Impressive to you, not impressive to me and many others.
Let's see if the video changes the situation...
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Unreal Engine 4 GDC feature techdemo screengrabs, unveil June [Up: New, Better Shots]
- Thread starter which1spink
- Start date
Let's see if the video changes the situation...
iamshadowlark
Banned
I really must ask, what "impresses" you?
funkystudent
Member
I hope UE4 can render human faces that dont look like wax statues someone spat on.
The difference between The Witcher 2 and UE4 is that TW2, being a DX9 title, relies a lot on pre-baked lighting. While it can look as good as fully real-time lighting, it introduces limitations in scope, interactivity as well as increasing the time and effort required to design the environments.
One of the prime reasons Mirror's Edge looks so great is the lighting. But in ME the lighting had to be "baked" into textures, a process that could take from several minutes to hours to complete.
With fully dynamic bouncing lighting, you don't need to wait for a lightmap render to see how a change in the level will look like. Destructible geometry and dynamic objects can blend against static geometry seamlessly without the need to limit the possible light configurations. Even in engines which use deferred lighting and no lightmaps at all, artists still need to add dummy lights here and there to make up for the lack of light irradiation.
CryEngine 3 did great strides into dynamic lighting (on the PC) and UE4 seems to be a step forward.
This screen is a good example:
The golden statue is reflecting light from the fireplace. The silver statue is reflecting light from the golden statue. You can even see that the ground is reflecting light from the golden statue too. In current-gen engines, you'd need to manually place lightprobes or bake reflection maps for the statues which would only look correct if they never moved and the fireplace couldn't be extinguished.
BUT THE SPECULAR HIGHLIGHT ISN'T BEING PROPERLY OCCLUDED OMG SO LAST GEN.
Angelus Errare
Banned
Get my sarcasm?
Father_Brain
Banned
So, one of the bigger mysteries regarding UE4: Who exactly mandated that Epic put the GDC showing under NDA? Rein said it wasn't their choice, and his wording at the time implied that they weren't sure they'd be able to show it off as early as E3.
It wouldn't have been nVidia, since they'd have loved for as many people as possible to see what Kepler is capable of.
It shouldn't have been Microsoft or Sony, since they're not showing their next consoles at E3.
It couldn't have been Nintendo, since while Wii U may or may not run UE4 in some form, it's fairly safe to say that it isn't capable of doing so at a level that Epic would want to show off publicly anytime soon.
I wonder if we'll ever find out.
It wouldn't have been nVidia, since they'd have loved for as many people as possible to see what Kepler is capable of.
It shouldn't have been Microsoft or Sony, since they're not showing their next consoles at E3.
It couldn't have been Nintendo, since while Wii U may or may not run UE4 in some form, it's fairly safe to say that it isn't capable of doing so at a level that Epic would want to show off publicly anytime soon.
I wonder if we'll ever find out.
Saw the previous post call attention to the highlights, went "ooooh", and then I saw your post. I kinda might hate you a little bit now.
nelsonroyale
Member
To be honest, the Samaritan stuff looked quite a bit more impressive to me than this...but lets see what difference a vid makes...maybe the tired subject matter is jading my opinion
AstroNut325
Member
Other than the resolution of the textures... that's JAW DROPPING, eye-popping amazing.
3 high end GPUs vs 1 high end GPU. Doesn't matter how much better Kepler is, you still have less hardware grunt to work with. Don't know what people were expecting.
This was also more of a tech preview than the consumer preview that Samaritan was. The biggest part of the video was them showing real time C++ compiling and editing.
SapientWolf
Trucker Sexologist
I don't think that was a factor, because they were using the extra grunt for IQ.
Thanks, you just destroyed next-gen for me.
TAJ
Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
It's because the snow is too big.
Dictator93
Member
Yeah it was rendered at a ridiculous resolution with lots of AA (4xmsaa). Hence the grunt required.
planar1280
Banned
Images look a bit blurry maybe its because og ipad resolution
iamshadowlark
Banned
How?
Squatted.
Silly.Mikey
Banned
Until i see someone playing through, its just nice screens.
I personally thought that "blade runner" type video was a lot better graphically. This doesn't look as good for some reason.
I personally thought that "blade runner" type video was a lot better graphically. This doesn't look as good for some reason.
dummydecoy
Member
Batman AC looks unbelievable, and I'm only playing on my poor console. The next batman will blow my brains out. HNNGGGGG!!!
You're welcome.
I don't normally do this but if you're talking about how much better Samaritan looked then this isn't really for you. They demonstrated a fair bit of technical prowess although, of course, it's difficult to perceive GI solutions in stills. That it doesn't look better because the lighting isn't as dramatic or the character models/textures aren't as detailed are not really significant to what they were trying to show with these shots.
Cmd. Pishad'aç
Banned
When something looks better, you just notice it hands down.
You wouldn't need any sort of geeky explanation on how this new engine performs better here and there. And thats what I see Epic doing all over the place.
If they delivered Avatar graphics they wouldn't need to explain the geometry, and how dynamic are the new dynamics. And particles about particles.
If they had got something close to Avatar they would need to press the play button only and everyone would agree: "This is next gen"
Those unreal engine 4 shots are just showing how the industry hit a brickwall with hardware limitations vs real life graphics. Imo.
You wouldn't need any sort of geeky explanation on how this new engine performs better here and there. And thats what I see Epic doing all over the place.
If they delivered Avatar graphics they wouldn't need to explain the geometry, and how dynamic are the new dynamics. And particles about particles.
