Yes I love the gameplay, and no there's no negative impact.I mean, yeah. It's incredible! Do you enjoy the gameplay though? Do you think any facets of the graphical presentation impact gameplay in any meaningful way?
Yes I love the gameplay, and no there's no negative impact.I mean, yeah. It's incredible! Do you enjoy the gameplay though? Do you think any facets of the graphical presentation impact gameplay in any meaningful way?
Beautiful animation but 3/5 of the time I interact with something Arthur circles around like a dog before sliding into place.
Lol 2 postI mean, yeah. It's incredible! Do you enjoy the gameplay though? Do you think any facets of the graphical presentation impact gameplay in any meaningful way?
It's mostly that, unmatched in the industry. Have you seen the way the animals live out thier day? You even get river flies hovering over lakes, the world is truly remarkable.
The issues with Witcher 3 were tied more to my love of Witcher 2. I preferred the hub based design.I think the issues you had with witcher 3, people are having similar issues with rdr 2. just a guess
The issues with Witcher 3 were tied more to my love of Witcher 2. I preferred the hub based design.
What kept me away was playing on console - performance was unstable and stuttering and animation felt jerky and unrefined.
I can definitely see how RDR2 wouldn't work for everyone either.
I mean once RDR 2 gets a PC port and people play at 60 then I'm sure there will be way less complaints about the controls and input lag.
Now I'm curious - what do you dislike about the missions?Yup. But there is nothing saving that god awful last gen mission design.
Now I'm curious - what do you dislike about the missions?
I'm not even sure why I enjoyed this game since most open world games don't pull me in at all. I need to think about this one.
Now I'm curious - what do you dislike about the missions?
I'm not even sure why I enjoyed this game since most open world games don't pull me in at all. I need to think about this one.
It's all about the ambient lighting when in shadow. RDR2 has crazy self-shadowing and even objects in shadow from the sun appear darker like real life instead of glowing. In layman's terms, the developers mastered contact shadows in a dynamic day/night cycle. Most contact shadows are baked in for non-dynamic lighting games (i.e. Spiderman for example).
H:ZD, TW3 and Odyssey all have broken lighting when objects are in shadow from a distant light source (sun/moon). Also, RDR2 has shadow casting lights (all of them) at night time with lanterns, you can tell the quality difference compared to the other open-world games very easily.
There's been a few threads already about this but the general complaints are that they are extremely linear to the point where it feels more like a glorified cutscene than playing an actual game. They feel incredibly curated and restrictive which is highlighted by the instances where the game literally fails you for falling behind a tiny radius or taking 10 seconds too long looting bodies/exploring the area.
Every mission boils down to following the virtually step by step guidelines the game gives you on the bottom right corner and most of the time you can't do anything else at all if you want to progress. You have to hide behind the exact rock the game tells you, you can't flank because there is often a set rigid path for laid out for you. You often hear your NPC buddies literally yelling at your to hirru up as soon as you take 2 seconds to loot a body.
You might have to start a particular gunfight behind a specific rock or piece of cover or whatever, but generally once the fighting starts, you're free to explore approach options. I generally always leave the spot after a short moment abd end up running around flanking enemies.
Likewise, allies might shout at you to hurry up, but much of the time you don't actually have to listen. You can leisurely loot bodies even when they're yapping on, so long as the gunfight isn't still in progress. The general rule is to not start looting until there are no enemies in the immediate vicinity.
So yes, the single player campaign missions are more structured, but not necessarily to the extent some are making out. I think being so structured actually helps better curate more interesting, beautiful and entertaining scenarios, just not ones that are as free or sandboxy.
Now I'm curious - what do you dislike about the missions?
I'm not even sure why I enjoyed this game since most open world games don't pull me in at all. I need to think about this one.
You might have to start a particular gunfight behind a specific rock or piece of cover or whatever, but generally once the fighting starts, you're free to explore approach options. I generally always leave the spot after a short moment and end up running around flanking enemies.
Likewise, allies might shout at you to hurry up, but much of the time you don't actually have to listen. You can leisurely loot bodies even when they're yapping on, so long as the gunfight isn't still in progress. The general rule is to not start looting until there are no enemies in the immediate vicinity.
So yes, the single player campaign missions are more structured, but not necessarily to the extent some are making out. I think being so structured actually helps better curate more interesting, beautiful and entertaining scenarios, just not ones that are as necessarily as free or sandboxy.
Here's the thing. The game's narrative is all about trying to hold onto the old way of doing things - and sticking to practices of the past while society marches on around you. That's an interesting theme for a story - I just wish the gameplay didn't stick to it as well.
RDR 2 has the most natural foliage I've ever seen, it just looks so lush.
That might be one reason I enjoy it. The game bounces between open ended and linear. I enjoy those cinematic missions as they feel like a breath of fresh air after exploring the open world. It's that ebb and flow that I enjoy.There's been a few threads already about this but the general complaints are that they are extremely linear to the point where it feels more like a glorified cutscene than playing an actual game. They feel incredibly curated and restrictive which is highlighted by the instances where the game literally fails you for falling behind a tiny radius or taking 10 seconds too long looting bodies/exploring the area.
