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[Nhranaghacon]

I agree with Phrixotrichus here. You are going way overboard for no reason. No company is going to do what you are proposing. You should drop it.

Yes me personally taking 3 day's to provide 35 samples of painted light map sources, which in reality could probably be delivered quicker - sooooo difficult for a company with a team of 300 personal to undertake.

Obviously, no company is going to use 1to1 Photo asset's for texture's either but it's something any company could do and isn't at all time consuming.

Truth is, the companies who are happy with 6 level's of Morphic Dynamic Lighting wont do this, the companies that want a scene to produce RTX result's will happily tailor 33 custom light maps needed per scene to produce 100% samples that match Ray Tracing. And I don't need to do anything particularly listen to the likes of you. Nor do I care where when or who you agree with.

"We painted 33 custom light map's just for one SCENE, and we didn't even utilize this technique for all 100 scenes we just did it where we wanted our references to match and it took as little as 3 days boo hoo we're sooooo overworked!"

Companies will do this on a per scene basis if the performance to visual's bar accumulated is worth it. All other opinion's and thought's on the subject are null.

 

[Phrixotrichus]

Yes me personally taking 3 day's to provide 35 samples of painted light map sources, which in reality could probably be delivered quicker - sooooo difficult for a company with a team of 300 personal to undertake.

Obviously, no company is going to use 1to1 Photo asset's for texture's either but it's something any company could do and isn't at all time consuming.

Truth is, the companies who are happy with 6 level's of Morphic Dynamic Lighting wont do this, the companies that want a scene to produce RTX result's will happily tailor 33 custom light maps needed per scene to produce 100% samples that match Ray Tracing. And I don't need to do anything particularly listen to the likes of you. Nor do I care where when or who you agree with.

"We painted 33 custom light map's just for one SCENE, and we didn't even utilize this technique for all 100 scenes we just did it where we wanted our references to match and it took as little as 3 days boo hoo we're sooooo overworked!"

Companies will do this on a per scene basis if the performance to visual's bar accumulated is worth it. All other opinion's and thought's on the subject are null.

so, with your approach, how many lightmaps would it take to fake-match dynamic RT lighting in dense scenery with dozens of glowing moving objects...game characters with magic skill-effects for example.....over the course of a complete game, maybe even an open world game for example which has near unlimited "scenes"?
You probably don`t know because no one has been actually crazy enough to try that.

Even UE5 which has been cited a lot as a counter RT argument uses a form of ray tracing for all indirect lighting.

What you`re saying is simply impractical and won`t ever be done in a game.

 

[Nhranaghacon]

so, how many lightmaps would it take to fake-match dynamic RT lighting in a complex scenery with dozens of glowing moving objects...game characters with magic skill-effects for example.....over the course of a complete game?
You probably don`t know because no one has been actually crazy enough to try that....

I´m gonna repeat myself: Theoretical != practical.

You are implying the technique can not and will not be utilized on a per scene basis, but to answer your question it would be 33 light maps plus the glowing moving object's on screen and character light sources.

Per Scene creation of lightmaps are completely within the realm of practicality.

Over the course of a whole game - 330,000 light map sources (assuming there are 10,000 scenes) Most games have 50 to 100 scenes. So it is that with the adage of whichever orb's/new asset's are introduced - which would not need to utilize 33 light map's to deliver scene lighting across the environment.

 

[Vtecomega]

Imagine the next Naughty Dog game.

I really don't..

 

[Arun1910]

If, if and if, and then other i, right?
The very fact you can't just take a look at graphics and say if it is using RT or not shows what kind of BS all that hype is.

Maybe on Consoles. See Control and Watch Dogs Legion on PC and you'll be able to see what it can do for an image.

RT isn't just 1 thing either. You can have multiple things Ray traced. I suspect the consoles would have the equivalent of a low RT setting.

 

[llien]

Maybe on Consoles. See Control and Watch Dogs Legion on PC and you'll be able to see what it can do for an image.

I see GoW 2018 and Horizon on consoles.
On PS4 with a puny 7870.

Both have reflections, lighting effects and both look amazing, taking into account GPU specs, jaw dropping.

Since said effects were already present, the main promise of RT-ing was that one can achieve the same, but it would be easier to program.
And this promise is failing on two fronts:

1) Market penetration of hardware RT <= undisputaable
2) Reluctance of developers to use it even when available (reported by MS, apparent in UE5 demo) and a number in-depth presentation outlining the issues with RT approach, in short, no it's not easy at all. Now, take this point as just my personal opinion.

