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DMC 5: New king of graphics?
- Thread starter VFX_Veteran
- Start date
Still no shadows from the flash light. I believe the pom only self shadows from the sun.What about this?
That honestly just looks like the directional shading from the normal. Self shadowing POM looks different.
A classic game with self-shadowing POM from every light source is Crysis 1 (something not even in Crysis 2 or 3 have):
Notice how the throwing of the point light caster here changes the shadows:
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Nothing mind-blowing on those screenshots, to be honest. Yeah, faces look really good like in RE2, apart from that I don't see anything special.
DMC5 is a linear action game while RDR2 is an open world sandbox.
Yeh, you can't compare the scope and technical detail of RDR2 to a game that's as linear as DMCV.
One is far easier to hit 60fps+ with for myriad reasons.
Saying this, 60fps+ IS a HUGE boost to visual fidelity, so a game at 30fps no matter how detailed is losing a massive amount of clarity in motion.
So I don't see anything wrong with suggesting a game like DMCV looks better than RDR2.
Nope. RDR2, Horizon, Uncharted, Detroit, GOW, Forza Horizon, GT Sport, Metro, The Order all look better....Among others. Assets outside the cutscene models aren't high quality and shaders are not on par with the best
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For 60fps games screenshots don't do it justice always need to see it in motion compared to a 30fps game in motion and more true to how it will look while playing yourself
That's why we need (hybrid) raytracing.
Screen-space reflections are just ugly when the illusion breaks (as it does too often).
Real talk.
It's okay to like DMC 5's look, but its environments are not on Metro's level. You wanted a "single setting"? I provided several. DMC 5 has no answer for them. Either you didn't play this on a PC maxed out, or you're just truly in the honeymoon phase of a recent release.
Metro Exodus has the best lighting of any video game released at this point, no contest.
Sucks for RDR then. DMC looks better, scope be damned.
If you want to talk about the impressiveness of accomplishment, that's another story.
OP
OP
Metro Exodus does NOT have better shaders. They get the leather right, but snowed railroad track next to bricks on the ground look the same. Metal looks the same as plastic. I could go on and on. There literally isn't that much variation between the objects materials.
I remember the big improvement in TLOU for PS4 was that they used cutscene-models in game. So I'm conflicted about playing now or waiting until the next-gen version.
In case if you didn't know, graphic assets in RDR2 between Pro and X1X version are completely the same. But yeah, only X1X is relevant, others not so. :/
Is it just me or is this game way too dark? I have the brightness turned all the way up in game and my TV but I can still barely see sometimes.
OP
OP
X1X renders in 4k thereby yielding a much better approximation to the pixels. I have both and 1X clearly stomps on PS4Pro with image quality.
I'm not talking about resolution ( of course X1X version has a higher res ), but about assets, and they are the same in both versions. Anway, why bother
Yeah, your efforts will prove futile. This is someone who has convinced themselves that this game has 'better shaders than everything other game' because...... reasons.
That was never actually true about TLOU, since cutscene models can't just be ported to gameplay easily, but for DMCV i could see them doing a next gen version with LDK mode though, but with BC & 4K/60fps on X already, it kinda seems pointless to make a next gen version.
It's subjective to a certain point, but it's undeniably a technical marvel. The DMC series has always been a showcase for graphics so I'm not surprised. I'm not too far in to it but I find Horizon more impressive. RDR did not wow me at all but Infamous Second Son did. Like I said, it's sort of subjective.
tbh I am more impressed by ps3's God of War games visually. Even if technically can't be better than DMC5.
Well the characters in DMC5 look really great only in cutscenes, but did you see them in normal gameplay? Nothing special, pretty much average with only great hair.. and environments are many times really not so great looking, from artstyle and from technical viewpoint at the same time
Metro Exodus doesn't have the best looking faces or facial animations, but they are still pretty good, even compared to bigger AAA titles and there isn't any difference in their quality in between dialog scenes and gameplay like there is in DMC5.. and of course, the environments in that game are jsut stunning
I mean, these aren't bad looking videeogame faces
Holy fucking shit .. how have I not noticed this before today .. (the fingers shaking part)
That finger strength. Now we know why Elena deals with his bullshit
Holy fucking shit .. how have I not noticed this before today .. (the fingers shaking part)
Funny you say that Digital Foundry actually compared it to FFVII Advent Children which was a real head turner back in the day and DMC 5 looks MUCH better like that and at 60fps on base consoles even. Its fucking madness.
