CDPR Dev: "Blue fog obstructing long draw distance was an artistic choice"

[TheWotcher]

I don't really care whether or not it's more "realistic" (which it isn't, because there's way too much of the fog and it's way too thick, and way too close), I only care if it looks good, which it also doesn't. It's literally the first thing you notice when you come to Velen. A bunch of blue mountain silhouettes with 0 detail.

But okay, even if it DOES look better AND is more realistic, there is no reason why all the detail is STILL being rendered BEHIND the fog, because it most probably has a very big impact on performance. So your PC is rendering so many things so far away that you don't even see.

But I guess I'm overreacting or whatever. The distant detail and blue fog was one of the first things I noticed that looked way different than in the mid-2014 gameplay demos.

 

[moonknightgog]

I don't really care whether or not it's more "realistic" (which it isn't, because there's way too much of the fog and it's way too thick, and way too close), I only care if it looks good, which it also doesn't. It's literally the first thing you notice when you come to Velen. A bunch of blue mountain silhouettes with 0 detail.

But okay, even if it DOES look better AND is more realistic, there is no reason why all the detail is STILL being rendered BEHIND the fog, because it most probably has a very big impact on performance. So your PC is rendering so many things so far away that you don't even see.

But I guess I'm overreacting or whatever. The distant detail and blue fog was one of the first things I noticed that looked way different than in the mid-2014 gameplay demos.

There is 0 detail even without the fog. So, no, details are not rendered behind that, simply because there aren't.

 

[arvydasb]

My understanding is that the mod has little to no performance impact, so I don't understand how that is any basis to claim consoles' performance is the reason for the "blue fog" look.

Because the mod doesn't increase the lod, only unveils the lack of it by removing the fog.
With the fog you still see that there are distant trees, mountains, tower, building shapes and so on. Without the fog we see the colors of those objects and a bit of details on them, but I don't think I saw actual increase of the number of objects in examples of the mod. If the mod would also increase LOD in the distance there would be a performance impact, I'm sure of it.

On the fog itself. Yes, real life has it, but it depends on weather conditions, the amount of dust in the air and so on. And for example when taking photographs of landscapes one usually tries to reduce this haze (using filters or postprocessing) so it seems strange that in the game one would try to increase it . Striving for realism? But then the colors should have also been different and this is fantasy after all. Yes it was design choice, in my opinion, to obscure the lack of distant details.

 

[Zat0ichi]

"CDPR acting like the 37min gameplay vid didn't exist"

There were a whole load of GPU melting atmospheric effects, various types of fog in particular that did not make the final release.

If you remove those because they cost too much in GPU power you have to put something in to replace them so a "design choice" is nothing to replace them or the distance fogging that has been around since the 90's.

I'm sure I read something that distance fogging was created by mistake by nvidia waaay back.

 

[tommalmm]

I've just noticed the thread and I thought I should add my 2c. I live in the mountains and that blue hued "fog" is normal. It usually is much further away (like really noticeable at the distance of 20 miles or even more), but it really depends on many factors (it's usually more visible the more sunny and dry there is, and the more dust there is in the air). There are days, though, when it is so thin, so even when I'm, say, like 35 miles away, I can clearly see the mountains.

Remember though, that Witcher 3 is not photorealistic. It has that kind of fantasy tint to it. This was a design choice, so is the blue "fog". I personally like it both ways (pun unintended).

As for the majority not liking it... Not really... well, maybe the majority of people that do voice their opinion on the internet or here on the forums, but these are actually in minority. Majority of the gamers actually do not care enough to post (how many have bought the game? at least twice as much have downloaded it without buying... how many have you seen voicing their discontent? you get what I mean?).

 

[moonknightgog]

I would love a dynamic fog where it is present or not depending on certain dynamic requirments. But I think this is not easy to do on a technical standpoint.

 

[Zat0ichi]

As for the majority not liking it... Not really... well, maybe the majority of people that do voice their opinion on the internet or here on the forums, but these are actually in minority. Majority of the gamers actually do not care enough to post (how many have bought the game? at least twice as much have downloaded it without buying... how many have you seen voicing their discontent? you get what I mean?).

Its all a matter of ratios.
A core of PC gamers have been following TW for a long time (I joined at TW2).
Of those I think there is a large proportion that were disappointed.
You then get the other gamers that hear TW3 is gonna be awesome and have no emotional investment in CDPR.
They probably make up the majority of sales.

 

[tommalmm]

Its all a matter of ratios.
A core of PC gamers have been following TW for a long time (I joined at TW2).
Of those I think there is a large proportion that were disappointed.
You then get the other gamers that hear TW3 is gonna be awesome and have no emotional investment in CDPR.
They probably make up the majority of sales.

And we're getting dangerously close to an opinion, that some gamers should be considered more important than others. Well, I would certainly love to. I'm with the series from the very beginning, but, fortunately, it's not the way it is (otherwise you would never get anything new, stagnancy is never good). Actually, die hard fans will buy the game despite of everything, while there are new gamers that are always sought. I consider TW3 to be good for both, perfect for neither.

But... That's not really the topic of this thread

 

[Zat0ichi]

I thought I danced the line pretty well.

