Brigade 2 Engine Blows Most Modern-Day Engines Out Of The Water; Supports Real-Time Raytracing

DSOGaming writes: "So, you thought that the Agnis Tech Demo from Square Enix looked great? Well wait until you see the latest images from the Brigade 2 Engine. Hayssam Keilany, the modder behind iCEnhancer, has shared some new images from this engine that will make your jaw drop to the floor. In all honesty, these are by far some of the best, real-time, visuals we’ve ever seen."

[Snookies12]

Those environments are crazy good looking...

[OneAboveAll]

Can't wait for games to start using ray tracing as a norm. Makes the environments look a lot better with the lighting.

[Scenarist]

cant wait for computers .. to able to real ray tracing in real time.. (60fps) ...
without trickery

[Dee_91]

this looks like a great step to bringing real time raytracing into video games.

btw he said the grainy look cut down on rendering time which is understandable because its in real time unlike movies that use ray tracing.

[PLASTICA-MAN]

Just WOW at what this tunisian can do !

[asmith2306]

It won't take long. Computing power rises so quickly and gets cheaper all the time too.

[Diver]

they look good but a engine is only as good as its tools. no tools means no one will license it. let's hope he is workin hard on those.

[Gildarts]

looks good on screenshots but whats with the grainy look in the video..

I will not be impressed until he releases a proper video.

I just watched agnis philosophy and i say its way better.

[xtreampro]

Do even know what ray tracing is? If you do then to ask why the video is grainy is beyond stupid.

[pixelsword]

The video IS grainy, Gild is right:

It would also help if it wasn't in 480p, if the engine is supposed to be all that.

[pixelsword]

UPDATE

I apologize to everyone who disagreed, even though the person who made the engine gave an explanation about why the clip looked grainy, I guess I was wrong for saying it was grainy: according to fanboy logic which states that if you don't like something whatever you say is wrong. You people who disagreed with me got me there. Who was I to look at the actual clip and get details from the PERSON WHO MADE THE ENGINE admitting that it looked grainy and conclude thus?

"The grain is inherent to the rendering method, path tracing, which is essentially photorealistic ray tracing. For each pixel, multiple rays are traced in random directions for each frame. Rays accumulated by neighboring pixels can hit completely different objects with different material properties, causing variance in pixel color and a grainy effect. Brigade has lots of optimizations to minimize this noise and is uniquely optimized for real-time performance compared to other GPU path tracers."

http://www.youtube.com/watc...

Once again, thread-based "logic" supplants actual intelligence.

[Bloodraid]

@PixelSword

I don't recall him saying the video didn't look grainy. You getting all upset and going on a long pointless rant about how "the fanboys are out to get you" is ridiculous...

[pixelsword]

@ bloodraid

No offense, but you answer suggests that you're not following the conversation very well or you lack the capacity to follow the conversation due to inherent attributes or lack of terminology.

watch:

"Do even know what ray tracing is? If you do then to ask why the video is grainy is beyond stupid."

This suggests that either

A. It is impossible for Ray Tracing videos to be grainy because of the nature of Ray Tracing

or

B. All Ray Tracing videos are as grainy as that video.

So, since the actual video is grainy A is eliminated; therefore, only B remains.

Since

1. videos of Ray-traced environments and objects exist that are not as grainy or not grainy at all because of the technique used

http://www.youtube.com/watc...

and

2. The author himself said the video was grainy and explained why it was that grainy (due the the render method he chose [path tracing versus other techniques like photon mapping or Direct lighting or Bidirectional path tracing])

It isn't a big step to conclude that it doesn't matter the intent of xtremepro's comment because either way it breaks down it's wrong because of the "TYPE" of rendering can make a ray-traced image look more or less grainy. Guildarts point was that he wasn't impressed because with the video because how grainy the video was.

