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The Coalition UE5 demo at GDC

Evilms

Banned
pJX0hlH.jpg

We probably won't see the GDC video, but a polished one, so people won't be disappointed. At least that's what they think.
Must be an underwhelming clip.

EDIT:
Tweet was about "blablabla many moving parts, unforseen things, blabla video not before monday"

EDITEDIT:
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Lethal01

Member
We probably won't see the GDC video, but a polished one, so people won't be disappointed. At least that's what they think.
Must be an underwhelming clip.

EDIT:
Tweet was about "blablabla many moving parts, unforseen things, blabla video not before monday"

EDITEDIT:
5mKhSoa.jpg

Totally understandable, this is a small scale demo and not a high priority showcase.
 

Kupfer

Member
Ive never seen so many GAFs thirsty for a GDC presentation for a NOT game.

Not even The Last of Us, Uncharted and Spiderman presentations made 7 pages.
Summerhole, there's nothing interesting out there, besides the Deck and until we see more gameplay, it's not even that interesting.
 

DenchDeckard

Moderated wildly
I keep saying it but this is just a prime example of people hyping shit up far too much for what it's going to be.

They should just get it out and get it all over with. This will be nothing close to what was showed a year ago by epic. They've only had the engine for a short time.
 

Black_Stride

do not tempt fate do not contrain Wonder Woman's thighs do not do not
it's because people are horny for UE5 and want to fuel their console war bickering to put it up against PS5 UE5 performance etc etc while probably disregarding any real takeaways from the talk

hmm makes sense.
People who know nothing about game development want to show how little they know about game development without outright saying they know nothing about game development.

Will wait for the presentation and the following thread to see how it goes.
 

SLB1904

Banned
VGtech? The framerates for all the games are available in the video discriptions as a Google doc.
i was hoping you would show me, you know these guys from df and vgtech et all stress the games too much to see where it breaks. oh well, i guess i have to have to play with the spreadsheet next to me or i would even notice. :p

anyway, the fun is over no demo.
 
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Zathalus

Member
i was hoping you would show me, you know these guys from df and vgtech et all stress the games too much to see where it breaks. oh well, i guess i have to have to play with the spreadsheet next to me or i would even notice. :p
What exactly do I need to show? I've played Returnal recently and the framedrops were noticible when they occurred. Same with Borderlands 3 when I tried the 120FPS mode.

Great for you if you can't spot or feel frame drops, but for lots of people they are noticible and rather annoying.
 

Black_Stride

do not tempt fate do not contrain Wonder Woman's thighs do not do not
Same MS shenanigans as always, it was fucking nothing! Good thing that i wasn't expecting anything great.

You do know they have no obligation to show GDC presentations to none GDC members right?
Hell if you are a GDC member you can go watch it right now if you want.

Im assuming since you are so interested in game development you are a GDC member right?
 
hmm makes sense.
People who know nothing about game development want to show how little they know about game development without outright saying they know nothing about game development.

Will wait for the presentation and the following thread to see how it goes.
Nah it’s just been fuckin boring as hell. And we’ve had very few games to show the power of the next gen consoles (if exclusively developed for).
 

Corndog

Banned
Because they makes the best games. Now I wonder why you are such xbox console warrior.
I prefer Xbox but I don’t feel like I have to worship at their feet like you. They screwed up near the entirety of the Xbox one generation by not putting more money in first party.
Look at my posts on this forum and you will see me saying positive and negative about both Sony and Xbox.
 

Black_Stride

do not tempt fate do not contrain Wonder Woman's thighs do not do not
Nah it’s just been fuckin boring as hell. And we’ve had very few games to show the power of the next gen consoles (if exclusively developed for).
Its a GDC talk.
If you arent actually interested in Game Development like properly alot of it will just go over your head or worse still youll say its boring because they keep talking about memory management or some such and not showing us graphics.

