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[SlimySnake]

And yet, many people in the aw2 best graphic of 2023 topic noticed that characters have some problems or are not the best in the business.

Until i have my hands on the game i'm gonna trust what i saw with my own eyes.

You want to defend the waitress aswell or we can at least agree that she look awful?

Nah, im defending the waitress. It was my first holy shit moment in the game. her facial animations are exaggerated but she looked like a next gen version of La Noire's characters. Exaggerated and uncanny but very fucking convincing.

I dont know about best in business though. i saw that in the other thread. Character models especially the faces are hard to gauge because facial animations play such a huge role in them. Something like Death Stranding or HFW might have the best skin shading but TLOU2 with ND's incredibly hand keyed facial animations would always beat it. Add in hair rendering which is weak in almost every game and strong in random games like Spiderman 2, and FF16 and it becomes very hard to do 1:1 comparisons.

Id say TLOU2 is the best followed by HFW and callisto then maybe Alan Wake 2 . Definitely not awful or bad.

 

[Edder1]

Id say TLOU2 is the best followed by HFW and callisto then maybe Alan Wake 2 . Definitely not awful or bad.

TLOU2 in game character models are hot trash, all the other games you mentioned are a class above.

 

[setoman]

And a thing that horizon does better than any game, is having a similar overall quality for all the npcs, and i saw pics of secondary\tertiary characters and they don't look that hot, you may only care about main protagonist but other people like having similar average quality for npcs and protagonists, especially in a small game with a small cast like aw2.

Again if you put Horizon's character rendering & material shaders and character lighting quality in AW2 it would look 10x worse.
It will INSTANTLY look like a video game again.

Don't you get it? The level of looking like a good looking video game is lower than looking like real life picture.
Horizon characters all look like very gamey and NO its not the artistic choice that is causing it.
Same is the case for TLOUS2.

Wtf is this shit?

Another wax monstruosity.

Easy if you played AW2 you would know that it generally uses cinematic lighting/rendering on one character at a time in the cut-scene.
This NPC simply doesn't get it. The cinematic lighting/rendering of AW2 is more demanding and realistic than the gamey one that Horizon is using on all their characters.

Its just that simple.

 

[SlimySnake]

TLOU2 in game character models are hot trash, all the other games you mentioned are a class above.

talking exclusively about facial animations and cutscene character models. i have long trashed TLOU2's gameplay character models in this thread.

 

[Masterofchapter]

talking exclusively about facial animations and cutscene character models. i have long trashed TLOU2's gameplay character models in this thread.

Avatar cutscenes looks great tho realistic without any exaggerated

 

[SlimySnake]

For Gymwolf. To help him see the light.

And hate to say I told you so, but I was getting shit in this thread for saying Alan Wake 2 looked next gen.

This gif shows just how dense the world design is. It is full of detail. Jam packed with it. And the lighting has this fantastic volumetric quality to it that last gen games simply lacked. It's thick, its rich and that haze gives it a very cg feel that makes it look next gen. Im not surprised gymwolf doesnt get it. most people here didnt until they played the game on their tvs.

Same thing will happen with avatar. When devs use next gen features, they stand out.

 

[GymWolf]

I'm gonna see the light(lmao) when i'm gonna play the game in a couple of years from now, for now i trust my eyes and not people who defend that dogshit waitress\sam lake faces or think that aw2 assets were better than ue5 demo (lmao 2 the revenge).

Not sure why you people are trying so hard to convince me, just let it go

 

[ckstine]

And yet, many people in the aw2 best graphic of 2023 topic noticed that characters have some problems or are not the best in the business.

Until i have my hands on the game i'm gonna trust what i saw with my own eyes.

You want to defend the waitress aswell or we can at least agree that she look awful?

she looks bad for the first couple seconds in that scene, but I swear she does a seinfeld two face and maybe a lod changes or something but she looks great in every moment after that.

 

[ckstine]

For Gymwolf. To help him see the light.

