“Back Stage” Ray Tracing Tech Demo - Created By Luminous Productions

[Xenosaga]

Just think that instead of faking how light, atmosphere and materials work by clever composing of effects, you simulate their physics. It s much more accurate (but computationally intensive). It might look the same at quick first glance, because modern artists and engine creators are very talented at faking, but the brain will register the scene as real when the simulation is mature enough because the details only caught on subconscious level will ring true to real life physics principles. We are not there yet, but advancing.
The draw back is that by faking you are much more able to imprint the visual style and mood... with RT you will have to emulate the movies techniques.
When I do 3d scenes nowadays, I have to lit my scenes like I do when I do studio photography, and make sure the scale is life perfect, because we use raytracing. I create fake spot lights, put fake white drapes, put fake obscuring slabs, etc, because the renderer simulate light. It s closer to real life techniques.

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Thank you for the explanation. I knew the basics of the tech but your explanation helped me learn more accurately..
I guess the issue is that I don't really see the "accurate" real time reflection thing important when I see stuff compared to the "fake" ones that does good job to me. Like accurate reflection is the last thing I would care about when I look at the visual.
The more interesting thing is the overall lighting improvement, but few example I have seen I never really noticed it looked so much better because a lot of the lighting I see these days look very "real" to me even without ray tracing on. It's probably because I am not really into graphics tech so I won't really notice subtle differences others see...

 

[kvetcha]

The fact that only a few people seem to understand how impressive this is makes me feel like I'm on crazy pills.

 

[Mechaplum]

This is super impressive running in real time imo.

 

[KeRaSh]

The lighting is great but the character animations scream PS3 Quantic Dream and kinda ruin the demo.

 

[Lactose_Intolerant]

"....what are you watching there, Son?"

"It is a ray-tracing video, Dad!"

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I learned it by watching you

 

[Dictator]

The fact that only a few people seem to understand how impressive this is makes me feel like I'm on crazy pills.

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Welcome to my world.

 

[jett]

Can I get a slider that I can move around that's shows rtx on/off? Cause this doesn't look any better than Detroit, or that demo they did back at PS4's announcement.

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You wouldn't see much of anything because this demo was specifically created for raytracing. There isn't an alternative, I imagine.

Thank you for the explanation. I knew the basics of the tech but your explanation helped me learn more accurately..
I guess the issue is that I don't really see the "accurate" real time reflection thing important when I see stuff compared to the "fake" ones that does good job to me. Like accurate reflection is the last thing I would care about when I look at the visual.
The more interesting thing is the overall lighting improvement, but few example I have seen I never really noticed it looked so much better because a lot of the lighting I see these days look very "real" to me even without ray tracing on. It's probably because I am not really into graphics tech so I won't really notice subtle differences others see...

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The fact is game devs have gotten extremely good at "fakery." Personally I'd rather have higher framerates than raytracing anything in next-gen consoles.

 

[pleaseinsertdisctwo]

She seemed kind of robotic and unnatural

 

[Xenosaga]

The fact is game devs have gotten extremely good at "fakery." Personally I'd rather have higher framerates than raytracing anything in next-gen consoles.

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Yeah when I see a lot of big games these days, it looks very real to me. Stuff like RDR2's lighting blew my mind on my PS4...
And when something doesn't look 100% real, it's usually because devs intentionally stylized the lighting or something...

 

[Anthony Hopkins]

You can tell the subtle differences in the lighting on her face, that I'm guessing would not be as good without RT.

RT combined with other advances (high polycount, higher textures, more ssao + ssr, more effects, UE4 destruction tech, will create a pretty big leap.
But these techs on there own are subtle.
If you put this tech demo and a scene from the last of us 2, I bet quite a few people would think tlou2 looks better.

 

[More Butter]

looks great. It's just really hard for people to be impressed these days.

 

[Anthony Hopkins]

I was never really graphics tech guy in the first place, but I just don't really get Ray Tracing stuff.... not just about this tech demo but other stuff I have seen as well.

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Go to 1.47
Alex does a good job explaining the benifits of ray tracing in a really easy to understand way.

 

[KORNdog]

detroit honestly looks nicer than this. fakey solutions and work arounds or not, that's my take away from this demo.

 

[Arthands]

The fact that only a few people seem to understand how impressive this is makes me feel like I'm on crazy pills.

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Don't worry. They will somehow get it after Sony and Microsoft explain to them.

 

[Deleted member 18161]

N.. No?

Detroit looks nice but if anyone thinks that it looks almost as good as this tech demo I think the world is going mad. This thread is making me think the world is going mad ATM.

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I think the point is that for some people (the people not right into the tech like Alex from DF) it really doesn't look that much of a leap over what we already have (esp in cut scenes) to the average person, even to people on here who like to compare graphics.

