Is Ray-Tracing worth it?

[VFX_Veteran]

I know some people love it, but I just don't care about it and never will. If anything it seems to make artistic environmental design worse, because it means devs rely on 'realism' rather than specifically sculpting the lighting to portray a unique, specific emotions and moods.

I might agree with you if I never worked in the industry and gotten use to how proper lighting is supposed to look. It was always jumping out of the screen and into my face. I can't stand objects that don't cast shadows and the flat look of textures.

 

[VFX_Veteran]

For lighting, definitely. I can't stand baked lighting unless the main light source is truly static.

Lighting is a huge factor in the way games look overall.

 

[VFX_Veteran]

If you wouldn't notice a difference, don't say this is a night and day difference, I'd say you don't care much about visuals and could also just play on the lowest settings because the difference would be smaller in most games than this (low res screens but enough to see the difference):

They just picked random scenes here, because it's a huge ass open world game. There are no "intended focal points" that are suddenly harder to see, it's just some NPCs being with their back to a light source, obviously making their faces dark. When you play through the game, the more cinematic scenes look great and not too dark.

Comparing scenes isn't the point, though. The point of this solution is that even with the dynamically changing time of day and weather conditions, the game looks beliavable and grounded. At all times, in all locations, it's all consistent. While vanilla, some scenes look great, nearly indistinguishable from the path traced scenes even. But then you go to a different area where devs couldn't hand craft every corner, and it looks a generation worse, bland, flat, ugly.
And you can't avoid that in games of that scale, non RT tech simply can't handle dynamic environments well on a broad scale.

The differences above might not be significant to you, but could you name a setting that is more impactful, one that adds more to a scene and the visual quality?

Thanks for this.

It's really a night and day difference when you force the GI to be RT vs. GI light probes. Unfortunately, it's the most costly RT feature there is. Bouncing rays around the scene to see if pixels are in shadow or not is very costly. But the difference is transformative and not even up for debate on what looks better. It's also not just a minor difference if we judge the facts.

Being consistent is top priority for a technical art director. You want the lighting to be effective no matter what conditions. That means fog, or rain or any other FX that contribute to lighting is very important. Using RTGI, you won't have to worry about spending that extra time and money to hand fix a specific scene. It becomes daunting.

 

[VFX_Veteran]

The current implementation and usage of RT seems more like people just want an automated one size fits all solution for lighting issues and that smacks of laziness/a desire to cut corners.

I disagree with blaming the developers for being lazy. We have budget constraints -- AND games are costing a LOT more money to make due to the complexity of the graphics and gameplay. The longer it takes for developers to create a convincing scene, the more money it costs. Imagine then where the RT lighting solves that issue when creating the scenes so the artists don't have to manually place light probes for every scene. They can move on to other tasks and not have to worry about spending months trying to set up GI light probes and/or baked lighting where things are forced to not be dynamic.

 

[Dacon]

I disagree with blaming the developers for being lazy.

I do not care. Problems force people to develop solutions, and there's gotta be better solutions available than super costly techniques whose effects most laymen won't even notice or care about. These problems are what drove some of the coolest breakthroughs in rendering technique, especially in console game.
Games cost an incredible amount of money these days due to numerous factors. Chief amongst them in my opinion, lack of direction,poor planning, and trying to turn games into films. I can only see attempting to pin that cost on art direction and scene composition as a bit silly. No one is forcing everyone to try and make every game hyper realistic.
I'm not going to entertain the idea that a game cannot achieve beautiful graphics at a reasonable budget. As I feel that's been disproven. There are plenty of absolutely gorgeous indie games out there.
Even if RT does become super optimized and accurate, people are still going to find themselves spending a significant amount of time compositing scenes by hand simply because realistic and accurate lighting is NOT optimal for every scene, hell if cinematography is anything to go by it isn't optimal for MOST scenes if you want your scene to be visually gripping and interesting. This is why films traditionally have used unrealistic lighting by way of carefully placed spot and point lights. Reality is not cinematic.
Look at how flat the lighting looks in just about every modern remaster of an older game, despite using more modern GI solutions. Mass Effect Legendary Edition straight up nuked its lighting with that crap. Everything has become washed out and ugly. The original series' use of carefully placed directional lights to dramatically light scenes is almost completely absent due to this implementation. This is ESPECIALLY noticeable in ME2, where the lighting is meant to portray the dark nature of the narrative. The careful creative intent of the lighting of the original game is lost.The characters lose depth in the shadows on their bodies, and scenes that were once carefully lit for dramatic effect have been flattened out, lessening their impact.

