Just got my Asus XG32UCWMG OLED yesterday and it blew my freakin mind.
Lazy AAA devs are enjoying the comfort of their past successes. If you're a well-known studio with a large marketing budget, you don't need to worry about anything. Your game is guaranteed. And this is the point that vision and perfectionism to die, opening doors for copy & paste, low efforted prods like today's PS Studios games. Of course, there are still a few studios and directors out there who haven't given up on their passion no matter what.
I would really appreciate if you provide top tier analysis on this topic if you have time, because I am also think Faye have some fourm of realtime rt lighting mixed in but I'dont have those top tier analysis skills like yours, you nailed many topics here
Bojji
dgrdsv
SlimySnake
C
CGNoire
ChiefDada
analog_future
A
alloush
Jack Howitzer
Vick
and anyone else interested in Laufey's lighting model OR think it's all "just the same", but would like to be challenged. I think I'm ready to over-analyze this shit. Spoiler tagging this as it's a MASSIVE post. It took several days to put together and I'm not sure if anyone else on the internet has done this yet (DF clearly didn't bother, as usual). Allow me to go through my evidence step by step.
Bojji
, I found this while looking through all the footage. The glowing ears you wanted.
That's an amazing alanysisAlright guys
I think I'm going to have to go against my instinct here and conclude the game actually has some form of RTGI in place. Evidence points to some hybrid version that combines what ghost of yotei does and what Indiana jones base console does. To prove this out, we first need to look at how GI worked in Ragnarök. And the answer is simple. It's completely baked. No probes, no screenspace GI. Only a rarely used technique called SSDO, which is an AO technique that also takes directional light and color info while calculating AO. Very subtle stuff.
To see how fucking baked it all is, we just need some simple examples of low light. Baked GI has no influence on any dynamic object. So any moving character basically has no GI at all. They are either directly lit or not. You just don't see the issue as often in daylight because they can throw in a fake non-shadow casting light or two to mimic GI and there is no way to know that's not the Sun. It's why Vanaheim looks like utter trash because the tree cover fucks up the baked lighting and everything looks flat. At night time, you can't cheat that easy as any light in the scene that shouldn't belong would scream at you as fake. Fortunately, for GoW, they rarely use these fake lights during gameplay. Cutscenes always tend to have them. In fact they added a few for the PS5 version of Ragnarök that don't exist in the PS4 version. Just look up DF's Ragnarok PS4 vs PS5 comparison, if curious what the differences are between last gen and current gen (HINT: Not a lot).
Another myth that many believed, including myself, is that Kratos had hero lights always following him, like Aloy. Turns out, this is not true. I will dispel this myth first so you can better understand what is happening in Laufey. If Kratos or Atreus are ever being lit from any direction in Ragnarok, it's an actual fixed light placed in the environment (either fake or real). To be clear, by "fake", I mean one of them volume lights that don't physically exist in the game as Sun/Moon/lamp/torch/emissive/particle effect etc.
Here's proof of all these claims (much bigger post when you expand, but it's pretty light weight. You have been warned):
All of Kratos with no direct lighting or GI
Most of Atreus with no direct lighting or GI
All of Thor with no direct lighting or GI
Freya's body with no direct lighting or GI
Portion of Kratos' back and all of Mimir with no direct lighting or GI
And Kratos' forearm, when the only direct light on him is occluded by the chains due to angle of incidence:
Basically when portions of a character are not directly lit, they are not lit at all.
Now that we got that out of the way, here's how Laufey's lighting works. She too, has no hero lighting. There are several points in the trailer where it's pitch black and she too is pitch black. And she can either be lit by fake lights or real environmental lights. And from all the evidence below, she gets dynamic GI from them. There's good reason to believe there is no GI baking being done anymore. I'm not 100% certain of that, but there are clear hints.
Here's a shot where she is partially lit by a direct light on one leg and by indirect bounce lighting on the other. Notice how none of the points of indirect lighting on her body are turning black. Meanwhile, there are plenty of points in the vicinity that are completely dark. So this can't be a fake light. A fake light will not just light a character, it will light the scene. Only hero lights can be exclusive to a character. Hero lights will light the character uniformly all the time. None of that exists in Laufey (or Ragnarok for that matter)
Or here, where her face is indirectly lit. Even her clothes get an orange glow around the bust, versus the yellow you see on her shoulder.
