Can't wait to light and render my portfolio material with this technology soon!
You know, if ray tracing eventually becomes the standard, what's the difference between a portfolio that was rendered with Vray/Mental Ray and one that is rendered with UE4 + ray tracing?
Besides the obvious that UE4 is real time, but if employers are mostly looking for static images first, would they even be able to tell the difference?
These ray tracing demos are running on $80,000 workstations, so can't anyone just claim their Offline work is real time, just give it a lot of render power.
I would say one of the hugest things that makes this so awesome is the savings in time. Iteration cost goes way down when you dont have to wait 100s of hours for something to render out. Also time and money saved by not having to composite every shot.
Also the cost of one of those 80k machines vs the energy a huge render farm sucks up would probably add up to more savings over the years.
but when it comes to employers, the main benefit of having your stuff actually in an engine is it shows you understand the entire workflow of getting something game ready, and are competent at relevant technical skills that you would be using day to day on the job.
Can't wait to light and render my portfolio material with this technology soon!
You know, if ray tracing eventually becomes the standard, what's the difference between a portfolio that was rendered with Vray/Mental Ray and one that is rendered with UE4 + ray tracing?
Besides the obvious that UE4 is real time, but if employers are mostly looking for static images first, would they even be able to tell the difference?
These ray tracing demos are running on $80,000 workstations, so can't anyone just claim their Offline work is real time, just give it a lot of render power.
The difference is: how good your art skills are.
Even with ray tracing, you're still going to need to be a good artist, with a good sense of presentation, and the ability to demonstrate that you understand game modeling techniques (for example, good use of texture sets).
If the assets are not authored and optimised for real time, then yes, they will be able to tell the difference in an instant
It's the next gen and beyond I was mostly hinting at. But even then, it's going to be very easy going forward to scale these assets down.
Look at the current process of PC Games ported to PS4 as example. PC already uses the highest LOD's and textures. PS4 usually compares to the PC version running on medium-low settings. If next gen is another 10x leap, expect the gap to be even smaller.
If the assets are not authored and optimised for real time, then yes, they will be able to tell the difference in an instant
It's the next gen and beyond I was mostly hinting at. But even then, it's going to be very easy going forward to scale these assets down.
Look at the current process of PC Games ported to PS4 as example. PC already uses the highest LOD's and textures. PS4 usually compares to the PC version running on medium-low settings. If next gen is another 10x leap, expect the gap to be even smaller.
I have read that 5 times and have no idea what you said or why you said it. Never mind
danr said: I have read that 5 times and have no idea what you said or why you said it. Never mind
I find it frustrating sometimes why you overreact to my posts.
All I'm saying is I think the technology being used here could lend to a future where both movie and game art become highly interchangeable. It can't be just a matter of optimization, because I pointed to PC games already make use of assets that are meant to run on more powerful systems than console. But, it would be a waste of time to recreate the same games twice for PC and Console, when you can take these existing assets and scale them till they match the console playability.
It might not have to be right now we'll see the same apply directly for Movie to Game Assets, but with diminishing returns, we will reach a point anything will run with possibly a few adjustments.
Dumping a 100 million poly model straight from Zbrush might be still ridiculous for years to come. But dumping a model whose main detail is sourced from high resolution displacement/bump maps is more in the realm of believable. It's also about what the next generation of consoles targets too.
Maybe Playstation 5 will reasonably power through a lot of models today that often require multiple LODs. It's often the choice of CPU in PS4/XB1 that caused a lot of games to scale back on detail that PC has had access to for years. It would be shortsighted of MS/Sony to repeat going with low powered CPUs again when even Smartphone technology has surpassed them.
well, the exact same statements about growing movie/games convergence were said at the time the PS3 was hyped up in '06. seen some VFX-games collaboration on movie tie-ins first hand.
trying to import a highres asset built to the standards of even just that era into a current-day project seems like a surefire way to get you a meeting about best practices with a tech artist or a programmer.
danr said: I have read that 5 times and have no idea what you said or why you said it. Never mind
I find it frustrating sometimes why you overreact to my posts.
All I'm saying is I think the technology being used here could lend to a future where both movie and game art become highly interchangeable. It can't be just a matter of optimization, because I pointed to PC games already make use of assets that are meant to run on more powerful systems than console. But, it would be a waste of time to recreate the same games twice for PC and Console, when you can take these existing assets and scale them till they match the console playability.
It might not have to be right now we'll see the same apply directly for Movie to Game Assets, but with diminishing returns, we will reach a point anything will run with possibly a few adjustments.
The reason people sometimes have these reactions to your posts is because you have a habit of trying to explain things you have little or no experience with to people who have decades of professional experience with said things. To those people it is very obvious that you don't know what you're talking about despite the often condescending tone you affect as though you're trying to explain it to a simple child.
CrackRockSteady said: The reason some people get frustrated with your posts is because you have a habit of trying to explain things you have little or no experience with to people who have decades of professional experience with said things. To those people it is very obvious that you don't know what you're talking about despite the often condescending tone you affect as though you're trying to explain it to a simple child.
I must disagree with this. No where did Danr's posts mention anything about experience or offer up a rebuttal.
It's not fair one side posts evidence and the other side just gets to say "lol, whatever". It defeats the point of the discussion if everything is assumed to be black and white or just goes by authority.
Next gen is all speculation right now so there really is no wrong answer until we officially see what games do run on it. I would hope my vision of the next gen is true but if not, I'll adapt and everything goes on as normal.
