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Graphics Analysis : 5 Best Games using PBR Shaders

VFXVeteran

Banned
All:

I'd like to go into the importance of having good lighting and shaders so that gamers can get an appreciation for what's the best in getting the overall look of a scene to approach VFX. We've come a long way with PBR shaders in gaming but there are still some things that I've seen in games that needs a lot of work. The hardware just isn't up to snuff for complex shaders but there are a small handful of games that push the realtime graphics pipeline forward. These companies have goals aligned with what's extremely important to the rendering pipeline and they "buck" the trend of most of today's games. Shaders is the bread and butter of rendering. If you can't represent a material accurately, you will never convince any gamer of having "best of class" graphics. Textures are great for adding details, but it's the shaders and lighting that are the workhorse of rendering.

I've spent several years developing shaders in VFX. In fact, most of the time my job was to only make shaders for the artists so they could put more accuracy and realism to their assets working in conjunction with the RT lighting pipeline. I want to go over a general equation for rendering and then a chart of the standard implementation of shaders (over 6yrs ago) which was introduced by Disney's PBR shader system. I had a chance to work with Tal and Brent Burley at Disney just before they started researching proper energy conserving materials that would one day be a unified global shader to apply to all kinds of materials. I then go on to pick some of the best games that show great promise in approaching VFX quality shaders.

The rendering equation:

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This function at first glance looks complicated but it's an abbreviation of the more complex structure of rendering. It literally is 1 function plus an sum of a product of functions followed by a cosine value and then it's evaluated over a differential area. All the complexity is inside each of these functions and that's where GPU-limitations come into play.

At the point X, imagine that as a series of pixels inside a triangle like so:

rasterization-triangle1.png


For every square in that triangle, you have to run an evaluation of what that final pixel color will be. The amount of shader evaluations within a triangle is completely dependent on resolution of the image. If you project out a triangle like in the above screenshot, you will notice that it's got more than 15 pixels inside of it. Every one of them gets evaluated like in the first picture. Here is another shot to represent better what's going on with each pixel and evaluating the rendering equation:

fig2.gif


If you add more triangles to the rendering pipeline or increase the rendering resolution of the game, the shaders will have to run multiple times within each triangle thereby starving the GPU bandwidth. The "optimization" to get around this is what was shown in UE5 demo. 1) Precompile the shaders into a cache (nearly every game does this) and 2) have as many triangles use the same shader in the world. This works for things like the statues and the rocks but would not work for more complex shaders on variety of different objects. Basically there is going to be a limit on how many triangles can be fed to the GPU and processed by shaders every cycle as well as the resolution (i.e. N number of pixels) of the framebuffer.

So what can you do with that rendering equation? Well, you can approximate the lighting equation to a high degree of accuracy (i.e. film) or you can just evaluate simplified shaders and wait for the GPUs to catch up before adding more complexity to the shader pipeline (i.e. games).

Here is the main universal shader that Disney published way back in 2012. I was working on PBR at the same time but I had developed other shaders that couldn't align with that global shader like hair, skin, eyes and volume smoke/particle FX.

Here is how these shaders are suppose to look implemented to perfection. Notice how each of those materials look excellent under the same lighting conditions. That's the hallmark of great energy conservation and overall good equations that mimic the actual real world.

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Games have a small fraction of these particular materials. Some of them take paths that eat up cycles hard. In no particular order, here are my top 5 picks of games that go the extra mile to get really good shaders that stand out among all the other games with much less complexity.

DETROIT: BECOME HUMAN

Quantic Dreams has always promoted visual showcases with full motion cinematic gameplay. The shaders in Detroit is their latest tech showcased that holds up even now to next-gen games. An original PS4 title, this studio totally understands the rendering pipeline and the importance of physically based shaders. Notice the wildly varying materials on each of the props in the scene. Each one meticulous in creation. We still don't see this kind of fidelity as the norm these days and it should be.



Another room showcasing the multiple materials done in Detroit.




RED DEAD REDEMPTION 2

Rockst*r has a really really talent team. I got the chance to chat some graphics talk with one of the graphics programmers there and he showed off his path tracer (realtime) at home. He's trying to implement some other more complicated features to shaders like light dispersion with the specular reflections. I look forward to what their next game is going to look like, but RDR2 is one of the games with a very good PBR shader system. It holds up really well under lighting conditions in the game and it's reminiscent of Sony's The Order 1886.

In this clip, I show off some of the great PBR shaders in RDR2. Take note of the horse sheen, leather, fabric on the character's clothing, wood, mud old metal and glass (in the shops).




