Why are graphics no longer impressive?

dead internet theory means no one goes outside because no one exists.

For me I stopped being impressed by new titles around 2012. I can still put myself in the mindset of when old games looked novel, and now I love PS2 graphics more than anything.

Diminishing returns. Gradual GPA decrease.

>>713761870 (OP)
I know I'm real, are you?

>>713761870 (OP)
Because fidelity peaked in 2014-16 and ever since then its just been epeen stroking, and graphic fidelity's increase has only come at the cost of game play expereince and stability.

>>713761870 (OP)
Lack of contrast. Look at how crisp the environment is in the top picture and compare it to how gray, muddled, and dreary the bottom picture is. This issue is further exacerbated by the existence of "anti-soul gas."

>>713761870 (OP)
i was impressed by ghost of tsushima though

>>713761870 (OP)
i'm totally blown away by DS2's graphics a lot of times. i think the art direction was lacking in the first game, but it undeniably had great textures due to the photogrammetry tech they were using. it's why RE7 is timeless outside of the already-dated character models. i was a bit worried DS2 was gonna look like UE5 'slop' but i don't feel that way anymore. probably top 5 best looking games of all time in my book.

>>713761974
you can replace the text with why society is shit now instead
>>713761870 (OP)
we're in the early "attempt to mimic realism" era, just like how early 3d was absolutely terrible. It needs another 10-20 years of tech improvement for non stylized graphics to look appealing

they are. games like guilty gear, genshin, totk, and even dare i say it, your favorite game have nice graphics.

>>713762913

>probably top 5 best looking games of all time in my book

I have a folder specifically for this kind of stuff called "Proper Contrast and Visuals". Using it as reference material for my own (eventual) game.

Apparently nobody high up in consoleland expected CDPR's Cyberpunk to not fail after the typical decade-long+ dev time that has guaranteed failure time and time again. They didn't pay them off to lower the bar like they did for ubi and ea. Now... there's nothing to do but wait to see if Cyberpunk 2 can defy expectations as exponentially as the first one.

>>713763614

>>713763690

>>713761870 (OP)
Crysis didn't have lighting or geometry nearly as impressive as modern games

>>713763757

>>713763834

>>713763614
>>713763757
>>713763690
>>713763757
>>713763834
>>713763915
Oh it's you again. Nice samefag thread.

I thought death stranding was impressive.

>>713763915

>>713763827
It had fine-tuned scenes that looked pretty realistic for non-pbr shaders

>>713764004
>>713763967
I'm not the thread starter, just contributing in hopes others will post examples and discuss them. Perhaps you could try.

>>713764140

>>713764234

>>713761870 (OP)
I figured it was performance bottlenecking thanks to existing tech designs struggling to deal with electrical resistance at a near-quantum level. So the leaps in graphical progress have become mere nudges within the last decade.

That and the jump to extreme photorealism combined with washed out atmosphere compared to more stylised titles may have something to do with it.

There's unanimous agreement Cyberpunk is S tier in the graphics department in all relevant social media, ie Reddit and Twitter. 4chan's paid non-tranny moderators should stop trying to make retro garbage seem relevant today.

Diminishing returns.

Diminishing returns

Open world vs linear

Crysis doesn't look good

>>713764294
That's all I got for now.

>>713761870 (OP)
Man Crysis 1 was actually the peak of graphics in gaming.

>>713763827

>>713761870 (OP)
Gta 6 looks very impressive

>>713764597

>>713764597
ugly amerilards
>>713764716
smog slop

>>713764716

>>713761870 (OP)
>18 year old game looks better than 2025 AAA praised for its visuals
What the fuck

>>713763614
grok, explain this image

>>713761870 (OP)
The jump in obvious detail is much lower then it used to be whereas minor details have gone way up but most people don't really notice or care.

>>713764882
nice blur

>>713764294

>>713761870 (OP)
Open world games just look like shit in general. Top is a corridor shooter

>>713765036
Not a bot you fuckhead, but this one isn't as immediately obvious as the others and I'm feeling generous so I'll tell you anyway.

It's a difference in focus in terms of art, to put it kindly.

Left image is Diablo II and presents a clear enough image in grayscale that anyone could play the game that way with little issue. Notice that the stone pavers for the roads and the angular definition on the rocks and boulders maintain detail even in black and white.

Right image is Diablo III and features little contrast in the overall image, as can be determined by the very high uniformity of brightness in this grayscale image. Instead, Diablo III relies to an extreme degree on its color presentation to differentiate details, while Diablo II's art direction lends it the ability to have differentiation in both color and brightness.

Obviously, there may be times when the presentation on the right may be more correct - i.e. depicting an image of heaven, a brightly lit doctor's office, a lab, etc. - but quite often these issues are very persistent throughout an entire games' playthrough, hence these kinds of threads and images.

I also feel like developers had a much better sense in color decades ago.

>>713764004
How do I get Breath of the Wild to look like the bottom?

Get a larger monitor.

>>713766626
>Open world games just look like shit in general

>>713766762
Mods on PC. Just be sure to get something balanced. It's very easy to slip into the "more contrast = better" trap and continually increasing values like most people do with Skyrim and other easily tunable games, so just make sure you don't go overboard. Bottom part of the image looks pretty good. An easy tell if you've gone too far is if you can't see detail in darker areas anymore, like a shadow cast on a boulder with lots of ridges and other details. This is relevant to your particular display and its settings, but in general is easier to account for and determine on self-emissive displays like OLEDs.

>>713761870 (OP)
muh optimization fags would have a field day if crysis released today. This is why graphics aren't impressive anymore.