Last, but not least, "but consoles are too weak for RT" spells "nobody would invest major effort into RT stuff for years to come", obviously, even ignoring the points above.

Even UE5 which has been cited a lot as a counter RT argument uses a form of ray tracing for all indirect lighting.

You assume (but it's a fair assumption) it uses a "form of ray tracing" that doesn't use DXR like hardware acceleration somehow proves we need hardware DXR to do... what exactly, I've forgotten.

And speaking of "dynamic" think about what is "dynamic" about structures that hardware RT is traversing. (minor point)

 

[Lethal01]

I see GoW 2018 and Horizon on consoles.
On PS4 with a puny 7870.

Both have reflections, lighting effects and both look amazing, taking into account GPU specs, jaw dropping.

Right now even the best looking games and tech demos that aim for realism look uncanny and off.

You claim the reflections and lighting look amazing but GoW specifically is a game that I though looked so clearly off that it was actually distracting. The lighting in that game was just glaringly wrong all the way through to me and the whole things just felt flat. The art direction was great but it was extremely held back by the tech. When I saw all the praise it was getting for it's visuals was when I really felt that it was time for next gen.

It could have looked jaw dropping, with raytraced Global Illumination, reflections and shadows.

Lumen shows the need for hardware DXR since it demonstrates the huge benefits of even limited Raytracing. Lumen * 10 would be great.

 

[pullcounter]

I wish Cyberpunk was going to have RT GI... alas, it will not and that will hurt it's looks.

Cyberpunk 2077, the crown jewel of the lineup, featuring ray-traced reflections, ambient occlusion, shadows & global diffuse illumination and DLSS when it launches on November 19th.

 

[VFXVeteran]

Cyberpunk 2077, the crown jewel of the lineup, featuring ray-traced reflections, ambient occlusion, shadows & global diffuse illumination and DLSS when it launches on November 19th.

global diffuse illumination is their RT of diffuse lighting. It is NOT secondary bounce lighting like in Crysis or Metro. Marketing.

 

[pullcounter]

global diffuse illumination is their RT of diffuse lighting. It is NOT secondary bounce lighting like in Crysis or Metro. Marketing.

RTX Global Illumination (RTX GI) creates changing, realistic rendering for games by computing diffuse lighting with ray tracing. It allows developers to extend their existing light probe tools, knowledge, and experience with ray tracing to eliminate bake times and avoid light leaking.

You're arguing over semantics. RTX GI is ray traced diffused lighting

 

[Polygonal_Sprite]

You need GPU power in order to implement that kind of fidelity. I only see that on the PC GPUs being a thing this generation.

Does a sign in the sky go off to alert you to the opportunity to wank over PC while also putting $500 consoles down?

Let's see some hardware based RT in games that aren't rushed for launch before you discount what can be achieved with developer know how along with low level API's and custom hardware.

 

[VFXVeteran]

You're arguing over semantics. RTX GI is ray traced diffused lighting

No it's not. I know what Cyberpunk is doing because I implemented it for years. It's not the true meaning of GI.

I mentioned "direct" lighting.. not indirect lighting. Global illumination in what form? Direct or Indirect? That's the marketing term there as we know GI to mean indirect lighting. That's not what CDPR is doing.

 

[VFXVeteran]

Does a sign in the sky go off to alert you to the opportunity to wank over PC while also putting $500 consoles down?

Let's see some hardware based RT in games that aren't rushed for launch before you discount what can be achieved with developer know how along with low level API's and custom hardware.

I can ask the same about the console for you guys everytime an exclusive releases.

In response to your last paragraph, it's been said over and over again on various sites that low level API programming has been made and the custom hardware isn't so custom (we already know the general GPU architecture is the same as last gen). I understand you want to hold on to hope that you might get multiple RT features by the end of this gen, but if there are cards significantly more powerful with custom RT cores that can't do it at a reasonable FPS, you should probably lose hope on the devs compensating for that. It is what it is.

 

[Polygonal_Sprite]

I can ask the same about the console for you guys everytime an exclusive releases.

In response to your last paragraph, it's been said over and over again on various sites that low level API programming has been made and the custom hardware isn't so custom (we already know the general GPU architecture is the same as last gen). I understand you want to hold on to hope that you might get multiple RT features by the end of this gen, but if there are cards significantly more powerful with custom RT cores that can't do it at a reasonable FPS, you should probably lose hope on the devs compensating for that. It is what it is.

