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[IbizaPocholo]

Time Ghost is the latest Unity Originals real-time cinematic demo developed by the team behind projects like The Blacksmith, Adam, Book of the Dead, The Heretic, and Enemies. Presented at Unite 2024 in Barcelona, it showcases what can be achieved with Unity 6. The demo highlights advancements in visual quality, project complexity, and the practical use of machine learning workflows.

Time Ghost

Discover Time Ghost, a real-time 3D cinematic showcased at Unite 2024 in Barcelona. This demo features Unity 6's advancements in visual quality, support for complex real-time projects, and machine learning-enabled workflows.

unity.com

Project Information​

Time Ghost, developed with an unmodified Unity 6 engine, was showcased at Unite Barcelona 2024 running on a PC equipped with an Intel Core i9-14900K CPU and Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090 GPU. The project leverages a range of Unity products, features, and services such as:

• Rendering performance, quality, and scope:
  • HDRP
  • DOTS (Entities Graphics)
  • GPU Resident Drawer
• Lighting
  • Volumetric Clouds
  • APVs (Adaptive Probe Volumes)
  • Scenario Blending
  • Time of day
• SpeedTree
• Sentis
• VFX Graph
  • Six-way smoke lighting
  • Volumetric fog output
  • Improved collisions
  • Instancing
• Unity’s Hair System
• Cinemachine
• LiveCapture

 

[Bitstream]

The volumetrics and fog give the image a ridiculous amount of depth, making the vistas feel like they extend on forever. This actually looks very reminiscent of the film 1918 released a few years ago, top notch stuff.

 

[lh032]

we will see this in the next 20 years.

 

[ChiefDada]

Man, imagine what a game built exclusively for 4090/7900X3D could look like.

 

[Heimdall_Xtreme]

Don't forget what Unity did.

 

[angrod14]

Lel, pure BS. Remember that UE5 demo? We ended up with 720p 24 fps games.

 

[Radical_3d]

Man, imagine what a game built exclusively for 4090/7900X3D could look like.

Less sales than Concord. Interesting concept.

 

[ZehDon]

Given how Unity tried to fuck over it's entire customer base, I don't really think anyone with the skills to actually make something that looks like this would bother doing it in Unity. CEO dug that company's grave.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

I love how game engine makers promote their software with cinematic clips on the highest PC gear possible.

How often have you ever seen them actually make a clip of SP or MP gameplay?

 

[AJUMP23]

Coming to switch 2.

 

[nikos]

Love that they uploaded this in ultrawide.

 

[Represent.]

Man, imagine what a game built exclusively for 4090/7900X3D could look like.

Exactly why I dont game on PC - Not a single dev taking advantage of the horsepower. Enormous waste of money.

We should be seeing games on the regular that look like this and better.

 

[kevboard]

Man, imagine what a game built exclusively for 4090/7900X3D could look like.

if arcade machines were still as popular as in the late 80s and early 90s, we possibly would have seen such games.
Arcade games back then also used basically the absolute cutting edge hardware out there and made games tailored to it.

the Sega Model 3 had PS2 like graphics in 1996.

alas, it sadly isn't profitable enough nowadays to make high end arcade machines and high end arcade games anymore.

Exactly why I dont game on PC - Not a single dev taking advantage of the horsepower. Enormous waste of money.

We should be seeing games on the regular that look like this and better.

uhh, any game that uses Pathtracing (Nvidia is branding it now as "full raytracing") absolutely uses high end PC hardware. Alan Wake 2 and Cyberpunk 2077 push any PC to its limits

 

[Represent.]

if arcade machines were still as popular as in the late 80s and early 90s, we possibly would have seen such games.
Arcade games back then also used basically the absolute cutting edge hardware out there and made games tailored to it.

the Sega Model 3 had PS2 like graphics in 1996.

alas, it sadly isn't profitable enough nowadays to make high end arcade machines and high end arcade games anymore.





uhh, any game that uses Pathtracing (Nvidia is branding it now as "full raytracing") absolutely uses high end PC hardware. Alan Wake 2 and Cyberpunk 2077 push any PC to its limits

Nope.

