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Graphical Fidelity I Expect This Gen

I know graphics features aren't the be all and end all if your character models and environments and stuff suck but lacking AO and having such sparse and low res environment shadows and lighting really makes Rebirth look like a remastered 2008 game at times. The HDR sucks too or at least the way the gamma jumps around between environments makes it appear like it sucks.

Remake looked so much better to me most of the time thanks to the pre baked lighting or whatever it was doing.

People keep saying here that the scale of this game is crazy but so far the open world (I'm in chapter 3 or whatever Junon is) is below the average Ubisoft game and miles behind something like RDR2. There's no simulation going on no random events no NPCs running around etc. The view distance is good but not really a wow factor when the texture quality is all over the place as it doesn't look like a natural scene but rather something AI generated where nothing fits together properly.

I've said in other threads that it's a really good game and I love the combat so much but I can't see that this type of open world justifies how the game looks half the time.
 

JCreasy

Member
Using U4 for Rebirth was clearly a mistake. The Engine struggles with large environments and with Rebirth it's no different. The actual game is great but at times it seems like it's bursting at the seams.
I agree with this. For what they wanted to accomplish, clearly UE5 was the answer.

Or, Hulst should’ve invited them to the Decima accelerator.

I’m assuming Decima may already be translated into Japanese to accommodate Kojima productions.

UE4 is straining.

But still—if you’re a FF7 fan, you’ll love Rebirth.
 
I know graphics features aren't the be all and end all if your character models and environments and stuff suck but lacking AO and having such sparse and low res environment shadows and lighting really makes Rebirth look like a remastered 2008 game at times. The HDR sucks too or at least the way the gamma jumps around between environments makes it appear like it sucks.

Remake looked so much better to me most of the time thanks to the pre baked lighting or whatever it was doing.

People keep saying here that the scale of this game is crazy but so far the open world (I'm in chapter 3 or whatever Junon is) is below the average Ubisoft game and miles behind something like RDR2. There's no simulation going on no random events no NPCs running around etc. The view distance is good but not really a wow factor when the texture quality is all over the place as it doesn't look like a natural scene but rather something AI generated where nothing fits together properly.

I've said in other threads that it's a really good game and I love the combat so much but I can't see that this type of open world justifies how the game looks half the time.


Feel you on the AO, or rather lack thereof. I notice it more indoors is lacking it almost entirely. Remake Integrade looks so good still ...the one area it struggles with is outdoor, daytime city environmemt but indoor areas always look amazing ...

What are the chances Square pulls a Forsaken and gives this game another pass? It really needs it. ..I'm gonna say it will NOT get a graphics update, however, because the game was already really well received and there are too many FF fanboys who've already accepted things the way they are.
 

Luipadre

Member
Feel you on the AO, or rather lack thereof. I notice it more indoors is lacking it almost entirely. Remake Integrade looks so good still ...the one area it struggles with is outdoor, daytime city environmemt but indoor areas always look amazing ...

What are the chances Square pulls a Forsaken and gives this game another pass? It really needs it. ..I'm gonna say it will NOT get a graphics update, however, because the game was already really well received and there are too many FF fanboys who've already accepted things the way they are.
0 imo. Im not expecting much from the PC version either. Higher ress, highers fps, maybe a bit better LOD and shadow cascade LOD, but thats it
 
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SlimySnake

Flashless at the Golden Globes
You know whats the most disappointing thing? The upgrade they did for FF7 for PS5 was absolutely phenomenal. it was free and they relit every single area of the game. Adding MORE light sources, improving AO and GI coverage, shadows and just polishing the shit out of each area.

It's so frustrating to see posts like these below because its clear that the same love and care did not go into this game. A full fledged $70 sequel. Why? Why not polish this game instead? I get wanting to get this game out before the fiscal period ends in March, but lets cut the scope instead. Why is this a 150-200 hour game? Cut it down to 50-100 and focus on quality, not quantity.

The talent is there. FF7 Remake shows that this is not a B team over at SE. They clearly had the budget with almost 4 years of dev time. They had the pixel budget with Square letting them do a next gen only remake. The team is pretty much the same with over 80% of people being retained from the first game's team.

Whats frustrating is that a lot of these problems are solvable with some good quality AO, shadows and some GI features built into UE5. You just need the artist to go in there and play around with the engine features just like they did with the PS5 port. They are expensive on the GPU but they are on the fucking PS5 here locked at native 4k. What a waste of a GPU.

In the interest of discussion, I'll also keep my technical gripes with the game here instead of posting them in the OT.