This type of bounce lighting is happening in the environment too. If you look at the light shaft below, which makes it clear of the narrow directionality of light coming in, you can easily see the wall closer to it is brighter than the wall farther away. You can't fake this with a fake light as that will screw up the narrow directionality of the light shaft itself. It will flare up wherever it is placed, And you can certainly not fake that on Faye without lighting up everything else around her.
And given the sheer amount of gradual variation just on her face above, this cannot be a probe-based approximation. It is likely per-pixel single bounce RTGI (and may be combined with RT probes to simulate multi-bounce like console version of Indy as well. I have investigated that later). The face and cloth response is very reminiscent of how RTGI works in Ghost of Yotei (they have a probe based GI fallback for dynamic objects, but still falls significantly short in low light)
I have a super close up sample of Atsu's face with and without RTGI. Only the RTGI version prevents any light leakage (like glowing eyelids, lips etc). And I know a lot of of you think she is ugly either way, so I'll spare you the trouble. Just take my word for it. If not, whenever I get back on my PS5 Pro, I'll share that too.
But like I said, I think there is more to it than just GoY single bounce RTGI. A single bounce does not travel very far. For example, in GoY, any NPC or Atsu well inside an enclosure will get none of the RTGI. They get whatever probe based GI gives, which is aligned with the baked GI of the environment). But the evidence below suggests several bounces. At the same time, the intensity doesn't look like full multi-bounce GI. It doesn't seem screen space like 007 either, as there are no screen space GI disocclusion artifacts when she moves. And I'm not sure yet how non-Sun light sources work in Laufey. Will need even more time to analyze that. In any case, suffice to say that this is likely a novel approach.
This is not just cutscene trickery either. When Faye slides through the cave in gameplay, she is in complete darkness. The first thing that catches light is her hair, while she is wayyy inside the cave.
Then she moves a little closer, even the backside of her armor starts to catch some light. YOU can see how far the light reaches and the directionality on the cave wall. The cave lighting could technically be baked, but Faye's lighting cannot.
Even closer and she is fully lit indirectly.
And then she lights up further and further the closer she get to the mouth of the cave.
In GIF form for your viewing pleasure:
This is far too nuanced for single bounce, but far too expensive for multibounce (I think). Frequently placed probes with interpolated GI could pull it off. But the nuance on the face is not possible with just probes. So this has to be a combination of both per-pixel and probe. And there are other shots I showed earlier, where true multibounce GI would easily pick up far more light:
Inside crevice (the wall behind Faye's back should not be this dark if there were 2 or 3 bounces. Faye's armor is getting at least one bounce from the light pouring in above the cave, seen earlier in the footage (not the one ahead in screen space)
And lack of nuanced multi-bounce lighting on the floor and walls in the opening area, like this one I already talked about below. This could be poor placement/generation of probes or just some drawback of their technique. The whole opening area is a mess TBH. I think they cobbled it together just for the reveal with rushed art direction.
Hence my conclusion that it is some hybrid form of RTGI. All this is based on just one trailer where we have no control of the camera to mess around. So take it all with a grain of salt.
But I'm 100% certain this is not the same baked GI. There is significant RT involved. The subtle variations in her face, cloth, as well as when she moves around are far too precise and nuanced to not be RT. And given she never floats in the scene compared to other moving objects, we can assume this applies to all dynamic objects they have chosen to keep in the BVH.
There are times when she looks disconnected from the environment and that's still throwing me off. But the more I look at them, the more I think those moments occur when they are turning on fake lights in the environment because that particular area is too dark for natural lighting to bounce without PT or multibounce GI. Or some kind of adaptive lighting model to show her eye adjusting to the change in light as she moves from light to dark and vice versa.
Some examples here. A second or two later, she looks consistent with the environment.