And no although the video is "technically" impressive, that engine isn't visually impressive compared to the Agni's Philosophy demo (which is not realistic looking but more impressive on the visual level). The engine is great because it uses a rendering technique in engine form; which is impressive and groundbreaking in terms of advancing game engines, but even in the demo and the pics, it shows the inherent problems of using path tracing (noise [graininess], the framerate is probably affected by caustics, but I'm not 100% sure about that one, although I'm 75% sure) He actually looks like he can have a good enough sample to cause indirect lighting, which is VERY impressive, but this engine right now will have to implement something like photon mapping for indoor scenes. Path tracing is for outdoor lighting, but for this to be a useable engine for outdoors and indoors I'm guessing he'll have to blend rendering techniques or find a way to use both at once OR any game using this engine will have to be outdoors in all spots and "re-render" when you go inside, or have all inside parts render differently.

This ain't new to me, maybe for you, but not for me.

P.S.

My comment wasn't even about how "fanboys are out to get me" it's about how fanboys are stupid... as in not very smart; as in not following the conversation very well or lacking the capacity to follow the conversation due to inherent attributes or lack of terminology.

[aGameDeveloper]

Did everybody miss that the rendering was being done on the cloud? So, not only does it look grainy, but it also takes some unspecified number of computers to even achieve that! What game developer is going to devote enough computers on the cloud to support that? This is a proof of concept, only.

[john2]

Well, according to the development team:

"The actual Siggraph demo was rendered with real-time path tracing at 1280x720 resolution at 60 fps and was running in OTOY's cloud with post processing. (My local system is not capable of video capturing and rendering with Brigade at 720p, so I had to turn down the resolution to get an acceptable framerate, the video is also using pretty ancient Brigade code, without the dynamic optimizations)."

So no, they did not use 10 power computers in parallel in order to run this tech demo

[ATi_Elite]

I've been following Otoy for a while along with "Big Lazy Robot studios" who are developing "Gaiking" a fully featured film and Video Game done with Ray-Tracing.

Also following "Ray Tracey's blog" which has great pictures and video of other Ray Tracing projects!

Ray-Tracing is truly Next Gen stuff that will be happening more and more on the PC as GPU's have finally arrived at a Power State capable of running these breath taking graphics at proper speeds.

Otoy is looking to pump this kind of quality through the cloud to many devices on Nvidia's GRID!

I'm more concerned with having a PC capable of pushing Ray-Tracing as Ray-Traced games should be here by DirectX 12 / OpenGL5 although the actual Ray Tracing tools have been on the HD5000 series and GTX500 already.

This Demo was done on a GTX580 SLI set-up using OLD versions of the Engine minus the New optimizations.

So doing the math, the HD9000 and GTX800 series cards should be able to handle Ray Tracing with EASE at 1080p or higher!

*By EASE I mean a single GPU mid range PC getting 30FPS or higher on Med to High Settings. Save the Ultra for us Enthusiast!

Photo-realism through Ray-Tracing will produce some truly exciting Games as environments can be even further manipulated to greater enhance the Game and immerse the Gamer into even better worlds.

Lastly, Ray Tracing kicks the Luminous Engine arse. The Luminous Engine is nice but I'm waiting to see Real time Rendering of it and not "Cut Scenes" unlike Ray Tracing which i've seen rendered real time!

[Dee_91]

"So doing the math, the HD9000 and GTX800 series cards should be able to handle Ray Tracing with EASE at 1080p or higher!"

lmao
sure
I doubt ps5 would even be able to support real time ray tracing in 1080p with 60fps so i seriously doubt a card out now can even support a full video game running real time ray tracing in 1080p with 30fps oh dear god im talking like one of them...

[Autodidactdystopia]

@dmarc

He isnt saying anything about cards that are out now.

neither of those will be out for a few years.

the ps5 is not a logical reference point because at the time of its release it will be outdated by more capable PC hardware.

either way.

the raytracing we are capable of doing now in realtime is a severely handicapped form.

This stuff is so immensely complicated that i cant put it all down in a few sentences.

the raytracing i see in this demo is only using a basic few traits. there are however accurate specular reflections which is the most noticeable effect in use.

what is missing however, is the fact that each light ray is calculated to a certain bounce, for example 1 bounce 2 bounce 3 bounce. one would ask why bounce it at all, the refraction and transparent objects that we are bound to want to see in our gameworlds are based on a lot of physical laws that require extra calculation.

