Ninja Theory sets a new benchmark in video game animation

Cloud-Strife · Dec 14, 2019

takriel said:
Well, this looked better animation-wise than TLoU 2.

The Hellblade 2 sequence is actually impresive and the face animations are incredible.. but I'm talking about cutscenes and gameplay. If we talk about animations on every part of the game ND is still better for me. Also TLOU2 is running on PS4 so we still need to wait to see what they can do on PS5.

StudioTan · Dec 14, 2019

Master Alucard said:
to be honest death stranding faces looks better to me

As great as that game looks there's no comparison with this, come on.

Everything from the lighting to the character model to the texturing to the animation is on a while different level.

No one is saying no one will be able to match this next gen, we're just talking about what has been shown compared to what we have now on boxes that are WAY less powerful.

Master Alucard · Dec 14, 2019

okay you got a point, maybe my memories of the first ds trailers were wrong
the second gif is still big uncanny to me tho lol

StudioTan · Dec 14, 2019

Master Alucard said:
okay you got a point, maybe my memories of the first ds trailers were wrong
the second gif is still big uncanny to me tho lol

That's the way it always is. Heavenly Sword looked amazing at the time at the time and seeing someone post the gifs now and it looks like crap lol.

VideogameVices · Dec 14, 2019

Garlador said:
Gamespot confirmed it's running in real time.

you can run real time visuals at a higher fidelity without game AI and misc aspects of game engine running.

Master Alucard said:
to be honest death stranding faces looks better to me

Sorry but DS isnt a great looking game. I didnt find the faces good nor the engine for rendering it good either. It always had that sheen of a CG character look. But that is IN engine.

This is a cutscene. So its not a 1:1 comparison.

* to be fair to DS; the lighting is 99% grey overcast days with nil shadows so it will always just look flat.

Shpeshal Nick · Dec 14, 2019

Blade Wolf said:
Daily Reminder:

THIS

NEVER

HAPPENED.

and the final game is far from 60FPS

Exactly.

I can't believe it's 2019 and we're still falling for this stuff

Yearsoflurking · Dec 14, 2019

Blade Wolf said:
Daily Reminder:

THIS

NEVER

HAPPENED.

and the final game is far from 60FPS

This is a ninja theory thread not naughty dog I'm confused by this post

Crossing Eden · Dec 14, 2019

Master Alucard said:
the second gif gives me big uncanny vibes, even more if you watch it frame by frame

Animation isn't meant to be watched frame by frame and even then the stuff they're doing with the model is crazy good.

Crossing Eden · Dec 14, 2019

lowhighkang_LHK said:
To be honest it looked like just real footage for the face close ups.

Didn't they do that often in the first Hellblade. Just use real footage with heavy post processing.

Senua was never live action in Hellblade, every other character was though.

Sub Boss · Dec 14, 2019

takriel said:
Well, this looked better animation-wise than TLoU 2.

Xbox Series X > PS4

Its amazing what those little Jaguars can do when pushed hard enough

Barnabas Reynolds · Dec 14, 2019

I can't stop watching the trailer. Even the way Senua's tongue moves is impressive. The movement in her upper chest and throat area when she's breathing heavily seems OTT to me, but I've never looked closely at someone as they're doing that either. Whatever the case, it's impressive stuff and so much more lifelike than anything I've ever seen in RT rendering.

lowhighkang_LHK · Dec 14, 2019

StudioTan said:
As great as that game looks there's no comparison with this, come on.

Everything from the lighting to the character model to the texturing to the animation is on a while different level.

No one is saying no one will be able to match this next gen, we're just talking about what has been shown compared to what we have now on boxes that are WAY less powerful.

Yeah that looks so good I literally thought it was just video footage of her.

On a tangent, RE Engine is gonna kill it next gen.

Adamska · Dec 14, 2019

lowhighkang_LHK said:
To be honest it looked like just real footage for the face close ups.

Didn't they do that often in the first Hellblade. Just use real footage with heavy post processing.

Hellblade has no "live-footage" whatsoever. It's all rendered in real time. Only the Switch version falls back on using pre-rendered video for some cutscenes.

ArcLyte · Dec 14, 2019

The trailer is pre-rendered by some contracted animation house like Blur Studio or the like

Barnabas Reynolds · Dec 14, 2019

ArcLyte said:
The trailer is pre-rendered by some contracted animation house like Blur Studio or the like

" Footage for this trailer was captured entirely in engine."