I really hope the next gen consoles don't blow most of their power increase on RTRT and native 4k personally as there's still lots of other areas that could be improved with said power.

 

[Deleted member 39450]

Thank you for the explanation. I knew the basics of the tech but your explanation helped me learn more accurately..
I guess the issue is that I don't really see the "accurate" real time reflection thing important when I see stuff compared to the "fake" ones that does good job to me. Like accurate reflection is the last thing I would care about when I look at the visual.
The more interesting thing is the overall lighting improvement, but few example I have seen I never really noticed it looked so much better because a lot of the lighting I see these days look very "real" to me even without ray tracing on. It's probably because I am not really into graphics tech so I won't really notice subtle differences others see...

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To get a good idea of what ray-tracing brings to the table, it might be better to look at simpler examples such as the Minecraft demo:

In the real world, all objects are actually emissive so here you can see how light from the lava bleeds upward into the scene. You normally could fake this by using orange fill lights along the wall, but you wouldn't get the accurate falloff & shadows of the sections jutting out of the wall.

 

[Jobbs]

To people who don't understand what's happening with full implementations of RTX -- I have an analogy that I think roughly compares if you are old enough to remember when Half-Life 2 first came out. Remember the introduction of fully simulated object physics in games? Before that time -- you could, say, animate a ball to move, or tell it to move, but you didn't before the advent of physics engines have an accurate simulation compelling the ball to move based on the reality of its surroundings and the forces at play. Physics engines brought a new level of interactivity and realism to gaming.

That's kind of what RTX means to gaming, as well, and we're right on the verge of an entirely new paradigm as with ray tracing we can fully and authentically simulate light and shadow in real time, globally.

 

[Deleted member 1589]

The fact that only a few people seem to understand how impressive this is makes me feel like I'm on crazy pills.

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The problem is it doesnt look impressive.

 

[DoradoWinston]

its impressive yes but honestly as of today ray tracing in games is not something I even really think about or am willing to sacrifice preformance for tbh. Control is the first game that really looks nice with it but it looks great without it too. Im curious how Cyberpunk and Watch Dogs 3 turn out and compare to non rtx.

 

[Deleted member 27751]

My problem is that these tech demos are nice, but the actual limitations are pretty clear in performance with RT on. I'm running a 1070 and see absolutely no reason to go RTX anytime soon, and maybe even into mid next-gen as well. Nothing is as important as FPS gains compared to some realistic lighting and subsurface scattering being more accurate. Yeah, it looks nice but at the cost of going 1080p/30fps? No thank you.

 

[Vitet]

I think the most impressive for me is when she moves her face side to side and the shadows on her changes subtetly and fluid, not just some darker line or pixelated shadow traveling her face.

 

[Talus]

All the graphics effects you see and take for granted in gaming today were once featured in a tech demo.

The people who either don't understand or simply refuse to accept that something can be technically superior without necessarily being visually superior and comment that such technology is "a waste" or "not worth it" simply haven't seen the right content yet.

It will come.

 

[statham]

Life is Strange 3 is looking good.

 

[kvetcha]

The problem is it doesnt look impressive.

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Then you don't understand what you're looking at.

 

[Phellps]

Not too impressed by the character model, but the lighting is incredible. The reflection on the mirror, provided it's ray-traced, is fantastic too.

 

[Deleted member 49535]

And yet the only thing I noticed is how bad the animation was after she put on the lipstick.

 

[modiz]

Then you don't understand what you're looking at.

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or that some of us dont measure graphics by how complex it is to render.
i dont give a damn about a list of the tech that was used, i care about what i see in the end result, and for me subjectively, it doesnt even look as impressive as some current gen games. part of that is due to different focuses of tech, another part is on the art direction, etc.

 

[Deleted member 1589]

Then you don't understand what you're looking at.

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No, here's the thing. I understand why it's impressive. It doesnt mean that I think it looks impressive.

or that some of us dont measure graphics by how complex it is to render.
i dont give a damn about a list of the tech that was used, i care about what i see in the end result, and for me subjectively, it doesnt even look as impressive as some current gen games. part of that is due to different focuses of tech, another part is on the art direction, etc.

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Yep.

 

[SunBroDave]

That looked amazing, yet people here are so desperate to just dump on Square and this engine

 

[Menchin]

I don't know how anyone can claim that ray-tracing isn't the future.

 

[Dennis8K]

To get a good idea of what ray-tracing brings to the table, it might be better to look at simpler examples such as the Minecraft demo:

In the real world, all objects are actually emissive so here you can see how light from the lava bleeds upward into the scene. You normally could fake this by using orange fill lights along the wall, but you wouldn't get the accurate falloff & shadows of the sections jutting out of the wall.

