Treyarch defends Black Ops 2 ageing graphics: "What's wrong with our engine?" - Polidicks

[QUOTE=itisjuly;37984612]This is a "fake" good look. It's achieved by bloom and warm colors(brown, orange). Take that away and everything else looks rather bad.[/QUOTE] Isn't that sort of the point of shaders.

[QUOTE=dogmachines;37984389]It may not work on a 360, but that's no reason to cut it out entirely.[/QUOTE] Doing those things often requires a lot of change to the architecture of the engine in general. It's not like you just drop them in and say, "Cool, let's ship it,". Now you either have to re-abstract your engine's renderer from the ground up or maintain two separate branches. They probably have the funds to pull it off, but it's not worth spending so much time and effort on when the game looks good and runs great on all platforms.

First of all, I find it pretty ridiculous to blame it all on the engine, as if updating instantly showers your game in delicious shaders and HQ textures. A lot of good looking games today are still running on heavily modded UE3.5 because of how versatile the engine is - that's the key aspect. I'm really not a fan of incidents like CryEngine or Frostbite where entire sections of the campaign is strung along spectacle just to show off the graphics for trailers/screenshots/3rd party devs interested in licensing the engine. It's really superficial, and a huuuge money drain that barely improves the experience for me. I really don't get what's with the big hard-on for graphics. Pushing the limits with each generation is not only fine with me, it's gonna happen either way. But IMO we're at the point where the usefulness:money ratio is way off (prime example: Rage) and games would benefit a lot more if more money was put into other aspects like AI, environmental interactivity or storytelling through game mechanics. If those were the things that would be improved upon with each sequel instead of optics, I probably wouldn't be so opposed to sequelitis.

[QUOTE=ntzu;37984622]Isn't that sort of the point of shaders.[/QUOTE] The point is, even a game from 90s with bloom and soft sunset lighting will look good. I want to see a good looking shot that is not in this lighting.

[QUOTE=Downsider;37984376]Yeah, let's do those things on a 360 and keep the solid 60 framerate that the series is known for. Good idea.[/QUOTE] Yeah, because 360 is the only platform it's being released on. If the engine designed for PC, then ported to consoles (with advanced graphical features removed to keep frame rate up), then everyone could be happy. It's not like the majority of console players would care anyway.

I like CoD's graphics. It gets the job done.

[QUOTE=DaMastez;37984658]Yeah, because 360 is the only platform it's being released on. If the engine designed for PC, then ported to consoles (with advanced graphical features removed to keep frame rate up), then everyone could be happy. It's not like the majority of console players would care anyway.[/QUOTE] The PC COD gamers don't care much either.

[QUOTE=Marik Bentusi;37984628]First of all, I find it pretty ridiculous to blame it all on the engine, as if updating instantly showers your game in delicious shaders and HQ textures. A lot of good looking games today are still running on heavily modded UE3.5 because of how versatile the engine is - that's the key aspect. I'm really not a fan of incidents like CryEngine or Frostbite where entire sections of the campaign is strung along spectacle just to show off the graphics for trailers/screenshots/3rd party devs interested in licensing the engine. It's really superficial, and a huuuge money drain that barely improves the experience for me. I really don't get what's with the big hard-on for graphics. Pushing the limits with each generation is not only fine with me, it's gonna happen either way. But IMO we're at the point where the usefulness:money ratio is way off (prime example: Rage) and games would benefit a lot more if more money was put into other aspects like AI, environmental interactivity or storytelling through game mechanics. If those were the things that would be improved upon with each sequel instead of optics, I probably wouldn't be so opposed to sequelitis.[/QUOTE] IW and Treyarch seems to spend fuck all time on improving the graphics in Call of Duty, and let gameplay hasn't seen major changes since (arguable) 4 (perhaps 6, but that was just expanding upon 4). That said, I agree graphics shouldn't be the primary focus, gameplay first, graphics, sound, etc... are only there to support the gameplay and make it that much better.