 

[regawdless]

Boner? Boner.

 

[VFX_Veteran]

I do not care. Problems force people to develop solutions, and there's gotta be better solutions available than super costly techniques whose effects most laymen won't even notice or care about.

Well, right there is the crux of the problem with this conversation. You mention not caring about the fallguy but then state "most" people won't notice or care. How can you make objective claims with subjective judgement? People do notice a difference and I would say most. Why? Because it's being talked about online ad infinitum. Why do you think there are strongly opinionated PS/XSX gamers? They talk about their 1st party games and how they look -- like 95% of the time. And that's been going on generation after generation.

These problems are what drove some of the coolest breakthroughs in rendering technique, especially in console game.

But all things reach a limit at some point. PS4 generation reached it with GI lighting and PBR shading.

I'm not going to entertain the idea that a game cannot achieve beautiful graphics at a reasonable budget. As I feel that's been disproven. There are plenty of absolutely gorgeous indie games out there.

Yes but those games don't sell as well as the 1st party games. Indie devs are using a unified graphics engine where one company (Epic) can do R&D more than any other gaming company out there due to the money (i.e. very similar to Nvidia making the hardware they are making).

Even if RT does become super optimized and accurate, people are still going to find themselves spending a significant amount of time compositing scenes by hand simply because realistic and accurate lighting is NOT optimal for every scene,

Agree but having the ability to do the hardcore RT features should be an option. A lot of companies don't have time or money to reinvent the wheel every time new hardware comes out that drives developers to make games supporting it. I'm sorry but game studios are at the mercy of the hardware they can run their games on. Nvidia/AMD/Intel, etc.. drive innovation and complexity forward every generation (~2yrs). MSFT and Sony make the APIs to access that hardware to make games with. If hardware companies suddenly stopped making more powerful and faster hardware, people would get bored and I think gaming as we know it would move to another platform (i.e. cellphones).

 

[DESTROYA]

It's good but never use it , performance takes too big a hit

 

[Dacon]

People do notice a difference and I would say most.

Enthusiasts notice, and even they aren't going to notice most of the inaccuracies in lighting that analysts like DF will point out in their videos.

I do not believe it's most people, if you look in the comments on almost any RT comparison video on youtube, the comments are always full of people who say there is no different between RT on and off.

Why? Because it's being talked about online ad infinitum.

This isn't a barometer of anything dude. Most people aren't on the internet all the time to begin with, and when they do it's usually your average social media dreck.

Hardcore gamers are the ones obsessing over this stuff, not your average casual.

Why do you think there are strongly opinionated PS/XSX gamers? They talk about their 1st party games and how they look -- like 95% of the time. And that's been going on generation after generation.

Yes, fanboys are going to fanboy, this is true. They use whatever ammunition they can in their silly console warring.

But all things reach a limit at some point. PS4 generation reached it with GI lighting and PBR shading.

Yes but those games don't sell as well as the 1st party games. Indie devs are using a unified graphics engine where one company (Epic) can do R&D more than any other gaming company out there due to the money (i.e. very similar to Nvidia making the hardware they are making).

Dude the Ori franchise has sold over 10 million copies worldwide. That may not be all that impressive to you, but thats a fuck ton for an indie franchise. A game doesn't need to sell 40 million copies to be a success, especially if you wisely manage your time and budget.

Agree but having the ability to do the hardcore RT features should be an option.

I never said it shouldn't. I don't have a problem with RT, I have a problem with people trying to use it as a solution to everything and ignoring any attempts at developing new, or improving existing rendering technology. I just think that stifles progression.

A lot of companies don't have time or money to reinvent the wheel every time new hardware comes out that drives developers to make games supporting it.

So we just stagnate? Just solely rely on brute force solutions without driving towards new developments? Limitation and hardship drive innovation.

If hardware companies suddenly stopped making more powerful and faster hardware, people would get bored and I think gaming as we know it would move to another platform (i.e. cellphones).

