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DF - Inside Demon's Souls Remake on PS5: The Bluepoint Technology Breakdown

Fake

Member


Demon's Souls Remake is coming to PlayStation 5 and it's looking stunning. In this special Digital Foundry presentation, Bluepoint Games talks tech with John Linneman. Find out how the studio brought the game to PlayStation 5, how two engines work together as one, and what PS5 hardware features are used, how quality and performance modes work - and so, so much more.

Summary:
- John's conversation with Bluepoint devs
- 1 hour of video
- 1440p upscale to 4k at 60fps with no RT
- Perfomance mode using Temporal Upsampling with a 4k framebuffer and 4k UI
- Cinematic mode runs the game at native 4K, aka 3840x2160p
- Fully use of 3D Audio by tempest engine
- Used the same old Demon's Souls code From Software for remade
-
 
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nowhat

Member
For all their technical prowess that Bluepoint has (and there's a ton), I think their greatest achievement with these remakes is that they're running two engines in parallel. So there's the Bluepoint engine doing all the "bling", but there's the original engine doing all the legwork, making sure it runs as it were. This was the case with SotC, and seems to be same here. It's quite ingenious, and I applaud them for it.
 

Black_Stride

do not tempt fate do not contrain Wonder Woman's thighs do not do not
Will keep updating this post as I go along.
EDIT: All done, got the most interesting parts(to me) everything else someone else can summarize or you can go watch the video yourself.

Once you tell me realtime global illumination......my ears perk up.
Its an interesting way to do it sounds similar to Remedys MultiScale Global Illumination.


1440p60 Temporal Upscaling for performance mode.
2160p30 Native for Cinematic mode.
Cinematic has slightly better tessellation and lighting.

The Temporal Upscaling is good enough to NOT need Native 4K........I hope every single game uses 1440p60 and 2160p30.
But seriously fuck native 4K forever until next nextgen consoles can do it without even stressing.


No Raytracing.
Didnt have manpower/time to actually implement it.


SSD usage.
Had to work to get "pacing" to be correct to let the player actually breath. Otherwise they could probably go much faster for certain situations.
Death and return is fuck you seconds.

Hardware accelerated compression/decompression basically a game changer to actually allow fast SSD to truly work, streaming data in but needing to decompress would make the SSD almost moot.

Using SSD to stream in basically only sections that the player needs in realtime.....allowing a much much much denser high fidelity environments


Polycount?
Who gives a shit! Its enough detail.

Tessellation used liberally to really give the environments a lot of detail.
Multilayered tessellation also in so effectively very very clever texturing being used to simulate the "oil" from the spider spreading towards the player.

Particles for days motherfuckers, particles everywhere.....fully GPU driven.

Shadows being done by Capsule shadowing in combination with screen space directional occlusion to make proper soft shadows.
Every single light source has dynamic shadows active...including sparks from sword contact.
Tessellated surfaces also receive said shadows so mate.


Houdini was used for procedural work on materials and geometry making it abit easier to get all the environments to look amazing and having destructible environments.
(Anyone who has tried to use Houdini knows whenever someone tells you something is easier in Houdini, they are basically telling you they are much smarter than you).


Multi tiered destructibles.
Things can break and land on each other....when you break the thing that the first thing loaded on it can/will be rewoken up and have its physics recalulcated.
Many games either put physics to sleep forever, or objects disappear.

Said destructibles are actually saved to disk so that when you move from one area to another and back, the things you broke are reloaded back in the same place they were before.
Its a shit ton of Data moving around.

Pretty much everything has 5 states of damage (burnt etc) they hope they caught everything and dont need to patch stuff.....because they have done a ton of work already.


New physics for ragdolls.
Yes the janky ragdolls we love/hate are more realistic now.
They are heavier so you can still play with them, but it wont be as floaty as it was before....can still play with them....psuh them off cliffs, place them in bonfires etc etc.

Pretty much every enemy has some dynamic realtime physics being calculated.
Even fat mass.

New mocap captured for the game, including all new female set.
All weapons redone with new animations.....old fans will still know the timings because they are still correct.....they just look new. (imagine trying to make new animations to match already recorded animations without breaking the old timings, or making your animations seem janky)


Tempest Audio?
Higher quality audio can actually be streamed in because the SSD is so fast something people never really thought about.
3D positional audio obviously in, full 360 degree directional audio.
Accurate enough to hear exactly where an arrow is coming from before it even hits you.
Dev feels headphones are better for this make sure to set it up correctly, its totally worth it.


Still havent reached the CPU limits.

Go buy the game now and keep keep Bluepoint entertained by guessing what they are going to do next.
 
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#Phonepunk#

Banned
Watching this now. So good. I’m not really seeing that big a reason to go cinematic over performance. 60fps still looks amazjng
 

vpance

Member
Minor improvement on tessellation, reflections and occulsion quality for lighting and shadows in Cinematic mode. Go to 11:30 to see the comparison screen.
 
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kretos

Banned
God damn the game looks great

this is a launch title imagine how games will look like in 2-3 years

tumblr_pmlqwro4Tx1rrkahjo8_r1_500.gifv
 

ethomaz

Banned
I'm very very very glad the game I choose as my personal GOTY 2009 is really delivering and getting the praise it always deserved but was appreciated by few that have the chance to buy the limited stock of copies on PS3.

This game basically create a new sub-genre in the industry.

And it still does a lot of things better than the successors.
 
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onesvenus

Member
So is the RT crowd somewhere to be found? 😂😂

It looks amazing, and the bit about the ssd is really interesting, let's see if that allows to do some things that the XSX won't be able to do. Looking forward to that!
 

