useless pixel and a wasted ray traversal.

There are two ways devs have been improving this. One by guiding the ray in a direction that would increase probability of an onscreen hit. And the other is just better denoisers. GoY wasn't noise free because it was single bounce. It was noise free because it had both a novel ray guiding technique and fantastic denoising. They placed screen space probes every 16 pixels to statistically figure out which direction and angle to shoot the ray would yield the most useful result. Simple, but genius right? Even 007 has great denoising. Whenever they do have noise, they've figured out a way to keep it stable, so it's just blotches that don't swim. Happens very infrequently that most people would never even notice. I had brought that up during my breakdown of their GI solution after their pre-release DF talk in this thread.

We all thought so. Until this DF interview:
https://www.neogaf.com/threads/digi...dive-into-the-evolved-glacier-engine.1697001/

Had a few discussions in that thread that you can lookup, if the video is too long to sit through



The software RTGI seems to perform better than software lumen for the most part imo.

There was only one spot in all of the footage out on the internet so far where it got REALLY ugly, the entire wall is just a mess:

iwC8nRNjkguXkQew.png



But it may be a bug as I couldn't spot anything like that anywhere else in more than an hour of footage since the first reveal. It's very clean and stable throughout even in extremely complex, indirectly lit scenes. Even in the shot above, it doesn't boil like lumen. It looks.. frozen instead. Complete footage here (around 16:20):



The other issue is the software RT has a screenspace component for per pixel accuracy in addition to world space probes. Which is great in general, but like all screenspace techniques, it falls apart with occlusion. You will see this quite extensively around characters in rooms that are lit indirectly with just a single light source. This segment was the worst I could spot. Notice the shadow around the fallen trash can here (left arm of Bond). It gets lighter until it completely vanishes in the last frame

y4T1XYG7SHoAIMbK.gif


KQ5AVdQCpWjzWkPX.gif


Or the halo-ing that's quite obvious around the left most NPC, because he is slowly moving in front of an indirectly lit portion of the wall

Vkh1bJ2XCF2MvQge.jpeg



Had spotted these issues earlier but didn't call it out as I had no idea why it was happening until they confirmed software RT.

Bear in mind that I'm pointing out issues that are few and far between and mostly difficult to notice. Overall, the GI does look superior to software lumen imo, especially running at 60 fps on Pro. Haven't seen footage that is definitively on base console, so the jury is still out on that. The footage above is from PC so the issues aren't specific to any platform either. But hopefully gives insights into how it works, what its weaknesses are and what to expect when the game is out.

Given their approach, PT is the only way those problems can be fixed going forward, unless they build a "hardware lumen" version of their solution, but I don't see the point this late into the generation. So PC gamers should certainly look forward to PT. The rest of us peasants will just have to wait for next gen


They are pulling off 1440p 60 on Pro. So base resolution is actually in the overkill territory


I think even Capcom may have solved the "swimming" for Code Veronica. This is a completely wild hypothesis, but given the lowlight in this staircase scene and how bad their last denoiser was, it should be completely swimming in shit. But it doesn't:

ur4erH4cjg7eRsIw.png


And here
BlvVEa7W6Ly8Dtzk.png


Stable as a pointless PlayStation firmware update
ujjQYZSpU1Tkn8X7.png


The moment I saw this wall I almost shuddered thinking it was the same noise as 007 (see breakdown above):


w5xCe0HaxJaouNdK.png


I mean look at this "ugly blotchy shit", right?

TAdSUn1goBMWXOam.png



8moHQIYc3TlKebVD.png

Which is why I was calling CV as a visually underrated game earlier. But the video is too brief for me to say anything definitively.

Denoising will be solved soon enough. It practically is solved already in research across vendors and Nvidia 4.5 RR will kick ass even more. It just needs to make its way slowly to production games for the rest, especially base consoles with insufficient AI grunt. A matter of time. By the time all of that is in place, next gen will start and we will stop worrying about denoising as AI denoising will become the de facto standard.
 
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