Lackluster Graphics in FFXIV

why is there a thread about FFXIV's graphics?
if it's still not enough for a 2011 mmo lean back and wait another 5 years, maybe we'll have a cryengine 3 mmo.
c'mon now, FFXIVs graphics are good, compared to other games it's the best.
alone the artwork is great.

some animations could use a rework, but we've allready voted so on the poll, so any further discussion like this feels like beating a dead horse.

if the graphics are not enough, i suggest playing a single player, i heared those games have good graphics since they don't load half as much stuff as an mmo does.

You can force a lot of really cool features in Nvidia control panel if you have a system that can handle it!

http://www.xfire.com/profile/silicus/screenshots/ffxiv/

The thing i hate the most is the ground textures, even on full graphics they are at some crazy low res :/

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Originally Posted by BelgianRofl

#1, You and Elkwood having zero understanding about what pre-rendering is does not mean everyone disagrees with me. Did you even look at the 3dMark 2005 video showcasing vastly superior real-time graphical technology?

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You're showing some very selective reading. A very vast majority here says that the graphics are fantastic. Also, are you seriously comparing a benchmark program (which is not even a game) with a MMORPG?.

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#2, You've posted on this thread probably about 45 times. That means my thread is epic WIN.

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You have a quite wild idea of "win" if you think that being proven wrong 45 times no matter how you spin it has anything to do with winning :D

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#3. Pause the 2005 video at 9 seconds in and examine what you see. The walls, posts etc.. of the structure do not cast shadows. Light is allowed to pass through as if there are no walls, lampposts, or rails. Hence, no shadows on the characters either. Same thing as compared to FFXIV today.

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Nope, characters in FFXIV today cast shadows both on environment and on themselves. It's an entirely different effect, as FFXIV uses as the only dynamic light sources the sun and the moon.

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Originally Posted by Abriael

You're showing some very selective reading. A very vast majority here says that the graphics are fantastic. Also, are you seriously comparing a benchmark program (which is not even a game) with a MMORPG?.

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The thread is not about an overall lack of graphics in the game. It's about repeating textures, lifeless water tech, and lousy shading. Check the OP

Also, I was comparing a vastly superior tech-demo to another inferior tech-demo that you believe is pre-rendered LOL

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Nope, characters in FFXIV today cast shadows both on environment and on themselves. It's an entirely different effect, as FFXIV uses as the only dynamic light sources the sun and the moon.

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Yes. Characters cast shadows correctly on themselves, other characters, and the environment. unfortunately, that is not the point of discussion. It's the environment that doesn't cast shadows. If it did, it would drastically futureproof this game.

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Originally Posted by Abriael

Nope, characters in FFXIV today cast shadows both on environment and on themselves. It's an entirely different effect, as FFXIV uses as the only dynamic light sources the sun and the moon.

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Dunno about the sun and the moon because the landscapes don't seem to cast a shadow. Characters do have dynamic shadows like you said. While I do think the graphics in this game can be good the lighting is still very much lacking, why didn't square make ALL light sources dynamic?

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Originally Posted by BelgianRofl

The thread is not about an overall lack of graphics in the game. It's about repeating textures, lifeless water tech, and lousy shading. Check the OP

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Bingo this is all that's wrong with the game right here.

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Originally Posted by JudgeN

Dunno about the sun and the moon because the landscapes don't seem to cast a shadow. Characters do have dynamic shadows like you said. While I do think the graphics in this game can be good the lighting is still very much lacking, why didn't square make ALL light sources dynamic?

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I'd be running the game like a slideshow.

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Originally Posted by Hazmatyre

I'd be running the game like a slideshow.

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If the engine for this game wasn't so poorly optimized grumble grumble, but it would be interesting to see. Maybe the game did have good dynamic lighting at one point and they realized the already tanking FPS went into the single digits on high end cards so they removed it and gave us this crap.

Anyone know if the closed alpha beta had better lighting?