And I guarantee thats whats going to happen with this presentation.
TC will be talking about what they learnt getting UE5 to work on Series S/X and NOT show an Infiltrator level demo and everyone will say this looks like shit or was boring.....knowing full well they literally got nothing from the talk and it simply wasnt for them.

This demo isnt going to be stressing the Series X to its limits.
Heck i can almost guarantee visually this wont look better the Hivebusters.
 

SLB1904

Banned
I prefer Xbox but I don’t feel like I have to worship at their feet like you. They screwed up near the entirety of the Xbox one generation by not putting more money in first party.
Look at my posts on this forum and you will see me saying positive and negative about both Sony and Xbox.
do you have any post of me worshipping sony? that shouldnt be hard to find right?
 

CamHostage

Member
Totally understandable, this is a small scale demo and not a high priority showcase.

Is it?
"Alpha Point" was an existent UE4 demo that they converted to UE5 for this project (though they don't say if it existed for a while or if it was created specifically in UE4 instead of UE5ea so that upconversion could be factored into the test.) Why did they bother pulling it out of the vault if it's a little nothing project. (Why even give it a name if it's just a flythrough over rocks?)

Also, I'm still not understanding how it's a "small scale demo" or not a "high priority"? Yes, I'm a greedy gamer who wants cool shit, but I'm also sort of in the tech field and am confused why they bothered (and why they made plans to release it to the public) for if all it ever was was just a little-nothing thrown at the wall real quick?

If the purpose of Alpha Point is to build something A. to show an audience a GDC (and A.1. to release to the public on Wed Thurs Mon), B. to evaluate the engine's performance and ease of use with a target of the Xbox platforms' SDKs, and C. to provide feedback to Epic about how to optimize UE5 specifically for Xbox in the future, then why a simple flythrough of a canyon? Why is there no interactivity, no unusual geometry (supposedly it's original assets instead of Quixel Megascans, but why bother making different rocks?,) they didn't seem to talk about Camera or Animation or Sound or AI or any other integration (albeit it was primarily an artist presentation, but they got into the tech and they should have at least talked about the art systems interfacing with other disciplines since that's an advancement of the engine/suite in UE5.)

Plus, Epic already did all this last year. They ran a demo (dynamic and playable, even), on a console, and they achieved a steady 30FPS with a striking range of polygons built for Nanite and lit with Lumen. Epic's May 2020 numbers line up with Coalition's July 2021 numbers. So, really, the only point here was to have amazing studio The Coalition come to GDC and say, "Yep, we tried it ourselves with an Xbox, and it does what Epic said it does..." ?

Hey, this kid kitbashed an Indiana Jones demo in his first-ever experiment with UE5, why didn't they invite him to present at GDC? He's got rocks too! And this fellow is past concerns about benchmarks of basic operation, he's already busy building stuff...



To be fair, I came to terms plenty early and was not expecting Alpha Point to be extraordinary (though I would have been really excited if it was,) but I'm honestly perplexed (by reports which admittedly are far from technical) that it seems to be rudimentary, and that the studio is only in the cursory work phase of on what will be the future technology base of their company.
 
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pJX0hlH.jpg

We probably won't see the GDC video, but a polished one, so people won't be disappointed. At least that's what they think.
Must be an underwhelming clip.

EDIT:
Tweet was about "blablabla many moving parts, unforseen things, blabla video not before monday"

EDITEDIT:
5mKhSoa.jpg
Lots of moving parts my ass

Post thee fucking video.

I can have a video up on tik tok in 3 clicks. The fuck is wrong with these people.
 

CamHostage

Member
The blurb on Epic's site literally says this came about from Coalition evaluating UE5 and it's perf:


Catch the public debut of Alpha Point, a UE5 technical demo created by The Coalition to evaluate UE5 on the Xbox Series X/S. Hear what the team learned as they tested internal Nanite assets in Lumen-driven lighting scenarios, as well as their thoughts on how UE5’s performance and memory stacks up in Xbox Series X and S-style production environments.

