"Photo-realistic" quality rendering between Unity and Unreal 4

I imagine what people mean by photorealism is not really true photorealism but 'enhanced' photorealism. Compare a GoPro video of a paintball tournament to Destiny graphics, would you really pick photorealism? I doubt it.

For me what this thread is about in particular is the mutedness of Unity's lighting system, it fails to create a deep ambience and bring a scene to life in the way that Unreal or Cryengine does. By comparison, it tends to took pasty and lacks depth of tone. I'm not a graphics guru so I don't really know how to describe it in technical terms.

 

It's called colour grading and tonemapping. Particularly a nudge on the contrast. You'll be pleased to know it's included in their new upcoming post effects.

Both UE4 and Cryengine do exactly this, and you can prove it by stripping out the grading those engines perform by default.

 

Hey, I'm excited by what Unity has coming along soon! I think in the last couple of years they've taken big steps toward catering for high-end graphics, particularly with PBR graphics support. But as I said previously, I would like all these nice post-process effects out-of-the-box, preferably with presets for different performance levels. There is just so much that you can possibly fiddle around with during game development that you needn't ever get around to making one! Solo indie projects, which Unity caters to more than any other graphics engine, require a lot of built-in, preset solutions to become viable. Not even a big studio would have the resources or desire to fiddle around with a mass of third-party packages, some good and some bad, some missing things and others not, in order to get what they want. So much less does the solo indie.

Anyway, I'm not a Unity basher. I love this engine, it is great to work with and does an incredible lot of things right. But I think that it isn't unreasonable to expect a high-end graphics setting out-of-the-box, if Unity is capable of it. I must admit I have some suspicions about Unity's capabilities (at reasonable performance) seeing as how there is a complete lack of small-mid projects that rival the sort of stuff that I see on UE's WIP forums, but I would love to be proven wrong.

 

How well textures are made have a huge impact on your Unity game, you can make crappy textures and let it render in Unreal and it looks great. that doesn't mean Unreal is better.

 

Yes, it does, from my solo indie point of view - I can hardly be great at everything and it would be great if Unity could pick up the slack. The end goal of a game engine should always be to enable the developer to bring their game to fruition with a minimum of skill required. The beauty of it is that even for those who are experts at this and that, it makes their lives easier and allows them to spend time on creating more content or adding more features that they need.

Unity actually does a great job of this, in most areas. It is an incredibly well designed piece of software from the user perspective. The problem is though that by the time someone is good enough to add custom solutions for features that are missing, user friendliness is far less of an issue. So having a big feature missing, or requiring a lot of fiddling around to get going, is a big issue for someone who depends on user friendliness. In the case of graphics, I am at this level.

 

There's much more too it than color grading, as @Ironmax says the best way to know how graphics works (in terms or realism) is to study things like V-Ray / Mental ray. The lighting is so naturally balanced it requires little (if any) in the way of colour grading to correct a multitude of flaws in the lighting / GI pipeline.

You have to remember, engine "graphics" technology is just a collection of cheap hacks where the developer has to decide what's more important graphics or performance (based on the type of game as well). As you said yourself, when hardware gets to the point where Brigade etc. becomes an in-engine possibility none of this will even be a consideration.

 

UE4 lightening and PBR are better, i can see it on beginneres graphics, they look good on UE4 out of the box.
Unity shoud propose new game templates with different profiles like PC high end graphics and shader or mobile graphics.

 

by default UE4 has many post effects enabled.
Remove all those post effects and then compare.

However I'm not suggesting unity is as good or better.

Yep Unity's new colour grading and tonemapping is awesome.
my game looks awesome now..

So who ever was involved in the development of this.. Well done indeed... indeeeed

 

Feel free to post screenshots!

 

So, I'd have to agree with @Ryiah here. Photo-realism, for me, is a style of artwork that strives to replicate the look of the real world. It should not imply that the render (be it real-time or off-line) is indistinguishable from a real photo. In fact, if you take the absolute best character model possible, with a giant render farm, and render a single close-up head shot with no limit on render time, I'd bet most people will tell you it still looks fake (or, at the very least, that it looks great but they know it's not real). Is that render not "photo real" anymore just because some people know it's a render?