This is by far the one of the worst threads I have read.. and I hope it gets blocked.. This is an MMO RPG not FFXIII not some offline single player... I applaud FFXIV for at least having great graphics for an MMO.. and I would love to see a better MMO RPG with same caliber graphically. Sure there may be some repeated areas that are soon to be fixed and the whole boat problem. But I was sure this is one area of the game that SE did well in. That being said the the dev team is working hard to get this game worthy of the FF name. The person who made this thread is comparing FPS's to an MMO.. USE OTHER MMO's as example

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Originally Posted by BelgianRofl

The thread is not about an overall lack of graphics in the game. It's about repeating textures, lifeless water tech, and lousy shading. Check the OP

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The thread is about "lackluster graphics". The graphics aren't lackluster. It's that simple.

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Also, I was comparing a vastly superior tech-demo to another inferior tech-demo that you believe is pre-rendered LOL

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Have you ever seen a game that looks nearly as good as a tech demo? Crysis (/and not even what we've seen so far of Crysis 2) doesn't look nearly as good as the cryengine tech demos, and the same works for basically every other game that has been preceded from tech demos of the engine, or of the concept.

Tech demos do NOT have the same restrictions as a full game. Developers can focus the whole resources of the machine on a single scene. That does all the difference of the world.

As for the "vastly superior" tech demo, you confuse superiority with difference. The benchmark demo actually shows a lot of scenes, all separate, and each of them is actually quite a lot simpler and smaller in breadth and number of mobiles/effects than the Square Enix one.

All the scenes also focus on a single element, on very few elements. None of those show a whole city that includes architecture, vegetation, water, moving characters all in the same scene, with an extremely long field of view.

The only scene in that whole benchmark that is comparable in breathd and variety is the last one.
And in that scene, compared to the SE one:
1: the field of view is shorter and/or obstructed
2: the water is reflective, but much simpler in rendering, and reflects only environment and not mobile.
3: both architecture and environment are very simple, not only much simpler than the SE demo, but also of FFXIV itself.
4: there's only one mobile.
5: natural lighting is way simpler.

To put it down simply, it's not only not vastly superior, it's actually vastly inferior.

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Yes. Characters cast shadows correctly on themselves, other characters, and the environment. unfortunately, that is not the point of discussion. It's the environment that doesn't cast shadows. If it did, it would drastically futureproof this game.

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The point of discussion is that the tech demo shown has several prerendered elements.

Sigh... people and their demands, "Perfect" games does not YET exists guys, play and enjoy what you have today, or wait another few years for a better game with better graphics to be developed.

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Originally Posted by Martin

Sigh... people and their demands, "Perfect" games does not YET exists guys, play and enjoy what you have today, or wait another few years for a better game with better graphics to be developed.

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Perfect games will NEVER exist :D

I seriously wonder what BelgianRofl would do if he bought Shogun 2 today. He'd probably be speeding towards Creative Assembly's studios with a torch in his hand lol.

That's what happens when you dabble with more effects than you can chew.

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Originally Posted by Abriael

Perfect games will NEVER exist :D

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Yup, agreed totally with that comment, they will never exist, if they want a perfect "Game" with graphics, stop playing games and face real life and try to "adventure" through it :P

Side note: Real life graphics ARE perfect unless you have an eye-sight issue xP...

So Abigail, you're over trying to convince yourself that the Rapture Tech-Demo is pre-rendered?

Also, I must thank you for keeping this thread alive and healthy. Without you, I wouldn't be certain someone from SE has seen my info graphic, like I am now. Maybe you will be indirectly responsible for SE fixing some of the graphical problems in this game! You should be proud of yourself :) :) :)

Also, thanks for keeping all Belgian Rofl's posts on the front page!! I will be famous until the end!


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and another note, you're correct in saying that no game is perfect, but every developer should strive to make their game as perfect as they can, especially when it's your job to make your company money!

I'd have to disagree with the OP statement that graphics are lackluster.

However, one thing I do agree with Mr. Rofl on is that the Tech Demo would not use pre-rendering (e.g. not be capable of being produced in realtime). A Tech Demo for a game engine which used pre-rendering or was not recorded in real time is what would technically be referred to in the industry as a fake.

But I can't actually watch the video to see if it looks fake for myself right now, as I'm typing from a moving train on 3g.

