I think Cyerpunk 2077 is also a playground now for both Nvidia and CDPR and in my opinion that's a good thing
I certainly hope those denoisers will and neural radiance cache will be integrated into the game.
I certainly hope those denoisers will and neural radiance cache will be integrated into the game.
I think Cyerpunk 2077 is also a playground now for both Nvidia and CDPR and in my opinion that's a good thing
Just to bounce off your comment, I've shared this sentiment a lot - and I still do for the most part - provided it doesn't negatively impact the base game. A tech preview having issues is to be expected - but when it's affecting the non-preview version of the game? That shouldn't be happening. I'm sure lot of us have defended this preview, arguing it isn't meant to affect the base game therefore it shouldn't be a big deal, but I have to hold my hands up and admit that that hasn't entirely held true. At least not with regards to catchlights (hopefully it's fixable and just a coincidence that has nothing to do with Overdrive, but I have a bad feeling it might)...
And that's not minor, that's a massive casualty IMO. And the reason why is because, as a human with a beating heart, I'm emotionally invested in the characters, not the light bouncing off of bin bags in the alleyway. I'm all for pushing technology, but I just hope that the devs don't lose sight of what is actually the most important thing about this game. Because for most of the audience, it's not R&D; it's the story and the characters - that's where the magic really is.
And unfortunately I can't bring myself to enjoy the game beyond the 1.61 version. It's the difference between the characters looking real and ALIVE vs. dull and LIFELESS. Not great for a character-driven narrative.
(I know a lot of you have already seen these, but in case anyone hasn't seen the catchlights thread):
Last pic from @Crimsomrider :
Yeah, I understand how you feel. It's a big step down.Just to bounce off your comment, I've shared this sentiment a lot - and I still do for the most part - provided it doesn't negatively impact the base game. A tech preview having issues is to be expected - but when it's affecting the non-preview version of the game? That shouldn't be happening. I'm sure lot of us have defended this preview, arguing it isn't meant to affect the base game therefore it shouldn't be a big deal, but I have to hold my hands up and admit that that hasn't entirely held true. At least not with regards to catchlights (hopefully it's fixable and just a coincidence that has nothing to do with Overdrive, but I have a bad feeling it might)...
And that's not minor, that's a massive casualty IMO. And the reason why is because, as a human with a beating heart, I'm emotionally invested in the characters, not the light bouncing off of bin bags in the alleyway. I'm all for pushing technology, but I just hope that the devs don't lose sight of what is actually the most important thing about this game. Because for most of the audience, it's not R&D; it's the story and the characters - that's where the magic really is.
And unfortunately I can't bring myself to enjoy the game beyond the 1.61 version. It's the difference between the characters looking real and ALIVE vs. dull and LIFELESS. Not great for a character-driven narrative.
(I know a lot of you have already seen these, but in case anyone hasn't seen the catchlights thread):
Last pic from @Crimsomrider :
I hope they can figure out a solution, because even with a modified PT photomode the reflections aren't nearly as inticing. If It doesn't get fixed in the next update I'll dig around and see if I can do anything about it.
We're in a weird phase right now - inbetween light models, raster and RT, with consoles this gen not being powerful enough, and RT requiring massive GPUs to work properly. It's still a miracle to me we're seeing realtime PT, and I'm sure the next few years will bring improvements to that tech, but we're never going to get there without collateral damage to the legacy systems. Making cutting edge tech work alongside legacy is always a challenge in software dev, in games even more so.
That being said, I agree 100% that tech previews shouldn't impact the base game, and I really hope they are working on a fix for the catcheye issue.
That being said, I agree 100% that tech previews shouldn't impact the base game, and I really hope they are working on a fix for the catcheye issue.
I think Cyerpunk 2077 is also a playground now for both Nvidia and CDPR and in my opinion that's a good thing
I certainly hope those denoisers will and neural radiance cache will be integrated into the game.
Yea ill have to second that opinion. Im all for advancing gfx and being a test ground but RT overdrive has been kinda a letdown. At times it looks great but it also can look much worse then even non RT. The flickering and light noice can be kinda annoying. Also its a giant FPS sink and i would not even try it on anything lower then a 4090. 16 gb vram usage? really -.- i really get why they call it a tech demo now ^^
Tho i must say it runs pretty well with DLSS3 and enough umph of a computer. I will probably play with it off tho. I think a mix of placed lights and old metods and RT is the way it should be. RT is interesting and cool but also in some places looks worse then the created light.
