The Witcher 3
Behind the scenes of the panel optimizer
About two dozen Engine Programmer care at CD Projekt Red that The Witcher 3 looks equally impressive as possible on all three platforms. Golem.de talked to the team - and thrown on three specific screens have a look to all versions simultaneously.
Behind thick doors, in one of the upper floors of the headquarters of CD Projekt Red located in central Warsaw, there is a wall with three large monitors. Among the left one has a note that says "PS4" stuck below the mean is "XO" and the far right "PC". Each of the screens always shows the current version of the graphically impressive Witcher 3 on each platform.
The developers can see exactly how the role-play on PlayStation 4, Xbox One and acts on Windows PC, which graphic differences exist and where the team may still have to manipulate in order protagonist Geralt and the huge fantasy world on all three platforms look as good as possible.
"We compile the code almost every day, so that we can almost always take the latest version under the microscope", tells us one of the two dozen Engine Programmer on site. It was not just about subtleties: It may very well be times that huge differences can be seen on the screens suddenly.
"Last week was anything wrong with the gamma values, I believe in the Xbox version of One", tells us the developers. After a day or two the error was also corrected again. There are such problems apparently on all platforms from time to time - they are simply part of everyday life of game developers.
As things stand The Witcher will run natively in 1080p (1,920 x 1,080 pixels) on the Playstation 4. On the Xbox One, the program is in 900p calculated (1,600 x 900 pixels) and then scaled up. The last word is there but not yet spoken: If the team gets further optimized until the publication on 19 May 2015, the graphics algorithms, Geralt could also compete on the Xbox One in 1080p. The frame rate should be on all platforms at 30 fps.
Interiors are hidden
You also have up close look closely to detect differences between the three versions - but they exist. The Senior VFX Artist Jose Teixeira explains that the Technical Artists working in team together with the programmers in mind that The Witcher 3 on all platforms is sufficiently liquid. As part of the optimization will as "the number of materials purposefully reduced", so that there are about a few different types of leather on consoles - for example, for armor - is less.
In addition, the engine is now very good at it, "not specifically hide visible parts of the world, such as the interior of buildings, so are our very complex," said Teixeira in an interview with Golem.de. Once the player closes a door, the interior is removed from the PC or console memory, which relieves the system resources and is in a stable frame rate.
Although the differences between the three platforms at the present stage of development are very small: the PC version looks, not surprisingly, most beautifully, she has besides possibly the greatest sight of the sexiest textures, affects contrast and color stronger and has a few more shader effects than the console versions.
The differences are barely visible between the Xbox One and PlayStation 4. The version on the Microsoft console presumably acts minimally blurred mainly because of the resolution. But maybe that will change until the publication: the three large monitors the engine programmers will probably remain on until May 2015. (Ps)
