Support NeoGAF

[MrBud360]

This is actually all running in the Unreal 4 editor. Impressive. You can change everything, realtime.

 

[pottuvoi]

This is actually all running in the Unreal 4 editor. Impressive. You can change everything, realtime.

Any information about the renderer? (IE. did they go REYES or something funky?)

 

[muu]

This reminds me of Crysis2's most graphically intensive concrete blocks ever.

Wasn't there a recent tech demo that consisted of just a bunch of dolls in a studio? And everyone said, "what's so special about that?" I don't think most gamers can honestly tell the difference between baked lighting and real time stuff unless you go out of your way to overemphasize it, like in the Samaritan demo.

The lighting and particle effects are supposed to be the impressive parts of this demo, but we obviously can't judge either from screen caps, though the particles around the demon's eyes do look impressive.

The Radeon 7900 demo is what I think you're talking about, or are you talking about something else?

I agree w/ what you're saying, though. Epic could have made Samaritan w/o the supposed new tech and probably would have gotten the same kind of responses it's received -- 99% of people aren't impressed w/ the technology, but just the exciting presentation.

 

[Ahasverus]

Still has the UE3 vaseline look. However geometry is really nice.
Can't wait for Cry Engine next gen demo, then I'll be impressed.

 

[RoboPlato]

This looks a lot nicer to me than UE3. Samaritan was a cooler concept but it still showed a lot of the "UE3 look". Everything in this seems to come together very nicely and avoids a lot of what contributed to that. It blends a lot better. Reminds me a lot of CryEngine 3 DX11 (that's a compliment, not trolling. I love the way that engine looks.)

 

[Thunder Monkey]

Samaritan, I get.

Gears 3? C'mon now.

What do you see in these screens that I don't? Higher res textures are there, higher poly models. A static image of their particle system shows distinct improvement. But the particles in the air aren't any more impressive than those seen in Skyward Sword. We've seen larger environments then that. We've definitely seen higher res normals on environmental props. The clutter on the ground doesn't look much more involved than Uncharted. The shadows in these screens are higher precision.

The vast majority of improvements can't be seen in a static screen. This is a problem for them unless the differences are much more pronounced in action.

 

[TriGen]

Am I the only one to think it doesn't make "Samaritan demo" looks like crap ?
I even find that Samaritan looks better...

I feel the same way, but I'll wait to see it in action before I say anything overly critical. In the article does it ever mention E3, or does it just say June which implies E3?

 

[les papillons sexuels]

one of the ugliest trends in gaming graphics, random massive spot of colour. It's like you've just finished staring at the sun for 10 minutes then started playing a videogame. Do not want.

The detail is astounding though.

 

[alexandros]

When Epic transitioned from UE2 to UE3, you didn't need to see it in motion to tell the difference. It only took one screenshot to let you know that it was a massive visual leap.

 

[Portugeezer]

Looks great. Don't know what some people were expecting.

 

[subversus]

I'm pretty sure the current CE3 SDK doesn't allow for native MSAA.

They have DX11 version now.

 

[Boss Doggie]

In order to show the potential of the new engine I'm going to use a generic, uninspired, bland grimdark knight.

You'd think they'd use something colorful, vibrant without being too sharp to the eyes and not limit to the overused dark overlord dude. =/

 

[adamma666]

we have come a long way. looks great imo!

 

[Live Free or Die]

Doesnt look any different than UE3. Looks just like gears to me. :-/

 

[Limanima]

$100 games confirmed.

 

[Dictator93]

So basically epic caught up with Crytek in engine development features? SO far all the mentioned features are capable in CE3.

Interesting, but knowing them and the hype train surround unreal engines, what they produce will be ubiquitous and marketable unlike CE3 which has not advertised as well IMO.

 

[ClovingWestbrook]

Does anyone have pics of when UE3 was demoed? Back in the beginning of this gen? I'd like to see just how much the developers have pushed it.