Next gen is absolutely not "all speculation". People who work every day with the current generation of consoles, and worked with the last gen, and sometimes even the generation before that, can make well-informed educated guesses about what we'll see in coming years.
That comes off as arrogance. You can't make predictions about the future or by the same vein, you can make predictions about which console will sell the best.
There is definitely speculation because release dates can always be pushed back, or certain breakthroughs happen that catches everyone off guard. If PS4 for example, had launched 1 year earlier, we would be seeing completely different art made this generation because of Sony's decision to double the RAM wouldn't have existed before.
But none of this changes where I said I would appreciate better dialogue that isn't "lol whatever". There should be respect going towards everyone regardless of title.
It's arrogant to say that professional game artists with many years of experience developing console games would be on average better equipped to make predictions about how art will be created on the next generation of consoles? ok dude.
Er, hey there. Can I just point out at this point that the reason I responded with “I read that 5 times and have no idea what you said or why you said it” was because I read jordanN’s post 5 times and had no idea what he said or why he said it, and since it was in direct reply to my own post I was fully entitled to reply as such. And the adjoinder ‘never mind’ is universal-euphemism-language for ‘discussing this further will get everyone nowhere’. Righty ho then
It was telephone. I heard about the DGX workstations being floated around but it's now I learned those machines were given to them to run on as opposed to being built directly for them. That's new information to me.
Regardless, the less expensive hardware requirements the better. I wont complain about saving money.
Er, hey there. Can I just point out at this point that the reason I responded with “I read that 5 times and have no idea what you said or why you said it” was because I read jordanN’s post 5 times and had no idea what he said or why he said it, and since it was in direct reply to my own post I was fully entitled to reply as such. And the adjoinder ‘never mind’ is universal-euphemism-language for ‘discussing this further will get everyone nowhere’. Righty ho then
You're absolutely right, I shouldn't speak for anyone but myself and I owe you an apology. Sorry for butting in.
You know, if ray tracing eventually becomes the standard, what's the difference between a portfolio that was rendered with Vray/Mental Ray and one that is rendered with UE4 + ray tracing?
Besides the obvious that UE4 is real time, but if employers are mostly looking for static images first, would they even be able to tell the difference?
I've seen the starwars demo at GDC. The quality of the reflections is noticeably lower than a rendered image. It was explained to me that the rays-per-pixel is actually quite low compared to something like mentalray.
"You know, if ray tracing eventually becomes the standard, what's the difference between a portfolio that was rendered with Vray/Mental Ray and one that is rendered with UE4 + ray tracing? "
No difference whatsoever, as neither rendering technique say anything about how cleanly and well constructed the assets are. And people with production experience are not impressed in the slightest by shiny raytraced renders, semi-realtime or otherwise.
When I wrote my initial post, I was caught up in the early hype about ray tracing. I don't think my idea of art converging is impossible, but after watching Epic's keynote, I am under the impression now the technology isn't actually equal to Offline renders yet (as sprunghunt mentioned, they're not actually using a lot of rays/light bounces, and have to resort to denoising for the glossy reflections).
It's my opinion I would like to see games catch up to current Path tracing software but, since the actual gap between them is larger than imagined it will be another 10 years or so before the comparison has merit. The sole exception is if the next Playstation/Xbox do make a big tech splash and help accelerate ray traced graphics. Again, something I'm hoping for but if they don't, then I'll continue to wait.
the best out of this is the ability to have mirrors in game I guess both in art and game design, this opens so many doors. (I mean right now its a mess to get em working properly?) For all the rest I doubt players will even spot any change tbh... Am I wrong on this? Everything seems to be in style and composition these days
Well from UE4's demo, it was just ray traced reflections and shadows, with very low samples. No GI, reflections using simplified versions of what they were reflecting.
I think a planar reflection capture actor works better and already exists if you want a mirror in game.
This definitely seems like a tool for VFX, film, and arch viz. Getting something that will match a ray traced render nearly 1:1 seems like the big benefit. Also the idea of possibly using the same render with the settings cranked up for a final render is cool, 30 FPS interactive preview, with something like a 1 FPS quality render after.
Closest thing to raytracing that is available right now is "voxel cone tracing", which is when you voxelise the scene (downgrade it to a blocky low resolution) and then trace that low-res version to get a nice approximation of light bounces, AO etc.
For something quick that you can try right now, there's some live demos from Unity's SEGI plugin (Windows). But there's also Marmoset Toolbag 3 -- when you turn on GI, this technique is being used.
On the subject of other render engines, why was there no news coverage of the Brigade Engine?
They were at GDC and apparently it has now been merged with the Octane Render?
It still looks noisy as hell but I don't care. If this is finally the game engine they promised with real time path tracing I'll take it! I'll just keep buying new GPU's every year until it can resolve images in miliseconds.
'Ray tracing' is still a buzzword here, in the sense that it's hybrid rendering, classic raycasting with a bith of raytracing on top for reflections, lighting etc. It should also be noted that some of these demos have no light bounce at all, and ones that do always have a limited number of bounces. You won't suddenly get the render quality of a frame that took 8 hours to render in realtime.
'Ray tracing' is still a buzzword here, in the sense that it's hybrid rendering, classic raycasting with a bith of raytracing on top for reflections, lighting etc. It should also be noted that some of these demos have no light bounce at all, and ones that do always have a limited number of bounces. You won't suddenly get the render quality of a frame that took 8 hours to render in realtime.