FLIGHT SIMULATOR 2020

This simulator pushes the very boundaries of realtime graphics. I am still baffled how they implemented such an incredible lighting/shading system. This is a developer with the money from MS that spent 7yrs doing research and development on how to make the most modern realtime graphics simulator.



Take note of the floor, rubber tires, powerplant, propeller and the ground with water spots. Looking at the lighting change with the door halfway open and seeing the corners of the hangar show extremely well done lighting without any presence of GI light probes and yet, the sim has them. This look is done with no ray-tracing and looks stunning. The materials were made to such a high level that the fake lighting holds up wonderfully.

Cloud rendering is an extremely complicated shader and beyond the scope of this thread. I will however, say that these guys implement true 3D textures with light propagation in real-time. I've spent oodles of time writing volumetric noise cloud shaders and it is a very complicated computation. These guys was only limited by the number of z-layers in the 3D texture. The illumination and light scattering is incredible:




CYBERPUNK

Witcher 3 was already getting there with the PBR shaders. Some of the characters had some wild variation in the game and that's a sign of a company confident to show off the many different materials in their shader pipeline. CDPR went even further with Cyberpunk. Notice the characters and their clothing, the props on the stands, the glass, the metal T1000 terminator like character, skin shaders on the NPCs, etc.. it's all varied extremely well and holds up under specific lighting conditions.




MARVEL AVENGERS

Marvel Avengers is hated by many people for it's Gaas gameplay. However, there is no denying that this game is one of the most beautiful games to come out this generation. Nixxes got the jump on next-gen with releasing this stunning game with excellent PBR shaders! The diversity in costumes and looks is the hallmark of a good shader system. The more your shader system to mimic VFX PBR shaders, the closer your game will be to VFX.



Here is a shot of Hawkeye's many varied costumes and he's just one character. You can spend hours looking at all the costumes of the other characters and how the shaders were implemented.



In this shot, I take a little stroll around the ship looking at the various materials like the hair shaders, clothing, iron man costumes, railings, seats, and other machinery:




HONORABLE MENTION: THE ORDER 1886

There is no way I could conclude this without mentioning this game with incredible PBR shaders. Quite a few of these folks came from the VFX industry so I'm not surprised at how "close" these guys got with their tools and their shader system to VFX. To this day, it's shaders shine with the best of the games up to 2021. RAD did some excellent work here and I must give them their due.





Shaders are an important part of the rendering equation. You can't really achieve excellent visuals with inaccurate shaders with simple materials that are cached into a system to be rehashed over and over again and hacky lighting functions. In the future, keep these games in mind when you start judging visuals. They have set the bar for what futures games should at least achieve with the power we now have in the latest hardware. The more accurate your shaders are to this equation along with better lighting and higher res textures - the better the game will look.
 

mansoor1980

Member
nice thread .

i did not know RDR 2 used PBR , regardless it is a stunning achievement with terrific attention to detail .
 

Rudius

Member
The Order had it's problems, but is incredibly beautiful and detailed. It's a shame Sony lost them to Facebook, but I hope they at least release good VR games.
 
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OverHeat

« generous god »
No I'm using it but there are a gazillion options in the graphics settings. That game is not a lock 60FPS with all the RT options on max. I'm using "Balanced" for ok
Oh your using RT lighting at psycho got it. I’m playing with one step down as GeForce experience recommend and DLSS at performance that’s why there is such a difference with my 3090. My bad.
 

Perrott

Gold Member
The Order is still looks amazing 6 years later. What happened to those guys, anything new on the way?
Echo 2 for Oculus VR I think. Don't know what happened to the "third-person console action game" that they were also working on for the past few years, I wonder if that game survived the Facebook acquisition.
 

Fredrik

Member
Echo 2 for Oculus VR I think. Don't know what happened to the "third-person console action game" that they were also working on for the past few years, I wonder if that game survived the Facebook acquisition.
Oh cool didn’t know they’re doing VR. I hope they get some creative freedom, they’re really talented.
 
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The Order 1886 still blows me away to this day.

I'm surprised you didn't say anything about DriveClub. That game has some of the most realistic shaders I've ever seen in a game. It straight up does not even look like a video game sometimes.
 

Godfavor

Member
Quantum break has a pretty good PBR and one of the first games to use lighting so well with real time global illumination.

 
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Krappadizzle

Gold Member
Quantum break has a pretty good PBR and one of the first games to use lighting so well


Their AA solution was awful though. When the game didn't look great, it was a blurry mess. Granted, on PC you could get around it somewhat, but on Xbone it was awful.
 