>>713766801
looks like shit

>>713767317
It's a shame. There's lots to like about many aspects of the Decima Engine, but like nearly every other engine today, it's abused with shitty AA and other effects. It's also only used to make middling games at best, like Horizon and Death Stranding. What a waste.

>>713767317
It doesnt.

>>713766726
as a /p/ fag i appreciate these. Contrast is so fucking important that its unreal. Simply having everything just being washed with the same tonaility is extremely boring to look at and creates the problem of a horribly flat image that is hard to distinguish things from one another if its poorly done enough.
>>713766801
>if i just turn up saturation 200% it might trick people into liking the game for a while.

>>713767698

>>713768083
significantly better in terms of contrast.

>>713767673
slapping ferns everywhere like it's a hl2 cinematic mod doesn't automatically make things look better

>>713761870 (OP)
Crysis, a game that released 18 years ago, looks better than Death Stranding 2, top of the line AAA game from 2025 praised for its graphics. Meanwhile, 18 years before Crysis came out, pic related is what games looked like.

We’ve been taken for absolute fools. Robbed of nearly two decades of progress. And for what? Pozzed western movie games? Gacha trash? Indie roguelikes with deck building mechanics? Just crash this industry already

>>713761870 (OP)
TAA and its consequences were a disaster for the games industry

>>713761870 (OP)
I stopped caring about graphics after late 6th gen and early 7th gen.

Shadow of the colossus,RE4, halo3, Mario Galaxy, gears of war, assassin's Creed, mgs4, god of war 2 etc...

I'm one of the few people who actually enjoyed skyward sword.

>>713768083
>>713768303
Definitely, though I got tired of the blue+orange aesthetic a while ago. Quantum Break had some really impressive tech behind it. When I reach the point in development for my game where I'm creating environments and stages, I'm doing several playtests while playing the game in grayscale to make certain that the game has the look I want. I think this >>713763614 I posted earlier and the points made here >>713767698 are the primary reason games these days have yellow paint and glowing/flashing effects for items you can interact with.

>>713768857
Indeed.

>>713768857
Deferred rendering was a tragedy. We've regressed to the point where devs are using Saturn-style dithering and N64-levels of blur to simulate transparency, meanwhile the PS2 and Dreamcast could handle such effects with ease.

>>713764234
nice fogslop

>>713768935
TAA is soulful

Ive had photorealism fatigue for a while now
Bonus points from me for games with lower polycounts and strong artstyles

I do believe the PS6 will have enough power to bring real time graphics into the 2000s 3d animated movies.

Which was exactly when they were taken seriously.

>>713761870 (OP)
Consoles.

>>713769342
Didn't post this one earlier since it didn't directly fit in with the rest of the examples, but here you go.

>>713769471
What's the game on the second row, in the 4th tile? The one to the right of Viewtiful Joe

>>713769471
>PSO
Man i wish they release some remaster of this

>>713761870 (OP)
games have been hit with the triple whammy:
1) TAA/DLSS - makes everything blurry and noisy, particularly when in motion
2) Filmic tonemapping - washes out all the colors (see pic related)
3) Volumetric fog - adds depth but covers everything in a wash of grey
4) bonus award for raytracing techniques which are still so expensive they have to be used with low sample counts, which creates banding/noise that has to be blurred to cover it up, making TAA or similar a requirement

>>713763387
Play more games

I will make a prediction that Nintendos next console will be a Wii 2.

It will have ps6 level hardware and all of their characters will be like Pixar-ish.

Mario will talk or will be replaced completely.

>>713761870 (OP)
Games nowadays have no focus. Just lots of generic assets that make worlds look sterile no matter how detailed. And the more detailed they become the more unfocused it becomes. Gen 6 was the last era where you had a balance of graphical fidelity, ease of production so every asset was unique, and focused style. I miss it so much.

>>713763387
i've seen few games this soulless, even the new ubislop has more soul

>>713769626
I almost want to say Tak and the Power of Juju, but I don't think that's correct.

>>713769769
Entirely 100% correct. The ACES tonemapper that everyone uses (especially ACES RRT) is so fucking tiresome to look at these days. This constant obsession of trying to looking like film to justify or boost one's career for validation or cred is beyond destructive to the gaming industry. Hell, ACES isn't even a proper tonemapper really, it's more accurate to call it a workflow since it affects more of the pipeline. But when games started using it, they just took those values at face value and called it a day, without proper reference to the rest of the structure they poached it from.

>>713767698
I mean this has local contrast but it's just the ao people just don't set direct shit anymore and just rely on the technology to carry them also fem nicocado is a terrible design

>>713769032
Transparency isn’t being used because it is expensive (with the cost being identical for both forward and deferred). The only reason you see dithering is that it is free to do transparencies like that in deferred pipelines.

we'll just never know

>>713763387
Decima is a good engine. Game content aside, it's extremely crisp and more responsive than EU5. And DS clearly worked to get it nice since the game it was actually made for looks way worse.

honestly i can't careless
all the games i find pretty are pretty because of the art style not because retarded 4k texture and effects
games i find pretty
>Elden ring
>sekiro
>kcd 1-2
>RDR2
>MGSV
>ORI games

>>713771051

>>713771205

the witcher 4 demo looked pretty good
until the end when ciri rides away and you can see her ghost image for so long

>>713770876
NTA but you are beyond incorrect. Transparency in deferred renderers are almost always done with forward rendering passes instead, which increases the complexity of the overall renderer and slows it down versus a forward renderer. It is also not free to do dithering, it just costs very little.