If a game had a 300 million dollar budget, a 1000 team studio, and was developed entirely around a 4090, not being restrained by consoles, it would whole heartedly make CyberPunk and Alan Wake 2 look like the PS5 games they are.

But no one is doing that because money wise it makes no sense.

 

[PSYGN]

The character doesn't move naturally, makes it kinda jarring against the fidelity of the backdrop.

 

[kevboard]

Nope.

If a game had a 300 million dollar budget, a 1000 team studio, and was developed entirely around a 4090, not being restrained by consoles, it would whole heartedly make CyberPunk and Alan Wake 2 look like the PS5 games they are.

But no one is doing that because money wise it makes no sense.

they really wouldn't.

the fact is that more developers don't equal more fidelity.
the limiting factor now is how good the hardware can raytrace. we already are at a point where games like Alan Wake 2 have assets with near infinite detail thanks to mesh-shading. the limiting factor in such games is the lighting, for both of which you are fully limited by how well your hardware can raytrace at this point.

 

[Mr.Phoenix]

Come PS6, we will have a GPU as powerful as the 4090 and a CPU that can at least hold its own...

and we still will not get games like these.

 

[Comandr]

Environmental detail looks nice. Seeing a lot of shimmering and artifacts surrounding characters. Per object motion blur looks rough. My nitpickiest nitpick: I don't like how flowy the hair is. Hair is hard to render, but it chaps my ass when they do it like this. It's like the character is underwater. Real hair just doesn't billow like that in the wind.

 

[aerts1js]

Looks great but i feel like we are a long ways off from this kinda fidelity in a game.

 

[{insert code here}]

Impressive. I mean, I'm not looking forward to ten-year dev cycles but it's damn impressive for sure.

 

[M.W.]

 

[Robot Carnival]

that reminds me, is Unity still asking for all the shitty terms from the devs who use them? didn't they ask to be pay for every download even if it's the same account or something? are they outa the shit house yet?

 

[Saturn Dragon]

if arcade machines were still as popular as in the late 80s and early 90s, we possibly would have seen such games.
Arcade games back then also used basically the absolute cutting edge hardware out there and made games tailored to it.

the Sega Model 3 had PS2 like graphics in 1996.

alas, it sadly isn't profitable enough nowadays to make high end arcade machines and high end arcade games anymore.





uhh, any game that uses Pathtracing (Nvidia is branding it now as "full raytracing") absolutely uses high end PC hardware. Alan Wake 2 and Cyberpunk 2077 push any PC to its limits

Sega Model hardware from Virtua Racing to Daytona to Scud Race... Holy God. You had to be there.

I think I saw Model 1 Virtua Racing in late 1992 and that felt like something out of this world. I can't even describe what I felt.
At home we had Mega drive with some really cool games already, Sonic, Streets of Rage, a good but still lacking scaling port of Outrun... And a bunch more but Virtua Racing on arcades was something extremely eye catching.

Same for Daytona and don't get me started with Scud Race/Sega Super Gt Model 3 really felt like alien technology even in 1996 with Ps1-Saturn-N64 already pushing polygons... But Model 3 was so so far ahead.

I remember an article or interview where some top Sega programmers were a bit disappointed with Dreamcast-Naomi hardware when it released in Nov-Dec 1998. They wanted to keep working on Model 3-like hardware.

 

[Imtjnotu]

More bullshit from unity

 

[MrTroubleMaker]

awful "demo" no footprints!

 

[Haint]

Why are they wasting money developing these far future tech demos? A 4090 couldn't even run this at 720p, and ain't nobody using Unity for this kind of AAA mega blockbuster game in the first place.

 

[bbeach123]

Did they fix their pop-in issue with the engine ?

 

[SlimySnake]

Why are they wasting money developing these far future tech demos? A 4090 couldn't even run this at 720p, and ain't nobody using Unity for this kind of AAA mega blockbuster game in the first place.

this runs realtime on a 4090 at 4k.