Tech Demo Entry on Wikipedia

edit:

And hey Abriael :P

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Also, I must thank you for keeping this thread alive and healthy. Without you, I wouldn't be certain someone from SE has seen my info graphic, like I am now. Maybe you will be indirectly responsible for SE fixing some of the graphical problems in this game! You should be proud of yourself

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After reading the comments S-E will be able to see that their game has no problems in graphics and they will say: "Good there is nothing wrong there, let's not change anything".
So yeah you might be responsible for not adding any extra stuff even if they ever intended to.
You should be proud of yourself.

On a realistic note, you forgot to put the right tags on this fail of a thread, so S-E will not even give a rat's ass for it.

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Also, thanks for keeping all Belgian Rofl's posts on the front page!! I will be famous until the end!

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You're already famous, I see topics with your name on it an I automatically know that they are worthy of making fun without even try to understand what you wanted to say in the first place :)

I'm no journalist, but I do know that if your article's headline has a controversial twist that doesn't quite fit within the context of your article, it'll draw a lot more attention. News joints do this all the time... Looks like it work out for me.

The graphics in FFXIV are definitely the best out of any MMO, but there are some things that should be different. Mainly, shading and water. It won't use any more resources than ambient occlusion. It boggles the mind as to why AO is in there in the first place.

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Originally Posted by BelgianRofl

So Abigail, you're over trying to convince yourself that the Rapture Tech-Demo is pre-rendered?

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It's a fact, and you couldn't bring a single element or link to prove us wrong. So there's no further persuasion to be done.

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Also, I must thank you for keeping this thread alive and healthy. Without you, I wouldn't be certain someone from SE has seen my info graphic, like I am now. Maybe you will be indirectly responsible for SE fixing some of the graphical problems in this game! You should be proud of yourself :) :) :)

Also, thanks for keeping all Belgian Rofl's posts on the front page!! I will be famous until the end!

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Yes, you will be famous for being wrong, and not being able to admit it :D Congrats!

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and another note, you're correct in saying that no game is perfect, but every developer should strive to make their game as perfect as they can, especially when it's your job to make your company money!

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And that's definitely what SE did, graphics-wise.

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Originally Posted by BelgianRofl

The graphics in FFXIV are definitely the best out of any MMO

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Thank you for contradicting your own topic :D

You should ask a mod to change it.

You want a link? OK here's one.

SE may have strove for perfection, but the lighting makes what they've done look tacky. I give them a C+ for effort. I'll say it again and again... Water reflection and proper shading will not tax the system like Ambient Occlusion does. I'd bet the PS3's limitations have something to do with SE's decision to also limit what PC's are going to render - this is not a good excuse, however... There's no reason the graphic engine for the PC version couldn't have a few features that render the lighting a little differently.

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Originally Posted by Abriael

Thank you for contradicting your own topic :D

You should ask a mod to change it.

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Just because it's the best looking MMO, doesn't mean it couldn't have lackluster water and shading, does it?

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I'm no journalist, but I do know that if your article's headline has a controversial twist that doesn't quite fit within the context of your article, it'll draw a lot more attention. News joints do this all the time... Looks like it work out for me.

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Not right tags, not right language = skipped.

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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.

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Here a MMORPG WIP (certainly "kingdoms")

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADtUxDjGnjQ (00:34 to 00:46)

Looks kinda cool isn't it ? (and even if you said it's downscaled, theres so much more shaders and effect.)
(and yeah, I know what you'll say : this is not the final product, it'll certainly not run like this with 1000 characters, so the graphics will be downscaled on final version. And you may be right. We can just wait and see...)

So finnaly, the only way we disagree, is that you think CTEngine is well optimised and me not. Like you, I really like FFXIV graphics (don't really like water, but water are animated refractive texture with normals and specular map, so if they improve it, it's obvious that it'll take a lot more on GPU and i'll will certainly/obviously ram.), but I just don't believe that it need a this huge GPU for just activate some little effect like ambiant occlusion or DoF.

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Originally Posted by BelgianRofl

You want a link? OK here's one.