>>713771294

>>713761870 (OP)
imported libraries from copy-paste programmers

>>713771051
>games i find pretty
>lists a bunch of the highest fidelity games in existence
are you retarded

>>713762560
I think

>>713771368
The forward pass for transparencies is identical for a forward/deferred pipeline, and it doesn’t add any additional complexity unless you want to arbitrarily support the same shaders in both (which just ends up being a shader compilation problem).
It’s is effectively free, the cost being just evaluating the deferred shader itself fully for each 2x2 pixel block, which is minimal in practice.

This gen will be known as the blurry vaseline graphics gen. Maybe in a few years devs will figure out how to not abuse TAA and have a sharp clear image.

>>713771021
But Horizon looks a lot better and has 200 million more assets on screen at all times despite being on PS4.

>>713769471
Truly the golden age of gaming, every game felt different unless it was a straight up sequel

>>713771669
it's only true for RDR 2 even there ubisoft games have more detailed textures and shit
but what makes rdr 2 so pretty is how everything is laid out

same for mgs 5, no asset on it's own is of the highest quality but all of it looks great together and crisp

>>713771294
looks like Hunt but TAA

>>713771929
>it's only true for rdr2
ok you are retarded thanks for clarifying

>>713771294
why is this so soft and out of focus? the entire image is blurred. Is it running at 720p and AI upscaled or some shit? I bet it looks even worse when you move the camera

>>713772075
yea, the poster's retarded as we've established, if you're playing cryengine games anything other than 2x ss you're cooked

>>713771051
>careless
not the same thing as care less.

>>713772075
because i cropped it for better composition
it actually looks pretty good

>>713772075
https://youtu.be/45u45C4weys?si=SASE3hq_Sud1m1R2

>>713772401
oh the game about the gay cocksuckers? not interested sorry

>>713772447
we are talking about graphics and art style you stupid faggot

>>713770563
god HL2 still looks so good after all these years

>>713770196
>Gen 6 was the last era where you had a balance of graphical fidelity, ease of production so every asset was unique, and focused style. I miss it so much.
No need to leave. A lifetime of gems were released in that era.

>>713761870 (OP)
Nobody remembers the 6th guy who walked on the moon.

>>713772582
you're right I bet the specular highlights look great when you're slurping the other guy's cock in first person

>>713773017
you are fucking insufferable
same as reset era troons
>discussion about mechanics of mgsV
>erm couldn't get into it because of the exploitation of women and shit

>>713772401
looks bad, flat and empty

>>713773183
hey I'm not the one who put gay sex in your medieval simulator

>>713762812
Fog is fine, it just doesn’t need to be 10 feet away in nearly every outdoor space. I tried getting rid of fog completely on a game I’m working on and being able to see everything miles around kinda of ruined it so I just left it on for far distances only.

distinct artstyle > photorealistic dithered UE5 slop

>>713765036
It means shadows are no longer actually dark, they're just wishy washy gray. Look at all the fog in modern games.

Because gameplay is more important now? Graphical leaps in realism get dated by the next generation of games that go for graphic realism. Unless you are GTA that can waste your time trying to create every minute detail there is, it isn't cost effect. Just do something good enough ot has a little more style to it is the better way to go.

We are on a verge of something big but the devs are shit.

>>713773817
looks worse than Spiderman

>>713761870 (OP)
I have ultra realistic video games fatigue.
Every games with facescanned actors, photorealism background, and hyper realistic skin pores all look the same to me.

>>713763614
>>713763690
Who do you think works on games? Artists? No, it's all outsourced to indians who couldn't even draw cave art with their own poop.

>>713773867
No it doesn't and definitely not in motion.

>>713773928
they also run like shit and require upscaling

>>713773508
you are the one being insufferable about it
just like other offended cunts

>>713773817
>not a single tree
grey slop

>>713761870 (OP)
Because it reached a point where it got so good that instead of being compared to old school graphics it gets compared to real life.
While it looks incredible compared to PS1 graphics, it looks like dogshit compared to real life.

And then when compared to old school graphics in regards to style, old school graphics relied on style to offset the limitations and so style oozed from them. Whereas modern graphics just look like an inferior representation of reality.
Because that is what they are.

>>713774010
Sony always wins.

>>713761870 (OP)
because you're using a 480p screen for 8k

>>713774071
the devs decided this game should be part of the culture war, not me. I'd rather it was a nice normal game too but they decided to make it controversial for some reason. Take it up with them if you don't like it

>>713761870 (OP)
Fuck off with graphics. You reached their peak already. Show me impressive gameplay now, since that's never been properly reached before and a huge amount of developers still struggle with that shit more than they do graphics.

>>713761870 (OP)
People forgot how shadows and lighting works

>>713773817
where's the green filter?

>>713774560

>>713763074
Why the fuck would it look like UE5 when it’s on the decima engine?

>>713775560
decima looks plastic too bcs they use quixel assets

>>713775238
oh yeah, that exists...

>>713775895
Quixel assets are not the cause of that look.

>>713763319

>>713766801
>>713767673

>>713761870 (OP)
There still are things in graphics to find impressive.
Like this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwJgifqvd5M
And PoE's GI/Shadow solution still fascinates me.

>>713761870 (OP)
Graphics don't look more real than they did in 2014~2020. They just look more plastic-ish.

>>713766801
>>713767673
This game is vulgar looking. It's like the entire enviroment has an uncanny valley effect going on

>>713774525
first one also had you save a gay guy and heretics and also had strong women
and vavra posted lib shit long before KCD2 and even release of one
it's you who's making it about heckin culture war

>>713766801
>>713767673
/v/ermins will never give a win to Snoy but objectively speaking Decima blows EVRYTHING out of the water. All the absolute most impressive and best looking games on PC are all Playstation games.

>>713767673
looks like the most generic soulless concept art

This is fucking brutal

The last game that did it for me was Flight Simulator.