ARTISTIC FOG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Redkit will fix it

 

[Lieste]

There is *no* way that a realistic atmospheric hazing model would work. The map extent is 8x8km, and the inner 'working' part is around 4x4km. With a "hazy" day, you can usually see further than that (albeit with significant hazing of 'sea-level' features ~ which reduces with altitude - one reason that high mountains can be seen a long way away is that they are in (and hence much of the line of observation is in) thinner, cleaner air).

At a local scale W3 uses a 'more or less' 1:1 representation, so the 'short hazing distance' is a little intrusive "within" the village... but over a regional scale the terrain is extremely compressed... so the hazing 'artistic effect' is entirely appropriate at this scale. (Several 100m is roughly what would cover several km, and a few km is more like what we would expect to see over 20-30 or more).

I'd welcome a *little* less hazing some of the time, but not 'clear skies'. There quite simply isn't sufficient terrain to have a wholly realistic viewing distance, nor would our hardware support terrain detail that we'd like over the 'true' distances.

 

[B_l_a_d_y]

wow wo so artistic so realistic

default

modded

 

[moonknightgog]

wow wo so artistic so realistic

default

modded

Ehm...the blue fog is still there.
It's just further away.

 

[tommalmm]

wow wo so artistic so realistic

I'm quite sure, that if you consider it for a while, you'll come to a conclusion, that there is nothing realistic about both of these screenshots (for way too many reasons, starting at physics, ending at philosophy). And that's the reason I love computer games for (as do many others).

 

[KRZYCH04650]

This is another very strange choice by CDPR to add to collection. Saying that they have wasted potential of this game is maybe to much to say, but Witcher 3 is only half as good at it could be and it is not a matter of adding anything, but matter of not breaking a lot of things and not making a lot of strange and understandable choices. Witcher and Witcher 2 were great games, all they had to do is to mix best things from those two, place it in open world, make game much longer than before and create good combat system. Instead of this we got a game full of very strange choices and solutions and it doesn't really takes anything from previous parts. Someone has lost conception in half way. What we got with release is good base to work on, unpolished game that need a lot of feedback and changes. I personally expected much more from CDPR and I trusted that Witcher can only get better with third part, but even with open world, huge content and finally realistic combat system, something is missing. This game has lost soul of The Witcher series.

 

[BladeRunnerBlues]

It's funny that the downgrade is still being sugarcoated under the pretense that avoiding the expression is a matter of polite and civil behavior. It is more than understandable that many fans are happy with the game as it is and I have seen only a very few people claiming that CD Projekt Red does not deserve credit for the things that work well in The Witcher 3. However, the game has also plenty of shortcomings, which may include the graphics as well, when compared to the material presented in the 2014 gameplay demo and trailers. For the record, I think that the game has more severe story flaws than technical ones, but if one really wants to have an open conversation, it is ridiculous to keep avoiding "downgrade" as the Catriona plague.

Some may not agree and that's totally fine; others still feel that the game's lighting system, draw distance, particle effects, etc. were obviously superior in the vast majority of the presentation materials. That's why many people don't buy the argument that killing the draw distance is primarily an artistic choice and it's also the reason why many modders are trying to restore some of that teased visual glory:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lXSNifRg5Pw

 

[Zat0ichi]

Fair shout.
Dont use the D word though. Its spelt P.O.N.Y

The other Witcher games were a bit wonky because CDPR stretched themselves so far. (in a very good way)
This game, from what I've seen, has all that adorable wonk plus the other stuff.

Heavy handed distance fogging to make up for ponied volumetric fog and smoke. They had no other choice.

 

[Karnonos]

I like the foggier version.

 

[ReDD7]

It's funny that the downgrade is still being sugarcoated under the pretense that avoiding the expression is a matter of polite and civil behavior. It is more than understandable that many fans are happy with the game as it is and I have seen only a very few people claiming that CD Projekt Red does not deserve credit for the things that work well in The Witcher 3. However, the game has also plenty of shortcomings, which may include the graphics as well, when compared to the material presented in the 2014 gameplay demo and trailers. For the record, I think that the game has more severe story flaws than technical ones, but if one really wants to have an open conversation, it is ridiculous to keep avoiding "downgrade" as the Catriona plague.

Some may not agree and that's totally fine; others still feel that the game's lighting system, draw distance, particle effects, etc. were obviously superior in the vast majority of the presentation materials. That's why many people don't buy the argument that killing the draw distance is primarily an artistic choice and it's also the reason why many modders are trying to restore some of that teased visual glory:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lXSNifRg5Pw

How can you be sure that the 2014 demo would run great as a whole. There is not a 2014 version of the whole game. Maybe they had to pony it for it to be so big and open? with millions of different routes to all areas.

 

[IrregularJohn]

Let's not derail the thread from its original point of discussion which is basically whether or not you agree with the whole "artistic choice" notion.

P.S. We don't have a 2014 build of the game on our hands - SADLY, I'd prefer it to have scalability of graphic options on PC where we had current graphic fidelity as Medium or High and 2014 level on Ultra. And to be honest TW3 is not that open world or especially diverse in terms of quests and different content.

 

[dragonbird]

Let's not derail the thread from its original point of discussion which is basically whether or not you agree with the whole "artistic choice" notion.

Thank you.

The issue of whether or not it was an artistic choice has been answered twice now by CDPR, so that is also not really up for discussion any more, so it really comes down to whether or not you like it. Obviously, some do, some don't.