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

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by DigitalAdam, Aug 13, 2014.

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  1. neginfinity

    neginfinity

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    I'm not sure about allegorithmic substances, though, since substance painter/designer are 3rd party tool that costs money.

    It might make sense to make a comparison (maybe another one) using built-in functionality only.

    That would give better idea of what can be achieved with either engine by someone who doesn't want to waste a lot of cash on 3rd party assets and software.
     
  2. Martin_H

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    I believe anyone can go to https://share.allegorithmic.com/ and download some free substances to use for texturing in their levels. I think it is a good idea to choose substances because those are tools that artists often use to create texture maps, even if they deliver them in classic image file formats and there is a possibility that the substance plugins for both engines do a bit of conversion automatically to make the resulting textures look more alike in the final in-engine render. I don't know for sure if or how well that works.
     
  3. neginfinity

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    Substances are geared toward being cross-engine compatible, though, so either way you'll get highly similar result.
    Except you won't have lensflares and reflections in unity / and you won't have realtime baked gi in unreal with lightmass.

    If substances were just texture packs, comparison would make sense. IIRC (hadn't worked with them for long time) they're a bit more than that,, so you may end up judging quality of substance integration for either engine.

    Also, isntead of going after pbr straight away, might make sense to check simple level first. With basic albedo/normal maps and materials configured within editor. That would be a better engine comparison, imo. Heck, even grayboxed level could work.

    Just my opinion.
     
  4. Martin_H

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    Different comparison usecases might bring different interesting results to light. A simple grey + normal level would be interesting to really see the lighting.

    Afaik (and I've briefly used both substance designer and substances in unity) the substance is a procedural texture node setup that results in typical pbr texture maps and the substance plugin for the engine just exposes parameters and takes care of rendering the maps and sticking them into the right texture slots. If anything is done for additional engine compatibility then I'd imagine it to be something like apply a curve to the roughness channel to get a more even result accross different engines. That's something that I'd do in photoshop manually if I were to try and get the rendering in 2 engines to look the same. And as far as I've understood, the challange was to get them both to look as close to each other as possible.
     
  5. neginfinity

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    I had slightly different thing in mind, though. Stick same content into both engines as is, and see what it looks like out of the box.

    With enough effort/people you can make anything look good in any engine. So, if someone spent few hundred hours on each version trying to make it look identical, they'll probably be able to achieve that, the thing is, someone who just downloaded the engine yesterday wouldn't get the same result.

    Hope that makes sense...
     
  6. Martin_H

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    I don't know, I'm willing to put effort into my work and I'm more interested in visual peak performance in both engines. If you were to compare Unity Standard Shader, Alloy and Uber Shader to see which one is better you probably wouldn't want to just stick in the same texture maps and pick the one that happens by chance to better fit the given input maps instead of trying to get the best possible result out of each shader by tweaking the input maps to accomodate the individual shader behaviours and then making your decision based on which shader you can get the most out of.
    I agree that ease of use and out of the box quality are valid concerns, especially for noobs, but I also think that we don't need to make any tests to know that UE4 will look better in that situation. I'm interested in how for Unity can be pushed towards graphical parity if effort and skill are put in.
     
  7. Ironmax

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    As i think we all know that Unreal renders surfaces better than Unity (atm) "out of the box" there are other things that are way more important when it comes to game dev. If a game runs on 30 FPS on a decent GPU, that is really bad news. Any game that runs for less than 60FPS on a modern GPU is by me considered low "performance game". Some of the games i made looks really good on a old laptop with intel graphics and runs smooth, i cant even run games that uses Unreal or CE on it, but with Unity it does. That must count for something. I am pretty sure that one day Unity will have the same features as Unreal and CE have, with physical shaders etc. with Unity 5+ it was a great leap in rendering quality. So guys lets not compare to much, i am happy with performance + render quality atm (and i worked with 3D Mental ray quality and final gather for 10 years) . Texture art does make a huge difference. if your on low budged i recommend Mudbox and 3D coat you can make high quality textures in notime.

     
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  8. Martin_H

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    You bring up a good point. An equal FPS target would make for a more fair comparison.
     