>"games don't look any better"
>1080p monitor
>GTX gpu

>>713761870 (OP)
CRYSIS KEEPS WINNING

crisp & clean

>>713761870 (OP)
I agree. Look at this shit. Left was a PSOne (we called it that back then) game, and right is a game that only gets 10fps upscaled from 144p on a 5090 (and it has shader compilation stutters).

this was an Atari ST game. Look at how far we've gone backwards

>>713761870 (OP)
I'm honestly sick of the obsession with graphics not all games need realistic one for one graphics. I care more about a great story, great game play mechanics, great music etc etc which games are entirely lacking in now modern day.

>>713761870 (OP)
The bottom pic looks better than Crysis. Should be comparing DS2 with Battlefront.

>>713761870 (OP)
g

>>713784000
Please post that same pic you post in every thread. The one you didn't take.

>>713761870 (OP)
the top looks more real

>>713784030

>>713784030
???

>>713761870 (OP)
-Incorrect/Unrealistic Specularity/Roughness/Metallic map values (PBR Materials)
-Normal map overuse(metallic/plasticy textures if used on non metal textures/materials)
-Volumetric fog/effects
-SSAO
-Unrealistic implementations of Subsurface Scattering
-Aggressive Bloom

This is everything wrong with modern day graphics, it doesn't help that many games have a stylized semi-realism look that they strive for aswell as the fact that the models for most modern games are made by jeets.

Older games had simpler lighting and models, sure, modern games have higher resolution models and textures, but they don't have appropriately lit materials, everything is too glossy and shiny.

I haven't mentioned TAA despite many games using it, I won't talk about AA.

>>713776617
That's the first game. Water is drastically improved in the second. Also what you posted is a game designed for 15 year old hardware.

>>713761870 (OP)
Because realistic graphics were never an objective positive. Style and SOUL were always more impressive. Nobody actually cares or talks about "muh crysis" but people will talk about other games that have style

>>713784357

>>713776617

>>713761870 (OP)
no matter how good a game looks, no matter how good a story is gameplay is all that really matters.

The technical side of game graphics has advanced far enough for it to become apparent when the artistic expression is lacking.

>>713767673
this is an oversharpened mess

>>713785864
Just let the idiot do his thing.
He laments the lack of contrast slurry on modern games the same way some people miss the 98% full-screen color saturation of N64 games.

>>713785191

>>713780017
riven is a masterpiece

>>713764424
good contribution anon, appreciate it

>>713761870 (OP)
Complete breakdown of coordination and task scheduling caused by the hiring of management composed of con-artists pushing AGILE and other slop.
>>713761974
It really has more to do with middle and upper management than the devs themselves.
Sure that shit leads to them hiring expendable devs, but it's a symptom, not the disease.

Can we just ban deferred rendering already? I want mirrors, transparency and anti aliasing back.

>>713786015
I wish this game didn't run like absolute fucking shit. It was really fun but I dropped it after the 15th crash

>>713770374
you say that like anybody complained about Asscreed graphics

>sour grapes: the thread

Because they're all chasing photorealism now.
It's not impressive, it's just mimicry of the thing you see all the fucking time.

>>713787010
photorealism? WHERE?! in fucking smog filled china?!

>>713786543
I like how Anal Wake 2 looks overall but it suffers from awfully noisy reflections.

>>713787038
Nice tiles.

>>713787040
The Resident Evil games. 90% of the assets are just photos.

>>713787040
They have to chase that global warming propaganda too y'know.

I really like the art direction of this game, but shit is going come out 2026 and maybe not be finished cause it didn't do well in early access.

>>713787040
That's dumb composition, nothing about how graphics are no longer impressive.

>>713787161
How did they do that without AMD's revolutionary 3D VCache that you should make sure is on your CPU? If your CPU doesn't have 3D VCache, make sure to purchase a CPU with X3D in the model number. Every purchase contributes one rupee to my account.

>>713761870 (OP)
>Top
>Clay foliage, zero proper light interaction with leaves
>Bottom
>Actual translucency

>>713761870 (OP)
Good grief look at how awful the textures are in the top image

>>713769032
>Deferred rendering was a tragedy.
Yeah bro, I miss forward rendering, I love 6 lights being a literal hard limitation in a single frame

>>713761870 (OP)
but bottom looks better, the leaves are actual polygons instead of billboards and there's more density to the scene. Crysis does look as good as modern games, though. I played it a year ago and loved it up until the last few levels. Played Crysis 2 afterwards and it sucked hard.

>>713787519
I look at the performance and visual quality difference between Doom Eternal and Doom the Dark Ages and conclude that yeah nah you're a cunt.

>>713787887
>comparing idtech games like they're good looking
This is your brain on poor.

>>713761870 (OP)
both are shit compared to KDC

>>713769626
The Hobbit

>>713787462
and yet top looks better despite almost 20 years old
curious
Just think about, modern console games with infinite budget still can't catch up to 20 years old PC game

>>713787957
Okay post a good looking game that looks better like uhhhh

...uhhhhh

What do you homos play, Killzone Shadowfall?

>>713788102
>just makes up game names

>>713767673
>>713766801

>>713769769
pipis

>>713764870
I just laugh when people say GTA 6 is slop or soulless, what a laughable, contrived and performative opinion to spout.

>>713763614
>>713763834
>>713763915
>>713764004
>>713764234
>>713764294
>>713764424
So the point of all of this is just that volumetric clouds look bad? Well, everyone knows that already, but it won't stop developers from putting blur filters and chromatic aberration in every game.