i cant remember anyone getting over 30 fps on black ops 1 on release date and it took several weeks to fix

[QUOTE=A big fat ass;37984202]I don't understand it either. I think it's a nice looking engine. It's better than Source, at least.[/QUOTE] People will find any excuse to hate on call of duty, surprised the bandwagoning seems to be calming down now considering a year ago any thread about call of duty was filled with people hating on it and anyone who opposed them was swarmed by dumb ratings

Fuck the graphics.. just kill the franchise and start something new again. It's about gameplay and for the last 5/6 years there's been nothing but the same shit with a couple more perks, weapons and some new rechewed generic storyline. Oh wait the new one has futuristic warfare? Ughh..

[QUOTE=DaMastez;37984658]Yeah, because 360 is the only platform it's being released on. If the engine designed for PC, then ported to consoles (with advanced graphical features removed to keep frame rate up), then everyone could be happy. It's not like the majority of console players would care anyway.[/QUOTE] The thing is, the 360 is their primary platform. Most of their target audience plays on the Xbox. Also, while the CoD games aren't exactly the best looking, they're not egregiously hideous either. The graphics are fine, they should focus on changing the gameplay instead, since it's been the same for the last, what, four games now?

They've modded the living shit out of the Quake engine. Guess it's time to move onto something else.

[QUOTE=arthuro12;37984760] Oh wait the new one has futuristic warfare? Ughh..[/QUOTE] I dunno, I personally prefer futuristic warfare to the MODERN WARFARE BROWN KILL RUSSIANS/ARABS shit, we already have three CoD games filled with that to the brim. [editline]10th October 2012[/editline] damn ninja

Why do people care about graphics so much?

[QUOTE=Niklas;37984795]Why do people care about graphics so much?[/QUOTE] Because the first and (in some cases) most important impression is visual.

[QUOTE=Niklas;37984795]Why do people care about graphics so much?[/QUOTE] If we didn't, then nobody would be willing to push the boundaries and we'd be stuck with the same shit every year.

[QUOTE=Foda;37983824]The whole point is that BLOPS2 is [B]not[/B] raising the bar [B]at all[/B] in the graphics department. Compare BLOPS2 to CryEngine 3 or UE4. For example, here's a short list of things BLOPS does not have: -DoF with Bokeh -Object motion blur -Tessellation -Parallax/POM/displacement mapping -Subsurface scattering -Global illumination, realtime reflections, etc -Deferred rendering -Particle motion blur -Image lighting Also that fucking fireball explosion particle effect that is like 4 years old![/QUOTE] I don't like COD but please, it's not like you'd get most of these running decently on X360 so what exactly is the problem here? We all know COD games are console games before anything and then ported to pc in a finger in the nose developer method. It's not like they're any different from most of the game developers of today that use shitty unreal3 console>pc cooking.

Despite the high realistic graphics, the engine needs to go

[QUOTE=TheKritter71;37985001]Despite the high realistic graphics, the engine needs to go[/QUOTE] it seems many don't understand activision doesn't feel any necessity to change their engine or core gameplay yet, simply because the games still sell amazingly well. Why would you change a receipe that works and make bazillions of cash?

As dunky showed in his video for black ops 2 where he spliced in footage of the past several games, there hasn't been a noticeable change in graphics since CoD4 and it's just extremely dated. [editline]10th October 2012[/editline] [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6X3tsDRfX1k[/media]

[QUOTE=JeanLuc761;37984324]That's how EVERY console generation is, and it's simply the result of the console hardware being static while the PC hardware gets an update literally every few months. That said, it's remarkable what some developers can pull off with this generation's consoles (Naughty Dog, Insomniac Games, and Quantic Dream being some of the most dramatic examples).[/QUOTE] That's what makes a lot of games stand out amongst most AAA titles. You look at games like CoD which are extremely repetitive copies of one another and you can't be but not surprised by the lack of technical progress. Whereas these developers you listed really try to be innovative and try new things even with the technical limitations.

