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[Arsic]

It is absurd to me that devs keep chasing volumetric clouds and ray tracing reflections, all while tanking performance, and objectively looking worse than sky boxes and normal reflections from even some PS2 games…

Has there been a single game that has done clouds or skies better than Bungie games? Like shit Halo reach is still amazing to look up in.

 

[LectureMaster]

Thought my man was writing what happened to "Cloud and Revelation"

 

[TintoConCasera]

Making cool skyboxes and smart reflection systems is hard. Ticking a few boxes on UE5 to create some volumetrics is easy.

I believe the gaming industry is going through a competency crisis.

 

[Ocean Dweller]

 

[Thick Thighs Save Lives]

For all the shit Bungie gets, they've always been, and still are, some of the best when it comes to crafting insanely good skyboxes. Back when I played Destiny 2, I'd sometimes end my sessions just hanging out and looking at the skyboxes in places like the Tower, the Dreaming City, Europa, and so on.

 

[Karim]

It is absurd to me that devs keep chasing volumetric clouds and ray tracing reflections, all while tanking performance, and objectively looking worse than sky boxes and normal reflections from even some PS2 games…

Has there been a single game that has done clouds or skies better than Bungie games? Like shit Halo reach is still amazing to look up in.

Well you know at 480p and with CTR could have helped a lot. Maybe if you replay the ps2 version of Tomb Raider Anniversary on ps5, you will see how wrong you are the game it's incredibly well upscaled but the sky

 

[ahtlas7]

The sky in Crimson Desert is glorious.

 

[Dr.Morris79]

Love clouds in games.

Always remember being blown away by Agony on the Amiga

 

[Arsic]

The sky in Crimson Desert is glorious.

Literally some of the worst. Even on 5080 4k max settings I was stunned they barely looked better than on my ps5 pro.

dozens of Reddit posts and on their discord about how bad the clouds look.

 

[Fafalada]

It is absurd to me that devs keep chasing volumetric clouds and ray tracing reflections, all while tanking performance, and objectively looking worse than sky boxes and normal reflections from even some PS2 games…

Different trade-offs.
That said, after over a decade of being subjected to garbage SSR, almost anything is an improvement.
Though sure, if we're talking planar reflections specifically, RT does not offer the best perf/quality ratio on current GPUs - but like SSR, there's a 'just works' thing to it in the pipeline. Planar requires enough manual setup (and most engines are absolutely horribly optimized for it) that it gets avoided more, despite being objectively superior to SSR at scale.

 

[amigastar]

No talks about clouds without DCS World, mmh so fluffy.

 

[NeverYouMind]

All I know is Forza Horizon 3 developers recorded sky footage and made some of the most dynamic skyboxes.

 

[Holammer]

Isn't Horizon: Zero Dawn volumetric cloud shader pretty good looking? I only played the game for an hour.

 

[MrAlwaysRight]

Isn't Horizon: Zero Dawn volumetric cloud shader pretty good looking? I only played the game for an hour.

Horizon Forbidden West uses full volumetric clouds, but it's done because you can ride a mount and fly through them, but it's kind of his point, unless you're doing something specific with them, why tank performance and the answer is as above, it's laziness, checkbox in the game engine you have shit ray tracing and volumetrics with zero effort.

 

[Alex11]

Some look rough, yes, but you can't compare volumetric clouds that are different based on region and weather effects to 2D ones or just static billboards, no matter how high-res those are.

Like the cloud system from Horizon ZD and FW or RDR2, those are just technical masterpieces and look amazing.

 

[Trunx81]

Horizon Forbidden West uses full volumetric clouds, but it's done because you can ride a mount and fly through them, but it's kind of his point, unless you're doing something specific with them, why tank performance and the answer is as above, it's laziness, checkbox in the game engine you have shit ray tracing and volumetrics with zero effort.

Burning Shores has some amazing clouds. Though they don't move.

