Uncharted 4 preview thread. New footage/info

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Reading this interview with ND, and this stuck out to me.

Druckmann said:
How do you build a bond with a brother you haven't seen for so long? How do you make people care about a character that isn't mentioned in the previous three games? How do you make people believe this character has always been there?

As soon as I read it I was like... This guy gets it.

That's all I was concerned about with Uncharted 4. I thought Sam was such a random thing to slip in there. But time and time again Neil gets 'it'. Or in the very least he talks the talk.

Now that I know that was their concern with introducing Sam, I am more confident. Especially because they're confident.
 
You do not actually need volumetric clouds for clouds to cast shadows, nor do volumetric clouds necessarily cast shadows, rather, you can just overlay a texture that moves throughout the level (the way Crysis 1 did it for example).

Have we actually seen how clouds are done in UC4? The one .gif posted a while back of the jeep moving through the level got some comments that it is a skybox image.
Yeah, I know. I don't think I specifically said Uncharted 4 had volumetric clouds, just that the clouds cast shadows. If I did say that, my mistake.
 

Mannnnn.... Those shadows aren't pretty.

Also, just assuming here, but the translucency of the hair looks silly here. His quiff would not be that 'bright' with the sun behind it. It's a miniscule detail but, it's what makes that gif look off to me. Aside from the low res shadows.
 
Reading this interview with ND, and this stuck out to me.



As soon as I read it I was like... This guy gets it.

That's all I was concerned about with Uncharted 4. I thought Sam was such a random thing to slip in there. But time and time again Neil gets 'it'. Or in the very least he talks the talk.

Now that I know that was their concern with introducing Sam, I am more confident. Especially because they're confident.

Yeah that was my impression watching an interview with Bruce and Neil sometime last year. They just "get it", whatever that means.
 
Mannnnn.... Those shadows aren't pretty.

Also, just assuming here, but the translucency of the hair looks silly here. His quiff would not be that 'bright' with the sun behind it. It's a miniscule detail but, it's what makes that gif look off to me. Aside from the low res shadows.

Some parts like these bother me too. It's almost like they have an unoccluded GI light probe (depending on where the character is in the shot) that is added to the entire character when he isn't in direct light, you get this washed out color with no shadowing.
 
Mannnnn.... Those shadows aren't pretty.

Also, just assuming here, but the translucency of the hair looks silly here. His quiff would not be that 'bright' with the sun behind it. It's a miniscule detail but, it's what makes that gif look off to me. Aside from the low res shadows.
The shadow cast in the background is how it is in real life. I don't see a problem here.
 
The shadow cast in the background is how it is in real life. I don't see a problem here.

The environment looks fine. It's the shadows on Nate that are fairly low resolution with a softening filter that doesn't quite obscure the pixels jumping about. Pixel not in the sense of the overall image, but the resolution of the shadows.

Some parts like these bother me too. It's almost like they have an unoccluded GI light probe (depending on where the character is in the shot) that is added to the entire character when he isn't in direct light, you get this washed out color with no shadowing.

In fairness that's a good point, it may be a GI light probe that's giving off light that is supposed to be bouncing off the ground up onto his quiff. But some sort of HDR solution wouldn't go amiss when the camera is aimed at the sun directly.

EDIT: I feel guilty complaining, it is a huge open level, so I understand there are sacrifices. And the game still looks stunning, amazing art etc. There just a lot of it that isn't blowing me away in the way Uncharted 2 did. The water in this demo doesn't appear to have any realtime reflections, I've noticed.

Yeah that was my impression watching an interview with Bruce and Neil sometime last year. They just "get it", whatever that means.

It's a silly term 'getting it', but it seems like there's TV, films and games written by people who are hugely critical and their concerns align with my own, when it comes to storytelling and he is one of them.

I am hugely picky when it comes to storytelling, and they manage to nail it. And I feel like it's amazing storytelling that also doesn't exclude people who aren't as fussy as I am. So it works for everyone.

Uncharted 3 for example was actually bad to me, for precisely this lack of attention.
 
Reading this interview with ND, and this stuck out to me.



As soon as I read it I was like... This guy gets it.

That's all I was concerned about with Uncharted 4. I thought Sam was such a random thing to slip in there. But time and time again Neil gets 'it'. Or in the very least he talks the talk.

Now that I know that was their concern with introducing Sam, I am more confident. Especially because they're confident.

Druckman interviews really well. Everything he says is to the point and shows he understands the pitfalls and aims of the writing. I've never really seen that from any other game writer, and the kind of insight he provides is pretty much avoided or ignored in the discussion of video game writing.

I honestly feel we're lucky to have him in the medium. You can criticise the tropy content and themes of Naughty Dogs games, but their writing is top tier in the industry.
 
The environment looks fine. It's the shadows on Nate that are fairly low resolution with a softening filter that doesn't quite obscure the pixels jumping about. Pixel not in the sense of the overall image, but the resolution of the shadows.
Are you referring to the tiny bit of shimmering on the self shadow on his right arm? Because otherwise it's hard to see a problem here.(i don't mean anything insulting by this) I'm sure you've been outside in your life before, right? Go outside if it's sunny where you live, just stnad out there and look at your shadow. How blurry is it? I feel like shadows have gotten a rep in video games that super sharp clean shadows are better and I boggles my mind a little bit. The closer you are to a surface the sharper the shadow should look but super sharp shadows just look so fucking fake.

https://youtu.be/hdNTy0wU1gc go to 9:30 in this video. Those ultra shadows look real bad on that big light post because it's not even close to the ground. The medium looks better because they better portray real life. Yet this person among many others in the gaming will tell you those ultra shadows are better because they are sharper.
 

