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Pokémon Let's Go, Pikachu! & Let's Go, Eevee! using Silicon Studio's YEBIS 3 middleware for graphics

Serebii

Serebii

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Silicon Studio announced this today. The game uses their advanced optical middleware engine. This is for various post-processing effects, presumably things like the auras around Pokémon and so forth.


https://www.siliconstudio.co.jp/news/pressreleases/2018/1811yebis/pdf/1811yebis.pdf


A pretty neat thing to know. We know the battle system and overworld appears to be using a modified Generation 7 engine so it's all coming together.

Incidentally, this is good for Silicon Studio...

 
Jessie

Jessie

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Oct 27, 2017
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I'm glad Gamefreak is working on engine improvements. Say what you want about the gameplay, but Let's Go looked really polished.
 
Neoxon

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Interesting, I wonder how this will impact Gen 8. It may be mainly for the effects, but still.
 
ShinobiBk

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Jessie said:
I'm glad Gamefreak is working on engine improvements. Say what you want about the gameplay, but Let's Go looked really polished.
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As someone who was down now the game before release, I actually like the gameplay but think it's a huge letdown aesthetically. The Pokemon look fine enough but the people look bad and have horrendous animations or rather a horrendous lack of animations. Pretty much every NPC in the game is only capable of standing still like a statue, turning in 45 degree angles and walking in straight lines.
Too many performance drops too for a game that is not pushing the hardware at all
 
Tora

Tora

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Jun 17, 2018
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Game looks so flat and uninspired, character models look just slightly better than 3ds upressed into HD.
 
Phellps

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It's such a gorgeous game. Makes me really excited about what next year's game is going to look like.
 

Deleted member 1413

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Oct 25, 2017
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It's more for post processing effects.
It's still likely running off the 3DS engine with YEBIS middleware for scenes like Pikcachu on your arm
 

Nuclear Muffin

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Oct 29, 2017
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That's surprising to see Game Freak using an outside engine for their major titles. Yeah, I know that they used Unity for Tembo, but seeing them use Yebis in a major Pokemon title is still very surprising!
 
Aleh

Aleh

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I'm guessing they used it since the Gen 7 engine couldn't do everything they needed it to and it would have been a waste to use the engine they're using for Town or Gen 8.
I'm not really expecting them to use Yebis after this one time
 
Galkinator

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Jessie said:
I'm glad Gamefreak is working on engine improvements. Say what you want about the gameplay, but Let's Go looked really polished.
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What does this even mean?
The game is objectively not a looker, nor does it actually make much use of its hardware specs. Launch titles look a lot better and run better for example.

I really hope gamefreak will surprise us with next year's gen 8 game, because if it's just a copy paste of LGP/E graphics and style I'll be severely disappointed.
It's one thing neglecting the technical aspect of your games on a limited hardware handheld console, but on a home console capable of running Doom 2016 for example there are no excuses especially for such a high profile & money making game such as Pokemon.
 
ILikeFeet

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Nuclear Muffin said:
That's surprising to see Game Freak using an outside engine for their major titles. Yeah, I know that they used Unity for Tembo, but seeing them use Yebis in a major Pokemon title is still very surprising!
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not really, Let's Go is still Game Freak's inhouse engine. they're using external post-processing solutions, probably because their own engine can't do it (it was made for the 3DS after all). this doesn't tell us anything about what Gen 8 will use
 
lint2015

lint2015

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The game's graphics aren't a technical marvel but it looks really nice with the art style they went with.
 
Cloud-Hidden

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Joey Ravn said:
Except for that one spot in Viridian forest that absolutely tanks the framerate :P
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Yeah, I noticed that the other night. What the heck happened there?

There's another corner of the second city you come to that does the same thing, but worse. It's not something the average player will ever encounter but I can replicate / trigger it 100% of the time. In one corner for a stretch of about three steps the game lurches into half-speed.

There are a few funky quirks with this engine, but overall it looks gorgeous.
 
ILikeFeet

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Cloud-Hidden said:
Yeah, I noticed that the other night. What the heck happened there?