*notice there are no transparent objects in this demo, which are possible using raytracing.
nor are there any translucent objects which would be done using subsurface scattering. they are simply too compute intensive for realtime use anytime in the near future*

caustics being one of the most intensive. caustic shadows are what you see when you shine a light through a vase and see the vase projected onto the floor.

Many many many other effects are dependent on extra processing as well. for example raytraced shadows do not produce a penumbra so all shadows are sharp. a solution to that is using shadow maps, the shadows you see in games today that look like blocky silouettes of whatever is blocking the light. then smoothing using post processing to achieve the smooth shadow effect.

we wont have TRUE realtime raytracing for atleast another 15 years. but with enough shortcuts and optimization meaning using existing technology to supplement partial raytracing we can indeed have playable framerates in the timeframe ATI elite referenced.

one example of this partial raytracing in its early stages, is cryengine 3's use of Raytraced Reflections in crysis 2 and soon 3 based on angle of attack to planar surfaces in relation to the camera. only the reflections directly in front of the player and within a certain angular variable are rendered using raytracing.
problems with this are as stated earlier, bounce. meaning that raytracing a mirror in todays games is not really feasible because what is behind the camera is not taken into account due to the severely limited set of characteristics in use in place of complete "raytracing"

Edit: Also to all of you who are siting the graininess of the video, what you are seeing is the result of an incompletely rendered raytraced image. todays renderers are largely rasterizer images, meaning each pixel is in a defined location and searched one after the other. In raytracing the screen is divided in to blocks called "buckets" each bucket contains any number of rays to cast out and trace bounces, the amount of rays cast per bucket, are too low in this video to complete the image before the camera needs to move to the next location so the grains are individual rays finalizing their calculation and being drawn to the framebuffer. the problem is the computer is too slow, or the cloud if that is what is the case; to complete the image before the next frames pixels begin to trace back. therefore creating an image based on many frames rays at any one time unless the camera is standing still at which time the image will sharpen.

[DeadlyFire]

@Dmarc
Well they could get 24-35 fps with ray tracking on quake wars I believe with Intel tech and that was how many years ago? I reckon 2008/2009. Also a note. Wolfenstien Ray traced was also created in 2010 and got 40-80 fps. Again this is all using cloud tech to render the rays. I don't know if you run the game on your computer while graphics are done away from you and sent back or what, but its something to think about.

Cloud tech is still skeptical way to produce graphics. OnLive had a problem deliver good graphics through the cloud.

Video cards double in power ever 1-2 years, but still you are right about one thing we are still a little way away from having that kind of tech in our hands. These demos were utilized with cloud tech and all at 720p

There is hardware like at Caustic that can do Ray tracing like their planned OpenRL platform. No clue how close they are to achieving 1080 with decent framerate, but they claim they have custom hardware + your PC to boost graphics to a playable level. So maybe soon we see this as the revolution to gaming tech in a few years. Maybe PS4/X720 have this OpenRL built in to their SDK. As they were both rumored to have dual GPUs at one point in time.

[SilentNegotiator]

What's your point? Is anyone supposed to be impressed that a tiny minority, not worth any developer's time exclusively developing for, will be able to play modern games with ray tracing (oooohh! Extra pretty lighting! What a game changer!!!) on medium with their extra expensive rigs in 2020?

You always impress me with your comments on how wonderful it is to be, not a PC gamer, but a titular elitist that spams up a game website (When you could be using your amazing rig to be playing games RIGHT NOW instead of making silly attempts at bragging) with knowledge of minute things like nicer lighting. Bravo.

[FlameBaitGod]

"SilentNegotiator"

"on medium with their extra expensive rigs in 2020"

Wut ? Oh yeah you don't know about something and yet you post. expensive rig and run on medium.... ROFLCOPTER!!!!!!!. BTW Silent, by 2020 I'm pretty sure home consoles wont be the leading platform to develop for, cloud gaming is the future. You know how much $ MS and Sony will save with cloud gaming ? no middle man(Retailers) = A LOT OF MONEY

[Autodidactdystopia]

@ silent

im not sure who you were talking to.
but if it was me then that was plain ol rude.

otherwise disregard.

