Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception

I heard the game will run in 1400p.


discuss that

That's lovely, Neo.

So what exactly was the point of your post in the first place?
I'm not in the mood to deal with bullshit and we both know I'm right, quit trying to troll.

Right about what? The graphics not improving much? We don't know for sure either way, so that's just conjecture, whichever way you want to spin it. I'm sure we won't see any sort of impressive leap, but improvements are improvements none-the-less.

I'm not attempting to troll at all, but if you want to perceive it that way, that's your business.

My final post was in regards to your 'graphically shit' phrase more than anything else, as you know that's just not true. Unless of course you consider anything less than complete and utter perfection to be 'shit'. Then, once again, that's your business.

Skip wrote:

Right about what? The graphics not improving much? We don't know for sure either way, so that's just conjecture, whichever way you want to spin it. I'm sure we won't see any sort of impressive leap, but improvements are improvements none-the-less.

Any percieved improvements will be at the expense of something else, take Killzone 3 or Crysis 2 as an example of this. They 'look good' but there's a shitload of blur and they use 'tricks' to make it appear better than it actually is. Technical graphics capability has peaked on the current generation of consoles, this is a fact.

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My final post was in regards to your 'graphically shit' phrase more than anything else, as you know that's just not true. Unless of course you consider anything less than complete and utter perfection to be 'shit'. Then, once again, that's your business.

It is graphically shit. As I said, they might make clever use of blur and depth of field to make things appear better than they are - that doesn't make them good.

Neo wrote:

Skip wrote:

Right about what? The graphics not improving much? We don't know for sure either way, so that's just conjecture, whichever way you want to spin it. I'm sure we won't see any sort of impressive leap, but improvements are improvements none-the-less.

Any percieved improvements will be at the expense of something else, take Killzone 3 or Crysis 2 as an example of this. They 'look good' but there's a shitload of blur and they use 'tricks' to make it appear better than it actually is. Technical graphics capability has peaked on the current generation of consoles, this is a fact.

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My final post was in regards to your 'graphically shit' phrase more than anything else, as you know that's just not true. Unless of course you consider anything less than complete and utter perfection to be 'shit'. Then, once again, that's your business.

It is graphically shit. As I said, they might make clever use of blur and depth of field to make things appear better than they are - that doesn't make them good.

I would argue that the graphics are as good as they appear, regardless of tools used to make them appear better than the coding. That 'clever use of blur' improves the graphics by eliminating or minimalising any flaws present in the coding, making up for it. If you were talking specifically about coding, then sure, they won't be up to the same standard; but graphics are about more than just coding.

Skip wrote:

I would argue that the graphics are as good as they appear

Then you'd be wrong. Take this image, looks pretty shit right?


But that scene looks fine in motion because it's cleverly disguised.

It's nothing like Metro 2033, Crysis or other games that actually have good graphics where everything looks good, even if you only see it for a second like foliage on a train level or clothing from a certain angle with specific lighting.

But it doesn't matter if you don't see it. Unless you want to be picky about it. What it comes down to is that graphics are as good as they appear, regardless of how good it looks frame-by-frame. That's just semantics.

Skip wrote:

But it doesn't matter if you don't see it. Unless you want to be picky about it. What it comes down to is that graphics are as good as they appear, regardless of how good it looks frame-by-frame. That's just semantics.

Well if you ignore resolution and the fact that other aspects of the game begin to suffer, sure. But that's the point we're at, developers are trying to make things look better than they can possibly be on a given platform and it's resulting in games that have far more blur, depth of field and pre-rendered trickery than they can get away with. It ends up making the end product look shitty.

I'm calling BS on that screenshot. Look at screen shots from U2 they don't look like whatever PS2 game that is.

Neo wrote:

Skip wrote:

But it doesn't matter if you don't see it. Unless you want to be picky about it. What it comes down to is that graphics are as good as they appear, regardless of how good it looks frame-by-frame. That's just semantics.

Well if you ignore resolution and the fact that other aspects of the game begin to suffer, sure.

All that actually matters is what you can see. Perceived graphics are really the end of it; unless of course you're one of those people who actively look for faults.

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But that's the point we're at, developers are trying to make things look better than they can possibly be on a given platform and it's resulting in games that have far more blur, depth of field and pre-rendered trickery than they can get away with. It ends up making the end product look shitty.

And of course if they use too much it's going to look worse, but obviously any devs that actually care about this sort of thing/have a rep to uphold aren't going to. So it's really not all that relevant to this discussion.