Raytracing in film started out on a similar path, so it makes sense games will too. I am just glad that raytracing is finally coming to realtime. I am so excited I am actually considering a Quadro GV100.
Well from UE4's demo, it was just ray traced reflections and shadows, with very low samples. No GI, reflections using simplified versions of what they were reflecting.
I think a planar reflection capture actor works better and already exists if you want a mirror in game.
You're right that it's mostly just the reflection that they're raytracing. As they emphasised in the demo the big difference is that the captured reflections accurately match the environment. So for a moving shiny object you can easily see the reflection moving correctly across the surface in relationship to the walls and the floor etc. A static capture actor doesn't give you the same effect. They also mentioned that this meant you had to make sure you modeled the areas off-camera as they'd show up in the reflections.
I personally can't see it becoming standard on environment assets anytime soon. But If you're making something that uses a lot of shiny moving objects - like a racing game such as need for speed. Then it might be a big visual improvement.
Whenever there is an technological advantage regarding rendering technologies, an artist will come along, sees what is possible and simply crams more details into the scene so the speed advantage goes down the toilet.
Am I the only one who isn't impressed with these new buzzwords and hype?
AI in games is still garbage, i rather have some technological advantages in that area but thanks to consoles and games as a service bullshit, I don't really expect ANY movement in the right direction.
It's why I mentioned a few posts up the next consoles MUST have more powerful CPU's.
60fps needs to make a comeback. We use to have such fluid gameplay from the Sega Genesis to the PS2. But the Jaguar CPUs in PS4/XB1 were very disappointing. They became an obstacle when PC tech drastically outpaced them.
Ray tracing tech is still important just because we can't keep baking lightmaps forever. But I also care about gameplay and want to see faster frame rates, more complex physics and better AI. We can't have another generation held back by terrible CPUs.
It's why I mentioned a few posts up the next consoles MUST have more powerful CPU's.
60fps needs to make a comeback. We use to have such fluid gameplay from the Sega Genesis to the PS2. But the Jaguar CPUs in PS4/XB1 were very disappointing. They became an obstacle when PC tech drastically outpaced them.
Ray tracing tech is still important just because we can't keep baking lightmaps forever. But I also care about gameplay and want to see faster frame rates, more complex physics and better AI. We can't have another generation held back by terrible CPUs.
You have no idea dude...
The things you listed, together would take multiple generations probably. You also forget about vr. Imagine if you would need to wait multiple frames for a denoised image. Instant throwup. Or, even if it uses one of the cheaper techs, the device running the games would be so much more expensive than currently. Regular customer cannot afford a multiple thousands dollars toy. This is why consoles has moderate hardware. This is still further, get peace with it. But, we can look at it through binoculars.
Also, Its just a waste of performance not to bake the lighting of a fully or almost fully static scene, so I would be very surprised if this technique would be left any time soon.
The things you listed, together would take multiple generations probably. You also forget about vr. Imagine if you would need to wait multiple frames for a denoised image. Instant throwup. Or, even if it uses one of the cheaper techs, the device running the games would be so much more expensive than currently. Regular customer cannot afford a multiple thousands dollars toy. This is why consoles has moderate hardware. This is still further, get peace with it. But, we can look at it through binoculars.
When did I say $1000s? This was actually the first generation where the consoles came out drastically weaker than PC. Yet at the same time, PC Gaming actually became increasingly affordable throughout the years. There are many in depth comparisons out there that say the consoles are struggling because of the weak CPU but even budget sized PC's were doing completely fine.
I would be very disappointed if Sony/MS would repeat going the same route again. Just more shinier graphics but struggling to hold 30fps should be slammed by everyone.
Obscura said: Also, Its just a waste of performance not to bake the lighting of a fully or almost fully static scene, so I would be very surprised if this technique would be left any time soon.
But what if I do want a scene that's dynamic? That's where lightmaps are at a loss. It would benefit gameplay more when objects aren't glued to the ground or doors aren't permanently closed. I don't deny the ray tracing tech is very demanding and it's likely only a few games will use it in the upcoming years.
But the goal shouldn't be to keep doing the same things forever. Gameplay needs to grow and innovate instead of games just being something you look at with little interactivity.
Most of what you just said about static vs dynamic objects is typically nothing at all to do with rendering it.
Dynamic shadows and reflections have been around for a while....
So why do static [baked] props exist if they weren't trying to save on speed? A dynamic shadow on a chair that's baked would seem counter productive. Or if you did pick up the chair, you would still see the leftover shadows underneath.
The point of having a fully ray traced scene is that every object becomes interactive because the lighting is handled at run time.
Most of what you just said about static vs dynamic objects is typically nothing at all to do with rendering it.
Dynamic shadows and reflections have been around for a while....
Thats one of the things. Secondly, this has very little to do with cpus. The current gen techs and the new ones that are being discussed here is mostly related to gpus. Games are rarely cpu bound. Some strategy games where many ai units needs to be handled at the same time, can be cpu heavy. Or games where the game logic requires expensive computations to be done on the cpu, or when the world is generated, or a physics heavy game. So to run those fancy graphics you need some powerful videocard, and one that would be good enough, is usually around the price of a complete console device, while people want crazy 4k, anti aliasing and whatnot .Thats why it runs on 30 fps. Because they expect the high end pc quality on some dirt cheap console. It just cannot perform better under some ~200$ videocard. If it would cost 2-3x more, it would run on better performance.