There's another corner of the second city you come to that does the same thing, but worse. It's not something the average player will ever encounter but I can replicate / trigger it 100% of the time. In one corner for a stretch of about three steps the game lurches into half-speed.

There are a few funky quirks with this engine, but overall it looks gorgeous.
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maybe GF's engine can't handle so many polygons? is the second area full of pokemon as well?
 
Sandfox

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Oct 25, 2017
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Galkinator said:
What does this even mean?
The game is objectively not a looker, nor does it actually make much use of its hardware specs. Launch titles look a lot better and run better for example.

I really hope gamefreak will surprise us with next year's gen 8 game, because if it's just a copy paste of LGP/E graphics and style I'll be severely disappointed.
It's one thing neglecting the technical aspect of your games on a limited hardware handheld console, but on a home console capable of running Doom 2016 for example there are no excuses especially for such a high profile & money making game such as Pokemon.
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Past history tells us that Gen 8 will look different.
 
Brazil

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There's one aspect of the endgame that completely wrecks performance. The game's a technical mess considering the visuals it's pushing.
 
Pokemaniac

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Jessie said:
I'm glad Gamefreak is working on engine improvements. Say what you want about the gameplay, but Let's Go looked really polished.
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Not really. The poly count is higher, but stylistically Let's Go is a pretty big regression from the Gen 7 mainline games.

Nuclear Muffin said:
That's surprising to see Game Freak using an outside engine for their major titles. Yeah, I know that they used Unity for Tembo, but seeing them use Yebis in a major Pokemon title is still very surprising!
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It's still Game Freak's engine. This appears to just be middleware.
 
ILikeFeet

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Sandfox said:
Let's Go looks a lot better than the 3DS games.
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asset's are on par with the 3DS. character models aren't any better in complexity nor are their textures much higher (granted the camera is further away than in SM so it helps). the shadows are strangely extremely low resolution, which I don't understand. and the lighting is pretty much just affecting the dynamic characters, and combined with the low resolution shadowing, I'm assuming it's not pushing much of the hardware.

it looks better by virtue of being higher res and having higher res textures, but this is definitely a 3DS game underneath
 
Velocity:Design:Comfort

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ILikeFeet said:
asset's are on par with the 3DS. character models aren't any better in complexity nor are their textures much higher (granted the camera is further away than in SM so it helps). the shadows are strangely extremely low resolution, which I don't understand. and the lighting is pretty much just affecting the dynamic characters, and combined with the low resolution shadowing, I'm assuming it's not pushing much of the hardware.

it looks better by virtue of being higher res and having higher res textures, but this is definitely a 3DS game underneath
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Please give receipts, all of that seems categorically false, except for the Pokémon using the same creatures models that everyone knew was the case since 2016.

And games are always built in the technology of the predecessors. That doesn't make them the same.
 
ILikeFeet

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Velocity:Design:Comfort said:
Please give receipts, all of that seems categorically false, except for the Pokémon using the same creatures models that everyone knew was the case since 2016.

And games are always built in the technology of the predecessors. That doesn't make them the same.
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the character model rips are available, and I have made posts on them here, comparing polygon counts and texture resolutions. the LG character polygon count is under 8K triangles, while SM's is about 5K and XY's is 4.5K. the buildings aren't ripped (probably due to lack of interest) but it's not hard to tell that they aren't made up of many polygons. they rely more on texture work to sell the effect. there seems to be some normal mapping though.

as for shadows, that's very obvious upon looking at screenshots

Pokemon-Lets-Go-Pikachu-and-Eevee-cooperative.jpg



as for the engine, yes, studios have build of engines. but Game Freak has always worked on portable systems until they decided to make Tembo and Giga Wrecker, both using Unity. their own engines have been tuned to portable Nintendo hardware and have their own particular quirks. for example, the game speed is tied to the frame time, which is an old technique. making an engine that's tuned to a single core/threaded game and a pseudo fixed function, OpenGL ES 1.0-equivalent work on a switch is fine, but if you're doing more than what the original hardware it was tuned to is capable of, you might start to run into problems. either Game Freak moves to unity or they make a new, hardware agnostic, and better scalable engine.
 
noyram23

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Good to hear but the game doesn't look that good, it's probably following the Go's aesthetic though. The 3DS version looks better aestheticwise especially when you upres it via emulation, I hope the mainline does that plus putting back wild battles
 
Xx 720

Xx 720

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Love the game dearly but don't find it graphically impressive personally. Also, Eevee > Pikachu.
 
tadaima

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lint2015 said:
The game's graphics aren't a technical marvel but it looks really nice with the art style they went with.
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Yes.

