Lackluster Graphics in FFXIV

ok maybe this is what your refering to
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O9nrV1Oi6Ak

Now this is a TECH demo and is from 2005 and is ffxiv but again this is a TECH DEMO so basicaly consept

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Originally Posted by quantumsaint

For the record, and correct me if I'm wrong, but FFXIII wasn't FHD, it ran upscaled from 720p. Not that it matters much, as it's already been pointed out comparing single player games to MMOs is apples to oranges.

Also, the Crystal Tools engine wasn't even finished in 2005, there's no way that's running in-game. It's likely that prerendered cutscenes (a specialty of S-E) were one of the first things locked down in Crystal Tools, which they then used to show off their engine.

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That is true. If I remember correctly, FHD basically means 1080p, which very few console games run at (If any. I can't think of any off the top of my head). But to be honest, HD and FHD are pointless marketing terms anyways.

the tech demo was for the 360, least thats where i saw it. the towering city with the hot air balloons and npc with treasures gear on. it was out b4 the 360 was out. I bet it still on my 360.

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I'm sure I could easily come up with more valid nitpicks than these on a number of successful mmos. If you hate FF so much, why are you here?

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Trully, I mean I just started reading a few topics in general discussion and I've seen a few created by this Belgianrofl guy complaining about EVERYTHING in the game that is NOT important.

As to why is he here, I believe that all of us can answer that, he likes the game.
He likes it so much, that he can't even find important flaws to discuss. :P

See what I did there?

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Originally Posted by Kilta_Firelotus

the tech demo was for the 360, least thats where i saw it. the towering city with the hot air balloons and npc with treasures gear on. it was out b4 the 360 was out. I bet it still on my 360.

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yeah it is. But this wasent even going to be the game in general. this was just a consept. Think someone was argueing that this 2005 video was how the game played or something but it wasent at all. it was just a TCH Demo nothing more nothing less.

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Originally Posted by Abriael

Then why did you mention it? :D

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Oh, just to said I've experiences with some engines.

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Originally Posted by Abriael

being able to work on a mod doesn't give you any professional knowledge. Modding is, by definition, amateur work.

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No way. seriously look at the date. I wasn't student.

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Originally Posted by Abriael

maybe you need to learn to express yourself in a more clear manner, because everyone felt that you didn't know.
Actually, it still looks like you don't :D

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Oh. sorry I'm french. I was just making fun of how you tried to make fun of me with those things everyone knows sinces 10 years like "MMOs get more chara, blahblhablah".

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Originally Posted by Abriael

And of course you had a chance to closely examine the Crystals Tools engine to be able to say that, rite?

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No. Like you, right ? so, for you, CTengine seems well optimised ?

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Originally Posted by Abriael

When we see another MMORPG out there that can display the same polygons, details and effects as FFXIV does, with better framerates on the same machines, then we'll see.
For now, everything else the market offers has a way inferior definition, and even future releases shown so far don't get to the level of definition FFXIV reaches

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Well it's exactly what I said. For you FFXIV is the Best Graphic mmorpg. But it's just the only one with realistic texture when the other just stay on flashy colored style. Tera looks less realitic with less good texture, but technicaly, it pwnd FFXIV for shadows, lights, effect. (But the game itself doesn't interest me at all.)

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Originally Posted by Abriael

Nope. The only parts of that teaser that aren't pre-rendered footage are actually present in the game we have now. As they are part of the Limsa Lominsa in-engine intro.
You might have missed it.

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It seems to be pre rendered, but the charas have no shadows ?

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Originally Posted by RabidSquirrel

That is true. If I remember correctly, FHD basically means 1080p, which very few console games run at (If any. I can't think of any off the top of my head). But to be honest, HD and FHD are pointless marketing terms anyways.

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Metal Gear Solid 4 is native 1080P, as is a handful of PSN games. FFXIII was originally touted as such, but was changed before release.

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Originally Posted by Wenceslas

No. Like you, right ? so, for you, CTengine seems well optimised ?

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Considering that it can run a MMORPG at an unprecedented polycount and level of detail, it definitely isn't as bad as you say.

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Well it's exactly what I said. For you FFXIV is the Best Graphic mmorpg. But it's just the only one with realistic texture when the other just stay on flashy colored style. Tera looks less realitic with less good texture, but technicaly, it pwnd FFXIV for shadows, lights, effect. (But the game itself doesn't interest me at all.)