I wholly disagree. Your average gamer wouldnt give a fuck, and developers would continue to find newer and more exciting ways to make stunning visuals.

 

[VFX_Veteran]

Enthusiasts notice, and even they aren't going to notice most of the inaccuracies in lighting that analysts like DF will point out in their videos.

I do not believe it's most people, if you look in the comments on almost any RT comparison video on youtube, the comments are always full of people who say there is no different between RT on and off.



This isn't a barometer of anything dude. Most people aren't on the internet all the time to begin with, and when they do it's usually your average social media dreck.

Hardcore gamers are the ones obsessing over this stuff, not your average casual.



Yes, fanboys are going to fanboy, this is true. They use whatever ammunition they can in their silly console warring.




Dude the Ori franchise has sold over 10 million copies worldwide. That may not be all that impressive to you, but thats a fuck ton for an indie franchise. A game doesn't need to sell 40 million copies to be a success, especially if you wisely manage your time and budget.



I never said it shouldn't. I don't have a problem with RT, I have a problem with people trying to use it as a solution to everything and ignoring any attempts at developing new, or improving existing rendering technology. I just think that stifles progression.



So we just stagnate? Just solely rely on brute force solutions without driving towards new developments? Limitation and hardship drive innovation.



I wholly disagree. Your average gamer wouldnt give a fuck, and developers would continue to find newer and more exciting ways to make stunning visuals.

Yea, we'll just have to agree to disagree here. These generational upgraded graphics features didn't just start with RT. Every single generation back to the days of Atari's pong has graduated to more complex and prettier graphics. That's not an opinion, it's a fact. You can see the generations. If we were forced to play old PS2 era graphics games today, I doubt your argument would hold in the long run.

 

[Dacon]

Yea, we'll just have to agree to disagree here. These generational upgraded graphics features didn't just start with RT. Every single generation back to the days of Atari's pong has graduated to more complex and prettier graphics. That's not an opinion, it's a fact. You can see the generations. If we were forced to play old PS2 era graphics games today, I doubt your argument would hold in the long run.

I.....didn't say anything about there being no generational leaps in graphics.

 

[VFX_Veteran]

I.....didn't say anything about there being no generational leaps in graphics.

You misunderstood me. I'm saying generational graphics leaps were required for each generation -- proving that graphics, as a whole, is the entire premise by which games evolve. You are saying it's not needed from generation to generation -- a direct contradiction to what's actual reality.

 

[rofif]

It's not worth implementing in my opinion.
Games like tlou2 or uncharted 4 prove that you can get BETTER effect combining good raster bake and some dynamic lighting.
Sure it's not fully dynamic but has it even bothered you in those games?
To reach tlou2 levels of bake in real time raster is very very very expsnive.

not a single ounce of RT here. Even mirrors work and are sharper than RT mirrors.

I could post tons more. Some Death Stranding, forbidden West or ff16 look better than almost anything ray traced. And run better for the most part.
Not to mention uncharted 4 GI without ray tracing that you have in levels with flashlight

 

[Bernd Lauert]

It's not worth implementing in my opinion.
Games like tlou2 or uncharted 4 prove that you can get BETTER effect combining good raster bake and some dynamic lighting.
Sure it's not fully dynamic but has it even bothered you in those games?
To reach tlou2 levels of bake in real time raster is very very very expsnive.

not a single ounce of RT here. Even mirrors work and are sharper than RT mirrors.

I could post tons more. Some Death Stranding, forbidden West or ff16 look better than almost anything ray traced. And run better for the most part.
Not to mention uncharted 4 GI without ray tracing that you have in levels with flashlight

While that's some top tier baked lighting, it still looks fake compared to RT. A path-traced TLOU2 or UC4 would look quite a bit better.

 

[cryptoadam]

It's not worth implementing in my opinion.
Games like tlou2 or uncharted 4 prove that you can get BETTER effect combining good raster bake and some dynamic lighting.
Sure it's not fully dynamic but has it even bothered you in those games?
To reach tlou2 levels of bake in real time raster is very very very expsnive.

not a single ounce of RT here. Even mirrors work and are sharper than RT mirrors.