The character models match up with the overworld and other assets very nicely. This is something that really surprised me, since RPGs often cheap out on ground textures or low-poly/highly-detailed items which don't quite match the character models. It looks like the folks responsible for the art of Let's Go have thoroughly reviewed every model, texture, and asset to make sure they match up.

The resulting look is incredibly cohesive.
 
ILikeFeet

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lint2015 said:
That shouldn't be it, people have have hacked the game have spawned a heap of Pokémon in one area and the game doesn't break a sweat.
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That was one of the theories I heard about viridian forest, at least. I guess it's just a random, repeatable hiccup from their toolset then. Unfortunately, GF doesn't do performance patches (yet)
 
Richietto

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Hoping Gen 8 looks better than Lets Go. Not that Lets Go looks bad, it just looks basic. Basic lighting, basic shadows. I want to be impressed.
 
lint2015

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ILikeFeet said:
asset's are on par with the 3DS. character models aren't any better in complexity nor are their textures much higher (granted the camera is further away than in SM so it helps). the shadows are strangely extremely low resolution, which I don't understand.
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Shadows are weird in closeups, but not sure what you're talking about with the rest of it. Textures and post processing are definitely much better than the 3DS games. World geometry probably too.

Take another look at 3DS games running in HD on an emulator. They look considerably worse than Let's Go.
 
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Pokemaniac

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lint2015 said:
Shadows are weird in closeups, but not sure what you're talking about with the rest of it. Textures and post processing are definitely much better than the 3DS games. World geometry probably too.

Take another look at 3DS games running in HD on an emulator. They look considerably worse than Let's Go.
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Technically? sure
Aesthetically? lol no
 

Oddish1

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Oct 25, 2017
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If you click on the tweet there's a correction right underneath it that yebis 3 is middleware and not an engine so thread title should probably be corrected.
 
VeePs

VeePs

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Game looks decent and basic, definitely not a looker but I wouldn't say ugly either.

Won't Gen 8 use the same graphics engine/art style/etc. of Let's Go?
 
AzureFlame

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There is a great charm in the Let's Go games that I hope they stick with it, maybe it's in the art style, so they should focus on art more while improving whatever makes it look and feel better, i don't really need realistic looks for the pokemon games.
 
JayC3

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Tweaked thread title a bit to clarify that this is middleware.
 
Zephy

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I hope the next game has cell shaded graphics like on 3DS. Let's go looks really clean and polished, but I prefer the cartoon style over the inflated doll style for my pokemon. That said, I feel like they're going to stick to this style for the foreseeable future. The ideal would be BOTW kind of visuals (and freedom of camera), but who am I kidding, it's Gamefreak we're talking about.
 

Nuclear Muffin

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Sandfox said:
Let's Go looks a lot better than the 3DS games.
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Not really. For starters, the battles use the exact same 3D models and animations as the 3DS titles; so they're not even a step up at all in that regard (and the backgrounds are just as sparse and lacking in detail - most of them are actually just blurry, badly upscaled, 2D bitmap backgrounds!).

The visual fidelity is a very minor step up from Pokemon Sun/Moon, considering that massive gulf in performance going from 3DS to Switch. And artistically speaking? It's arguably inferior looking, with its very safe and bland, "clinical" look. Let's Go looks like a decent looking mobile game, blown up onto a TV.

The only good looking thing about Let's Go is the depth of field effect and some of the post-process lighting effects (which we can thank Yebis for). There's absolutely nothing impressive about Let's Go at all, artistically or technically (though some of the cutscene animations are quite nicely done). It really isn't far off Sun/Moon (or even X/Y) when up-rezed to HD in the Citra emulator in terms of geometric detail (the main difference comes down to the change in art style and the higher resolution texturing/texture filtering).
 
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