>>713788553
cringe

>>713789292
>thinking a Rockstar game was anything but hilariously behind the curve

>>713789327

>>713789352
>still spamming because he likes cock

>>713763387
>anti soul gas

>>713789404

>>713789292
>>713789352
>Looks like a painting
I fucking kneel.

>>713764597
that's not gameplay footage

>>713789757
I dislike that picture. They coloured the shadow filters incorrectly. It's too red

>>713761870 (OP)
Devs can't into contrast
Someone needs to reel the industry in and beat them over their heads with a photography manual

>>713787038
vidyagaem graphics never needed to evolve beyond this

>>713789809
They literally put blur filters in every game (dof, motion blur, chromatic aberrration, film grain). What do you expect? They WANT to hide how bad the games look compared to even decade old games.

>>713789757
>Battlefront
>Battlefield 1
>Arkham Knight
>AssCreed Unity
>Quantum Break
Incredible how games from 2014-2016 still mog most games that come out today in terms of graphic while also having superior performance.

>>713789806
i don't see it

>>713789809
>contrast
very few things in real life are high contrast. There's always some bounce light.

>>713789991
So?

>>713790013
Real life is a crutch for people who can't be real artists.

>>713789809
>>713789874
It's bizarre they do it, hollywood does it too, every single movie these days have the same uniform image that lacks contrast or dynamic range, it's like they're afraid people will be mad if they don't see every single pixel.

Either that or its a grift to sell HDR tvs. Like everything these days looks like fucking LOG footage.

>>713790038
so maybe one of us is wrong, or it's some weird subjective opinion. Idk.

>>713790013
trying to imitate real life is the problem

>>713790078
>Either that or its a grift to sell HDR tvs

if it were someone would have spoken out about it

>>713790078
they do it as that's the best way to capture the entire dynamic range.
If they shot it looking like the left side they'd lose detail which could never be retrieved.
The image on the right can be expanded in either direction with no loss in detail.

>>713790095
>I don't like..
Your opinion of my opinion isn't important.

>>713761870 (OP)
Because they're doing absolutely nothing with it other than making realistic visuals.

>>713790078
>>713790172
It's not a grift to sell HDR tvs...that is just what HDR is.

>>713790230
that image isn't HDR

>>713790194
ok but can you show the reds? I don't see any red shadows. So maybe there's something wrong with your monitor or eyes.

>>713790172
I'm not against shooting it in LOG, I understand its practical to do so, even if it may stifle creativity and give artists an excuse to be lazy. It's understandable.

What ISN'T understandable is having access to that LOG footage and doing fucking nothing with it. You have more options in post-production than ever before and yet you put out movies that look closer to the original fucking log footage than it does anything else.

>>713790254
>can't read American
Why is this so common these days? The Bible was written in American. Jesus spoke American. You need to know American to say The Lord's Prayer and be a good Christian.

>>713790292
the colour of the wood in the shade is too red.
shadows desaturate. That image has shadows which saturate

>>713790254
Holy shit, I don't even know how to respond. Obviously the image isn't HDR, but it is showing how you make an HDR image.

>>713761870 (OP)
All people that could optimize the engines and rendering pipelines switched jobs to actually get paid good money. (The corporations didn't want to pay them for vidya because of cost cutting on everything except for IPs which said corpos run into the ground)

>>713790172
>The image on the right can be expanded in either direction with no loss in detail.
then why fucking isn't it expanded? also in vidya you don't even have that problem, YOU control the screen!

>>713790350
It's not even doing that.
It's how all professional photographs and video are shot before applying whatever LUT in post.
It has nothing to do with HDR

>>713790479
...and they do that so not to lose any detail. And said LUT can make the image HDR.

>>713790308
They are prone to trends. I need to admit that I haven't noticed anything, except some weird piss filter coming back but I don't watch new films that often.
When digital intermediates became available (i.e. digital film scanning and digital color grading) in early 2000s every film had this very strong colorized grade, and many of these films are annoying to watch now... Matrix is probably one of the first examples in this.
>https://digitalsynopsis.com/design/color-palettes-famous-movies/

>>713790397
it does in post. I'm not sure what the fuck problem you're having with this. It's not like movies are screened without colour correction applied.
It's the way images are shot to capture the most detail in shadows and allows for colour profiles to be added without crushing colours. That's all.
It's not magic. It's like when you record audio you don't record it hitting the red, you record it -6 to -12db for headroom

>>713761870 (OP)
Never understood the need to play a game because it has a realistic looking forest
Just go for a walk in the one closest to where you live

>>713790520
You need a HDR camera to shoot HDR.

>>713790618
Now I know you're trolling.

>>713790618
Every semi-professional camera has 10bit depth with actual pro cameras going well over into 12bit.

>>713761974
this image always baffles me because it implies microtransactions aren't a problem

just become OLED pilled and enjoy perfect colors on everything even SDR content.

Ghost of Tsushima
Doom 3
Modern Warfare 2019
Tetris Effect

Some of my favorites on an oled tv.

>>713790682
>>713790696
>you need HDR camera to shoot HDR
>you're wrong
>because pro cameras with 10bit can do HDR
which is what I said you argumentative twat

Man graphics fags are the fucking worst. We now live in a time where console exclusives look almost photorealistic, and autistic dipshits are still splitting hairs about how light hits foliage or whatever. And you wonder why games these days are so shit - it’s because devs spend 90% of the time trying to make each bead of sweat on the protagonists ass crack look lifelike, instead of actually focusing on making a good game.

>>713790078
In movies it's a layered problem I think. On top of the lack of dynamic range it feels like they somehow forgot the audience has to actually see what's going on. You watch older movies and every scene pops, the older the movie the better it is. Doesn't matter if the scene takes place at night, the characters and points of interest will still be reasonably well lit and easy to see.