@koalahugs hit me up on discord, please. I have an idea.
EDIT: So... I really do think now those are either lights, a light texture, or some kind of cube projection... More than likely one of the first two if them being absent is related to Path Tracing, that last one would seem to be the most likely but there isn't any reason for it to not be there. Hopefully it is a bug as they did make notable changes to the eyes that I haven't mentioned, being the Iris paralax and iridescence. These may have been there, but they weren't noticeable by any means.
In your last image I think that's just a reflection, the catch light appear to be used in specific moments and that happens to not be one of them, but the specularity of the eyes is notably reduced and I'm working on bringing that back at least.
The below are rendered in raster.
Before
After
It's not the same by any means, but it's something in the event they don't address this. Hit me up and maybe we can sus this out.
EDIT: So... I really do think now those are either lights, a light texture, or some kind of cube projection... More than likely one of the first two if them being absent is related to Path Tracing, that last one would seem to be the most likely but there isn't any reason for it to not be there. Hopefully it is a bug as they did make notable changes to the eyes that I haven't mentioned, being the Iris paralax and iridescence. These may have been there, but they weren't noticeable by any means.
In your last image I think that's just a reflection, the catch light appear to be used in specific moments and that happens to not be one of them, but the specularity of the eyes is notably reduced and I'm working on bringing that back at least.
The below are rendered in raster.
Before
After
It's not the same by any means, but it's something in the event they don't address this. Hit me up and maybe we can sus this out.
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Hmm, I'm not sure what use I could be, I'm not a modder and I'm not familar with any of the jargon there I'm afraid.
From what I can see, all the catchlights are just reflections. As for what they're reflecting, most of the time it's probably just environmental, but indeed, they may have placed additional eye-lights (as in, a light that's positioned near the subject) during certain parts of the story.
E.g. if you place V in the exact same spot as Evelyn in the private booth, the catchlights are reflecting the same source:
( All 1.61 )
Move V's head about, and you can see the reflections glisten. It might just be the table that's being reflected but they might've put an invisible eyelight in the same spot to "aid" the light from the table. If they did place an additional light there, maybe it's been taken out, but mostly I think it's just that the eyes are not reflecting as strongly anymore - see below:
That's just a random spot in the AV hangar during the Corpo prologue. It's an extremely well lit room - so much so than even in 1.62 you can still see catchlighting. But it's still weaker. Unlike the private booth at Lizzie's, there wouldn't be a reason to have an eye-light here; so the lighting should basically be the same? Which makes me think it's mostly something about the eyes, rather than a change of lighting. Or maybe a combo?
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I'm wondering this too. It's funny because, in real life, when we're making cinematic films, the fact that light bounces all over the place is a bit of a pain in the ass. Like, we can't just put an expensive camera on a tripod and expect to get a filmy look automatically. If a filmy look is what we're after, then all sorts of lighting techniques might be needed. E.g. placing film lights (to "assist" environmental lighting), diffusion (to soften light), placing negative fill (to block unwanted light), placing reflectors, etc., etc.
Source: https://www.freelancevideocollective.com/negative-fill-lighting/
For example, in the above, negative fill is placed on the right of the subject (like a black panel or curtain or whatever) and a film light is placed on the opposite side, in order to create contrast and depth (highlights, shadows) in the subject. And that's a real life filming scenario. Without the above setup, the guy would've looked more flat, lighting wise.
Would be nice if CDPR could clarify some of this stuff because it's easy to look at a comparison shot like below and come away with the wrong impression thinking, "oh Overdrive gives more depth":
When actually it depends. In the above Overdrive shot (right), it might just be a happy accident that Jackie has good depth there - OR they've used negative fill like we might do in real life, but I don't know how you'd do that in a video game. When you watch a live-action movie you obviously don't get to move the camera around, so all that stuff is hidden from view, so I'm curious what the solution is for a video game.
Whereas in the below shot, it's the rasterised version where we see more depth. The Overdrive version looks flat (unsurprisingly because light is just bouncing all over the place in a confined space - exactly why we have to use things like negative fill in real life).