KORNdog · Dec 14, 2019

I just hope it's all completely legit. Because it bodes well for next gen facial capture fidelity. Roll on next gen!

Alienous · Dec 14, 2019

They didn't set a benchmark, like the above didn't set a benchmark. It's a demonstration of technology isolated (presumably) from the constraints of actually making a game. 'In-engine' doesn't mean much at all.

Mr_Zombie · Dec 14, 2019

Adamska said:
Hellblade has no "live-footage" whatsoever. It's all rendered in real time. Only the Switch version falls back on using pre-rendered video for some cutscenes.

It did have. Every human character other than Senua (Dellion, Druh), that appears "in the background", is a live footage. Senua is the only human character that is rendered in real time during the game.

Adamska · Dec 14, 2019

Mr_Zombie said:
It did have. Every human character other than Senua (Dellion, Druh), that appears "in the background", is a live footage. Senua is the only human character that is rendered in real time during the game.

Oh, I did not recall those interstitials. I did remember correctly that Senua isn't once depicted through live footage.

xinoart · Dec 14, 2019

Crossing Eden said:
That seems like bias more than anything. Nothing in the the market matches this video ATM. DS technically doesn't even look as good as the original reveal trailer when you compare that scene to the final game and how the complexity of Notman Teedus's model was reduced.

Did you really just say someone was biased and use the idiotic term "Notman Teedus" for Norman Reedus? I hope that was auto-correct or your reply is nullified full stop.

Firefly · Dec 15, 2019

VideogameVices said:
you can run real time visuals at a higher fidelity without game AI and misc aspects of game engine running.

This doesn't matter for cut scenes.

Firefly · Dec 15, 2019

Krejlooc said:
When people earlier this generation were like, "video games can't look any better" I would always laugh. I got to see the machines the Houston Rockets use for their promotions a while back, and they showed me this model of James Harden they use for their promos. I learned that many of the "videos" they show on the giant screen at games aren't actually videos, they're 3D models with insane animations. They are, without hyperbole, photorealistic models, well beyond the uncanney valley, that are essentially indistinguishable from actual, real video. It blew my damn mind. And we could preview them in real time. These were running on super computers, computers with like 10 GPUs inside, doing crazy raytracing, that were the size of refrigerators. But the point still remained -- there is so much room for growth as technology increases.

This is interesting. But why would they go through all this trouble in the first place? Can't get players to do a few seconds promo?

Pryme · Dec 15, 2019

Cloud-Strife said:
Also TLOU2 is running on PS4 so we still need to wait to see what they can do on PS5.

And all this is immaterial. The premise for the thread is that for now, NT is setting a benchmark. I doubt anyone is saying that benchmark can't be surpassed when ND - or any other player - shows their next gen efforts.

Deleted member 12790 · Dec 15, 2019

Firefly said:
This is interesting. But why would they go through all this trouble in the first place? Can't get players to do a few seconds promo?

They can do things like change the promo per game, or do crazy camera angles that would be pretty challenging and time consuming if they filmed it conventionally.

Tatsu91 · Dec 15, 2019

Aostia82 said:
Mmm.. It's a next gen video
I would at least wait for gameplay and other next-gen games to be honest

With the fidelity the first game had I am more than a believer it's still one of the most impressive games for me thats been released.

G-X · Dec 15, 2019

Not only do we know it's in engine, which really just means it's running in unreal on a PC spec around the Xbox Series X, but as someone using Quixel`s library of photogrametry and more and more AAA games use them, those wide panning environment shots definitely looked they were built with the help with Quixel or maybe Adobe Substance, but with Quixel being Epic`s newest acquisition and its butter smooth integration into other tools that's where I'd wager they went for megascan/photogrametry assets

Sorry to distract the bickering, continue arguing about how we shouldn't be talking about 1 of the 2 officially shown next gen games so far and sot on our hands until spring.

Lionheart · Dec 15, 2019

I hope its real because I want next gen to look this good but nah, not believing until i see in game. In engine is useless.

nbnt · Dec 15, 2019

Y'all keep falling for this every damn gen. This is not how the game is going to look, and that's ok, everyone does it with each new gen. It's an extra polished piece to show what's possible in their engine, but I don't believe for a second that the game is going to look this good.

Would love to be proven wrong, but history taught me not to fall for this again and again and again.