Sure, but by this point, I really expected they would be sharing what they learned, not are still learning. Past tense, primarily, not present.

Also, my read of that was never that this would be base-level work. If you're going to have a professionally-produced presentation of an evaluative project for a hardware performance demonstration, one that is also being produced to provide feedback for both the console manufacturer and the middleware development house, your audience is going to be looking to you as experts. You should know more than they do, and be able to bring something to the stage that shows professional-calibre work. Doesn't have to be amazing or gorgeous, but it should be demonstrative.

I do get it, GDC is what it is; some meetings are real big productions while some are wonk for the wags who came mostly for their time at the mic in Q&A as well as the networking. And BTW, this is summer GDC, not GDC-proper (although the regular GDC was obviously different this year), and summer talks are usually not big-scale (it's usually an educational seminar event, not the post-morts and engine update reveals.) But I'm a guy who just listed to an hour of Epic putting tones and hi-hat samples into a timeline, because I like learning about how software is made, and even I would be mad if I paid $350 for The Coalition to come show me simple rocks...
 

CamHostage

Member
Its a GDC talk.
If you arent actually interested in Game Development like properly alot of it will just go over your head or worse still youll say its boring because they keep talking about memory management or some such and not showing us graphics.

And I guarantee thats whats going to happen with this presentation.
TC will be talking about what they learnt getting UE5 to work on Series S/X and NOT show an Infiltrator level demo and everyone will say this looks like shit or was boring.....knowing full well they literally got nothing from the talk and it simply wasnt for them.

It's almost as if they didn't realize Coalition's tweet as well as the MS GameStack / Epic Games GDC posts would attract so much attention... but instead of heading it off right away by correcting the media and posting replies that this is just for GDC and is not a production-quality effort and generally is meant to be informative to developers, instead somebody went, "Hey, WOW! Look, gamers are super excited for that UE5 demo, we've got to get Alpha Point out for the people!!" And meanwhile, it was never meant to be anything more than just showing how well UE5 rocks can really run on an Xbox...

Would love for that to be wrong, but at this point, it seems to be what it is.
 
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IntentionalPun

Ask me about my wife's perfect butthole
I do get it, GDC is what it is; some meetings are real big productions while some are wonk for the wags who came mostly for their time at the mic in Q&A as well as the networking. And BTW, this is summer GDC, not GDC-proper (although the regular GDC was obviously different this year), and summer talks are usually not big-scale (it's usually an educational seminar event, not the post-morts and engine update reveals.) But I'm a guy who just listed to an hour of Epic putting tones and hi-hat samples into a timeline, because I like learning about how software is made, and even I would be mad if I paid $350 for The Coalition to come show me simple rocks...

So you are a developer?

I'm really confused by this attitude if you've been to dev conferences before. They are all over the map; particularly for products that are essentially in beta, with a partner showing off something using them.

I mean I've seen hello world level stuff for software at expensive dev conferences. I doubt anyone was paying $350 specifically to see a UE5 demo from Coalition that was described in a way that didn't make it sound like a big deal, that it was literally just a demo based on them evaluating the engine.. I don't know why you'd think they'd be way beyond engine evaluation at this point either. The engine isn't out yet really, the preview isn't that old.
 
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Its a GDC talk.
If you arent actually interested in Game Development like properly alot of it will just go over your head or worse still youll say its boring because they keep talking about memory management or some such and not showing us graphics.

And I guarantee thats whats going to happen with this presentation.
TC will be talking about what they learnt getting UE5 to work on Series S/X and NOT show an Infiltrator level demo and everyone will say this looks like shit or was boring.....knowing full well they literally got nothing from the talk and it simply wasnt for them.

This demo isnt going to be stressing the Series X to its limits.
Heck i can almost guarantee visually this wont look better the Hivebusters.
I mean I have no interest in game development but it might be interesting to hear what they can do - that pic of the guys face was good
 

CamHostage

Member
So you are a developer?