Inconsistent:
More Consistent:
You can see these changes in the hair strand GIF I had posted earlier. Notice environmental lights fading in at the end. Either fake volume lights or some kind of aperture/retina adjustment
TLDR: RTGI is in. The actual technique used is anybody's guess. My guess would be a novel per-pixel + probe RT approach. All the issues I pointed out with it will go away IF they make a PT (or multibounce RTGI) version of this for next gen. One can hope.
And
Not exactly an ear, but it was the next best thing
That whole segment slowed down in GIF form is real-time SSS fetish if you are into that sort of thing. I won't judge. Enjoy!
viveks86
, thanks for your hard work on it 
, since it's announcement I have feelings it's have some sort of rtgi and have better lighting than ragnarok 
Alright guys
I think I'm going to have to go against my instinct here and conclude the game actually has some form of RTGI in place. Evidence points to some hybrid version that combines what ghost of yotei does and what Indiana jones base console does. To prove this out, we first need to look at how GI worked in Ragnarök. And the answer is simple. It's completely baked. No probes, no screenspace GI. Only a rarely used technique called SSDO, which is an AO technique that also takes directional light and color info while calculating AO. Very subtle stuff.
To see how fucking baked it all is, we just need some simple examples of low light. Baked GI has no influence on any dynamic object. So any moving character basically has no GI at all. They are either directly lit or not. You just don't see the issue as often in daylight because they can throw in a fake non-shadow casting light or two to mimic GI and there is no way to know that's not the Sun. It's why Vanaheim looks like utter trash because the tree cover fucks up the baked lighting and everything looks flat. At night time, you can't cheat that easy as any light in the scene that shouldn't belong would scream at you as fake. Fortunately, for GoW, they rarely use these fake lights during gameplay. Cutscenes always tend to have them. In fact they added a few for the PS5 version of Ragnarök that don't exist in the PS4 version. Just look up DF's Ragnarok PS4 vs PS5 comparison, if curious what the differences are between last gen and current gen (HINT: Not a lot).
Another myth that many believed, including myself, is that Kratos had hero lights always following him, like Aloy. Turns out, this is not true. I will dispel this myth first so you can better understand what is happening in Laufey. If Kratos or Atreus are ever being lit from any direction in Ragnarok, it's an actual fixed light placed in the environment (either fake or real). To be clear, by "fake", I mean one of them volume lights that don't physically exist in the game as Sun/Moon/lamp/torch/emissive/particle effect etc.
Here's proof of all these claims (much bigger post when you expand, but it's pretty light weight. You have been warned):
All of Kratos with no direct lighting or GI
Most of Atreus with no direct lighting or GI
All of Thor with no direct lighting or GI
Freya's body with no direct lighting or GI
Portion of Kratos' back and all of Mimir with no direct lighting or GI
And Kratos' forearm, when the only direct light on him is occluded by the chains due to angle of incidence:
Basically when portions of a character are not directly lit, they are not lit at all.
Now that we got that out of the way, here's how Laufey's lighting works. She too, has no hero lighting. There are several points in the trailer where it's pitch black and she too is pitch black. And she can either be lit by fake lights or real environmental lights. And from all the evidence below, she gets dynamic GI from them. There's good reason to believe there is no GI baking being done anymore. I'm not 100% certain of that, but there are clear hints.
Here's a shot where she is partially lit by a direct light on one leg and by indirect bounce lighting on the other. Notice how none of the points of indirect lighting on her body are turning black. Meanwhile, there are plenty of points in the vicinity that are completely dark. So this can't be a fake light. A fake light will not just light a character, it will light the scene. Only hero lights can be exclusive to a character. Hero lights will light the character uniformly all the time. None of that exists in Laufey (or Ragnarok for that matter)
Or here, where her face is indirectly lit. Even her clothes get an orange glow around the bust, versus the yellow you see on her shoulder.
This type of bounce lighting is happening in the environment too. If you look at the light shaft below, which makes it clear of the narrow directionality of light coming in, you can easily see the wall closer to it is brighter than the wall farther away. You can't fake this with a fake light as that will screw up the narrow directionality of the light shaft itself. It will flare up wherever it is placed, And you can certainly not fake that on Faye without lighting up everything else around her.