Bo_Hazem

Banned
So is the RT crowd somewhere to be found? 😂😂

It looks amazing, and the bit about the ssd is really interesting, let's see if that allows to do some things that the XSX won't be able to do. Looking forward to that!

The dynamic lighting seems like it doesn't need RT, nor GI. You have more knowledge in the matter, I admit that I thought dynamic shadows/lighting can't be done without RT. What's the real difference?
 
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LectureMaster

Gold Member
Will keep updating this post as I go along.

Once you tell me realtime global illumination......my ears perk up.
Its an interesting way to do it sounds similar to Remedys MultiScale Global Illumination.


1440p60 Temporal Upscaling for performance mode.
2160p30 Native for Cinematic mode.


The Temporal Upscaling is good enough to NOT need Native 4K........I hope every single game uses 1440p60 and 2160p30.
But seriously fuck native 4K forever until next nextgen consoles can do it without even stressing.


No Raytracing.
Didnt have manpower/time to actually implement it.


SSD usage.
Had to work to get "pacing" to be correct to let the player actually breath. Otherwise they could probably go much faster for certain situations.
Death and return is fuck you seconds.

Hardware accelerated compression/decompression basically a game changer to actually allow fast SSD to truly work, streaming data in but needing to decompress would make the SSD almost moot.

Using SSD to stream in basically only sections that the player needs in realtime.....allowing a much much much denser high fidelity environments


Polycount?
Who gives a shit! Its enough detail.

Tessellation used liberally to really give the environments a lot of detail.
Multilayered tessellation also in so effectively very very clever texturing being used to simulate the "oil" from the spider spreading towards the player.

Particles for days motherfuckers, particles everywhere.....fully GPU driven.

Shadows being done by Capsule shadowing in combination with screen space directional occlusion to make proper soft shadows.
Every single light source has dynamic shadows active...including sparks from sword contact.
Tessellated surfaces also receive said shadows so mate.


Houdini was used for procedural work on materials and geometry making it abit easier to get all the environments to look amazing and having destructible environments.
(Anyone who has tried to use Houdini knows whenever someone tells you something is easier in Houdini, they are basically telling you they are much smarter than you).


Multi tiered destructibles.
Things can break and land on each other....when you break the thing that the first thing loaded on it can/will be rewoken up and have its physics recalulcated.
Many games either put physics to sleep forever, or objects disappear.

Said destructibles are actually saved to disk so that when you move from one area to another and back, the things you broke are reloaded back in the same place they were before.
Its a shit ton of Data moving around.

Pretty much everything has 5 states of damage (burnt etc) they hope they caught everything and dont need to patch stuff.....because they have done a ton of work already.


New physics for ragdolls.
Yes the janky ragdolls we love/hate are more realistic now.
They are heavier so you can still play with them, but it wont be as floaty as it was before....can still play with them....psuh them off cliffs, place them in bonfires etc etc.

Pretty much every enemy has some dynamic realtime physics being calculated.
Even fat mass.

New mocap captured for the game, including all new female set.
All weapons redone with new animations.....old fans will still know the timings because they are still correct.....they just look new. (imagine trying to make new animations to match already recorded animations without breaking the old timings, or making your animations seem janky)


Tempest Audio?
Higher quality audio can actually be streamed in because the SSD is so fast something people never really thought about.
3D positional audio obviously in, full 360 degree directional audio.
Accurate enough to hear exactly where an arrow is coming from before it even hits you.
Dev feels headphones are better for this make sure to set it up correctly, its totally worth it.


Still havent reached the CPU limits.
Thanks for the post! 1 hour video is just too long.
 

mrMUR_96

Member
The dynamic lighting seems like it doesn't need RT, nor GI. You have more knowledge in the matter, I admit that I thought dynamic shadows/lighting can't be done without RT. What's the real difference?
Usually comes down to accuracy. A lot of variants depending on the methods they used, but RT will be more accurate but at a higher performance cost.
 

Danjin44

The nicest person on this forum
Can already see people playing Cinematic and switching to Performance on bosses.

They should even add some new messages:

"Flamelurker ahead. Switch to Performance."
Wouldn't that make things worst, it would be like the game has FPS issue that only goes 60FPS on boss fights.
 

Black_Stride

do not tempt fate do not contrain Wonder Woman's thighs do not do not
The dynamic lighting seems like it doesn't need RT, nor GI. You have more knowledge in the matter, I admit that I thought dynamic shadows/lighting can't be done without RT. What's the real difference?

They are using GI?
 

Belmonte

Member
Wouldn't that make things worst, it would be like the game has FPS issue that only goes 60FPS on boss fights.

I would probably play in Performance every time, but some people prefer better graphics. Even them would find 60 FPS helpful when facing difficult bosses though.
 

ethomaz

Banned
Can already see people playing Cinematic and switching to Performance on bosses.

They should even add some new messages:

"Flamelurker ahead. Switch to Performance."
If there is no framepace issue I should play in 30fps mode but I won't play this game again ;)
 

ethomaz

Banned
I would probably play in Performance every time, but some people prefer better graphics. Even them would find 60 FPS helpful when facing difficult bosses though.
I don't think the framerate made bosses difficult... even the bad framepace on PS3 didn't affect the difficult of the game.
To be fair I found only 2 bosses really difficult.

A lot of enemies are more difficult than the bosses themselves.

I honored you take your time to even find one with my home language :D
But yeap I find that too but I won't have time to play it with all the releases... and I already played over 90 hours on PS3.
 
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