Every mission boils down to following the virtually step by step guidelines the game gives you on the bottom right corner and most of the time you can't do anything else at all if you want to progress. You have to hide behind the exact rock the game tells you, you can't flank because there is often a set rigid path for laid out for you. You often hear your NPC buddies literally yelling at your to hirru up as soon as you take 2 seconds to loot a body.
Now THIS is interesting. The specific mission you're talking about did not work that way for me. I initially walked up, started a fist fight and lost. Then I reloaded my save and tried again. I walked up to him and shot him - he was dead. A nearby person saw this happen and I had to chase him down and either kill him, scare him or convince him via a small dialog tree that occurs if you physically stop him. You can also just shoot him, if you want.The game's mission design is terrible because it makes you aware that this is just a play and you are merely controlling a puppet. For example - Early on in the game you have to protect one of your allies from a big man who is choking him. I see him in a distance and run to him and try shooting him. He falls down and gets back up. I shoot him again and he falls down again and gets back up. I realize that the game wants me to end a fight with him in a fist fight and nothing else. No matter how many times I shoot him, he keeps getting back up.
That might be one reason I enjoy it. The game bounces between open ended and linear. I enjoy those cinematic missions as they feel like a breath of fresh air after exploring the open world. It's that ebb and flow that I enjoy.
It isn't necessarily perfect in this regard, mind you, but I don't require or want full agency at all times.
It is very impressive that my PS4 Pro is whisper quite during the whole game, despite the insane graphics. With other games looking this good my pro always takes off to the moon.
I can see that. Typical open world fans wouldn't enjoy this approach much but since I typically don't enjoy open world mission design, it works for me.I don't think most people have an issue with linear missions in theory, it's just that Rockstar's extreme approach to it is too much for some. It's actually a testament to how good the actual presentation, writing and scenarios are in RDR 2 that it largely works for them. I can't imagine any other open world game going with this approach and not getting trashed for it because you would essentially just be playing an ugly/boring cutscene.
The game's mission design is terrible because it makes you aware that this is just a play and you are merely controlling a puppet. For example - Early on in the game you have to protect one of your allies from a big man who is choking him. I see him in a distance and run to him and try shooting him. He falls down and gets back up. I shoot him again and he falls down again and gets back up. I realize that the game wants me to end a fight with him in a fist fight and nothing else. No matter how many times I shoot him, he keeps getting back up.
Now what separates truly great linear designed games from fluff like the kind you find in RDR2 is that they communicate to the player clearly what tools you have to tackle a situation. A smarter game would have ensured that you lost your guns on the way or you are out of bullets and therefore funneled you to tackle the fight with your fist. So while that approach would have been linear as well it would have been a way to still maintain the illusion of agency.
Rockstar's painfully mediocre mission design however does these mistakes time and time again. The fact that you have to get back on your horse to move a couple of steps ahead just to trigger a cutscene of you getting down your horse again shows how archaic their systems are.
Mark Brown from Game Maker's toolkit summed up RDR2 perfectly imo
Wonderful review btw for people interested in hearing the other side - https://www.patreon.com/posts/22570692
It's all about the ambient lighting when in shadow. RDR2 has crazy self-shadowing and even objects in shadow from the sun appear darker like real life instead of glowing. In layman's terms, the developers mastered contact shadows in a dynamic day/night cycle. Most contact shadows are baked in for non-dynamic lighting games (i.e. Spiderman for example).
H:ZD, TW3 and Odyssey all have broken lighting when objects are in shadow from a distant light source (sun/moon). Also, RDR2 has shadow casting lights (all of them) at night time with lanterns, you can tell the quality difference compared to the other open-world games very easily.
Lightmap is usually avoided for large open-world with noisy geometry like vegetation. A practical way is to project local visibility seen from light probe to SH and dynamically calculate bounced light using this compressed info. This is basically the idea of PRT and Ubisoft has been using this approach in most of their open-world titles with dynamic day night cycle. Though I don't really see any complex bounced light in RDR2 so they probably just dynamically relight cached light probes.Definitely one of the most technically impressive games on the market, which is to be expected considering the game's budget and the talent that went into making it.
There are ways to do global illumination without light probes, like using reflective shadow maps. But considering the quality of radiosity we're looking at, my guess would be some kind of precomputed visibility global illumination solution like the following:
Where most of the bounced light comes from static geometry that the engine already knows is or isn't obstructed by other objects in the environment, and preculates the terms of the visibility based on that information and the known trajectory of the directional light source's path. All of this is done offline (because it is expensive). During runtime, the directional light corresponds to different lighmap pixels that contain visibility information in order to determine what colors of indirect light to use on different surfaces throughout the environment.