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You're confusing two very different things here. Graphical detail and Art direction.
Realistic or cartoonish textures have nothing to do with graphical detail. They are just a matter of art direction.

TERA doesn't even get near the level of graphical detail (see: polycount, texture resolution, effects, both for textures and for environment) FFXIV has. Everything is largely downscaled in comparison.

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It seems to be pre rendered, but the charas have no shadows ?

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Character shadows are often excluded in teaser trailers, because they're one of the least noticeable effects.

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Originally Posted by quantumsaint

Metal Gear Solid 4 is native 1080P, as is a handful of PSN games. FFXIII was originally touted as such, but was changed before release.

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Nope. MGS4 runs at 1024x768 upscaled.

FFXIII runs in 1080p only during cutscenes and only on PS3.

I agree that the shadows and light sources are all jacked up...

there is a option in the menue to add shadow and dust effects wile running. and the Chr shadows look good to me thay move and change with the sun and cast on objects like rocks walls ext.

The graphics in FFXIV are great for what they are, graphics of a MMO world, superior in this genre. While not being able to match texture details and effects of a modern single player fps game i think square enix' engine is amazing. You should also keep in mind this is a multi-platform title and not solely optimized for PC hardware - one reason why its already so demanding. Crystal Tools is build to be highly portable, they wanted to run the game on PC, Playstation 3, maybe Microsoft's Xbox360 at a later time and even Linux and Apple OSX clients are not out of question. If they add super realistic water reflections or whatsoever nobody could run it.

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Originally Posted by DarkRain

there is a option in the menue to add shadow and dust effects wile running. and the Chr shadows look good to me thay move and change with the sun and cast on objects like rocks walls ext.

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Nanika?! where is it?

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Originally Posted by Franzisca

The graphics in FFXIV are great for what they are, graphics of a MMO world, superior in this genre. While not being able to match texture details and effects of a modern single player fps game i think square enix' engine is amazing. You should also keep in mind this is a multi-platform title and not solely optimized for PC hardware - one reason why its already so demanding. Crystal Tools is build to be highly portable, they wanted to run the game on PC, Playstation 3, maybe Microsoft's Xbox360 at a later time and even Linux and Apple OSX clients are not out of question. If they add super realistic water reflections or whatsoever nobody could run it.

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It is true, people cant even put their general drawing at 10 without playing in full screen with two high end video cards. and I still cant turn on ambient occolsion without losing a lot of frame rate (twin 6970's)

you open the menu on the game like you would to slect inventory , teleport ext. think its called configuer. Under that theres a lot of options , shadow , dust effects , chat system , text color change , profanity filter , need to check it out :)

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Originally Posted by Abriael

So, you ran out of arguments. What's the next ultra-negative trolltopic? Give us a teaser.

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Hehe! I never truly understood what a forum 'troll' was...until now! Thanks OP ^_^/

why do i have a shadow in the dark? why does it rain through the covers over gridania entrance? this post is relevant. since the name shake fix my name stays still and the rest of the world shakes lol.

Yea, all those should be fixed. They are not however the top priority ^^. I did have contests with my linkshell to see who guesses first that there was no light source for my shadow, since i was standing against a wall. and another where there was a lantern in front of me, yet my shadow was going towards that lantern lol.

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Originally Posted by h2o

Really? Do you play it? Do you see it by your own or just some vid?
It's really cool example cz i play it. This game requires (much!) more strong machine that FFXIV, it's have cool farthest background (as you can see), but -> plastic+plastilin engine + korean design and detailing of the character significantly worse.

ArcheAge -> korean realize may be in 2012 or maybe later, and when english version come?

AoC too have cool water, but it's like a jelly.

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Yes, I play the game. Please go troll ffxivcore like you used to. You can't deny that the water in limsa lominsa is fairly one-dimensional with a painted-on effect. There are some places where the water seems to be quite natural, such as in this screenshot I took:

http://www.ffxivcore.com/gallery/129...534_201940.jpg

But if you look here, in one of my other screenshots, you see the water is very one dimensional:

http://www.ffxivcore.com/gallery/129...534_204567.jpg

I don't know how you can claim that the water in FFXIV is well-rendered unless YOU don't play the game.

I'd prefer water that was three dimensional and always looked realistic without depending on tricks of light.