And hate to say I told you so, but I was getting shit in this thread for saying Alan Wake 2 looked next gen.

This gif shows just how dense the world design is. It is full of detail. Jam packed with it. And the lighting has this fantastic volumetric quality to it that last gen games simply lacked. It's thick, its rich and that haze gives it a very cg feel that makes it look next gen. Im not surprised gymwolf doesnt get it. most people here didnt until they played the game on their tvs.

Same thing will happen with avatar. When devs use next gen features, they stand out.

I think the first time i've genuinely gotten confused which was fmv and not. When you run around the
tv station especially the switch from fmv to ingame didn't register for me. And that is coming from someone who has been in graphical programming and engine development for a few years now. Not just getting CGI confused, but actual video. Needless to say, Remedy has knocked it out of the FUCKING park, and I'm glad I'm in the first bits of the game because I have so much to look forward too.

 

[Flabagast]

Nah, im defending the waitress. It was my first holy shit moment in the game. her facial animations are exaggerated but she looked like a next gen version of La Noire's characters. Exaggerated and uncanny but very fucking convincing.

I dont know about best in business though. i saw that in the other thread. Character models especially the faces are hard to gauge because facial animations play such a huge role in them. Something like Death Stranding or HFW might have the best skin shading but TLOU2 with ND's incredibly hand keyed facial animations would always beat it. Add in hair rendering which is weak in almost every game and strong in random games like Spiderman 2, and FF16 and it becomes very hard to do 1:1 comparisons.

Id say TLOU2 is the best followed by HFW and callisto then maybe Alan Wake 2 . Definitely not awful or bad.

TLOU2 is insane looking, with the best animation around, but still rooted in last gen tech.

Just compare a random room of TLOU2 with Alan Wake 2. The level of detail, geometry and lighting precision is a generation apart in favor of AW2, specially when you look up close.

That said, on the overall TLOU2 still looks very very good.

 

[MidGenRefresh]

That entire scene, hell, chapter was so amazing.

 

[SlimySnake]

TLOU2 is insane looking, with the best animation around, but still rooted in last gen tech.

Just compare a random room of TLOU2 with Alan Wake 2. The level of detail, geometry and lighting precision is a generation apart in favor of AW2, specially when you look up close.

That said, on the overall TLOU2 still looks very very good.

I know. i was only talking about character faces in cutscenes.

When i said Alan Wake 2 looked next gen compared to TLOU2 just two weeks ago, people jumped down my throat. Glad to see this thread come around.

 

[rofif]

For Gymwolf. To help him see the light.

And hate to say I told you so, but I was getting shit in this thread for saying Alan Wake 2 looked next gen.

This gif shows just how dense the world design is. It is full of detail. Jam packed with it. And the lighting has this fantastic volumetric quality to it that last gen games simply lacked. It's thick, its rich and that haze gives it a very cg feel that makes it look next gen. Im not surprised gymwolf doesnt get it. most people here didnt until they played the game on their tvs.

Same thing will happen with avatar. When devs use next gen features, they stand out.

Yeah this is the best looking scene in the game. So good.
Compared to Death Stranding of which I sadly have only ps4 slim images(so last gen 1080p). I really HAVE TO replay it in 4k/hdr on ps5 finally.
AW2 are ps5 shots quality mode

 

[MidGenRefresh]

Yeah this is the best looking scene in the game. So good.
Compared to Death Stranding of which I sadly have only ps4 slim images(so last gen 1080p). I really HAVE TO replay it in 4k/hdr on ps5 finally.
AW2 are ps5 shots quality mode

Decima is such a powerhouse of an engine. Don't make me start the game for the 3rd time. I own Director's Cut on Steam but never even started it. Fuuuuuuuuuu...

 

[MidGenRefresh]

When i said Alan Wake 2 looked next gen compared to TLOU2 just two weeks ago, people jumped down my throat.

 

[SlimySnake]

The lack of an upgrade for Norman Reedus is giving me cross gen nightmares. I have a bad feeling DS2 wont be a big leap.