[SilentNegotiator]

@FlamebaitGod

Cloud gaming? The future??

Like Onlive, the failing company?
Or maybe Genkai with allllllll 15 hundred of its users?

Cloud gaming means expensive servers. And gamers already said "No" to paying to use the servers AND buy the games when Onlive originally was going to do it that way.

It's a broken business model, not a cheaper one.

Oh, and obviously my numbers were hyperbole, but my point is the same.
I have no idea why you brought consoles into this at all just because I said that ray tracing will only work in modern games on really strong, expensive rigs for many years to come....I guess you assumed that anyone that doesn't say "HERP DE DERP PC IS DAH MASTER RACE!!" is a console gamer and not just someone realistic and not an annoying snob.

[dantesparda]

Im sorry but i just dont see it. I need to see a more finished product. I know what ray tracing is, but honestly have never really been that impressed with it. Please dont kill me over this people, its just my opinion. If anybody wants to educate me on why im wrong and this is so impressive, please do

[DeadlyFire]

Well most games cast light from a skybox layered overtop of the world.

Ray tracing allows for light to be cast on everything from every direction rather than just one light from a box in the sky.

Think of it as a bright flashlight or spotlight in the night on a spot on the ground = day for ant or whatever you see under the light. Then think of your eyes and how you see light. Its not just layered about you. So its all around in every direction. :P

[dantesparda]

Good explanation Deadlyfire, thanks

[frostypants]

The article says it uses path tracing. This is NOT the same thing as ray tracing. Ray tracing takes far more power than current hardware can manage efficiently.

It does look awesome though.

[brodychet]

those graphics look a little too good. soon we're going to start losing sense of reality O_o .

[Flavor]

In time you shall learn what vaporware means.

[NastyLeftHook0]

they look average to me. just like a average ps3/xbox game

[OhMyGandhi]

looks crazy good!
the video looks like crap though, seems like someone filmed their screen with a gameboy camera...

[DigitalAnalog]

I guess that's how the current ray-tracing techniques work. While beautiful when static, the multiple rays for rendering gives off that "grainy" effect when the camera shifts into a different POV. With the way GFX cards are pumped out year-by-year eclipsing the ones before it, I wouldn't be surprised to see this tech implemented in a few years.

[sjaakiejj]

It means that the frame wasn't completely processed yet - it's an artefact caused by the limited number of rays.

For the record, this isn't ray tracing - this is Path Tracing. While similar, they're not the same thing, and Path Tracing is significantly more difficult to use in Real-Time. Not because the algorithm itself is so intensive, but because of the enormous number of rays required to generate a high-quality image - something this modder hasn't achieved yet.

[aPerson]

Read the video description. He explains why it's grainy...

[finbars75]

Wow absolutley Wow.Very impressive.I like how this engine makes things look accurate and beautiful at the same time.Great job on creating the brigade 2 engine look forward to this down the road in the next gen cycle

[TenkoTAiLS]

Funny how it's tagged for PS3 and Xbox 360. The chances of those systems running an engine like this are non-existent. Looking at the pics and video, even next gen consoles would probably be running a dumbed down version if it was utilized.

Don't get me wrong, I'd love to see my home console running this but considering they use cheaper versions of current or slightly less than current at time of release video cards in new consoles to make the cost affordable to consumers, running a new PC based engine with all the trimmings is usually out of the question. Considering Unreal Engine 4 recommends a close to top of the line card for PC users currently (mentioned running on a GTX 680 last I checked) consoles will probably use a dumbed down version of that too :(

[pixelsword]

I would say that it depends upon the engine.

That Saboteur game looked better on the PS3 than the PC

http://www.eurogamer.net/ar...

So who's to say how it will turn out?

[NukaCola]

Graphics remind me of that leaked Beyond Good and Evil 2 demo where she was running through the town..the one that leaked out 3 years ago. I like the art style. Graphics are nice and colorful.

[Spenok]

I had the same thought.