Games can certainly be "photo real" in terms of the intention of the art style. But this is always changing. The "photo real" art from 10 - 15 years ago looks funny today as it could be beaten by a mobile game running on your phone. Even some of the best movie graphics from years ago could easily be eclipsed by games today. Does this mean that the old graphics, that were once photo real, are no longer that just because in future years the technology has advanced? In that case, then probably nothing will ever be "photo real" until we are living is some sort of Matrix that is completely indistinguishable from real life.

And games, @Ironmax , are not "supposed" to look like anything. It's up to the art director and the artists what they choose the game to look like. They can choose to strive for realism, or to make any number of different cartoon or anime styles. They could choose to make it look like a book, if they want, and there have been numbers of text only games created over the years. They could make a game that has no graphics and is based on audio alone. They could make a game that is only played through haptics and touch (no audio or visuals). They are still all games. Games can be anything.

 

Have you disabled it? it looks terrible, or on par with stock Unity, and no post. It really is post. UE4 uses ACES, and so does Unity's new tonemapper (bundled with the new grading). Tweak to satisfaction and off you go. Talking about mystical lighting doesn't work - it does not exist, both engines use GGX. If you're talking about GI, that is something you need to tweak Enlighten for.

https://knarkowicz.wordpress.com/2016/01/06/aces-filmic-tone-mapping-curve/

Chances are people dont want to look like UE4, but create a look unique to their game. That is really difficult to do in UE4.

 

Are you referring to the new Unity Image Effects pack ? Or some plugin to buy ?

 

Yeah on bitbucket.

 

There is a reason why moivemakers dosen't use game engines to produce there movies but think some ppl here that never worked with 3D studios think they know better than the top CG makers to day. I just say, you have no idea what your talking about..

 

I disagree. Realism is not an art form except in some pedantic sense of the word. And I don't really believe that anyone believed a game existed in 2002 that had any sort of photorealism. There are some screenshots from games these days that people might confuse with a photo, but certainly there weren't back then.

What does it mean for a game to 'look like UE4'? Can anyone really tell the difference between Unreal, Cryengine or any of the custom engines that all of the AAA studios make for themselves? I think that (assuming the game isn't aiming for some incredibly 'stylized' look) textures and models define virtually all of the style of a game. In a very narrow way the lighting system (assuming that it isn't some special variant) can affect the style, but more than that it defines the quality.

I think that most games that aim to emulate some sort of reality (i.e. not some abstract reality like Journey) would like the sort of 'realism' (i.e. lighting quality) that is currently possible in Unreal Engine or Cryengine, and are not particularly concerned with achieving some special unique look in terms of lighting. This would be especially true in the case of low-budget indie projects that are more interested in producing a high-quality game than fussing over their own unique brand of graphics.

Anyway, I'll be checking out these effects that Unity is working on.

 

I only know Unity "Cinematic Effects pre release" plugin.What is that pack on bitbucket ?
Tone mapping just don't is enought to bring some appealing graphics.



The only way to get better lightening and effects is to go UE4 if i would want to make a realistic game.

EDIT :
It's the old Unity Image Effects on picture , i didn't pay attention about the scene test.

 

none of those in that pic look remotely like the new fx, no. I'm done arguing, will be just making my game with vastly better graphics and if nobody wants to listen, that's OK

Pretty sure Unity kills a kitten every time someone ruins their engine.

 

I don't think anyone is arguing that real-time game graphics are better than pre-rendered movie graphics. Of course, pre-rendered will always look better. The same way a full-on desktop gaming PC will always have better graphics than a mobile phone. That is obvious, and not the debate.

 

That's the pack on bitbucket. Also lightening is not a word

 

On a side note, UE4 proposes templates ,where you got a post process volume, so you don't have to bother about quality because it is already adjusted on max quality. Unity needs also project templates like "High Quality" with a camera having all effects and presets already adjusted.

EDIT :
I was testing with old image effects.

 

That's not the new tonemapping.

 

ok.

 

Not sure what you're talking about? You talking about V-ray without post?

It's not difficult to see the effects of lighting / shadows, open Unreal and switch to self lit (diffuse only) mode. I don't get how it's that difficult to figure out, you can do basic things to check exactly what effect each piece of post / lighting has on your scene in UE.

This page shows all the editor viewport options in regards to graphics, so a complete breakdown of what makes Unreal look like Unreal:

https://docs.unrealengine.com/latest/INT/Engine/UI/LevelEditor/Viewports/ShowFlags/index.html

If one has the same as the other, then it can become a comparable showcase. At that point it doesn't matter.. But comparing an offline renderer to an engine is absolute madness...

