Blacksmith demo?

It's pointless since anyone can compile something, using any tech and custom tech. So a binary as "proof of no cheating" never, ever makes sense.

 

Well for me a lot of it comes down to time, if the artists had a material editor I could probably push them to do the shaders. But a lot of them don't know how to code them, so I'm stuck making shaders whilst the artists are twiddling thumbs and I'm ignoring what I should be doing.

So yeah I agree with you a material editor would be cool, also there's a difference between good post and great post. Even though the Blacksmith demo looks great, it still isn't as good as Yebis or UE4's post processing. So it's difficult for even experienced shader experts, what I struggle with is not making it look good.. Using Nvidia's DN as a guide it's not too hard, but making it run without severe impact I struggle with.

 

Some kinds of cheating would be recognized, e.g. if it only runs at 1 FPS and was rendered to a video that way. Of course the binary could be a video player, but you can see that from GPU stats.

I don't say they cheated, but having the binary to run ourselves would be nice.

 

The Blacksmith demo is great. There is a story, cultural traits, balance, filmic looks. It is more than just shiny graphics.
It is a short film !

Congrats to the demo team that achieved all that.

 

Perhpas that demos would be faked in some way ?
They could be demos running on multiple computer calculation, or pre rendered demos, or demo saving some images per frame that you assemble to make a fluid video ?
We didn't get Epic Infiltrator demo for similar reason it seems.

That'why you should always truts a demo and not videos.

 

Is Shader Forge not up to the task?

 

This is not the first time we have some presenting a game demo, than a problem occurs during their presentation and you see it's just a recorded video.
Perhaps the demo used dirt tricks and was hard coded on many points like visibilty and others things to keep a good frame rate ?

Anyway, demos are demos, we can do without because what matters is the 3D engine real capabilities.
The only interest on demos is to be able to learn something from them.

 

@Ryiah

I've become less and less inclined to use third party asset store software for many reasons, I'm not sure about shader forge. I suppose I could try it..

@superpig

If our game looked like that I'd be over the moon. But even if it was released in 2013 Crysis 3 still is far more graphically impressive, so it's not that hard to believe IMO.

 

Crysis is one of the only one to have dynamic realtime GI.
Why don't you not take Crysis ? yes it's hard to learn and lack of doc, very Fps centric, but some companies made mmos using it.

About UE4, for people making smaller games than yours that is open world, UE4 is a really good deal and an run at a good speed with good effects on. I can run the editor and i have the Shooter demo running at 20 fps on a laptop having a radeon 6000 series.
UE4 is good for game like Gears of War , not too big levels, and in that case i'm not sure Unity 5 could keep same frame rate displaying such advanced graphics.

 

The blacksmith is a step forward, but I find is gloomy and dull. It could not hold a candle to the UE demos.

 

So, ignoring the posts with nothing but pure opinion on the actual look of the demo

I agree that a release, whenever these "demos" appear, side by side, is more valuable.

Now I read up there about custom shaders and whatnot -- but, who cares if this demo was specific to a platform, with specific shaders?

Why not release it as is, as you have it done, for people to really dig into and play around with it?

If the shaders are working only on a few platforms, again, who cares, release them that way.

I dont ever expect to see this running 30 fps on my friggin android + all the post effects, that is just stupid. Maybe one day.

So why keep things like those customs bits locked up just because you cant satisfy 20+ platforms with continuity.

Play to the strength of the engine on specific, mass market platforms.

Does anyone really think we are waiting because the shaders dont work on WII or Blackberrys? o.0

 

The blacksmith demo relies on Unity editor work in progress tools like Director. This is still being designed, although was sufficiently complete to control the camera.

It has nothing to do with Unity being evil or mean, more that you can't use it yet. Plus the size of it is insane and Unity needs to find time to strip it down.

Do you have a source for that information, or did you make it up?

 

Because it is impossible, this means something.
I would just forget the demo if i was you.

 

The main deal breaker, if you encounter a bug CryTek don't care and you can't release a game with major bugs. CryTek only have to improve support, usability and drop scaleform. Then it would be a perfect solution..

At the core it is a very powerful engine, I don't think anyone would deny that. Yes I would agree with the rest ..

 

As it stands right now, both Butterfly Effect and Blacksmith Demo are like advertising "Things Unity can do in case you have the budget and staff size to get the best out of Unreal or CryEngine" except Blacksmith isn't even that graphically impressive and there are already many games and single artist showcases out there running in real-time that look better than it.

The irony in here is that we are always saying "It is all in the art!" and then Unity goes around making a cool Tech Demo where they focus in the ANIMATION (least engine dependent part) rather than the graphics and rendering They should set their priorities straight.

Basically, just like the Butterfly Effect, the Blacksmith is just a waste of time with priorities set in the wrong place.
"Unity can do that?!" No. A team of animators + any game engine can.

 

Sounds like every other demo I've ever seen.

 

Weird, I actually liked the demo. I thought it was very nice.
My only issue with it is the lack of interactivity. I'd like to see more interactivity in the demos presented to see how the engine can be pushed in a game development process.
If I wanted to make the Blacksmith demo, and had the ability and time - I'd do it pre-rendered in Max since there is no point in delivering a non-interactive piece in an interactive design/development platform.

That's one thing I don't understand, why use Unity when there is no interactivity? And the difficulty of coding/rigging/shader design/lighting, setting up a scene like that could be done a lot simpler in Max/Maya (other animation tool) and slap it in as a pre-rendered cut scene.