I don't really care about RT if it comes at the expense of other things. I'd take 1440p/60fps with a generational leap in character models, textures and alpha effects over anything to do with RT. I'm more than happy with good quality SSR for reflections, SSAO for shadows and "fake" ambient lighting like RDR2 and TLOU II when it comes to anything RT can offer

They should have left RT for next gen where they could have built entire engines that used it for absolutely everything they'd want it for.

I'm sure you'd have to admit you didn't expect RT reflections on entire building like Spider-Man on a rushed launch port / game though. Quarter res or not because the mere mention of anything other than small reflected puddles in small environments on console for RT was laughed at by PC gamers. And how are they doing it even at 1/4 res? Custom hardware and low level console API's.

 

[Omega Supreme Holopsicon]

You claim the reflections and lighting look amazing but GoW specifically is a game that I though looked so clearly off that it was actually distracting. The lighting in that game was just glaringly wrong all the way through to me and the whole things just felt flat. The art direction was great but it was extremely held back by the tech. When I saw all the praise it was getting for it's visuals was when I really felt that it was time for next gen.

Unless you think the stuff that moves looks wrong, given it is fixed lighting there's a very good chance they used prebaked high end ray tracing for the lighting. That is ray tracing more advanced and precise than the real time stuff.

It could have looked jaw dropping, with raytraced Global Illumination, reflections and shadows.

Path traced lighting does look notably better. Whatever is passing for raytraced global illumination in games like metro look very perceptibly better than traditional lighting, let alone voxel global illumination in many of the comparison screenshots.

I've seen voxel illumination look miles better than ray traced global illumination in games. Path tracing would probably top voxel illumination, but that is too demanding even for the rtx 3090.

Cyberpunk 2077, the crown jewel of the lineup, featuring ray-traced reflections, ambient occlusion, shadows & global diffuse illumination and DLSS when it launches on November 19th.

I have to say I'm not that impressed by Cyberpunk, it's probably next gen in terms of density and scene complexity, but the npc's and environments don't look like a notable step above current gen.

Just putting a lot of bullet points doesn't make something better looking than current gen.

 

[Lethal01]

Unless you think the stuff that moves looks wrong, given it is fixed lighting there's a very good chance they used prebaked high end ray tracing for the lighting. That is ray tracing more advanced and precise than the real time stuff.

Path traced lighting does look notably better. Whatever is passing for raytraced global illumination in games like metro look very perceptibly better than traditional lighting, let alone voxel global illumination in many of the comparison screenshots.

I've seen voxel illumination look miles better than ray traced global illumination in games. Path tracing would probably top voxel illumination, but that is too demanding even for the rtx 3090.

Not every static object has baked lighting or baked lighting that looks good, tons of concessions are made for many reasons and it's very clear that the lighting in that game for static objects is very far from accurate in addition there's tons of dynamic stuff in the environment.

Voxel based solutions are using ray tracing on a simplified version of the scene and yes God of war would look far better with a good voxel based solution aka ray tracing.

I have not seen any direct comparisons between non voxel based solutions and the something along the lines of what Metro does, saying one games with VXGI looks "better" than one like Metro doesn't say much considering how different the scenes you would be comparing would be.

 

[Omega Supreme Holopsicon]

Not every static object has baked lighting or baked lighting that looks good, tons of concessions are made for many reasons and it's very clear that the lighting in that game for static objects is very far from accurate in addition there's tons of dynamic stuff in the environment.

I know on game engines you can bake lighting after you set up the final scene. I imagine they do similar but with far more advanced lighting.

At least gran turismo sport was said to have prebaked raytracing on the tracks.

 

[Lethal01]

I know on game engines you can bake lighting after you set up the final scene. I imagine they do similar but with far more advanced lighting.

At least gran turismo sport was said to have prebaked raytracing on the tracks.

There has been "pre baked ray traced lighting" since 1995. Point is that the results can be sub par compared to full on raytracing, and to be God of War is clearly very lacking and better raytracing could help it a lot.

 

[Omega Supreme Holopsicon]

There has been "pre baked ray traced lighting" since 1995. Point is that the results can be sub par compared to full on raytracing, and to be God of War is clearly very lacking and better raytracing could help it a lot.

Wouldn't surprise me if some of the stuff like the trees are also photogrammetry, might even be using real world's lighting.