One neat advantage that metro exodus has with ray tracing is that its ingame character models look much better than they would in other games. Cutscenes put like 5 or 6 different lights on characters with 2 usually being shadow casting. On the other hand then in gameplay there is usually just one shadow casting light and some completely inaccurate light probe driving the skin shading and the character's overall look, or sometimes not even a shadow casting light at all if they are in shadow! Then you get really poor results, like this:
But in Metro Exodus with ray tracing there is always at least 1 directional shadow casting light (the global illumination) hitting a character no matter what outdoors, and then 2 if they are in direct sun light as well. It means the already good shading is actually being driven by proper lighting information.
Not a cutscene, but gameplay, and their shading still holds up even though they are a majority in shadow:
Or the character Sam here in gameplay being completely in shadow, but still looking like a shadow casting light is hitting him due to the GI:
Well, not in cutscenes at all (where characters look really good). It is crazy below 60 fps in cutscenes on all consoles.
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One neat advantage that metro exodus has with ray tracing is that its ingame character models look much better than they would in other games. Cutscenes put like 5 or 6 different lights on characters with 2 usually being shadow casting. On the other hand then in gameplay there is usually just one shadow casting light and some completely inaccurate light probe driving the skin shading and the character's overall look, or sometimes not even a shadow casting light at all if they are in shadow! Then you get really poor results, like this:
But in Metro Exodus with ray tracing there is always at least 1 directional shadow casting light (the global illumination) hitting a character no matter what outdoors, and then 2 if they are in direct sun light as well. It means the already good shading is actually being driven by proper lighting information.
Not a cutscene, but gameplay, and their shading still holds up even though they are a majority in shadow:
Or the character Sam here in gameplay being completely in shadow, but still looking like a shadow casting light is hitting him due to the GI:
Well, not in cutscenes at all (where characters look really good). It is crazy below 60 fps in cutscenes on all consoles.
Some better Uncharted 4 character model close up gameplay shots. Standard PS4 not Pro.
These show it off really well what I mean, thanks for them (I do not have UC4 installed at the moment). Those areas in shadow have no directionality to the lighting on them beyond a generic one, hence how the skin is of all the same lighting intesnity all over it minus those parts where geometry gets closer together and are darkened by SSAO (which is also, directionless).Some better Uncharted 4 character model close up gameplay shots. Standard PS4 not Pro.
Some better Uncharted 4 character model close up gameplay shots. Standard PS4 not Pro.
I already posted this earlier:
https://www.resetera.com/threads/dmc-5-new-king-of-graphics.104140/post-18647023
I also have images where the inaccuracies in lighting can make the characters look really poor. Point, the precision shading calculations and other visual effects are paired back to allow for overhead in a player driven gameplay sequence that needs to maintain requisite framerate (30 in the case of Uncharted games). What Metro achieves is a level of fidelity parity between cutscene and gameplay that is a cut above the rest courtesy of RTX.
Given, as a player I have zero agency in cutscenes, I do not consider them to the benchmark for visual fidelity despite it running in real time, albeit a great demonstration of the visual feature set. It is also why I do not care for OP's primary assertion.
Question is, although we most likely will not be seeing full on RTX implementation in next gen console games, could game developers come with either limited RTX solutions or some work around towards attaining parity between gameplay and cutscene.
I don't think Veteran has ever liked anything from the PS4
I'm not interested in these petty debates about which AAA game 'trounces' the other when they're all so similar in quality and generally look amazing, given the constraints of real-time graphics, especially on consoles. They all still pale in comparison to real life, but as approximations, they've reached a point where you can really just appreciate them, even if the fidelity isn't 100% photorealistic.