>>713790682
Depends on what constitutes as HDR in this sentence. Does it mean camera that can output data above 8bit or does it mean actual multi-exposure cameras that do interchangeably longer exposure to capture dark parts of the scene with short exposure to avoid overexposure on bright areas, RED cine cameras do that for example.

>>713790742
I'd rather have good games with mtx than bad games with mtx (what we have right now).

>>713790572
The mid 2000s had kind of the opposite problem of what we have now. Every single hollywood movie went way too far in the color grade, too much contrast, too saturated. Digital grading had by that point gotten popularized and so they just went crazy with it. Movies like Transformers just look garish, it's like staring at an MTV music video or something

Look at this example of a modern movie. Look at how unnecessarily muted and uniform it is. Look at the light on the trees and how unnaturally muted it is, it doesn't make sense to look at it. It just looks terrible. This is how that movie starts, this is the first impression this movie gives you and I find it baffling.

>>713790742
Nonmechanical microtransactions help fund further development. If the game isn't live service; it's kind of gay, but it's still not p2w, so I don't care.
The point of the predditor saying that is that he sees literal cancer in the industry, and he's worried about gonorrhea.

>>713761870 (OP)
I stopped giving a shit about graphical fidelity 10 years or so

>>713790843
Not the same guy, but cameras can do HDR without being a special camera. In photography you just did 2 exposures. Or you can use tone mapping.

>>713790584
>it does in post.
what movies are you talking about? surely not all the new shit that comes out, cause that ain't it. for example, i watched almost all alien movies back to back lately, and there's no comparison, the old movies ar super crisp, new movies vs alien 1 is no contest
and i understand the technique, i have nothing against it, but again, olm movies we much better in regards to contrast, imo.
and again, this is not a problem in games since you're not recording footage, so why are they usually so fucking bland? where's the contrast?

>>713790938
That doesn't need to be explicitly stated. If you are playing video games in 2025, this is true of you.

>>713790843
Do you know the difference between amateur cameras and professional cameras? They're miles away as far as their image and performance goes but you can easily get camera capable of delivering decent HDR while still being on the lower side of four figures $$$. You can get the camera on which Revenge of the Sith was filmed for like 3k.

>>713791079
I think actual film is part of what makes older movies look so good. You can tell right away.

Graphics peaked in the 6th gen and every has been diminishing returns since then.

Do you guys have any recommendation learning material on light, since I'm trying to recreate it 1:1, basically reinvent the wheel.

>>713791398
Learn photography, would be my recommendation. Photography is painting with light. Using it as your very medium, you will earn everything about it.

>>713791307
That's why only hacks shoot on digital.

>>713791026
I do photography too and as far photography goes multiple exposures aren't even needed because cheap DSLR gives you 12bit right off the bat. I use D5600 which is something like $500 maybe less and I still get these 12bits of depth because it is what is expected out of photography gear. After processing the shots looks beautiful on HDR screen. You buy a film camera for $500 and you're getting 8bit 4:2:0 maaaybe 4:2:2 at best.

>>713791307
film and the process of handling film like shipping it off to professionals is a more sturdy pipeline than anything digital has at the moment.

Digital gives people so much more freedom but it also makes the process way faster and executives sees faster and cheaper and that's all they care about. There's nobody going "okay since this is ten times cheaper to shoot and faster to get in the edit we can now spend more time and money in post-production" no.. they just shit it out as fast as possible and that's why a lot of digital looks bland.

Digital can for sure look good, its just the pipeline is fucked.

>>713791509
Film has it's own properties and charm which was created by professionals who adjusted the film formula for decades. Scanned film is just as good technically as modern sensors with exception to grain which is here to stay. But colors and dynamic range are well within the range of what digital does. The problem with digital is that people see crisp and clear image and think it looks good but it ends up feelings sterile in the end. With technical perfection comes perfect uniformity and sterility of the visual medium. Some 50k zeiss lens might be good but my cheap helios lens has way more soul in it that what this perfect lens has.

>>713791509
and them people who do the actual post get shat on for taking their time, so they just apply some presets and send it
and people complain "why does this look like every other movie?"
because it does

>>713791453
I'm thinking mostly how light behaves, bounces, how the colors change and stuff like that, more technical but still easy to understand

>>713761870 (OP)
Death Stranding 2 cutscenes are nice but otherwise it's not the huge graphical blowout previews hyped it up to be. Still a gorgeous game, but there are other games that look equally good. TLoU2 and RDR2 are PS4 titles and still the reigning champs. And Horizon Forbidden West looks better when actually exploring the world and fighting. Death Stranding just gained a huge following of /v/ dick riders in the intervening years so they're going to gobble its dick for a few weeks.

Game is a disappointment, btw. Not a single improvement to traversal and every other mission now has some stupid outpost base to either avoid or infiltrate like MGS. What the fuck was Kojima doing for 6 years besides scanning people.

>>713776516
Why are there no shadows or ambient occlusion? Looks like OG Oblivon.

>>713792546
Because it's a bright outdoor area

>>713763614
You fucking retard, of course if a picture relies on color it will look like shit if you remove color, how about you remove contrast and check if the pictures that rely on contrast still look good, you fucking slogan-repeating ape incapable of independent thought

>>713784167
Call me crazy but I like the plasticky look, as long as it allows for a lot of detail and looks pretty. I love stuff like normals, speculars, ray tracing, etc, but I don't care much for realism. I'm happy for games to look as close to a high quality 3d animated movie as possible. Games are toys essentially so I'm happy for it to look like a toy box.