I am just .. blown away at how a game with this high production has so many technical shortcomings. All the below images are from the Graphics mode.


1. Low resolution assets are peppered everywhere.

5speZja.jpeg



--


2. There is seemingly very little to no ambient occlusion and a lot of lights don't cast any shadows.

4SGByVo.jpeg



--


3. The lighting can have it's .. moments ..

This is me standing in a shaded area behind a mountain cover.

x4girDu.jpeg



--


The only reason I think some users were saying that the Junon area looks better is because they use moody golden hour lighting there, which makes anything look more aesthetically pleasing.
 

adamsapple

Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
You know whats the most disappointing thing? The upgrade they did for FF7 for PS5 was absolutely phenomenal. it was free and they relit every single area of the game. Adding MORE light sources, improving AO and GI coverage, shadows and just polishing the shit out of each area.

It's so frustrating to see posts like these below because its clear that the same love and care did not go into this game. A full fledged $70 sequel. Why? Why not polish this game instead? I get wanting to get this game out before the fiscal period ends in March, but lets cut the scope instead. Why is this a 150-200 hour game? Cut it down to 50-100 and focus on quality, not quantity.

The talent is there. FF7 Remake shows that this is not a B team over at SE. They clearly had the budget with almost 4 years of dev time. They had the pixel budget with Square letting them do a next gen only remake. The team is pretty much the same with over 80% of people being retained from the first game's team.

Whats frustrating is that a lot of these problems are solvable with some good quality AO, shadows and some GI features built into UE5. You just need the artist to go in there and play around with the engine features just like they did with the PS5 port. They are expensive on the GPU but they are on the fucking PS5 here locked at native 4k. What a waste of a GPU.


I'm gonna say the same thing I said elsewhere, this looks and feels like the game was designed around the PS4's specs and memory till late in development before the decision to make it a PS5-only release were made.
 

bender

What time is it?
You know whats the most disappointing thing? The upgrade they did for FF7 for PS5 was absolutely phenomenal. it was free and they relit every single area of the game. Adding MORE light sources, improving AO and GI coverage, shadows and just polishing the shit out of each area.

It's so frustrating to see posts like these below because its clear that the same love and care did not go into this game. A full fledged $70 sequel. Why? Why not polish this game instead? I get wanting to get this game out before the fiscal period ends in March, but lets cut the scope instead. Why is this a 150-200 hour game? Cut it down to 50-100 and focus on quality, not quantity.

The talent is there. FF7 Remake shows that this is not a B team over at SE. They clearly had the budget with almost 4 years of dev time. They had the pixel budget with Square letting them do a next gen only remake. The team is pretty much the same with over 80% of people being retained from the first game's team.

Whats frustrating is that a lot of these problems are solvable with some good quality AO, shadows and some GI features built into UE5. You just need the artist to go in there and play around with the engine features just like they did with the PS5 port. They are expensive on the GPU but they are on the fucking PS5 here locked at native 4k. What a waste of a GPU.

It's a balancing act. I'm sure the team took a lot of the criticisms of Remake to heart and rightfully so. Taking the intro to FF7 and turning it into a 40 hour linear slog never sat right with me. The follow-up needed to be far more ambitious from a size, scope and openness standpoint. Remake also might have been too ambitious for the PS4 and found its' sea legs on the PS5. Rebirth might be following in those footsteps.
 

Neilg

Member
They got fucked by UE5, all of the issues we can see were going to be 'solved' by UE5 according to early demos.
It was claimed you'd be able to easily move a project over and it would come with all these features, so I strongly suspect they set about building assets and making a version of the game that would completely choke out UE4. And then UE5 was released, and devs tried it, and found it mostly unworkable with all the new features either spotty or having huge performance overheads. Many developers have decided to stay in UE4 when they had previously been planning to switch.
If they knew UE5 was not going to work, they'd have probably started in a different engine. The asset quantity in the open world and cities is really pushing the limits of UE4, it's a pretty unfortunate compromise.
I suspect the texture detail got gutted because UE4 is forcing duplicate data and the build file size was hitting 200gb.

Wonder if we'll see a move to the FF16 engine for pt3. or UE5 might run well enough then.
 

Lethal01

Member
Using U4 for Rebirth was clearly a mistake. The Engine struggles with large environments and with Rebirth it's no different. The actual game is great but at times it seems like it's bursting at the seams.
UE4 was the correct choice for getting the game out this year instead of 2026

If they knew UE5 was not going to work, they'd have probably started in a different engine. The asset quantity in the open world and cities is really pushing the limits of UE4, it's a pretty unfortunate compromise.
I suspect the texture detail got gutted because UE4 is forcing duplicate data and the build file size was hitting 200gb.