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Originally Posted by Kotee

Hehe! I never truly understood what a forum 'troll' was...until now! Thanks OP ^_^/

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You have to envision them drooling at the mouth and smashing thier keyboard from the top of their head screaming with each stroke.

They're also green.

I'd like to chime in and say; I don't know. I like the graphics, they're pretty nice to look at and they're not completely fuxxored up. I got rid of shadow a looong time ago, since those are really never relevant to a game, except dotHack//GU.

That Goddamned Doppleganger sucks.

Edit: Reading and thinking further; I will admit, the boatride from Uldah to Limmy is the biggest pain in the ass ever. It's like I'm looking at my character sit on an inanimate boat alone for ten minutes.

Wait. Shit. That's actually happening. HOLY F*.

Anyway, the point is, with CryEngine you don't have to sacrifice as much graphical effects because the textures and geometry are loaded in dynamically in a certain radius around the character, i.e., "seamless world streaming". SE hasn't been able to create a really seamless world with the Crystal tools engine and has had to sacrifice certain features (water, apaprently). Instead of a seamless world, they just created a bunch of huge zones with repeated doodads to give the effect of huge seamless areas.

And if the water was a sacrifice they needed to make for large zones, then why in cutscenes and on the boat between continents, is that sacrifice still made unless the engine simply fails?

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Originally Posted by gifthorse

Anyway, the point is, with CryEngine you don't have to sacrifice as much graphical effects because the textures and geometry are loaded in dynamically in a certain radius around the character, i.e., "seamless world streaming". SE hasn't been able to create a really seamless world with the Crystal tools engine and has had to sacrifice certain features (water, apaprently). Instead of a seamless world, they just created a bunch of huge zones with repeated doodads to give the effect of huge seamless areas.

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When the cryengine will be able to render a MMORPG game that looks even remotely overally better than FFXIV, then you'd have any ground about it's superiority. So far there's none, and even between future games, there's none that looks even nearly as good.

There are always tradeoffs when chosing different engines, but for now (and for the foreseeable future), FFXIV is by quite a large amount the best looking MMORPG on the market. That wasn't achieved with your beloved cryengine, but with the crystal tools.

Cryengine: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YG5qDeWHNmk

Unreal Engine: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RSXyztq_0uM

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Originally Posted by BelgianRofl

Cryengine: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YG5qDeWHNmk

Unreal Engine: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RSXyztq_0uM

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MMORPGs please. Everyone is able to make an extremely limited tech demo look impressive.

Don't make too much of an effort, though. There's none. Don't want you to lose your beauty sleep.

Idk if ppl remember this but, 99% of all npc/pc character animation and movement was done up by motion capture. Like in Avatar. Not many games use this techinc yet. Only heavy rain and ffxiv the only ones I know of.

Your point was that SE is unable to add reflections to water because there are a lot of characters on-screen. #1, water doesn't have to reflect characters. Reflect world is fine. #2, adding an option to correct shading in the game will simply allow people who have a rich-man's graphics card the ability to look at a game that doesn't look like it was made 10 years ago. #3, adding reflections and adding real shading will not tax the system as much as ambient occlusion does, and it will make the game look much better and lifelike.

The technology is widely available. There is no excuse as to why it would not be added even as an option, when Ambient Occlusion (a more recent video-game tech) is an option.

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Originally Posted by Kilta_Firelotus

Idk if ppl remember this but, 99% of all npc/pc character animation and movement was done up by motion capture. Like in Avatar. Not many games use this techinc yet. Only heavy rain and ffxiv the only ones I know of.

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Character animations [excluding Lalafell] in this game are great. most games nowadays use motion capture. It's a very commonly used tech that saves boatloads of development time.

"Video games often use motion capture to animate athletes, martial artists, and other in-game characters.[2] This has been done since the Atari Jaguar CD-based game Highlander: The Last of the MacLeods, released in 1995." - Wikipedia

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Originally Posted by Abriael

When the cryengine will be able to render a MMORPG game that looks even remotely overally better than FFXIV, then you'd have any ground about it's superiority. So far there's none, and even between future games, there's none that looks even nearly as good.

There are always tradeoffs when chosing different engines, but for now (and for the foreseeable future), FFXIV is by quite a large amount the best looking MMORPG on the market. That wasn't achieved with your beloved cryengine, but with the crystal tools.