>>713792580
>bright lights do not cast shadows

>>713761870 (OP)
Death stranding 2 is game of the century though

>>713793671
thats just inconsistent graphics because every single thing is outsourced to a different studio. it looks like shit because the same people didnt work on everything.

>>713793803
More like
>Lame of the century
Ha gottem

>>713761870 (OP)
Because of the law of diminishing returns.

>>713761870 (OP)
Light maps, in Crysis they were made by hand and in Death Standing 2 they are auto generated.

>>713794136
but enough about what will be written on your gravestone

>>713761870 (OP)
There's just so much you can with the current tech

Simulating light is already very expensive computationally
Simulating water/liquid is even more expensive computationally than light
Making textures requires a lot of time

Simply put we need better tools and better tech to see the next graphics "WOW"

>>713777256
You don't even know what an engine is you fucking nigger

>>713763614
>>713763690
>>713763834
>>713763915
my hero


but this one doesn't look that bad >>713763757

>>713761870 (OP)
I was thinking about this replaying Crysis from 2007. People said it had terrible optimization, but it honestly puts modern Unreal Engine titles to shame.

>>713794793
>the next graphics "WOW"
Games already look like real life bozzo. There is no more advancing graphics because they are already at their peak. What is needed right now is creativity, something that is heavily lacking nowadays if all the remasters and remakes are anything to go by.

>>713794987
it's less that it's terribly optimised and more that Crytek placed their bets on a future of CPUs that didn't happen. The world was expecting clock speed to keep skyrocketing like it had been up until that point but Intel hit a hard wall approaching 4GHz and both teams started building CPU's "wider" rather than "faster". The end result is the game struggles even on modern CPUs because even they don't run at 10GHz.

>>713795059
>Games already look like real life bozzo. There is no more advancing graphics because they are already at their peak. What is needed right now is creativity, something that is heavily lacking nowadays if all the remasters and remakes are anything to go by.

They do not.

Textures exists because we don't have enough computational power to render literally everything in 3D, including leaves, grain of dirt etc

>>713786435
The original looked better and it actually worked. The remake ran like shit and crashed constantly on my PC, so I played the real game instead.

>>713794987
Crysis 2007 looks very outdated by today's stands. Look at how lifeless and flat everything looks.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9nODL8SErMg

>>713761974
every one of these posts are made by someone doing poorly in school

>>713764424
what a horrible downgrade that fog causes
>>713764140
this one though, this one adds to the atmosphere. an actual correct use of the fog. though they shouldnt make the whole area or level or map like this. just key moments.

>>713761870 (OP)
Because decent to good graphics is pretty easy to achieve these days

>>713786015
Would it be so difficult to have that tree in the back be the same red as the one close by?
The real world is never anywhere near that foggy; it really grinds my gears

>>713795536
>scanline faggotry makes everything look like shit

>>713795703
>The real world is never anywhere near that foggy
plenty of places do indeed get that foggy (and foggier) where i live every morning the fog on the lake and waterfront is so thick you can't see 2 feet in front of you

>>713795281
I don't think that's lifeless or flat. It's just the textures which are unimpressive. But the whole game world is so interactible. You can mow down all the palm trees in one area, run far away and come back, and it looks how you left it. Can't think of many games with the same "wow" effect.

>>713795759
Yes, surely this is the best scanline filter you are using. Curvature emulation is cancerous.

>>713795810
I misspoke, but yes, fog can be thick in some parts
But this is obviously just volumetric fog that I bet is present in every part of the game

>>713767698
>/p/
what do you think of my post?

Curious lack of this color everywhere

This visual "style" will always be more appealing to me no matter how many polygons people cram into everything

>>713768935
weird how the bottom's hair shimmering doesnt go away. the vaseline gets added but the shimmering stays. now we got both of them. it doesnt do what they think it does.

>>713768935
>glowing/flashing effects for items you can interact with
nearly every ps2 game with a chest to open or a ledge to hang onto had it too. difference is that the yellow paint is doing the same, but in an insulting fashion.

>>713761870 (OP)
I never saw nothin in no videogame that was better than going outside and looking at the sky and I still don't do that for free. It's just not that important.

>>713796139
Game?

Love that 2000s sunny island aesthetic.

>>713796139
i feel like i played this game or saw someone playing it, but i can't put my finger on it

>>713761870 (OP)
consoles suck

>>713796317
That one's ff11, has some pretty great landscapes but boy you are not going to see even a quarter of them in any reasonable amount of time.

>>713787519
you got the sun, you got the lamp, you got your torch or flashlight, you got some more lamps and candles hanging from the walls, you need more than 6?

>>713789292
Beautiful. Fidelity without artstyle is meaningless. MH Wilds is a prime example of that. Higher fidelity than MH Worlds, but vastly inferior artstyle.

>>713762913
Your point being? It had a nice art style but the graphics were overall mid. Below Crysis still.

>>713796139
I want to go back.

>>713761870 (OP)
art should not pursue realism

>>713793318
The point is that you shouldn't just completely rely on color, you mongrel.

>>713796319
>>713796317
Final fantasy XI
Even though the game is incredibly obtuse, I still play it today
You will be spending long stretches of time looking at maps on your other screen to figure out how the fuck to get through the areas to progress through the story
But the whole time is incredibly comfy and really gives that sense of adventure; unfortunately retail is pretty much solo until endgame now

>>713770947
this shit was so fucking funny lol
I was in that thread

>>713761870 (OP)
reminiscing dittos

>>713796139
It was such a pain to get out to Purgonorgo Isle

>>713796626
ah, that's hy. my at-the-time landlord played it like 20 years ago

>>713761870 (OP)
le foliage isn't graphics.