Wonder if we'll see a move to the FF16 engine for pt3. or UE5 might run well enough then.

There is no chance they ever had any interest in switching the game to a completely different engine. Again this is nothing about laziness but time and budget.
 

Lethal01

Member
It's so frustrating to see posts like these below because its clear that the same love and care did not go into this game. A full fledged $70 sequel. Why? Why not polish this game instead? I get wanting to get this game out before the fiscal period ends in March, but lets cut the scope instead. Why is this a 150-200 hour game? Cut it down to 50-100 and focus on quality, not quantity.

I see far more love in this game than that one, Having them cut content just to have more graphical quality sounds like the worst Idea you could suggest. Id rather they make the graphics worse and make Vincent playable instead.
 

SlimySnake

Flashless at the Golden Globes
I see far more love in this game than that one, Having them cut content just to have more graphical quality sounds like the worst Idea you could suggest. Id rather they make the graphics worse and make Vincent playable instead.
On one hand i agree. Gameplay over graphics is my motto too. But im sick of these bloated 50 hour games. let alone the 100-200 hour games they are making this gen.

give me something like spiderman 2 which i can be done with in 20-25 hours and im good. Im doing all these boring side quests and im like who wants this ubisoft trash and why did it come at the expense of polish?
 

SlimySnake

Flashless at the Golden Globes
They got fucked by UE5, all of the issues we can see were going to be 'solved' by UE5 according to early demos.
It was claimed you'd be able to easily move a project over and it would come with all these features, so I strongly suspect they set about building assets and making a version of the game that would completely choke out UE4. And then UE5 was released, and devs tried it, and found it mostly unworkable with all the new features either spotty or having huge performance overheads. Many developers have decided to stay in UE4 when they had previously been planning to switch.
If they knew UE5 was not going to work, they'd have probably started in a different engine. The asset quantity in the open world and cities is really pushing the limits of UE4, it's a pretty unfortunate compromise.
I suspect the texture detail got gutted because UE4 is forcing duplicate data and the build file size was hitting 200gb.

Wonder if we'll see a move to the FF16 engine for pt3. or UE5 might run well enough then.
This is very interesting if true.

That said, I feel like UE4 gets a bit of a bad rep. Ive played some stunning looking UE4 games both last gen and this gen. Yes, they have issues, but they typically come at the expense of a higher level of fidelity. Aside from a higher level of ground detail, and draw distance, im not seeing this massive leap i saw in say Star Wars or Callisto Protocol. For last gen games, Gears 5, Days Gone and Dead Island 2 are also open world UE4 games that look far more consistent than this and dont have the same issues.

I dont know. I feel like UE4 gets a bad rep. I think sometimes its just the devs.
 

SlimySnake

Flashless at the Golden Globes
Here is dead island 2's interiors. It's an open world game that doesnt have its lighting completely fall apart when you enter interiors like you do in Rebirth. im in the caves right now and my goodness. I dont know what the fuck is going on here. the caves in FF16 look amazing in comparison. Hell, the caves in Gotham Knights looked so good with fantastic volumetric lighting that i uploaded a video of it. Thats also a UE4 game.

DeadIsland-Win64-Shipping_2023_04_07_08_49_28_975.jpg

DeadIsland-Win64-Shipping_2023_04_06_23_33_42_706.jpg


 

ProtoByte

Member
Here is dead island 2's interiors. It's an open world game that doesnt have its lighting completely fall apart when you enter interiors like you do in Rebirth. im in the caves right now and my goodness. I dont know what the fuck is going on here. the caves in FF16 look amazing in comparison. Hell, the caves in Gotham Knights looked so good with fantastic volumetric lighting that i uploaded a video of it. Thats also a UE4 game.

DeadIsland-Win64-Shipping_2023_04_07_08_49_28_975.jpg

DeadIsland-Win64-Shipping_2023_04_06_23_33_42_706.jpg



Square Enix has just been less particular about their technical prowess over the last gen. Listening to all the dummies who critiqued them for focusing on technology because of FF13 or some shit. It's quite disappointing that they've joined in with the rest of Japan in this way.
 

Lethal01

Member
. Im doing all these boring side quests and im like who wants this ubisoft trash

The random sidequests and minigames is what I heard FF7 fans have been hyping up the most and its getting tons of praise due to it, they gave people what they wanted. Most people I see are adoring the side content.

I wish there were a button I could hit to make the graphics better, but since their aren't I can't really fault squares decision making here.

Players wanted a timely sequel with a huge world and a bunch of side stuff to do to match up to the feel of the original.
 