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I was going to ask you grab Wolvenkit and pull a handful of specific files from 1.61 for so I could investigate what differences there are.
Kind of. There are a numbers of ways to generate them in game from my understanding. In these specific moments they are undoubtedly intentional and not something necessarily in the environment itself. Hence why I suggested they could possible be hidden lights - why it would make sense they aren't present anymore as I'm not sure if you can link a light to specific object or material when PT is active, or they're a cubemap for the scene, an image plane, etc.
This is why I also suggested it's a cubemap for the scene. There could be a reflection probe in that scene creating this effect.
This last one doesn't look like a catchlight per se, but a reflection based on the environment probe as there's no actualy difference in the image reflection, just the visibility. They've surely reduced the reflectance for the eyes. It could just be a bug, but it feels too coincidental.
That's just a random spot in the AV hangar during the Corpo prologue. It's an extremely well lit room - so much so than even in 1.62 you can still see catchlighting. But it's still weaker. Unlike the private booth at Lizzie's, there wouldn't be a reason to have an eye-light here; so the lighting should basically be the same? Which makes me think it's mostly something about the eyes, rather than a change of lighting. Or maybe a combo?
Post automatically merged:
The depth you're referencing with Jackie is a result of PT rendering light and shadow rather than several gimmick layers. No more trickery like we had to do in the past, and sometimes still, with several renders layers for TV/film. It's all light and shadows with path tracing, similar to how rendering with offline render engines is handled. When using raster/hybrid - you're utilizing several approximated layers to composite a final image. Hybrid RT is more accurate than raster, but it's still "fake" - namely the AO as AO IRL is just an accumulation of shadows. In Path tracing, there is no AO pass as there is only light and shadow - hence even the bounce lights create shadows.I'm wondering this too. It's funny because, in real life, when we're making cinematic films, the fact that light bounces all over the place is a bit of a pain in the ass. Like, we can't just put an expensive camera on a tripod and expect to get a filmy look automatically. If a filmy look is what we're after, then all sorts of lighting techniques might be needed. E.g. placing film lights (to "assist" environmental lighting), diffusion (to soften light), placing negative fill (to block unwanted light), placing reflectors, etc., etc.
Source: https://www.freelancevideocollective.com/negative-fill-lighting/
For example, in the above, negative fill is placed on the right of the subject (like a black panel or curtain or whatever) and a film light is placed on the opposite side, in order to create contrast and depth (highlights, shadows) in the subject. And that's a real life filming scenario. Without the above setup, the guy would've looked more flat, lighting wise.
Would be nice if CDPR could clarify some of this stuff because it's easy to look at a comparison shot like below and come away with the wrong impression thinking, "oh Overdrive gives more depth":
View attachment 11353858
When actually it depends. In the above Overdrive shot (right), it might just be a happy accident that Jackie has good depth there - OR they've used negative fill like we might do in real life, but I don't know how you'd do that in a video game. When you watch a live-action movie you obviously don't get to move the camera around, so all that stuff is hidden from view, so I'm curious what the solution is for a video game.
A possible solution for that would be having that specific quest moment call up a tailored LUT to achieve the results you're getting in raster along with reducing the luminosity for that specific lamp(if it's not an instance)... You could perhaps even drop the number of bounces.Whereas in the below shot, it's the rasterised version where we see more depth. The Overdrive version looks flat (unsurprisingly because light is just bouncing all over the place in a confined space - exactly why we have to use things like negative fill in real life).
Source: "Bang4BuckPC Gamer" - YT
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Just an update for the big GPU chooms - the cause for the peculiar texture bugs when PT tech preview is turned on is Nvidia ReLAX denoiser. Hopefully that means these issues will be gone once NRC is implemented, but depending on how they use it - it could be quite harsh on the details.
I'll try not to write a treatise, and I'm not familiar with how different denoising is in a game vs an online renderer but...
Denoising is used to swiftly clean what's effectively a preview image for production. Unless it's for a product placement or 3D concept, etc - online rendering really isn't used much if at all for any tv/film scenes at the moment to my knowledge(maybe some TV perhaps, but that's only due to budget constraints if at all). Denoising for online renderers have gotten much better, but the loss is still too great for it to be considered artistically performant for a motion picture render, so - say you're using VRAY and you've made whatever it is and you want to see how it may look in the scene, or at least how all the textures/materials look - you can now orbit your object and see if anything is wrong with a very representative render rather than wait however many seconds/minutes/hours for final render. Once it's approved it's then sent through the pipeline until it reaches rendering where those scenes are handled by a farm.