>>713769769
>2) Filmic tonemapping - washes out all the colors (see pic related)
>does the opposite
lol
the filmic one in this image looks 100x better
left looks retarded, right one actually looks bright, it allows for proper destincsion between bright, saturated and dark objects

>>713761974
Like always nepotism and over confidence are usually how unqualified people get hired.

Games actually suck because thanks to the internet and data tracking developers have confirmed that the majority of humans aren't very smart. They don't really need to try hard to get most people money.

>>713761974
while mtx arent the main cause and the bad hires are, the good devs wouldnt budge on putting in mtx. so bad hires get hired as they would put in mtx. in the end, there is some truth to this picture.

>>713786435
What game?

>>713789352
if not for the low res textures tech wise RDR2 still holds up

>>713796139
Agreed, good artistry and use of color shits all over modern technological advancement.
Running at 3000fps on a modern PC helps, too.

>>713795281
the grassy ground being flat was good.
if it wasnt flat that meant you had to use your brain to process whats there to make it not flat.
nowadays you need to have a minimap that marks everything on the ground for you cause the ground itself is too visually cluttered with muh vegetation.

>>713762560
Spoken like an LLM. You might be real but you don't exist.

Star Wars Battlefront 2015 was impressive. Made on Frostbite engine with an extreme level of geometry detail thanks to scanning real objects in real life and movie props. Very optimist, has little burden on PC's power.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KB4y8Ufr02w

I hate deferred rendering

>>713761870 (OP)
Why are you comparing Death Stranding 2 with a game that doesn't exist?

>>713797957
cheeky

>>713797605
>10 years later
>we have AAA games that go for realism and look WAY WORSE than this

>>713798130
whats funny to me is that people praise ac unity for its graphics. when it was an absolute mess on release and normalized broken buggy AAA releases. which led to most disc games needing updates to be usable to fix all the bugs. which made online only drm and digital only releases the norm. I will never forgive ubibug.

>>713798223
aaa games being buggy was a thing before ac unity came out

>>713798607
gamebryo was the black sheep. every buggy AAA release killed studios. ac unity broke the curse and doomed us all.

>>713795281
you're just posting crysis with shitty settings
you have to open t he .cfg files to max it out

>>713779318
How do you make snow look good even if you give a lot of fantasy leeway? I love the snow maps but I dont understand artistwise how to give the environment variety and how textures can be more than just white

>>713789845
It's all about the lighting, no matter how high res you make your textures and models if the lighting is bad it will look like shit.

>>713798879
didn't kill stalker

>>713799056
>when you pull out a pack of gum in class

>>713799056
europeans dont have standards.
have you seen gothic?

>>713799056
it's different when you're not paying your employees

i have theory
that all these studios have present their games in form of prototypes and concept art to a board of old boomers who don't understand videos
but they do understand big hollywood movies that's they have go in the direction of realism
because something like dishonored or btow would look cheap and shitty to them

>>713799761
don't understand video games*

>>713798879
every elder scrolls game before gamebryo was a buggy mess

Graphics peaked in 2016.
See Doom 2016 and The Division, for example

>>713800459
>The Division

>>713800581
Realer than real life

>>713798923
>How do you make snow look good
by adding smaller details, the snow itself isnt even the major problem in these screenshots, it's the complete lack of shadows or ao

>>713789845
The only thing not looking like garbage in that image are the tiles on the walls.

>>713800831
I didnt say its a problem in those screenshots im asking for advice

>>713787161
Is that supposed to be impressive?

>>713800831

>>713801127
yes. especially in that era.

>>713799761
>because something like dishonored or btow would look cheap and shitty to them
It's the other way arround.
Making video games with unique artstyle is harder than making it generic because you need to properly study and design everything with that artstyle.in mind, and after that you have to see if it looks good in 3d and in movement. If not, you have to change everything

>>713798923
put some effort into the snowflakes
add sparkles to the ground snow
have good lighting

>>713801309
I miss when DoA meant awesome graphics

>>713801375
ik that you know that
most normies and boomer don't

>>713801008
all you gotta do is add small bushes and grass that actually have AO and make the trees have shadows then the snow will automatically not look like flat white paint

>>713787161
mid

>>713797205
>dev doesn't play ball with the suit who controls the money and has power over him
>gets fired
some kids still living in that world that only exists in their head

>>713801875
it only took 3 generations to surpass it

Because consoles suck.

The last time I remember being impressed by graphics was God of War 3 and Ground Zeroes.

>>713797009
You're retarded, genuinely, filmic is meant to simulate raw digital footage, in so that you can then colour grade it after the fact. This was NEVER built for video games in mind, and the result is all modern games that use a PBR pipeline looking like washed out shit because the tone mapping process is trying to preserve as much gradient detail (Pure black to pure white) of light and colour as it can. This is not how real film stock works, this is not how real transfers work, and this is not how real cameras work.

>>713803460
>XOF is pronounced as ZOF
>In game dialogue lazily pronounces it as EX-OH-EF
I thought all voice coaches and studios were supposed to be competent when it comes to this stuff, but I guess I was wrong after hearing this pronunciation over and over again.

>>713761870 (OP)
>Why are graphics no longer impressive?
because you're trying to run new games on your gtx1050ti on two decades old resolutions with fsr2, wondering why games look like shit now

>>713803374
quantum break impressed me, that's the only game since crysis that did really cool stuff

>>713804606
bottom game is ps5 pro screenshot, nigga

>>713804746
based !

>>713804854
I got bored and uninstalled shortly after your clip but it looked cool as hell

>>713804854
Remedy has good artists, they always find a way to add style to their realism, it never just looks photorealistic, there's always flair to it.

>>713770374
Ascreed shadows looks good.

Legit "this wouldn't run on a ps4" good