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A link to an official source, not to some random forum wrings stating an opinion that the industry proved wrong again and again (for instance with Killzone 2, look up on it). Like it or not, but the practice of prerendering demos of elements of demons and then not specifying what's "in engine" and what's prerendered is very, very widespread in the industry.

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SE may have strove for perfection, but the lighting makes what they've done look tacky. I give them a C+ for effort. I'll say it again and again... Water reflection and proper shading will not tax the system like Ambient Occlusion does. I'd bet the PS3's limitations have something to do with SE's decision to also limit what PC's are going to render - this is not a good excuse, however... There's no reason the graphic engine for the PC version couldn't have a few features that render the lighting a little differently.

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You have no idea of the development resources needed to implement ambient occlusion as opposed to water reflections and more dynamic shading (that for instance requires placing every single light source manually, in the whole game world, as opposed to a single engine toggle). Also, you have no idea of the hardware impact those features would have in an high-poly environment as FFXIV. You cannot compare that impact with that of other MMORPGs with MANY less polygons displayed.
You may not be aware, but both water reflection and shadows directly depend from the polyginal display of the objects reflected or that cast the shadow. Ambient Occlusion, as a matter of fact, does not.
This means that those effects would have a MUCH higher impact on hardware resources on a high polygon environment than in any MMORPG with a much lower polycount.

Can't explain it clearer than this, really. Either you get it, or you don't.

If you give them a C+ for effort, I wonder what you'd give to ALL the other MMOs that look way worse.

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Just because it's the best looking MMO, doesn't mean it couldn't be a little better, does it?

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Go tell it to ALL the other developers that made MMOs that look way worse.

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Originally Posted by Wenceslas

Here a MMORPG WIP (certainly "kingdoms")
Looks kinda cool isn't it ?

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Considering that it doesn't show any characters or even mobiles or anything else than a few scenes from quite afar, I don't find it very impressive, especially compared to what we have right now in FXIV.

Past MMORPGs have actually shown better scenes.

^0:43 of that video shows what a game will look like when it's low-poly, low-res textures, but has real shading

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Originally Posted by BelgianRofl

^0:43 of that video shows what a game will look like when it's low-poly, low-res textures, but has real shading

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Without any character/mobile on an undisclosed system, from afar. Even WoW shown scenes that look as good/better than that, out of context.

It doesn't even compare to FFXIV.

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Originally Posted by Abriael

more dynamic shading (that for instance requires placing every single light source manually, in the whole game world, as opposed to a single engine toggle).

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I stopped reading your post after this statement.

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Originally Posted by BelgianRofl

I stopped reading your post after this statement.

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Too bad, because the whole post proves you wrong (selective reading mh?). And you may not like the statement, but it's true. Dynamic lights need to be placed,and even more so manually tweaked (or you'll see stuff like out of place shadows that pass through the environment and horrible glitches like that, that are quite well known in MMOs that include that kind of effect) or you think they magically appear by themselves? :D

You seem to have a very, very simplified idea of game development. Something like "oh yeah, all effects are just a toggle, add a line of code so that they are enabled and they magically appear".

I'm sure many developers wish you were right :D

I'll give you a little "educational" piece of advice. To distinguish between effects that require just a toggle, and effects that normally require much more work, go to your NVIDIA or ATI control panel, and check what you can force on the engine. Those are the effects that can be simply "toggled" in most engines out there.
It's not a 100% comprehensive list, but it's a very good place to start. You'll notice that Ambient occlusion is there. Reflective Water or dynamic lighting are not.

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Originally Posted by Abriael

Without any character/mobile on an undisclosed system, from afar. Even WoW shown scenes that look as good/better than that, out of context.

It doesn't even compare to FFXIV.

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That why I said "(and yeah, I know what you'll say : this is not the final product, it'll certainly not run like this with 1000 characters, so the graphics will be downscaled on final version. And you may be right. We can just wait and see...)
"
And well.. theres no characters.. maybe cause it's a WIP. But here's not the subject.
I'm glad if you've understand that i'm not yelling that "FFIXV have horrible graphics" or stupids things like this.
I just think a little optimisation should let the dev add one or two more effect. Crystal tool is prefectly capable to do it.