Oh, and while we're on that screenshot. It's more likely the scenery was made blurry purposefully to give the impression of speed; as opposed to general laziness or inability. Nice try though.

Skip wrote:

All that actually matters is what you can see. Perceived graphics are really the end of it; unless of course you're one of those people who actively look for faults.

Not really, the faults are quite apparent if you've ever played a game like Crysis or Metro 2033. If someone lacks the experence or knowledge of the subject matter to realise that something is bad that's their own fault.

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And of course if they use too much it's going to look worse, but obviously any devs that actually care about this sort of thing/have a rep to uphold aren't going to. So it's really not all that relevant to this discussion.

Guerilla Games and Crytek don't count as devs with reputations to uphold? That's just laughable, especially Crytek.

Skip wrote:

Oh, and while we're on that screenshot. It's more likely the scenery was made blurry purposefully to give the impression of speed; as opposed to general laziness or inability. Nice try though.

Are you blind? There's more that shitty blur in that screenshot. Aliasing, muddy, low resolution textures and poor object models just to name a few.

Are you saying Killzone 3 doesn't have better graphics than Killzone 2? Because when I played the demo it looked pretty good despite the lack of colour, but Killzone 2 had the same lack of colour, so that's not any sort of step backwards. And that was just a demo, Psycho probably has a better idea, but I'd say there's a definite improvement.

I haven't played either Crysis so I won't comment on Crytek.

Neo wrote:

Skip wrote:

Oh, and while we're on that screenshot. It's more likely the scenery was made blurry purposefully to give the impression of speed; as opposed to general laziness or inability. Nice try though.

Are you blind? There's more that shitty blur in that screenshot. Aliasing, muddy, low resolution textures and poor object models just to name a few.

And they don't matter in the slightest because you don't notice them unless you take the frame individually. There really is no point in making individual frames of backgrounds look any good if no one is going to see them. That's just a waste otherwise.

Skip wrote:

Are you saying Killzone 3 doesn't have better graphics than Killzone 2

No, I'm saying that Killzone 3 suffers because it has too much blur, bloom, depth of field etc...

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And they don't matter in the slightest because you don't notice them unless you take the frame individually. There really is no point in making individual frames of backgrounds look any good if no one is going to see them. That's just a waste otherwise.

Actually aliasing, bad models and low-res textures are extremely easy to notice. It's not just on the plants, if you didn't realise.

Neo wrote:

Skip wrote:

Are you saying Killzone 3 doesn't have better graphics than Killzone 2

No, I'm saying that Killzone 3 suffers because it has too much blur, bloom, depth of field etc...

Quote :

And they don't matter in the slightest because you don't notice them unless you take the frame individually. There really is no point in making individual frames of backgrounds look any good if no one is going to see them. That's just a waste otherwise.

Actually aliasing, bad models and low-res textures are extremely easy to notice. It's not just on the plants, if you didn't realise.

Apart from the plants, ground and the bridge (the background), what else looks especially bad?



That's just for comparison purposes.

Aliasing (jagged edges) on everything, bad models, particularly the 'detail' on the train - round objects aren't supposed to have 12 sides and low-resolution textures on almost everything but Drake.

You're right abut the aliasing, but what rounded object has 12 sides? I'm pretty sure that's supposed to be a dodecahedral shape.

The thing, whatever it is, on the end of the rectangular boxes on the roof of the train.

The thing with the bolts in it? Yeah, don't think that's supposed to be circular, just give them the benefit of the doubt when it's something unclear like that.

But if your counting that awful screenshot as bad effects, hw come other stills from non moving levels look better.

I'd say they used blurring effects for levels like that boat thingy and the train one, but other levels I can stand still and the textures are never that bad.

I'm sure most game developers would take the opportunity to use motion blur when you have to move along, seeing as this would be the easiest and fastest way to do those levels, seeing as you can't see these things at a standstill its all good.

The slower paced levels do look better but it's still smoke and mirrors. Very little is dynamically rendered, for example the only lighting that is done in real time is on Drake and other characters, all the shadows coming off buildings and the environment are worked into the textures as shown in this picture.
I'm not trying to say Uncharted is shit or anything, I'm just using it as an example of the methods console developers use to make games appear better because they've hit the limits of what the hardware can do.

That's just ridiculous nitpicking. And I haven't played Killzone 3, but how is depth an issue?