This GIF is quite interesting because water caustics similar to this is one of the things they were advertising would be included in the original Uncharted in the early tech demos I believe.

I think there are GIFs available of those probably, not sure if I have them saved. This is a shader version of caustics I'm sure though.
 
Are you referring to the tiny bit of shimmering on the self shadow on his right arm? Because otherwise it's hard to see a problem here.(i don't mean anything insulting by this) I'm sure you've been outside in your life before, right? Go outside if it's sunny where you live, just stnad out there and look at your shadow. How blurry is it? I feel like shadows have gotten a rep in video games that super sharp clean shadows are better and I boggles my mind a little bit. The closer you are to a surface the sharper the shadow should look but super sharp shadows just look so fucking fake.

https://youtu.be/hdNTy0wU1gc go to 9:30 in this video. Those ultra shadows look real bad on that big light post because it's not even close to the ground. The medium looks better because they better portray real life. Yet this person among many others in the gaming will tell you those ultra shadows are better because they are sharper.

I agree with you entirely on the latter point. People are so hung up on the sharpness of shadows, but I'd prefer have low-res shadows with a great filter.

On this subject the other thing I thought I saw in this demo, which is impressive if barely noticeable is shadows from trees (higher up) appeared more blurry than shadows cast by the characters (who are closer to the ground). Because that is how it works in reality. The further an object is from the shadow it's casting, the more diffuse the shadow gets.

The problem here for me was totally what I was tempted to refer to as dithering... I just don't know if that's the right word for it. I thought dithering was something else. But basically the shadows are low resolution, and as the character moves the pixels that make up the shadow jump. EDIT: Oops you said shimmering... Is that the current nomenclature? I'm on board haha.
 
Found the video with Water Caustics tech demo from U1.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q47lr-bQH_U

At 1:05 there is an interesting painting there btw.... I'm now very confused.

Nice to see that some ideas (animations, environments, vehicles, gameplay) weren't discarded as they appeared in the following entries, especially Drake's Deception (water simulation, animations, and melee for example) and A Thief's End. (see the concept art)
 
Are you referring to the tiny bit of shimmering on the self shadow on his right arm?

But that's the issue. It's low res and so not high enough to stay smooth throughout a series of frames. It's no biggie though.

Because otherwise it's hard to see a problem here.(i don't mean anything insulting by this) I'm sure you've been outside in your life before, right? Go outside if it's sunny where you live, just stnad out there and look at your shadow. How blurry is it? I feel like shadows have gotten a rep in video games that super sharp clean shadows are better and I boggles my mind a little bit. The closer you are to a surface the sharper the shadow should look but super sharp shadows just look so fucking fake.

It's not the same comparison though. In RL, your shadow might be fuzzy, but it will be consistent when you walk around.

I agree about the sharp shadows. They are ugly.
 
It's clear that they are not using the same models, shaders, and lighting as in the cut scenes. Most of the time, you will never get that close to Drake to make out the low resolution shadows and detail.

It's the same model.
Shouldn't really judge it based off that gif. You really can't see the details on his face thanks to the camara zoom out and lighting.

Credit to Psychological Intellect
 
It's the same model.


Shouldn't really judge it based off that gif. You really can't see the details on his face thanks to the camara zoom out and lighting.

Credit to Psychological Intellect

Naughty Dog has said before they are using the same models, but not the same lighting. It could be the same model, but I am pretty sure the lighting and shaders are beefed up. Also, typically you build several different models based on how close the camera gets. In the cut scenes, you would just use a model with more triangles while keeping the surface properties the same. It's just an LOD swap so the surface properties won't change since the cut scenes are real time now. This is done all the time in 3d Graphics. You don't see the shadows flickering around as much in the cut scenes.

lod-levels.jpg
 
It could be the same model, but I am pretty sure the lighting and shaders are beefed up. You don't see the shadows flickering around as much in the cut scenes. Naughty Dog has said before they are using the same models, but not the same lighting.

Of course, like all cut-scenes (in engine/real time or not). It is the game's engine, in real time, with more than likely beefed up lighting.

But the models are the same, in which you said, 'clearly not the same model'... no, just clearly oversaturated lighting that will effect the look of shaders, in a small pixelated .gif. Did not see anyone complain in the myriad of other gifs.
 
It's clear that they are not using the same models, shaders, and lighting as in the cut scenes. Most of the time, you will never get that close to Drake to make out the low resolution shadows and detail.
No offense, but I think it's best we keep this type of posts away until the game releases. Now I'm not saying for sure that the gameplay model is a match for the cutscene model, but I would wait until the game is out so we can try to get as close to Nate's face as possible. Besides, the camera in that GIF is actually quite far from his face.
 
We have to wait for the final release, but the character model looks fine during gameplay:



That splash is not realistic enough

Preorder cancelled

I fucking love water caustics, whoever found that video +1 to you

I think the game got confused there, because the water isn't very deep where Nate lands in that gif. The game probably assumed that he just walked into it. Though some of the splashes when driving with the jeep also look very weak.
 
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