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Why is no game developer giving me an open-world RPG with ray-traced Minecraft-like graphics?

ARE THEY ASLEEP?! DO THEY HATE MONEY?

 

[kvetcha]

No, here's the thing. I understand why it's impressive. It doesnt mean that I think it looks impressive.

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Fair enough. I disagree, but fair enough.

or that some of us dont measure graphics by how complex it is to render.
i dont give a damn about a list of the tech that was used, i care about what i see in the end result, and for me subjectively, it doesnt even look as impressive as some current gen games. part of that is due to different focuses of tech, another part is on the art direction, etc.

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Nevermind the reflections or the irregular light or the multitude of per-object real-time shadows, the subsurface scattering effect on the model's skin alone is next-level.

 

[Panda Andino]

nvm

 

[Jessie]

It's a ray tracing demo, not a retail game. Come on, folks.

 

[Dennis8K]

I get what people mean when they say it doesn't look immediately impressive. Minecraft ray-traced has a much more immediate wow-factor to it.

But it is the fact this is full path-traced in real time that is so exciting for the future.

 

[Strings]

Btw this is the video description...

Luminous Productions, in partnership with NVIDIA, has created a new Luminous Engine tech demo powered by a single GeForce RTX 2080 Ti, that runs in real-time with full path-traced ray tracing.

Hope this helps to understand why this is impressive.

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It's the first thing in the OP.

 

[Foreign Jackass]

Uncanny valley animation fix needed

 

[Deleted member 32018]

Why are people focusing on the animation, this tech demo has nothing to do with animation...

 

[Edgar]

That looked amazing, yet people here are so desperate to just dump on Square and this engine

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On top of that it focuses on Ray tracing and Nvidia gpu. So a lot of people like to dump on that too

 

[PixelatedDonut]

or that some of us dont measure graphics by how complex it is to render.
i dont give a damn about a list of the tech that was used, i care about what i see in the end result, and for me subjectively, it doesnt even look as impressive as some current gen games. part of that is due to different focuses of tech, another part is on the art direction, etc.

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Sounds like you guys don't know what a tech demo is then. This is fully path traced, this is square showing what they can do on current modern hardware, but fully path traced.

 

[Opus Angelorum]

Looks fantastic if you understand what's actually occuring.

 

[Deleted member 1589]

Fair enough. I disagree, but fair enough.



Nevermind the reflections or the irregular light or the multitude of per-object real-time shadows, the subsurface scattering effect on the model's skin alone is next-level.

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It's cool.

I was impressed by what I played with RT on in Control, even when I had to use DLSS with 720p upscaled. So no worries, it's not that I'm looking down on the tech, just that I think the tech demo could be better at showcasing it.

 

[Panda Andino]

It's the first thing in the OP.

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Yes, sorry. Was confusing by some ppl reaction

 

[kvetcha]

It's cool.

I was impressed by what I played with RT on in Control, even when I had to use DLSS with 720p upscaled. So no worries, it's not that I'm looking down on the tech, just that I think the tech demo could be better at showcasing it.

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I think even with the setup they had they could have played with different light bulbs turning off or changing color just to underline how the shadows and color blending and secondary reflections are being done in real time.

 

[modiz]

Btw this is the video description...

Luminous Productions, in partnership with NVIDIA, has created a new Luminous Engine tech demo powered by a single GeForce RTX 2080 Ti, that runs in real-time with full path-traced ray tracing.

Hope this helps to understand why this is impressive.

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then i will repeat what i said, i dont give a damn about the list of tech that is getting used or being told how high end all they are doing is, i want to have my socks be blown off by how the end result looks.
for example i find these 2 tech demos much more minblowing:

 

[PixelatedDonut]

then i will repeat what i said, i dont give a damn about the list of tech that is getting used or being told how high end all they are doing is, i want to have my socks be blown off by how the end result looks.
for example i find these 2 tech demos much more minblowing:

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You want something that isn't what this demo is about, so why not just move on?

 

[KKRT]

People looking at textures and shaders in a lighting demo ;/

Shadowing in this demo is so amazing omg.

 

[Deleted member 1589]

I think even with the setup they had they could have played with different light bulbs turning off or changing color just to underline how the shadows and color blending and secondary reflections are being done in real time.

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That would be nice. Picking up an object with its own lightsource to showcase color bleeding would be good too.

 

[OnionPowder]

No idea, it'll not even look close to that on consoles.

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Well no shit, this is running on a GPU stronger than the one in the PS5 let alone the PS4 or PS4 Pro.

 

[kvetcha]

That would be nice. Picking up an object with its own lightsource to showcase color bleeding would be good too.

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Agreed.