A well designed art direction, quality graphics, optimized game performance, and the “AAA” label are never a “fire and forget”.
You must put in the work to achieve these important milestones AND make sure it’s cohesive and it fits with the specific game it’s in. No matter the engine or fancy tools available.
In my opinion, what really matters is if the art direction and graphics compliment the gameplay, not the other way around. If photorealism adds to your game, go for it. If not, try something else until something sticks.
I think it depends entirely on what you mean by AAA. If you mean “has the looks and performance of Unreal Engine 5 / Frostbite / Source / RAGE” then no, at least not yet, but I’d disagree with you on what you mean by AAA. AAA in my mind means a big development team with tens or hundreds of millions of dollars in budget, and not all of the games made with those resources are trying to aim for photorealism.
There are lots of AAA studios aiming for lower end machines that use lightweight and heavily stylised graphics, such as Riot, Mojang, and countless mobile game developers. And besides that there’s lots of AAA developers who just, dont seem to care about making things look photorealistic or run particularly well (not throwing shade, just pointing out a difference in priority) like Bethesda and Blizzard.
huh, I remember reading that unreal used linear, must have been for unreal 4.
but the advice is still valid.
unity uses sRGB by default and to do PBR correctly you have to change the entire project to linear.
and I did advice to use ACES.
and this is important because godot also uses a different tonemap by default.
Yeah I know the graphics of Godot is great, but not photorealistic, games like Cyberpunk, rdr2, unrecord, bodycam, dying light 2, gta 5 with mods, etc has good photorealistic graphics.
I am actually talking Godot need to improve the lighting system to dynamic lighting like unreal. Here is some videos (1, 2)
I tried to create it, but regardless I understand that Godot need dynamic lighting system or better global illumination to achieve the graphics.
Game engines like Unity, Unreal, Cry engine has better graphics than Godot (if you observe closely), so I wish Godot will also enhance its graphics.
Its 2024 but Godot has graphics like 2018 or older. I means this, a feature trailer of unreal.
dude those are photogrammetries. it’s a model that is taken from a real life place and only has a diffuse map. go to sketchfab it’s full of them. the mountains in my picture are photogrammetry.
they might “look” good, but the topology is a mess and lighting is static. there is nothing special about it.
you put one in godot it will look the same, and that’s because the lighting is baked into the diffuse.
you threw a bunch of boxes with HQ textures. and the video uses photogrametry models.
your boxes would not have worked in unreal either, or any engine, because there is no lighting calculation, it’s done with pictures.
and it’s a very old technique, it was used in the very first tomb rider game. it’s just that today we can get them with a phone so it’s easier.
unity didn’t have SSS or volumetric fog when I abandoned it last year. and godot has better workflow, I can swap models on a skeleton without problems, play animations in editor, and other good things that are impossible in unity.
I can give you unreal, but not unity.
there is not much to enhance really, the only thing its missing is raytrace, which is a work in progress and most people can’t afford the hardware anyways.
no. godot has modern graphics. what it doesn’t have is developers making AAA games with it. literally nobody goes that route, and that scares new devs who might try.
and the godot foundation doesn’t have the unreal levels of money to throw around on tech demos and free AAA assets, so their tech demos are simplistic, stylized, and that plays into that idea.
but godot has PBR, it has physical camera, up-scaling, volumetric fog, it’s fully capable of good graphics, as you can see in my pictures.
again, just quality assets. if you put those same scenes in godot they will look the same, because godot uses the same PBR system as unreal. the only thing it lacks is raytrace. you take raytrace out of unreal, use lumen, and there’s not much difference between the two.
Ok, then I agree that Godot supports photorealistic graphics. Please don’t mind my any post. I’m not sure what I was thinking at the time when I created the topic (maybe I’m just feeling behind on my project). Anyway, I already know Godot supports photorealism (I’ve watched many videos on it before the topic). Also I already know Godot` CSG is not so good, has many glitches.
I apologize if I said anything wrong. Please don’t misunderstand me. I’m just trying to help the community in any way I can, whether through open-source projects, forum contributions, YouTube tutorials, etc. This is just a short introduction about myself.
I 've been thinking about trying out Godot for 3D mainly because of what I have seen in this thread has been promising. Much better than I was expecting really.
But I just want to ask this question: for best results, would using assets from a company like Fab which is offering 17,000+ hi-quality photogrammetry (Quixel?!?) assets (for free) give the best results? I am not really interested in" photorealism", per se, it’s not my thing, just getting good results in the game engine.
I’ve interacted with you over the forum and I found you to be extremely helpful, so, there is no need to apologize. I know you are doing your best to help, bring up things and discuss topics. In order to discuss things fully, you will risk offending others, otherwise you will ‘never’ get to the truth. And in doing so sometimes you will get confused, not say things correctly, get muddled, etc, goodness knows I have. You bringing up this topic has got me interested in the 3D side of Godot, something I wasn’t even interested in looking at.
I apologize if I sounded rude, I’m trying to be as polite as possible and focus on the arguments and do research on the topic.
I have nothing against you, I just find that there’s a lot of misinformation going around the internet because some dude tries unreal and godot for 5 minutes, and of course the default free unreal scene looks better, and they instantly claim godot is just bad for 3D. when in reality, trying to create something of your own will be just as hard, having to design the levels, setup the lighting, customize it to your needs, optimize.
and it’s a bit disappointing because there’s a lot of potential but literally no one going for it (for good reason, the average user can’t make AAA quality games and it’s easier and better to just make a PSX style game, but still).