  9. neginfinity

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    In my experience, UE4 will also be faster for highly modular environment with large number of static objects.

    However, if you start chasing realisim, it is very easy to kill the framerate with reflections alone.

    Speaking of unity lightning demo, let's not forget that enlgihten is a resource hog..
     
  10. Ironmax

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    Naginfinity: That is not my experience, and its more about polygone count than static object counts. Not sure if Unreal uses some type of geometry compression before it hits the zbuffer? (maybe some one knows) but in Unity you can use culling (not sure if you used that) to avoid to many poly render at ones, i seen pretty huge citys made with Unity with really good performance, i cant say the same with games made with Unreal (at least the ones i tried.). Example is Final Fantasy VII . pretty low performance when i turn up view distance.. ( i can post video about it 16 FPS on playstation 4 is pretty bad)
     
  11. zenGarden

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    I agree with no substance engine use, but substance generated PBR maps are ok as each engine will take the textures as inputs for their shader.
    Good materials makes the difference, but the engine renders brings something more like UE4 rendering for example. This is a matter of choice.
     
  12. neginfinity

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    Yup. That would make sense.

    Well, i probably need to retest that properly, but... that does not match my experience. UE4 seems to have easier time handling larger number of everything (objects and lights) with better performance. However, if you start chasing realism, it is very easy to bring performance down with special effects and especially reflective surfaces.

    Also, the only game with large cities I've seen was cities skylines. And that one doesn't even let you go to the street level.
     
  13. Ironmax

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    Code (CSharp):
    1. ThisCamera.layerCullDistances = Culldistances; // array list for each layers
    try it :) but like i said, you might be right if there is some type of geometry compression in Unreal , i think Unity only bakes them.
     
  14. zenGarden

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    On a side note, you got Rama victory plugin with instance support
    10:10
    www.youtube.com/watch?v=iC1sjgalEJg
     
  15. Deleted User

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    That's not how it works, it's a directional light with bounces from GI. You could use a point / area etc. and the effect would be same (it would calculate bounce lighting from a source). I believe a lot of people confuse "direct lighting" with global illumination.

    @neginfinity

    It really doesn't matter what 3rd party art tools you use, it has no bearing on the actual engine itself as they both have substance integrations in-built and use there native shading / lighting models. GGX in both AFAIK now..
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Feb 23, 2016
  16. moure

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    The reason why the scenes i described above are used for gi testing is because the light has to bounce a lot of times to light the whole scene. The type of light indeed has nothing to do with it. The fact that the scene in your original post is full of lights does though, as it will be lightened succesfully(at least as far as we expect from a real time engine) even with lower quality gi calculations.
     
  17. Deleted User

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    That's true, but what's to stop me in Unreal just flicking the bounces up to 100 or something from a directional? :D..

    Ok you've convinced me, I'll do an "outdoor" section like an external plantation if someone gives me a hand with the art.
     
  18. moure

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    I could help you on the art section, and with rendering on other platforms (Vray, Arnold, etc) since you mentioned something about modo.
     
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  19. Tomnnn

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    I always come to this conclusion and wonder how threads like this can continue to exist. Either the entirety of the internet is as lazy as I am and it hasn't been tried or the models really do look better when imported to UE.
     
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  20. Billy4184

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    Hey, I think we should keep things simple. We aren't trying to make a showcase demo, we want to highlight how easy/hard it is for a relative beginner to achieve Unreal-level graphics in Unity.

    IMO just grab a few assets from the store, or some Unity free scene, drop it into both engines, and set up a directional light, same skybox, and take default pics. Then try to make Unity's as good as Unreal's using effects (if it looks worse).

    If it gets too complicated it won't be relevant to a lot of people.
     
  21. Billy4184

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    @ShadowK if you want interiors I seem to remember you had that space station interior asset, maybe that would be a good way to start this off?
     
  22. Deleted User

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    Thing is I did that on another example and someone whined the "art isn't good enough".. If I'm to spend any time on this at all, I don't want subjectivity getting in the way.. So tis' up to you guys.
     
