The Witcher 3 - Visuals

[Anonymous567]

Witcher 3 - Downgrade

GG CDProjekt way to go!!!

Youtuber's have recently released what they say as ULTRA quality, like seriously its not the "slap across the face" or "mind blown" visuals, SOD trailer looks way better. some negative points:

1) Foliage/grass textures look really bad, really putting me off. Really breaking the flow. Previous footage foliage looked much better
2) Still no ground tessellation
3) Draw distance downgraded

What happened to this???

 

[ReptilePZ]

Can I just quickly debunk this idea that the developers have to tell us exactly what's changed over the long iteration process of developing the game?

Do you have any idea just how many changes are made you don't even notice because certain areas and aspects of the game were never shown? A lot of it is on a technical level. The developers do not owe us a detailed changelog or an explanation as to why they did their job the way they did it. Games not looking 100% identical over several builds is not something new to gaming or The Witcher, for that matter.

This is what The Witcher 1 looked like in an early build:

[video=youtube;60ls40e-rG0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60ls40e-rG0[/video]

Anyone who's played the game will notice quite a few changes.

Same goes for TW2 and its early builds:

Visual, gameplay, story, structure etc. changes are not something new to game development. I understand people are paranoid because of some recent happenings with other companies - a subject that is beyond the scope of this thread. But, please, let's stop pretending that the devs are not allowed to make changes to their product as they iterate upon it.

As for the draw distance comparison, I'd just direct you to Angry Joe's video, where the fog at Skellige is so thick you can't even see the horizon, while Piet Smiet's (I think that's his name, at least) footage shows some quite impressive draw distance with no fog to be seen.

 

[B_l_a_d_y]

If you really compare the builds, the assets look rather similar. The most difference I see is a lack of sharpening and a different color palette.

between debut vgx sod and now there is big difference in everything

graphic shortely after sod and now are almost the same expect vegetation, now trees and bushes are blurry
(may be hard to spot on this particular pic but there is tons of examples from recent youtubers)

 

[Rawls]

3 prior locked threads with over 5000 posts. Read those first before you decide its a good idea to make a new one.

 

[Zabanzo]

Ohh, once again a newly registerted user starts this thread.... not brave enough to post it with your main account right?

 

[JasonShepard]

Immensely better. They messed up the trees and the grass..which is basically 90 percent of the game anyway.

But they are also missing things like higher quality tessellation, shaders, reflections, depth of field, and draw distance.

Also not quite sure what feature exactly they got rid of to make it look so cartoony..maybe lack of quality sub surface scattering of lighting.

And then there's just the issue about color palette, which is a whole other thing

I don't think they planned for any tessellation besides for the ocean. Shaders and reflections look fine, could you point out where it looks poor? Depth of Field is still in cutscenes, but I honestly don't like it in gameplay. Draw distance doesn't really matter too much as I think it looks fine the way it is.
The reason why it probably looks off to you is because I don't think they did a good job of blending the colors together. For example, when Geralt is traveling on a dirt road that's really brown and there are scraps of bright green grass in the middle, it looks horrible. An all colorful environment like at the end of the newest Gameplay Trailer, looks perfectly acceptable in terms of balancing colors.

 

[paulthu]

Can I just quickly debunk this idea that the developers have to tell us exactly what's changed over the long iteration process of developing the game?


...

it isn't many years ago when games used to look better in the final version compared to previews. Now that it's the other way around, devs should be more open about it.

 

[Anonymous567]

Please explain what happened to the last screen shot, Why does it not look like that WHY??

 

[oOParaOo]

Well, these are two very different areas in different lighting conditions, what should it prove, it actually just shows the diversity in the game world.

Also, what's up with the ultra low res upper shot? I can't even read the text.

bottom shot = witcher universe
top shot = trendy mmo rpg

i love the bottom shot and NNOO way it will look that good. Its a sales shot .. pity it looks cgi quality.

 

[Jeeers]

...
Geralt: Maybe it's the new footage. Seemingly poor foliage everywhere, stench of rotten tessellation, oversaturated colors. Drives downgraders crazy sometimes.

Vesemir: Men, too.

Geralt: We need to watch ourselves in Witcher 3 forums. And we shoud leave thread as fast as possible and judge by the final product.

:troll:

 

[caspartine]

Reminds me of ubisoft and that Watch dogs game big contrast is quality of graphics differences that where advertised at e3 and such compared to release version. Wish the industry would get out of that methodology.