 

Then i think we also can agree that game engines are made to make games, not cope up with the CG movie scene, even tough game graphics/GPU has come far the last couple of years. Imagine what gaming hardware will look like in 50 years? And imagine how movies will look like at the same time?

What is photo realistic changes every day.

.. Game engines are aimed at the computer device that can do things in realtime at the current time period (10-12 years technology?). Movies / Realistic work is meant to do everything. Movies / realistic renders have things like real muscles under the skinn, lightning mechanics that has scientist edge calculations.Does it look photorealstic? heck yes..

For me i find it better to just accept the fact that i am making a game, when i make a game, and when i am doing 3D render i do realistic things.. Just reasont i had to rework allot of my motion capture animation to strait keyframe animation because they are cleaner and works better in a game mechanic environment. Just an example.. When i make movies i can always adjust a finger or legg to make it more "real".In game design i have to worry about input form the player, and how the AI works.

CryEngine, Unreal. Unity5 engine or other dx11+ engines . they can all produce "photoreal like" cut scenes or still shots, but that's not really the point with these engines, because games are not cut scenes or still image.That's the point i am trying to explain here, and i think most here agree with that.

 

While UE4 lightening is somewhat different (no lightmass baking)


Unity Beta Image effects Tone mapping combined with color grading looks good (they are still missing SSAO and Anti Aliasing techniques on Unity Image Effects plugin).
Unity standard shader is still brighter and has too much strenght or specular power, while UE4 blends the overall scenes better.


Unity with Alloy set up and shaders.


The overall lightening and graphics look on both engines is not the same and will never be the same i think.
One advantage in UE4 is you get great lightening, shaders and effects out of the box without needing additionnal dozen of plugins, creating a new project has already settings for PC high end graphics instead of mobile settings.

 

Yet you don't see everyone in the movie industry giving up. At the end of the day it only matters if the photorealism holds up for a fixed duration. Once it has cleared the theaters, which is where it needs to shine, it no longer really matters if it holds up compared to the latest thing.

Similarly a video game's equivalent to photorealism (yes, it won't be on par with a movie but nobody really expects it to be either) only needs to hold up long enough for the majority of its sales to take place. Once the game is past this point, and marked down in the process, it no longer matters.

 

I am listening! Sounds great, Hippo. Looking forward to all the new stuff.

 

Your stuff looks great, Teila. I guess it's a matter of tweaking.

 

For people who get access to all engine, why not just try to post identical scene in both engine, just to get visual comparison? without bashing each other, seriously. Let's get a constructive discussion guys, for once?

 

Aww, thanks! I am sure anything can look better! I am looking forward to the color grading in Unity.

 

Grab it from https://bitbucket.org/Unity-Technologies/cinematic-image-effects

It's essentially chromatica studio realtime, so you can do all sorts of really great visual tweaks without bothering with LUTs, although it can use / bake those out too.

These are all WIP though so don't hit me with a dead fish if something unhappy happens.

 

I would, but I wouldn't know what effects to put on in Unity for it to be a 1:1 comparison. Maybe someone with some more experience in post effects could try it? I would be very glad to see it as well.

 

I did a direct level transfer once. As in - converted geometry positions, recreated materials (mirrored standard shader into UE4). Via a program of course, not manually.

The result is that UE4 out of the box looks better, although with default exposure settings scenes may look too high-contrast and dramatic (resembles gears of wars). Also, when textures has shadows on it (as in - if whoever made the texture didn't know what he's doing and plugged in unmodified photo), the shadows will look like they're dirt in UE4, and darken the scene somewhat. The thing that stood out was lensflare effect, by the way. In UE4 they're post-process effect and can be created by any brightly-lit object, even particles, which is not the case in Unity.

...

By the way, aside from material calibration scene, is there a standard unity asset WITHOUT terrain that shows off unity standard shader? I think there was science lab or something.

 

I might get some artwork from our main game "if I'm allowed" and properly test it.. It's all sci-fi based / closed corridor stuff.

I can't use Unity's bog standard shaders though, we use parralax mapping etc. so it woul have to be something like UBER..

I'll be honest, I've not tried to push Unity graphically since 4.3?? When we made the switch, I've messed around with Unity 5.X but not done anything serious in it.