And given the sheer amount of gradual variation just on her face above, this cannot be a probe-based approximation. It is likely per-pixel single bounce RTGI (and may be combined with RT probes to simulate multi-bounce like console version of Indy as well. I have investigated that later). The face and cloth response is very reminiscent of how RTGI works in Ghost of Yotei (they have a probe based GI fallback for dynamic objects, but still falls significantly short in low light)
I have a super close up sample of Atsu's face with and without RTGI. Only the RTGI version prevents any light leakage (like glowing eyelids, lips etc). And I know a lot of of you think she is ugly either way, so I'll spare you the trouble. Just take my word for it. If not, whenever I get back on my PS5 Pro, I'll share that too.
But like I said, I think there is more to it than just GoY single bounce RTGI. A single bounce does not travel very far. For example, in GoY, any NPC or Atsu well inside an enclosure will get none of the RTGI. They get whatever probe based GI gives, which is aligned with the baked GI of the environment). But the evidence below suggests several bounces. At the same time, the intensity doesn't look like full multi-bounce GI. It doesn't seem screen space like 007 either, as there are no screen space GI disocclusion artifacts when she moves. And I'm not sure yet how non-Sun light sources work in Laufey. Will need even more time to analyze that. In any case, suffice to say that this is likely a novel approach.
This is not just cutscene trickery either. When Faye slides through the cave in gameplay, she is in complete darkness. The first thing that catches light is her hair, while she is wayyy inside the cave.
Then she moves a little closer, even the backside of her armor starts to catch some light. YOU can see how far the light reaches and the directionality on the cave wall. The cave lighting could technically be baked, but Faye's lighting cannot.
Even closer and she is fully lit indirectly.
And then she lights up further and further the closer she get to the mouth of the cave.
In GIF form for your viewing pleasure:
This is far too nuanced for single bounce, but far too expensive for multibounce (I think). Frequently placed probes with interpolated GI could pull it off. But the nuance on the face is not possible with just probes. So this has to be a combination of both per-pixel and probe. And there are other shots I showed earlier, where true multibounce GI would easily pick up far more light:
Inside crevice (the wall behind Faye's back should not be this dark if there were 2 or 3 bounces. Faye's armor is getting at least one bounce from the light pouring in above the cave, seen earlier in the footage (not the one ahead in screen space)
And lack of nuanced multi-bounce lighting on the floor and walls in the opening area, like this one I already talked about below. This could be poor placement/generation of probes or just some drawback of their technique. The whole opening area is a mess TBH. I think they cobbled it together just for the reveal with rushed art direction.
Hence my conclusion that it is some hybrid form of RTGI. All this is based on just one trailer where we have no control of the camera to mess around. So take it all with a grain of salt.
But I'm 100% certain this is not the same baked GI. There is significant RT involved. The subtle variations in her face, cloth, as well as when she moves around are far too precise and nuanced to not be RT. And given she never floats in the scene compared to other moving objects, we can assume this applies to all dynamic objects they have chosen to keep in the BVH.
There are times when she looks disconnected from the environment and that's still throwing me off. But the more I look at them, the more I think those moments occur when they are turning on fake lights in the environment because that particular area is too dark for natural lighting to bounce without PT or multibounce GI. Or some kind of adaptive lighting model to show her eye adjusting to the change in light as she moves from light to dark and vice versa.
Some examples here. A second or two later, she looks consistent with the environment.
Inconsistent:
More Consistent:
You can see these changes in the hair strand GIF I had posted earlier. Notice environmental lights fading in at the end. Either fake volume lights or some kind of aperture/retina adjustment
TLDR: RTGI is in. The actual technique used is anybody's guess. My guess would be a novel per-pixel + probe RT approach. All the issues I pointed out with it will go away IF they make a PT (or multibounce RTGI) version of this for next gen. One can hope.
And
Not exactly an ear, but it was the next best thing
That whole segment slowed down in GIF form is real-time SSS fetish if you are into that sort of thing. I won't judge. Enjoy!
Instinct won't mean much if you don't support them with actual evidences your analysis on this topic and others are really professional ones, like back when digital Foundry providing full tech analysis on games unlike current day's, truly thank you