Its too bad for an engine that seemingly looks to good has such low quality pictures and ESPECIALLY the video. Whenever it moved it just looked awful.

Cant wait to see how this tech progresses.

[DivineAssault]

wow.. Thats impressive.. I wonder if nx gen consoles will be able to handle this.. I wouldnt care if it were only 720p either.. Beautiful & seems to be as close to real life as possible.. Id like to see more character models with this engine..

[YoungPlex]

Ha! Nowhere near as good as Agni's philosophy, take a look. If you think that nextgen should look like this than your clearly not thinking big enough...

[DivineAssault]

your expectations are very VERY high.. But when it comes to nintendo & they have so so horsepower its acceptable to you.. funny.. Not good enough when it comes to sony but nintendos faults are just fine lmao

[YoungPlex]

Who said anything about Nintendo or Sony? Quit trolling and stick to the topic!

[DivineAssault]

u were going to eventually.. Its nothing impressive if your blind.. Im sure once they get a full tech demo running with more effects, u will say the same thing cuz u know wii u wont be able to do it.. But if wii u can do it, its super bad a$$.. lol funny

[YoungPlex]

So... Your a mind reader now huh??? Give me a break and stop trolling articles that have nothing to do with the topic at hand! I have no idea what your talking about, and haven't the faintest clue on your illogical opinions and rubbish, views. If your trying to start a flamewar, make sure you get your thoughts together before typing, instead of ranting on about gibberish, that has ABSOLUTELY nothing to do with the topic!

[JasonXS12]

It's amazing. The only thing I would say to improve is the fidelity of the foliage as well as the colours. They just look a bit bland.

[turgore]

Environments and lighting look very good, but nowhere near Agni's philosophy.

[CommonSense]

anyone who thinks the in-game graphics are going to look like that FF cut-scene is a fool. They can say "real time" til they're blue in the face.

[carlocgc]

images look amazing video is just too grainy. when games look this good (as standard) games will have to have good gameplay to sell... i look forward to the day :)

[Gorbenshore]

Been following this guy on youtube. Great work

[3-4-5]

Wow...

The buildings look amazingly realistic.

One pic on the left about half way down where the character isn't in it ....you can't even tell it's not real.

It just shows the building looking up at an angle and you could easily trick anybody who didn't know better into saying it was a picture you snapped yourself.

This engine for PC ?

[blackbirdi]

fake you can already get raytracing in real time with machstudio pro 2 you just need a firepro 8800v .and not that fuzzy GPU renderer which take times to clear the image ..... if you don't believe check keyshot 3 and you will see what i m talking about

[annus]

What? Nowhere in the article does it state that you can't get real time ray tracing anywhere else. In fact I recall as far back as 2007 people were using the PS3 for real time ray tracing, and I am confident it was used years before then.

[mttrackmaster38]

That looks cool and all, but it doesn't look nearly as impressive as "Agni's Philosophy".

[GillHarrison]

The reason this is impressive is because of real-time ray tracing. No existing engine has this capability for a reason, it is absolutely impossible to run in a full gaming environment at any playable level including the most high end of PCs.

[kudakadere]

Reminds me of Papa & Yo

[pixelsword]

That title reminds me of a soap opera on Univision called "Tu Y Yo" that my girlfriend watched lol.

[kudakadere]

I wasn't suggesting that it was on par with Papa & Yo or worse graphically , I was just saying that the building designs looked similar .People need to think before Disagreeing.

[TronEOL]

It looks good, but it also looks like it's missing something. It has to do with the colours in the images. There is definitely something missing, but I can't put my finger on it.

Oh well, until they add whatever it is they're missing, I can't honestly be impressed by it.

:EDIT: Oh, never mind. I literally posted and shortly after figured out there were more pictures. It was the lighting. The engine does look fantastic. 10, 17 and 18 are the pictures I found most impressive.

Other than that, I'm still most impressed by the lighting tech in UE4, and the sound tech in Frostbite 2.

[Ulf]

If you wanted that bad of a framerate, and on a smoking hot DX11 GPU to boot (which I'm sure this demo is run on), any modern game engine could easily give you those visuals.