I would honestly be interested.

 

See, this is when we have to work together and find out what missing or what we can do (not including distance field rendering and TAA of course). Let's figure it out together guys.
For those who already make an identical scene, please post screenshot from both engine. or maybe if the assets are from unity or free and it shareable. Upload the unity project a simplified and stripped down scene (make sure the scene are identical in both engine) so people can tweak it or working on it to make them close visually. Let's consider it as a public unofficial unity challenges. Seriously i'm also curious and want to make unity better. I know i'm asking a lot, i would like to do by myself but for some reason UE keep crashing on my PC :/
wow this is longest post i ever made in unity forum O.O

Edit : dammit @ShadowK did you just read my mind?

 

Feel free to do it again if you've got the time!

 

I can't release it publicly, but I can keep posting screenies / deleting them until we get close.. I would seriously be interested to see, I have access to the substance database and quixel so people can't blame it on the "textures" either.

 

That's totally fine man, please do. I'm really interested to see the comparison

 

What's the height map in the standard shader for, if it isn't paralax? Didn't look like tesselation to me, but I could be wrong.

On a side note. What's great about the alloy shader apart from features beyond the standard shader? I don't mean that in a negative way, and I realize it looks different, but I'm not sure I like it better. I had even considered buying alloy and have looked at a demo just yesterday. But I'm just not sold on the look. Take @zenGarden's scene for example, I think the one with unity standard looks better.

And here is another neat looking UE4 scene:
http://polycount.com/discussion/163194

 

Well, (IIRC) alloy supports subsurface scattering (skin, candles), and standard unity shader doesn't. I think I saw alloy samples in the past, and wasn't terribly impressed with them.

UE4 has skin shader available out of the box, by the way.

 

You quoted the wrong person.. . It was @Martin_H who said that..

 

Lot of shaders are out of the box because Epic brings a lot (like POM) , and people have a shader editor so they share lot fo shaders for grass , water or advanced toon shading.
If Unity had a shader editor out of the box, this would boost community creativity sharing shaders.

I agree, the look between Untiy Standard shader and Alloy is different, you must choose what fits better to your game or what you like the best.

 

Fixed. Not entirely sure why that keeps happening.

You can't really make a transmissive skin shader in the editor out of non-transmissive shader, although you can try to fake it.

Skin shader in UE4 is a shading model, not some copy-pasted node configuration.

 

Ok, so the challenge I set myself.. I'm going to re-create (a version, not like for like) of this, using allegorithmic substances. Once done, I'll render it in Modo, UE4 and Unity.

A) Because I don't have to spend much time on it and B) because it's the sort of environment that really works with GI etc. which will really show off flaws if there are any. C) It's pretty hard to mess up, even for me.

Are we all in agreement that this is a suitable exercise? I'll add some metal / shiny bits in for effect.

 

You wold need some assets having different materials like rubber, plastic surface,wood or some mixed material like copper surface with rust and dirt areas. Only using metal based and reflective materials like in many demos won't make a complete PBR and lightening test.
Also a closed environment is different from and open door environment and it's lightening.What about some trees and grass on top of some some PBR nature floor on one of those Sci Fi rooms ?

 

Well then the essence of what we are testing now changes dramatically if we are doing "open world", firstly it's too much of pain to get them like for like. Unreal by default has a bunch of shading models for grass etc., the tech isn't like for like you'd use things like distance field ambient occlusion if you were using Unreal.

Then there's the terrain system differences etc.. Which then can be classed as an "art" issue if I don't sculpt out some terrain meshes and then texture them.. Uhh!.

I don't mind mixing up materials, but doing the outdoor thing isn't on the cards.. If someone else wants to do it, please go for it ..

But anyway, it'll heavily rely on post like SSR / Tonemapping / AA etc. It'll really test out the GI solution / lighting so most grounds are covered..

 

Can you also add some screenshot without post?

 

If you want to do a proper GI test i would suggest having at least an open space in the map where sunlight can shine through and illuminate the level. There is a reason everyone uses the sponza scene for their gi showcase This fully lit corridor though can be great for checking area lights and reflections. Something like "The sun temple" scene that you can download from unreals learning center would be a better test imho.

 

I agree, you need some open area like sponza.

 

Although some of the concerns others brought forth seem valid I'd be very happy to see this scene as a more specialized comparison example. Looking forward to see it!