About baked lighting:
The term static lighting does not mean that the whole game is lit by that. Moving objects uses different dynamic techniques, such as shadow maps, RAY TRACED distance field shadows, or whatever type dynamic shadows for direct lighting, and different types of volume lighting for indirect lighting.
VGXI was first running on interactive speed like 2 generations ago, yet it still haven't made into games. This, and the combination of hackery we need to do to get games running on acceptable speed should give you a pretty clear idea about how far we are. It won't just change from one day to the another.
Obscura said: Thats one of the things. Secondly, this has very little to do with cpus. The current gen techs and the new ones that are being discussed here is mostly related to gpus. Games are rarely cpu bound. Some strategy games where many ai units needs to be handled at the same time, can be cpu heavy. Or games where the game logic requires expensive computations to be done on the cpu, or when the world is generated, or a physics heavy game. So to run those fancy graphics you need some powerful videocard, and one that would be good enough, is usually around the price of a complete console device, while people want crazy 4k, anti aliasing and whatnot .Thats why it runs on 30 fps. Because they expect the high end pc quality on some dirt cheap console. It just cannot perform better under some ~200$ videocard. If it would cost 2-3x more, it would run on better performance.
The links I posted refuted the CPU's are a problem or that it costs $$$ to do it.
It's too grave of a coincidence that every console this generation has had articles written about them about being bottlenecked by the CPU. Even Nintendo's former CEO Iwata admitted the Wii U was designed with a CPU flaw, which coincided with another game (Pikmin 3) having to take steps back.
I've backed up all my claims with sources. If you believe what I'm saying is wrong (i.e that the CPU's in these consoles are not bottlenecked) then point to the correct sources so I can learn why.
Even one of my links directly addressed Obscura's comment about 4K. Resolution is NOT holding the frame rate back.
"I mean, I'm going to wade into this, and you [Mark Noseworthy] can flesh it out," Smith said. "The console, the PS4 Pro is super powerful, but it couldn't run our game at 60. Our game's this rich physics simulation where collision of players, networking, etc, and like, it wouldn't run... [there's] not enough horsepower there."
"But there's tons of GPU power in the PS4 Pro. That's why we're doing 4K, right?" Noseworthy chimed in. "It's on the CPU side. "
Or if you look at comparisons of PS4/XB1 games, despite running at the same resolution the PS4 version still ends up with more frame rate hitches due to the CPU being slightly lower clocked than it's XB1 counterpart.
"But once we venture on to later missions, certain buckling points start appearing on each console. For the PS4, this often manifests during speed races through busy downtown junctions, where a drop to 24fps constitutes our biggest performance dip. In running a time-lapse comparison of these grid-locked areas, it's interesting to learn traffic patterns are indeed identical for both platforms - the density of active vehicles is matched for both PS4 and Xbox One, so the Microsoft console's advantage here is probably down to its faster CPU cores. Xbox One, meanwhile, suffers from drops around heavier traffic, but typically to a lesser extent than its PS4 stablemate. "
I wouldn't waste my time looking for sources if the magic answer was that "yeah, these consoles are perfect. It's just a coincidence you can build a budget PC and achieve a higher frame rate than current gen" if it was staring me in the face. What would I gain by doing this?
Oh god Jordan, just stop, it's embarrassing. Get an actual job in the industry and churn for 5 years and maybe you can talk with the adults. You don't understand what you're talking about, or what you're linking to as sources. Yelling harder about your poorly informed views does not make them any more accurate.
Whether or not GPU based real-time path/ray-trace rendering will be viable has exceptionally little to do with CPU speed. CPUs are used for specific things that CPUs are good at, and faster CPUs are are better for CPU heavy tasks (obviously), but faster CPUs will not usher in GPU based ray-traced rendering any sooner, because the bottleneck for real-time GPU based ray-tracing is.... dun dun dun... THE GPU. GPUs are very good at the sort of parrallel computing that is useful for things like, calculating a million ray directions, while CPUs are not. The CPU doesn't have spare power it can lend to GPU ray-tracing, because it sucks ray-tracing at in the first place. Also, because that's not how computer architecture works in any way, shape or form.
What affects the performance or frame rate of a game varies depending on many interchangeable parts. The articles you're linking to are simplified explanations for very specific problems and are not generally applicable/do not support your reasoning.
But what is it that I don't understand? I've been playing video games for 20+ years. Why would someone like me, who clearly has a vested interest in game art production and will likely release his own game some day, want to lie or distort something that clearly affects me at the end of the day?
If someone has the answer to why my complaint about CPU's is wrong, why wouldn't you do the easy thing and share it? That is something that wouldn't just benefit me, but also the exact same websites I grabbed all my sources from. You don't think tech sites like Digital Foundry wouldn't want to use such valuable information to put in their future game comparisons articles?
What affects the performance or frame rate of a game varies depending on many interchangeable parts. The articles you're linking to are simplified explanations for very specific problems and are not generally applicable/do not support your reasoning.
How many games must I show that the lower CPU performance in a console is a bigger predictor for how well a game will run compared to other parts inside of it?
From 2012 ~ Present, there has been a straight line showing console performance continues to get worse or struggle with CPU specific tasks, whereas even modest or low budget PC's do not struggle with the exact same scenes. That's the problem with dismissing why isn't the CPU to be blamed. Every single game that performed worse was because the Jaguar CPU's have fallen behind even low range CPUs used in PC.