Lea Seydox and that baby looked next gen as fuck, but then Norman came on and im like fuck here we go again. its spiderman2 all over again.

 

[rofif]

The lack of an upgrade for Norman Reedus is giving me cross gen nightmares. I have a bad feeling DS2 wont be a big leap.

Lea Seydox and that baby looked next gen as fuck, but then Norman came on and im like fuck here we go again. its spiderman2 all over again.

Not sure about lack of upgrade. He looks as good as the real article. No idea how you could upgrade him

 

[SlimySnake]

New kingdom of planet of the apes trailer looks fucking amazing. CG in movies is so fucking realistic now and all people do is pick it apart.

 

[SlimySnake]

Not sure about lack of upgrade. He looks as good as the real article. No idea how you could upgrade him

Better skin shading for one. Better hair.

Maybe its the lighting but the baby and lea look amazing.

huge upgrade over her first game's character model.

 

[analog_future]

Yeah, I've played enough AW2 at this point to comfortably declare it the best looking game I've ever played:

There's other games that do facial/character detail/animations better, but as a whole there's no other game on this planet I'd use as a graphical showcase over this one.

 

[Represent.]

Stop using screenshots to show off this games faces. It has to be seen in motion, Its easily among the best faces ever in a game.

 

[rofif]

Stop using screenshots to show off this games faces. It has to be seen in motion, Its easily among the best faces ever in a game.

you are not doing the game a favor

 

[sinnergy]

New kingdom of planet of the apes trailer looks fucking amazing. CG in movies is so fucking realistic now and all people do is pick it apart.

People have become complainers .. about everything.. or at least the focal ones on internet.

Looks cool btw, loved the other 3 remakes, this still WETA?

 

[GymWolf]

No shit it looks better than tlou2.

Better skin shading for one. Better hair.

Maybe its the lighting but the baby and lea look amazing.

huge upgrade over her first game's character model.

The kid looks great (a bit uncanny valley) but she doesn't look much better tbh.

Still waxy feeling with better hairs\face expression and optimal light condition to hide flaws in that gif, tess face in tlou remake looks better imo, probably the only impressive thing in that money grab piece of shit.
(Black dude looks great but she is the standout)

I need to see more from fedex 2.

 

[MidGenRefresh]

Stop using screenshots to show off this games faces. It has to be seen in motion, Its easily among the best faces ever in a game.

It's almost like you have to play the game to make an accurate opinion on it. Right? RIGHT?

GymWolf

 

[GymWolf]

Yeah, we should stop judgying games from what is arguably the most flattering way of showing videogames graphics, cherry picked photomode pics.
I think we should also ban gifs, it's not like they make the game look 10x better than how it actually looks by hiding all the flaws, unfair to judge a game from those.

Bizzarro fucking world.

 

[analog_future]

Yeah, we should stop judgying games from what is arguably the most flattering way of showing videogames graphics, cherry picked photomode pics.

I think we should also ban gifs, it's not like they make the game look 10x better than how it actually looks by hiding all the flaws.

Bizzarro fucking world.

Alan Wake 2 doesn't have photomode

 

[MidGenRefresh]

Yeah, we should stop judgying games from what is arguably the most flattering way of showing videogames graphics, cherry picked photomode pics.

I think we should also ban gifs, it's not like they make the game look 10x better than how it actually looks by hiding all the flaws.

Bizzarro fucking world.

With game like Alan Wake 2 you don't want GIFs to 'hide the flaws'. What GIFs are doing is crushing the detail. It's not helping. Maybe it works with last-gen games like The Last of Us 2 but definitely not with current-gen, cutting edge games. They look the best when viewed natively.

Same with Robocop, I've tried to take few screenshots to show how awesome the environments are but I just can't capture how cool they look when you play.

 

[MidGenRefresh]

Speaking of last-gen, this is The Last of Us 2 during gameplay as captured on PS5. Don't tell me there isn't a generation difference between this and Alan Wake 2. Hell, even AA game like Robocop is destroying this when it comes to environments.