StudioTan · Dec 15, 2019

G-X said:
Not only do we know it's in engine, which really just means it's running in unreal on a PC spec around the Xbox Series X, but as someone using Quixel`s library of photogrametry and more and more AAA games use them, those wide panning environment shots definitely looked they were built with the help with Quixel or maybe Adobe Substance, but with Quixel being Epic`s newest acquisition and its butter smooth integration into other tools that's where I'd wager they went for megascan/photogrametry assets

Sorry to distract the bickering, continue arguing about how we shouldn't be talking about 1 of the 2 officially shown next gen games so far and sot on our hands until spring.

I've been playing with the megascans library in Unreal for the past couple of weeks and it's the first think I thought of as well. You can build environments like this pretty quickly using those assets. There's a lot of custom stuff in the video obviously but for the basic environments you can get a great starting point from those.

Command & Conker · Dec 15, 2019

I've been hurt too many times. I want to believe it'll look this good, but you know downgrades from previews are almost guaranteed.

ObbyDent · Dec 15, 2019

ArcLyte said:
The trailer is pre-rendered by some contracted animation house like Blur Studio or the like

are you blind

christocolus · Dec 15, 2019

ObbyDent said:
are you blind

Lol.

Ukumio · Dec 15, 2019

ArcLyte said:
The trailer is pre-rendered by some contracted animation house like Blur Studio or the like

It's already been confirmed this was not only running in-engine (on a Series X or hardware representative of the the power of the Series X) but in real time as well. Will gameplay look this good? Probably not, but cutscenes wouldn't be far off. And as with most generations, the graphic fidelity of games only improves as time goes on.

I'm not sure if you're trying to troll, but just by reading the OP and threadmarks you would have learnt you were wrong.

Super Havoc · Dec 15, 2019

I love how some are trying so hard to downplay this greatness. : )

Ukumio · Dec 15, 2019

Super Havoc said:
I love how some are trying so hard to downplay this greatness. : )

I'm not entirely sure why, Playstation 5 will have similar hardware (and the power difference will be much less than the Xbox One and PS4) so its entirely within reason that games could look very similar on PS5 hardware.

I'd argue that the reason this looks so good, compared to Godfall for example, is because its made by a first party studio who has possibly had more time with the hardware specs than third party studios. And even then you have to consider respective artstyles as Godfall looks to be going for a more fantastical artstyle Hellblade has a more grounded/realistic artstyle.

I'd say its entirely possible that we will see games that challenge Hellblade 2's graphical fidelity within a year after both console's launch, if not before. That's not to downplay how amazing Hellblade 2's trailer looks, but as I said before, games only get better looking as each generation goes on.

Superking · Dec 15, 2019

that looks really nice, but it's....a cutscene?

Crossing Eden · Dec 15, 2019

xinoart said:
Did you really just say someone was biased and use the idiotic term "Notman Teedus" for Norman Reedus? I hope that was auto-correct or your reply is nullified full stop.

Phone doesn't autocorrect.

Nooblet · Dec 15, 2019

People seem to be comparing the (intentionally) exxaggerated and aggressive animation in the trailer to subtle animations seen elsewhere and using it as a means of how "advanced" it is and how much worse the others are, that's not really very ingenious comparison.

Also shading and texture work =/= animation. This being a next gen product is obviously going to have superior shading, lighting and modelling. But that doesn't mean it's automatically above any beyond any animations seen so far. The TLoU2 and Death Stranding stuff are pretty damn on par.

Hoo-doo · Dec 15, 2019

Alienous said:
They didn't set a benchmark, like the above didn't set a benchmark. It's a demonstration of technology isolated (presumably) from the constraints of actually making a game. 'In-engine' doesn't mean much at all.

Every gen people fall for this shit though. As if 'in-engine' means anything.

Dreams-Visions · Dec 15, 2019

nbnt said:
Y'all keep falling for this every damn gen. This is not how the game is going to look, and that's ok, everyone does it with each new gen. It's an extra polished piece to show what's possible in their engine, but I don't believe for a second that the game is going to look this good.

Would love to be proven wrong, but history taught me not to fall for this again and again and again.

So many posters, on every page, reminding us that they have not played Hellblade. It's amazing, the boldness. Go play Hellblade now. Report back on what Ninja Theory can and can't do.

Shpeshal Ed said:
Exactly.

I can't believe it's 2019 and we're still falling for this stuff

hey you. Go play Hellblade. Report back.