If the CPU still isn't the culprit, it presents a mystery as to why do previously released PS4 games still experience severe performance issues on the upgraded PS4 Pro, even when they're not all that taxing to begin with?
"And the thing is, we know exactly what happens when developers do try this on PlayStation 4 Pro. Rise of the Tomb Raider's 1080p performance mode hands in a 40-60fps experience in more challenging stages, while the same game code running on the much less capable base PS4 locks to 30fps. Games that we would imagine to be less intensive on CPU resources - such as Knack, for example - also fail to hand in a locked 1080p at 60 frames per second on PlayStation 4 Pro." https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2017-why-cant-destiny-run-at-60fps-on-ps4-pro
Whether or not GPU based real-time path/ray-trace rendering will be viable has exceptionally little to do with CPU speed. CPUs are used for specific things that CPUs are good at, and faster CPUs are are better for CPU heavy tasks (obviously), but faster CPUs will not usher in GPU based ray-traced rendering any sooner,
I apologize if I didn't make it clearer in my earlier post, my main argument for faster CPU's wasn't because of ray tracing. I said a faster CPU was needed to enable better gameplay, physics and AI. Clearly I'm against ray tracing in games, if 60fps as a target cannot be reached first. In which case, a more powerful GPU becomes moot.
"But what is it that I don't understand? I've been playing video games for 20+ years. Why would someone like me, who clearly has a vested interest in game art production and will likely release his own game some day, want to lie or distort something that clearly affects me at the end of the day?"
Your taking small bits of articles and taking them way out of context. I'm dumbfounded that you just said that 4k resolution isn't holding framerate back. Maybe someone can correct me if I'm wrong but most games don't actually support 4k frame rendering, Most games frames are rendered at 1080. Typically they just enable support for 4k output which looks a little bit better on a 4k screen. Rendering 4k and supporting 4k output are completely different things. Go into one of Epics content demos and while playing in a build type into the console
r.ScreenPercentage 50
You've halved the rendering resolution and you will absolutely see a frame rate increase. Its a slow crawl up in quality for all the disciplines.
With each generation, artists want more draw calls and higher shader instruction counts, animators want more bones, Lighters want more dynamic lights or more cascades. Once its divided by X amount of departments the gains are small. It doesn't matter if you think we didn't get a powerful enough cpu if most games are gpu bound.
Your taking small bits of articles and taking them way out of context. I'm dumbfounded that you just said that 4k resolution isn't holding framerate back. Maybe someone can correct me if I'm wrong but most games don't actually support 4k frame rendering, Most games frames are rendered at 1080. Typically they just enable support for 4k output which looks a little bit better on a 4k screen. Rendering 4k and supporting 4k output are completely different things. Go into one of Epics content demos and while playing in a build type into the console
r.ScreenPercentage 50
You've halved the rendering resolution and you will absolutely see a frame rate increase. Its a slow crawl up in quality for all the disciplines.
With each generation, artists want more draw calls and higher shader instruction counts, animators want more bones, Lighters want more dynamic lights or more cascades. Once its divided by X amount of departments the gains are small. It doesn't matter if you think we didn't get a powerful enough cpu if most games are gpu bound.
It was in direct reference to what the console is more limited by. PS4 Pro & Xbox One X do have noticeably stronger GPU's compared to the base platforms, but the CPU's are only marginally clocked higher.
It's not unbelievable that doubling the resolution is less of a problem compared to handling more complex physics/AI simulations (although in PS4 Pro's case, it's more likely for games to render inbetween 1080p & 4K, whereas Xbox One usually renders its games in full 4K. But that is because the Xbox One X is an even bigger step up from the PS4 Pro so don't treat this if I was saying the two are equal).
But my main concern isn't with what last gen is doing. I'm saying it will be really disappointing if the next Playstation/Xbox do not make an effort to address the CPU gap. If PS4/XB1 were already underpowered at release, releasing a console that has even weaker guts compared to what has already been on the PC market for 10 years (and is only continuing to get cheaper) would sting hard.
It might mean I would begin to prefer going with PC hardware first, especially if it offers a better balance of gameplay & visuals, whereas PS5/XB4 would have to hit very low frame rates in order to keep up. Which is a shame because it's been my dream as a child to work with consoles.
You could actually build something to test your theories out...
Because modern console hardware now uses off the shelf PC parts instead of heavily custom ones, it's very relevant to look at multiplatform releases and see how they perform across all systems. A more powerful PC will always perform better in today's environment unless something weird happens.
But I'll still go with your suggestion. I could definitely build some "next gen" demos (or even better, use the existing War Cartoon I have been working on since 2017) and ask for a console devkit to try them out!
But what is it that I don't understand? I've been playing video games for 20+ years. Why would someone like me, who clearly has a vested interest in game art production and will likely release his own game some day, want to lie or distort something that clearly affects me at the end of the day?
Playing video games does not qualify you for anything, c'mon are you really this obtuse? Honestly, I don't think you're lying, I think you genuinely imagine that what you post makes sense and is well informed and interesting. But it is not. You don't have the practical experience to tell the difference between actual research and relevant concepts vrs random junk theories you're inferring based on a total lack of understanding. You start from a point of ignorance and then pretend to be an expert, and it's obvious to anyone who actually knows how this stuff works that you're just blowing hot air to hear the sound of your own voice. I honestly don't think you're doing it with malicious intent, you just don't know any better.