I could post tons more. Some Death Stranding, forbidden West or ff16 look better than almost anything ray traced. And run better for the most part.
Not to mention uncharted 4 GI without ray tracing that you have in levels with flashlight

That's been my point. Even with RT it looks what 10% better ? 20%? And i am willing to bet 90% of people if you showed them that and said it was RT they would agree.
Maybe in a decade when GPUs are powerful enough that RT is like running polygons then it's useful. Even then it kind of takes the artistry out of gaming. Just turn on RT and all the lighting is done for you instead of having to actually design the game.
And we need to remember games are meant to be played at the end of the day it's rare in a game you just stop and watch. When your running shooting meleeing etc you don't have much time to notice the light source didn't indirectly light the under carriage of the chair in the corner of the room. Maybe I'm different but when I am playing a game lighting shadows reflections really become secondary and outside my view since I'm focusing on shooting or jumping or attacking.

 

[regawdless]

It's not worth implementing in my opinion.
Games like tlou2 or uncharted 4 prove that you can get BETTER effect combining good raster bake and some dynamic lighting.
Sure it's not fully dynamic but has it even bothered you in those games?
To reach tlou2 levels of bake in real time raster is very very very expsnive.

not a single ounce of RT here. Even mirrors work and are sharper than RT mirrors.

I could post tons more. Some Death Stranding, forbidden West or ff16 look better than almost anything ray traced. And run better for the most part.
Not to mention uncharted 4 GI without ray tracing that you have in levels with flashlight

Those are the best case scenarios for baked lighting. They show the benefit of those solutions. They also highlight what I hate about gaming, they're like art galleries. Every scene had to be manually crafted, very carefully with huge development resources, time and money being invested. Only to look nice, but without any interaction, any dynamic, any life. It only works because you can't actually do anything. You can't move the tables or chairs around, you can't jump on the bed, the pillows don't react to anything.
So much work had to be invested into making fake lighting believable but please don't touch anything.

 

[VFX_Veteran]

Those are the best case scenarios for baked lighting. They show the benefit of those solutions. They also highlight what I hate about gaming, they're like art galleries. Every scene had to be manually crafted, very carefully with huge development resources, time and money being invested. Only to look nice, but without any interaction, any dynamic, any life. It only works because you can't actually do anything. You can't move the tables or chairs around, you can't jump on the bed, the pillows don't react to anything.
So much work had to be invested into making fake lighting believable but please don't touch anything.

Exactly.

 

[rofif]

Those are the best case scenarios for baked lighting. They show the benefit of those solutions. They also highlight what I hate about gaming, they're like art galleries. Every scene had to be manually crafted, very carefully with huge development resources, time and money being invested. Only to look nice, but without any interaction, any dynamic, any life. It only works because you can't actually do anything. You can't move the tables or chairs around, you can't jump on the bed, the pillows don't react to anything.
So much work had to be invested into making fake lighting believable but please don't touch anything.

So with RT everything can be interactive.. yet it's not. not yet.
Waiting for good use of it

 

[Hostile_18]

Yeah I was just going to say that nearly every game regardless of lighting is static as fuck. Everything made of concrete.

Naughty Dog games are linear of course, so have an advantage, but nothing looks better graphics wise IMO.

 

[HE1NZ]

I've maybe played 3 games that use it, but it's usually cool as hell. In Robocop having puddles of water give off realistic reflection is quite an improvement. Screen space reflection always suck.

 

[Hostile_18]

I've maybe played 3 games that use it, but it's usually cool as hell. In Robocop having puddles of water give off realistic reflection is quite an improvement. Screen space reflection always suck.

Have you played Mafia Remake? They are REALLY good in that.

 

[HE1NZ]

Have you played Mafia Remake? They are REALLY good in that.

Not if you move camera a bit. SSR is a cheap trick that's gonna always date games to 2010s. It's time to retire it. RT reflections aren't even that hardware demanding. It's full pathtracing that will be unreachable for the time being.

 

[HE1NZ]

Returnal on PC has ray traced audio.

Wat? Like EAX?

 

[Dacon]

You misunderstood me. I'm saying generational graphics leaps were required for each generation -- proving that graphics, as a whole, is the entire premise by which games evolve. You are saying it's not needed from generation to generation -- a direct contradiction to what's actual reality.