Now that's just one possible explanation, but they could be using a totally different solution. As for the contact hardening shadows, I imagine solving the visibility problem helps with indirect shadows as well. The renderer also has some nice variable fog density and inscatter, which is nice to see.
It's all about the ambient lighting when in shadow. RDR2 has crazy self-shadowing and even objects in shadow from the sun appear darker like real life instead of glowing. In layman's terms, the developers mastered contact shadows in a dynamic day/night cycle. Most contact shadows are baked in for non-dynamic lighting games (i.e. Spiderman for example).
H:ZD, TW3 and Odyssey all have broken lighting when objects are in shadow from a distant light source (sun/moon). Also, RDR2 has shadow casting lights (all of them) at night time with lanterns, you can tell the quality difference compared to the other open-world games very easily.
This is probably why you've created this thread. It's seems you always have to find a way to attack the normal 1st party titles. As a 3D "artist" you should know a lot of the lightinig is baked and is tied to ToD. Go into an interior, great indirect lighting right? Open the door and the interior lighting is not affected by the sun flooding the doorway. But here you say "how did they achieve indirect lighting???", knowing it's texture work and lightmaps?
My takeaway from the tech:
Poor NPC's
Overbearing SSS on skin
Lack of or poor implementation of SSS on foliage
Texture quality is low on most surfaces other than props
Clouds appear chunky like liquid and lack sufficient SSS
Engine does not generate enough particles for effects like rain, smoke, explosions
Particle lack overall physics interaction
Animations are glitchy as hell
Environmental polygonal detail is kind of low for an open world game
Poor water implementation
On the plus side their fog and volumetric light is bar-none. Truly a sight to behold. Shadows overall is a cut above other open world games, too.
Wonderful review btw for people interested in hearing the other side - https://www.patreon.com/posts/22570692
Lightmap is usually avoided for large open-world with noisy geometry like vegetation. A practical way is to project local visibility seen from light probe to SH and dynamically calculate bounced light using this compressed info. This is basically the idea of PRT and Ubisoft has been using this approach in most of their open-world titles with dynamic day night cycle. Though I don't really see any complex bounced light in RDR2 so they probably just dynamically relight cached light probes.
As for contact shadow, if you have properly set up light probes with rendered color, there is solution to extract major indirect light direction from SH, then you can cone trace along this direction.
What did you expect? Their bias came into play the moment someone mentioned first party games doing the same thing or better with their rendering by asking if they are trolling or making joke posts.This is probably why you've created this thread. It's seems you always have to find a way to attack the normal 1st party titles. As a 3D "artist" you should know a lot of the lightinig is baked and is tied to ToD. Go into an interior, great indirect lighting right? Open the door and the interior lighting is not affected by the sun flooding the doorway. But here you say "how did they achieve indirect lighting???", knowing it's texture work and lightmaps?
Yes but that's usually impractical. For efficient look up you need complex preprocessing of your scene or some kind of hierarchical data structure, and anything requires a second UV is cumbersome to use in production.I'm simply suggesting how it would be possible to get this kind of indirect lighting quality without light probes/SH data. The lighmap pixels in my example look up the asset materials' albedo colors; they don't cache indirect lighting information. Of course, it's possible to cache light probe data and re-light the end result in real time, but that solution is patently outside of the criteria of an indirect lighting solution that doesn't use light probes.
So to be clear, I'm not saying that the solution in RDR2 never involved light probes, but I'm just answering the question of how it's possible to do real-time gi without them (that doesn't require path tracing).
It's the best version of gta 4 ever made or ever will be unless Rockstar makes the same game againi agree on the bolded, but not really sure how you reached those other conclusions. the foliage lighting in particular is top notch and i'd easily put it up there with H:ZD
and to speak to the mission discussion above, i think when a game forces restrictions on you that are at odds with the rest of the experience (for example forcing your horse to be slower than it usually is while in a chase mission so that you can't catch the target before a specific moment) is really frustrating.
lol that is so close to my experience it's crazy. i wish more mainstream outlets pointed these issues out, rockstar really needs to evolve how they approach gameplay design to go with their incredible worlds.
Hope this is the right place to ask. Only usually read on the forums,.getting my son an X for Christmas, should I get him
The first game before this one?
In movies, "black bars" actually indicate a specific aspect ratio that they shot and/or planned for. None of them just slap black bars on later and call it a day. Compositions, framing, blocking, etc. is planned around the aspect ratio.There's two other things I don't understand with the visuals though:
1. The "cinematic" black bars add nothing for me and just makes the game look disjointed. It literally looks like the same screen with black bars slapped in top of them though I might be wrong. Cinematic riding mode definitely is.
2. Vignetting that you can't disable. Just why?
In movies, "black bars" actually indicate a specific aspect ratio that they shot and/or planned for. None of them just slap black bars on later and call it a day. Compositions, framing, blocking, etc. is planned around the aspect ratio.
Unfortunately, it's become a sloppy sort of shorthand in games, indicating cutscenes or "cinematic" moments.