MULTI [OT] Horizon Zero Dawn | More than 10 million copies sold lifetime

[Chandoo]

holy shit, 20 min analysis

gonna need to give it some dedicated time.

 

[CerebralTiger]

From the video:

GPU based procedural placement for rocks, foliage, wildlife and sound affects, all placed in realtime
Dynamically generated volumetric cloud simulation
True volumetric light shafts

Very impressive stuff.

On the other hand:

No water reaction with character
No foliage reaction with character
No global illumination

Disappointing.

Final Fantasy XV remains the only large open world game to pull off (mostly) real-time global illumination.

 

[NaNoW]

On the other hand: No water reaction with character

Disappointing.
Final Fantasy XV remains the only large open world game to pull off (mostly) real-time global illumination.

"Water....water is hard" heard this from a AAA developer recently


on a more positive note ?

Kojima explains that he offered no payment for the use of Decima, but rather, received the engine via a more surprising method.

“Usually when you go to use, buy or borrow an engine, someone will say, “Lend us your name,” or of course ask for payment.
We had no contract with Guerrilla Games, but when we met them they suddenly gave us a box, a very pretty box.
When we opened the box, there was a USB dongle inside that had the source code for the engine.”

With no contract in place, Guerrilla Games’ handed over the keys to the City,
the source code of all the studio’s hard work over the years, “they simply said, “Mr. Kojima please use this engine,” and we thought these people are incredible.”

Although Horizon Zero Dawn‘s developer was keen for Kojima and his studio to use its Decima Engine, there was one stipulation –
that the pair developed the engine together, “there was onecondition though, that Kojima Productions doesn’t just use
the engine, but that we develop the engine together with Guerrilla Games, that it should be a collaborative effort.
So we were really blown away by their stance on this and being so open with the engine and we thought “Wow, these are the people we have to work with.”

this is a pretty cool story

 

[Necrokiller]

Thats a largely disappointing tech breakdown considering that DF was calling it a masterpiece.

How can something so basic as foliage and water interaction be absent? That very essential to the presentation given the foliage heavy environments. Even Rise of The Tomb Raider has dynamic foliage interaction and FFXV, Witcher 3 and Just Cause 3 all have very impressive water simulation.

Lack of GI is also disappointing given that its a much smaller scale game compared to the likes of FFXV and Just Cause 3 which do imploy it to some degree.

The high points like light shafts, cloud simulation and procedural placement is also covered by much bigger games like FFXV and/or Witcher 3.

KZ2 was lauded for its AI, but clearly the jump to an open world sandbox presents a bigger set of challenges which they couldnt overcome.

As an overall package it might still be great, but the games I mentioned pull that off very well too. The edge Horizon has is that it seemingly maintains solid performance which Just Cause 3, FFXV and launch Witcher 3 didn't. Then again, those games boasts a game world which dwarfs Horizon's.

 

[Chandoo]

From the video:



Very impressive stuff.

On the other hand:



Disappointing.

Final Fantasy XV remains the only large open world game to pull off (mostly) real-time global illumination.

The only thing bothered me in the video was lack of watter 'ruffling' from Aloy's movement, other then that it looks like they opted for performance and sheer IQ over other visual effects.

Other then that, super glad this is taking full advantage of Pro. Full 2160p, better resolution textures etc.

It's not perfect but its clear they chose areas to focus on so performance doesn't dip. Wondering what the upcoming "performance" Pro patch will involve.

 

[Chandoo]

in other news, launch trailer !

 

[venom]

How can something so basic as foliage and water interaction be absent? That very essential to the presentation given the foliage heavy environments. Even Rise of The Tomb Raider has dynamic foliage interaction and FFXV, Witcher 3 and Just Cause 3 all have very impressive water simulation.

I aint a techie but dont you think the compromises made are worth given how good the overall IQ is as compared to these titles ? AI on the other hand is something of real concern though. Saw a gameplay video a couple a couple of days ago where Human enemies were acting pretty much stupid for the most part. The uploader did mention that he was palying it on easy though.

 

[Necrokiller]

I aint a techie but dont you think the compromises made are worth given how good the overall IQ is as compared to these titles ?