It's also super funny how different Ellie looks during gameplay and during cinematics. It's like it's not the same person.

 

[MidGenRefresh]

Yeah, we should stop judgying games from what is arguably the most flattering way of showing videogames graphics, cherry picked photomode pics.

It was already said but I'll say it again: there is no photo mode in Alan Wake 2. The best you can do is switch off your HUD. You point your character and shoot. It's all in gameplay.

There are paid tools that you can use to 'free' the camera but 99% of screenshots that we have on this forum is pure gameplay.

 

[64gigabyteram]

I'd be ok with CyberPunk PC visuals if it has next gen as fuck systems and physics, animations, water and explosions. Actually that sounds like a dream come true

you are not going to see buildings realistically crumble, if you fire a rocket launcher at them or hover a plane into them.

expect anything, just not that.

 

[GymWolf]

It was already said but I'll say it again: there is no photo mode in Alan Wake 2. The best you can do is switch off your HUD. You point your character and shoot. It's all in gameplay.

There are paid tools that you can use to 'free' the camera but 99% of screenshots that we have on this forum is pure gameplay.

The point is that cherry picked pics are absolutely valid to judge a game because more often than not, they look better than how the game looks live.

I played cyberpunk maxed out like you and mine looked nowhere near your pics, i'm literally doing you a favour by judgying a game from the pics you people post because the game on my end is gonna look worse most probably.

 

[SlimySnake]

Yeah, we should stop judgying games from what is arguably the most flattering way of showing videogames graphics, cherry picked photomode pics.

I think we should also ban gifs, it's not like they make the game look 10x better than how it actually looks by hiding all the flaws.

Bizzarro fucking world.

Actually I find that gifs make everything look worse. Games like spiderman and starfield looked way better in full screen than they do compressed to hell with added artifacting whenever i make them. There are ways around them by making them bigger and capturing them at 60 fps, but you will still lose all the fine level detail these new games are packing in their levels and HDR effects.

Also i got out of my way to not use photomode in most of my games because i remember DF saying how some sony games use enhanced processing. I only do it when i am trying to move the camera around to line up comparisons.

This horizon screenshot i took the other day is gameplay. has hud and everything. In fact, Same goes for most of my spiderman, starfield, ff16 and cybperunk screenshots i post in this thread. I make sure to include the hud so people know its not bullshots. they still look stunning. every alan wake 2 screenshot anyone posts is from gameplay because they dont have photomode.

 

[MidGenRefresh]

The point is that cherry picked pics are absolutely valid to judge a game because more often than not, they look better than how the game looks live.

I played cyberpunk maxed out like you and mine looked nowhere near your pics, i'm literally doing you a favour by judgying a game from the pics you people post because the game on my end is gonna look worse most probably.

Game looks so, so, so much better in motion compared to static screenshots.

 

[MidGenRefresh]

Actually I find that gifs make everything look worse. Games like spiderman and starfield looked way better in full screen than they do compressed to hell with added artifacting whenever i make them.

Fucking thank you. The rule is: the more detailed the game is, the worse it will look when compressed by YouTube / GIFs / screenshot compression.

 

[GymWolf]

Actually I find that gifs make everything look worse. Games like spiderman and starfield looked way better in full screen than they do compressed to hell with added artifacting whenever i make them. There are ways around them by making them bigger and capturing them at 60 fps, but you will still lose all the fine level detail these new games are packing in their levels and HDR effects.

Also i got out of my way to not use photomode in most of my games because i remember DF saying how some sony games use enhanced processing. I only do it when i am trying to move the camera around to line up comparisons.

This horizon screenshot i took the other day is gameplay. has hud and everything. In fact, Same goes for most of my spiderman, starfield, ff16 and cybperunk screenshots i post in this thread. I make sure to include the hud so people know its not bullshots. they still look stunning. every alan wake 2 screenshot anyone posts is from gameplay because they dont have photomode.