Godfavor

Member
Their AA solution was awful though. When the game didn't look great, it was a blurry mess. Granted, on PC you could get around it somewhat, but on Xbone it was awful.
It was enchanted on Xbox one x and it looks pretty good now. They have used temporal reconstruction before TAA was a thing
 

Krappadizzle

Gold Member
It was enchanted on Xbox one x and it looks pretty good now. They have used temporal reconstruction before TAA was a thing
Maybe, played it long before I got the One X, and they took weeks to get me a PC code that should have shipped day and date with Xbone code so I never replayed it on PC as I was overall very disappointed with the game that I didn't care to replay it.

Remedy has a good history with tech, which is why I thought the game could be stunning and horrendous at the same time.
 

Dr Bass

Member
I somehow missed this thread. It's a good one, and "shockingly" still on page 1. :messenger_tears_of_joy:

Not enough controversy I guess.

I really want MS Flight Simulator on SX. That fighter pilot footage looked awesome.
 

Vick

Gold Member
A Thread about PBR with no mention of Uncharted 4?

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Just from the start of Chapters 4 and 6 because otherwise i'd never stop posting pictures and videos.

I still think The Order: 1886 is the one but not by a huge margin, and out of the games i've played a third place would go to RDR2.
Not counting Lost Legacy and TLOU2 since they're still Naughty Dog.

I also think Assassin's Creed: Unity deserves a special mention.
 
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Vick

Gold Member
I can't cover every game that uses PBR. Those are the ones I chose.
Sure, but then you chose Marvel's Avengers over Naughty Dog titles?
It's extremely odd for a Thread featuring a "Game Dev" tag on it. Especially considering even Insomniac's Spider-Man PBR looks significantly more impressive than what's used in Crystal Dynamics title.
 

VFXVeteran

Banned
Sure, but then you chose Marvel's Avengers over Naughty Dog titles?
It's extremely odd for a Thread featuring a "Game Dev" tag on it. Especially considering even Insomniac's Spider-Man PBR looks significantly more impressive than what's used in Crystal Dynamics title.
Marvel Avengers has some amazing PBR shaders. The sheer variety of the costumes requires that game to have developed way more assets than Spiderman and ND's UC had some things they needed to clean up and addressed it with TLoU 2. Btw, I used to work with the Tech artist at ND so I know this to be true.

This list isn't any specific order and I mentioned these were *MY* picks. I never played TLoU 2 but I'd imagine if I made a top 10 list, these 5 plus TLoU 2 and more would be on that list. As a justification for my picks, I've developed shaders as my primary job for years and years, hence I am qualified to make this list even if people don't agree with me. It's just a professional opinion.
 
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Vick

Gold Member
Marvel Avengers has some amazing PBR shaders. The sheer variety of the costumes requires that game to have developed way more assets than Spiderman
This is just insane. Do you have any idea how many costumes are featured in Spider-Man? All with different kinds of materials and i'm not just referring to the literal hundreds of fabrics perfectly recreated, but steel costumes as well.



I can't believe you wrote this. And even outside of costumes, the game is a technical marvel in which every single element you mentioned in the Avengers description is better recreated in both artistic and technical expertise, there's no way on Earth any "expert" could disagree with this having played both.

ND's UC had some things they needed to clean up and addressed it with TLoU 2. Btw, I used to work with the Tech artist at ND so I know this to be true.
According to them, only eye shaders, wet shaders and glass were changed from Uncharted 4.




But i see you didn't even bother to open a single video i posted.

This list isn't any specific order and I mentioned these were *MY* picks.
And that's perfect and all you had to say. Just a "I haven't played Sony exclusives so i'll leave them out" would have been sufficient.

As a justification for my picks, I've developed shaders as my primary job for years and years, hence I am qualified to make this list even if people don't agree with me. It's just a professional opinion.
tenor.gif


Shaders in Matrix were amazing btw, don't know with how many people you worked with but i've always found them, and still find them, impressive. Especially on 35mm.
 

RJMacready73

Simps for Amouranth
This is just insane. Do you have any idea how many costumes are featured in Spider-Man? All with different kinds of materials and i'm not just referring to the literal hundreds of fabrics perfectly recreated, but steel costumes as well.



I can't believe you wrote this. And even outside of costumes, the game is a technical marvel in which every single element you mentioned in the Avengers description is better recreated in both artistic and technical expertise, there's no way on Earth any "expert" could disagree with this having played both.


According to them, only eye shaders, wet shaders and glass were changed from Uncharted 4.




