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[IbizaPocholo]

The Callisto Protocol Will Support Ray Tracing, Even on Eyeballs

The Callisto Protocol is one of the most anticipated games, and a recent interview suggests the upcoming horror game will have incredible lighting.

gamerant.com

When speaking to TechRadar, The Callisto Protocol's Chief Technical Officer Mark James discussed the importance of detailing and the visual realism that is going into the game. Characters themselves have been created with such detail that some people believed they were pre-rendered. James has insisted that this is simply how the studio has gone about designing characters, to such an extent that even the eyeballs have ray tracing on them and it's possible to see the reflections on them.

Along with AI upscaling, ray tracing is pretty much an industry standard in gaming. By using an algorithm, the hardware determines the lighting of a game by realistically depicting things like reflections from a pool of water, as well as better shadows, depending on where the player is standing. It may seem like such a small thing for The Callisto Protocol to feature ray tracing even on characters' eyes, but James states that this has been important to the team. Video games don't always have to be completely realistic, but anyone who's been checking out Striking Distance's upcoming horror title will have seen that it certainly doesn't hurt things any by having a greater sense of verisimilitude for added immersion.

 

[.Pennywise]

That crunching is paying off

 

[N1tr0sOx1d3]

Only PCs or current gen consoles too?

 

[ElCasual]

even in eyeballs....and PC only.

 

[Wandering Leopard]

"Ray-tracing is pretty much an industry standard in gaming." Really, since when.

 

[Gamer_By_Proxy]

I want haptics for each time your back smacks where the connectors are for the slides.

 

[adamsapple]

On consoles too ?

 

[Thief1987]

I didn't expect anything less from an AAAA game

 

[Captain Toad]

 

[Mister Wolf]

Game would be better served using raytraced emissive lighting and RTAO. Raytraced reflection is low hanging fruit. Always has been since Battlefield.

 

[rodrigolfp]

So only reflections.

Thanks for the parity for AMD hardware. /s

 

[Buggy Loop]

Omg that needle gif made me rub my eyeballs

 

[NeonGhost]

Will it support 60fps on next gen consoles

 

[SlimySnake]

Meh. The game looked extremely last gen in the Gamescom videos. You will never see ray tracing in eye balls in a third person game with an over the shoulder view. Spend those resources on making your game look better than the mediocrity in the last demo.

 

[BigbyTheSheriff]

Meh. The game looked extremely last gen in the Gamescom videos. You will never see ray tracing in eye balls in a third person game with an over the shoulder view. Spend those resources on making your game look better than the mediocrity in the last demo.

Looked mid in last gameplay. Looked great before that, so we can't really judge the final product.
Screenshots show there's an impressive tech behind it.

 

[Mr Hyde]

Not good enough, I want ray tracing on teeths and finger nails too.

 

[N0S]

 

[Spukc]

In photomode can we please stop this fucking bullshit?

Nobody played ratchet and clank?

 

[Apocryphon]

Are they taking the piss with this game?Raytraced eyeballs? The last video looked like shit. I suspect they have better things to be doing than worrying about accurate eyeball reflections.

 

[fart town usa]

Man, it's pretty wild that this game went from hyped to disparaged so quickly. At least on Gaf it seems like it did.

I'm still looking forward to it, just hope there's puzzles and some kind of resource management.

 

[N30RYU]

 

[Skifi28]

My balls are ready. I mean eyeballs.

 

[Fuz]

GET YOUR HANDS OFF MY EYEBALLS!

 

[Apocryphon]

Man, it's pretty wild that this game went from hyped to disparaged so quickly. At least on Gaf it seems like it did.

I'm still looking forward to it, just hope there's puzzles and some kind of resource management.

This video did not do them any favours:

 

[anthony2690]

I'm more interested in knowing whether the game has a 60fps mode on xsx/ps5...

 

[Ristifer]

This video did not do them any favours:

I still don't see the gigantic issue over this video. It's not mindblowing, I agree, but when this was shown, you'd have sworn that the devs shot everyone's dogs.

 

[Little Chicken]

verisimilitude

 

[BigbyTheSheriff]

I still don't see the gigantic issue over this video. It's not mindblowing, I agree, but when this was shown, you'd have sworn that the devs shot everyone's dogs.

Then you watch this again:




+





and it's impressive as hell for a cross-gen game. Especially character models and lighting.

I guess people forgot how it looked a mere month or two ago. Now all of a sudden it's a garbage bin game.

 

[Black_Stride]

Game would be better served using raytraced emissive lighting and RTAO. Raytraced reflection is low hanging fruit. Always has been since Battlefield.

He explained some time ago going full RT for shadows and lighting would make it harder to art direct where shadow/light is supposed to be.
Its a situation of level design getting in the way of absolute physical correctness of lighting.
They wanted to have more control over where their shadows and lights were, they even had to modify UE4 to allow for more shadow casting lights and the like.

Sure one could argue design the levels to accommodate, but at the same time I can understand why they would want to do things(lighting/shadow) in a more authored way after they had their grayboxes done.

Ive had similar situations when using unbiased renderers vs using biased renderers, what you want from the render is something that isnt physically correct.

 

[Mister Wolf]

He explained some time ago going full RT for shadows and lighting would make it harder to art direct where shadow/light is supposed to be.
Its a situation of level design getting in the way of absolute physical correctness of lighting.
They wanted to have more control over where their shadows and lights were, they even had to modify UE4 to allow for more shadow casting lights and the like.

Sure one could argue design the levels to accommodate, but at the same time I can understand why they would want to do things(lighting/shadow) in a more authored way after they had their grayboxes done.

Ive had similar situations when using unbiased renderers vs using biased renderers, what you want from the render is something that isnt physically correct.

Metro Exodus in its Two Colonels DLC used raytraced emissive lighting for all their in game indoor area lights as a RT toggle:

I would like to see a toggle for this in Callisto Protocol. They are going to be doing area lights in the game anyway.

 

[smart_brazileiro]

 

[Kuranghi]

I feel like this game will have a scene where someone eyeballs are just mashed, purely to top the scene from DS2. Not long now! The next video they show will be heavily scripted again since many gave it stick for the last video. I can't say I was that impressed but I think it was mostly just because they were trying to demonstrate features instead of playing the game how you would.

I will enjoy showing said eyeball-mashing to my squeamish lady friend almost too much. She lost her voice from screaming when we played Until Dawn recently and she hide behind a pillow for much of House Beneviento, so horrific sci-fi zambies with modern graphics and sound design will probably be too much I fear (read: enjoy).

 

[Deerock71]

EYEBALL RAYTRACING!!!