Those sacrifices arent related to the IQ though. DF didn't cover the AA implementation so Ill hold my judgement on that til I play it myself. They do however mention that texture filtering isn't good on base PS4 which remains a widespread issue on the platform.

 

[Chandoo]

Those sacrifices arent related to the IQ though. DF didn't cover the AA implementation so Ill hold my judgement on that til I play it myself. They do however mention that texture filtering isn't good on base PS4 which remains a widespread issue on the platform.

Just to add to that, the foliage reaction isnt universal but bigger foliage pieces (specifically one's Aloy can hide in) do react.

 

[NaNoW]

Thats a largely disappointing tech breakdown considering that DF was calling it a masterpiece.

a 20 min video, in which I think he didnt miss too many points. I mean he covered all the basics and noted how some sacrifices were made, but in his opinion those sacrifices were justified looking at the end result.

How can something so basic as foliage and water interaction be absent? That very essential to the presentation given the foliage heavy environments. Even Rise of The Tomb Raider has dynamic foliage interaction and FFXV, Witcher 3 and Just Cause 3 all have very impressive water simulation.

Not all foliage , not all water interaction.

Where the foliage plays into the gameplay i.e near machines, they interact with the player and provide cover and protection. Where it doesn't matter, its not intractable.
I fully understand and support if this meant that the game played smoother, while looking as good as it supposedly does.

With regards to water, you can clearly see the splash animation + limited interaction with her steps
Most of the games you mentioned dont really run as smoothly or hold the framerate as well as this does on consoles(JC and W3 remarkably dont) and some games have effect turned off.
Ofcourse, again, a small price to pay, if the gameplay is not being sacrificed, which it seems it isnt.

KZ2 was lauded for its AI, but clearly the jump to an open world sandbox presents a bigger set of challenges which they couldnt overcome.

Alot of the reviewers have mentioned how good the gameplay is and how every robodino requires a different pattern or a different way to defeat it. They actually praised its AI, so I am not clear where you got "they couldnt overcome" from

As an overall package it might still be great, but the games I mentioned pull that off very well too.

Why is there a but here? more than 1 game cant be pretty great.

The edge Horizon has is that it seemingly maintains solid performance which Just Cause 3, FFXV and launch Witcher 3 didn't. Then again, those games boasts a game world which dwarfs Horizon's

In a given scene world size doesn't really matter. For optimizations' sake, every game loads textures in a given scene and no game is loading the whole world at any given moment.

I think we should all be happy that a pretty cool looking sandbox is smoothly playable, which isn't the case for most titles at release.

 

[Chandoo]

Again, should be clarified water and foliage do react, they just don't react universally, eg small shrubs don't get affected but larger one's do (think Alan Wake, not MGS3 where every single grass blade is a separate effect-able texture). Same for water, splashes and effects are present, but water dispersal isn't in real time (the Witcher 3 is a great example here, you can use the spells which cause ripples and waves in bodies of water).

This game is cutting off some graphical elements, but honestly the trade off is quite worth it in my opinion. I would prefer a consistent improvement in IQ and resolution over graphical effects that are only noticeable in some very small portions of the game.

Also, I know Wajhi hates this, but the Pro upgrades, the 4K resolution and improved texture resolution and AF, makes me glad I got my Pro


edit:

The game apparently ships with 1.01 on disc but a 1.02 patch is already out for those lucky enough to already have copies and will be there for the rest of us day 1:


[FONT=&quot]Patch 1.01[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Added options to switch graphics mode and HDR rendering[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Multiple crash and progression fixes[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Various performance improvements[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Patch 1.02[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Multiple crash and progression fixes[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Various fixes to avoid player getting stuck[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Updated visual settings[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Performance improvements

1.02 adds a "performance" rendering mode but as per John from DF posting on GAF, there's literally no change. It doesn't make it 60 FPS, adds any extra visual effects etc. It just irons out the VERY minor drops the game had, so areas which dipped to 29 FPS now stay at 30 FPS for what it's worth. However it locks the game at 1080p. The 4K mode is still the preferred method for Pro owners even on 1080p displays due to super sampling.[/FONT]

 

[Necrokiller]