What I will say is that, there are very few people on internet forums who have demonstrated that they OBJECTIVELY understand good material rendering/shading, and WHY it's good. It's why you'll get a bunch of people impressed with scenes that have high specularity on everything, even when it's not appropriate. Similarly, people tend to be not as impressed with scenes that prominently feature nearly lambertian materials, even when they're completely physically plausible. But none of that has anything to do with any objective metric for evaluating the quality of a render. Each material from the real world has unique properties that influence the visual appearance of electromagnetic radiation, and understanding how close developers can match the fidelity of these characteristics from the real world is a matter of understanding science, not just aesthetics.
The rendering solutions for some material characteristics are nearly imperceptible to the laymen, like the ones that represent the unique backscattered reflections that can be seen on velvet and other cloths (most people will notice the anisotropic reflections, however). Hell, I still know 3D artists who have difficulty in perceiving the difference in microfacet distribution between GGX and Multi-scatter GGX, and these people work with principled BSDF shaders for a living! I certainly don't expect the average person to look at some screenshots and pick out the difference between, say, Christensen-Burley SSS and random walked SSS, or even SSS through basic gaussian functions, for instance.
The point here is that the complexity - and subsequently, the computation load - for rendering certain materials isn't immediately obvious to most people, so it may be difficult for them to appreciate the fact that one game is more technically demanding than the other when it comes to shader quality, mainly because, to their eyes, the games look pretty similar in terms of fidelity. To me, this speaks more to the accomplishments of developers who can author materials that rely on cheap approximations than the ones who rely on complex simulations. If the consumer can't tell the difference, I'd say that's a pretty damn good approximation.
My personal opinion is that games with good enough material rendering that also run at high framerates are more impressive than the ones that don't, because you usually have to compromise one for the other. In that regard, I'd say DMC 5 is a very impressive game, from a technical perspective. The ' new king of graphics'? Well, I wouldn't go that far, but I'd say that it's more impressive than some people give it credit for. Star Citizen is probably the game that has yet to be dethroned, as its feature-set is just overwhelmingly comprehensive. Of the released games, Metro Exodus is really setting a new standard in the lighting department, even if some of the textures could be improved a bit.
Overall, I just want to see more appreciation for the technical achievements of all of these games because it's a bit surreal that this is the kind of quality that we're getting these days, and it's only going to get better. My two cents.
What I will say is that, there are very few people on internet forums who have demonstrated that they OBJECTIVELY understand good material rendering/shading, and WHY it's good. It's why you'll get a bunch of people impressed with scenes that have high specularity on everything, even when it's not appropriate. Similarly, people tend to be not as impressed with scenes that prominently feature nearly lambertian materials, even when they're completely physically plausible. But none of that has anything to do with any objective metric for evaluating the quality of a render. Each material from the real world has unique properties that influence the visual appearance of electromagnetic radiation, and understanding how close developers can match the fidelity of these characteristics from the real world is a matter of understanding science, not just aesthetics.
The rendering solutions for some material characteristics are nearly imperceptible to the laymen, like the ones that represent the unique backscattered reflections that can be seen on velvet and other cloths (most people will notice the anisotropic reflections, however). Hell, I still know 3D artists who have difficulty in perceiving the difference in microfacet distribution between GGX and Multi-scatter GGX, and these people work with principled BSDF shaders for a living! I certainly don't expect the average person to look at some screenshots and pick out the difference between, say, Christensen-Burley SSS and random walked SSS, or even SSS through basic gaussian functions, for instance.
The point here is that the complexity - and subsequently, the computation load - for rendering certain materials isn't immediately obvious to most people, so it may be difficult for them to appreciate the fact that one game is more technically demanding than the other when it comes to shader quality, mainly because, to their eyes, the games look pretty similar in terms of fidelity. To me, this speaks more to the accomplishments of developers who can author materials that rely on cheap approximations than the ones who rely on complex simulations. If the consumer can't tell the difference, I'd say that's a pretty damn good approximation.
My personal opinion is that games with good enough material rendering that also run at high framerates are more impressive than the ones that don't, because you usually have to compromise one for the other. In that regard, I'd say DMC 5 is a very impressive game, from a technical perspective. The ' new king of graphics'? Well, I wouldn't go that far, but I'd say that it's more impressive than some people give it credit for. Star Citizen is probably the game that has yet to be dethroned, as its feature-set is just overwhelmingly comprehensive. Of the released games, Metro Exodus is really setting a new standard in the lighting department, even if some of the textures could be improved a bit.