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In some ways Crystal Tools seems better given the fact that FFXIV is a very beautiful MMO in 90% of cases, but I would like to have seen what SE was capable of doing with another engine just for comparison. It's hard to tell how much of FFXIV's beauty is due to SE's artistic flare and what is courtesy of the tools used to make the game.

As I said earlier, SE isn't able to render water or fire properly with the Crystal Tools engine, nor are they able to create a seamless world. Some of these factors have contributed to the copy-and-paste situation everyone is so fond of. For example, in order to create such a large world, SE had to employ the cheat of using repeated blocks of land which are loaded in as you zone into the area. If they had used an engine capable of loading in the geography around a player as he moves, then they wouldn't have needed to make this compromise.

Also, there is no blurring between low-res and high-res textures in the distance. So as you move, you see a definite line between the two qualities of textures. Up close, everything looks good, but far away, you realise something is wrong.

The most attractive thing about FFXIV is the fluid character animations and artistic style. I am not so satisfied with the quality of the construction of the rest of the world though.

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Originally Posted by Kilta_Firelotus

Idk if ppl remember this but, 99% of all npc/pc character animation and movement was done up by motion capture. Like in Avatar. Not many games use this techinc yet. Only heavy rain and ffxiv the only ones I know of.

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I thought that there were a lot of games which used this technique. In any case, it certainly adds depth to the animations in FFXIV. It's probably one of the best features of the game.

Ahh ok, Not the games I've seen or very limited in use. You can tell the difference actually between artifitale created movement and motion capture. I know Avatar pushed the envilope with it. I know all game/ movies are acted out and artists watch the models or themselves and draw it out. I know ffxi didn't use it. You can tell by the way some of the legs moved. Like elvaan females had a slight jerking look when they ran like it was artificaily made. Like each limb looks like it was pulled to create motion.

Anyways, one thing I do like in FFXIV is how everything is given interesting textures. You never find something that isn't crafted with a lot of care. All the objects are high-polygon items with relevant textures. Nothing is just drawn-on.

But, all in all, I think I would sacrifice some graphical intensity for a truly seamless world with more original landscaping... and water that isn't just a repeated tile.

Notice how in this video, water actually moves around:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ok4_n84GjVI

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Originally Posted by BelgianRofl

World of Warcraft Water

Just because a game has a lot of character models, doesn't mean the graphic technology has to be archaic like FFXIV's is. SE's proprietary engine is so poorly optimized that it makes games run a lot worse than a modern engine like Unreal or Source.

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To be fair, though, WoW completely redesigned the water effects just before Cataclysm. So they were able to give it some real attention.

Before Cata, for years, they were horrendous.

I think FFXIV's water effects are just fine.

ua water in WoW was blue was completely stationary.. pretty much like water in mario 64 or legend of zelda ocarina of time.

to be fair, water is not that easy to render. Water is a constently moving and is not a solid object. Water is actually is a laying process. Most do the block with a duel layer top to mimic depth and ripples. Some games add darkening and dust to make it appear like you are swimimg in a lake.

Two worlds 2 did a pretty good job. I can't wait for elder scrolls skyrim. ^^

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Originally Posted by BelgianRofl

**** http://i.imgur.com/nmxe9.jpg ****

The World Graphics - most notably in Limsa Lominsa - are very sub-par.

Light is allowed to shine through walls and objects. Buildings/Landscapes do not cast shadows or reflect on water like they should. The inside of helmets light up when it should be dark.

Repeating textures are worse than in world of warcraft - again, most notably on Limsa Lominsa cliffs.

FFXIV also has some of the ugliest water graphics of any game made in the last 10 years.

**** http://i.imgur.com/nmxe9.jpg **** <- Click Here to see an evolution of graphics throughout the years.

I don't understand what happened between FFXIV 2005 and FFXIV 2010...

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It knows what its doing, dont respond to it, it'll only grow stronger..

if you want to test about the water graphics... go to Camp Ever Lakes, there a spot that you can run through the lake. of course you should be strong enough to fight the Firedrakes

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Originally Posted by gifthorse

I thought that there were a lot of games which used this technique. In any case, it certainly adds depth to the animations in FFXIV. It's probably one of the best features of the game.

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I agree, the motion capture makes the character animations extremely lifelike. The facial expressions and the attention to detail still impress me. I love how when your character runs and comes to a stop, they shift their weight.