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Originally Posted by Wenceslas

And well.. theres no characters.. maybe cause it's a WIP. But here's not the subject.
I'm glad if you've understand that i'm not yelling that "FFIXV have horrible graphics" or stupids things like this.
I just think a little optimisation should let the dev add one or two more effect. Crystal tool is prefectly capable to do it.

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What I'm saying is not that the engine cannot be optimized further (NO engine cannot be optimized further, in fact we're running on a quite advanced version of the CTE compared to older games, as much as versions of every third party commercial engines continue to be released), What I'm saying is that the engine is much more optimized that people would say, and there's really no tools to state that it's not, as no other comparable game (MMORPG with the same graphical quality) has been released or even officially announced.

As I said before, it's very possible that the engine will be improved further down the line. It happens with every MMORPG out there (that has a decently active development), but this doesn't imply that the engine isn't as optimized as possible for the *current* time.

There's not even 1000 characters logged into an FFXIV server at any given time. At most there are like 100 Characters on screen, all of which cast shadows, and all of which have different sets of gear and armor. Is it so much to ask SE to make the landscape cast shadows as well? Easy Peezy Japaneezy!

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Originally Posted by Abriael

What I'm saying is not that the engine cannot be optimized further (NO engine cannot be optimized further, in fact we're running on a quite advanced version of the CTE compared to older games, as much as versions of every third party commercial engines continue to be released), What I'm saying is that the engine is much more optimized that people would say, and there's really no tools to state that it's not, as no other comparable game (MMORPG with the same graphical quality) has been released or even officially announced.

As I said before, it's very possible that the engine will be improved further down the line. It happens with every MMORPG out there (that has a decently active development), but this doesn't imply that the engine isn't as optimized as possible for the *current* time.

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Oh yeah. I agree with you.

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Is it so much to ask SE to make the landscape cast shadows as well? Easy Peezy Japaneezy!

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Perhaps, if you say it in Japaneezy and with the right tags...

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Originally Posted by Wenceslas

Oh yeah. I agree with you.

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Glad to see we could see eye to eye.

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Originally Posted by BelgianRofl

There's not even 1000 characters logged into an FFXIV server at any given time. At most there are like 100 Characters on screen, all of which cast shadows, and all of which have different sets of gear and armor. Is it so much to ask SE to make the landscape cast shadows as well? Easy Peezy Japaneezy!

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Do you mean that they should code the game based on the current population? Come on. This is silly.

Obviously they have to take in account the possibility of heavy traffic. Do you expect them to tell us "oh yeah, now we're adding more effects, but mind you, we're taking them away when the PS3 version launches".

100 characters on screen are a TON (mind you, even 50) of stress on the hardware. Especially with the level of detail we have in FFXIV. If landscapes casted shadows, they should cast shadows not only on themselves, but on the characters as well (otherwise it would look absolutely ugly). This means that every shadow has to interact with every polygon of the characters. That's quite a lot further calculations weighing on the graphics chip.

Just think about this. Your character walks in a shadow under a mountain. Everything around him is dark... and he's perfectly lighted!

Honestly, it'd look much worse than what we have now.

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Originally Posted by Abriael

If landscapes casted shadows, they should cast shadows not only on themselves, but on the characters as well (otherwise it would look absolutely ugly).

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The 100 on-screen characters already do this. I'll repeat myself again and again to keep my info-graphic on the front page.... Ambient Occlusion taxes the system waay more than landscape and structures casting shadows.

This: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...Floodlight.png :will make the game look greattttt for those of us crazy enough to spend $400 on a GPU!!!! WOOOOO!

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Originally Posted by BelgianRofl

The 100 on-screen characters already do this. I'll repeat myself again and again to keep my info-graphic on the front page.... Ambient Occlusion taxes the system waay more than landscape and structures casting shadows.

This: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...Floodlight.png :will make the game look greattttt for those of us crazy enough to spend $400 on a GPU!!!! WOOOOO!