 

[Vulcano's assistant]

The particles coming from the demon's eyes look very impressive, CG-like even. But the demon itself doesn't look like somthing that UE3 could not do.

edit:

btw, if the snow uses the same tech we see in the eyes (which probably does), then it is going to be very impressive in motion.

 

[RooMHM]

This is actually all running in the Unreal 4 editor. Impressive. You can change everything, realtime.

CE3 does this for a year already? or so...

 

[subversus]

CE3 does this for a year already? or so...

yeah, I don't get what made him excited. Mark Rein and his team are good at selling and hyping, that is all.

They weren't able to get much military and big corp deals like Crytek did. At least I haven't heard about them.

 

[REMEMBER CITADEL]

When Epic transitioned from UE2 to UE3, you didn't need to see it in motion to tell the difference. It only took one screenshot to let you know that it was a massive visual leap.

At that point UE2 didn't have nearly as much time to evolve as UE3 did since it was introduced. UE2 could still produce comparable visuals in its evolved state (think BioShock, Splinter Cell: Conviction etc.).

 

[2+2=5]

I don't know what I expected to see but I expected more.

Exactly what i was thinking.

 

[Blizzard]

$100 games confirmed.

It's actually in Epic's interest to make this not happen, since they are trying to create middleware that is industry standard, easy to use, with very efficient pipelines. It's what they are arguing (though presumably exaggerated) about creating a game in one year instead of two.

If tools advance enough, high visual quality games might become easier to create. Creating interesting gameplay etc. to go along with it is another story, of course.

 

[Snkfanatic]

one of the ugliest trends in gaming graphics, random massive spot of colour. It's like you've just finished staring at the sun for 10 minutes then started playing a videogame. Do not want.

The detail is astounding though.

Really? Cause I think it looks great imo

 

[Vulcano's assistant]

Really? Cause I think it looks great imo

I love them.

 

[StoppedInTracks]

UE4 demon doesn't look so hot now, does it?

 

[Boss Man]

Some of it looks Crysis impressive, some of it looks this-gen.

It looks like this may be a big "in motion" upgrade though, which is what a lot of people have been saying for a while. There seems to be a lot going on in the pics, and I bet it will look significantly better and decidedly next-gen in motion.

 

[Vanillalite]

Best part of those pics are similar to the best parts IMO of the Zelda demo. Those random particle effect deals look really great, and we don't really see those in current games.

You have that ball of particle effects thing in the UE4 shot on the right hand side. That just immediately stood out to me. It's similar to the particle effects we saw in the Wii-U Zelda demo of Navi floating around Link's head during the night time version.

I think that might just be personal inclination to liking that sort of graphical effect and style though. Doesn't happen much on current Gen stuff because it's extra power for something that's not that critical to the design and those particle effects aren't easy to pull off despite their look.

 

[blazinglazers]

The particles coming from the demon's eyes look very impressive, CG-like even. But the demon itself doesn't look like somthing that UE3 could not do.

btw, if the snow uses the same tech we see in the eyes (which probably does), then it is going to be very impressive in motion.

Yeah, the particles are what's wowing me. I think when we see this in motion it's going to look insane. Having these kinds of dynamic simulations in high fidelity with motion blur, depth of field, and all the bells & whistles will be shocking. It's doing all of the extra shine that'd previously defined the line between what's real-time or cgi this gen.

Samaritan looked like an (awesomely) incremental upgrade, bringing together features we'd already seen. This will be something else entirely.

Super excited to see the video!

 

[jump_button]

one of the ugliest trends in gaming graphics, random massive spot of colour. It's like you've just finished staring at the sun for 10 minutes then started playing a videogame. Do not want.

The detail is astounding though.

Its Unreal that what they do it would be nice to see something more real but no

 

[Phonomezer]

Just makes me want Darksiders 3 using UE4 tbh.

 

[Meccanical]

I'm not really that impressed...

 

[Patapwn]

The demon pictures are strait up shit. Setting my eyes on the first picture was like running into an oncoming semi. Mountains look like mountains though, so the art team gets an F+

 

[Thunder Monkey]

I'm not really that impressed...

