Is HBAO+ actually better? (The Division)

[finbarqs]

Ultra looks like HDR and HBAO+ just looks like shadows being applied properly when required. This all has to do with lighting. HDR is just another way of saying "Lower contrast" so you can see everything. That's what photographers do when they implement HDR - they take multiple exposures, and capture details in the shadow/highlight areas where the camera does not have the power to capture detail in the shadows and highlights. Then they mesh it together. The end result? a very flat image. Then people go crazy with the saturation/local contrast/high pass to make it all "crazy" looking.

Unless there was a fill light coming in from the perspective view, those shadows should be there. Almost to the point of "no detail" -- I guess it has to depend on what type of dynamic range it's trying to mimic -- 10 stops? 5 stops? 20 stops?

 

[Azix]

sunlight is behind the cameras perspective I think. Due to the shadows on the bags. In reality the shadow should prevent that kind of darkening. If not the sunlight would.

 

[therealnickdanger]

It will be neat to see how Ambient Occlusion (and other game rendering) develops once we start utilizing true HDR monitor/TVs instead of the current standard, which is Black = 0 nits, White = 100 nits. Trying to fit simulated HDR within those confines ultimately results in a lot of absurd rendering mistakes and mitigation techniques. Fortunately our eyes and brains can make up for these problems really well.

 

[Pottuvoi]

It will be neat to see how Ambient Occlusion (and other game rendering) develops once we start utilizing true HDR monitor/TVs instead of the current standard, which is Black = 0 nits, White = 100 nits. Trying to fit simulated HDR within those confines ultimately results in a lot of absurd rendering mistakes and mitigation techniques. Fortunately our eyes and brains can make up for these problems really well.

Games have rendered everything in HDR for years now. (And stored to framebuffer stored as FP16, RGBM, LogLuv etc..)
The change to HDR displays will be within the tone mapping part as it will target a value range of 0-1023 instead of 0-255.

Importance of proper antialiasing will be magnified, expect temporal aliasing to look truly bad.
AO will be as crappy tech as it has always have been, really hope we will get rid of it. (The screenspace versions even faster.)

We should hear more on how HDR displays affect pipeline in GDC as Timothy Lottes will have talk on subject.

 

[DarkKnightDude]

HABO+ looks nice in the Division, but makes it a tad too dark honestly. Been running it in ultra instead to differentiate it.

 

[tential]

So apart from The Divsion I've been testing it on other games and my gosh turning it off really changes things. I mean it makes higher levels of AA accessible it lets me run games at higher resolutions.

While I'm going to test each game I play, I don't think it adds anything worth the insane performance hit on most games.

For example turning down AO in fallout 4 lets me run at 4K same for shadow of mordor. I'd rather play 4K 60fps than 1440p 60 fps with AO. That's just me.

This goes to another thread on here where I said people are just blindly picking settings.

In fallout 4 for me, I have God rays on low and ao on ssao and not Nvidia. I can play 1440p no problem.

I think there are a lot of users who are 970 or larger gpus who max settings at 1080p rather than try to hit optimal settings and a higher resolution (or dsr)

 

[zlatan]

It is simply not possible to create a realistic AO effect in screen space. No matter what the algorithm is.
If you didn't like fake shadows than probably HBAO is the worst choice of all. But there are other SSAO effects in the games.

 

[Genx87]

I was surprised HBAO+ works fine on my 770. I dont know what fps I am getting but the game is silky smooth and looks great.

 

[Tohtori]

I'll agree that in Nvidia's examples it looks better (though that might be because the whole image is darker), but obviously they're going to pick the best scenes to showcase the tech.

I remember when I was playing Farcry 3, and I had HBAO on for a good portion of the game and I couldn't understand why everything looked like it had an outline which made the entire game look like a cartoon. When I finally figured out to change to a different ambient occlusion method, it was a night and day difference.

If HBAO today is anything like HBAO back then, then it's total garbage.

Bold added as emphasis, sorry about that.

Looks like a cartoon.. This is EXACTLY what is wrong with most extra "visual quality" effects. Unless the game is made to look like a cartoon in the first place I disable most of these "added value" effects. And while we are at it.. it is a game, NOT a movie so lens flare can go, so can DOF, motion blur can go too. I like my image crisp and clear thank you.

 

[finbarqs]

sunlight is behind the cameras perspective I think. Due to the shadows on the bags. In reality the shadow should prevent that kind of darkening. If not the sunlight would.

In this case, looking at the shadow pattern, it seems like the sunlight would be slightly off behind and to the right shoulder top. Because of the trash bags' reflective quality, it may bounce light off and cast another hard light (maybe 1-2 stop(s) difference) -- and because it's not diffusing the light at all. HBAO+ looks to be somewhere in the vicinity of 4 stops of contrast vs. Ultra looks to be 1/2 stop of contrast. Plus the lighting that Ultra seems to be casting suggest there is something diffusing the light -- either the sun's behind a cloud, or they're under a something shading the over image. Or if there is another light source, it'll be "sharper" shadows -- unless that light source is diffused -- but the light must be accurately only 1/2-1 stop difference in lighting. Which is very unlikely at any given time. where direct lighting is involved.

 

[StrangerGuy]

Yeah, I'm sure that comparing two identified sources which isn't even sourced from the exact same image is very scientific because there is no such thing as bias.

 

[PPB]

It is simply not possible to create a realistic AO effect in screen space. No matter what the algorithm is.
If you didn't like fake shadows than probably HBAO is the worst choice of all. But there are other SSAO effects in the games.

I think the pressing issue here is the fact devs depend so much on AO for more IQ in your gaming experience. AO in the 3d rendering viz bussiness is a bastardized effect, a hack to get by with a cheap replacement for the huge computational effort behind making detailed shadows from GI and specially in secondary light bounces.

The fact most AO effects result in such a huge performance penalty suggests me we are still a long way to go from getting proper GI with similar algorithms like Monte Carlo/QMC or MLT at playable framerates.

 

[therealnickdanger]

Games have rendered everything in HDR for years now. (And stored to framebuffer stored as FP16, RGBM, LogLuv etc..)
The change to HDR displays will be within the tone mapping part as it will target a value range of 0-1023 instead of 0-255.

Right, but we have not been able to see it. Everything we have seen on our monitors is "truncated HDR". That's why we need HDR displays...

We should hear more on how HDR displays affect pipeline in GDC as Timothy Lottes will have talk on subject.

Great, can't wait to hear it!

 

[Timmah!]

Raytracing cant come fast enough, to solve all these issues.

 

[Dribble]

Raytracing cant come fast enough, to solve all these issues.

Raytracing has been around for ever, it's too slow. Sure you can use it but then you have to compromise in a number of other ways to keep the performance up. All games rendering today is about using clever approximate methods to give near the same quality for much less processing which gives you the best overall quality for your gpu power.

HBAO+ is an example of this and it certainly improves the images given - lots more detail is visible due to a lot more objects in the scene getting shadows.