I disagree with gorgeous but the engine works. Built off Q3A and heavily modified, shooting and movement is smooth as hell, it runs on 8 year old hardware at 60 FPS, and has over a decade of documentation. And honestly at this point I've started turning off a lot of advanced video features in newer games (particularly Borderlands) in an effort to get above 60 FPS and to just make the game look cleaner. 60 FPS is a huge advantage and anyone who plays FPS games will tell you they prefer frames to high dynamic range bokeh water filter reflections or whatever you kids are on about this week. [editline]10th October 2012[/editline] [QUOTE=Bredirish123;37985176]That's what makes a lot of games stand out amongst most AAA titles. You look at games like CoD which are extremely repetitive copies of one another and you can't be but not surprised by the lack of technical progress. Whereas these developers you listed really try to be innovative and try new things even with the technical limitations.[/QUOTE] He listed Naughty Dog and while I honestly love them, Uncharted being one of my favorite series ever, I very much disagree. Uncharted 1 to Uncharted 3 was a series of polishing with some new additions. That's okay though, because they found a great formula that worked. Just like CoD does. [editline]10th October 2012[/editline] [QUOTE=Niklas;37984795]Why do people care about graphics so much?[/QUOTE] >When it's a game one likes "Graphics don't matter, it's the gameplay that counts, besides it doesn't even look that bad. It's perfectly playable" >When it's a game one does not like "This game looks like shit, do you see that ragdoll at the corner of the screen? Totally generic. And that explosion effect is so 2004"

[QUOTE=Foda;37983824]The whole point is that BLOPS2 is [B]not[/B] raising the bar [B]at all[/B] in the graphics department. Compare BLOPS2 to CryEngine 3 or UE4. For example, here's a short list of things BLOPS does not have: -DoF with Bokeh -Object motion blur -Tessellation -Parallax/POM/displacement mapping -Subsurface scattering -Global illumination, realtime reflections, etc -Deferred rendering -Particle motion blur -Image lighting Also that fucking fireball explosion particle effect that is like 4 years old![/QUOTE] Oh, I'm sorry, I thought games were intended to be fun instead of BREAKING THE LIMITS WITH SUPER REALISTIC GRAPHICS. The graphics of BO2 are actually really nice. The only people who complain about them are the usual CoD haters or people who need HUGE FUCKING REALISTIC GRAPHICS for...nothing.

The engine they use was designed and paid for by Activision/Treyarch/Whoever, and when they did they wanted it to be designed to last as long as possible in this market. It's actually very impressive to keep an engine at 60FPS on consoles, and it's even more impressive that they are still adding new features. Yeah the games themselves might be a tad on the casual gamer side, lack story, and don't appeal to a lot of gamers, but the graphics are not that bad for an online-oriented game.

[QUOTE=dass;37985354]Oh, I'm sorry, I thought games were intended to be fun instead of BREAKING THE LIMITS WITH SUPER REALISTIC GRAPHICS. The graphics of BO2 are actually really nice. The only people who complain about them are the usual CoD haters or people who need HUGE FUCKING REALISTIC GRAPHICS for...nothing.[/QUOTE] Nobody expects it to have super realistic graphics. They just haven't improved them in four years and that's a bit stupid.

[QUOTE=SKEEA;37983802]It's not gorgeous, but still using the engine is not a bad thing. Source is showing its age but it is still used.[/QUOTE] Still, I'd rather have a new engine. A source successor, that is.

[img]http://media.t3.com/img/resized/ca/xl_CallOfDuty_BlackOps2_11_624.jpg[/img] like if you think it's gorgeous

Think it looks decent considering it runs 60 FPS on 360 hardware, which is easily 8 years old.

Apart from the jagged edges, ugly textures and the fact the work experience boy changed the password to the colour palette before he left leaving only murky brown, black and grey, it is beautiful. I don't make a big thing of bashing CoD games. They're popular but not for me so I ignore it. But they sure do like opening themselves to criticism don't they?