The bits of truth in your posts are so blatantly obvious to experienced devs that they're pointless to mention. Yeah, hardware with better CPUs performs better at CPU intensive tasks. No shit. It's like walking into a bakery and telling the baker "Hey did you know that if you leave the bread in the oven too long it will burn?". And then when the baker tells you to stop wasting his time, you send him 4 links to website explaining why burnt bread doesn't taste good and try to have a long winded debate with him.
Here is some cold, hard, honest advice for you: If you ever want to work in the industry, take a good look at yourself and drop the delusions of grandeur. You're not an expert. Industry vets see your posts as a running gag, a joke. People pass links around to your comments and threads for a laugh. Do you want to have a career some day, or would you rather be the clown people snigger about behind your back? I'm not telling you this for a sick burn, I'm telling you because in all likelihood nobody has had the decency to let you know. The industry is very small, and you're cultivating a very clear impression in the minds of many who just might be in a position to help or hinder your success/career.
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Also the cost of one of those 80k machines vs the energy a huge render farm sucks up would probably add up to more savings over the years.
but when it comes to employers, the main benefit of having your stuff actually in an engine is it shows you understand the entire workflow of getting something game ready, and are competent at relevant technical skills that you would be using day to day on the job.
The difference is: how good your art skills are.
Even with ray tracing, you're still going to need to be a good artist, with a good sense of presentation, and the ability to demonstrate that you understand game modeling techniques (for example, good use of texture sets).
Look at the current process of PC Games ported to PS4 as example. PC already uses the highest LOD's and textures. PS4 usually compares to the PC version running on medium-low settings. If next gen is another 10x leap, expect the gap to be even smaller.
All I'm saying is I think the technology being used here could lend to a future where both movie and game art become highly interchangeable.
It can't be just a matter of optimization, because I pointed to PC games already make use of assets that are meant to run on more powerful systems than console. But, it would be a waste of time to recreate the same games twice for PC and Console, when you can take these existing assets and scale them till they match the console playability.
It might not have to be right now we'll see the same apply directly for Movie to Game Assets, but with diminishing returns, we will reach a point anything will run with possibly a few adjustments.
Hmmmmmm ... nevermind.
Maybe Playstation 5 will reasonably power through a lot of models today that often require multiple LODs. It's often the choice of CPU in PS4/XB1 that caused a lot of games to scale back on detail that PC has had access to for years. It would be shortsighted of MS/Sony to repeat going with low powered CPUs again when even Smartphone technology has surpassed them.
trying to import a highres asset built to the standards of even just that era into a current-day project seems like a surefire way to get you a meeting about best practices with a tech artist or a programmer.
No where did Danr's posts mention anything about experience or offer up a rebuttal.
It's not fair one side posts evidence and the other side just gets to say "lol, whatever". It defeats the point of the discussion if everything is assumed to be black and white or just goes by authority.
Next gen is all speculation right now so there really is no wrong answer until we officially see what games do run on it. I would hope my vision of the next gen is true but if not, I'll adapt and everything goes on as normal.
There is definitely speculation because release dates can always be pushed back, or certain breakthroughs happen that catches everyone off guard. If PS4 for example, had launched 1 year earlier, we would be seeing completely different art made this generation because of Sony's decision to double the RAM wouldn't have existed before.
But none of this changes where I said I would appreciate better dialogue that isn't "lol whatever". There should be respect going towards everyone regardless of title.
What about the new project alchemy by Allegorithmic?
Regardless, the less expensive hardware requirements the better. I wont complain about saving money.
No difference whatsoever, as neither rendering technique say anything about how cleanly and well constructed the assets are. And people with production experience are not impressed in the slightest by shiny raytraced renders, semi-realtime or otherwise.
It's my opinion I would like to see games catch up to current Path tracing software but, since the actual gap between them is larger than imagined it will be another 10 years or so before the comparison has merit. The sole exception is if the next Playstation/Xbox do make a big tech splash and help accelerate ray traced graphics. Again, something I'm hoping for but if they don't, then I'll continue to wait.
For all the rest I doubt players will even spot any change tbh... Am I wrong on this? Everything seems to be in style and composition these days
I think a planar reflection capture actor works better and already exists if you want a mirror in game.
This definitely seems like a tool for VFX, film, and arch viz. Getting something that will match a ray traced render nearly 1:1 seems like the big benefit. Also the idea of possibly using the same render with the settings cranked up for a final render is cool, 30 FPS interactive preview, with something like a 1 FPS quality render after.
For something quick that you can try right now, there's some live demos from Unity's SEGI plugin (Windows).
But there's also Marmoset Toolbag 3 -- when you turn on GI, this technique is being used.
They were at GDC and apparently it has now been merged with the Octane Render?
It still looks noisy as hell but I don't care. If this is finally the game engine they promised with real time path tracing I'll take it!
I'll just keep buying new GPU's every year until it can resolve images in miliseconds.
It should also be noted that some of these demos have no light bounce at all, and ones that do always have a limited number of bounces. You won't suddenly get the render quality of a frame that took 8 hours to render in realtime.
Raytracing in film started out on a similar path, so it makes sense games will too. I am just glad that raytracing is finally coming to realtime. I am so excited I am actually considering a Quadro GV100.
I personally can't see it becoming standard on environment assets anytime soon. But If you're making something that uses a lot of shiny moving objects - like a racing game such as need for speed. Then it might be a big visual improvement.