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You forgot a detail that's been told over and over already. Implementing Ambient occlusion has been stated by SE as a futureproof option. It's not supposed to be used (while I find it's inclusion to be rather silly, I would have left it out, as it causes confusion and I don't know a single person taking advantage of it). They put it in for the simple fact that it took basically no resources to include it.

Unlike dynamic shading/lighting, it's such a simple (in implementation) effect that you can force it on almost every game from your video card control panel if your VC is powerful enough. Even if it's not implemented in the game.

The 100 on screen characters don't cast shadow on each other, by the way. Just on themselves and the ground. Luckily their shadow is small, and the problem is almost unnoticeable.
Adding environmental shadows would involve shadows to be cast on every single character happening to walk in the area, which is a LOT different.

In a prior post, you said something like if SE changed the way light functions, they'd have to go in and do it manually for each individual light source that's already in the game...

The light sources are already there. All SE has to do is change one part of the engine. All they have to do is add the an option to change the behavior of light. That technology is already in their engine, as proven by you [character's casting shadows perfectly]. All SE has to do is use that same technology for landscapes and structures. It would take a novice programmer to add that behavior to the light module. WHAM BAM THANK YOU MA'AM

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Originally Posted by BelgianRofl

In a prior post, you said something like if SE changed the way light functions, they'd have to go in and do it manually for each individual light source that's already in the game...

The light sources are already there. All SE has to do is change one part of the engine. All they have to do is add the an option to change the behavior of light. That technology is already in their engine, as proven by you [character's casting shadows perfectly]. All SE has to do is use that same technology for landscapes and structures. It would take a novice programmer to add that behavior to the light module. WHAM BAM THANK YOU MA'AM

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And that's where your idea of game development is oversimplified . It's not just a single toggle.
if you have a static light that is there just "for effect", there are a lot of parameters that you don't need to set. Or better again, you need to set them *only* for the visual effect that you included.

Say you have three lights in a room. Those three lights, as they are implemented now, just need to look good in their lighting effect, no other tweaks are needed. Setting their intensity and direction is very simple, because the effect you want to attain is simple.

Now say that the three lights have to involve dynamic shading and lighting. You need to manually reset every single intensity and direction, because now the lights have a completely different environmental and aesthetical effect than they did. They cast shadows, they interact with each other. They may be too intense and actually hide details of the environment that you don't want to hide, or even be too much "in the face" of the camera, detracting from the whole scene. You may also have to tweak the color, because it's very possible that the original color doesn't interact well with the textures of the environment.

You cannot just toggle "lights on!" and leave it like that. The result would be ugly. If a novice programmer could easily do that (it's not even just a matter of coding, it involves art direction and coordination with the art department), I'm afraid that novice programmers would find jobs in the industry much easier.

It's not random that development studios have dedicated artists just for lighting.

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Originally Posted by MonsieurVerde

They don't look "blurry" to me without DoF. Unless you turned down the texture quality. >_>

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1980x1080 all relevant things maxed. Obviously you have low standards.

For some reason I actually bothered to read every post in this thread, so I feel like not posting would be a waste. I agree with Wenceslas, the engine isn't fully optimized, it could use work; however I do enjoy FFXIV's graphics more-so than WoW's or Rift's. If you look at screen shots of the three next to each other, the realism of FFXIV is really what does it for me, not the level of minor imperfections present in each engine or the thought of how much better they could be. Sorry to feed the troll. Something something Charlie Sheen WINNING!

Errr...you don't need a 400$ GPU to play this. >_>

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Originally Posted by Abriael

It's not random that development studios have dedicated artists just for lighting.

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This.

Lighting is the most difficult aspect of any 3d rendering (static or dynamic). I do a lot of rendering in my major (Architecture) and lighting is where a majority of my time is spent, not because I'm bad at it, but because it just takes an incredible amount of time to tweak the light parameters to gain realistic effects. In addition to that, the lighting elements exponentially increase your render time (read: taxes your GPU/CPU processors heavily). With so many primary and fill lights in any given location, it isn't a simple "turn on/off" situation.

In an open world like FFXIV, with so many objects to render and shade, there has to be some give and take with today's hardware limitations.