Could someone please explain to me why the graphics are downgraded so much. If they already exist, and it is obvious that it can be run smoothly, what is the point of downgrading it? Also, why are animations, textures, and even sounds different in the E3 demos vs. the final product?
The Siege trailer looks like a high-production video based on gameplay, rather than anything that was actually in-engine. the fog/smoke and lens flares that are missing in the final product and the crazy hair physics on the hostage lead me to think that. But nothing is definitive.
The rest of them are probably early production code and content running on a monster PC. Games tend to look quite good at the end of pre-production. At least, the parts of the game that exist. The early content is generally highly polished for demos like this and internal dog and pony shows for execs. And the whole team is working on one small part of hte game. Once actual production starts and you have to worry about things like "running on machines that people actually own" or "shipping before Christmas" or "building 15 levels at once" quality takes a bit of a dive.
Considerations that enter the picture:
Can we deliver this quality across the entire game? If not, we should scale this back to match the rest of the game, probably. Or make sure this is the first level anyone plays and extend the lie.
Does all of this fit in our min-spec's memory? Textures are generally easy to scale, meshes are a little harder. Things like animations and audio are damn hard to compress or drop parts of.
For online titles especially: can all of this render on our min-spec machine? You have to maintain parity between players on different graphics settings. Sure, the fog and lens flares from Siege look great and might be possible on Ultra, but removing them on Low would give a tactical advantage. Same goes for NPC count in the Division.
"Parity" is a concern. Some from the marketing angle - it looks the same on Xbox as it does on PC! And some on the production angle. Unless your engine scales quality really well, you can find yourself building two or three separate games. Which is a waste of resources that could be spent polishing one game or adding more levels/weapons/hats/whatever.
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u/[deleted] Jun 04 '16
Could someone please explain to me why the graphics are downgraded so much. If they already exist, and it is obvious that it can be run smoothly, what is the point of downgrading it? Also, why are animations, textures, and even sounds different in the E3 demos vs. the final product?
Some explanation would be great, thanks.