I literally did not fucking say this. Argue with the fucking shadows some more.

If hardware companies suddenly stopped making more powerful and faster hardware, people would get bored and I think gaming as we know it would move to another platform (i.e. cellphones).

You said this, a scenario that is based in the now from your own words, and I disagreed. Video game visuals have evolved to a point where we have absolutely amazing looking games, and most people wouldn't feel too bad if we found the ceiling of hardware power. That doesn't mean graphics wouldn't get better.
I believe people would find new and cool ways to improve rendering technology to make games even more beautiful and efficient. It would force us into a new age of optimization and experimentation that would undoubtedly reap many benefits.
The idea that people would move to cellphones is silly af. You cannot have the same experiences you can on pc and console on cellphones based on heavy input limitations alone. Cellphones have so many limitations that current year hardware do not. Look at how RE4 and RE8's iphone ports bombed. The games were a complete mess, and left people super unsatisfied. Then there were the overheating issues.
No one is giving up console or pc gaming for cellphones in any scenario. People play games for so many more reasons than graphics, it's why people are playing retro games more than current year drivel.

 

[regawdless]

Wat? Like EAX?

They trace the way of the sounds for them to behave in a realistic way, meaning they change when the room gets bigger etc.

 

[Hostile_18]

Not if you move camera a bit. SSR is a cheap trick that's gonna always date games to 2010s. It's time to retire it. RT reflections aren't even that hardware demanding. It's full pathtracing that will be unreachable for the time being.

Even in worse implementations I've never felt like SSR was poor or immersion breaking honestly. I mean a reflection is a reflection sure one can have more detail but it's not really a big deal to me, especially not for the hardware hit.

 

[Hostile_18]

They trace the way of the sounds for them to behave in a realistic way, meaning they change when the room gets bigger etc.

I've played Returnal alot as we know. I have the full Atmos setup, well 5.1.2. I always just thought it was a really good surround sound setup, in a similar vain to say Doom Eternal etc. If it wasn't pointed out to me, I would say there was a massive difference between it and a well done 5.1 profile.

 

[HE1NZ]

Even in worse implementations I've never felt like SSR was poor or immersion breaking honestly. I mean a reflection is a reflection sure one can have more detail but it's not really a big deal to me, especially not for the hardware hit.

It annoyed me a great deal in Assassin Creed games. You travel on a boat and reflections are all weird.

 

[HE1NZ]

They trace the way of the sounds for them to behave in a realistic way, meaning they change when the room gets bigger etc.

Sounds cool though this tech existed for decades.

 

[VFX_Veteran]

It's not worth implementing in my opinion.
Games like tlou2 or uncharted 4 prove that you can get BETTER effect combining good raster bake and some dynamic lighting.
Sure it's not fully dynamic but has it even bothered you in those games?
To reach tlou2 levels of bake in real time raster is very very very expsnive.

not a single ounce of RT here. Even mirrors work and are sharper than RT mirrors.

I'll critique some of these.

This room is too bright in the corner. It looks washed out. Perfect example of GI light probes. The light from outside should have the typical inverse-squared falloff. The bounces will also lose energy while scattering so it should be much darker.

This shot is a little better but behind the counter should be dark and not lit so brightly. The cash registers should have much more occlusion than they have. The counter has no reflection but using just shadowing.

This is much better looking scene. But there are some things that jump out. The red carpet should bounce it's color onto the cabinet with the drawing board. It's doing it for the cabinet with the computer screen. This shows a clear sign of baked.

I could post tons more. Some Death Stranding, forbidden West or ff16 look better than almost anything ray traced. And run better for the most part.

I don't want to get into a screenshot contest but I will say that nothing in TLOU2's interiors will match the quality of hardware Lumen in SH2.

Baked solutions are great for static scenes. But clearly this will not work for open world games or games that have physics involved with objects moving and a TOD where the sun and dynamic lights move requiring a change of light bounce. The solution to not using RT is extremely limited. It took far more time for the artists to make those static scenes by running a pre-bake pass to actually do all the RT offline only to turn around and put it into a texture map and blend with the other textures. Using realtime RT will negate all of that and open up avenues to much more consistent visuals at a much lower cost since artists time (i.e. salary) is the limiting factor here.