I'm really confused by this attitude if you've been to dev conferences before. They are all over the map; particularly for products that are essentially in beta, with a partner showing off something using them.

I'm not a game developer, but I have absolutely been to conference sessions where I've realized, "Oh fuck, they oversold this on the program, do you think the presenters will notice if I try to sneak out?"

GDC presentations are sometimes super basic (or are entirely in the dev suite and never rendered out to show; they are other times Valley of the Ancients. If I saw on the schedule that it was artists of Coalition doing the demo on Epic's stage, I wouldn't have expected Valley, but I would have come to see professional, purposeful work.

And again, if the only purpose was to have a team there to chat informally about experimental work with this WIP engine, that's one thing. But they brought out Microsoft's AAA studio The Coalition, and then they promoted it to the public. They could have gotten anybody to do that if all Epic wanted was "just a demo." (And BTW, usually if it's just a chat with some team members of a famous studio, they say, "Kate and Colin, two heads of leading design studio The Coalition", that's a little different than a post that reads, "Catch the public debut of Alpha Point, a UE5 technical demo created by The Coalition...")
 
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CamHostage

Member
I don't know why you'd think they'd be way beyond engine evaluation at this point either. The engine isn't out yet really, the preview isn't that old.

...Because if The Coalition, of all companies, isn't anywhere near ready for UE5, then who is?

As a gamer, I'm just a whiny baby wanting cool UE5 games ASAP and am fussy that they won't be here in 2022 like I had hoped. 🍼

But as somebody who's followed the technology some, I personally really am genuinely shocked that things are not farther ahead.

Yes, Unreal Engine 5 isn't completed. (In fact, they're still pondering some things about the directions that it will go, and like UE4 SVOGI, some things will change.) But it is significantly far along, and it is hitting its planned milestones. Also, usually (albeit the democratization of game engines has changed Epic's approach,) professional developers and close UE partners have more access behind the scenes than independent developers with a standard licensing agreement.

If this really is the case that Microsoft's premier UE developer (one of several that MS has already announced is actively planning UE5 projects) as you are supposing does not have much more experience with UE5 than the typical amateur developerslashyoutuber, I don't understand what the timeline has been. Epic Games had it working, on a console, last year; that means they've had the engine functional for a heck of a long time before that, and they've even been able to optimize and stabilize the early version of this technology for a platform that wasn't even on the market yet. And then, they released a preview build to the general public, and it was mostly stable and its two bleeding-edge introductory features work just as promised. And nowhere in that time did The Coalition get a chance to come out to North Carolina (with a mask) and put hands on it, or get a little earlier-than-early sample version slipped in their mailbox? This is a studio close enough with Epic that they were chosen to share the stage in the first external-party demo of UE5 professional production work, and yet they're no more experienced making UE5 demos than the guy who jammed Final Fantasy X models into UE5 just for for fun, or the 1 Million Donuts guy?

I mean, it's weird, isn't it?
And, if you're a gamer psyched to play UE5-powered games but now maybe you can kiss 2022 goodbye, it's a drag, isn't it
 
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Matsuchezz

Member
I will check back Monday night to see the short clip. I do not have time to waste watching all the technical details. Lately I found DF's tech analysis so boring. I just want to game.
 

ripeavocado

Banned
Not all PS5 games run flawlessly. Returnal drops into the 40s at times. Even Ratchet and Clank in performance RT can occasionally drop to the low 50s.

Also, the PS5 has a number of third-party games that can benefit from it. Resident Evil Village, Devil May Cry 5, Valhalla, or almost all games that have a 120FPS mode.

that’s who cares, no console has ever run current gen games flawlessly, who cares, disable RT
 

JLB

Banned
Sure, but by this point, I really expected they would be sharing what they learned, not are still learning. Past tense, primarily, not present.