Lel, pure BS. Remember that UE5 demo? We ended up with 720p 24 fps games.

the UE5 games running at 720p are targeting 60 fps.

the 30 fps modes like the ue5 demo target the same 1440p resolution reconstructed to 4k with only rare drops to 1296p to maintain 30 fps.

 

[Haint]

this runs realtime on a 4090 at 4k.

Sure it does. This is like the 5th or 6th impossibly high fidelity "real time" video they've made across a decade at this point. They haven't released a single executable, and no Unity game has ever come within a million miles of them. They're pure smoke and mirrors horse shit.

 

[Hrk69]

this runs realtime on a 4090 at 4k.

Absolutely insane if true

 

[Von Hugh]

Exactly why I dont game on PC - Not a single dev taking advantage of the horsepower. Enormous waste of money.

We should be seeing games on the regular that look like this and better.

Do you know what kind of hardware an average PC gamer has got?

 

[fran.fernandez]

Let’s use it for mobile

 

[Ironbunny]

The earlier Enemies tech demo dips to 40-50 fps in a native 2560x1440 with a 4090 so this new running on a 4090 4K is propably at 20-40 fps at its lowest.

 

[HL3.exe]

I mean, this looks amazing, but there haven't even been game equivalents of like, the last 6 impressive tech demo's build on Unity. So why should I care now.

8 years old tech demo

5 year old tech demo

Great that Unity can do these visually impressive scripted shorts. But barely any devs, if at all, try and build a gameplay experience with that level of fidelity in Unity.

Edit: visual fidelity wise, we plateaued anyway for the last 8 years. How much more poly's do we need? Who cares about a scripted rendered sequence. Show some impressive dynamic physics stuff or reactive animation with correct collisions, etc. Stuff that's actually impressive when you interact with it in a gameplay sense.

 

[Esppiral]

Anyone having a hard time trying to identify what gender are the 2 people featured in this demo?

 

[midnightAI]

Sure it does. This is like the 5th or 6th impossibly high fidelity "real time" video they've made across a decade at this point. They haven't released a single executable, and no Unity game has ever come within a million miles of them. They're pure smoke and mirrors horse shit.

Well,it isn't, in so far as they are realtime and set out to do what they meant to do which is show what is possible in realtime. You won't see games like this (well, not exactly) because games have a lot more going on than just pretty cut scenes. Either way, this is impressive.

 

[cyberheater]

Looks fantastic. I was trying to find a good high definition trailer of Killzone 2 on YouTube to compare but apparently none exist.

 

[Lumpyoatmeal]

Time Ghost

Discover Time Ghost, a real-time 3D cinematic showcased at Unite 2024 in Barcelona. This demo features Unity 6's advancements in visual quality, support for complex real-time projects, and machine learning-enabled workflows.

unity.com

Meh.

I miss Crytek, these guys were making tech demos and actually shipping the tech into retail games.



This is how you create excitement, put the damn tech into an actual game.

 

[whyman]

Looks great but Unity is dead. We all remember what they pulled. F em.

 

[Lumpyoatmeal]

we will see this in the next 20 years.

11 years later I'm still waiting for my games to look like this..

 

[Esppiral]

Smoke and mirrors as usual until they release it and people can run it on their machines....

 

[SidViscous]

Man, imagine what a game built exclusively for 4090/7900X3D could look like.

It’s a budget limitation more than a hardware limitation.

 

[SlimySnake]

Sure it does. This is like the 5th or 6th impossibly high fidelity "real time" video they've made across a decade at this point. They haven't released a single executable, and no Unity game has ever come within a million miles of them. They're pure smoke and mirrors horse shit.

Yes. They did. You can download enemies.

Here is me running it on my PC.

 

[Wandering Leopard]

It's impressive but what we usually expect from tech demos, only now they're increasingly aimed at film/TV studios.

Game devs do not have the time and money to make a full game (that includes game logic) that looks like this.