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To start, the Assassin’s Creed franchise as a whole isn’t moving to a new engine necessarily, but will be using a substantial evolution of it named the ‘Anvil Pipeline’. Sources explained that the Anvil Pipeline allows all of the various Assassin’s Creed studios (of which there are many) to work from one unified branch, rather than having different versions and branches. The most means that moving forward, Assassin’s Creed will benefit visually from the lines of ray-traced global illumination and virtual geometry.

The move to the Anvil Pipeline has meant that the teams have had to completely overhaul everything in the series, too, including animations, its parkour system, dynamic weather, and more.
 

Neilg

Member
There is no chance they ever had any interest in switching the game to a completely different engine. Again this is nothing about laziness but time and budget.

A huge cornerstone of UE5's early features was a 'one click' easy project migration. Naturally, it doesn't work for anything but the most basic things and breaks a ton of stuff, but there are quotes from the game director saying some of the team wanted to use UE5 but it was lacking features, and they started work on this before UE5 was even available.
 
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Lethal01

Member
A huge cornerstone of UE5's early features was a 'one click' easy project migration. Naturally, it doesn't work for anything but the most basic things and breaks a ton of stuff, but there are quotes from the game director saying some of the team wanted to use UE5 but it was lacking features, and they started work on this before UE5 was even available.

Yes I know and this was what I was referring to. and is why I mentioned a "totally different engine" rather than an upgrade

On UE5, developing a game for an engine you know is lacking what you need in the hope it gets what you need in the middle of development is 100% asking to absolutely fuck the games development and make it a barely profitable, extremely ridiculed stain on your company.
 

rofif

Banned
GHhJzoAWIAITyK5
i really don’t like how low res and low Polly the asset quality feels in final fantasy rebirth. This is one of those games that look better in gifs and screenshots than they do on the big screen. I’m playing in graphics mode and while the lighting in the city is very good, the rest feels worse than hogwarts did in hogsmead. I will download that game again to compare but i just don’t like the blurry muddy look of the textures in this city.


GHhJzWPWIAcV_G-
I’ve just got to kalm and have been standing on this balcony taking it in.
Honestly this looks great to me. Like wow this looks amazing great.
I prefer games looked like this Than another soulless ue5 quixel assets flip With repeated pile of rubbish that has millions of polygons.

Rebirth have lower assets and so on but looks better, have a soul and its densely packed.
It just feels like made by humans and not created from store assets or generated.
I’ve not made it far yet but what I’ve seen until now looked great and thank god it looks somewhat unique.

Lack of ao and low poly stuff is true. I am not denying it. But it doesn’t bother me
 

rofif

Banned
They got fucked by UE5, all of the issues we can see were going to be 'solved' by UE5 according to early demos.
It was claimed you'd be able to easily move a project over and it would come with all these features, so I strongly suspect they set about building assets and making a version of the game that would completely choke out UE4. And then UE5 was released, and devs tried it, and found it mostly unworkable with all the new features either spotty or having huge performance overheads. Many developers have decided to stay in UE4 when they had previously been planning to switch.
If they knew UE5 was not going to work, they'd have probably started in a different engine. The asset quantity in the open world and cities is really pushing the limits of UE4, it's a pretty unfortunate compromise.
I suspect the texture detail got gutted because UE4 is forcing duplicate data and the build file size was hitting 200gb.

Wonder if we'll see a move to the FF16 engine for pt3. or UE5 might run well enough then.
True. Immortals of aveum guys said on Reddit that migration to ue5 was a pain and that’s the reason game don’t even had hdr because migration broke it and even epic wouldn’t help. And they had problems with relighting the areas even with lumen.
 

Schmendrick

Member
FF: Rebirth seems like a candidate to wait for a PC release and hope that either SE themselves or the mod community fixes the most obvious technical shortcomings. Can't say I'm motivated to pay for what the game is right now...
Another one in the long list of "next gen? What's that?"
 