Also, my read of that was never that this would be base-level work. If you're going to have a professionally-produced presentation of an evaluative project for a hardware performance demonstration, one that is also being produced to provide feedback for both the console manufacturer and the middleware development house, your audience is going to be looking to you as experts. You should know more than they do, and be able to bring something to the stage that shows professional-calibre work. Doesn't have to be amazing or gorgeous, but it should be demonstrative.

I do get it, GDC is what it is; some meetings are real big productions while some are wonk for the wags who came mostly for their time at the mic in Q&A as well as the networking. And BTW, this is summer GDC, not GDC-proper (although the regular GDC was obviously different this year), and summer talks are usually not big-scale (it's usually an educational seminar event, not the post-morts and engine update reveals.) But I'm a guy who just listed to an hour of Epic putting tones and hi-hat samples into a timeline, because I like learning about how software is made, and even I would be mad if I paid $350 for The Coalition to come show me simple rocks...
Rule #1 in software development: we are always learning. Never past tense.
 

IntentionalPun

Ask me about my wife's perfect butthole
...Because if The Coalition, of all companies, isn't anywhere near ready for UE5, then who is?

Epic themselves, and likely nobody else?

I don't think it's weird at all; nobody is going to spend a ton of time/money working w/ an engine that isn't pretty much "done." Like how do you think that looks from a dev standpoint? "Hey we have this engine that might not be out until 2022, and big things can change, but in 2020 please start heavily using it." No.. you release a preview in 2021, and people start messing around with it.. make some plans for the future, and then they don't really use it until 2021 because what if something major changes?

And in the end this is just an iteration of Unreal engine with "5" tacked on the end to market that it has a couple of new/big features, that even right now.. these new features, are still heavily being worked on.. and they have pretty questionable performance lol
 

CamHostage

Member
Rule #1 in software development: we are always learning. Never past tense.

Heh, dude, I knew I was being a freaking idiot for putting "past tense" about learning before my fingers even typed it...

You're right. What I mean, though, is that Coalition is a professional studio who should have already learned so much about UE5 by now that, when they step on a stage to share their knowledge about it in a prepared lecture (as is the description of the event,) IMO, it should be ready to give way more than a 101 course. Not a Master Class necessarily (even Epic doesn't know exactly what it is that their team is making,) but more than the average developer off the street.

Aside from running it on an Xbox, I'm not reading much in the breakdown that speak to that level of expertise. Which, okay, they're not that far into it, but then don't take a GDC slot and release a public demo then.

(Heck, I even knew some of those numbers before they gave them, from just general UE5 preview reports and Epic talks, and I'm not even ready for UE5 kindergarten, much less 101...)
 
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CamHostage

Member
...Because if The Coalition, of all companies, isn't anywhere near ready for UE5, then who is?
Epic themselves, and likely nobody else?

But doesn't that fucking SUCK?! :LOL:

Like, you can be human with me for a sec. Tell me, "Oh yeah, no, you've got the wrong impression about UE5, the engine looks and works great already but there's still lots of work to do on it...," or, "Yeah, it would have been rad if The Coalition had made the most of this opportunity and put together a cool demo but what can you do..."

Please don't just say, though, that it's no big deal that the the UE wizards at The Coalition created a next-gen UE demo for a publicized release and who cares if it sucks. Care! You don't have to be angry (I'm not even angry... I feel like I'm being driven to post angry because people are BFDing my disappointment, but already I said last week that Alpha Point may just be a workout project.) And you don't have to pass by the realities of game development (you're right, it's not to The Coalition's benefit to have spent a lot of time polishing this or putting wow-dollars into it, particularly since they are owned by MS and don't need a spotlight moment, although again, they are taking it out of GDC and putting it to the public, so no reason to go public without a little razzledazzle to your work.) But go ahead and have a little hope that this will actually be something to care about when we see it on Monday.