Raytracing is next to useless outside of modeling lighting in really complex scenes, or rendering accurate curves in excrutiating detail. It is pointless to do it real-time, and always will be.

[r21]

Damn, thats impressive. Cant wait for next gen games :D

[cm_]

I remember reading a while back about raytracing becoming integrated into gaming and some of the difficulties involved, it looks like its still in its infancy but a nice demo nonetheless.

[taquito]

crysis 1 with mods looks better, it came out in 2007

http://www.livbit.com/artic...

thats vanilla no mods

cryengine 3 does even more craziness!

http://www.youtube.com/watc...

[hazelamy]

the environments look like they could be photos, the character model, not so much.

and if this is going to be applicable to games, then it's going to have to not look grainy when it's in motion.
great looking stills are one thing, but most games are going to need to look better than that video when people are playing them.

maybe for a game like myst this engine could work.

get a version running that creates moving imagines as good as the stills, that doesn't require a computer that costs the equivalent of NASA's research budget.

[ninjahunter]

Aesthetically its nice and its also using alot of effects you dont see in many console games due to how demanding they are. I am pleased.

[kingPoS]

Quick! somebody activate Dolbly noise reduction on the tape deck!

[Agent_hitman]

Quick! let's buy custom built PCs..

[DJ]

Looks terrible. The faster the camera moves, the grainier the graphics get? FORGET IT

[LightofDarkness]

You have to start somewhere. This will disappear as hardware becomes faster and the rays resolve to their final destinations within a single frame. They even commented that the video is from old, terribly unoptimized code that doesn't have the same aptitude for real-time rendering that the latest builds do.

[iamlegend9999]

Dude next gen looks awesome 0.o

[BABY-JEDI]

I wasnt too impressed with shadow density. Never liked buildings with non transparent windows, or (& you will hate me for this) litter free enviroments with no weather/particle effects. Ray-tracing is a big deal, but without the other elements that make an enviroment more realistic, then whats the point.

[Xenomorph]

I've seen better this gen, not really that impressed.

[MWH]

beautiful.

[sharkraiden0]

Luminous Engine look 1000X times better than this crap...

[Braid]

Hope they can find a way to get around that crazy distortion effect which kills it for me, and video game graphics will no more need evolving.

[PersonMan]

I hope next gen games don't look this bland. Yes, it looks realistic, but real life looks bland sometimes too. Games need STYLE. Look at Borderlands, Darkness 2, Uncharted 2, 3, Killzone 2, 3, Infamous 2... all of these games have pretty unique art style that sets them apart from your average game.

Also, better animations will help sell the realistic-ness and also, I wish more developers would do something with the camera to make it look hand-held sometimes. I like when I'm running in some games where it looks like the camera-man is running with you, or in Crysis 2 where there's noticeable head-bob so it looks like you're actually running rather than floating seamlessly over the terrain.

Speaking of first person view for a second. Next gen needs to start increasing the FOV and letting the player see their legs and feet and when you climb a ladder, you should see your hands (and if you look down you should see your feet on the ladder) instead of just floating up it like in Call of Duty games.

[Der_Kommandant]

Now Just work in the character model

[-Gespenst-]

Everything looks like it's a miniature model close up, and in some of those pictures, like it's made of rubber.

Idk, Agni's philosophy looked a lot better than this...

[steve30x]

The still pictures look fantastic but as soon as I watched the video I saw how grainy everything looked when it moved. As soon as it sat still it looked good but movement caused grainyness.

[HarryB]

For some reason I am not impressed with any of these screen shots or that grainy 480p video. Come on man, how is this a breakthrough when what you present looks like garbage. And then when I look through other youtube videos its either the same 480p videos or other grainy pictures.

BTW ive seen the lumionous engine, and luminous looks much better than this garbage gay tracing.

[SuperStrokey1123]

Some stuff looks great, some looks bad (the water wasnt so hot)

[Kos-Mos]

More expensive games, less gameplay......I`ve seen that before. *coucgcrysiscough*

[Over726]

i think it really good photo shop from real places and map'ed to look good.