Overall, I just want to see more appreciation for the technical achievements of all of these games because it's a bit surreal that this is the kind of quality that we're getting these days, and it's only going to get better. My two cents.
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Crysis came out 12 years agoDont sleep on Shadow of the Tombraider! The jungle levels are crysis level of w
It doesn't really top stuff like Horizon: Zero Dawn or Red Dead Redemption 2 so "king" is a bit much.
It is a far better game than both of them though and it's still incredibly gorgeous and smooth so who cares?
I feel that this is a very difficult question to go on.
For starters it seems that people constantly bring up games like RDR2 and GoW as comparisons, but that just shows how nuance of a question this is.
Devil May Cry 5 is a game that takes place in relatively "small" closed in environments but tons of fast paced twitch action and many characters on screen all at a silky smooth 60fps that never falters. The game also has a zoomed out camera so you can't notice the detail (or lack there of) the textures. Though to be fair there is a photo mode of the game so you can get a better look if you want.
In contrast God of War may also be an action game, but it isn't as faced paced or versatile and the camera is quite literally over the shoulder of the protagonist th entire time. This means that more resources can be put into the graphics, but you also get to actually SEE the textures far more often than DMC5. On top of that GoW also runs in 30fps and doesn't even run in 60fps on the Pro version.
Red Dead Redemption 2 is even a stranger comparison. It is an openworld game with wide open spaces. The graphics aren't the most impressive when it comes to character models and textures (which to be fair are impressive on the own), but rather in the immense draw distance, realistic foliage, and attention to detail (horse nuts). That being said, unlike DMC5 it doesn't have industry defining twitch based action, and of course only runs at half the frame-rate.
This also doesn't even bring up things such as geometry or animation. I'm not saying you can't ever crown an objective "king of graphics" but it is rarely an easy or arguably even an achievable feat.
For starters it seems that people constantly bring up games like RDR2 and GoW as comparisons, but that just shows how nuance of a question this is.
Devil May Cry 5 is a game that takes place in relatively "small" closed in environments but tons of fast paced twitch action and many characters on screen all at a silky smooth 60fps that never falters. The game also has a zoomed out camera so you can't notice the detail (or lack there of) the textures. Though to be fair there is a photo mode of the game so you can get a better look if you want.
In contrast God of War may also be an action game, but it isn't as faced paced or versatile and the camera is quite literally over the shoulder of the protagonist th entire time. This means that more resources can be put into the graphics, but you also get to actually SEE the textures far more often than DMC5. On top of that GoW also runs in 30fps and doesn't even run in 60fps on the Pro version.
Red Dead Redemption 2 is even a stranger comparison. It is an openworld game with wide open spaces. The graphics aren't the most impressive when it comes to character models and textures (which to be fair are impressive on the own), but rather in the immense draw distance, realistic foliage, and attention to detail (horse nuts). That being said, unlike DMC5 it doesn't have industry defining twitch based action, and of course only runs at half the frame-rate.
This also doesn't even bring up things such as geometry or animation. I'm not saying you can't ever crown an objective "king of graphics" but it is rarely an easy or arguably even an achievable feat.
Reading this post reminded me of the times I listened to Jon Carmack. You simultaneously feel like you understand everything and yet feel lost. All games have so much to offer over each other crowning a king does disservice to all of them. Thank you for taking out time to write this. Great post.
Thank you for the kind words.
Carmack is definitely an inspiration to me because he is someone in the industry who really appreciates the value of efficient programming and design. Virtual simulations are cool and all, but you have a lot of computational resources at your disposal when you approach rendering solutions like stage magic. From a developer's perspective, what's important is what the user believes is happening, not what's actually happening. In the real world, a lot of the universe's complexity is pretty wasteful and inefficient. It would be a fool's errand to make that our holy grail in the field of real-time rendering for computer graphics. Rendering engineers and artists alike benefit the most when they devise solutions by thinking outside the box, and those solutions typically turn out to be the most influential over time.
This is too much of a level-headed response for this thread.
Unacceptable.