In motion it might be very impressive. I'm not biting my tongue waiting to see, but I'll give them that much.

As of now... I'm kind of giggling at those that think we need a huge tech increase.

 

[Boss Man]

I expect there to be a huge gif circle-jerking thread where people really get excited about this. Next gen is going to be about motion, physics, and particles.

I'm recalling Killzone 2. I remember people seeing the first screenshot of that game and thinking it was a joke- like they took a pic of a pic in the game, precisely. Then we saw the game in motion and there were threads filled with insane gifs for two years. Coincidentally, that was the first time since Gears of War that people really started to feel like graphics were going somewhere. A lot of people have been expecting this type of evolution for next-gen. I'm excited to see it. The bad news is that this sort of thing seems like it would drag framerate down. We're probably going to keep seeing devs shooting for locked 30 fps.

I think it's going to look like current-gen CG in motion. Which, interestingly, seems to be about what happens in each transition.

 

[Dylan]

Those screens are from Too Human 2.

 

[abunai]

Doesnt look any different than UE3. Looks just like gears to me. :-/

I think you need to clean your glasses, I'm afraid. Or get some.

Looks heavy on the tesselation and bokeh, seems like a more refined version of tech we've seen. I'm really liking the lighting though.

 

[JonCha]

Zelda. Running Unreal Engine 4.

 

[∀ Narayan]

I think it looks good. Dynamic lighting is probably something that's displayed a lot better in motion, however.

Those screens are from Too Human 2.

That would be nice.

 

[Tiktaalik]

$100 games confirmed.

Well actually the article discusses a lot of ways in which this tech will dramatically reduce the price of games.

In the past, game developers employed a trick known as staged lighting to give the impression that light in a game was behaving as it would in the real world. That meant a lot of pre-rendering—programming hundreds of light sources into an environment that would then be turned on or off depending on in-game events. If a building collapsed in a given scene, all the light effects that had been employed to make it look like a real interior would remain in place over empty space. Shadows would remain in the absence of structure; glares that once resulted from sunlight glinting off windows would remain floating in midair. To avoid this, designers programmed the light to look realistic in any of that scene’s possible situations—one situation at a time. “You would have to manually sculpt the lighting in every section of every level,” Bleszinski says. “The number of man-years that required was astounding.” UE4 introduces dynamic lighting, which behaves in response to its own inherent properties rather than a set of preprogrammed effects. In other words, no more faking it. Every light in a scene bounces off every surface, creating accurate reflections. Colors mix, translucent materials glow, and objects viewed through water refract. And it’s all being handled on the fly, as it happens. That’s not realistic—that’s real.

Realistic lighting means that they'll be able to put down lights once, and no matter how much they deform the environment, they won't have to change anything. That'll result in an insane amount of savings.

 

[elcapitan]

I expect there to be a huge gif circle-jerking thread where people really get excited about this. Next gen is going to be about motion, physics, and particles.

I'm recalling Killzone 2. I remember people seeing the first screenshot of that game and thinking it was a joke- like they took a pic of a pic in the game, precisely. Then we saw the game in motion and there were threads filled with insane gifs for two years. Coincidentally, that was the first time since Gears of War that people really started to feel like graphics were going somewhere. A lot of people have been expecting this type of evolution for next-gen. I'm excited to see it. The bad news is that this sort of thing seems like it would drag framerate down. We're probably going to keep seeing devs shooting for locked 30 fps.

Bring on the gifs. We're reaching the point of diminishing returns for screenshots.

It seems like all the cool stuff is under the hood for UE4.