For real time rendering to look good quicker - it has to be denoised vs you waiting there for sampling to complete which will take all the longer depending on amount of geometry, shader complexity (especially refractive objects and those with detail subsurface scattering properties) and of course the amount of lights. Micro details, namely small shadows are the most impacted by denoising, and PT in Cyberpunk is no exception.
I'm attaching examples of denoising at work in 2077 just FYI.
Above we can see micro details loss on the shadows, but of course lots of noise reduction especially in the larger shadows casts by the short stools. Not acceptible for a film, but more than fine for a game - exceptional for a game actually as this and maybe Portal are the only games that are path traced I think.
Here were' even losing lighting information as the values in the lower right corner are so close the denoising is just blurring everything together. Impressive for a game producing these framerates, but horrific for anything else.
This one is just brutal. Sooooo much loss. Don't know whether NRC will make this better or worse. From the Nvidia videos so far it could go either way.
If you're looking all of the above thinking "I wouldn't mind all that noise" think again...
The exchange is more than fair when it comes to skin shaders
EDIT: These are all running the game with 4 direct rays, so surely it's even harsher with the standard 2.
I'll try not to write a treatise, and I'm not familiar with how different denoising is in a game vs an online renderer but...
Denoising is used to swiftly clean what's effectively a preview image for production. Unless it's for a product placement or 3D concept, etc - online rendering really isn't used much if at all for any tv/film scenes at the moment to my knowledge(maybe some TV perhaps, but that's only due to budget constraints if at all). Denoising for online renderers have gotten much better, but the loss is still too great for it to be considered artistically performant for a motion picture render, so - say you're using VRAY and you've made whatever it is and you want to see how it may look in the scene, or at least how all the textures/materials look - you can now orbit your object and see if anything is wrong with a very representative render rather than wait however many seconds/minutes/hours for final render. Once it's approved it's then sent through the pipeline until it reaches rendering where those scenes are handled by a farm.
For real time rendering to look good quicker - it has to be denoised vs you waiting there for sampling to complete which will take all the longer depending on amount of geometry, shader complexity (especially refractive objects and those with detail subsurface scattering properties) and of course the amount of lights. Micro details, namely small shadows are the most impacted by denoising, and PT in Cyberpunk is no exception.
I'm attaching examples of denoising at work in 2077 just FYI.
Above we can see micro details loss on the shadows, but of course lots of noise reduction especially in the larger shadows casts by the short stools. Not acceptible for a film, but more than fine for a game - exceptional for a game actually as this and maybe Portal are the only games that are path traced I think.
Here were' even losing lighting information as the values in the lower right corner are so close the denoising is just blurring everything together. Impressive for a game producing these framerates, but horrific for anything else.
This one is just brutal. Sooooo much loss. Don't know whether NRC will make this better or worse. From the Nvidia videos so far it could go either way.
If you're looking all of the above thinking "I wouldn't mind all that noise" think again...
The exchange is more than fair when it comes to skin shaders
EDIT: These are all running the game with 4 direct rays, so surely it's even harsher with the standard 2.
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I run 3 rays 2 bounce PT on a 4090 at 4k DLSS performance and the noise does not bother me at all. In fact, I rarely notice it. I think the game looks stunning as is.
? I think you may have missed what I was getting at. I meant the noise is harsh with denoising set to off and init rays set to 2. My post was about the current denoiser causing the odd local light texture bugs and image quality loss as a consequence of denoising.
No, I did follow you. When I said the noise did not bother me, I actually meant the image quality loss as a consequence of denoising. I should have been clearer.
luckily it seems a different denoiser will soon be used:
Just to clarify - Ray Reconstruction isn't a denoiser at all. The 'blending' Nvidia referred to in their recent video covering is the reprojection that happens after the render layers have been smeared by the denoiser. It's why among things like missing shadows, texture details, peculiar specular highlights, you may have noticed that there's a lighting and reflection lag - even when you're completely still and the camera is gently swaying.
You effectively get a less noisy image with near raw reference image clarity, but the denoising process has been removed entirely.