If they had got something close to Avatar they would need to press the play button only and everyone would agree: "This is next gen"
Those unreal engine 4 shots are just showing how the industry hit a brickwall with hardware limitations vs real life graphics. Imo.
Silly.Mikey
Banned
Cmd. Pishad'aç;38112222 said:
I think they post "explanations" to prove that it isn't fake, kinda like that Killzone BS a few years back. And i would say that it doesnt even look as good as that. This isnt no Avatar. I dont even think this looks that much better than Gears3 to be honest. More details sure, but is this why we need next gen? For more details? I dunno.
iamshadowlark
Banned
Exactly.
Cmd. Pishad'aç;38112222 said:
None of those things were their intention, that is why they are not flaunting this video like they did with samaritan. This is a tech demo, shown to Epic's studio partners, showing technical possibilities with their new engine. They're moving from Unreal Script to real time C++ coding, that is a HUGE change.
SLEEPS7ALK3R
Banned
Honestly, that looks like God Of War 3 level graphics. Nothing new or exciting.
Are they using LLVM or something else to convert C++ to a kind of UnrealScript IL, or is it compiling to a native lib?
ClovingWestbrook
Banned
Shadow, maybe I'm mistaken but aren't you currently in school for game design?
Stallion Free
Cock Encumbered
You should email Epic and let them know so they can stop wasting their time.
BigTnaples
Todd Howard's Secret GAF Account
Can't wait for all the ignorance in this thread to be washed away violently when the first true next gen UE4 games are shown..
Can't tell the difference my ass.
Can't tell the difference my ass.
ClovingWestbrook
Banned
I'm really excited.
iamshadowlark
Banned
Not game design but Compsci. I do want to get into game programming though.
DragonKnight
Member
This is NeoGAF dude. There are some big differences but I feel that Epic may have hyping it up a little bit too much. But will wait to see in motion.
iamshadowlark
Banned
You work for Epic right?
ClovingWestbrook
Banned
I wish I had te edication and underatanding of game design, etc since it'd be easier to understand what you and others in this thread are so excited about, though I definitely like the improved texture and lighting that i see.
Lol wow. As someone who played god of war 3 you are confusing good art and technique with actual graphic ability. This isnt some high end game demo its a tech demo. Meaning art and design really arent the focus, only engine features and ability.
ClovingWestbrook
Banned
Yea. One thing that annoyed be greatly with GoW 3 was the textures. From the pics in the OP it seems that improved textures will be one of the best features of next gen.
DragonKnight
Member
Yep. Like I get that at first glance it doesn't look too crazy but when you understand what's actually going on under the hood it's likely a different story. I've never been a huge graphic whore though so what do I know
iamshadowlark
Banned
Its just nice to see so many things that previously would take 2 or 3 seconds to render being done in real time. Shows alot of good progress.
Cmd. Pishad'aç;38112222 said:
I tend to agree. Epic has shown more. More polygons with tesselation. More particles with GPU based particles. More lights with deferred rendering. However, for all that more, there is only a few things different. The dynamic GI might be different but it looks like it is only for diffuse surfaces. If you had raytraced materials (1-2 bounce) APU/GPU accelerated in real time that would be different even if they were super expensive and you could only use them sparingly. If you had an integrated fluid engine that would be different. Face capture pipeline. Muscle system for characters (or even pose based deformation). These things are different in that we have only caught glimpses of them in current games. Putting that all together would make it clearly next gen.
I do agree that productivity enhancements are part of next gen and that is an element that Epic will probably also promote.
We just have to wait for the video. I do think that Crytek will be able to beat it. Nothing in the screenshots looks like it is so far ahead that it cannot be replicated by other companies. If anything Epic is catching up to Crytek with this release. They need to leverage their tight integration and iteration if this is the limit of their graphics improvements.
Even at this stage, I doubt UE4 will be ready for next gen launch. This is the same razzle dazzle technique that UE3 had but in the end UE3 was delayed way past Gen3 launch.
If anyone is interested on techy part, Siggraph 2012 paper on Elemental demo is up:
SIGGRAPH 2012: The Technology Behind the "Unreal Engine 4 Elemental Demo"
SIGGRAPH 2012: The Technology Behind the "Unreal Engine 4 Elemental Demo"
bgassassin
Member
Thanks.
Quick initial comments.
I guess FXAA is going to be heavily relied on in at least early UE4-based games. And I think this has more evidence 720p is going to be heavily targeted early on as well.
And what is "1080p @ 90%"? 90% of the demo is real-time at 1080p? Or it was all real-time, but at 1080p 90% of the time?
Can't wait to play with this engine but has there been any word on improving the current landscape system and maybe adding in some sort of road creation system? Or at least improving Spline Loft Actors so they can receive shadows and collide 
Hopefully the foliage system will also gets a big bump in functionality to put it on par with Cry Engine.
Hopefully the foliage system will also gets a big bump in functionality to put it on par with Cry Engine.
The foliage system was upgraded in the last year or so in UDK, but road support seems to be some sort of sore spot, with threads being locked on the UDK forums for people asking about it due to discussion of anything relating to other engines being banned.Can't wait to play with this engine but has there been any word on improving the current landscape system and maybe adding in some sort of road creation system? Or at least improving Spline Loft Actors so they can receive shadows and collide
Hopefully the foliage system will also gets a big bump in functionality to put it on par with Cry Engine.
As far as I know your best option is to create roads in specialized modeling tools and just import them as giant meshes. Or something like that.
I'm sad to hear about the dynamic light thing, if that means that CryEngine3 will support a ton of dynamic lights and UE4 will not. I just want good, efficient dynamic lighting and shadows, for free, working on old hardware. Oh, and a pony would be nice too.