ArcLyte said:
The trailer is pre-rendered by some contracted animation house like Blur Studio or the like

I mean how many pages in are we? And still getting posts like this.

Betty · Dec 15, 2019

Dreams-Visions said:
I mean how many pages in are we? And still getting posts like this.

It's a compliment if people don't believe it's real time or actually in engine.

When more Xbox games are shown off to have similar graphical quality then doubters will be silenced.

NLCPRESIDENT · Dec 15, 2019

Dreams-Visions said:
So many posters, on every page, reminding us that they have not played Hellblade. It's amazing, the boldness. Go play Hellblade now. Report back on what Ninja Theory can and can't do.

hey you. Go play Hellblade. Report back.

I mean how many pages in are we? And still getting posts like this.

I bought it day 1 on PS4. Played it with dope headphones on (like you should). And were very impressed with the audio and visuals...

let's just say Hellblade 2 reveal did nothing for me.
The first game had some decent puzzles but the combat left a lot to be desired. I think this was the first time a games presentation carried a game for me instead of the core gameplay.. plus I think people were swept up by what the game meant and it's message rather than it's content.

I've always looked at it as an experience more than anything else. I played it. I enjoyed it (At least most of it). But as a person who suffers from mental illness I am not looking to jump into that right away.

as for setting a benchmark in graphics, I disagree as it doesn't look better than TLOU2 which we've seen gameplay for.

VideogameVices · Dec 15, 2019

Firefly said:
This doesn't matter for cut scenes.

exactly. which is why the visual fidelity can be higher.

Crossing Eden · Dec 15, 2019

NLCPRESIDENT said:
I bought it day 1 on PS4. Played it with dope headphones on (like you should). And were very impressed with the audio and visuals...

let's just say Hellblade 2 reveal did nothing for me.
The first game had some decent puzzles but the combat left a lot to be desired. I think this was the first time a games presentation carried a game for me instead of the core gameplay.. plus I think people were swept up by what the game meant and it's message rather than it's content.

I've always looked at it as an experience more than anything else. I played it. I enjoyed it (At least most of it). But as a person who suffers from mental illness I am not looking to jump into that right away.

as for setting a benchmark in graphics, I disagree as it doesn't look better than TLOU2 which we've seen gameplay for.

It's a very far step up from TLOU2. Which won't even match its initial reveal trailer.

RLCC14 · Dec 15, 2019

Now if only they could make good playing games

NLCPRESIDENT · Dec 15, 2019

Crossing Eden said:
It's a very far step up from TLOU2. Which won't even match its initial reveal trailer.

I doubt it. I know the kind of experience Hellblade is. And TLOU2 is far more attractive of a game. Those facial animations of one lady compared to every living entity in the last of us 2 is just more impressive and THE game to beat graphically. :p

This is insane.

Crossing Eden · Dec 15, 2019

NLCPRESIDENT said:
I doubt it. I know the kind of experience Hellblade is. And TLOU2 is far more attractive of a game. Those facial animations of one lady compared to every living entity in the last of us 2 is just more impressive and THE game to beat graphically. :p

This is insane.

The fact that they honed in one character and the fact that it doesn't have to run on 2013 hardware is the reason why it's way more impressive. TLOU2 simply doesn't look like this:

Theorry · Dec 15, 2019

You guys always need to create a Versus thing with everything.

Crossing Eden · Dec 15, 2019

Theorry said:
You guys always need to create a Versus thing with everything.

I think it's because we can't praise a single studio without people bringing up ND and saying things like "Yea it's meh/good but doesn't match ND." You'd think UC4 looked like the reveal trailer based on how consistently people downplay the accomp[lishments of other studios.

NLCPRESIDENT · Dec 15, 2019

Crossing Eden said:
I think it's because we can't praise a single studio without people bringing up ND and saying things like "Yea it's meh/good but doesn't match ND." You'd think UC4 looked like the reveal trailer based on how consistently people downplay the accomp[lishments of other studios.

Hellblade 2 looks insane as well. Unbelievably so, that's the problem. Nobody is downplaying Hellblade or NT. We both know this this benchmark statement was prematurely made just like that first Uncharted 4 reveal trailer.

That Hellblade 2 doesn't even look like a game it looks so real, but it's too early to say if the whole game will look that way or even if it's longer than 6-7 hours like the first game.

Let's just wait for gameplay to make statements like these. And you really can't talk about graphics without ND in the picture, just the way it is.

Ninja Theory sets a new benchmark in video game animation

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