  23. neginfinity

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    I think it would be reasonable to create a scene, import it into both engines, and then see what people can done with it (to improve visuals)... under a strict time limit. Say, 3 or 6 hours. Or, even better, 1 hour.

    A "jam" of sorts.

    That would give decent idea about engine strengths/qualities, without getting too deep into fine-tuning.
     
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  24. Billy4184

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    That's the point though, my art isn't AAA and neither is anyone else's (bar a few) so what's the point of putting something really high quality? Besides, it's a comparison, the art quality shouldn't affect it as it's relative.

    Not sure there are experienced enough people here to make that sort of jam. I'm not anyway.
     
  25. zenGarden

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    To speed up , we can use Unity free assets and re texture them under Substance painter for example.
    I can try some models and send you the PBR bitmaps.
     
  26. Martin_H

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    At this point I'd be happy if anyone makes anything at all in both engines, that we can actually look at :D.

    I think what your proposed time limit tests above all else is, how fast and experienced the person doing it is. The "artistic skillcap" is gonna be a big enough issue without introducing time limits. For real world usability comparisons your concern is very valid, but I think it could skew the resulting "possible peak quality" unnecessarily.
     
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  27. Deleted User

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    Well I've been at this a decade and a half, it's just a matter of experience. That example I showed above shouldn't be too difficult to whip up in a day.. So that's why I chose it, I will add bits too it as well...

    I'll not go overboard on detail though, because organic modelling just takes up way too much time.
     
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  28. Martin_H

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    We're allowing assetstore assets like Scion, right?
     
  29. zenGarden

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    Out of the box only ? (I find Unity Image Effects Beta better than Scion)
     
  30. Deleted User

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    I'm going to use Unity's post effects, all these new fangled majiggers they've released. I'd use Unity shaders, but for some reason everything always looks a little "flat"..
     
  31. djweinbaum

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    Due to the openness of Unity's lighting pipeline, my game looks better in Unity than it ever looked in Cryengine.



    I love Unity because its a blank slate and I can build my own lighting model. I know that Unreal's shader editor is robust enough to be able to to the same, so I'm not saying Unity is better. All I'm saying is that as an artist who cares a lot about how my game looks, I haven't had any issues achieving what I want in Unity. I would, however, take Unity's rendering pipeline over Cryengine's prison box any day of the week.
     
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  32. Billy4184

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    Looks really nice! Please share info on settings and effects. A comparison pic in Cryengine would be nice if you still have it there (even if it isn't the exact same scene).
     
  33. djweinbaum

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    There really isn't much post processing. Just a ssao, vignette, VERY light bloom, tonemapping, and slight color grading (only contrast). Here is my whole fx stack:



    I'm using fog volume which gives some nice light scattering (its not volumetric). I don't use any of Unity's light baking. I simply bake/paint AO into the vertex color of all my models old school. I use Shader Forge for all my shaders, and I use a solid ambient color for my ambient light, and then I have a bit that plays off that color per normal, so I get subtle gradients and color variation in the ambient light, that's really cheap and completely real-time.



    My lighting model is very simple, and then I just focus on putting cool stuff in the world, and making the maps inspire a sense of place.
     

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  34. djweinbaum

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    And I'm afraid I don't have anything comparable in Cryengine so it wouldn't be a comparison of any kind. I spent most of my time in cryengine trying to build UI in scaleform. I do have an old Cryeninge portfolio project from before I was working on Eastshade. I guess all this offers is 2 screenshots from each engine by the same artist:



    I plan on moving some of the stuff from this screenshot into Eastshade, maybe then I'll have a better comparison. But there will undoubtedly be artistic changes, so it still won't be a good comparison. The problem is that big commercial game engines can look how you want them to, so there will never be a controlled "Here's the scene, swap out the engine and compare". Any given scene, with all its lighting and shaders, is entwined with the engine it was authored in. If you try to use some "vanilla" setting for each engine, you're comparing the vanilla setting more than your comparing the engine. That's why I'd just look at the features of the engine in question, and ask "does it have the features I need?" and then after testing the engine "do I enjoy working in this engine?".
     
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  35. Deleted User

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    I hate to say it though, this pic is far more impressive than the one done in Unity.. But it means little if you can't get on with said engine.