[MENTION=4177]NaNoW[/MENTION] Thats a very uncharacteristic response from you lol... I have answers but now Id rather post my detailed impressions once I finish the game now, which wont be soon though. I know enough to wait for a bargain on this and Andromeda takes priority for me currently

 

[NaNoW]

Also, I know Wajhi hates this, but the Pro upgrades, the 4K resolution and improved texture resolution and AF, makes me glad I got my Pro
.

your new avatar

@NaNoW Thats a very uncharacteristic response from you lol... I have answers but now Id rather post my detailed impressions once I finish the game now, which wont be soon though. I know enough to wait for a bargain on this and Andromeda takes priority for me currently

..no..please..I have to work... I cant keep writing/reading walls of text..Balkeh wait, let me remove it all .

 

[CerebralTiger]

"Water....water is hard" heard this from a AAA developer recently

Yeah, a physically correct simulation of reactive water is hard, not to mention taxing. Though, I think Guerrilla could've gone with mesh deformation or a displacement shader to fake water interaction.

The only thing bothered me in the video was lack of watter 'ruffling' from Aloy's movement, other then that it looks like they opted for performance and sheer IQ over other visual effects.

Yeah, the lack of water interactivity sticks out like a sore thumb in an otherwise stunning and immersive game world.

Though I'm super-impressed with the GPU based procedural placement system used in Horizon. Other open world games such as the The Witcher 3 and Forza Horizon 3 use a middleware software called SpeedTree for the procedural generation of environmental foliage. It's an extremely basic implementation compared to what Horizon is doing. Not only is it responsible for generating foliage, but other elements of the world such as rocks, as well as audio, wildlife and gameplay elements.

Not limited to just rocks and trees, the procedural system assembles fully-fledged environments while the player walks through them, complete with sounds, effects, wildlife and game-play elements.

Learn how the team at Guerrilla Games used compute shaders to dynamically populate the world around the player.

Guerrilla Games will be holding a presentation on their procedural placement technique at this year's GDC:

GDC 2017 | Session Scheduler | GPU-Based Run-Time Procedural Placement in 'Horizon: Zero Dawn'

@NaNoW this might be of interest to you.

 

[Necrokiller]

your new avatar




..no..please..I have to work... I cant keep writing/reading walls of text..Balkeh wait, let me remove it all .

Incase you couldn't guess, i was in no mood of responding either

 

[Journeys End]

From the video:



Very impressive stuff.

On the other hand:



Disappointing.

Final Fantasy XV remains the only large open world game to pull off (mostly) real-time global illumination.

u know similar shortcoming were present in Infamous SS case too which was also appalled for its visuals back in the day. glaring compromises to accommodate short term bragging rights. this is exactly why i sold all my consoles.

 

[Chandoo]

u know similar shortcoming were present in Infamous SS case too which was also appalled for its visuals back in the day. glaring compromises to accommodate short term bragging rights. this is exactly why i sold all my consoles.

I don't think that word means what you think it means

[MENTION=218]CerebralTiger[/MENTION] now imagine Kojima's team using this tech. If we're able to see a Koji Pro Decima game in our lifetime, it should be something glorious.

 

[CerebralTiger]

this is exactly why i sold all my consoles.

lol but it's still possible to enjoy a game with technical compromises as long as it's well-designed, no?

@CerebralTiger now imagine Kojima's team using this tech. If we're able to see a Koji Pro Decima game in our lifetime, it should be something glorious.

Yeah, Kojima's aiming for a more photo-realistic look as opposed to Horizon's surreal aesthetic. Should make for an interesting contrast. Here's hoping it's not a PS5 launch title

 

[Journeys End]

lol but it's still possible to enjoy a game with technical compromises as long as it's well-designed, no?

Only if they were made to enhance gameplay/ story elements. Although it's not like horizon should be hanged for these but still the compromises are not justified here.

 

[NaNoW]

Only if they were made to enhance gameplay/ story elements. Although it's not like horizon should be hanged for these but still the compromises are not justified here.

Game reviewers = games looks gorgeous and plays incredibly

PG peeps = " glaring compromises " , "compromises are not justified here."

bhai akhir chahtey kya ho

:crazy: