Real PS4 Screenshots Justify All That 'Next-Gen' Hype

[Crimson Rain]

I don't see any next-gen about these. So far, the only thing that felt next-gen is Forza; but then again, that's a racing game only.

[dead.cell]

Yeah the game has so few polygons...

 

http://www.dualshockers.com/2014/04/14/infamous-second-sons-characters-are-120000-polygons-11-million-rendered-regularly-by-the-engine/

i'm keen to see how many The Order has, it looks even better than this game

Honestly, I'm less concerned with the statistics as I am the art direction. I didn't really care about The Order until more recently after understanding some of the goals behind what they're trying to do. I just hope the gameplay turns out for the better; we don't need more graphical showcases at this point, but rather something enjoyable through and through.

[psionicinversion]

Theres some great game coming out for PC and consoles like Watch dogs which, giant bomb says PC verison is superior to the PS4 and is the version what youd wanna play although does say the ps4 version is fine 

 

 

Youve also got the Division which looks really good with the snowdrop engine... the engine that hideo kojima (MGS5) said makes him want to quit his job lol, Project Cars etc, alot of these games will blow KZ infamous etc away. I feel infamous looks good the the lighting is done in a way that amplifies the game stuff. Its strange cus the photos look good but the actual gameplay footage doesnt look good, might be youtubes compression but its not that impressive

[DirtyLarry Veteran]

It is unbelievable how much just plain old hate for the sake of hate there is in this thread and how people are arguing about things that are not even relevant.

First off YES, everyone knows PC's are capable of producing better graphics than these shown here and consoles period.

The term next gen is never said in regards to PC Gaming, does not apply to PC gaming, and simply put has nothing to do with PC Gaming.

But okay, come in the thread all you want and continue bragging about how much better PC Graphics are compared to console graphics if it makes you feel better about things.

 

With that out of the way, I have to say it is both amusing yet quite bewildering that there are people out there who try to not recognize the fact this is a damn good looking game and so far the most impressive from a technical standpoint on the next gen consoles. In fact it is the best representation thus far graphically of this next generation of consoles. Those of us who were practical and realistic with our expectations realize this images are right in line with what we anticipated these next generation of consoles to be capable of producing. Infamous:Second Son is right now the best looking game on consoles from a technical perspective. There really is not much else to be said about it as the numbers do not lie. Sure, people may prefer Ryse's visuals, I am not arguing this fact, that all is a matter of opinion. But the most impressive visuals from a technical standpoint?? It is Infamous: Second Son. Really is that simple. 

[DrunknMunky Veteran]

Topic cleaned

 

Last time I'm cleaning topics today, warns handed out next time.

[CJ33]

The last one is amazing in terms of color and composition

 

 

i'd say the second to last one. The last one is pretty much all dark.

[Nogib]

Not impressed. All those shots have very low polygon counts and try to make up the detail in the texturing and effects.

 

But poly counts aren't everything.  All that matters is the end result of how the game looks.  I remember when going from Call of Duty 2 to their next game Call of Duty 4, Infinity Ward cut the poly count of character models by almost 50% but ended up with a game that looked way way better thanks to superior textures and effects.

[theyarecomingforyou]

But poly counts aren't everything.  All that matters is the end result of how the game looks.

I never said they were. My point is that the texturing and effects can't make up for the lack of geometric detail. Take the first screenshot, for instance - the ledge is absolutely smooth with no detail whatsoever; the same goes for the water in the background. With the second screenshot you can see that it lacks tessellation, meaning that the chain links are very angular instead of being rounded; notice also that the shadowing on the character model is very low resolution. The fourth screenshot is even more extreme, with virtually no geometric detail and quite low resolution textures.

 

I wouldn't describe any of those screenshots as "next-gen".

[mrp04]

I can't tell how good they look, there's too much blur!

 

But they really don't look that amazing. Especially that bank one.

[Doli]

I never said they were. My point is that the texturing and effects can't make up for the lack of geometric detail. Take the first screenshot, for instance - the ledge is absolutely smooth with no detail whatsoever; the same goes for the water in the background. With the second screenshot you can see that it lacks tessellation, meaning that the chain links are very angular instead of being rounded; notice also that the shadowing on the character model is very low resolution. The fourth screenshot is even more extreme, with virtually no geometric detail and quite low resolution textures.

 

I wouldn't describe any of those screenshots as "next-gen".

 

The chain is just fine the way it is they dont need to add more details to the links since the camera wont be that close in real gameplay.

[theyarecomingforyou]

The chain is just fine the way it is they dont need to add more details to the links since the camera wont be that close in real gameplay.

But that's exactly what tessellation is for - you only see the extra detail when you get up close so it doesn't hurt performance when you're further away. It's basically an advanced form of LOD scaling. Both the PS4 and XB1 support tessellation, it's just whether the developer chooses to implement it and has the graphical power available. I suspect it is a performance limitation.

[HawkMan]

But that's exactly what tessellation is for - you only see the extra detail when you get up close so it doesn't hurt performance when you're further away. It's basically an advanced form of LOD scaling. Both the PS4 and XB1 support tessellation, it's just whether the developer chooses to implement it and has the graphical power available. I suspect it is a performance limitation.

Tesselation isn't a perfect technology you can apply to all objects and get a good result. 

 

as for the chains, it wouldn't make sense to use tesselation on them, in game they're moving to fast and to far away from the camera to ever need it, but it would still activate even though it wouldn't have any visual impact, causing performance slowdowns. 

 

As for your comments that these shots aren't next gen. are you saying these shots don't look a LOT better than PS3 and Xbox 360 shots ?no? then they're next gen, PC doesn't have generations. 

[ShadowMajestic]

Wow, this game looks amazing. Can boast all you want about PC graphics, but put BF4 on ultra and Infamous SS still dominates on the visuals in some of these screenshots.

[+Anarkii Subscriber²]

I never said they were. My point is that the texturing and effects can't make up for the lack of geometric detail. Take the first screenshot, for instance - the ledge is absolutely smooth with no detail whatsoever; the same goes for the water in the background. With the second screenshot you can see that it lacks tessellation, meaning that the chain links are very angular instead of being rounded; notice also that the shadowing on the character model is very low resolution. The fourth screenshot is even more extreme, with virtually no geometric detail and quite low resolution textures.

 

I wouldn't describe any of those screenshots as "next-gen".

Just to add to your comments, 'next-gen' games wont ever have high polygon counts, simply because there is no need. Why have a model of say 300,000 polygons when you can get the same effect using a 100,000 polygon model, with baked in diffuse, normal, spec and displacement maps to produce the same result? 

PC games have been doing this for years, consoles do it but to more an extreme due to the limitations of what the video cards can push out. Infamous SS is probably the first game to have the low mesh models but those textures are pretty good. And considering its 1080p - you will never see textures higher than 1080x1080 pixels on the Xbox1 or the PS4. So zooming in like that forth screenshot - the textures are going to look like that. 

[HawkMan]

Just to add to your comments, 'next-gen' games wont ever have high polygon counts, simply because there is no need. Why have a model of say 300,000 polygons when you can get the same effect using a 100,000 polygon model, with baked in diffuse, normal, spec and displacement maps to produce the same result? 

PC games have been doing this for years, consoles do it but to more an extreme due to the limitations of what the video cards can push out. Infamous SS is probably the first game to have the low mesh models but those textures are pretty good. And considering its 1080p - you will never see textures higher than 1080x1080 pixels on the Xbox1 or the PS4. So zooming in like that forth screenshot - the textures are going to look like that. 

ummm...  both consoles use textures a lot higher resolution than 1080x1080. 

[+Anarkii Subscriber²]

ummm...  both consoles use textures a lot higher resolution than 1080x1080. 

Source? 

Because why would a texture need to be any higher resolution than that being projected to the screen? Games have always worked like that, and CGI in movies work the same way. Take lego movie for example: Its playing on a cinema screen, but its still rendered out at 4096 horizontal pixels as there will be a 4K version one day.

PS4's top resolution is 1080p - so thats 1080 horizontal pixels... why waste ram commiting a texture map higher than 1080x1080 when it wont be seen at all? If you look at any element in those Infamous screenshots, not one thing would have a texture map higher than the 1080x1080. The texture may be repeated, but it wouldn't be higher than that.

[Am_I_Evil]

They talk about bullshots, say they are a bad thing and not representative of the real game, and then post shots from a 'photo mode' which are the exact same thing thing as bullshots except taken by users instead of the developer.

 

i'm not sure you understand what "bullshots" are...

[DeltaXray]

Err. This game doesn't have a 'photo mode' per-se as in where the graphics are increased in that mode. It just has an option to disable the GUI. That's it. Why are people getting so butthurt over it?

[theyarecomingforyou]

Just to add to your comments, 'next-gen' games wont ever have high polygon counts, simply because there is no need. Why have a model of say 300,000 polygons when you can get the same effect using a 100,000 polygon model, with baked in diffuse, normal, spec and displacement maps to produce the same result?

Next-gen games won't have high polygon counts because the XB1 and PS4 simply can't handle them. The reason for higher polygon counts is increased fidelity - there's only so much you can do with texturing and effects. As I pointed out, it's very easy to see where shortcuts are being taken - it's not "the same result", as you claim. The ledge I pointed out in the first screenshot is completely flat - it has absolutely no geometric detail and it is very obvious. Without geometric detail you can't have dynamic shadowing across the surface, so the lighting suffers.

 

Ryse, which is considered one of the benchmarks for next-gen consoles, features only 80,000 polygons for the main character model and Infamous: Second Son is around 120,000 so it's pretty similar - that compares to 7,500,000 for the Bengal Carrier in Star Citizen on PC, with smaller ships weighing in at 300,000. You simply can't mask those sorts of differences with texturing effects. The point is, it's better to have higher polygon counts where possible.

[DeltaXray]

Next-gen games won't have high polygon counts because the XB1 and PS4 simply can't handle them. The reason for higher polygon counts is increased fidelity - there's only so much you can do with texturing and effects. As I pointed out, it's very easy to see where shortcuts are being taken - it's not "the same result", as you claim. The ledge I pointed out in the first screenshot is completely flat - it has absolutely no geometric detail and it is very obvious. Without geometric detail you can't have dynamic shadowing across the surface, so the lighting suffers.

Ryse, which is considered one of the benchmarks for next-gen consoles, features only 80,000 polygons for the main character model and Infamous: Second Son is around 120,000 so it's pretty similar - that compares to 7,500,000 for the Bengal Carrier in Star Citizen on PC, with smaller ships weighing in at 300,000. You simply can't mask those sorts of differences with texturing effects. The point is, it's better to have higher polygon counts where possible.

You ever heard of diminishing returns? A 200,000 polygon character won't look 2x better than a 100,000 polygon character. That kind of thing was true perhaps in the mid nineties where polygon counts were in the hundreds/low thousands.

Graphical fidelity is found elsewhere now .

[HawkMan]

Source? 

Because why would a texture need to be any higher resolution than that being projected to the screen? Games have always worked like that, and CGI in movies work the same way. Take lego movie for example: Its playing on a cinema screen, but its still rendered out at 4096 horizontal pixels as there will be a 4K version one day.

PS4's top resolution is 1080p - so thats 1080 horizontal pixels... why waste ram commiting a texture map higher than 1080x1080 when it wont be seen at all? If you look at any element in those Infamous screenshots, not one thing would have a texture map higher than the 1080x1080. The texture may be repeated, but it wouldn't be higher than that.

 

Because you often zoom in a lot closer than that. textures on enviroments and buildings and such need to be higher, after all if a wall had a 1080 res texture, it would look good at a distance when the wall was 1:1 with the screen(well except the screen is 1920 wide), of course then you walk up to it, and ... wow, suddenly you only see a single pixel. 

 

When it comes to characters they generally use 2048 minimum, often with a separate texture for the face. why ? because the texture wraps and warps around the character. 

 

a 1080 texture would ONLY ever look good whenit was 1:1 with a 1080 screen in height. 

 

Also the PS4 top resolution would be 1080 VERTICAL pixels, 1920 HORIZONTAL pixels 

You ever heard of diminishing returns? A 200,000 polygon character won't look 2x better than a 100,000 polygon character. That kind of thing was true perhaps in the mid nineties where polygon counts were in the hundreds/low thousands.

Graphical fidelity is found elsewhere now .

 

With normal map, the 2000 poly model would be as good as the 20k and 40k models in game though. 

[theyarecomingforyou]

You ever heard of diminishing returns? A 200,000 polygon character won't look 2x better than a 100,000 polygon character. That kind of thing was true perhaps in the mid nineties where polygon counts were in the hundreds/low thousands.

Graphical fidelity is found elsewhere now .

The issues I pointed out are easily noticeable and a result of not enough geometric detail. In this instance the developer clearly opted for character detail over environment detail due to the constraints of the hardware. Polygon counts are still a major factor in graphical fidelity.

[McKay]

Those are some pretty artsy screenshots. I really don't have an artistic eye to think of doing anything like that. 

[HawkMan]

The issues I pointed out are easily noticeable and a result of not enough geometric detail. In this instance the developer clearly opted for character detail over environment detail due to the constraints of the hardware. Polygon counts are still a major factor in graphical fidelity.

 

Depends onthe model, in the case of the characters show, the 2000 poly models with a normal map and bumps maps would be MORE than good enough. except for very specific circumstances. 

 

for models with larger curves or tight cuves where the profile of the curve is visible a lot, you need to have more polys on the curve. 

 

in this case if it was to have animated face for talking the face part of the 20k models with normal maps would be better used, provided you have good enough animatons to make use of the polies. but something inbetween would probaby be better for several reasons. 

[McKay]

The issues I pointed out are easily noticeable and a result of not enough geometric detail. In this instance the developer clearly opted for character detail over environment detail due to the constraints of the hardware. Polygon counts are still a major factor in graphical fidelity.

 

In my game the buildings don't fully load until I'm within 10 meters of them (ish) due to texture popin. It's still a very pretty game however.