But i see you didn't even bother to open a single video i posted.


And that's perfect and all you had to say. Just a "I haven't played Sony exclusives so i'll leave them out" would have been sufficient.


tenor.gif


Shaders in Matrix were amazing btw, don't know with how many people you worked with but i've always found them, and still find them, impressive. Especially on 35mm.

Why are you getting your knickers in a twist? The lad clearly stated those where his picks and seeing as he's highly qualified in that particular field I'm pretty sure he can spot stuff we can't and be impressed by it hence HIS PICKS... It's not an exhaustive list and I for one enjoy reading the guys informative posts.
 

Vick

Gold Member
Why are you getting your knickers in a twist?
Am i?
Thought i was pointing out how peculiar it is for an "Industry Professional" to leave out of a list about the best PRB implementations, the games which feature the best PBR implementations. In a Thread about PRB.

You must also not be very familiar with this user's history to not getting the reasons behind this exchange.

The lad clearly stated those where his picks and seeing as he's highly qualified in that particular field I'm pretty sure he can spot stuff we can't and be impressed by it hence HIS PICKS...
It is your assumption that other users aren't able to understand what PBR is and what makes an impressive implementation of it.

We have others Industry Verified users on this board which may differ, and of which shared opinion about that particular user is, quoting literally: "absolute clown".
Can't quote the post direclty because it's from a closed Thread.

It's not an exhaustive list and I for one enjoy reading the guys informative posts.
Of course. Not sure how my posts are preventing you from enjoy reading his informative posts however.
 

VFXVeteran

Banned
This is just insane. Do you have any idea how many costumes are featured in Spider-Man? All with different kinds of materials and i'm not just referring to the literal hundreds of fabrics perfectly recreated, but steel costumes as well.
My thread is not about viewing every single PBR game to date. Most of them use the typical GGX, Oren Nayar, and other custom shaders. While Spiderman may have a lot of shaders (I had the original game on PS4), those weren't of the quality I see in Avengers.

I can't believe you wrote this. And even outside of costumes, the game is a technical marvel in which every single element you mentioned in the Avengers description is better recreated in both artistic and technical expertise, there's no way on Earth any "expert" could disagree with this having played both.
I'm not comparing games based on popularity but technically. I have given a good technical explanation of PBR shaders and what I looked for with unbiased eyes.

According to them, only eye shaders, wet shaders and glass were changed from Uncharted 4.
What they published and what the actual person had to do and not tell because of NDAs is two different things. You aren't going to get open conversation on the many things they had to change.

I never played TLoU 2. I only reviewed games I actually played. And I played all of the PS4 titles except TLoU2. It may very well have been in the list. But just because it's a Sony exclusive doesn't mean it's at the top of the technical ladder. That's just being biased.

Thanks for the compliments.
 

VFXVeteran

Banned
We have others Industry Verified users on this board which may differ, and of which shared opinion about that particular user is, quoting literally: "absolute clown".
I am open to any technical conversation any gaming developer wants to make. I've made shaders that aren't even seen in games because of their complexity. So the statement "absolute clown" is a stab at someone who doesn't think his preferred platform of choice (obviously the PS and not any other platform) is suspect at best. I don't care if a professional doesn't like me, but I will talk technical to back up my claims without introducing any subjective "this just looks better" comments into the conversation.

Lastly, there is nothing stopping these said "other verified users" from making their own threads to be challenged and discussed. I see no one doing anything like that here. I wonder why?
 
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ZehDon

Member
Sure, but then you chose Marvel's Avengers over Naughty Dog titles?
It's extremely odd for a Thread featuring a "Game Dev" tag on it. Especially considering even Insomniac's Spider-Man PBR looks significantly more impressive than what's used in Crystal Dynamics title.
What the heck? The thread is based on the OP's opinion, so the OP gets to pick and then explain their choices. It's ok to disagree and then discuss, the but the idea that any single dev must be included is just... silly.
 
Hi everyone.
Thanks OP for taking the time to share your knowledge.

I don't know if many of you will agree, but I think ray tracing really makes a difference regarding materials.
One just have to look at games such as Ratchet and Clank to realize that despite top-of-the-line production value and artistic excellence, rasterization can only take you so far.
I would like to mention a game which doesn't get the love it deserves: Control. IMHO, it is up there with Cyberpunk, Flight Simulator (no RT but still impressive) and Metro Exodus.
IMHO ray tracing really makes a difference and is the most "next gen" feature a game can include; after all, sight itself is tied to lighting.
A few examples from Control (using dlss).