    The other pic is good enough and having all the fancy graphics in the world mean little if you can never get the game released.
     
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  36. djweinbaum

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    The cryengine pic may look more impressive because you like the concept better, or because it was a portfolio piece. I know I could have achieved that in Unity. Since it was a portfolio piece, it had no game design concern, fixed camera angle (as in, author everything to a single camera angle), unlimited poly count, and honestly, I think the most eye catching thing is that it has big glowy lights, which people tend to love. Here's a screenshot of early early early Eastshade in Cryengine, which I'd wager is not going to be as impressive to anyone (again though, it wouldn't be due to the engine):

     

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  37. Billy4184

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    Agreed, and props @djweinbaum on the art, fantastic pic. The Unity one looks great as well, one of the best I've seen but not on the same level.

    EDIT: I think the Cryengine pic is great in large part due to the lighting, there's a lot of subtlety that creates this awesome sense of space and depth.
     
  38. zenGarden

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    The scene is fantastic indeed.
    But i don't like the overall because the roughness on materials like stone for example don't look good and i see too much specularity. And the characters don't compose well to the environment, i don't know if it is their materials or some lack of details or textures or the dirt on their clothes that perhaps has too much roughness ?


    Some examples or and rocks stone material that looks lot better with better roughness and lightening.




    The overall effects and lightening are different.

     
    Last edited: Feb 23, 2016
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  39. djweinbaum

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    The cryengine scene has over 20 point lights and negative lights I placed to add depth and drama, because initially it looked dead and flat. I'm wishing I'd never posted that fantasy cavern here. I think its extremely misleading. Its a much easier scene to execute, was authored to the goddamn camera angle, and its not an actual game screenshot. I don't know why I'm finding myself defending Unity, but I'm going to offer this as well:

     
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  40. Devil_Inside

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    I actually like the first (Unity) screenshot more. The cavern still looks flat IMO.
     
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  41. Billy4184

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    That's Unity? Looks great.

    Hehe I totally understand, that's why we need a 1:1 comparison. One way or the other the cavern shot is fantastic in every way, composition and execution.
     
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  42. djweinbaum

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    I definitely like baked lighting better. The lighting in those shots is far superior to mine. I simply don't have time to bake though. I've actually never seen what Eastshade looks like with Unity's baked lighting because I'm already in my mid 20s, and it would take about 90 years to bake a single room so I'd have to have started when I was a baby to have any chance at seeing the results. That's one thing Unreal has on Unity hands down. Usable light baking.
     
  43. zenGarden

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    I am not sure it's baking, material shaders also matters a lot.
    This scene shows UE4 material and lightening look.
    www.youtube.com/watch?v=pP_Kb-mJuC4

    UE4 has Ray Traced distance Shadow Fields to help on big maps, Cryteck has real time GI and now SVOGI. Unity will need something different from Enlighten and long baking times.
    I wonder how would look your scene if you used Unity baked GI ?
     
    Last edited: Feb 24, 2016
  44. Martin_H

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    Meh, feels like I'm not really getting anywhere with my experiment:


    Just about everything about working with terrains seems to be super impractical.


    Edit: another attempt:
     
    Last edited: Feb 24, 2016
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  45. Deleted User

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    They're from Unreal right? If that's the case, think we've found the winner without trying.. @djweinbaum's stuff is good, but that lighting and look in terms of realism is on another level..
     
  46. Ryiah

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  47. Martin_H

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    Noooo, don't give up! You can do it! We need to try to get as close as we can and see where exactly Unity needs to improve to catch up.
     
  48. AcidArrow

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    It needs baked lightmapping that doesn't suck for starters.
     
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  49. zenGarden

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    You have UE4 available, if you have a project that needs UE4 lightening just use UE4, this is as simple as that.

    This is not only lightmapping, UE4 PBR quality and lightening makes a difference, if you look at some Unity stone materials and compare with how they look in UE4 you won't have the same look.
     
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  50. AcidArrow

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    You've said that many times, but I don't know what it means.

    Lightmapping -> Lighting. Unless you mean something else.

    And the PBR in Unity is good.
     
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