Gifs gave that cg effect and hide all the flaws, you can pick gifs from 2015 games that look like 2023 games.

That suhnilegend dude made every game look incredible in his gifs.

I think it's the most unfair way to show a game, every game looks good in gif format, the smaller the better.

If it is true that it hide microdetails, it also hide ALL the flaws in models, textures etc.

 

[SlimySnake]

BTW, I think cherrypicking the other way around has gotten a lot worse recently. I was in the DF Alan Wake 2 thread looking for gifs and it was a warzone in there with people picking pics of shadows and reflections in the ps5 version to show how bad it looks compared to path traced PC version.

meanwhile, the rest of the forum had gifs from the PS5 footage and people kept thinking they were from the path traced PC version. It's ridiculous. People take cherrypicked screenshots to show how poor the game looks for games that are literally one of the best if not arguably the best looking games of all time. I dont mind it too much in this thread because all we do is critique graphics, but ive noticed that we do it far more nowadays to shit on a game that is actually trying to do next gen things.

Last year, sure go ahead and trash GOW, Elden Ring and other cross gen graphics all you want, but this year we are feasting. Games look great more often than they dont. I could cherrypick maybe 5 screenshots in GOW Ragnorak in the whole game. With Spiderman, Starfield, and FF16 i cherrypicked maybe 5 screenshots that looked bad. The vast majority of the time, the games looked fantastic. And yet the internet makes them out to be the ugliest looking games of all time.

 

[SlimySnake]

Gifs gave that cg effect and hide all the flaws, you can pick gifs from 2015 games that look like 2023 games.

That suhnilegend dude made every game look incredible in his gifs.

I think it's the most unfair way to show a game, every game looks good in gif format, the smaller the better.

Sunhi gifs I agree are misleading. He admitted that he was color correcting, and putting his gifs through photoshop post processing to make them look better than they would in your tv. At least back when he was making Horizon gifs.

but my gifs? nah. i use a free program and capture from a 4k screen downsizing it to tiny 720*480 resolutions which ADDS artifacts. I dont even own photoshop.

 

[GymWolf]

Sunhi gifs I agree are misleading. He admitted that he was color correcting, and putting his gifs through photoshop post processing to make them look better than they would in your tv. At least back when he was making Horizon gifs.

but my gifs? nah. i use a free program and capture from a 4k screen downsizing it to tiny 720*480 resolutions which ADDS artifacts. I dont even own photoshop.

They still hide all the flaws that you can see in still frame pics, it's a merit\limit of the format.

I don't think musilla gifs are heavy edited and he still has to post a gif where a game looks less than exceptional.

The more bad are the assets, the more the gif make it looks better, spidey looks nothing like the best gifs around because all the shit assets get a free pass.

 

[GymWolf]

With game like Alan Wake 2 you don't want GIFs to 'hide the flaws'. What GIFs are doing is crushing the detail. It's not helping. Maybe it works with last-gen games like The Last of Us 2 but definitely not with current-gen, cutting edge games. They look the best when viewed natively.

Same with Robocop, I've tried to take few screenshots to show how awesome the environments are but I just can't capture how cool they look when you play.

Like i said, it hide some microdetails and it also hide all the flaws.

Those rocks i was trolling probably look ok to great in gif format and i'm sure those are not the only meh assets in the game that gif format help to cover.

So it's a double edged sword.

Horizon 2 look straight up cg in gif format, and we know it's not the case.

 

[Senua]

Gonna agree that Gifs hide flaws, they show less detail which your mind kinda fills as being better than it actually is, or something. Kinda the same effect as when someone puts a VHS filter on a racing game to make it look like an old on board camera, it's hiding detail..or the lack thereof and our minds fill the rest subconsciously

 

[MidGenRefresh]

Horizon 2 look straight up cg in gif format, and we know it's not the case.

Maybe the ones heavily edited by PlayStation fanboys are having this effect. They boost contrast, adjust colors and do all sort of weird stuff in post processing to make it look the best.