But the thing that I've never seen in another MMO that is still amazingly unique to me is how when you're leaving certain places (like the Drowning Wench), where it's dimly lit inside, but bright outside, the light hurts your eyes as your eyes 'adjust'.

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Originally Posted by BelgianRofl

Your point was that SE is unable to add reflections to water because there are a lot of characters on-screen. #1, water doesn't have to reflect characters. Reflect world is fine. #2, adding an option to correct shading in the game will simply allow people who have a rich-man's graphics card the ability to look at a game that doesn't look like it was made 10 years ago. #3, adding reflections and adding real shading will not tax the system as much as ambient occlusion does, and it will make the game look much better and lifelike.

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Reflecting the world still takes a toll on the hardware. The engine needs to have resources free in order to display the enormous level of detail in comparison to other games, so they simply let some effects that have a very high hardware impact out.

They already said that ambient occlusion has been implemented simply as a futureproof option.

You can scream "there's no excuse!" as much as you want, but you'd still not know anything about what you're talking about. Your argument is based on nothing.
or better, You don't have an argument. The game overally looks much better than any other in the market. Calling the graphics "lackluster" is nonsensical at best.

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Originally Posted by BelgianRofl

Character animations [excluding Lalafell] in this game are great. most games nowadays use motion capture. It's a very commonly used tech that saves boatloads of development time.

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It's not as common as you think. While it's common for game developers to use mocap, mocap goes from extremely advanced all-purpose studios to home-friendly setups that cost a few hundred dollars.

It's not common at all for developers to use a dedicated studio equipped with a 44-camera Vicon MX40 system, capable of body, facial and hands tracking, which is one of the best (and most costly) in the industry and that most game developers simply cannot afford. That's why FFXIV's animations (and the anims of other SE games) are so much better than most of the competition.

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Originally Posted by gifthorse

In some ways Crystal Tools seems better given the fact that FFXIV is a very beautiful MMO in 90% of cases, but I would like to have seen what SE was capable of doing with another engine just for comparison.

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Unfortunately we already saw it. It's called "The Last Remnant", one of the technically worst games ever released by SE, made with the Unreal Engine.
It's available on steam if you have an iron stomach and are so curious to see what SE will do with the UE. The story and gameplay aren't even that bad, but the technical implementation is utterly sub-par.

Which isn't surprising. It's fairly obvious that the staff of a company will perform better with an engine created in-house, to which they have been specifically trained and with which their professionality is most likely to have grown.

This is the same reason why Epic Games gets a lot more out of the Unreal Engine than any third party using it. Same with Crytech with the Cryengine.

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As I said earlier, SE isn't able to render water or fire properly with the Crystal Tools engine

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Water and Fire in FFXIII look VERY proper. Water in FFXIV looks rather good as well, and as many already stated in this thread, yours is more a matter of taste. And after meeting a certain fire-based summon in game, I can say that fire looks awesome too.

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nor are they able to create a seamless world. Some of these factors have contributed to the copy-and-paste situation everyone is so fond of. For example, in order to create such a large world, SE had to employ the cheat of using repeated blocks of land which are loaded in as you zone into the area. If they had used an engine capable of loading in the geography around a player as he moves, then they wouldn't have needed to make this compromise.

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Every single MMORPG uses asset recycling to adress memory shortages. Whatever their engine is and no matter if they use streaming tricks.
Also, the FFXIV world is more seamless than most, as there are no loading times between open and closed spaces.

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Also, there is no blurring between low-res and high-res textures in the distance. So as you move, you see a definite line between the two qualities of textures. Up close, everything looks good, but far away, you realise something is wrong.

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That's what depth of field is for, and texture "rezzing" is a common issue in every game. Other games simply limit it by limiting the available depth of vision, putting obstacles to obstruct it or using the same depth of field trick.

if you truely want to see crap "next gen" graphics play two worlds 1
its even worst then zelda Oot. >.> no lie.

no-one has addressed the fact this was started by a resident troll of the forums?

FF14 is the best looking MMO on the market by-far.

let it die. troll thread is trolled.

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Originally Posted by Abriael

Some effects have to be deactivated in order to save hardware resources.

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Sure, but don't you think it should be up to the player to choose which effects those are? I mean, considering how vastly different individual PCs can be, I think it would make more sense to make it so that the game can render any effects, and then give players the choice of which ones to enable or not.