Am I the only one who isn't impressed with these new buzzwords and hype?
AI in games is still garbage, i rather have some technological advantages in that area but thanks to consoles and games as a service bullshit, I don't really expect ANY movement in the right direction.
60fps needs to make a comeback. We use to have such fluid gameplay from the Sega Genesis to the PS2.
But the Jaguar CPUs in PS4/XB1 were very disappointing. They became an obstacle when PC tech drastically outpaced them.
Ray tracing tech is still important just because we can't keep baking lightmaps forever. But I also care about gameplay and want to see faster frame rates, more complex physics and better AI. We can't have another generation held back by terrible CPUs.
The things you listed, together would take multiple generations probably. You also forget about vr. Imagine if you would need to wait multiple frames for a denoised image. Instant throwup. Or, even if it uses one of the cheaper techs, the device running the games would be so much more expensive than currently. Regular customer cannot afford a multiple thousands dollars toy. This is why consoles has moderate hardware. This is still further, get peace with it. But, we can look at it through binoculars.
Also, Its just a waste of performance not to bake the lighting of a fully or almost fully static scene, so I would be very surprised if this technique would be left any time soon.
This was actually the first generation where the consoles came out drastically weaker than PC. Yet at the same time, PC Gaming actually became increasingly affordable throughout the years. There are many in depth comparisons out there that say the consoles are struggling because of the weak CPU but even budget sized PC's were doing completely fine.
https://www.tweaktown.com/news/55032/ps4-pro-held-back-jaguar-cpu-heres-proof/index.html
https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2017-why-cant-destiny-run-at-60fps-on-ps4-pro
https://www.dualshockers.com/sucker-punch-seeking-more-ways-to-use-ps4s-ram-cpu-a-bottleneck-but-theres-room-for-improvement/
https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2014-10-07-ubisoft-defends-assassins-creed-unity-graphics-lock-for-parity-on-ps4-xbox-one
I would be very disappointed if Sony/MS would repeat going the same route again. Just more shinier graphics but struggling to hold 30fps should be slammed by everyone.
But what if I do want a scene that's dynamic? That's where lightmaps are at a loss. It would benefit gameplay more when objects aren't glued to the ground or doors aren't permanently closed. I don't deny the ray tracing tech is very demanding and it's likely only a few games will use it in the upcoming years.
But the goal shouldn't be to keep doing the same things forever. Gameplay needs to grow and innovate instead of games just being something you look at with little interactivity.
Most of what you just said about static vs dynamic objects is typically nothing at all to do with rendering it.
Dynamic shadows and reflections have been around for a while....
A dynamic shadow on a chair that's baked would seem counter productive. Or if you did pick up the chair, you would still see the leftover shadows underneath.
The point of having a fully ray traced scene is that every object becomes interactive because the lighting is handled at run time.
About baked lighting:
The term static lighting does not mean that the whole game is lit by that. Moving objects uses different dynamic techniques, such as shadow maps, RAY TRACED distance field shadows, or whatever type dynamic shadows for direct lighting, and different types of volume lighting for indirect lighting.
VGXI was first running on interactive speed like 2 generations ago, yet it still haven't made into games. This, and the combination of hackery we need to do to get games running on acceptable speed should give you a pretty clear idea about how far we are. It won't just change from one day to the another.
It's too grave of a coincidence that every console this generation has had articles written about them about being bottlenecked by the CPU. Even Nintendo's former CEO Iwata admitted the Wii U was designed with a CPU flaw, which coincided with another game (Pikmin 3) having to take steps back.
https://www.nowgamer.com/slow-cpu-will-shorten-wii-us-life-dice-dev/
http://www.gameinformer.com/b/features/archive/2013/07/05/miyamoto-talks-zelda-pikmin-and-wii-u-development.aspx?PostPageIndex=2
Using Occam's razor, if the increase in GPU power hasn't fixed frame rate, than what has?
1 : not understanding what the hell you are talking about
2 : actually spreading misinformation
3 : going off tangents due to point 1 and 2
Just, stop , i had my laughs now its becoming cringy...
/ontopi :
Its impressive tech and cant wait to see it optimized in the future and see maybe full motion movies on uengine for example !
Even one of my links directly addressed Obscura's comment about 4K. Resolution is NOT holding the frame rate back.
"I mean, I'm going to wade into this, and you [Mark Noseworthy] can flesh it out," Smith said. "The console, the PS4 Pro is super powerful, but it couldn't run our game at 60. Our game's this rich physics simulation where collision of players, networking, etc, and like, it wouldn't run... [there's] not enough horsepower there."
"But there's tons of GPU power in the PS4 Pro. That's why we're doing 4K, right?" Noseworthy chimed in. "It's on the CPU side. "
https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2017-why-cant-destiny-run-at-60fps-on-ps4-pro
Or if you look at comparisons of PS4/XB1 games, despite running at the same resolution the PS4 version still ends up with more frame rate hitches due to the CPU being slightly lower clocked than it's XB1 counterpart.
"But once we venture on to later missions, certain buckling points start appearing on each console. For the PS4, this often manifests during speed races through busy downtown junctions, where a drop to 24fps constitutes our biggest performance dip. In running a time-lapse comparison of these grid-locked areas, it's interesting to learn traffic patterns are indeed identical for both platforms - the density of active vehicles is matched for both PS4 and Xbox One, so the Microsoft console's advantage here is probably down to its faster CPU cores. Xbox One, meanwhile, suffers from drops around heavier traffic, but typically to a lesser extent than its PS4 stablemate. "
https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2014-grand-theft-auto-5-ps4-xbox-one-face-off
I wouldn't waste my time looking for sources if the magic answer was that "yeah, these consoles are perfect. It's just a coincidence you can build a budget PC and achieve a higher frame rate than current gen" if it was staring me in the face. What would I gain by doing this?