But having played Alan Wake 2 I can tell you with all certainty that these sections look much, much better when you play:

 

[GymWolf]

Gonna agree that Gifs hide flaws, they show less detail which your mind kinda fills as being better than it actually is, or something. Kinda the same effect as when someone puts a VHS filter on a racing game to make it look like an old on board camera, it's hiding detail..or the lack thereof and our minds fill the rest subconsciously

Exactly, i don't think it's even possible to show bad graphic in gif format with any modern game that looks at least decent.

 

[GymWolf]

Maybe the ones heavily edited by PlayStation fanboys are having this effect. They boost contrast, adjust colors and do all sort of weird stuff in post processing to make it look the best.

But having played Alan Wake 2 I can tell you with all certainty that these sections look much, much better when you play:

ALL the gifs of horizon look like cg and i doubt all the people who make gifs are sony fanboys.


Hell even gifs from the first horizon look like mid tier cg...

I think the only thing that get completely ruined by gif format is trying to show digital acting because they are always weirdly accelerated.

 

[MidGenRefresh]

ALL the gifs of horizon look like cg and i doubt all the people who make gifs are sony fanboys.


Hell even gifs from the first horizon look like mid tier cg...

Maybe but that goes back to my theory that GIFs (YouTube videos, screenshots... you get the idea) make games look better until game is so packed with detail that GIFs are not hiding the details but actually destroying them. First time I noticed that was with Cyberpunk 2077 but lately more and more games are suffering from that.

 

[GymWolf]

Maybe but that goes back to my theory that GIFs (YouTube videos, screenshots... you get the idea) make games look better until game is so packed with detail that GIFs are not hiding the details but actually destroying them. First time I noticed that was with Cyberpunk 2077 but lately more and more games are suffering from that.

Cyberpunk has a lot of questionable assets and models so for me gif format help a lot with that game.

I think it depends on the scene but i never watched a gif of cyberpunk where the game didn't looked too perfect.

The only way for gif to be only negative in showing graphic would be a game with no bad assets, and we know such a game is not gonna exist for a long time.

 

[MidGenRefresh]

Cyberpunk has a lot of questionable assets and models so for me gif format help a lot with that game.

It's the most detailed open-world game ever made. I don't understand this rhetoric. What questionable assets/models? Cars are amazing. Weapons are amazing. NPCs are best in class. Clutter and small architecture is adequately detailed. Or is it another 'rock' situation where you go off the beaten path, zoom in on something and it looks generation behind? Every game has it, we've already discussed it.

I remember recording clip from Dog Town for Chief and posting it to YouTube and I was so fucking disappointed how it killed all the detail from the image.

Anyway, this is pointless.

 

[Senua]

Speaking of last-gen, this is The Last of Us 2 during gameplay as captured on PS5. Don't tell me there isn't a generation difference between this and Alan Wake 2. Hell, even AA game like Robocop is destroying this when it comes to environments.

It's also super funny how different Ellie looks during gameplay and during cinematics. It's like it's not the same person.

Agreed. For a PS4 game it's incredible, but people using cutscene screengrabs to say it looks better than Alan Wake 2 are morons.

 

[rofif]

Maybe the ones heavily edited by PlayStation fanboys are having this effect. They boost contrast, adjust colors and do all sort of weird stuff in post processing to make it look the best.

But having played Alan Wake 2 I can tell you with all certainty that these sections look much, much better when you play:

Is this a botox commercial ?

 

[GymWolf]

It's the most detailed open-world game ever made. I don't understand this rhetoric. What questionable assets/models? Cars are amazing. Weapons are amazing. NPCs are best in class. Clutter and small architecture is adequately detailed. Or is it another 'rock' situation where you go off the beaten path, zoom in on something and it looks generation behind? Every game has it, we've already discussed it.

I remember recording clip from Dog Town for Chief and posting it to YouTube and I was so fucking disappointed how it killed all the detail from the image.

Anyway, this is pointless.

It has better assets (and asses) than spidey 2, i give you that