 

To show off Unity's graphics power.

 

I vote for a remake of the Avert Fate Demo next time.

 

Animation is not the highlight of the Samaritan or Infiltrator demo.
Neither is CryEngine default Forest scene.

Exactly this is my point.
It is a cool demo but it focuses too much on an aspect that has nothing to do with the game engine but the individual animator skill.

 

I agree that is not impressive, compared to other ones.
I imagine Unity didn't had the ressources and time to make something more advanced.

Why not proposing in Unity in standard assets something just named :
"extra" shaders with some quick explanations
If someone made them because they enhance visuals, other people will need them to bypass limitations and make visuals better also. And i imagine other people will use these special ones to make new specific shader packs.

 

Unless you are a non-coder as I am.
That'd be pretty nice to have as a node based visual editor. Please!!

 

You don't have to be a coder in order to code.

 

Maybe, but it seems that this project was realized by three employees of UT (in no time) and it runs on a standard configuration. This makes the difference and should be indicated.

 

Who said that ? Who said it wsa fast and made by 3 employees ? Do you have some link or it is vaporware ?
The demo is representing Unity5 new features.

 

English is not my native and maybe i'm wrong.

Here, starting at 1:00:00

 

You're right. I remember very well having heard Joachim say that the idea was to simulate what a small team could do.

But English is also not my native language so I could be wrong..

 

As he was saying , they re used a lot of assets.
I think we don't specially need the demo really, instead perhaps some cool shaders from it.

 

I think that everything will be incorporated into Unity as soon as is polished enough. Maybe in 5.2 or later

 

I prefer them to put efforts on next features instead of the demo.

 

The custom shaders and image effects are, somehow new features. The some goes for de Director

 

For me the important thing is the fact that it runs on a standard configuration: it means they have not pushed the engine to its limit unlike EPIC's demos.

 

And why wouldn't that be the case already? And as mentioned earlier, small contents and pieces will be released over time. Or just ask anyone who can write a shader to write one as described by Joachim. Shaders are not that hard to use when working with Unity's ShaderLabs, especially when most of the work is done for you.

Precisely, what is the point of showcasing a demo that can run only on a high-end machine, much like with a Titan X at 30FPS, when only less than 40% of users could barely run it at a constant FPS?

 

What is their definition of a standard configuration? Actual specifications would be nice rather than vague statements.

 

Point taken. So, Joachim Ante?!

 

I'm sorry, by limit do you mean showing off a gdc demo on unreleased hardware like a Titan X?
Because Unity could mislead you if you want them to. No, thought not.

 

No, i mean this is a good thing if the Unity's (Blacksmith or another) demo can be 'played' on a low/middle configuration. They have not 'pushed' the engine. This promises good things because there is still margin.

 

Well for me I quite like what I call "honest demos". In this respect, the blacksmith demo is honest - we can expect this level of detail from our own games with PS4 level hardware. If not, then Unity has optimisations to do

On the other hand, something like kite demo or even butterfly demo (they are similar quality) are dishonest demos and to my mind do not represent engine performance or anything except marketing.

Because only a tiny percent wants to spend almost a thousand dollars on just the gpu, and to be honest, is a dumb thing since it's not really showing off the engine, but just doing a prerendered film for normal hardware. Anything pbr/pbs can do that, just throw a few million polys at it and 10 gb of source media. There's no point. Thus those are dishonest demos.

It's just pure marketing babble but nobody's gonna stop doing those. By contrast, blacksmith is honest and we can expect this to run on a decent laptop.

 

Yes i would like the specs also.

 

@hippocoder

We're on the 'same wavelength' (French expression).
Problem is without more informations about the configuration used some will think that Unity is s*** compared to Unreal. I think these informations should be included in the description of the demo (Youtube).

 

What would be PlayStation 4 equivalent specifications for a PC? I'm not a console developer so I wouldn't know off-hand how one of them compares to a normal gaming computer. Unity shouldn't expect everyone to automatically know either.

 

It's actually better than the equivalent gpu/cpu combo that websites are fond of preaching. I am not going to discuss any of the internal workings I know of or anything about it. What I can say is I think its better than people might suggest online.

 

The PS4 specs are around a Radeon 7850 / Nvidia 750TI, they're not bad but not exactly a GTX 9XX either..

Thing you have to remember is, console setups are far more optimised with SDK's than PC's are currently. You can get away with a lot more..

 

I was expecting something along the lines of this statement as most console-related details tend to be behind NDAs. This is exactly why Unity needs to do more than simply make vague statements about the requirements.

I assumed as much given that the hardware has to last a considerable length of time and it would naturally have far less unnecessary software running.

 

They don't have Windows layers, so they can deliver more power.

 

And they are around for quite a long time so there are years for developers to work out how to squeeze more out of them. And they've probably avoided some of the bottlenecks that DirectX and OpenGL have been suffering from. Of course that latter advantage will diminish as AMD Mantle (and then Apple Metal) gave the priorities of those responsible for DirectX and OpenGL a good kick.

 

Consoles were mostly optimized almost to the same degree as DirectX 12 will be on the PC, especially on the Xbox One, and you can't really say it doesn't run on some Windows layer.

 

DX 12 is not present in PC and Xbox one games, it will came, but it's not actual.