Whether or not GPU based real-time path/ray-trace rendering will be viable has exceptionally little to do with CPU speed. CPUs are used for specific things that CPUs are good at, and faster CPUs are are better for CPU heavy tasks (obviously), but faster CPUs will not usher in GPU based ray-traced rendering any sooner, because the bottleneck for real-time GPU based ray-tracing is.... dun dun dun... THE GPU. GPUs are very good at the sort of parrallel computing that is useful for things like, calculating a million ray directions, while CPUs are not. The CPU doesn't have spare power it can lend to GPU ray-tracing, because it sucks ray-tracing at in the first place. Also, because that's not how computer architecture works in any way, shape or form.
What affects the performance or frame rate of a game varies depending on many interchangeable parts. The articles you're linking to are simplified explanations for very specific problems and are not generally applicable/do not support your reasoning.
If someone has the answer to why my complaint about CPU's is wrong, why wouldn't you do the easy thing and share it? That is something that wouldn't just benefit me, but also the exact same websites I grabbed all my sources from. You don't think tech sites like Digital Foundry wouldn't want to use such valuable information to put in their future game comparisons articles?
That's all I'm asking for.
How many games must I show that the lower CPU performance in a console is a bigger predictor for how well a game will run compared to other parts inside of it?
From 2012 ~ Present, there has been a straight line showing console performance continues to get worse or struggle with CPU specific tasks, whereas even modest or low budget PC's do not struggle with the exact same scenes. That's the problem with dismissing why isn't the CPU to be blamed. Every single game that performed worse was because the Jaguar CPU's have fallen behind even low range CPUs used in PC.
If the CPU still isn't the culprit, it presents a mystery as to why do previously released PS4 games still
experience severe performance issues on the upgraded PS4 Pro, even when they're not all that taxing to begin with?
"And the thing is, we know exactly what happens when developers do try this on PlayStation 4 Pro. Rise of the Tomb Raider's 1080p performance mode hands in a 40-60fps experience in more challenging stages, while the same game code running on the much less capable base PS4 locks to 30fps. Games that we would imagine to be less intensive on CPU resources - such as Knack, for example - also fail to hand in a locked 1080p at 60 frames per second on PlayStation 4 Pro."
https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2017-why-cant-destiny-run-at-60fps-on-ps4-pro
I apologize if I didn't make it clearer in my earlier post, my main argument for faster CPU's wasn't because of ray tracing. I said a faster CPU was needed to enable better gameplay, physics and AI. Clearly I'm against ray tracing in games, if 60fps as a target cannot be reached first. In which case, a more powerful GPU becomes moot.
LOL
r.ScreenPercentage 50
You've halved the rendering resolution and you will absolutely see a frame rate increase. Its a slow crawl up in quality for all the disciplines.
With each generation, artists want more draw calls and higher shader instruction counts, animators want more bones, Lighters want more dynamic lights or more cascades. Once its divided by X amount of departments the gains are small. It doesn't matter if you think we didn't get a powerful enough cpu if most games are gpu bound.
It's not unbelievable that doubling the resolution is less of a problem compared to handling more complex physics/AI simulations (although in PS4 Pro's case, it's more likely for games to render inbetween 1080p & 4K, whereas Xbox One usually renders its games in full 4K. But that is because the Xbox One X is an even bigger step up from the PS4 Pro so don't treat this if I was saying the two are equal).
But my main concern isn't with what last gen is doing. I'm saying it will be really disappointing if the next Playstation/Xbox do not make an effort to address the CPU gap. If PS4/XB1 were already underpowered at release, releasing a console that has even weaker guts compared to what has already been on the PC market for 10 years (and is only continuing to get cheaper) would sting hard.
It might mean I would begin to prefer going with PC hardware first, especially if it offers a better balance of gameplay & visuals, whereas PS5/XB4 would have to hit very low frame rates in order to keep up. Which is a shame because it's been my dream as a child to work with consoles.
But I'll still go with your suggestion. I could definitely build some "next gen" demos (or even better, use the existing War Cartoon I have been working on since 2017) and ask for a console devkit to try them out!
The bits of truth in your posts are so blatantly obvious to experienced devs that they're pointless to mention. Yeah, hardware with better CPUs performs better at CPU intensive tasks. No shit. It's like walking into a bakery and telling the baker "Hey did you know that if you leave the bread in the oven too long it will burn?". And then when the baker tells you to stop wasting his time, you send him 4 links to website explaining why burnt bread doesn't taste good and try to have a long winded debate with him.
Here is some cold, hard, honest advice for you: If you ever want to work in the industry, take a good look at yourself and drop the delusions of grandeur. You're not an expert. Industry vets see your posts as a running gag, a joke. People pass links around to your comments and threads for a laugh. Do you want to have a career some day, or would you rather be the clown people snigger about behind your back? I'm not telling you this for a sick burn, I'm telling you because in all likelihood nobody has had the decency to let you know. The industry is very small, and you're cultivating a very clear impression in the minds of many who just might be in a position to help or hinder your success/career.