And please-please don't just say it's no big deal that UE5 is maybe years away from being in a real game. Last year and then again last May we saw something in realtime that we've never seen before with the Nanite in Lumen & Valley of the Ancients demos, and we're eager to have it at home in a real game we can enjoy. Break our hearts with the reality that it's not coming as fast as we yearn for it, but don't tell us eh, who cares.
 
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reksveks

Member
I can complain about whatever I want though? Nigga who even are you
That's why I said reasonably but of course you can complain. It's like people don't read.

I could complain that GDC has a pay-wall at all or that companies are charging me to play a game but it's not reasonable.
 
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Jack Uzi

Banned
That's why I said reasonably but of course you can complain. It's like people don't read.

I could complain that GDC has a pay-wall at all or that companies are charging me to play a game but it's not reasonable.
Reading my original post, my guy what is it you think I’m complaining about?
And when did I complain? The bullshit part was about them saying it will happen one day and then last minute it’s now being shown on Monday.

So when did I complain?
 

Jack Uzi

Banned
So you ain't complaining about the fact that you might only get a demo as you didn't pay the GDC fee? If so, no worries.
No sir. If i complained about anything it would be the last minute change to when we get to see it.

When I said that I would rather see the full thing I was just stating my preference. I mean wouldn’t you want to see the full talk about what went into making the demo by one of the best UE devs?

if my post whined and said “why can’t I see the full thing right meow and not sum 2min video” I’d be cool with you going full ham at my bitching.
 
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PaNaMa

Banned
Ever go to your favourite fast food restaurant and get excited when you see a delicious looking new burger up on the screen, that you can’t wait to try? So you order it, but when you get back to your table it looks - and tastes- nothing like what you’d hoped or expected?
That’s this thread.
 

reksveks

Member
No sir. If i complained about anything it would be the last minute change to when we get to see it.

When I said that I would rather see the full thing I was just stating my preference. I mean wouldn’t you want to see the full talk about what went into making the demo by one of the best UE devs?

if my post whined and said “why can’t I see the full thing right meow and not sum 2min video” I’d be cool with you going full ham at my bitching.
Don't know if I did go 'full ham' but I think we have taken a big enough detour.

Not the first for this thread though.
 
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CamHostage

Member
(Hopefully the last bump before they show it...)

I mean I have no interest in game development but it might be interesting to hear what they can do - that pic of the guys face was good

Heh, I should hope so... it's a MetaHuman.



MetaHuman Creator is a character design app. This is technology Epic Games (etc.) built for creating and implementing detailed digital characters that look and are rigged to move realistically. Anybody who uses Unreal can use MetaHumans. You can, in Epic's description of the tech, "(create) high-fidelity digital humans in minutes." So, it's a strong endorsement that The Coalition is impressed by this feature as not just a tweak-and-go avatar maker, but a truly professional character designer that by stats vaults past their best work in Gears games, but it's not like they used their remarkable tech-wizardry to make that guy's face. MetaHuman is an openly-available app.


That's one of the weird things about this event, that the purpose seems very specific: this was about showing 1) what Epic made with UE/UE5 (which has been demoed a lot by now,) and 2) how well this runs on Xbox. It's much less so about what The Coalition and other top studios like them can do with it, because so far, apparently, The Coalition hasn't had much time to do much with it yet. They took it for a test-spin, and the presentation mostly seems to be, "Yep, it works just like Epic said it does."

Which, okay, but I'm really craving when we can get some more real-game-world test flights of UE5, and this project wasn't in that arena yet. But we'll see Monday if there's more to Alpha Point or if there's good nuggets in the talk to sift out. Plus, seeing a UE5 project run on an Xbox is at least not common yet, so dig for that.

Why is this being bumped...stop making me think it is live lol

...Sorry, I wanted to clear out some of the mucky posts about other users and help get back to the topic before the demo posted, but it ended up mostly being anti-help.

Rumors say it's posting 11AM PST (no idea though where they get their info from.)
 
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