 

[Lethal01]

Wouldn't surprise me if some of the stuff like the trees are also photogrammetry, might even be using real world's lighting.

Sure, the point is the lighting is unrealistic

 

[Omega Supreme Holopsicon]

Sure, the point is the lighting is unrealistic

Guess we'll see what happens in the next gow.

I don't see why they couldn't run ray tracing on cutscenes, see how it looks, and alter the game to look identical without ray tracing during cutscenes.

 

[Lethal01]

Guess we'll see what happens in the next gow.

I don't see why they couldn't run ray tracing on cutscenes, see how it looks, and alter the game to look identical without ray tracing during cutscenes.

Because things move? if a tree is blowing in the wild or fire is animating you can just bake totally static lighting.

And probably a bunch of other issues that you only really see once you are actually trying to do it. Perhaps what you need to do to match the cutscene creates 10gb for even a small scene and the game would be 500gb by the end o fit.

 

[Omega Supreme Holopsicon]

Because things move? if a tree is blowing in the wild or fire is animating you can just bake totally static lighting.

And probably a bunch of other issues that you only really see once you are actually trying to do it. Perhaps what you need to do to match the cutscene creates 10gb for even a small scene and the game would be 500gb by the end o fit.

Static lighting scene, nothing in the scene would change except the moving characters and their shadows.

 

[GymWolf]

I dunno. What I'm seeing while playing Quake 2 RTX right now, I haven't seen in any other game so far. Such natural, dynamic lighting and accurate reflections are nowhere to be found in games that don't offer raytracing.
Actually playing it, you can feel the difference compared to other games.

Screenshots don't so it justice, but let's give it a try:

https://abload.de/img/quake2rtxremasterscrexkj98.png

https://abload.de/img/quake2rtxremasterscre8nk9x.png

It still look like an old ass game with some shiny coat to me.

 

[regawdless]

It still look like an old ass game with some shiny coat to me.

It is an old ass game. But it shows very well, how much of an impact lighting and reflections can have. You can switch off the rtx renderer for comparison and the difference is huge.
One very impressive thing you can do for example, is cycling through the different times of day at any time with a single button press while playing. The sun will move and the lighting changes in real time.

You really need to play it to appreciate how believable the lighting is. For me personally, it's very impressive.
I haven't seen lighting this believable in any other game yet.

But again, that's just me, who values good lighting a lot.

 

[Lethal01]

Static lighting scene, nothing in the scene would change except the moving characters and their shadows.

Even cutscenes often have tons of movement, flowing grass, loose cloth, vehicles in the backgrounds, giant robots , the dragon you are flying on, you could be on a train going through a night time scene.

ofcourse I'm not disagree there are tons of scenearios where you could get away with totally baked lighting but there are tons more where you can't.

 

[GymWolf]

It is an old ass game. But it shows very well, how much of an impact lighting and reflections can have. You can switch off the rtx renderer for comparison and the difference is huge.
One very impressive thing you can do for example, is cycling through the different times of day at any time with a single button press while playing. The sun will move and the lighting changes in real time.

You really need to play it to appreciate how believable the lighting is. For me personally, it's very impressive.
I haven't seen lighting this believable in any other game yet.

But again, that's just me, who values good lighting a lot.

I'm the opposite, i don't care about shadows and lights, i'm more of a texture\animations guy.

You need the right scene to really enlight why rtx is great compared to state of the art old school lights, texture and animations are something always on screen that you can notice every time you move a character or just by looking around in every part of the level.

50% of people notice rtx in games (you can see this in literally ever topic about rtx), 100% of people notice that tlou2 has great animations, i rest my case

 

[Lethal01]

It still look like an old ass game with some shiny coat to me.

IT does, but it looks like a real toyset. It could still looks far more like it could exists in the real world.
A blocky model with low resolution textures could actually exist, water with no reflections and lights with no shadows can't.

 

[GymWolf]

IT does, but it looks like a real toyset. It could still looks far more like it could exists in the real world.
A blocky model with low resolution textures could actually exist, water with no reflections and lights with no shadows can't.

Nope sorry, shitty textures\geometry with real life lights and shadows doesn't trick my brain at all.

It looks better than original quake 2? Of course.
Is it better than literqlly any modern fps with decent graphic just because it use rtx?? Not even close.

I guess it's personal thing, i just laugh when i see people who look at raytraced minecraft and wank themself...to me it still looks like someone puked pixels on a screen.