 

[Dacon]

I've played Returnal alot as we know. I have the full Atmos setup, well 5.1.2. I always just thought it was a really good surround sound setup, in a similar vain to say Doom Eternal etc. If it wasn't pointed out to me, I would say there was a massive difference between it and a well done 5.1 profile.

Dude I'm not gonna lie, between the music, the sounds the monsters make, the guns, and all the explosions in DOOM the mix gets pretty overstuffed to the point where directional audio almost seems nonexistent imo.

 

[Zulith]

I have a fairly new rig with a 4080 Super in it. I'm not sure i've even tried ray tracing in any games yet, unless it was enabled and I didn't realize it.

 

[Hostile_18]

Dude I'm not gonna lie, between the music, the sounds the monsters make, the guns, and all the explosions in DOOM the mix gets pretty overstuffed to the point where directional audio almost seems nonexistent imo.

It has been a while since I played it (truly I can't remember if it was Eternal or 2016) but I just remember cool things like dodging a fireball and it feeling like it was flying down my right across the living room etc. Sure there are games with better 5.1s out there though for sure.

 

[regawdless]

So with RT everything can be interactive.. yet it's not. not yet.
Waiting for good use of it

Devs work with what they have. If you only have lighting options that can deal well with static environments, which was the case before RTGI, devs aren't likely to develop their tools, engines and logics towards dynamic worlds. Having the carpet being able to move for example would break their lighting for the scene. It's also a thing of time and resources. Those scenes you posted took a lot of time to get right. With RT, they could've just placed some lights in real time, adjust the values, be done.

I believe once we see RTGI becoming the norm, that it'll boost creativity and output quality in general because a ton of busywork regarding trying to implement a ton of tricks to get lighting right will be obsolete.

 

[regawdless]

I have a fairly new rig with a 4080 Super in it. I'm not sure i've even tried ray tracing in any games yet, unless it was enabled and I didn't realize it.

Try Cyberpunk without RT and then with Overdrive and Ray Reconstruction in a nice place with many reflections and indirect lighting, I'd be surprised if you didn't notice a difference

 

[regawdless]

Btw. software Lumen is nice overall, big step up from most other lighting solutions. But some of the noise is bad.

 

[rofif]

I'll critique some of these.

This room is too bright in the corner. It looks washed out. Perfect example of GI light probes. The light from outside should have the typical inverse-squared falloff. The bounces will also lose energy while scattering so it should be much darker.


This shot is a little better but behind the counter should be dark and not lit so brightly. The cash registers should have much more occlusion than they have. The counter has no reflection but using just shadowing.



This is much better looking scene. But there are some things that jump out. The red carpet should bounce it's color onto the cabinet with the drawing board. It's doing it for the cabinet with the computer screen. This shows a clear sign of baked.


I don't want to get into a screenshot contest but I will say that nothing in TLOU2's interiors will match the quality of hardware Lumen in SH2.

Baked solutions are great for static scenes. But clearly this will not work for open world games or games that have physics involved with objects moving and a TOD where the sun and dynamic lights move requiring a change of light bounce. The solution to not using RT is extremely limited. It took far more time for the artists to make those static scenes by running a pre-bake pass to actually do all the RT offline only to turn around and put it into a texture map and blend with the other textures. Using realtime RT will negate all of that and open up avenues to much more consistent visuals at a much lower cost since artists time (i.e. salary) is the limiting factor here.

That's a fair critique. Interesting that the best one it's uncharted 4. That game is great.

As for silent hill 2, that's a tough one because it technically it's dynamic and does look great but I played it on ps5 so it looked great with software lumen.
So in my eyes is still a proof what you can do without real hardware rt

 

[Dacon]

Btw. software Lumen is nice overall, big step up from most other lighting solutions. But some of the noise is bad.

UE5 would be amazing if it had much, much better optimization. I'm not even that bothered with the noise, since I used to do 3d renders and honestly got kinda used to the fireflies.

 

[VFX_Veteran]

UE5 would be amazing if it had much, much better optimization. I'm not even that bothered with the noise, since I used to do 3d renders and honestly got kinda used to the fireflies.

Yea, I'm really starting to think that DX12 is the bottleneck here for performance.

 

[regawdless]

Forza Motorsport on PC got an RTGI update, looking good!