 

[deadlast]

This got me all steamy -

After the cinematic, Epic’s senior technical artist, Alan Willard, starts playing the demo. At this point the view switches to that disembodied first-person perspective made so ubiquitous by shooting games like the Call of Duty franchise and Epic’s own influential Unreal titles. Willard maneuvers his avatar into a dimly lit room where a flashlight turns on, revealing eddies of dust—thousands of floating particles that were invisible until exposed. In another room, globes of various sizes float in the air. Willard rolls a light-emanating orb along the floor (think of a spherical flashlight that rolls like a bowling ball) and beams of light wobble and change direction, illuminating parts of the room and revealing the clusters of floating spheres with a kind of strobe effect. At first it all seems perfectly familiar: “Well, yeah,” you think, “that’s how they’d act in the real world. What’s the big deal?” But it is a big deal: This is stuff that videogames have never been able to simulate—the effects simply aren’t possible on today’s consoles.

 

[LittleJohnny]

What's important in an engine is not at the surface, I mean if it takes 12 times the effort/man power to achieve this with older engines, then UE4 is doing it's job.

It's getting harder and harder to show improvements, even if behind the scenes the amount improvement is dramatic. It's going to take time before even Epic can show what the engine is capable of.

What we're supposed to be seeing here which cannot be captured in screenshots is the way the lighting behaves and the particles revealed as you move, etc. stuff that we haven't seen before in videogames is what's being described.

The changes in visual fidelity that most people are expecting in terms of texturing however, I don't see it happening until we move to ray tracing.

 

[tkscz]

Zelda. Running Unreal Engine 4.

No, no making gaf cum in their pants.

 

[op_ivy]

This got me all steamy -

yup. i finally read the wall of text and the "gameplay" is what i'm most excited in seeing in motion.

 

[Vanillalite]

Seems everyone basically agrees. Everything I've seen from "next generation" stuff has all been impressive from a particle stand point. That's been the standout graphical feature in the Zelda demo, and that's the stand out feature in this UE4 stuff.

The models and textures and stuff haven't really been anything that has blown anyone away yet though. This especially goes for the textures.

 

[Boss Man]

I'm very optimistic. I think once we see this in motion we'll all be a lot more impressed than we could have expected to be.

I also think that this particular type of progress will be a lot easier for developers to handle- and we'll see a lot of games that developers were able to spend more time on polishing than trying to make it work. In hindsight, I think this might even be a cyclical thing.

Fifth Generation (PS1, N64)- 3D games, a whole new ballpark. Some games need to change completely. Lots of learning.

Sixth Generation (PS2, Xbox, GC)- Much better 3D games, looks like fifth gen CG or better. Very creative generation, great games.

Seventh Generation (PS3, 360)- HD games, a whole new ballpark. Some games need to change completely. Lots of learning.

Eighth Generation (PS4, Xbox)- Much better HD games, looks like seventh gen CG or better. Very creative generation, great games.


Is there possibly something to this?



It lends a slightly different perspective to this:

UE4 demon doesn't look so hot now, does it?

 

[mdtauk]

"It comes down to deciding if they are only using the "flexible" engine to develop samey titles with a 'popular' aesthetic, or if perhaps the engine is restricting what they can do, or perhaps it is just a coincidence."


I'm curious as to how you think they would be "restricted" by the engine with regards to art style? For example, what do you think Valve did with TF2 to get its look that isn't possible in UE3?



"Portal 2"

Portal 2 looks pretty much identical to Half-life's aesthetic (it's a spin off, story wise, so this is a given), which is the "realistic" look you claim to be tired of.

I was contrasting Portal 2 which has a realistic sci-fi look, compared to Team Fortress 2 which is obviously not the same look.

I am not saying I believe that UE3 can not do an a-typical aesthetic, only that I don't see any examples of it with UE3 games, or the demonstrations that Epic put out there. Do we know who is responsible for how generic all UE games tend to look compared to other UE games. An aesthetic that Epic always seem to use for their demonstrations.

 

[clutch.as.it.gets.]

Doesn't look that impressive to me to be honest. I´m expected more.

 

[LittleJohnny]

UE4 demon doesn't look so hot now, does it?

Considering that he's on FIRE, I don't think he can get any hotter


We know UE4 is capable of SSSS. Once Epic updates that model and adds skin that looks like this:

Then we'll see ;-)