The thing is this is a very complex topic, creating a photorealistic scene is not something you do with one click, not here and not in unreal. look at games with RTX like quake, enabling raytrace doesn’t automatically improve the quality, sometimes it actually ruins the scene, because these AAA technologies are designed to work with quality assets and precise technical data to match the scene.
a better example would be CGI in movies, some times we get some really good CGI that is barely noticeable and the producers then hide the fact most of the movie was CGI, like in mad max. other times we get ugly sonic, where they got wrong color values between the fur and the background scene (and the ugly design, let’s not forget that).
it is easy to try to start a big project with the highest quality in mind, but it’s difficult to follow through with it because of the work and knowledge required.
don’t feel bad, you are just one person, making something like this takes entire teams of hundreds of people.
CSG has it’s uses, and it depends on the game. but for a “realistic” game you need high poly assets, and to optimize them, and all of this has to be done in a 3D software like blender beforehand.
there are a lot of unknowns.
I’ve seen all sorts of photogrametries and there are many maybes and buts and nuances.
photogrammetries tend to have bad topology, because they are scans. so to use them it is best to retopo and bake them if possible. some have somewhat decent topology, but could still be improved.
the main problems are texture size and static lighting.
for photogrametries to work they need at least a 4K texture, and this depends on the size, and bigger ones need even bigger textures. this will quickly consume VRAM and can slow down your game.
the second problem is that, even when done correctly, the light and shadows are “baked” into the texture. photogrammetries don’t have an albedo, but a diffuse, so they are not fully compatible with PBR. you are limited to the time of day and lighting they were taken at, and have to match lights to create shadows.
with some loose assets you could maybe bake the normals and possibly simulate roughness, but AO is baked into the diffuse.
because the lighting is static, it makes it difficult to make levels out of smaller parts.
In short, photogrammetries have to be good and have had work done to clean up, work that has to be made by a human.
for this reason games are still made primarily by modeled assets. this gives artists more control and can be made dynamic.
I know software like substance painter is used to create high quality PBR textures, both for tiling and for assets.
Not sure why, but I misunderstood you too in that time. Anyway, let’s talk about the topic.
Sorry but you are wrong, I believe that Nothing Is Impossible in the world, just need some requirement. Road to vostok is a great example for it.
Regarding the bodycam game I am trying to create, I really achieve a nice player controller, that is actually not showed in the video, I improved it a lot and now it looks better, so I am just trying to get a good graphics on map for it. But this is just my side or hobby project . Actually I am working on a stylish game with AAA studio (I am the main developer). It is really soo hard for me to be a solo game developer, yes coding or developing games is easy but not other things like art, etc. So a team is necessary.
You misunderstood my text on it, I said that CSG has many glitches or bugs, like wierd edge gaps, etc.
To use an analogy:
A cheap looking plastic apple won’t look like the real thing no matter how expensive a camera or studio lighting you have, but a nice crispy apple will look worse with a cheap camera and bad lighting
If you don’t have assets that are photorealistic you won’t get anything photorealistic no matter the engine you use
I think some better questions are:
How well does Godot handle high end resources
How easy is it to achieve good results with high quality assets
How does Godot perform when using high end resources and configurations
You get out what you put in, but the question is how easy is it to use good resources and how does that compare
I have photorealistic assets, but I made the walls, floors by realistic materials, all from megascans. The only thing I did not get a realistic graphics.
road to vostok doesn’t use PBR materials, the dev said so.
it only uses diffuse and probably normal map.
so it’s not using the full power of the engine and that likely makes development easier because there’s less work involved and more available assets.
that is normal for boolean operations, the same happens in blender.
I want to give a message to everyone in this topic, please do not misunderstood me in any condition, it just hurts my motivation or confidence . I am Just trying to help the community, currently I am creating a ultimate character controller (fps + tps) that no one made before and also it will open source! It is easy to me, I have enough experience with coding and Godot. Your support just gives me motivation to complete the project happily.
Sorry again if I made any mistake.
I did not like so much politics.
Forget the topic if it is wrong to you!
I again want to get peace as like before the topic and work freely for you, and to get supports. If it is a mistake for me to create the topic then please forget the mistake.
I suspect that no engine in the vanilla version is suitable for “photorealistic graphics”. All AAA+++ projects mention that the engines they used were refined for their specific needs (with a budget to match). That is, if you are ready to allocate funds for Godot refinement (in the amount allocated by major studios), then, yeah — you can count on the desired level of graphics.
I am closing this topic (by text), I think any more post is not necessary. I agree Godot support photorealistic graphics, just need good quality assets and need to adjust some settings.
I wish I have not created this post, not sure why but I felt bad in some replies. Anyway, I am telling again, please do not misunderstood me or my knowledge. I really love Godot and this forum, and I am available for help all time!
Please do not pick any question about my knowledge, I wrongfully created this topic, not sure what I was thinking in that time.
I think it is best to talk in a good manner with respect in any community. Politics is not good always.
. Actually I am working on a stylish game with AAA studio (I am the main developer). It is really soo hard for me to be a solo game developer, yes coding or developing games is easy but not other things like art, etc. So a team is necessary.
. I am Just trying to help the community, currently I am creating a ultimate character controller (fps + tps) that no one made before and also it will open source! It is easy to me, I have enough experience with coding and Godot. Your support just gives me motivation to complete the project happily.