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Vick

Gold Member
While Spiderman may have a lot of shaders (I had the original game on PS4), those weren't of the quality I see in Avengers.
But how? You posted examples from Avengers..

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What they published and what the actual person had to do and not tell because of NDAs is two different things. You aren't going to get open conversation on the many things they had to change.
Such as? Any example? Is there any kind of proof behind these claims?

And I played all of the PS4 titles except TLoU2.
How is it possible then, to completely dismiss everything i posted about Days Gone in the past, during a comparison to Horizon, to then claim some days ago it's the best looking game on PC?
Immediately after posting this (about Days Gone of all games):

Goddamn this game looks da shit! Best looking Unreal engine game by far!!

I gotta admit these PS exclusives have production values through the freaking roof!! I can't wait to play other games they have in store. Keep em coming Sony!!

Whouldn't someone who played all their games be already well aware about this?

That's just being biased.
You do not regard youself as such? Not even a little?
Don't you think your reaction score and post history tell a different story? Your resentment for Sony fans is totally fine, i'm referring to how unfairly, on technical point of view, you treated titles from their studios in the past, over and over again.

Thanks for the compliments.
You're welcome. I remember the day Avatar Trailer dropped, after all the insane fuzz that preceded it, all we could think was how much better steel and motor oil on machines looked in the first Matrix. I'll never forget this.
But those were Framestore's shots as i later found out, and i've never been a big fan of that company in the first place and especially after the stolen 2008 Academy Award.

What the heck? The thread is based on the OP's opinion, so the OP gets to pick and then explain their choices. It's ok to disagree and then discuss, the but the idea that any single dev must be included is just... silly.
Yeah, you totally got the point.. thanks for the contribution to the Thread.
 

ZehDon

Member
Yeah, you totally got the point.. thanks for the contribution to the Thread.
What a cute reply. Your sarcasm implies I misunderstood the post where you said "Sure, but then you chose Marvel's Avengers over Naughty Dog titles?", while making other comments like "Thought i was pointing out how peculiar it is for an "Industry Professional" to leave out of a list about the best PRB implementations, the games which feature the best PBR implementations", implying Naughty Dog titles are an objectively inarguable "best", and are a required inclusive in an opinion from any industry professional. I think the misunderstanding here is yours of the concept of opinions. As I said in my previous post, disagreeing is fine - but you're not just disagreeing, your actively telling someone their opinion is objectively wrong and instead must include Naughty Dog titles.... while going on to tell them they're biased for not including it. Which comes across as more than a little silly.
 
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Vick

Gold Member
I am open to any technical conversation any gaming developer wants to make. I've made shaders that aren't even seen in games because of their complexity. So the statement "absolute clown" is a stab at someone who doesn't think his preferred platform of choice (obviously the PS and not any other platform) is suspect at best. I don't care if a professional doesn't like me, but I will talk technical to back up my claims without introducing any subjective "this just looks better" comments into the conversation.

Lastly, there is nothing stopping these said "other verified users" from making their own threads to be challenged and discussed. I see no one doing anything like that here. I wonder why?
Just want to add that i personally have nothing against you. I regard you not only as an obviously knowledgeable person, but a very patient one as well.
And i'm genuinely thankful for Threads like these that i'd pick over the ton of shitposts, regularly delivered by many, any day of the week.
I just have yet to get used to read them fully aware that your viewpoints are going to exclude what, for more than a decade, has almost undisputedly been at the forefront of technical advancements.. on consoles, let's say.

What a cute reply. Your sarcasm implies I misunderstood the post where you said "Sure, but then you chose Marvel's Avengers over Naughty Dog titles?", while making other comments like "Thought i was pointing out how peculiar it is for an "Industry Professional" to leave out of a list about the best PRB implementations, the games which feature the best PBR implementations", implying Naughty Dog titles are an objectively inarguable "best", and are a required inclusive in an opinion from any industry professional. I think the misunderstanding here is yours of the concept of opinions. As I said in my previous post, disagreeing is fine - but you're not just disagreeing, your actively telling someone their opinion is objectively wrong and instead must include Naughty Dog titles.... while going on to tell them they're biased for not including it. Which comes across as more than a little silly.
If you think picking Marvel's Avengers as a game "that go the extra mile to get really good shaders that stand out among all the other games with much less complexity" over any Naughty Dog title (let's say ICE Team titles) delivered in this generation isn't "more than a little silly", i really don't know what to tell you.
The simple fact this matter appears so outrageous to you already shows how unacquainted you truly are on this topic.
 
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