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SABRE220

Member
Using U4 for Rebirth was clearly a mistake. The Engine struggles with large environments and with Rebirth it's no different. The actual game is great but at times it seems like it's bursting at the seams.
Lets not make excuses for SE here...smaller dev teams have made open games significantly more polished and visually appealing using the same engine. Dead island 2 and days gone had no issues looking great and not being littered with visual issues.
 

elbourreau

Member
FF: Rebirth seems like a candidate to wait for a PC release and hope that either SE themselves or the mod community fixes the most obvious technical shortcomings. Can't say I'm motivated to pay for what the game is right now...
Another one in the long list of "next gen? What's that?"
PLayed a few hours of intergrade on PC, didn't seem to me a REALLY noticable upgrade from PS4 pro... Maybe I'm wrong.
 

rofif

Banned
FF: Rebirth seems like a candidate to wait for a PC release and hope that either SE themselves or the mod community fixes the most obvious technical shortcomings. Can't say I'm motivated to pay for what the game is right now...
Another one in the long list of "next gen? What's that?"
Why would you wait for pain.
Just play it now
 

Xtib81

Member
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rofif

Banned
30fps always felt jarring to me be but I could somehow tolerate it on my old LCD. Since I switched to OLED it's become an absolute no go. The 30fps also don't fix the low res textures and basically nonexistent AO.
Everyone is different and I believe you but I still think you could do it if you gave it some fair chance.
But if you don't want to, that's fine too. Maybe I have more shit tolerance lol
 

analog_future

Resident Crybaby
Here is dead island 2's interiors. It's an open world game that doesnt have its lighting completely fall apart when you enter interiors like you do in Rebirth. im in the caves right now and my goodness. I dont know what the fuck is going on here. the caves in FF16 look amazing in comparison. Hell, the caves in Gotham Knights looked so good with fantastic volumetric lighting that i uploaded a video of it. Thats also a UE4 game.

DeadIsland-Win64-Shipping_2023_04_07_08_49_28_975.jpg

DeadIsland-Win64-Shipping_2023_04_06_23_33_42_706.jpg




Dead Island 2 isn't an open world game.
 

winjer

Member
Dead Island 2 isn't an open world game.

So what?
Ambient Occlusion implementation in a game has a defined radius. And it can be tweaked by the devs for performance or image quality.
In an open world game, AO will only be used in the defined area around the player.
 

SlimySnake

Flashless at the Golden Globes
Everyone is different and I believe you but I still think you could do it if you gave it some fair chance.
But if you don't want to, that's fine too. Maybe I have more shit tolerance lol
Remember how you felt with Alan wake 2? Playing an inferior version with a host of visual issues? This is how i feel right now playing this game. He’s right about AO, i feel like something that simple would fix a bunch of issues. I’m ok with 30 fps. I don’t get people to complain about 30 fps on oleds, but he’s right about the visual glitches.
 

rofif

Banned
Remember how you felt with Alan wake 2? Playing an inferior version with a host of visual issues? This is how i feel right now playing this game. He’s right about AO, i feel like something that simple would fix a bunch of issues. I’m ok with 30 fps. I don’t get people to complain about 30 fps on oleds, but he’s right about the visual glitches.
Yes but this will be the same on pc but 2000 fps.
I doubt there will be any visual difference.
I am playing more and it looks beautiful. Grasslands and kalm at the very least.
I understand complaints to a degree but it’s a bit overblown.

With aw2 I had legit complaints. It was just pc game with low settings on console. No magic sauce or optimisation.
I have done cool shots. Can post later
 

Xtib81

Member
I love the world, structures and lighting in Cyberpunk, from a wide panoramic view of the city to a simple back alley, there is great work behind it.

It's a shame that I feel the complete opposite of the NPC's, they seem to me to be of a low level and I feel that they are totally out of place.

JMeLlRV.gif


JMeDSp4.gif
Can't even imagine how incredible the sequel will look. Hopefully it's a next gen only title.
 

SlimySnake

Flashless at the Golden Globes
These UE5 tech demos drive me nuts. When on earth are we getting this level of fidelity!? Ps6? PS6 pro?

Never. The talent is gone from the industry. Whats left are hacks and rookies who have other priorities.

I just watched Dune 2. Took them 2 years to make, and its packed with insane setpieces and big war scenes. Meanwhile FF7 is a ubisoft copy pasta that took 4 years to make. No different from sony copy pastas that take 5-6. Either the industry is a scam or there is simply a massive talent gap between the film industry and the game industry.

FF7 and Suicide Squad are two massive games from two of the biggest studios in the industry and they both failed to raise the bar. People will blame UE4 but i saw plenty of these UE4 demos back in the day. Problem is that devs didnt bother utilizing the hardware. SS targets 1440p 60 fps. FF7 native 4k 30 fps. same pixel budget. they wasted half of the GPU on rendering pixels or framerate instead of pushing visual fidelity or physics or well anything that takes us from PS3 era gameplay design.

Here is an indie dev doing things with animations no studio has done all gen.



At this point, its not the tech thats holding them back. its the talent. the ambition. the desire to be the best. all of that is lacking in the current crop of studios. An industry stuck in a state of arrested development. An industry of hacks.
 
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