You speak of methodology, like it's being done on purpose. Now I won't say much about UBI, cause I don't believe them their nose between their eyes, but I see one difference there. Watch dogs actually had the "almost E3 quality preview" settings in the game files, so it would seem they gelded it for the sake of consolists and basically even experience. We know nothing about MS/Sony -> developers relations in this area, but I'd bet neither of them would be pleased, if the game looked dramatically better on PC.

As for CDPR - I'd like to think all the undeniable cuts in the visuals were made mostly due to performace of the final build. I can not really say how completed the game was in the better looking trailers, but there was tons of stuff that was added between then and now. So I'm thinking, it may partly be a bad judgement on what the game actually CAN look like when everything's in, while running at a decent fps. I simply refuse to believe it was a purpose. Call me naive, if you have to.

 

[hamilcarBarca.196]

can we just wait until the game actually comes out before crying for downgrades please?

 

[McGregg]

can we just wait until the game actually comes out before crying for downgrades please?

Nope! That would be too easy...

 

[His_Majesty]

Not this again.

Seriously, if your first reaction after watching the gameplay videos was 'downgrade!!' then you should go play The Order or something, jesus.

 

[ReptilePZ]

it isn't many years ago when games used to look better in the final version compared to previews. Now that it's the other way around, devs should be open about it.

I understand you do not like some of the changes made to the game, I also don't like that barrels or shadows in TW1 don't look the way they did in that early demo. But that's just the reality of development and it always has been. So no, the devs don't need to suddenly explain their decisions and changes just because somebody on the Internet is unhappy with said changes.

And this is actually a very important distinction to be made - there have been changes made. Some of them you might like, others - you might not. But it's how things are and always have been. Developers are allowed to tweak things. You've been presented with plenty of footage that shows you what the results of these tweaks are. In this very thread you will notice many differing opinions on which change is good and which change isn't. I think that speaks for itself.

 

[moonknightgog]

You speak of methodology, like it's being done on purpose. Now I won't say much about UBI, cause I don't believe them their nose between their eyes, but I see one difference there. Watch dogs actually had the "almost E3 quality preview" settings in the game files, so it would seem they gelded it for the sake of consolists and basically even experience. We know nothing about MS/Sony -> developers relations in this area, but I'd bet neither of them would be pleased, if the game looked dramatically better on PC.

As for CDPR - I'd like to think all the undeniable cuts in the visuals were made mostly due to performace of the final build. I can not really say how completed the game was in the better looking trailers, but there was tons of stuff that was added between then and now. So I'm thinking, it may partly be a bad judgement on what the game actually CAN look like when everything's in, while running at a decent fps. I simply refuse to believe it was a purpose. Call me naive, if you have to.

Then make some UBER setting with the VGX quality with a "disclaimer" which says that those settings are only for the future.

 

[Guest 3702081]

Maybe my standards (or expectations) are not that high, but I can't see why the first two screenshots look considerably worse than the last.

And if there's a downgrade: can't there be graphic improvements later on, some time after release? There may be a cure for "bad" foliage and "bad" ground textures, but no patch can fix terrible gameplay or a horrible story. And those are the things which really matter.

 

[B_l_a_d_y]

I understand you do not like some of the changes made to the game, I also don't like that barrels or shadows in TW1 don't look as good as that early demo. But that's just the reality of development and it always has been. So no, the devs don't need to suddenly explains their decisions and changes just because somebody on the Internet is unhappy with said changes.

And this is actually a very important distinction to be made - there have been changes made. Some of them you might like, others - you might not. But it's how things are and always have been. In this very thread you will notice many differing opinions on which change is good and which change isn't. I think that speaks for itself.

CD Projekt is widely known as Jesus of gaming, i am sure they are proud of this title, but you know i have some price.

what if they decide to make paid dlc, drm and paid mods because

there have been changes made. Some of them you might like, others - you might not. But it's how things are and always have been.

 

[Anonymous567]

Marcin said its "reproducible", I say this is BULLSHIT. They showed us bullshots and now we get some watered down shit quality graphics!

 

[ReptilePZ]

CD Projekt is widely known as Jesus of gaming, i am sure they are proud of this title, but you know i have some price.

what if they decide to make paid dlc, drm and paid mods because

Please, don't take my statement out of context, which was changes to the game during development, it doesn't help your point