 

[The_Observer]

Agree, in modern games usually the skyboxes look like something from the ps360 era

 

[kevboard]

SSR and dithered volumetrics happened, and destroyed game visuals

 

[Kuranghi]

Reflections are something I just don't give a shit about it games when theres big drawbacks and artifacts. Ever since SSR I've been annoyed with them, console RT reflections are mostly mediocre too, even on the Pro.

In PS5 Pro games I wish I could turn RT reflections off completely and use the power for other RT effects or increased IQ and fps.

 

[Ribi]

Go play MFS or DCS and then tell me about clouds

 

[CentralScrutinizer]

Devs got lazy and let middleware and engines handle something that required actual talent and artistry.

That's really all there is to it.

 

[bitbydeath]

RT provides the bare minimum for everything and many here seem to think it's a great advancement. LOL

Expect path tracing to also look like shit while tanking performance. AI can't replace it all soon enough.

 

[kevboard]

Yakuza 2 PS2 vs Yakuza Kiwami 2 PS4

PS2 has planar reflections on the ground... PS4, no reflections

PS2


PS4

 

[NeverYouMind]

It still blows my mind Tekken 2 could do this on PS1:


Meanwhile on the PS5 Pro:

 

[Signalis]

It is absurd to me that devs keep chasing volumetric clouds and ray tracing reflections, all while tanking performance, and objectively looking worse than sky boxes and normal reflections from even some PS2 games…

Has there been a single game that has done clouds or skies better than Bungie games? Like shit Halo reach is still amazing to look up in.

"nu-devs" is what happened.

 

[Johnny Concrete]

Reflections the old way is just doubling down on geometry, flipping it and make a hole in the wall.

This only works in confined spaces and not huge open areas.

Skyboxes look great, but in games where you can fly through the sky you are not getting away with it.

And in games where time of day and weather is dynamic you'd have to create 300 variations and blend between them. Probably tanking performance even more than the volumetric solution.

In other words: games have evolved and the tech needed to adjust for this new level of freedom.

 

[Gp1]

No talks about clouds without DCS World, mmh so fluffy.

Comparing any cloud technology to what flight simulators do is almost unfair. (Well, both clouds and reflections. FS2020/2024)

 

[existensmaximum]

It is absurd to me that devs keep chasing volumetric clouds and ray tracing reflections, all while tanking performance, and objectively looking worse than sky boxes and normal reflections from even some PS2 games…

Has there been a single game that has done clouds or skies better than Bungie games? Like shit Halo reach is still amazing to look up in.

"Objectively looking worse than sky boxes and normal reflections from even some PS2 games…"

Yes, a very serious statement that is easy to take seriously.

 

[Pedro Motta]

It is absurd to me that devs keep chasing volumetric clouds and ray tracing reflections, all while tanking performance, and objectively looking worse than sky boxes and normal reflections from even some PS2 games…

Has there been a single game that has done clouds or skies better than Bungie games? Like shit Halo reach is still amazing to look up in.

So in your opinion we should go back to pre-rendered backgrounds....

 

[JoeBlack2027]

I like clouds in CDesert not because of how they look but because they drop shadows around the player, even from very far away. Immersion and all that. It's not just a noise texture crawling along the ground, you can actually see the sun vanish.

 

[winjer]

It is absurd to me that devs keep chasing volumetric clouds and ray tracing reflections, all while tanking performance, and objectively looking worse than sky boxes and normal reflections from even some PS2 games…

Has there been a single game that has done clouds or skies better than Bungie games? Like shit Halo reach is still amazing to look up in.

That is because of the low resolution and upscaler. Is that Crimson Desert running on a PS5, performance mode with FSR3?

 

[Radical_3d]

It is absurd to me that devs keep chasing volumetric clouds and ray tracing reflections, all while tanking performance, and objectively looking worse than sky boxes and normal reflections from even some PS2 games…

Has there been a single game that has done clouds or skies better than Bungie games? Like shit Halo reach is still amazing to look up in.

Shhhh… no making sense. Only raytracing now.