 

[regawdless]

I'm the opposite, i don't care about shadows and lights, i'm more of a texture\animations guy.

You need the right scene to really enlight why rtx is great compared to state of the art old school lights, texture and animations are something always on screen that you can notice every time you move a character or just by looking around in every part of the level.

50% of people notice rtx in games (you can see this in literally ever topic about rtx), 100% of people notice that tlou2 has great animations, i rest my case

Jep it has shitty textures and stuff. I'm not claiming that it is one of the best looking games out there.
But it is the one with the best and most realistic lighting. Set it to night time or dusk, in a warehouse with big windows, have a firefight with the standard gun that lights up the environment.... Never seen anything like it.
I can't wait until a comparable lighting solution will be implemented into modern games. Realistic lighting also makes the assets and textures really shine.

 

[GymWolf]

Jep it has shitty textures and stuff. I'm not claiming that it is one of the best looking games out there.
But it is the one with the best and most realistic lighting. Set it to night time or dusk, in a warehouse with big windows, have a firefight with the standard gun that lights up the environment.... Never seen anything like it.
I can't wait until a comparable lighting solution will be implemented into modern games. Realistic lighting also makes the assets and textures really shine.

Oh yeay with a massive use on modern games is gonna look nice (so no the half assed attempts that we see right now in majority of games)

Still, i would choose more detailed textures, better animations, 60 frame and ever higher resolution over rtx right now.

 

[regawdless]

Oh yeay with a massive use on modern games is gonna look nice.

Still, i would choose more detailed textures, better animations, 60 frame and ever higher resolution over rtx right now.

Which makes sense.
We are focussing a lot on RTX right now, but as you already said, there are other important things as well.

Besides lighting, my main hope is actually for significant improvements regarding animations and interaction with the environments. It needs to be way more believable regarding collisions, clipping physics, environmental damage, transitions between animations etc.

 

[Lethal01]

Nope sorry, shitty textures\geometry with real life lights and shadows doesn't trick my brain at all.

It looks better than original quake 2? Of course.
Is it better than literqlly any modern fps with decent graphic just because it use rtx?? Not even close.

I guess it's personal thing, i just laugh when i see people who look at raytraced minecraft and wank themself...to me it still looks like someone puked pixels on a screen.

Understandable, for me, high quality textures on models with totally fake light doesn't trick my brain at all. The problem is that games like Red dead or Last of us looks fake in a way that you can really only achieve via Computer. while something like Quake RTX looks like a real sculpture that someone made to emulate a game. It doesn't need to trick my brain into thinking it's phsyically plausible since it actually is.

That said I think there is a mountain old pixelated games that look 10x better than anything coming this gen.

 

[GymWolf]

Which makes sense.
We are focussing a lot on RTX right now, but as you already said, there are other important things as well.

Besides lighting, my main hope is actually for significant improvements regarding animations and interaction with the environments. It needs to be way more believable regarding collisions, clipping physics, environmental damage, transitions between animations etc.

Lol are you me?

 

[GymWolf]

Understandable, for me, high quality textures on models with totally fake light doesn't trick my brain at all. The problem is that games like Red dead or Last of us looks fake in a way that you can really only achieve via Computer. while something like Quake RTX looks like a real sculpture that someone made to emulate a game. It doesn't need to trick my brain into thinking it's phsyically plausible since it actually is.

That said I think there is a mountain old pixelated games that look 10x better than anything coming this gen.

That comes to personal tastes, like you i do think that indie stuff like hades has a better art style than many modern games.

Beauty is in the eye of the boulder, case on point

Spoiler

 

[Lethal01]

Which makes sense.
We are focussing a lot on RTX right now, but as you already said, there are other important things as well.

Besides lighting, my main hope is actually for significant improvements regarding animations and interaction with the environments. It needs to be way more believable regarding collisions, clipping physics, environmental damage, transitions between animations etc.

I think lighting is priority #1 right now It's definitely the things that hold games from realism the most.
Priority #2 is geometric density. People don't realize just ridiculous amount of ideas that would just have far to much stuff in them to be achievable right now.
#3 is cloth and jiggle physics. I don't even really need it to be much better. I just need more of it.

This is for realistic games, though, I personally prefer far more stylized ones. but even then, We are far away from the hardware neeeded to render into the spiervers in real time.

That comes to personal tastes,

Yep, that's what I was saying.